While some of our summer acquisitions have made an instant impact at White Hart Lane – Paulinho, Soldado and Eriksen – it’s been a relatively quiet start to Tottenham life for our record signing Erik Lamela but fellow Argentinean Osvaldo Ardiles tips the 21 year old for great things.
Ossie, who spent ten memorable years at White Hart Lane has clearly followed Lamela’s career closely but he first praised the contribution of Christian Eriksen, who has quickly become first choice in AVB’s starting XI.
“I am very impressed with Eriksen, immediately he’s been wonderful,” Ossie told the Tottenham Journal.
Turning to his fellow countryman, our former boss added
“Lamela will take more time, but over the long term he’ll be our best buy. I’m looking forward to seeing him develop.
“In Argentina, Lamela played for River Plate and he was named the new Messi. He moved to Roma and was labelled the new Totti. That gives you an idea how talented he is.”
With comments like that it’s obvious that Erik will soon be compared to a former player of ours who is currently occupying the physio’s table in Madrid but Ardiles insists that the two men are completely different in their style of play.
“He can play behind the centre forward, on the right and the left. He’s not as powerful as Gareth Bale but he’s much more skilful – he’s a different kind of player. I would say he has a more difficult time to adjust, but I believe he will be our best buy this summer.”
Lamela is likely to get another chance to impress from the start in Thursday night’s game with Anzhi and if he develops as Ossie suggests, it’s going to be an exciting campaign for the Argentinean.
looking forward for the combination 4 lamela holtby & eriksen… these 3 can be pur 3 amigos….