Andre Villas-Boas admit Tottenham's £30m signing Erik Lamela will struggle to adapt to the Premier League

New £30million Spurs signing Erik Lamela will find it difficult to adapt to life in the Premier League because he doesn't speak a word of English, according to his manager Andre Villas-Boas.

The Argentinian has spent the last two years in Italy playing for Roma, but now fins himself in a country where not only the football is very difficult, but also the language and culture.

'He's going to suffer problems of adaptation because he doesn't speak a word of English,' Villas-Boas said.

'He has to adapt to a completely different culture and mentality, which we are sure he will, but we're unsure of how much time it will take, but he will.

'I think the qualities he brings are his creativeness, his ability to find the last pass that leads to a goal. He's a natural talent. He's not a pure, pure winger; he's creative and likes to come inside and find different spaces. He's a player with tremendous potential that we have to work on.

'He's a wonderful, gifted footballer. The fact he's yet to train with the team puts him in a very difficult position to start the game, but it it not impossible. For somebody so gifted, adapting shouldn't be a problem.

'Lamela just landed in England this morning, so he wasn't involved in training, but they're used to these kind of trips and effort. I expect him to be involved in the game.

'The players on internationals trained very hard. Sigurdsson didn't train because of a dead leg, but most of the boys came back OK. We have had plenty of time to recover, so it gives us a chance to have enough sleep and recovery time.

Villas-Boas stated that he does not see Tottenham as a title-challenging force this season, despite bringing in a hatful of new players to replace Gareth Bale.

'Our objective is the same: it's Champions League qualification,' he said. 'It never crossed our mind to do anything different, bearing in mind the changes we have made.

'I think this is the minimum requirement towards what we want to achieve. I think our level of expenditure in the transfer market raises expectations but they have to be real, not false expectations. This is my point of view.

'We don't have the experience to deal with the pressure of a team that plays for a title. We have never done it in recent years. We will compete, as usual, for the Champions League places, having failed that objective the season before, and we want to do better this season.