OPINION
It’s hard to find any negatives from Tottenham Hotspur’s dominant 7-0 FA Cup victory over Tranmere Rovers on Friday night.
However, you could say that winger Lucas Moura missed an opportunity to press his claim for an increased role with Son Heung-min about to head off for the Asian Cup. Son certainly won’t be quaking in his boots at the thought of Lucas taking his job from him while he’s away, that’s for sure.
The South Korean will leave Spurs on January 13 in order to link up with his country ready for the tournament, leaving a rather significant hole to be filled in the Tottenham line up.
Lucas is the obvious candidate to step in for the 26-year-old, indeed he was in phenomenal form at the start of the season, however he has gone off the boil slightly in recent months and his performance against Micky Mellon’s side won’t have done much for his chances.
He wasn’t outwardly bad, but you’d expect better from the Brazilian against such meagre opposition. He had two golden opportunities to score in either half – one of them set up by Son – but couldn’t make the most of either of them.
That’s where he pales in comparison to the former Bayer Leverkusen man. Son has established himself as Spurs’ number two goalscorer behind Harry Kane, and Lucas hasn’t given any indication that he can fill that void while his team mate’s away.
Perhaps this is an overreaction, and perhaps Lucas will light up the Premier League in Son’s absence, but he’ll have to do better than he did on Friday if that is to be the case.
Somebody needs to step up with such an important player missing for Tottenham. Maybe it will be Erik Lamela, maybe it will in fact be Lucas. But after Friday’s showing you’d have to say it’s advantage to the Argentine. Certainly Son won’t be fretting about losing his first team spot long term after Lucas’ meagre display.