Leave pelle out ffs.

Spurs fans I spoke to were raving about him for the price we paid , asked if we'd swap for Soldado lol

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3057343/Southampton-striker-Graziano-Pelle-seventh-Italian-score-10-Premier-League-goals-season-others.html

Can he become the highest scoring (in one season) Italian the PL has ever seen? Probably asking too much, but......

Liverpool fan at work reckoned Pelle was a "hell of a player" after the weekend. TBF he only had MOTD highlights to go on and has had to watch Ballotelli most of the season...

Pelle is not fit to lace Lambert's bootlaces

I'm sure Pelle would look good in the Championship and League One as well.

Lambert scored 17 in all competitions last season in a much more attacking side and taking all penalties and free kicks, Pelle has 17 so far with 4 matches left.

Lambert also had spells of 5 and 6 matches without a goal last season, and hasn't scored more than once in any match since August 2012. Pelle's done that 4 times this season and most recently did that 2 days ago.

Pelle's already at the level now that a waning Lambert was last season, and is likely to improve as he gets used to English defences - now they've had the time to react to his skillset. His impact in the first couple of months of the season shows how potent he'd be if it wasn't for teams choosing to nullify his threat.

His impact in the first couple of months of the season shows how potent he'd be if it wasn't for teams choosing to nullify his threat.

Yes, damn those opponents doing things to stop key players doing what they're good at

If he was just brought in to score but maybe not. But Ron has clearly stated that his role is bigger than that.

It wasn't just his goals that dried up. Earlier we were getting goals from all round the pitch.

Easier for him to score early on when teams didn't know how good he was and weren't set up to counter it - once it became known that we were fairly defensive we tried the trick of shifting him deeper with Mane attacking the hole he created which led to Mane getting a few. Now they have to defend both those methods and it's created him a bit more room.

Pelle's movement has been at exactly the same levels in the past 5 league matches, both the ones where he's scored and the ones he hasn't - he's mostly stayed out of the box, but it was notable that it took an early delivery of another striker (Long) to give him the service he needed to score the header on the weekend. Exactly the sort of off-the-cuff optimistic early delivery that we don't normally provide.

It's impossible to get free in the box and create a chance if the ball doesn't come when you need it to - and if the weekend's offside stats showed anything, it's that we're not good at playing those killer passes when they have to be played.

Yes, damn those opponents doing things to stop key players doing what they're good at

Well yeah, and obviously they'll do that, which is why we needed to find other ways to score goals for a while and open up the possibilities so defences couldn't just mark Pelle or they'd run the risk of others scoring.

Lambert would drop deep left and right, hold it up and create space for jrod and lallana. I wish pelle would do this more but guess he is instructed to stay central. We look so easy to defend against if pelle is off game.

 

lambert didn't win that much outside his own box with his head and was getting slower and slower, very much a threat at set pieces and pens but was not looking threatening in open play.

We don't play with 3 interchanging attacking midfielders supporting Pelle so he's got much less space to work in, but other than Pelle not appearing in wide positions, I don't see much difference in how Lambert and he play with their back to goal other than Lambert being better at protecting the ball and Pelle much more able to get in the box after he's laid it off.

Got to give to him. What a header.

he is fecking gash

he is fecking gash

He's not gash, he's just an average mid-table striker who'll score around 10-15 goals a season.

He's not gash, he's just an average mid-table striker who'll score around 10-15 goals a season.

Agreed. Just like Romelu Lukaku, who cost 3.5X as much. And yes while Lukaku MAY improve as he gets older, he hasn't shown that much in the games I've seen him play.

Agreed. Just like Romelu Lukaku, who cost 3.5X as much. And yes while Lukaku MAY improve as he gets older, he hasn't shown that much in the games I've seen him play.

Pretty much. Lukaku is a better player and has more potential, but like you said - £28m and 80k p/w potential? Not really.

Pelle, as much as he is derided on here, has scored 3 more league goals than £28m Lukaku.

he is fecking gash

You really are obsessed, and an idiot

You really are obsessed, and an idiot

I'm not sure that Gallagher would do any worse.

I'm not sure that Gallagher would do any worse.

I don't think we'll be finding that out at any time soon, we can only hope that JRod makes some sort of appearance before the end of the season. Shows us what we've been missing, even if it's only for 10 minutes or so.

Batman fills up page after page on here with these pearls of wisdom, truly great insight into the game of football.

He waits until he listens to talk sport, listens to their opinions and writes them on here.

I'm not sure that Gallagher would do any worse.

He's certainly quicker than Pelle!

This is a bit odd, turned up on Emmanuel's twitter feed (pretty sure it's his account) and was then deleted promptly. Luckily someone took a screen grab!

Normally he should have had a year left I think, strange one. More the fool him for agreeing to it if it's exact.

Normally he should have had a year left I think, strange one. More the fool him for agreeing to it if it's exact.

Signed a 5 year deal, I think.

Signed a 5 year deal, I think.

So 2 years then, perhaps there were some option years because I don't think we'd be able to terminate his contract otherwise, well not unilaterally unless there's some sort of unknown reason that is.