Tariq Lamptey

[Stats 6,980]

9 minutes ago, Vesper said:

he faded the 2nd half, along with the whole BHO team

He faded second half because he only played the first half.

[Vesper 27,315]

2 minutes ago, Tomo said:

I find it silly it's being brought up after 2 admittedly awful James games, the lad was genuinely our best player January and probably February too.

yes, the same for Billy

the lad is 19 and played out of position (compared to where he sat in the bindipper game)

anyone writing them off now is cray

 

[Vesper 27,315]

3 minutes ago, Stats said:

He faded second half because he only played the first half.

ahhh, I thought it was second half I flipped over to and he was still on

I was mostly watching the AM Barca game

[killer1257 3,282]

I find it silly it's being brought up after 2 admittedly awful James games, the lad was genuinely our best player January and probably February too.

Lamptey and James are completely different type of RBs. That is why I wanted him to stay. Lamptey can even easily play right winger

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[Vesper 27,315]

2 minutes ago, killer1257 said:

Lamptey and James are completely different type of RBs. That is why I wanted him to stay. Lamptey can even easily play right winger

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if a player wants to leave, and refuses a new contract, there is not much any team can do

[Vesper 27,315]

Meet Tariq Lamptey: ‘Amazing skills… unbelievably quick… just so nice!’

https://theathletic.com/2059265/2020/09/12/amazing-skills-unbelievably-quick-just-so-nice-meet-tariq-lamptey/

Harmeet Sahota, senior assistant headteacher at Queensmead School in Ruislip, west London, is discussing with The Athletic his former pupil Tariq Lamptey.

“From day one he was set for stardom, the way the conversations went. Working in a school, you have lots of students that play for academies and they think they are going to go on to be Premier League stars.

“The reality is, very few make it. You can’t tell them that directly to their face, only in a subtle way, to have a back-up plan.

“Everything we used to hear about him was that he was one of the stars at Chelsea and he was playing a couple of years above his age group.”

The gifted 19-year-old is about to embark on his first full season in the Premier League — for Brighton and Hove Albion, against the club where he grew up.

Lamptey has already made a big splash on the south coast since signing in January, quickly establishing himself as manager Graham Potter’s first-choice right-back, seeing off two more senior rivals with experience of playing for some of Europe’s top clubs.

With Lamptey on the scene, Martin Montoya and Ezequiel Schelotto have both departed in the hope of playing regularly elsewhere. Spaniard Montoya, 29, has rejoined Real Betis, where he had a spell on loan, having also played for Barcelona, Inter Milan (loan) and Valencia. Argentine-born Italian Schelotto also played for Inter Milan, as well as Sporting Lisbon. The 31- year-old is yet to sign for another club.

Lamptey has not looked back since making his Brighton debut at Schelotto’s expense in the 0-0 draw at Leicester on June 23.

In doing so, he became the first teenager to feature in a Premier League season for two different clubs since Harry Kane in 2012-13 (Tottenham and Norwich), after making his debut for Chelsea in a 2-1 win at Arsenal in December.

Kane played for England under-17s through to under-21s before breaking into the senior squad.

Lamptey, who also qualifies for Ghana through his parents, is on a similar path. He progressed from the under-18s, under-19s and under-20s to make his debut for England under 21s in Tuesday’s 2-1 win in Austria.

On Monday evening at the Amex Stadium, one of the hottest teenage prospects in English football faces a poignant clash against Chelsea with a ringing endorsement of his potential from Graham Potter.

Brighton’s head coach says: “He is so fast. He has got the character, the attitude and the attributes that can affect games in the Premier League.”

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Size and speed. They are two of the characteristics which play a part in any conversation about Lamptey. He is a pocket rocket, just 5ft 4in tall and lightning quick.

Lamptey was one of 1,500 pupils at Queensmead School from the age of 11 to 16.

Maya Briggs, his former PE teacher, tells The Athletic: “He used to go around the school wearing a football jacket with the Chelsea branding. It was bigger than him!

“He’s unbelievably quick. We had to take him to GCSE (exam) moderations. You go to different schools and people decide whether our grades are fair.

“All the teachers and moderators couldn’t believe what they were watching, how fast he was.”

Potter used 6ft 7in Dan Burn on the opposite side of the defence last season, an extraordinary little and large contrast to Lamptey in the back line.

Burn says: “I’ve hated playing against him, because I’ve played at left-back quite a bit in training and he’s been at right-back and I can’t catch him!

“He’s got such a low centre of gravity, it’s hard to knock him off the ball, take the ball off him. You don’t see many people take the ball past him either.

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on him but I expect big things.”

Lamptey is receiving expert guidance at Brighton from Bruno Saltor, the club’s former long-serving right-back and captain who is now a member of Potter’s coaching team.

Bruno, as he is affectionately known by Brighton fans, regards Lamptey’s searing pace as a real asset in the position he dominated for seven years before retiring at the end of the 2018-19 season.

