Lamela in an upward spiral
Yesterday was the sort of day that could be a turning point for Tottenham and especially for Erik Lamela. Crystal Palace was decent, but yesterday against Manchester City it was almost as if he had come of age at last.
Just as his bad performances weren't an accident so his improved displays aren't an accident, something has clearly changed and that is his mental approach.
A player has to have certain commodities in place, he has to feel confident, he has to mentally feel as though he belongs, to feel that he is contributing, that he is pulling his weight and not being carried. There is no way Lamela can have been feeling that before this season whatever kind words are said to him, whatever encouragement he gets, he will have known in himself he wasn't performing to a good enough level.
That affects a player mentally and that affects his performance, it's a vicious circle, he wasn't mentally right to produce consistent performances, yet needed to produce consistent performances to become mentally right. You can have one without the other, but only in the mentally tough. Even they though will start to lose confidence and if that isn't arrested then we see the poor performances Soldado and Lamela were putting in last season.
If you lack confidence you become limited, you don't believe you can succeed in pressure situations. Take going through on the keeper, against Fiorentina instead of tucking the ball away like a confident striker, Soldado bottled it, he passed to Chadli and messed that up. How do you think he felt mentally then, he isn't performing, he isn't scoring, he hasn't got the confidence to score himself and messed up a virtual open goal. How do you think he would feel nxt time he is in a scoring position in a Spurs shirt, he isn't a machine, he is a human being just like you full of doubt.
Erik Lamela was in the same mental state so playing together in a team significantly reduces the effectiveness of the team as a whole and the confidence of everyone within it, you have to have confidence in your teammates to produce the best yourself. To not work on a players mentality, given that it controls everything about his and the teams performance, would be amateurish, it would be Sunday morning football.
A confident Lamela would have the confidence to try things, to take on men, to see passes he otherwise wouldn't see. If you lack confidence you stop taking risks, a pass through the defence becomes more difficult because you don't want to mess it up and feel worse, feel the bad label you have being justified. That delays decision making, it delays the confidence with which you play the pass, the conviction you put into it and that causes mistakes, you may under hit it, you may over hit it. You'll raise your hand to apologise and inside, mentally you sink and start to feel people's opinion of you is justified.
If you have worked with people who have had mental breakdowns, and I have, then you can see the signs, you can see the downward spiral clearly. You have to ignite a spark, you have to latch on to a small success and try to put a seed in their head that if you can achieve this you can achieve something else, another small step. It's a long process if you are starting at the bottom and an incredibly difficult one, you are battling against their own belief in themselves.
Football players are at a different level, but the theory is exactly the same. If Lamela didn't believe he could do something he wouldn't, if you think you'll fail, you will, you'll justify it to yourself and mentally you will actively reinforce that belief. You can see it in the anti-Levy, anti-ENIC knot, they want failure to justify a view to themselves, they only see and latch onto what they feel justifies and reinforces that belief, it's a failure mindset.
Exactly how the mindset switch has begun could be down to many factors, something Pochettino has done, the coaching staff, Lamela himself or his Argentinian surroundings when with the national side. They also have to work on him mentally and an achievement there can spark a flame of confidence that then has to be fanned. A small success and you start the reverse process, each small success starts to mentally justify a spark of confidence, you latch onto supporter praise and carry that into the next game.
Your confidence can still be shattered very easily, but each game you start to feel better in yourself your performances start to get better, you build yourself a bit more and get yourself into an upward spiral instead of a downward spiral. We are seeing Lamela in that upward spiral, Soldado has moved and he is in an upward spiral too.
This is three games on the trot where Lamela has produced something, I doubt he has done that in the whole of his time with us, three games on the trot where he and we have been able to draw confidence. Stop and think about yourself and your own views on him, are you a little more encouraged that he will or can produce something? That is exactly how he will be thinking himself, he will be starting to think, you know I can do this, I can play in this league, I'm good enough and those seeds will grow with every little success.
I have been a fierce critic, not just of him, but of the club for not doing the mental work that needed to be done. The success process can be speeded up with specialist help, help that I still insist we should be the ones instigating, as world leaders in the field in football. The seeds of encouragement have been sown so now when you see Lamela on the teamsheet it is one of hope that he'll perform to the same level again.
We as fans are in an upward spiral with him, about him. Tottenham are in an upward spiral, fans should be in an upward spiral about Spurs.
VIDEO: Eric Lamela Individual Performance vs Man City
Further Tottenham Reading
Defeatists defeated, the table looks healthy now
Spurs fans need to emulate the players
Olympic Stadium rent, Select Committee given a different story to West Ham fans
West Ham DO get Naming Rights income, they told the Select Committee they don't
West Ham have PERMANENT right of veto, didn't tell the Select Committee that
Just as his bad performances weren't an accident so his improved displays aren't an accident, something has clearly changed and that is his mental approach.
