While Adkins is a legend for getting us promoted two seasons running, the question for me has to be, would he have achieved either of those promotions without Rickie Lambert's goals (and all round contribution)? For me, the answer is no. He wouldn't. That he should leave him out now is by far the most ridiculous team selection since Branfoot left out you-know-who. Perhaps even more so, at least Branfoot had a theory behind his decision. I don't feel embarrassed by yesterday's result despite my mates winding me up, because, sadly, I've been using "Adkins" as our excuse. How sad is that? What happened to the great man?
I don't understand how people don't understand that Lambert is not being left out. Adkins didn't start him not because he think he isn't good enough, but because he knows he is our most valuable attacking threat (with Gaston crocked, anyway). It was always going to be a very very tough away game. We set out there with a plan of playing conservatively and staying in the game, before bringing on Lambert to do what he does best and lift us to victory, or at the very least a point. There's no point having him run about for the first 45 minutes doing nothing, especially since running about is his least favourite thing to do on the football pitch. Better get JRod out there, who himself is hungry to prove he can contribute as a striker and not a winger, let him run his socks off and put a shift in, which he did, and he set up a goal very abley. Meanwhile, Lambert looks on, ready and raring, liked a caged bull waiting to be unleashed, Lambert comes on, bags a goal, we win happy days. You might think that's wishful thinking but it very, very nearly happened. If it weren't for 2 minutes of madness at the start of the first half, we would have been 0-0 when he was introduced and we could have bagged a couple, even in the situation in which he did come on, we were looking on top and likely to come back until the penalty killed us. I said it on the thread I made, but we were 20 seconds of defensive concentration away from winning that game, and from Adkins keeping Lambert on the bench looking like pure tactical genius. There are fine lines in football, we found ourselves very narrowly on the wrong side of that line today no matter how bad the scoreline makes it look.
Here's an idea... Start with Rickie Lambert, since he is by far and away our best chance of getting a goal, and then we might score in the first half and make the other team do the chasing for once. Sorry, but giving yourselves half an hour to win a game instead of 90 minutes is ****ing ******ed. Rickie doesn't need to be an impact sub, he is far far FAR too important for that. Leave that to Mayuka, J-Rod etc. I do admire your attempts to justify Nigel though. Fair play. But open your eyes, he is out of his depth.
Leaving Lambert out and going for a 4-6-0 counter attacking anti football is a disgrace and totally out of sync with this football club , the worst formation I can ever remember . Leaving out your goalscorer to try to prevent goals is ****ing stupid .
We didn't give ourselves 30 minutes to win a game, we gave ourselves 90 minutes to win the game, instead of going all out to win a game in 60 minutes and then losing it in the last 30. And just throwing Rickie Lambert into that game with that set-up would have changed little. As I have said, we played a conservative, solid style in an attempt to control the ball and kill West Ham's attacking threat. Many people have complained about our defence, and it was set-up even worse than it has been all season with Yoshida at LB, so what do you do if you have a bad defence in an even worse injury situation? Do you throw your best attacking men forward for 90 minutes and leave yourself open? Or do you look to keep control of the ball, take the sting out of the other team and protect your troubled defence? I know which one I'd choose. To make that happen, we played with 5 midfielders, 2 deep, and 3 in slightly more interchangeable positions further up the pitch, and a striker to chase and harrass West Ham into even more long balls than they would play anyway. That wasn't to say we had NO attacking intent, in fact we were more dangerous than them before half-time, and even after half-time, that style earned a goal with JRod setting up Lallana, but it was the completely wrong situation for Lambert, West Ham are set-up to deal with him, but he's a clever player and a quality one so he wouldn't allow himself to be dominated, but at the same time he would not make much impact. The way West Ham played left no room for Lambert's style of play, they were just sat with 10 men behind the ball for long periods, it needed someone who was going to move around and pull defenders with him, and run into channels, and JRod did that and it also almost got him a very nice goal. Lambert would probably have had little or no effect on that period of the game, when he can have an effect, and when we needed him was in the second half, with him fresh and raring to go, and whilst JRod and Mayuka are good players, they have both had little success this season other than Mayuka against Villa, so if we needed someone to make an impact it was Lambert. Too often this season we have done well for the first periods of the game, gotten our lead and then lost it largely because our players have gotten tired and we've subbed off our best players who started the game for less-than-stellar replacements, we couldn't see out the end of City, United or Fulham, and we couldn't even see out 20 minutes in the Everton game because of how we were set-up. Nigel has learned from that, like we all want him to, and so instead of going balls-to-wall from the off and then running out of steam, he chose to bide his time keep us in control of the game, and then utilise our attacking talents once we had placed ourselves in a position to allow them to win us the game. It's a cliche, but it's a marathon not a sprint, how often in long distance running or cycling or whatever, do you see someone sprint out full pace in to the front, and then manage to stay there and win? Not often, you see people keep themselves around the front, keep themselves in control and in with a chance of winning, and then when the moment is right they give all they've got and push for the finish. Why don't they sprint at the beginning, because they don't need to and it's counter-intuitive to what they want to achieve and they need to save their energy for when they need it. And we didn't start Lambert, not because we couldn't sprint from the off, not because he couldn't put us into the lead, but because it was counter-intuitive to what we were looking to achieve, and by sprinting from the off it would allow our opponents to eventually overtake us and leave us for dust. We played in a manner that almost worked perfectly, if it wasn't for a few uncontrollable errors in concentration, I have a great degree of certainty that we would have gotten at least a point. We had 61% possession in the game and we had 81% pass accuracy to their 67%, and we even won the battle in the air which is supposed to be their strong point by 53% to 47%. What does this show you, we controlled the game, stopped them froming being able to string 2 or 3 passes together, and even nullified their aerial threat. And when I saw those stats a couple hours after the game, when I was myself still unsure how we had lost and what had gone wrong, I asked myself the classic question, "How on earth did we lose that game?" And the answer to the question of how you lose a game of 61% possession, completely outpassed the other team and won the aerial battle. And that answer is simple, bad luck, and a couple of bad moments that ruined a game that we were otherwise set-up to win. If you think we played 4-6-0 then you either don't understand how formations work, or you're just purposefully massively exaggerating in attempt to prove your point. And the idea that we played counter-attacking is just plain wrong so I don't know how you've come to that conclusion, and people often use this sarcastically as a stupid attempt to undermine someones point of view, but I'm genuinely asking, did you actually watch the game?
