1 - Awful first half, better second, but still not exactly good. Just better than the absolute dross we're used to this season. 2 - No. 2 subs, Gerrard on first (Of course) and then Lovren a few minutes from time. Let's just say missing the game was hardly a travesty
Really didn't understand why Lovren came on for 5 minutes or whatever, other than to try and eat into the clock a bit. But he should be nowhere near the team, Toure had another good performance yesterday and should be the automatic starting choice. Another thing that is infuriating me is Lambert's positional play. For a number 9 the amount of time he is actually in the box is ridiculous, if you watch our attacks again yesterday he's never there when the ball's going in, always out of position, too wide, too deep, just utterly ****. I can't figure out if it's because he's not fit and quick enough to get back into position or what??
Lovren for Coutinho was clearly to help deal with the last minute balls pumped into the box (and it was 9 minutes with the long ET). Sterling's cross is the perfect example. Sturridge would be looking to get on the end of that. I think Lambert is starting deeper because he is expecting more to hold the ball up than be a one touch finish striker. BTW did anyone else love it when Lucas got forward and almost scored? That's exactly what we need (done sensibly and then running back too).
Exactly. Exactly. Sturridge would be testing their line, pushing forward and dropping back a bit, moving around on the limits of their defence. Majority of Laberto's play is actually just at the top end of our midfield, just outside the 'D' (that's what she said), sometimes dropping deeper, sometimes going wide - too often actually. He must be being coached to do this which seems unbelievably stupid when since Sturridge went out we've been crying out for another leading line striker.
When you buy average/mediocre players, that''s what you get. However, we didn't pay CL prices for him like we do with others so it's not too bad.
To be fair to Lambert, he's not a traditional number 9. He isn't a player that burst into the box, he's more a link up player. He plays better when the ball is passed into him and he can feed players either side of him making runs in to support. He's decent in the air and can do a job there but he's not going be hanging around the 6 yard box looking for those tap ins because that's not what he's done for the last 15 years
Really? As a 3rd /4th choice striker he's an option. If there is a 1v1 in the last 5 minutes of a game I'd rather it fell to Lambert than Borini or even Balotelli at the moment. Problem is, at the moment, number 1 is injured and number 2 has been shockingly bad meaning he's had to step up. In the last 3 games, he scored 2 and set up a winner in the 3rd. I'd take that from a number 3
It's about context mate. We had just gotten into the CL and we spunk money on 3 Soton players. We had a world class attack last season and we end up with Lambert, Balotelli and Borini. We showed more ambition during the transfer windows when we didn't have CL.
And strikers will be judged on goals so Lambert will get the plaudits. But that aside, he's been poor. Those goals mask the massive deficiencies in his game. Johnson was voted LFC MOTM because of that goal but that was probs his worst performance - which says something. It's the same when people say Gerrard was brilliant last year because of his set pieces. The overall open play performance was poor.
Alright! Been travelling to Hawaii, a few places in Fiji, to Sydney, Brisbane, Cains, Adelaide and Melbourne, then New Zealand. Also been sulking tbh. Fed up of us being **** and generally underachieving. I've never seen such an incompetent company as ours.
But spending £4m on a back up CF who had scored 10+ goals in each of his last 2 seasons in the PL isn't bad business. I agree on the other 2 and agree we showed more ambition last year but remember we did go for Sanchez this year. Pull that off and our attack would be Sturridge, Sanchez, Sterling with Lambert as back up - that's a pretty decent attack. It was never going to be as good as last year as player wise, there's only 2 or 3 people in the World we could have got to make our attack as good or better and we had no chance of getting any of them. Balotelli is the one, if we used that money better, even on someone like Bony then Lambert as a 3rd/4rd option still looks good.
we had ambition we're just losing out to clubs with better title/trophy prospects. the players don't want to come.
