It's no secret that Lallana needs careful nurturing to get the best out of him. This is probably the no.1 reason that Prem teams haven't shown more interest, because he is the most technically gifted player we have (Nigel's words). Neither is it a secret that he is one of our main creative outlets that gives opposing managers nightmares. You couldn't say that he was wasteful or not showing his ability in games so that is probably evidence of the amount of attention he gets from defenders.
Just to clarify, I would start Fox over Harding as well. They are both good full backs, but I personally think Fox is a great player. I still stand by my point that Harding opens up space for Adam which is why he hasn't made as much of an impact recently. Obviously he just needs game time. Or maybe show him a couple of Youtube videos of him smashing them in the top corner and skinning defenders for fun.
No way should we play Fox at LM in front of Harding tomorrow??? Lallana will start at LM, let Bristol City worry about our attacking threat rather than us worry about thiers. We nullified Palace's attacking threat (Zaha, Scannell), no reason to play two left backs to nullifys Bristol's.
I won't slate the OP, but saying that Lallana has been poor, presumably overall, is overstating the case slightly, IMO. At the beginning of the season, Adam was at his brilliant best. Since recovering from his foot injury he has been poor by his standards only. By the quality of other members of the team, Lallana is still one of the first names to be pencilled in. If he is drawing more defenders then that is releasing space for other players to exploit, so Adam is still doing a fantastic job.
Lallana is one of our best players and yes might not be quite firing on all cylinders for the last month or so. But you could say the same about the majority of the team thus our blip in form. Always going to happen over the course of a long season but as they say, form is temporary, class is permanant......we've picked up now though, unbeaten in 3, could be the start of a great run!!!
Couple of points: 1. Lallana started this season on fire but then since his injury hasn't look quite as dazzling but still contributing hugely to the team. I also think that our strong start has brought a few other players on a bit and maybe their contributions or raised standards has reduced Adam from being such a stand out performer as he previously was. 2. Lallana is still a class act. 3. Fox does play deeper than Harding does and this may affect Lallana a bit, but Fox is a better defender than Harding and with Frazer bombing forward on the right we need a LB that can sit and defend. I read an interview with Fabregas this week where he says the biggest difference between la Liga and the prem is that la Liga full backs will hold back when the other full back is attacking. This in itself says that Nigel has got that bit of our team right.
Lallana does a lot of needless completely unnecessary skill move attempts imo, if he cut that out his game he'd be much better
I totally agree with that opinion and i just think there are other great players in the championship so he is being closely watched while in League 1 he was the best player in the league and tore defenses to shreds each week, now is not able to do that as the defenses are better.
Most top sides that use overlapping fullbacks have an extra man in midfield to cover them and to prevent the counter attack. In the Championship, we can probably get away without the covering midfielder, but in the PL I don't think we would. It would be good though if Frazer and Fox could switch between bombing forward and holding back so we could make use of the overlap on both sides.
I posed the question on the Echo web site a little while ago, is it because the rest of the side are playing so well that Lalas contributions don't stand out as much as they did before? As for the Harding / Fox argument, there is little to choose, but I would play Harding against Brizzle, and he is better at getting to the by-line and crossing, Foxy tends to cut inside. Horses for courses, whatever I trust NA to make the right choice. It is going to be wet and slippery tonight, Connollys lower centre of gravity and control will excel.
For Lallana now read Channon, Paine even Le Tissier in the past. They all had runs when they weren't quite up to their usual standard. As everyone seems to agree, he is probably still the player the opposition would prefer not be turning up. However, the OP was perfectly entitled to raise the question so let's not slag off a fellow sainmt
I really don't get this thread! What on earth has an elephant to do with how well Adam Lallana is playing and who on earth would put an elephant in a room? Have I missed something as I thought I was going to be reading a thread about a zoo.
Obviously never watched Q.I. "Elephant in the room" it's a metaphor, means something obvious that is not being discussed. If there was an elephant in the room it should be the main theme of discussion, but if you chose to ignor it, you won't make it go away.
