Erik Lamela Is Vital To Tottenham’s Chances Against Manchester City

By Craig Pearson on October 17, 2014

After a disastrous first season in the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur last year, Erik Lamela has shown signs of improvements so far in the first seven games of this season. The Argentine is still not close to the level which he showcased at AS Roma before his move to England, but at least there have been signs that the winger could still be good at Spurs.

Next up for Lamela and Tottenham is an away game against champions Manchester City in a fixture which has seen Spurs on the end of a few heavy defeats in recent seasons. Under new manager Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham will be looking to change their fortunes in that regard with this game, but to do so, it will take a meticulous game plan and a methodical execution.

City are going to control the majority of possession and Spurs will need to be compact and diligent in their defending as a team. It will be when City turnover possession and Spurs are then able to counter-attack in transition that Lamela and Co. will then provide an attacking threat. City are known to over-commit when attacking and they often leave too much space for the opposition to exploit.

A lot of the time, City get away with this as either their own attack is simply too much for the opposition to contain, or the opposition just doesn’t have the offensive weapons to take advantage. On paper, though, Spurs do have the players to hurt City and it’s really a question of whether those players can play to their potential, and whether the defense will be able to hold out for the duration of the game.

Christian Eriksen will be an important player in executing this, but the one player who will be most critical for Tottenham will be Lamela. His electric pace, trickery, passing ability and eye for a goal could be the golden ticket for Spurs in this game — if the real Lamela shows up, that is. The Lamela of last season just won’t cut it, the Lamela of this season so far would be a threat, but the Lamela from his Roma days could be deadly.

It is important that Spurs attack with pace, and in Lamela, Pochettino knows he has a player who, if on form, will be perfect for this type of game plan. A great Lamela performance still wouldn’t guarantee a positive result for Tottenham against City, but it would certainly give them their best chance, and is why Tottenham really need Lamela to be on form at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.

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