GN Soccer Magazine September 2014 Edition | Page 9

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summer's World Cup, and earned his move from Ferencvaros to Everton.
Comfortable playing in central defence, Roberto Martinez is likely to follow
Susic's lead and utilise Besic as a holding midfielder alongside Gareth
Barry or James McCarthy, thus allowing Kevin Mirallas, Ross Barkley and
others to roam more freely.

7) Erik Lamela (Tottenham)
Having inherited a bloated squad
(high on quantity, not on quality),
Mauricio Pochettino has already publicly spoken of his desire to trim the
fat, plenty of which may consist of
summer 2013 arrivals that then
wholly unimpressed. Lamela, however, will surely not be amongst that
group. Tottenham's record signing had a debut season blighted by back
and hamstring injuries, and even when fit largely failed to offer any evidence for his weighty fee, constantly playing catch-up following a stunted
pre-season. Now is the time for redemption. The assumption/aspiration is
that under Pochettino this may be a player reborn, substantial improvement negating the necessity for increased investment. It may be already
be a case of last-chance saloon.

6) Dusan Tadic (Southampton)
Although there was overwhelming negativity at the Southampton St. Mary's
Summer Sale, there is still reason to believe that the Saints can prosper this
term. That is because in Ronald Koeman, they have a manager that actually
has knowledge of an alternative league
to the one in which he is competing.
If Southampton were forced to shop around the Premier League's lower
reaches for replacements then things could have got rather smelly, but the
Eredivisie provides Koeman with a resource of potentially valuable recruits.
Dusan Tadic may well be the perfect example. Playing in the same team as
Nacer Chadli with Twente, most fans of the Eredivisie will tell you that
Spurs simply signed the wrong player, and the 16 goals and 14 assists the
Serbian provided last season may well add fuel to that fire. Tadic is no
guarantee of success, but for half the price of the departed Lallana, Southampton have signed the best player in the Dutch league. Put him alongside
the same division's top scorer (Graziano Pelle) and you suspect Koeman et
al may just be okay.