It's a conspiracy. MP is a centre half. We buy one good centre half, and to make him look better buy an unconvincing midfield player and a striker who doesn't score. In January he'll offload everyone except Boruc and buy 11 new centre halves (a couple will sit on the bench as impact players). I thought we were excellent last Saturday, but not in the final third where it matters. Lambert lives off scraps, which perhaps is making him more and more familiar with playing for England. The stats that we had shots on targets is a bit misleading. I can remember very few that got me expecting a goal, apart from the triple save, but even then I thought it more likely that we'd get a penalty than we'd actually score from open play. I agree with CBK, apart from that chance against West Ham recently for Osvaldo, I can think of very few occasions when our strikers were found wanting when presented with a chance. Lambert for sale? He may lack pace, but he is still one of the best passers of the ball and an excellent target man. Osvaldo doesn't look like a player to form the fulcrum of an attack - he loses the ball too often and can be wayward in his passing. A ball to Lambert's feet usually sticks and he can play other people in. Last Saturday he had very little to play with. The very thought of Lambert coming to Saint Mary's in another team is beyond imagination. If, as CBK says, we are not getting the best out of Lambert, Osvaldo and Rodriguez then the system needs tweeking; we do not need to offload a very good player.
So another way of putting it is... RICKIE LAMBERT HAS SCORED MORE GOALS FOR SAINTS THAN ANY OTHER PLAYER UNDER POCHETTINO.
I don't get all this, "not suited to our style of play" stuff. I would say he's critical to our style of play. He's just one of the few players who plays with his head up and always seems to know whats going on around him. He takes up some interesting positions, often drawing main defenders out of position. He makes some great passes and rarely gives the ball away cheaply. He hit the post last week, a chance that no one else in the team would even have got a head to. Maybe, he's not scoring enough to satisfy everyone but I don't see anyone else scoring more.
Yeah, he's finishing better than the clinical duo of Jay Rodriguez and Adam Lallana, and has scored more than Osvaldo could manage in three games, so fair play to him for that, I guess.
Yes Lambert hasn't scored from open play yet , but neither has anyone else ! and with Osvaldo who has it all to prove , and J rod who cannot be relied upon to get an amount of goals per season that is required , and Lee again being no world beater .....selling Lambert would be crazy , his presence and worth to Southampton FC far outways a quick cash in 5 mil just as he is getting on . This does not mean I cant see it happening but would make no sense in my eyes , unless we bring in a new striker now who dislodges lambert from his place and links up well with Osvaldo and the goals flow . Hopefully lazy journalism
Oh the fickle fickle fickle fickle fan. Give it a few more games... "sell that ****ing useless **** Lambert, fat ****er, never done anything"
Hardly fickle to say he's been far less effective under Pochettino than under Adkins. Of course I don't want him gone, but I'm not exactly pretending he's as vital to us now as he has been over the last three and a half years.
Rickie Lambert is still a huge asset and it is true to say that our recent style of play hasn't lent itself to free scoring from the whole team in open play and I believe that we will see a few more 1-0 wins before the season ends. This is possibly the first lean spell of Rickie's Saints career although I believe he got off to a slow start in our League 1 promotion season if my memory serves me well and questions were being asked then. I honestly believe it is a matter of time before he starts scoring again, hopefully in tandem with Dani, I guess it comes down to whether you have faith in his ability or not.
True. Also, I guess its whether fans still support with their hearts, instead of thinking its a glorified version of playing Football Manager.
January is more than three months and between 14-16 matches away. We'll know by then how our situation at striker has shaken out.
No I don't think it is. This is journalism that is making up the scenario, based on all the circumstances and evidence seeming to fit, at present. But circumstances have a habit of changing, and thence so does the evidence. Eventually, Osvaldo and Lambert will find a way and then we'll have no more of this talk. However, at the moment, it looks quite plausible. If I was a sports journalist, I would probably venture the same scenario.
What, cobble together a non-story out of nothing, because there's nothing to say? How is that not lazy journalism? No, actually you're right; it isn't journalism at all.
This is the kind of story that we could all make up as a plausible scenario....doesn't mean there is no truth in it. However, we are not exactly buried under rampant goal scorers...the only way this would pan out is if Mauricio has his eye on another player and he needs the money from the sale of Lambert. I think MP is more hardheaded than his pleasant, smiley demeanour suggests, but it feels like we are being asked to sell our firstborn.
It's not a non-story out of nothing. A proportion of journalism is venturing to make something out circumstances, particularly if people will sit up and take notice. If they just reported news of events [like they should, in my opinion] our newspapers would be back to a thin half-dozen sheets.
"Goal has learned", "Goal understands", makes me want to strangle someone. I suppose that's the point.
Absolutely. I suspect somewhere down the newsline, Poch has said something that could twisted or construed to mean that any player is replaceable. It doesn't take too much further twisting that a player like Lambert could be as well.
