I won't reply individually because I'm spending too much time saying the same things to different people haha. I'm not entirely behind Lambert not starting, but I do completely understand it and think Nigel's gameplan was sound. But for me the basic fact that makes me understand why Nigel has played a team that on paper is not our best attacking line-up, is that, we are not a top team. RGM, you say there's a reason top teams play their best line-ups against each other, and yes, there is, it's because they are top teams. They are proven in this league, they have players of great quality also proven in this league and they can go into any game as equals and go toe-to-toe. We are not those things, we can not afford to go into every game we play just putting our best attacking team on paper out there and expect to win games. We can do that in some games, but not games like West Ham away from home, an in-form confident team that is no better than us in overall quality, but perfectly set up to punish our weaknesses which are only added to by injury and low confidence. The Everton game for me is a clear example of what happens when you don't respect your opposition, don't set your team up to counter the team you are playing and just go out there and try and play your own game. That lasted about 15 minutes against Everton before we got absolutely hammered. The way our gameplan was set up, in the first half Lambert would have been completely wasted, whereas in the second half he should have been able to be in his element. And Lambert is a great player who I have a lot of love for and our club owes him great gratitude for what he has helped us achieve, but we cannot base out gameplans around getting Lambert into the team and him being effective. He's good, but not good enough where we can base our entire system around him carrying us to victory. Every team in the league has to adapt and evaluate each game as it comes, no players except from the Messi's, Ronaldo's, Aguero's etc. of this world are going to play every game no matter what. In fact look at Rooney and RVP this season, on paper it's no doubt that the best players United have are RVP and Rooney, but only a few times have they both actually played, even when Rooney wasn't injured. Fergie has used them both in situations in which he felt he needed them and has not sacrificed the gameplan or line-up just as an excuse of getting them both in the team. And if anyone wants to criticize Fergie's management or tactical abilities feel free! West Ham are perfectly set-up as the anti-Southampton, every strength they have is our weakness, add into the factor it was away from home and several injuries, and you have a game that was heavily stacked against us, and they are also greatly enabled to deal with Rickie. For these reasons, Nigel adapted how the team was going to play and adapted the way Lambert was to be used. I'm not saying it was perfect Mourinho-like tactical work, and it wasn't without it's downpoints, but it was well thought out and a good way to send us out to play. We did a very similar thing against Man City, and it nearly worked, like it very nearly worked yesterday no matter how bad the scoreline looked.
playing as a striker, Rickie would last the full 90 minutes with no problem but he would struggle as the no10. I would play Rickie from the start as he is the only player we have that other teams fear, and would double mark him leaving space for others as happened last year. We are scoring goals but we do not create much space by pulling about thier defenders, we are packed in the middle and thus easy to deal with. Rickie must also play as he is our free kick and penalty taker. Spurs play with alot of width and we are going to struggle is NA has to play 433
There are a few issues i have with Ricky being left out.He is by far our biggest goal threat,he is valuable to us when we defend set pieces .He is one of our players who has strong physical presence ,he has an astute understanding of the game ,when we get the ball forward to him its less likely come back at us as quickly,he has been consistantly good for us over two years without often letting us down.I would hazard a guess that his teamates are happy when he is in the side as he plays for the team in spite of his goal scoring feats ,he is a danger on set pieces and has never missed a pen for us.He is also blessed with great temperament and attitude.I totally believe in him and we are a better side with his presence on the park and we are shooting ourselves in the foot every time he is on the bench so lets cut out the nonsense a play our most dangerous forward and sort out the players who are not cutting it and we may turn a bit of a corner.He has other attributes but thats enough to go on with.
Maybe NA is trying to instil a winning mentality without Sir Rickie of Lambert playing, remember how we suffered without him last year. I believe its a similar problem we have with the England set-up, replying on `tried and trusted` players while continuing the searching for the `up and coming` players and ignoring the `now` players. Jimmy Greaves said something like this when being asked about 66 WC squad, picking in-form players over reputations.
Everyone will be replaced as the team evolves and rightly so but at this moment in time Lambert should play in my opinion.Most teams have players who are key to them and Ricky has been that man for us and i dont see what has changed and at this moment who could do the job better as our main striker.
Okay, but surely it is easier to establish a winning mentality, then faze out a player, rather than try to establish one without. And also J-Rod needs to score ten goals before he is considered our main man. I appreciate all these posts defending the tactic cos it opens my eyes to several theories I hadn't really considered. I am, I have to admit, completely baffled by what Adkins is doing with Lambert.