The former Valencia defender says: “He’s really fast and that gives him a big starting advantage. If you are that quick and then you develop a good game, knowing where to be and when, you are going to get even better. Your starting position is going to get even better.

“I was taller but much slower. Through my career, all the wingers I played against were faster and stronger than me, but you have to play with your brain, to know where to be and when to be and take advantage of that.

“We need to keep teaching him and trying to improve him, to use his body and to be in the right position all the time, but I think he is capable of continuing to improve and to become an amazing right-back.”

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Leaving Chelsea was a “massive decision” for Lamptey.

He joined them as a seven-year-old, working his way through the age groups.

Moving to Brighton looks, at first glance, a retrograde step, quitting one of the “Big Six” giants for a club that has finished in the bottom six in each of their three seasons in the Premier League.

Crucially though, Lamptey saw a direct route to regular first-team football at the Amex which was not open to him at Stamford Bridge, with club captain Cesar Azpilicueta and Reece James ahead of him for the right-back spot under manager Frank Lampard.

Lamptey made an eye-catching debut in Chelsea’s final fixture of 2019 against Arsenal. Brought off the bench in the second half by Lampard, he helped to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 victory.

Brighton were already poised to pounce by that stage. Technical director Dan Ashworth knew all about Lamptey’s capabilities with England at junior levels in his previous role as technical director of the FA. He was also aware Lamptey’s Chelsea contract was due to expire in the summer. They wanted to keep him and were in new contract negotiations with a view to sending him out on loan.

There was no shortage of admirers, with interest at home from Wolves and Crystal Palace, in France from Paris Saint-Germain, Lille and Nice. But Lamptey, guided by his father Ahmed, was won over by the set-up at Brighton and the prospect of playing under Potter.

He signed at the end of the January transfer window, just 33 days after his Chelsea cameo against Arsenal, until June 2023 for an initial fee which The Athletic understands was around £1.6 million, rising to a potential £3 million with additional clauses.

Lamptey says: “It was a massive decision for me because Chelsea is a great club, a very successful club, with a lot of great players and coaches. I’d been there since the age of seven, so it was hard to say goodbye, but what I saw was a great opportunity at Brighton.

“Everything was so appealing, the facilities, the fans, the players and a really good manager who is an expert at developing young players.

“Ultimately, I want to play as much as possible, and to grow as a player, and coming here gives me the best chance of doing that. Everything is here to help me become the player I know I can be.”

Potter acknowledges the temptations for young players to stay put at a big club.

He says: “Sometimes you can be at a club and you don’t play as much as you would like but you’re getting the right development and you feel your career is moving in the right way.

“You look at someone like Phil Foden (Manchester City) for example who hasn’t played as much as people would think but he’s still developed and he’s still learning and still in a good place. So it’s good for his career.

“Everyone has to make that decision about what the right place is, what the right environment is and of course that at some point there is a pathway to play first-team football.”

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Lamptey’s former PE teacher had one concern when he joined Brighton.

Mrs Briggs says: “Because he was at Chelsea for so long, in my mind I thought he was going to miss that, but he seems to be doing so well.”

Potter gave Lamptey time to settle into his new environment. He was not involved in the five games Brighton had between signing him and the COVID-19 shutdown in March.

Lamptey appeared in the matchday squad for the first time as an unused substitute for the 2-1 home win against Arsenal when play resumed in June.

He made his debut at Leicester three days later and started seven of the last eight matches in total, helping Brighton to haul themselves clear of relegation danger with a 15th-placed finish and a club record 41 points in the Premier League.

Lamptey ended with some impressive numbers: 15 completed dribbles, 30 recoveries and 50.6 per cent success in duels, demonstrating the tenacity that compensates for his miniature frame.

He also provided the assist for one of Brighton’s goals of the season, with the cross for Leandro Trossard’s strike in the 3-1 home defeat by Liverpool in July. Electric bursts forward, combined with a thirst for battle, have made Lamptey an instant hit.

Potter says: “He’s been great. He’s only young so you have to give him time to land, settle into the new environment, a new club, team and team-mates because he had been at Chelsea a long time.

“He is such a fantastic kid, really humble, wants to work for the team, help the team and plays with that bit of sacrifice which I like. He has been a joy to work with and his qualities, we see them every day.”

Lamptey’s energy and adventure make him ideally equipped to operate as a right wing-back. This is a role Potter is likely to use him in more often than not this season following the return of Ben White on loan from Leeds United to form a trio of central defenders with Bruno’s successor as skipper, Lewis Dunk, and Adam Webster.

Bruno tells The Athletic: “As a player he is in the process of learning the game at this level. Now it is going to be about the consistency of his performances to keep his place and to keep improving.

“I am trying to help him from my experience. For a coach, to have someone who is desperate to learn and listening and thinking and to see when he goes onto the pitch he actually does what we have been talking about, it’s really good.

“He is brave. His natural skills are amazing, physically, technically, and now it’s just about keeping improving tactically and learning experiences.”