Yes , and it was 4-6-0 counter attacking anti football hence Rodrigiez played over Lambert as he has more pace .
% is a curse of the modern game , they actually mean little , we had a lot of possession but where did we have it ? And even if we had that figure the ones that count are the ones thats says 1-4 against .
You're not wrong mate, when you see such misguided and clueless people out there you always want to convince them to see reason but with some people you've got to say enough is enough and give up because they're not worth the time.
I hate to say it but gomarchingin is right about those statistics. Our possession percentage is irrelevant, our passing success rate is irrelevant, and what percentage of headers we won is irrelevant. There's only one statistic that matters in football - West Ham scored 4 times and we scored once. I would also argue that if you have the worst defensive record in the league and have no choice but to pick defenders who've shown they have a tendency to switch off and make silly mistakes that lead to goals then trying to play conservatively is NOT a good plan. Finally, if you insist on dropping one of your best players to the bench to take a more conservative approach then I think it's Lallana rather than Lambert who should make way. You don't generally leave out your best forward to play more defensively, but dropping a creative midfielder in favour of a more combative option happens all the time.
Easy now. Just cos I don't agree with you no need for that! If Adkins tactics are so spot on, why are we where we are? Precisely. Agree with this. Lambert is one of our best defensive players at times, holding it up in their half and covering at set pieces etc.
I don't think he was referring to you - while your opinions are contrary to his, they are certainly more reasoned than a particular somebody.
Lambert should have been on from the begining... J-Rod has done nothing this season... Billy Sharp shuoldn't have been loaned out... We have a centre back playing at left back... To say our defence is fragile is an understatement. I think we're going down with the Rangers...
I have just discussed this exact same point on a different thread haha. There is a difference between statistics that count and statistics that matter. You are entirely right, the only statistics that actually count are goals scored, goals conceded, games, drawn, won and lost and the points total. But just because those are the only statistics that count but not the only ones that matter. You cannot take life on face value and there is always a story behind everything, always a context and always varying circumstances. We could have been 2-0 up and then three of our players simultaneously collided and broken their legs, with us already using 2 subs we play the rest of the game with 2 men down, West Ham come back and win 3-2 and at the end of the day the only stats that count are that we lost, and we once again got no points, but those would not be the only things that matter. A very hypothetical situation of course, but just an example. And you can make that argument yes, but I'm not entirely sure how. Of course whenever you have a leaky defence, especially one as banged up as ours, you want to take the pressure off of them and you can either do that by playing conservative and carefully, keeping the ball away from your opponents and limiting their oppurtunities to attack, or you can risk it for the biscuit and attack to try and outscore your opponent regardless of how open it leads you at the other end... But do you really think we would have outscored them 5-4 if we had tried this? Of course it would have been a different game, but for every change we made to try and attack the game, we would have exposed ourselves defensively, and in our situation playing a risk like that just doesn't seem prudent. We're not that desperate yet, are we? Sorry mate not referring to you at all, you raise perfectly legitimate concerns and have backed them up, that wasn't aimed at you whatsoever, gomarchingin on the other hand seems to just frequently post drivel, and whilst I like to give people a chance and show them respect when I don't know them or where they are coming from, it has gotten to the point where I have seen enough of him to decide he doesn't deserve respect or a second thought. And I don't think Adkins tactics have been spot on all season, I'm not a blind fool, many times this season he has shown his inexperience and naivety, but the thing that I take away from how we were set-up against West Ham is that in many areas he is improving and learning. He's not Fergie, but he's getting better.
I cant believe people buy this whole saving lambert thing. He's our best player when we attack well generally it goes all through him, hes a physical presence a goal scorer has great vision and can even cross well. Why wouldnt you start him. Just because its going to be a difficult game? You play your best players to enable you to get into the game and create chances, impact players are great but there not your best players there players who offer something different from your best stratergy such as pace or something. The last years have proven our best stratergy is with lambert (mainly through lambert) deffensively aswell he helps by actually holding the ball up. If it doesnt work then fine change it but its ludicrous to say oh he'll win us the game in 30 mins lets only play him then. The only sensible reason would be if he couldnt physically play a full 90 but that is not what is being suggested here.
I think he must start no matter what. We always look better with him on the pitch. I understand the arguments for him starting on the bench but won't accept starting with him on the bench is a valid tactic. You must always start with your best team. There is a reason top sides don't go to each others back yards and start with their best player on the bench. This isn't really a valid tactic from Adkins. You make yourself weaker for an hour. In our case we have no real threat without Lambert (with Ramirez out). It took a fantastic goal from Lallana yesterday, a really top goal for us to score.
