A Tottenham Hotspur profession blighted by damage, Erik Lamela was at all times a divisive participant amongst the fanbase in N17.
The ultimate signing of the ‘magnificent seven’ purchased on account of the Gareth Bale cash, the Argentinian winger did not ship as an attacking possibility all through his eight seasons on the membership.
It was a complete of simply 37 objectives and 47 assists throughout a whopping 257 appearances, averaging solely an 0.39 G/A per recreation within the Premier League, although he did have a tendency to indicate up for a ‘huge’ recreation – corresponding to that spectacular rabona aim towards arch-rivals Arsenal or the game-winning penalty he received in entrance of the Kop.
Do you miss Erik Lamela?
YES!
NO!
On the time, he arrived because the Lilywhites’ – and chairman Daniel Levy’s – biggest-ever signing at round £30m from Serie A outfit AS Roma, however he by no means lived as much as the hype, largely as a result of the truth that he was at all times on the therapy desk.
As per Transfermarkt, Lamela missed a complete of 133 matches, which works out to be round 16-and-a-half video games per season. Not what you need out of your club-record arrival or somebody introduced in to fill the void left behind by Bale.
While a few of his questionable antics typically drew criticism. One weird incident involving Manchester United‘s Anthony Martial, which noticed the winger play-acting to get the Frenchman despatched off and led to Sky Sports activities pundit Graeme Souness to slam him as “pathetic.”
It’s maybe no surprise that one of many first bits of enterprise sporting director Fabio Paratici did was discover a new house for him as he included the 30-year-old in a swap deal for Sevilla’s Bryan Gil.
Tottenham would pay £21.6m alongside Lamela, who was incomes an eye-watering £85k-per-week at Hotspur Manner, however swapping an injury-prone flop for a possible star of the longer term simply made the world of sense.
And issues haven’t actually improved for the 25-time Argentina worldwide as he’s solely been in a position to muster up 30 appearances for the LaLiga facet, the place he has delivered a measly 9 aim contributions – one each three video games within the Spanish top-flight.
Such type and apparent query marks over his age – getting into the flawed facet of 30 – has seen his worth plummet to a disappointing €7m (£6m), as per CIES Soccer Observatory, who assess the switch worth {of professional} footballers on a scientific foundation.
Due to this fact, regardless of being able to producing moments of the spectacular, it seems that Paratici was greater than proper to dump him and did so on the proper time. He’d have solely been a part of the exiled group of flops below Antonio Conte this summer time and that will’ve dented the enchantment in signing him.
AND in different information, Left for £0, as soon as price £89m: Harry Redknapp had a mare at Spurs with 383-app machine…
