Back to Davis, is it time he had his own song? I went to the world cup in Germany 2006 and the England fans out there had a (slightly ironic) song for Owen Hargreves to the chorus of can't take my eyes off of you by Frankie Valli, which might be appropriate now more fans seem to be feeling the love... It went: Oh Owen Hargreves You are the love of my life Oh Owen Hargreves I'd let you shag my wife Oh Owen Hargreves I want curly hair toooooooo. Swap names and curly for ginger then repeat until bored....
His end product is and was terrible compared to how highly he is or was rated. If you don't my opinion that's tough luck. It's my view and I'm sticking by it. I thought the same when he was playing for us. He's a good player, but not special at all. His end product isn't good enough to be special and never will be. Lambert was incredible for us and we simple looked lost as a side whenever he wasn't in the team. Lambert was talismanic and a very unique, unselfish, centre forward with a great eye for a pass. The fact that he was a target man too and never missed a penalty made him a special and unique player. Lallana's end product isn't good enough and never was. Lambert was the king of end product when he played for us. Whether it be goals or assists. When people were whining he was past it in his last season for us he still had a direct hand in 23 of our goals in that season, which is a phenomenal return for any player. Lallana only had a hand in 14 that season and was apparently brilliant. So Lambert was past it and Lallana was brilliant that season was the general consensus? Ridiculous logic in my opinion. I'm not saying being involved in 14 goals is bad, it's decent. The problem I have is the apparent conclusion that Lallana's season was brilliant and Lambert's was bad. That was nonsense. The last season Lallana played for us he got 9 goals, 5 assists for us and people were over-hyping him like mad. Rodriguez got 15 goals and 3 assists that season for god's sake and none of the goals were penalties..nor did he take any set pieces. Rodriguez was electric for us that season and covered more ground than literally any player in the league per 90 minutes. He was everywhere..So despite Lallana getting bigged up so much Rodriguez' season was better as far as I'm concerned. The Lallana hype and favouritism was odd and remains odd to me. Rodriguez was clearly the better player in 2013/14. 15 goals in a season without a penalty is going to be tough for Pelle to match this season and Rodriguez got them from the wing exerting all his energy getting up and down the park. It's why a huge reason why he ended up breaking down.
If one sets aside statistics for a moment [and I set aside Twatcheeks and say Lallana] one can start to appreciate him better. There's no doubt that Lallana was the best technical player in SFC, in terms of ball control. I have no doubt he's the best technical player at Liverpool by quite a margin. When he plays for England he's possibly the most skilful player on the park. That has never been a problem for him. He's one of the most naturally gifted players with either foot that one is likely to see. What Lallana has always had trouble doing is turning that technical skill to his advantage. For me, he doesn't have much of a football brain beyond the conventional coaching. He's not innovative and therefore he's predictable. This means he can be rendered ineffective. Ramirez, on the other hand, is technically gifted enough, and does possess a football brain beyond the coaching manual. However, it appears that he doesn't have the physical attributes sufficient for the PL. Even now though I still have hopes for him. Rickie Lambert is very interesting. If one reads back through his playing history one can find that he failed at several positions, whilst having confidence within himself that he could do better. He first came to some level of prominence in midfield, because he was getting nowhere as a striker, and then it was only at Bristol Rovers that he began picking up some kind of form as a target man. That caught the eye of Les Reed and Alan Pardew and the rest is history. But Lambert retained that midfielder's eye for a pass and his confidence in his technical ability was not misplaced. He's not just good for a big man, he's just plain good. Add that to a football brain which exceeds Ramirez's, and certainly Lallana's and you have effectiveness, albeit blunted these days, but he's past his prime. He and Saints simply found a way to play football without pace, in a world of football which demands it. That's clever. Now back to the stats and Twatcheeks.
Which damages the case for statistics used in isolation. All three of those were pivotal. The pass was perfect, the flick sublime and the cross inch-perfect yet Bertrand alone gets the assist. Vin
I've often thought this. A player could run the whole length of the field avoiding 8 or 10 tackles, cross the ball to an unmarked player who touches it to someone who puts it in, but only the goal scorer and the second player get any credit in the stats. Football is, after all, a team game.
Which is why football clubs cover every aspect of the game in analysis and statistics. The goals and assists are for the media and supporters to chew over. The player who makes the perfect pass to the assistant gets his just due.
They keep track of everything now. That guy would get credit for each attempted and successful dribble, an attempted and successful cross, and the distance he ran. And I'm just talking about the basic minimal level of stats anyone can just look up on Squawka or WhoScored. The clubs themselves will have far more than that.
I think a player has to become prolific in assists for it to become a useful stat. There's lots of varriations in individual examples, as you stated; would the players who gave the ball to MLT be credited with assists before he wove his magic?
But it's all in the package. That player would not get credit for any successful take-ons/dribbles, or for a throughball, etc. They would get credit for an assist and a key pass, but that's not altogether unfair. I mean, no one would argue that being able to complete a pass to MLT was a key skill and way to victory for those Saints sides. And it won't be that easy to get the ball to MLT because other teams will be marking him. The stats are definitely not perfect. And you can't just take one or two stats from one player in one game in isolation. But if you look at the team over a season, you will get a pretty clear idea of how the team plays, and who does what, and generally how good they were at it. You shouldn't be wedded to whatever Opta spits out. But stats are far more useful than some of you think. And in most cases, they are better than your own observations colored by bias and emotion, and trying to watch a game from a long way away while some tall dude keeps jumping up and down and getting in your way.
