On the latest episode of The Extra Inch (Tottenham Hotspur Podcast), Chris Miller and Nathan Clark have been discussing the latest goings-on at the north London club, with this particular episode looking back on the draw with Manchester United and looking ahead to Tuesday’s game with West Ham.
Miller and Clark discuss a variety of topics on the episode, which is titled ‘Bergwijn’s Poise, Crowd Noise, Fully COYS‘, offering their thoughts on Friday night’s performance, as well as how they think Spurs could line up against the Hammers on Tuesday. One topic of conversation was the performance of Erik Lamela in the game against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side last week, as the Argentinian seemed to adopt a new attacking-midfield position against the Red Devils.
The duo praised his performance in the draw, with Miller first saying:
“The other part of that new tactic was that Lamela, who was playing essentially up with Kane, was doing the majority of our hold-up play, which I found fascinating. I’ve not seen Lamela play that effectively with his back to goal before, I thought he was really good at that. The passing wasn’t always there, but he was showing for the ball constantly. He was one of the few players able to take it in tight spaces and actually keep hold of it. That was a promising sign.”
Do you think Lamela impressed in his new position?
Yes
No
Clark then offers his opinion on the new-look role for the former Roma man.
“I was really impressed. I think that when people are just beginning to warm up, he’s already there and that’s just the advantage that he always has because he has this tempo to his game that in August, traditionally he is just ahead of everyone else, and then they catch up with him.
“He wasn’t hugely effective in possession, he wasted possession a few times. He missed a few incisive passes, but his ability to find space, to get on the ball, to carry it, to keep being that out-ball option and then also his defensive work – we know about Lamela’s defensive work in the Pochettino setup, where it is about harrying the defender and everything, but he was really good at blocking off options into midfield and doing a lot of Kane’s leg work in and out of possession. He was really good for that.”
TIF Thoughts…
Lamela certainly was effective in his new role, with the Argentinian earning a 7.18 rating for his performance against Manchester United, which is a significant improvement on his average of 6.71 so far this Premier League season.
It will be interesting to see if the 28-year-old starts in a similar role against West Ham, when perhaps it is the expectation that Spurs will have more possession against a Hammers side fighting against relegation than they did against United, when they had just 39%, and therefore they wouldn’t be as reliant on someone like Lamela to do a lot of pressing and defensive work off the ball.
As both Clark and Miller suggest, his passing wasn’t perhaps as incisive as it could have been, with him registering a 74% pass accuracy, but if the Argentina international can work on perfecting his final ball, then it seems as if he could be a real threat in this more advanced position for Spurs in the remaining top-flight fixtures.