Saints' Holy Triforce: Lambert, Lallana and Rodriguez have been a complementary strikeforce that have propelled Southampton forward this season. While Lambert made the headlines last season obtaining 15 goals and 5 assists, Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez, under the guidance of Mauricio Pochettino, have developed greatly and are realising their full potential this season. The blend of pace, flair and vision has helped Southampton breach many of the Premiership defences this season with consummate ease. However, after Jay Rodriguez suffered such an unpleasant injury, rupturing an anterior cruciate ligament, against Manchester City, Southampton's attack looked short of pace as it tried to break down both Manchester City and Cardiff in recent matches. When one of the three have been missing this season the attack has looked much less penetrative. Saint's Holy Triforce stats: Lambert 11 goals, 10 assists. Lallana 9 goals, 5 assists. Rodriguez 15 goals, 3 assists. Total 35 goals, 18 assists. Clearly without important players Saints are likely to look less threatening, however with the likelihood of Rodriguez being sidelined well into next season Southampton will have to find another long term solution to keep the attack prolific. Gaston Ramirez was Rodriguez's replacement against Cardiff on Saturday and while the player was good at retaining possession he does not have the pace nor the ability to run in behind defences, with Lambert and Lallana having no-one to assist. Similarly, early in the season, for shorter periods, the the lack of Lallana's creativity or Lambert's ability to assist have led to the Saint's looking short in the front third. While these problems could highlight a lack of squad depth Southampton do have alternatives, like Ramirez, as well as players with similar attributes; for example Gallagher and Mayuka both have pace but do not have the same rapport with Lambert and Lallana as Rodriguez, clearly bringing new players in will not readdress the issue expediently. The trio are all on the same wavelength and have developed a great understanding of the others players' game, this is similar to the Liverpool attack of Suarez and Sturridge. The problem is how does Saints boss Mauricio Pochettino address this in the short term, so that Southampton continue to threaten Premiership defences?
Nice topic, but unfortunately no immediate solution. We have been very fortunate the way this trilogy has worked together so well. However, I think a huge reason for that is that two of the players have very good football brains: Adam and Rickie. JayRod is possibly not quite as 'clever' football wise and is a little more instinctive rather than thinking out his options. So, we sign a good player in that position, one who appears to be have a good football brain and I'm sure the other two will get him linking up well soon. Likelihood is it will take time; it did with Jay too remember.
No easy solution. But with Easter Sunday just around the corner, we must keep the faith and pray for the resurrection of our hopes in front of goal.
Yes we will miss Jay's pace, energy and closing down from the front, so crucial to Poch's pressing strategy (along with Adam and Morgan). He has always had the raw talent but has added the ability to time his runs to beat offside and Adam and particularly Rickie have fed him so well this season. He has also rediscovered the kind of finishing he displayed in The Championship with Burnley and it is great to know that he can do it at a higher level. There is no immediate solution to the lack of energy and pace other than calling up Rowe or Sinclair from the U21's, I guess that we will have to wait and see in the summer as to whether Poch wants to bring in a pacy Winger/Forward.
Could even give Ryan Seager a seat on the bench, he knows where the goal is and finds it quite well, and can take a penalty too.
Definitely think we need to give one of the youngsters a try out wide. Mcqueen is the obvious choice on the left to me.
I guess as we drenched the pitch, they were able to walk on the water, whereas our lads kept ending up on their backsides!
Hasn't he had a poor season? Seem to remember him only scoring 3 or 4 goals. Edit: According to Transfermarkt he has scored 2 in 15 odd games.
I think a combination of injury and transition between squads hasn't helped but when I have seen him play he looks to be quite good, needs a bit more muscle though.
I was about to search for a Noah's Ark joke, but in the end I just thought, if we're going to keep over-watering the pitch, then why can't the players at least wear the right studs?
Like most of our youngsters, Sims, Hesketh, Sinclair, Mason, Targett etc all need bulking up. Only guy that looks bulky already is Rowe. He is tiny in height tho.
Probably why he has the 70s style 'fro, so he looks about 15cm taller. But surely his job will be running the channels, trying to break 1 on 1 with the keeper and stretching thier defence. Many have said he is not ready which is fair enough, but is job is to inject that pace and he has a lovely cross if Rickie can keep up.
Let's not panic. Rodriguez is a good player and Saints will miss him while he's out no question. But I don't think we need to start changing the starting XI or radically altering our tactics or anything like that. If we want to blood in some youth players seeing as how we won't finish worse than tenth, that's one thing. But if we're trying to win the games, then finishing wasn't the problem. Shaw and Chambers were given loads and loads of space and had a terrible time crossing the ball, so that just made it easy for Cardiff to ignore them and pack players into the middle. And those two are usually pretty decent. There's nothing wrong here that a few extra hours practice on the pitch won't solve better than trying to stick academy players into the first team who MP does not deem ready just because they are fast, or drastically altering our tactics. Looking past this season, we should be looking for a forward to come in and challenge Jay Rodriguez/Lambert/Davis for a spot anyway, so that hasn't changed.
Definitely a chance for our youngsters. with J Rod out and no relegation pressure on the lads, I'd put Gallagher in for every game and see what the nipper can do with a run in the team.
SJ - agreed. Before we get the cheque book out we need to know when Big Sam fits into the plans and until he has an opportunity to show MP that his is a viable first team squad player we will only be guessing as 5-10 minute cameos at the end of games doesn't provide anyone with a clear view of the young mans talent
Most of the current crop of youngsters coming through are well under the age when they are no longer eligible to play for the U21's. I would guess that the club policy is that if they haven't broken through into regular first team football by that age, then they probably won't make it, so they can be moved on while they are still young enough to make a career somewhere else. This has already happened this season with a few of the Academy boys. Sam Gallagher has played for the first team several times now, so I think the decision has already been made about him. The other fringe players, like McQueen, Reed, Rowe, and Turnbull, and for that matter Targett, they are the ones who would benefit most from an appearance in these last few games. Mind you, can you imagine what the reaction from the media would be if Harrison Reed, the new Paul Scholes, plays a blinder against Man United! At least they might forget about Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana for a bit...
Just read quickly and out of context and thought you meant Fat Sam as replacement for Pochettino. Phew!
