Isn't Eriksen usually pretty meh for Denmark though? He strikes me as someone who needs intelligent, technical players around him to flourish (along with protection at the back), or otherwise his passes are all going to be either really conservative or look like they're going astray because he likes to pass to (dangerous) space. You need to actually make the proper runs for him to be effective, he's a *thinker* and string-puller, not someone who is going to dribble through four players and volley it into the top left.
Lamela is more of a dribbler and individualist than Eriksen, but he is not a flashy winger like Townsend and if you look at his goals, the vast majority of them come in the box, very close to goal. He is a lovely link-up player who scores from clever runs into the box, not a Bale clone who will score wondergoals every other game regardless of where he is. And from what I've heard, he can definitely disappear for stretches until emerging with a moment of the sublime - and I think that's an age and familiarity and shyness thing, because Draxler with all his lovely technique does this too, and in a much more open league. These kids aren't going to be tormenting FBs for 90 minutes or imposing themselves or running a game like Modric can, they have all the talent in the world but they really need to grow in confidence and familiarity with their teammates and vice versa (I noticed that we were hesitating to pass to him at times when he was making good runs - familiarity issue).
For the moment, I think it'll just be flashes of the incredible in a sea of tidy, pretty passing as he looks to settle in. If you want constant charges forward, that's Townsend with his extrovert personality and youthful self-confidence after a year of being the only potential savior in a **** team; same goes for Rose after Sunderland. Personally I think it's very good to have a variety of options - we need some shameless enthusiasm as well as the more measured, 'thinking man's' team ethos. (And I'm not saying that Lamela lacks swagger and leadership - remember how he tried to save his hometown club River Plate as an 18-year-old - but this is a real culture shock for him. I doubt he wanted to leave Roma, so as fans I hope we really try to make him fall in love with us.)
Apart from that 3 or 4 month spell at the back end of last season, Bale didnt have such a good record of shooting effectively from outside the box and scoring wondergoals
