Thing is, I remember the uproar when I published my infamous "AVB is a clown" thread, and many here derided me for it. I'll warrant that my arguments (some of them fairly timely, I think) will not be so readily dismissed.
On Lamela, he is a brilliant talent in terms of just pure skill. But there are few concerns, he does look weak both mentally and physically. Although even some of the best players in the world have struggled to adjust to this league straight away, for example even Ozil has moments and even games where he looks lost in the PL.
Lamela I'm more than happy to give time too. He's young, doesn't speak a word of English, up until 3 weeks ago had been in England with no friends or family, not long after he joined his brother was kidnapped (eventually returned thankfully) and so his mind was surely not in the right place, he's shown glimpses, albeit not as much as we'd like but I've no doubt he'll be incredible once he settles down and gets used to things. It also doesn't help having a manager that hasn't shown much faith in him either.
Technically I don't see any reason why he can't be as good for us as Bale was, but for that to happen he needs to do a lot of work on his physique. Bale and Ronaldo, while they were scrawny, looked at times unfit to cope with the prem. Lamela needs to follow their lead and bulk up.
It is impossible to comment on Lamela after just 3 months ffs, he is a young lad with bags of ability who will take time to adjust to the PL. He needs to be managed properly by AVB and being thrown into an away game v City today was a mistake in my opinion. Young players can take time to realize full potential, Bale for example struggled in his earliest seasons at Spurs and look what happened there. Give the lad time, I am sure he will turn into a special player for us eventually, half a dozen games is no time to judge any player.
Talent? Well I'm told it's there and am happy to wait and see. Potential? maybe. But waste of money? Well he was our most expensive signing EVER. I think that's a key factor here when judging if he's a waste of money. So far it's hard to say that he's been a very good way to spend 30m.
I have watched Lamela on the training ground and he is a very talented footballer. He has good feet, close control, pace and loads of genuine skill. However, he is young and needs time to adapt to living here and it's not his fault such a high fee was paid for him. I didn't agree with him being selected today because I thought AVB would and should have gone with Townsend. Lamela looked like a rabbit trapped in headlights today, he looked as if he was shaking with nerves in the tunnel before the game. I think he will be ok, he just needs time and patience.
I tend to judge the success of a player when they leave the club. For instance, as others have said Bale was good to begin with, so money well spent.... then after injury poor, so a flop... and finally brilliant, so a bargain. Lamela's only been at the club for 5 mins so has a long way to go before we can judge him. We've seen the odd flashes of class from him so it is obvious the talent is there, hopefully he can kick on.
All these people defending him, need to get real. He cost £30mil FFS, it's not like he was a £10mil gamble. Sorry but a £30mil player should be able to fit into any league he plays in. Quite simply he's worth about £10mil and he looks completely out of his league. So the answer to the question 'Is he a waste of money?' has to be Yes, whichever way you look at it.
Firstly he was £25m plus £5m add ons which may or may not be fulfilled. How you can say he is only worth £10m and out of his league when like us you have not seen him play more than a handful of games, just confirms your idiocy.
Liverpool also had the advantage with Suarez in that the rest of the footballing world knew what a douchebag he was. Nobody really wanted him (Arsenal put in that joke of a bid but never went back to it). We didn't have that with Bale - it's not fair to compare the two situations.
I'm afraid I have to side with Skylarker on this one. But it's not only Lamela, Soldado is looking like our Pav replacement.
The analogy for me is a skilful young batsman playing Test cricket for the first time. He still have all his skills, but everything is happening much faster, everybody is coming at him much harder, he doesn't get the time he's used to and his character is tested all the time. It takes time to adapt and to find ways of performing to his best under a different set of conditions. Not everyone copes. There are countless examples of promising players who fall by the wayside either in Test cricket or the PL. Lamela has all the language and cultural differences to come to terms with too and he's not getting regular games so his introduction is very stop/start. It's bound to take some time before he can judged a success or failure.
Any attacking player would struggle in a team that moves the ball so slowly forward. Spurs still haven't replaced Modric and I wonder if things would've been different had Spurs signed Moutinho when they were in for him. Paulinho, Dembele & Sandro are all good central midfielders individually but they aren't renowned for their passing ability and that seems to be hampering Spurs' ability to score goals this season. Lamela will come good for Spurs if they start moving the ball about quicker and not giving the opposition defence the chance to get back into position.
The AVB mantra... I actually think that's pretty harsh on Pav who wasn't our preferred striker, had a better first touch than Soldado (laughable really) and actually scored goals from 'outside' the area! Seriously though, who's bright idea was it to spend £30m+ on a striker that scored all but one of his goals for Valencia inside the box? Since when in recent seasons, did we ever give our strikers the kind of service that offered up enough chances to score from inside the penalty area? Never! Has anyone noticed the startlingly accurate caption under the picture of Soldado on his Wikipedia page? please log in to view this image "Soldado in action for Tottenham." - he's walking!
Lamela is a young player who has moved to a different league, different culture, different language, etc. he clearly is short on confidence and needs a manager who can instil some in him - he currently does not have one, IMO..
He's a waste of money if he was supposed to come in and look like a £30mill players straight away but he wasn't. There are countless examples of players that struggled initially, great players will overcome this with time, therefore whether Lamela is worth it or not will be told in time, not straight away. Soldado's the one that looks a waste, £26mill and he's looking every bit as frustrating as any of the strikers we've been moaning about in the past. I said it at the time that I hoped I was wrong about him but I just wish we'd signed Benteke instead.
