He's not going to last at the club as a benchwarmer, plus the longer he does, the lower his re-sale value becomes (unless by some miracle he has an amazing world cup, if selected). So if he's going to be in the first team, who gets dropped to accomodate him? As per yesterday, Rickie? Nah. Or drop the player he's most like, Lallana? Nah. Jay-Rod? Nah. Central Midfielder? Nah. It's clearly a question that neither Adkins or Poch could answer too otherwise he would have played more. It's not about one game, its about the 18 months he's been here, which has mostly been disappointing.
I agree CBK, it is time for him to go. I just got annoyed yesterday, because too many people can't judge a performance of a player without having their 'views' of that player taint that performance. Ramirez looked our most likely player to create something, followed by Adam. Adam had no criticism, yet Ramirez was battered.
As I've said before, the "who do you drop" question is a daft one. We play enough games that we can accommodate all these players. Some games will favour Ramirez, some will favour other players. We should play the most suitable players for each game and no player should expect to play in every game.
Exactly and when we are in a position lie we are now with a few out injured or suspended, it is even more important to have some talented players available. Some will never see that though.
Remember that Gaston was told when he joined Saints that we will "build a team around him". That's still in his mind, even though reality must have sunk in by now. Some players react better to being rotated than others. I don't believe he reacts well to it and it sets him back. I simple do not trust Gaston to perform to a sufficient standard in 4 to 5 games in a row. I'm pretty sure that Pochettino feels the same way (and Adkins before him)
Adam had 2 or 3 players on him all the time. He has earned the right to have a poor game after carrying us in others. Yesterday was Gaston's big chance to prove a lot of people wrong. Did he?
The kid clearly has something. The first half yesterday and glimpses last year he showed us great skill , passing, creativity. Remember his first game at home vs villa last year? I remember coming away from that game thinking dam this guy is the real deal. He's a good playmaker and has great potential still in him. What let's him down is that his ego gets the better of him and he can be very selfish. Thats when he starts all this silly dribbling past players and taking ridiculous long shots and free kick attempts. A selfish playmaker doesn't work. If he could get it into his head that he is a team player and function selflessly as a playmaker should, he will be champions league standard. He is young and young players with selfish egos can be fixed. Look at the likes of Ronaldo. I say sort him out in training and give him some incentive to provide assists as well as goals. Give him lallana as a role model. Given his potential and that his ego is really his only problem, I wouldn't sell him if I was the decision maker
I don't understand the whole "Lallana had two players on him, Gaston only had one." thing. When someone is a good dribbler, you mark him tight/put two men on him etc. and don't let him beat you with the dribble. When you do that, you leave a man open and Lallana has to exploit that by passing to the open player, thus creating an advantage. Lallana wasn't able to do it. When someone is a good passer, you do the opposite. You cover all his targets and take away their passing angles. It's then up to Ramirez to beat his man off the dribble and force another defender to him, then he can use his passing skills to pass to whoever that defender left. Ramirez wasn't able to do it. Bottom line is, neither of them got the job done against fairly basic defensive tactics. Take away the opposition strengths and force the dribbler to pass and the passer to dribble. That loss was not down to just one player. No one was really good enough, it seems. We had no answer for whatever Chelsea did. Either Pochettino got his tactics wrong or Chelsea just had too much quality and quantity of talent for us to overcome and they played a good game.
This is the guy who created our best chance in the first half yesterday, playing Jay Rod through on goal. Against most defences in the league, that move probably would have put us one nil up.
Gaston has not adjusted to English Premier league.........When we acquired him we thought he would just take a few matches to settle down. Sadly that was not to be.....We tried to acquire Courtino who went to Liverpool and managed to fit in from the start...... Can anyone tell me why we couldn't get players that can do that. Does that mean the scouts are not targeting the right players, as to be honest none of our so called expensive players hit the ground running have they?
And Wanyama, to an extent. Our record breaking signings haven't hit the ground running, but I wouldn't complain if Osvaldo started games over Lambert.
When someone is drawing an extra man in this way it is up to the other members of the team to utilise this additional space. Nearly everything we do goes through Adam so when the team continue feeding it to him even though he is the marked man just means that he has to do what he can. Ramirez wasn't the only one. Morgan, Cork and Davis should have been taking advantage of the extra space but just kept feeding it to Lallana. Yes he lost possession a lot but if you have the ball a lot you will lose possession more. Ramirez just tends to do 'show the defender the eyes' passes assuming that his teammates will have read it is going in a different occasion. He did this 2 or 3 times on the right hand side of the box, moving as if he was going to take on the Chelsea player and burst into the box but instead passing it to Chambers. Problem being all 3 times Chambers had to change direction towards the sideline because the passes were too wide. Was a coup for us to sign him. Its a pity it hasn't turned out too well but I cannot understand how people want to give the guy so much patience yet continually belittle Adam's contribution to the team. Some on this forum seem to want shot of him. Some think he is all tricks and no end product. I even read some say he just runs around like a headless chicken. I'm pretty sure the majority can see his one of the shining lights at the moment no matter what some people think of yesterday's performance. In that first half he was awesome but there was never an option for him to pass. He got into shooting positions a couple of times too.
This isn't actually true. Cork and Schneiderlin passed to Lallana only three times each and Davis only once.
We obviously disagree on Ramirez' performance in this game. Lallana has indeed been excellent, but to me that doesn't mean he isn't above criticism.
So Gaston has one 'good' game where he scores an equaliser that could have kept us in it were it not for some shocking defending. Had Vic been playing maybe our mid wouldn't have been cut through so easily and his 'crappy' 30yd goal may have got us a point. Then he has a game where he doesn't create and he's back on the transfer list. He may not be in our strongest XI atm but that doesn't mean he has no use in our squad. I still don't think he has had a long enough period of stability to actively want to sell him. Also to sell a player don't forget a club has to be interested and willing to meet our valuation.
