Tottenham’s record signing Erik Lamela did not appear to have future at the club after a disastrous opening season at White Hart Lane. However, he finally appears to have settled under the management of Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentine has been putting in some good performances over the last few months, but the best part of his Tottenham career so far came in the Europa league match against Asteras Tripoli. Tottenham managed to beat in the Greek club 5-1 just a few days before the Premier League encounter against Newcastle.

Lamela’s astonishing goal against the Greek club was not talking point of the match. It has put him in the spotlight ahead of the Newcastle match, but Alan Pardew believes that his players will be more than capable of overcoming the quality shown by Lamela. Newcastle come into the match still searching for the first win of the season. This will be even more tough because it is an away match, but it will also provide some respite from the hard treatment given by the Newcastle supporters to Pardew. He says that he is feeling extremely confident ahead of the match. Tottenham have not been in the best of form of late and they were beaten by City 4-1 last week.

“It was amazing. I haven’t really seen that on the training ground when the ball is coming across like that, at that pace. To hit it like that was amazing. We have one or two who can do it from a dead ball situation when they just manoeuvre it, but I don’t think I have ever seen a goal quite like that in training, let alone in a match. Spurs have great players – they have always had great individuals. But so do we, and we have got to hope that our individual players stand up and produce a moment like that,” said Pardew.