Finally, after putting an end to Tottenham’s losing streak, we bring back our In Focus feature to have a look at one of Spurs’ top performers.
It wasn’t quite Tottenham’s best game today, but they came on leaps and bounds from the horror shows against Watford and Liverpool the last couple of times out.
Despite not starting the match, one man who made a huge difference was Erik Lamela. I was in two minds about doing a piece on Danny Rose’s superb Man of the Match performance at left back, which shouldn’t go un-noticed, but in In Focus on Lamela has been a long time coming.
Erik entered the game with Spurs 1-0 up but struggling under Brighton pressure, with the home side looking the most likely to score next.
With 15 minutes left to play, Lamela showed why Pochettino has such faith in him from the bench, as he beautifully caressed home Danny Rose’s cross from the left channel.
Lamela chose not to whack the paint off the ball, or take off the back of the net, but simply guided it home into the bottom corner, out of the reach of Ryan.
The Argentinian had actually created the break away too, as he dropped the shoulder and turned on the half way line, spreading the ball wide to Moura, who in turn laid it off to the assisting Rose.
Before and after the goal, Lamela was a constant threat in between the lines for Tottenham, connecting up the play between defence and attack with ease.
Despite comments from Dion Dublin today saying that Tottenham have no competition for places within the team, Lamela proved this to be complete fabrication.
The winger has now scored 4 and assisted one in his last 4 Premier League appearances. This is already impressive before you realise that in those games he has only played 98 minutes!
What Lamela does is provide a game changer on the bench, in a forward sense for Tottenham. And even if Poch does start the attacker, one of Moura, Son or Eriksen would drop to the bench to take his place as the ideal impact sub.
What a game from Erik today.
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