Nice to see the beast back and he really did boss the midfield. Geez we missed him last season.
Europa Cup will probably start with Chadli, Eriksen and Lamela across the mid field, not bad depth.
Lamela is only 20 and still 2 years younger than Townsend and at this stage of his career Townsend's form is well in advance of Lamella's, he's not far off our best player and I dont think too many people saw this coming as we have Lennon and Lamela fighting for second choice right mid behind Townsend.
Villa's midfield is nothing special, but yes, it is good to see Sandro starting again. Having three central midfielders like Paulinho, Dembele and Sandro to pick from gives us great depth. What annoys me about that is that Eriksen and Lamela really should have started this game, but eh.
Erm. Twiz, you do realize Lamela's last few seasons in Italy pretty much laugh at Townsend's current form? The only reason it seems like Townsend is playing *better* than Lamela is because AVB hasn't given Lamela a single start, which continues to drive me - and most Spurs fans - absolutely batty.
Townsend is playing well, but his end product is still an issue, as today proved. He got lucky with a cross that the goalie didn't react to well enough. He set up a bunch of half chances in the second half but that was against a left fullback who completely nodded off in the back end of the game. Everyone knows he is a fantastic dribbler and currently he has the best stats of any in the league IIRC, but he's still a player that doesn't get great crosses or passes in to Soldado. Thankfully, he fixed his main issue which was taking constant shots from outside the box, this led to the team actually keeping the ball more. There's no doubt he is playing very well, but I'm in no way convinced Lamela wouldn't be a much better performing player if he was put there.
The reality is, we are leaving one of the best young winger talents in the world on the bench who can also play attacking midfield, and yet starting players like Holtby and Siggurdsson. It's a credit to AVB that he doesn't mindlessly start his big name players, but really, this is just getting ridiculous. And he brought an unfit Lennon on over Lamela to close out the game? What the f**k!!??
Anyway, on the game, it wasn't very comfortable at all. Villa's forwards let them down every time; Weimann and Benteke both should have had a goal each between them at least. Still, a win is a win and we needed some freak luck for our first goal. Hopefully that tells people not to panic; I was confident that we would bounce back, just not with that line-up. Oh well, I guess this is very much a season where we can win even if not all of our best players (Lamela, Eriksen) are out there.
Also, I'm ecstatic for Soldado! Hopefully people can finally get off his back and realize just how well he is playing; a goal and an assist just tops it off really. Another great performance, even without the two goals in the equation. He is easily the best striker we have had in years.
