Tottenham Hotspur have confirmed that Lewis Holtby has completed his move from Spurs to Hamburg on the opening day of the summer transfer window, making his loan deal a permanent one following Hamburg’s survival in the Bundesliga. However, you cant help but think that Lewis Holtby could have achieved so much more than he did at Spurs, and here is perhaps why he underachieved in his time at the club.
Holtby came to Spurs for a fee of just £1.25m in the January window of 2013, and was regularly used in the second half of the season under Andre Villas-Boas, making sixteen appearances in all competitions, which included ten starts. He made a solid start to life at Spurs, and as you can see from his amount of appearances, made a decent impression on the first team, despite not scoring a single goal
The German made little more of an impact in his second season at the club, and scored in the qualifying round of the Europa League, and one in the group stages. He contributed to the comeback at Craven Cottage, scoring one of the goals in a 2-1 win over Fulham, who he would eventually join little under two months later.
Holtby returned from his loan spell at Fulham, and looked good in the pre-season tour of America, and was tipped for a better season under the management of Mauricio Pochettino with his high work-rate and high pressing, but instead was loaned out to Hamburg, and now has completed his permanent move to the German club.
First-Team Opportunities Limited Due To ‘Summer Seven’
Holtby signed for the Lilywhites in January 2013, and it was in that summer that seven new players arrived at White Hart Lane, and with three of these challenging for a starting place with Holtby, it was always going to be hard for the German to nail down a regular starting spot, and it panned out exactly like this for the former Schalke man.
Paulinho, Etienne Capoue, Christian Eriksen, Gylfi Sigurdsson (although not part of the ‘summer seven’) all reduced Holtby’s chances of making the starting eleven, either playing in a deeper role in a 4-2-3-1, or a more attacking role in the same formation, and it was mainly the latter that Holtby was given his chances in the first team.
Reduced starting eleven opportunities of course hindered Holtby’s development as a player, and as we know, any young player need first team minutes in order to progress as a footballer.
Failure To Transfer Form From Cup Into League
Lewis Holtby was sometimes played behind Jermain Defoe in the cup competitions, and showed some good form in periods, and proved to be a useful player in the cup, being able to pick out the occasional gem of a pass, and come up with the odd finish from time to time.
As I have mentioned earlier, the ‘summer seven’ had limited Lewis Holtby’s chances of making it into the first-team, and for some unknown reason, the German was mostly unable to transfer his form in the cup competitions to the Premier League, despite playing a part in a couple of goals throughout the season.
Perhaps it was the pressure of his situation that stopped Lewis Holtby playing with the freedom that he might have done whilst playing in the cup competitions, we do not know. But all that we do know is that failure to transfer his form to the Premier League was one of the reasons why he wasn’t given an extended run in the side.
There is just a couple of reasons why Lewis Holtby didn’t achieve the big things he could have done at Spurs, and as you can see, the arrival of the ‘summer seven’ is an issue that appears more than once. Players on the fringes of regular first-team football have been put under huge amounts of pressure to perform when given the chance, and I am afraid that some players haven’t responded well to this pressure, and Holtby unfortunately falls into this category for me.
Would Holtby have performed better if Andre Villas-Boas had stayed at the club a little longer? Would Holtby have achieved more if he was given more starts under Villas-Boas and Sherwood? These and many others questions are ones that we will never know the answer to, we wish Lewis Holtby the best of luck at Hamburg.