Potter will nurture Lamptey’s development to ensure too much is not asked of him too soon.

Joel Veltman, signed from Ajax in July, provides cover and competition as a right-back and right wing-back, as well as in the centre of defence.

With the season condensed by the pandemic and his involvement for club and country, Lamptey is confronting a hectic schedule. Potter says: “He’s a young guy so we have to be careful with him and watch him because you do not want to throw him in at the deep end, sink or swim type of thing.

“So we need to make sure that he is OK because he covers some ground at high speed which has an implication in terms of recovery time. That is something we have to be wary of.”

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Lamptey is appreciated by those that know him well for the warmth of his smile but also a steely determination.

They are characteristics compatible with some of his football heroes.

“I enjoyed watching Ronaldinho and Dani Alves,” Lamptey says. “Dani plays in the same position and I’ve always loved watching him bomb forward, while Ronaldinho played with so much flair and skill. He also played with a smile on his face.”

Lamptey supported Manchester United as a boy.

“When I was growing up they were winning everything,” he says. “I have the mentality where I hate to lose at anything, and United always had that under Sir Alex Ferguson. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to them.”

The same traits were evident when Lamptey was at school at Queensmead.

Sahota says: “He was such a polite boy. Every time you saw him around the school, he was always smiling, always willing to have a conversation, but very quiet.

“We have something called ATL reports, Attitude To Learning, and his always ones and twos, one being absolutely outstanding, two being good.

“You could see he just had that determination to get to the top, nothing was going to get in his way, always training in his spare time.

“There was no ego. He’d never really talk about football, you wouldn’t have known any different apart from that big manager’s jacket!”

Chris Mepham, another product of the Chelsea academy, also went to Queensmead. Lamptey has remained friends with the Bournemouth and Wales defender.

Lamptey used to go back to his old school when he was at Chelsea to collect his 14-year-old brother Rafiq, who is on Watford’s books.

Sahota says: “He was just his normal self, just said hello, he wasn’t driving a flash car or anything like that.”

Briggs tells The Athletic: “He always had friends, kept himself to himself with a good set of friends that he would hang around with, got on with. He was a popular boy. You couldn’t possibly not like Tariq, because he was just so nice.”

Brighton pay a lot of attention to a player’s character during their recruitment process. Lamptey is the same as he was at school now that he is beginning to establish himself in the Premier League at Brighton.

Bruno says: “I really love the kid because he brings a lot of freshness to the team. I really love how desperate he is to learn. He listens, he’s a really, really polite kid.

“We’ve been really lucky. Not just as a player because as a player, of course, he’s got amazing skills, but as a human being, as a person for the group, he is outstanding.”

[lucio 5,395]

Good thing James scored or this would really hurt 

[Nero 1,794]

What a game! 

[ja1 1,166]

Great game. He has acclimatised to top-level football very quickly and it has surprised me a bit. He was good at youth level of course but so was, for example, Dujon Sterling. I definitely wouldn’t have predicted this impact going on loan to PL straight away. But it vindicates his decision to leave even more.

 

he’s genuinely a good dribbler. He does everything quickly and positively. Even appears to have good delivery. Let’s see how he does over the season but I think he’s looking like he could be just as big a talent as RJ and AWB. 

 

Two thoughts - I wonder whether he’ll represent Ghana going forward with the almost ridiculous depth England have at RB. He has shown he isn’t afraid to seek out playing time. And at 5”5 i wonder whether PL managers would trust him as a full back in a back four. Brighton playing 5 at the back with him.

[Nero 1,794]

 

[Stats 6,980]

He is terrific isn't he?  Amazing pace and dribbling skills.

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

Genuine question: if we can choose again, Reece James or Tariq Lamptey [emoji848]

[killer1257 3,282]

He is terrific isn't he?  Amazing pace and dribbling skills.

He always was this good. That is why i wanted him to stay because finding guys with the skill sets of Lamptey is really hard

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[Ryan Fong 2,776]

We were fucked up big time with his contract issue. How the hell we let this gem slipped through.

[killer1257 3,282]

We were fucked up big time with his contract issue. How the hell we let this gem slipped through.

He wanted to start matches, but Azpi is our captain and RJ was our youth captain with CS experience, so Lamptey did not want to renew because he clearly is an intelligent guy. Chelsea would have wasted his time by playing Azpi and RJ all the time instead of him, even though his characteristics are hard to find in a full back

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[R2D2 368]

1 minute ago, Ryan Fong said:

We were fucked up big time with his contract issue. How the hell we let this gem slipped through.

We weren't it's Lampard fault all day and night for this one. Gave him a chance, impressed massively against Arsenal only to be sidelined afterwards. People talk about James but we could've converted him into midfield and keep Lamptey as RB.

[Laylabelle 9,296]

4 minutes ago, Ryan Fong said:

We were fucked up big time with his contract issue. How the hell we let this gem slipped through.

The usual story..

[Pizy 17,860]

He's ridiculously quick! Christ!

Bet you he ends up at City next summer.