I don't entirely agree with him, I have defended him, and I do understand his reasoning, but really, I feel happier when Lambert is on the pitch, but the thing that I flat out don't agree with is that these tactics mean he is undervaluing or not appreciating Lambert's abilities or contributions to the team, wihich some people have suggested. But I'm not too worried and I wont start complaining until it starts happening every game, or every other game. It's happened twice this season, once again Man City and once against West Ham, both away from home and both very tough games. Some people might not like to give West Ham the respect they deserve, but despite the fact I maintain we are very similar on quality, they are a team that is set-up in a manner that makes them hugely dangerous to us, not Man City dangerous, but dangerous all the same. We also came into the game under horrible circumstances, so I don't blame Nigel at all for resorting to desperate measures and tactics in order to try and get something from the game, which as I have emphasised many times, despite the scoreline, we very nearly did.
The argument Rickie can't last 90 minutes at this level could be argued to be a fair point. But putting him on the bench because of that doesn't make sense. It simply is not an argument for him starting on the bench. If he can't last 90 minutes you take him off when he's knackered, that way you get the most of him. Rather than playing him for half an hour and him still having plenty of steam left that's wasted.
I think the key here is that Lambert means more to us than to most teams. He's a target man that creates and score goals. This is a rare type of player. I think the Man United example isn't comparable as we don't have anyone else of Lambert's quality. Rooney and Van Persie are similar quality. For me Lambert would suits us more than Rodriguez or anyone else in all games as a lone striker. He can hold up the ball and bring others into play better. It gives us a pressure release being able to go long to Lambert. Lambert is a proven goalscorer and the team are confident in him. Rodriguez hasn't scored in the league yet and hasn't filled me with confidence. He got an assist but it wasn't so much the pass but the finish. It was a brilliant goal from Lallana. Lambert would have offered us more. Just put yourself in West Ham's shoes..would you have liked Lambert to start or start on the bench? The answer is on the bench. Particularly when Rodriguez who's not scored in the league gets picked instead. If Lambert gets a chance he is much more likely to put it away than anyone else we have. An example: you didn't see Torres starting over Drogba in the champions league just because he was more mobile and chase the ball did you? Drogba was Chelsea's talisman just like Lambert is ours. He was their best goal-scorer and best target man. Comparing to weaker teams I wouldn't recommend Norwich to start with Holt on the bench and someone like Morison lone striker. I don't think we have much confidence in goal-scoring as a team without Lambert on the pitch. Adkins has made a big mistake for me with Lambert.
How was that a 4-6-0 - Rodriguez led the line making it a 1 - you might not rate him but that doesn't change the formation just means you think he is ineffective in that position. Just for one moment lets pretend you are right though- Now Spain did play 4-6-0 although it was more of a 4-2-4-0 did you think that was negative? It's not the formation that determines whether a team is positive or negative - it is how it is applied that determines that.
No point playing a system if you haven't the players to carry it off. Must be obvious to everyone that this is the case.
The difference between Spain and Southampton playing is that they have Xavi and we have Guly , that was a 4-6-0 with Rodriguez leading the line (someone regardless of formation has to be at the front) and completely negative and pointless , you play that formation if you can defend , we can't , or you play if you can score from all over the park , we can score goals but it's kind of stunted when you leave out your greatest goal threat . Crazy .
Okay, I accept your first point. I wasn't at the game and haven't seen the highlights but I'm prepared to accept that 4-1 may have flattered West Ham. But that really supports what I'm saying. you talk in your second post about "a few uncontrollable errors in concentration" but those errors in concentration have happened in almost every game this season and were also happening last year. Playing conservatively, trying to keep it tight and stay in the game is a poor tactic given that Saints have a defence that was somewhat error-prone last year and is now making more mistakes because it has rapidly lost confidence after a poor run (albeit against some of the best teams around). As I say, I haven't seen the West Ham game, but I did watch the Fulham match and Hooiveld in particular looked like a rabbit in the headlights every time the ball came near him. That own goal was coming from the moment he stepped on the pitch. You have to look at the opposition's team, sure, but you also have to play to your own strengths and trying to keep it tight at the back when your defence seems to give away either a penalty or an own goal almost every game is NOT playing to your strengths. There's a post from a Norwich fan in the other thread pointing out they didn't keep a clean sheet until the second half of last season and that's the point - Norwich played to their strengths and attacked and we need to do the same. If we'd gone out and attacked we might have won 5-4, we might have lost 4-0, we might have drawn 3-3, I don't know. I just believe that when you have team that's strong going forward and weak at the back you have no choice but to attack because if you try to play conservatively your defence will let you down, as it did this weekend and has done in most games this season.
Probably best if we agree to disagree and to be honest it's semantics and can't be proved one way or other. Where we do agree is the performance, approach and tactical discipline was not what it should be.
That sums it up. It can't be proved. NA played Guly and Jrod I assume because he felt they were more mobile and would give some pace on the break. It worked in the first half and didn't in the 2nd. Lesson learnt, line drawn bring on the Spurs!
