Ok I'm definatly jumping to conclusions which will delight the majority of posters but i was reading an interview Adkins gave and he was explaining his decision to sub Lambert on saturday and he basically said that he was trying to make us tougher to score against and in doing so Lambert was a luxury that we couldn't afford. I have 2 issues with this statement 1 his that Lambert is a much more useful player defensivly than jrod imo. and 2. we are at home to fulham with 30 minutes to go and we take off our best chance at a goal and making the game safe, i know it wasn't his best game but he is always going to be a threat. Now i can see Adkins using Lambert as a sub and bringing him on for the last 30 minutes especially away from home and his reason will be that he's trying to cure our defesive issues. My question is if this were to happen 1. do you think it will help us be tougher to score against. And 2. will Lambert be happy with being an impact player.
He was one of our best defenders! The amount of clearances he made was ridiculous. Adkins got the substitutions wrong for me. I thought Puncheon was helping back a lot as well. Rodriguez was doing nothing going forward or back, and shold have been the one that made way
I think you have to allow the manager to call it Rickie isnt that quick. Fulham were pushing forward and Nigel clearly thought Guly was more mobile. Didn't work but that's why you empoly managers to take tough decisions!
No SK I don't but I'm pretty sure if he thought it was the right thing to do he'd have the balls to do it. Man City showed us that. For me it was bad luck that cost us the win yesterday rather than the subs.
It was bad luck and Mr Clattenburg who stopped us going more than 1 goal up in the first half but it the subs that cost us i the 2nd half.
I'm not just talking about yesterday if i'm honest just in his interview he was suggesting that lambert wasn't mobile enough and as he had to start him its always going to get a negative reaction from the fans when he subs him.
if he can only last 60 minutes then he shouldn't be playing. He wasn't knackered it was an incorrect tactical sub. I for one am very interested in what team starts against west ham as i believe adkins will be setting up to try not to concede and if and when we do thats when rickie will come on.
Rickie isn't particularly mobile, and on occassions he will be replaced. Nigel has to make that decision and I'll back him to do that when he sees fit to do so. Fulham had dominated us in the second half, way before Rickie was replaced and I think Nigel had seen this, so was trying to shake it up a bit. We will never know if it was the right thing to do or not. I'm not concerned for Rickie's future. He'll be a part of this team this season. I wouldn't be surprised though if before the end of the season and certainly next season, he takes more of a back seat.
Sorry but Rickie is not defensively better than Guly or J-Rod. He may be good at heading and making clearances from set pieces but he's not going to harry and hassle opposition players like the other two would. I totally understand why he was taken off. Ok, so it didn't work out but if you can't at least see the thought process behind it you've got no business questioning the decision.
Villa win 4-1 playing 1-4-2-3-1..... Everton lost 3-1 playing 1-4-4-2.. Fulham (at home) drew 2-2 and played off the park for 40minutes.. 1-4-4-2.. Any message there? If you play 1-4-2-3-1 Lambert is about 3 times more effective than JRod, if you play 1-4-4-2 then surely Lambert and somebody with real pace, (now who might that be?) playing off him.. Just point of view.. come on you Saints..
Norwich fan in peace. I don't understand Adkins' thinking on this, unless it was simply to inject some new life into your attack at that stage of this particular game (67 minutes). That's a perfectly good reason for subbing Lambert, and Holt quite often gets subbed for that reason for us. If a striker's run himself into the ground for 70 minutes, it forces the opposition to pause and reassess rather than keep piling forward knowing they face a diminished threat. But I don't see that as having any general implication for Lambert's "future". Surely the greatest help he can be to the defence is to keep frightening the life out of the opposition.
To be fair Rickie made a very important tackle and clearance in the first half, don't know why he was, where he was, but if he hadn't have been there at the time Fulham would have scored.
For me it was quite simple - sorry Nigel you got your subs wrong again! We all make mistakes just try not to keep making them and taking your top striker off so early in the game isn't clever
Fulham only really looked dangerous from set pieces for a lot of it. Maybe it was because I only watched on TV (had work Sunday morning), but I didn't see Rodriguez doing that much hassling. I'm not questioning that a sub should have been made, I just think it was the wrong decision. The other main reason I think it should have been Rickie that stayed on is because he is such a good outlet. Why we were playing JRod against Haangeland I will never know, he got absolutely dominated. Rickie would have had far more luck in the air, as he is outrageously good at holding the ball up. Rodriguez is a striker that is better running off the last defender. It made no sense to take rickie off, and meant we kept inviting pressure back onto ourselves.
Have you only been following us for one season? Some of his subs last season and in League 1 were inspired. He may have made a couple of wrong calls this season, but a manager always looks like a genius when a gamble pays off, and a mug when it doesn't. To say he doesn't have a clue says more about you than Adkins frankly.
Lambert won 2 out of 4 headers, Rodriguez won 2 out of 6. Make of that what you will! Not to mention against City both subs scored within minutes of coming on!