Which is why Lallana's assist goals cannot be the method used to assess his 'end product'. Which is probably why he was first choice for Adkins and Pochetino ahead of players with more end product goals and assists.
I agree with that. That's also probably part of the reason why Gaston was far from starting eleven for three different Southampton manager, and why no club has tried to acquire his services in that period.
One manager not liking you is unfortunate, three smacks of carelessness #literaryreference. Ramirez is that rare thing....a career stalled by coming to Southampton on high wages. He probably would have had had a far better career on the continent.
I wouldn't want to intentionally spoil the Lady Bracknell paraphrase, but it's not true that Koeman [or Adkins for that matter] doesn't like him. Koeman would accommodate him if he was available. But he has invariably been injured, according to the evidence of Ronald. Latterly there is that problem of, will he, won't he, leave, and when. You can't make a player a regular if you expect him to find the exit door very soon. So he's going to be peripheral unless all parties decide on a revised contract, or he leaves. Then Saints can either build him into the side properly, injuries aside, or get the farewell bunting out. Sadly, I think it will be the latter.
The amount of rubbish written by the Lallana fans in here is laughable. I compared their advanced stats. Gaston's are better. I compared their end product. Gaston's is better. The Lallana lovers need to get over it. He had absolute **** end product for how highly rated he was, end of story. We've gone into details like dribbles won, key passes, through balls etc already in the comparison. His defensive stats are also poor compared to how acclaimed he was for his work rate. The stats don't tell the whole story either about Lallana's defending, it's another aspect of his game that was massively over rated as far as I'm concerned. Lallana defends like a headless chicken and doesn't understand that when you have the ball you must defend as a team. The problem with many fans is they don't have a clue about how a midfield is supposed to defend. Not only did Lallana run around like a headless chicken with no tactical understanding and create huge holes in the midfield the opposition could exploit.....Rodriguez covered comfortably more ground in 2013-14, but he stayed in defensive shape far better. He banged in 15 goals in without a penalty that season and Lallana got the team of the season. It's time some football fans started gaining an actual understanding of football in both attacking and defending. Pointless Cruyff turns and fancy dribbling is literally pointless at any level. As is running about without using your brain. I'm leaving this debate there. Some people really are too stubborn and delusional to debate with. They pull excuses out their arse that don't even make sense. Like claiming the stats don't show this and that when they really do. I'm done here, we can't go on about Lallana forever and it's getting boring now. I'd rather drop it now considering how disloyal and dishonest he was after being made captain.
. That's wrong. I don't know how old you are, but I'd guess you are not over 40. A Cruyff turn on a Fat Dads Monday evening knock about is absolutely priceless . . Ps. Good to see you have returned to the traditional posting style after quite a few nicely written, well thought out sensible ones and I'll use priceless again at this comment of yours below. I've pulled it out, even though I agreed with your post on this topic the other day and so I am not one of the people you refer to in your eloquently written post above. The comment, as mentioned is priceless ...coming from you: "Some people really are too stubborn and delusional to debate with." Tintin, 10:00 am, Friday 20th November 2015 Edit: I have just caught up on the previous page and I found this quote: "If you don't (like) my opinion that's tough luck. It's my view and I'm sticking by it" Mmm, I wonder who wrote that? The great debater?
Thank you Vin. I thought people had missed my point entirely. I'll be reading next that Clasie doesn't get any assists and is rubbish...
You go on about his defensive inadequacies yet fail to deliver any stats on things like 'interceptions' or balls won or tackles made or whatever you want to call the numerous times he would pinch the ball back. Can you give me the stats on how many off the ball runs he made that created space. How many times he was tackled or had attemtped tackles on him by more than 1 opposing player etc? You are looking at the simple stats. That is like looking at defender's pass completion rates when a lot of their passes are to each other just outside their own box and saying our defenders are better than Allardyce's purely from that fact. Our defenders are better of course but you can't decide that off their pass completion because Allardyce's hoof it out. Get over the stats and use your eyes unless you have insider info on the detailed black box stats or why Adkins and Pochetino and Hodgson picked him? Even Glenn Hoddle who famously ditched the flair of Le God in favour of more workmanlike players insists that Lallana must be picked. I get people can think he was overated but to try and say 2 managers with stats at hand to boot favoured Lallana over Gaston. I can't stand the bloke now but I don't think he was overated at all. Nor am I comparing him to Rodriguez. Different players in different positions. Ramirez and Lallana were fighting for the same position and was chosen by 2 club managers and an England manager to boot for his performances. What is laughable that you cannot see the wood for the trees. The guy was immense for us and his problem now is not that he isn't delivering for his new club. It is that his role is different allied with the problem of having to play with different players, getting used to new systems, playing under a clueless manager, having now to impress another manager and the other fact that he is in direct competition with Coutinho for his favoured position and therefore is having to alter the way he plays. I assume you will be telling us that Klopp is an idiot as well if he picks him?
Lallana was important to us in the past...no denying that. And yet the loss of Lallana still didn't bring Ramirez into the side even when fit. He has a cloud hanging over him and that's a fact whether we understand it or not.
