Is Gareth Bale role the key to Erik Lamela

Recently I have been running through just a few of the players we have been scouting and pointed out that we are actually going after the top of the range youngsters, the youngsters that are expected to develop into the next superstars or high quality players.

There are three players I have been calling for us to buy and we have bought two of them. I can't add Obbu Oulare to that list yet as I haven't really written an article pressing his case yet. First up was Eric Dier who I was writing about 2 years before we bought him and the second was DeAndre Yedlin.

You shouldn't buy players on the back of a World Cup showing as a rule, there is a history of them being flops but for Yedlin I felt we had to make an exception. He has a lot of potential and the potential to a valuable commercial asset.

The third player, although I have only written one article this far is 22-year-old Portuguese international Rafael 'Rafa' Alexandre Fernandes Ferreira Silva.

This all got me thinking about some of the players we have bought who haven't produced the goods yet, particularly Érik Lamela and how to get him playing the football he is capable of.

We blew the Gareth Bale windfall thanks to an inept transfer policy and to be honest, in my view, the clubs failure to adopt my suggestion that we professionally assess players mentally before we buy them. Hearing a player tell us he is seeking a new challenge usually means nothing, it is just PR speak, sounding as if you are saying something without actually saying anything. What is the challenge, a bigger pay packet?

That seems to be the answer for some. We have Emmanuel Adebayor of course and André Ayew has gone to Swansea City because they were willing to cave in to his wage demands where nobody else was. The figure mentioned is £100,000-a-week (US$154,376 - AUS$199,491 - €137,198), the same figure Liverpool are said to be paying Danny Ings and that Yevhen Konoplyanka wants.

In Europe they would play half that for his ability, the Napoli squad for instance are mainly £30-40,000-a-week (US$8.51m - AUS$10.99m - €7.5m) with a big salary, over double, for a player like Gonzalo Higuaín, their main goalscorer. I don't see Ayew as being any better than Nacer Chadli for instance and you wouldn't want to pay him that sort of wage. The outcry from some Spurs fans is crazy, he's no superstar, he's just a decent international player.

The only thing that matters is, is the player going to work his socks off to improve himself and be the best he can be in the way Cristiano Ronaldo did at Manchester United and Gareth Bale did at Tottenham. That is the mentality of player I want at the club and I don't believe waiting until one falls into your lap by accident is the right policy in this modern scientific world where in other sports they search rot the tiniest edge.

Franco Baldini may have restructured and got us working as a more professional club, improving diet, facilities, medical care and so on but when it comes to the most important aspect of any sport, the mental side, football is in the dark ages and intends to stay there. If we want to develop the best young talent then give them something other clubs are not, the mental training that makes them seek constant improvement and motivation for all games, not just the ones they perceive to be the big games.

Anyway enough of the tangents, although mentality and Lamela is a subject I have covered before, and how to improve our Argentinian. He still needs work in that area.

Spurs fans have gone overboard about him, in desperation for him to be a success I'd say. He put in improved displays yes, but saying h is starting to show his talent is rubbish. He did no more than any other average winger/wide attacker in the last month or so. Output that's all that matters, not did he look fancy, did he catch the eye, what exactly in black and white did he contribute, that is what you have to assess as a coach.

Tottenham are desperate that he regains his value, we can't afford to take hits on him and Roberto Soldado, it would take a chunk out of our transfer budget. The club need Lamela back to the level he was in Rome, a city I must visit.

Mentally for me he is up and down, totally lacking confidence when he arrived and lonely in a new city, he has improved, he puts in defensive effort when he wants to and neglects it at other times so there is more mental work to do with him but let's concentrate on the playing side.

Tottenham play with an interchanging front four, or that is the idea, that is the way Southampton did it, that is the way we started out on the USA and Canada tour. Lamela had a good tour because he did interchange, he scored a goal from the left hand side and at the start of the season against QPR chipped a lovely ball from the left for Chadli to head home. Chadli was playing on the left side of the attacking three but popped up on the right.

For some reason that stopped. Christian Eriksen wasn't performing early season because he had no runners, he had nobody to pass to, everyone was staying in their set positions. Chadli then has a scoring spell where he is popping up all over the place, compare that to what you see from Lamela now. Lamela stays on the left and when he gets the ball he cuts inside where he is met with three defenders.

There needs to be far more interchanging of the three attacking midfielder players. Chadli and Eriksen interchange but Lamela doesn't seem to interchange with anyone. He gives the right-back room to overlap yes but we need to see more of Lamela popping up inside the box, a rare occurrence this season.

It's not easy to achieve because you can't leave yourself exposed so all three players, four including harry Kane must be aware of where each other are and where they are going. That takes time and I feel if Lamela starts to roam more, in the manner Gareth Bale used to roam, but within the front four structure, then we will start to see the talent and start to get much more of an end product. By that I don't just mean goals and asists but being an integral part of creating frequent chances.

Mentality and off the ball movement from he and his teammates, that's what I'm looking for next season.

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