Tottenham Hotspur winger Erik Lamela has made a bright start to the 2018/19 campaign, but Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino isn’t getting carried away with the form of his compatriot.
The 26-year-old joined Spurs in 2013, and has made over 160 appearances in all competitions. The Argentine winger, who is on £70k per week wages at Spurs, hasn’t been able to produce his best performance for the club on a consistent basis.
He has gone through major operations during his time at the club, but this season he looks a player reborn. Lamela has scored seven goals and has completed three assists in all competitions for Spurs so far, and is oozing with confidence at the moment.
Pochettino wants him to carry on the good form, but says the time is not right to judge whether he has had a fantastic season. The Spurs boss has admitted that it was ‘tough’ for him from the day he arrived, but now everything looks perfect for him.
“Yes he’s more mature now. Of course always you expect when you make this type of investment that the player starts to perform in the way you expect,” said Pochettino about Lamela to Football London.
“Of course it was tough for him from the day he arrived here. This is his sixth season and it was tough for him from the beginning, but now I think after 12 games he’s scored eight goals.
“I think everything now is going very well. We hope it continues and he can be consistent during the whole season and we can talk at the end about Lamela having a fantastic season, because it’s still difficult to judge him because he wasn’t consistent like we expect.”
Tottenham will face PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League clash at Wembley on Tuesday night, and it is a game Spurs will have to win in order to have any slight chance of progressing to the next round.