A player has to have certain commodities in place, he has to feel confident, he has to mentally feel as though he belongs, to feel that he is contributing, that he is pulling his weight and not being carried. There is no way Lamela can have been feeling that before this season whatever kind words are said to him, whatever encouragement he gets, he will have known in himself he wasn't performing to a good enough level.
That affects a player mentally and that affects his performance, it's a vicious circle, he wasn't mentally right to produce consistent performances, yet needed to produce consistent performances to become mentally right. You can have one without the other, but only in the mentally tough. Even they though will start to lose confidence and if that isn't arrested then we see the poor performances Soldado and Lamela were putting in last season.
If you lack confidence you become limited, you don't believe you can succeed in pressure situations. Take going through on the keeper, against Fiorentina instead of tucking the ball away like a confident striker, Soldado bottled it, he passed to Chadli and messed that up. How do you think he felt mentally then, he isn't performing, he isn't scoring, he hasn't got the confidence to score himself and messed up a virtual open goal. How do you think he would feel nxt time he is in a scoring position in a Spurs shirt, he isn't a machine, he is a human being just like you full of doubt.
Erik Lamela was in the same mental state so playing together in a team significantly reduces the effectiveness of the team as a whole and the confidence of everyone within it, you have to have confidence in your teammates to produce the best yourself. To not work on a players mentality, given that it controls everything about his and the teams performance, would be amateurish, it would be Sunday morning football.
A confident Lamela would have the confidence to try things, to take on men, to see passes he otherwise wouldn't see. If you lack confidence you stop taking risks, a pass through the defence becomes more difficult because you don't want to mess it up and feel worse, feel the bad label you have being justified. That delays decision making, it delays the confidence with which you play the pass, the conviction you put into it and that causes mistakes, you may under hit it, you may over hit it. You'll raise your hand to apologise and inside, mentally you sink and start to feel people's opinion of you is justified.
If you have worked with people who have had mental breakdowns, and I have, then you can see the signs, you can see the downward spiral clearly. You have to ignite a spark, you have to latch on to a small success and try to put a seed in their head that if you can achieve this you can achieve something else, another small step. It's a long process if you are starting at the bottom and an incredibly difficult one, you are battling against their own belief in themselves.
Football players are at a different level, but the theory is exactly the same. If Lamela didn't believe he could do something he wouldn't, if you think you'll fail, you will, you'll justify it to yourself and mentally you will actively reinforce that belief. You can see it in the anti-Levy, anti-ENIC knot, they want failure to justify a view to themselves, they only see and latch onto what they feel justifies and reinforces that belief, it's a failure mindset.
Exactly how the mindset switch has begun could be down to many factors, something Pochettino has done, the coaching staff, Lamela himself or his Argentinian surroundings when with the national side. They also have to work on him mentally and an achievement there can spark a flame of confidence that then has to be fanned. A small success and you start the reverse process, each small success starts to mentally justify a spark of confidence, you latch onto supporter praise and carry that into the next game.
Your confidence can still be shattered very easily, but each game you start to feel better in yourself your performances start to get better, you build yourself a bit more and get yourself into an upward spiral instead of a downward spiral. We are seeing Lamela in that upward spiral, Soldado has moved and he is in an upward spiral too.
This is three games on the trot where Lamela has produced something, I doubt he has done that in the whole of his time with us, three games on the trot where he and we have been able to draw confidence. Stop and think about yourself and your own views on him, are you a little more encouraged that he will or can produce something? That is exactly how he will be thinking himself, he will be starting to think, you know I can do this, I can play in this league, I'm good enough and those seeds will grow with every little success.
I have been a fierce critic, not just of him, but of the club for not doing the mental work that needed to be done. The success process can be speeded up with specialist help, help that I still insist we should be the ones instigating, as world leaders in the field in football. The seeds of encouragement have been sown so now when you see Lamela on the teamsheet it is one of hope that he'll perform to the same level again.
We as fans are in an upward spiral with him, about him. Tottenham are in an upward spiral, fans should be in an upward spiral about Spurs.
VIDEO: Eric Lamela Individual Performance vs Man City
Further Tottenham Reading
Defeatists defeated, the table looks healthy now
Spurs fans need to emulate the players
Olympic Stadium rent, Select Committee given a different story to West Ham fans
West Ham DO get Naming Rights income, they told the Select Committee they don't
West Ham have PERMANENT right of veto, didn't tell the Select Committee that
2 comments
You have absolutely no idea of the construction of a sentence.
Try this.
Every time you insert a comma change it to a full stop followed by a capital letter.
It won't be correct always, but it will be a great deal more often!