Hope for Gaston?

[SouthamptonFCroatia]

Is he is as good as people would have us believe, we should have no problem finding a buyer, they must be lining up already.

 

[Puck]

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 tend to agree with this. I'd also say that I remember going to The Dell in the early 90s and hearing plenty of people around me and my dad make similar complaints about how selfish Le Tissier was, how he tried to do too much with the ball etc etc. The Ronaldo point is an interesting one. He looked a show pony for 2 or 3 seasons before becoming almost unplayable.

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.

To follow up what PTF said about "just feeding it to Lallana" not being backed up by the facts, according to whoscored.com, Ramirez touched the ball 75 times, Davis 72 and Lallana 65. So, of our 3 attacking midfielders, Lallana actually saw the least of the ball.

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.

The thing that gets me is this. Lallana has generally been hailed as fantastic this season and quite a few people talk about how crap Ramirez was last season and yet in terms of creativity - their primary role in the team - there isn't a vast difference between them.

Last season Ramirez got 5 goals and 3 assists in 1699 minutes on the pitch
This season Lallana has got 4 goals and 6 assists in 1582 minutes on the pitch

Lallana's numbers are undoubtedly better than Ramirez's but the difference really isn't that great. Certainly not the gulf you'd expect between a fantastic player and a crap one.