Ossie Ardiles has praised Giovani Lo Celso for his determination to succeed at Tottenham Hotspur following a tough start to life at his new club.
The Argentine midfielder moved to North London on a season long loan deal from Real Betis in the summer.
He suffered a hip injury whilst on international duty in early September which ruled him out of action for six weeks and struggled to break into the Spurs first team.
Since appearing as a substitute in the 2-1 win against Brighton on Boxing Day, he has become a regular in Jose Mourinho’s side and has arguably been his side’s most impressive performer (transfermarkt).
Such has been his transformation, Mourinho admitted that he has completely changed his opinion on the 23-year-old from initially having doubts about him to recently describing his efforts as phenomenal (Standard).
Ardiles paid tribute to his compatriot for how he has transformed his career at the Champions League finalists which saw the club take up the option to make his transfer permanent from Betis in January.
“The first thing I’d like to say about Giovani is that I’m very proud of him,” Ardiles told the club’s official website.
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“Suddenly, when he came here to Spurs, he had one of the worst things that can happen to you as a footballer when you first arrive in a new club – he got injured.
“However, he started to play more regularly and, immediately, he made an impact. He’s a very sensible player, he knows what he’s doing all the time, he’s clever and so on. Little by little, I have to say, he’s adapted to the pace of the game here extremely well. Right now, it doesn’t look like he has any problems with that at all.”
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