I think Norwich had one very big thing we didn't; Organisation. And confidence to boot. They might not have been the best defensively, but they were better than we have been, and worse attacking than we are. So they had to go more attacking to carry a threat, but could do so without playing entirely riskily because of a better more strict and organised set-up and defence. We on the other hand, have to find a greater balance, we can afford to play less attacking because we have more attacking talent and threat, but the more we attack the more we expose ourselves. I think the situation between the two teams are somewhat similar but the balance of the teams is entirely different. I think the main thing we're differing on is that I don't see our defence as a lost cause. I don't think that 8 games into the season, or 7 games when the tactics for this game were being drawn up, it was time to just completely write-off our defensive capabilities, and just go gung-ho, balls to the wall and try and attack so heavily that we make up for a defence that has no chance of keeping the ball out of our net. If we had been entirely hopeless all season, then I may have felt that way, and if we had been entirely hopeless against West Ham, then I may feel that way now, but I don't feel that way. I think despite what the stats tell you, despite what it seems, that our defence has enough quality to compete, we don't need to give up on them yet. I know people make stupid generalising statements like this all the time and it annoys me, "If you were at the game you'd know", "I saw it so I know what I'm talking about and you don't", but I firmly believe that if you'd seen the game you would feel the same. We defended very well for the vast, vast majority of the game, Carroll was a non-factor, their moves rarely got anywhere near our final third, and we were solid throughout. As I have said, and as you picked me up on, it was a few uncontrollable errors that cost us the game and completely undermined the good work of the defence and team as a whole. The first goal was the most clear cut, and the one that cost us most, a simple, straight as an arrow lofted free kick into the area, dropping harmlessly into an area a couple of yards in front of Boruc, he could have come out and claimed it almost unchallenged, but he stayed at home and it bounced into the net. Will that happen again, almost certainly not, Boruc is a vastly experienced keeper and that is not a mistake that will be a recurring one. Out of order, but their third goal, a silly free-kick that wouldn't have been given most other times, another simple lofted ball into the box, which almost inexplicably Fonte ends up handballing. Calamitous? Yes. Uncontrollable? Yes. But is he likely to punch the ball in his own area gain? No. Then the second and fourth goals both came from a tired and out of position Yoshida (who as I have mentioned many times, played 180 minutes for his national team in the past 7 days) being beaten down the wing, the first leading to a simple square ball to Nolan for the tap-in, the second to a sublime goal from Maiga once the game was well dead. Poor defending? Undoubtedly. Uncontrollable? Not so much, could have been stopped. But will we often be calling on a fatigued low-confidence player to be playing in a position which they are not at all comfortable? I ****ing hope not! Those four goals, the four times that West Ham threatened in the game, all came from more defensive errors from lack of concentration which has happened an entirely unacceptable amount of times this season. But it wasn't our defence being comprehensively out played and shown to have no quality, it wasn't Hooiveld getting embarassed by a quick skillful player and giving away another penalty, it wasn't our starting LB getting beaten all-ends up and allowing a threat to be placed on our goal, it wasn't another rebounding ball not being cleared and being allowed to fall to their team, these were not recurring errors, the theme was recurring, the errors were not. For those reasons, I believe it wasn't just a case of yet more of the same rubbish that our defence has been presenting, it was just a case of a team with **** luck, bad injuries and rock-bottom confidence. And under those circumstances, I am not prepared to give up on our defence, I believe unfairly, and just accept that they are terrible and go all out attack to compensate. There is still reason to have hope and have faith, still reason to try and play in a manner where we will not concede, and I think the worst thing to do right now is to give up on our lads, show them that we do not believe in them when they already have no confidence, and just leave them stranded as we commit to attacking the other team. At this stage of the season, we need to have confidence in them, protect them, give them help, and I do believe that we can put in a performance very very similar to the one we did against West Ham and come away with a clean sheet, and a huge breath of confidence injected into the team. If in a few games time, we've again conceded 3 or 4 against Spurs and WBA, and then put in another poor performance against Swansea with more pathetic errors, then I'll start to think it's time to explore other options and try and compensate for our defence by attacking the **** out of teams, but for now, it is not yet time for desperate measures. The tide is against us right now, we're being forced out to sea by these errors, but to accept that, to allow the tide to take us and let us get swallowed up by the current would be a mistake, we still have the strength to fight against it, we just need to push through and soon we'll be sat on the beach with an ice cream, relaxing and enjoying the warm glow of the Premier League.
And I thought the real irony was that we were beaten by a team who have totally changed the way they play to be effective, and have been royally criticised and jeered at for doing so, from all quarters. Yet we have a manager who sticks to his playing principles and is now seen to be the excuse for the team to be losing. On the last day of last season, when Adkins let slip he might not be with Saints for too much longer, there was an anguished wailing and wringing of hands. Fickle.
Haha thanks mate, when I was writing it I was very much considering deleting it because it was oozing cheese, but I thought to hell with it.
