Typical Saints fans. lol Osvaldo hasn't scored yet but he should replace Rickie. Ramirez should be in to improve our home play when he's not shown he can do that....yet. Wanyama AMC above? I think you should watch Pochettino more. He is not setting up differently home and away. He is saying we play this way and you need to find a way to beat it.
Cannot believe anyone would consider dropping Rickie. His layoffs were poor on Saturday, and his general game was probably his worst for the season but you could still see how valuable he is to the team - the pass to clyne, the knockdown to Jrod etc. It would make no sense to drop one of our best players particularly when we played better than liverpool for the entire time he was on the pitch. To cite Davis' 25 minute cameo when Liverpool were trying to salvage some points is spurious at best. Davis was very good and is a brilliant sub to bring on to close out a match but he's hardly the answer to our goals problem and nor is dropping Lambert. Its a fair point that Lambert isn't as well suited to the faster pace, nor is davis, that we have been playing the last game and a half and I can certainly see a time when starting rickie on the bench would be preferrable however he is still one of our best players and has been well involved in our best attacking spells recently. I genuinely think Osvaldo is going to bring the best out of Rickie and I fail to see how Osvaldo or the team would be better served by dropping our most creative passer of the ball (bar ramirez who needs to have a good hard look at himself.)
The question is whether we can have Rickie/Osvaldo playing together and have some sort of link through midfield; we've been sacrificing the latter of late in favour of the former. With Davis out there, we had much more flow to our attacks...while he was personally excellent, I also think that it owed partially to simply having that central bridge that we've often lacked.
Whilst I agree it is better to have the right player in the right position, we can't assume that players like Rickie and Dani cannot adjust and make it work. Still in the bedding in stage....I'm just praying that it does. Would hate SRL to play less and jeopardise his chance of Rio.
Rickie has hit his ceiling I think, he does need to be dropped if we want to move up the league. He is too slow for us to be a fast, fluid attacking force and IMO a big reason why we haven't been prolific in open play. I still love the guy, but in the next few weeks I will be amazed if he's a starter...
Blinking heck OTB that's going to set the hares running! I don't agree. I think he's bound to suffera drop off in form after the adrenaline rush of England etc. Give hinm a few days off and he'll be back all guns blazing!
Osvaldo hasn't scored yet either. A few on SaintsWeb are saying he's awful!?! Just need a couple of goals and both will be on song. I had hoped the 2 England goals would have kick started Lambie, but he will score soon. Lovely free kick against Palace or a tap in....doesn't matter.
Penalty would be great for the team, but think Lambo needs a goal from open play or a beautiful free kick for his confidence.
As I've said before, i'm not for dropping Lambert, but I think we would play better with a single striker. We can win games with two strikers as proven at Anfield, but it seems to me our game would be much more fluid if there was a creative attackng midfielder behind the striker. In that case, i think our sole striker (Lambert or Osvaldo) would get much better service and would score more goals.
Im not advocating dropping Rickie at this stage at all but we need to accept that he won't be banging them in forever at the highest level. There will come a time when those calling for him to be dropped will be (sadly) correct. But not atm! We are lucky that we have 2 other strikers to take the pressure off ricky if he is carrying a knock etc. Also worth noting that he may need a rest from time to time- he will not heal/recover as quickly as a teenager. People talk about having to protect young players being fragile etc but the same consideration must be given to an older player. I believe he can play with osvaldo, not every player needs to be lightening quick. As long as J rod is there for a bit of pace and shaw and clyne are fit we have enough quick players. Perhaps the question should be can we afford to play lambert/osvaldo at the expense of J Rod?
I've said before we shouldn't overwork Rickie too early. A game or two starting on the bench would do him some good IMO.
I won't argue too strongly that we should drop Lambert but he's only scored 2 goals from open play under Pochettino so it's a fair question to ask. At this point Osvaldo looks a better player to me but he needs to produce goals to totally convince me. I think that's only a matter of time though.
I don't like saying it, but Lambert hasn't been great under MP. He's got everything but pace, and very little of that, which slows down our play. Osvaldo has looked good every time I've seen him, he just needs to start scoring. Ramirez deserves a go, and if it doesn't work out then he'll be dropped. He'll add pace, skill and a more positive attitude to our attack. I don't want to drop Wanyama but also want Cork and Schneiderlin together. When Wanyama gives the ball away, I want it to be as far away from our goal as possible. Playing at home against West Ham showed that we struggle to break down defensive teams. Having a super sub, like Lambert, will help change our gameplan and give us a plan B. Playing away from home will mean that the home them should dominate the game, so being too attacking may leave us too open.
Can't agree with you there JFB. Rickie and Jrod were tearing defences apart towards the end of last season.
Rickie wasn't. He was knackered and was carrying an injury. He hardly scored in that period. What were you watching?
This, I'm not sure how many goals Rickie has scored from open play since Pochettino came in, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that it is one.
