You sure about that? I seem to remember him being on the left right up untill the league cup final, and the being eased into CM during the 2009-10 season. To my mind it took him a whole season to really find his feet. I'm happy to give my whole backing to this squad, and management till the end of next year. Then I think people can really see whether we have gone forwards from Harry, and if we have, whether AVB is the man to continue with.
Could be right actually, I thought he'd been in the middle not long after the new year but seeing as I think he was on the left in that cup final like you say which was what, late Feb/ March time? Probably did take a season. I think he looked a bit more at ease though than what Lamela looks, Modric wasn't setting the world alight but he didn't look too out of place in my opinion. Though Modric did have Corluka to help settle in the country, Charlie had already been in England for a year so he probably had a major role in helping Luka to settle. Lamela hasn't got that here, I presume the South American's can help out a bit, do Argentina and Brazil speak similar lingo?
Hmmm, even if they are similar they probably won't be bang on. Which probably makes it a lot harder for Erik than when others have come over to England. Must be tough for him, even taking out the football contexts of adapting to how play, who can he socialise with outside of training? Luckily his family are here now, his brother posted pics of himself in Tottenham near Monument Way (I think) so at least he'll have them to hopefully ease the settling in process.
I might have my years mixed up but I'm pretty sure Modric played on the left in 2009-10. I seem to remember Bale covered left back when Benny was out and then played left wing to cover Modric when he got a bad injury(might've been the leg break, Notso?). Ramos played Modric in the middle of most of his odd and vague 433 line ups and it was Redknapp who put him on the left initially where he was a hit. Him and Benny worked really well down that flank with Modric cutting in and creating whilst Benny overlapped. It's just a shame, as I said last night, Walker and Lamela just don't look like they work well together.
Both languages are written quite similar to an untrained eye. Spoken they sound a world apart. The Spanish has a flair and latin tone but the Portuguese sounds unbelievable slightly Slavish in it's harshness in comparison . My experience came when I crossed from Uruguay into Southern Brazil a decade ago. Many Argentines speak Italian as a second language as many originated from Southern Italy and Genoa. They based themselves around La Boca and of course their team is Lo Boca Juniors. I spent 4 months there long ago, getting out of our winter , stuffing myself on Bife de lomo and Malbac from Mendoza every night. Those were the days.
I don't think Lamela likes his fullbacks to run past him, especially so high up the pitch, I think he'd rather have a Corluka that just sits behind him and supports him first and foremost.
So Soldado and Lamela speak the same language and Soldado speaks decent English I think. That should ease the problem till Lamela's up to speed.
Whilst both languages are based on Latin Latin (as do French and, obviously, Italian) that's as close as they get.
He'll still have one if he needs/wants one. I doubt we'd spend all that fee and wages on him to make him unhappy and slow to settle by saying "welcome Erik, off you trot, good luck working out the lingo boyo"
