In August 2013, Tottenham completed the signing of Erik Lamela from Italian side AS Roma for a club record £30m fee. His debut season for Spurs saw just 17 appearances in all competitions as the Argentine failed to live up to the big price-tag.
After two seasons at the club since joining in 2012 and with few chances in the first team, Tottenham allowed Gylfi Sigurdsson move to Swansea City.
Jump forward seven months and Lamela, who celebrates his 23rd birthday today, continues to struggle at Tottenham while Sigurdsson has enjoyed an excellent return to his former club.
With a big gulf in valuations and performances are Spurs and Daniel Levy guilty of two major transfer blunders when they brought in Lamela and allowed Sigurdsson to leave? Opta-powered fantasy football game Oulala checked out the stats of both players this season as Sigurdsson returns to his former club tonight.
On studying the data it is very clear which player is outperforming the other this season. With a better strike-rate per 90 minutes in the Premier League (0.20 to 0.05) and a higher shot accuracy (50% to 44%) it is the Swansea man that leads the way for finishing.
Creatively it is Sigurdsson that excels further. With more chances created (2.71 to 2.07), more key passes (2.31 to 1.80) and more assists (0.39 to 0.27) the Icelander is showing Spurs exactly what they’re missing.
The 25-year-old also leads Lamela for pass completion with 85% of all passes made successful to the Argentine’s 83%, The Spurs player does however peg Sigurdsson back for dribbles with 54.7% of his attempted take-ons successful to the Icelander’s 47.7%.
Of the seven key criteria studied it is Gylfi Sigurdsson that leads for six. Daniel Levy is considered one of the best in the business when it comes to transfers, but has he guilty of making a huge error here?
Lamela is abosolute shite. He has no vision, a poor first touch and constantly looses the ball far to easy. Never hardly beats a man and he has scored 1 great goal, against Burnley. Sorry Eric, 30m, feck off please.
We played Gylfi out of position. Shame he left. He’s better as a No 10 and I prefer him to Dembele. I like Ericksen at No 10 too although some pundits says he’s better out wide and drifting in. The comparison should be between Lamela and Lennon really. Don’t rate either of them. Lennon was great at running but with no end product.
Totally agree. Not an apt comparison as different positions. I loved Gylfi, but I agree the better comparison is he vs Eriksen or Dembele at the No10. I think he’d be behind Eriksen but in front of Dembele. Would be a great sub to be able to bring on and make an impact.
Must say I was surprised and very disappointed that Gylfi Sigurdsson was allowed to leave Spurs. He is a very talented player with a good eye for goal. No disrespect to Erik, but if I had to choose between these two players, based on what I have seen, I would go for Siggy every time.
Siggy any day
Siggy was never going to be a starter here with Eriksen at the no.10, and he wasn’t going to settle for just getting the occasional rotation game. Lamela has had a rough start, but it remains to be seen if he can successfully solidify a wing position.
Lamella – But instead of this topic – I would pay to get rid of Chadli, useless – greedy – runs backwards – never beat a man one to one and he is a winger – and he is starting tonight – I would like to write to spurs and ask them to name the team sheet before I travel to games – if he is playing I don’t want to waste my time and money
Sadly Lamela has had enough time to get used to the premier league and still hasn’t shown his worth at 30 million. Siggy or anyone for that matter with a 10 million price tag and any experience in the league would perform better than Lamela, he just can’t cut it, his work rate is impressive but he’s a liability to the teams performances
lamela will be our star player im sure of it the crowd really need to start getting behind him
Siggy by a Country mile, as I think he has some real ability and well suited to the PL. One of the baffling things about us is how in the last 4 years we have bought player after player seemingly with no idea how to use them to the teams advantage. Siggy is a good example of that, and we could have done worse than to have built a side around him.
Lamela is just too frustrating for words and I just don’t see anything in him at all. I get told how good his Opta stats are, but the stats I would be interested in seeing for him is how many times he loses the ball and how many times he falls over.
@ AndyH, I don’t know what Lamela is, but he isn’t a winger.
Lamela is different class to Sigurdsson, that is why he is back at Swansea..
Let him play week in and week out and you will find out, we don’t only need donkeys. we need Flair plyers .. don’t see any of you complaining about how liitle David Ginola ,Chris Waddle,Rafael van der Vaart, etc etc.
You need to make allowances for these genius guys
Gylfi is much better and anyone doubts that with all the statics and performance then he does not know much about football. Spurs makes these mistakes way to often. Why did the club buy Gylfi and sold him without finding out his potential ? Why did Spurs buy Chadli, Lamela and Eriksen ? Spurs had Gylfi and did not need Eriksen. All the same he was the only good player Spurs bought for the Bale money. All the other players which the Bale money went for are all waste of good money and Lamela is by far the worst buy in the clubs history. Gylfi would be a great asset at Spurs now and hopefully the board will learn a lot from the mistakes which they have done the last 2 years. Wasting 100+ million and have only Eriksen to show for it is some task. Gylfi is only 25 and we have not seen the best of him yet.
lamlas quality
I mean lamela