The9

Yeah, and he's done well for a mid-table striker this season.

Yeah, "not bad", about 2/3rd of the way up the scale of strikers in 22 top level seasons, bettered by 6 other players. I have no problems with it being described as "not bad". Anyway, constantly defending myself on a subject I'm not that bothered about is boring.

What ? Really. I don't dislike him at all, his overall contribution to the club in the past 4 years has been great, he seems like a nice bloke, all that stuff. I don't really think about him more or less than any other Saints player, it's the rest of you all having a different opinion that makes it an issue - and even that's more about how successful I think we'd be with someone else up front than Lambert himself. As I've already noted, Lowton and Lucas Leiva are better examples of the inconsistencies in that article, which presumably in the minds of some on here means I hate Vertonghen, Schneiderlin and Zabaleta as well.

Probably worth a thread of it's own, that one.

However, there is no "10 man list" and there are two lists given, both containing 6 players, so without doing my own research to work out that 2 players are on both lists (not mentioned in the article), there is no 10-man list anywhere in that article, just crappy journalism. I will readily accept that I had assumed the "10 man list" was a list of nominees for Player of the Year, and didn't include the Young Player, for which Benteke is nominated. So fair enough on that. Maybe it's better if I use Matt Lowton's interceptions (especially compared to Vertonghen), or Lucas Leiva's tackles as an illustration of them overlooking players then ?

I don't have any issue with his successes getting us up to the Prem, and he's done remarkably well considering his lack of experience even this season. However, here's a list of Saints top scorers in the top division since 1983. How is Lambert's total in any way exceptional ? 83/84 Moran 21 84/85 Moran 12 85/86 Armstrong 10 86/87 Clarke 20 87/88 Clarke 16 88/89 Rod Wallace 12 89/90 Le Tissier 20 90/91 Le Tissier 19 91/92 Shearer 13 92/93 Le Tissier 15 93/94 Le Tissier 25 94/95 Le Tissier 19 95/96 Shipperley/ Le Tissier 7 96/97 Le Tissier 13 97/98 Le Tissier/ Ostenstad 11 98/99 Le Tissier/ Ostenstad 7 99/00 Pahars 13 00/01 Beattie 11 01/02 Pahars 14 02/03 Beattie 23 03/04 Beattie 14 04/05 Crouch 12 Anyway, *I* was talking about how crappy the original article was, and how the stats they gave didn't support their argument, which only mentioned Lambert in passing... if you don't mind.

I think the best bit about this shirt was that it actually incorporated the logo into the shirt, rather than the horrendous plastic box glued to the front of the first Umbro kit, which otherwise was awesome.

I'm ambivalent to him. This isn't even about Lambert, it's about crappy journalism. Read the article, the table used actually tells you how many goals scored and who has the better shot percentage. As for "best English blah blah" it's another genuinely useless "fact". There are not only English players in this competition. Numerous other players have scored more, scored more frequently, completed more passes, assists, etc. Lambert's done well for Saints, and reasonably well for a Prem striker full stop, and much better than some people anticipated, but that's all.

Much better than some ex-managers...

It's been coming since England first noticed it in 2010, 28_F. Even FourFourTwo were spouting about this generation 2 years ago. The issue, as with us, is keeping them.

Erm, also, even the accompanying chart shows that they've ignored Benteke for Lambert, despite Benteke scoring more goals from the same number of shots, which is the criterion they've chosen to use to illustrate Lambert's success. "Without [Lambert's goals] Southampton would be in the relegation zone". Pointless and useless "fact". Had we played every match with 10 men of course we'd be in the bottom 3... who's to say if we'd picked someone else (dare I say someone better?) we'd not have won the League ? The quote is a totally ridiculous statement.

When you're top in the league for interceptions, every one of those is a tackle you don't have to make to get the ball back.

I quite like the tech room they've got, the one thing football seems to lack compared to, say, American Football, is definite ratings and scores for player skills in the public domain. That kind of "test" helps give a benchmark for reaction and accuracy in a real-time environment and helps the move towards that. I *want* to know percentage pass accuracy, speed and reactions against a standard benchmark, because the data out there at the moment is only for match environments and doesn't take gameplan and tactical considerations into account - eg we know Andy Carroll is good at winning the ball in the air and heading, but is he actually any good at passing ? Obviously there are plenty of reasons clubs wouldn't want that data out there (especially in an uneven transfer market), but it doesn't seem to harm other professional sports to have the information available.

...every single time.

To be honest the coach trip from the airport probably takes more time than the flight and would be the tiring bit. Even playing Sat/Tue/Thu/Sat for ONE week (never mind near constantly for about 2 months) would have wiped me out even in my 20s, by the third match you're sick of the sight of a football and go into preservation mode, that has to have a major impact on their ability to win matches - and at this time of the season even the blister management must be a nightmare. You have to have recovery time at any level or you just pick up injuries. How many teams actually go up from the Combined Counties Prem ? Is it just the one or is there a play-off with other leagues to get into the Isthmian ?

Because he's TRYING to be helpful.

I was.

Ah ar5es, I make one prediction all season and he agrees with me. Well, as I've remembered Mulumbu is still suspended I'm going for 3-1 now instead.

Not even sure I agree with him, most of those kids could fold in the Championship trying to play the way they do (badly attempting to play passing football) and even if Benteke stayed he could easily get injured and they could struggle to break the top 2 without him. All hypothetical of course, no way Benteke would stay and they're not down yet.

More likely to play them in R2 of the League Cup though, that would be nice and early too. They'd still have to win a game in August against a southern L1/L2 side to get to play us though, so 50/50 they'll even get through, never mind the approx 1/25 chance of drawing them in what appears to be a national 2nd Round draw. And then we could stick 4 on them with our reserves. Hooray.

I'm sure they're not too bothered, they won the League Cup. Lucky for them they were still in it, because their League season has been as dull as ours in 2002/3.

Maybe you should try doing it at St Mary's in front of a crowd ? Also, you don't have to applaud them, you can sod off to the pub or home if you like.

I didn't realise you were still even playing tbh, and I didn't know any of them in the first place. Besides, it wasn't your lot that was the problem, it was the opposition.Took that one game for me to realise I wasn't fit enough and was too injured to be competitive, you just can't make the tiny balance adjustments you need to make when you're seized up and think your knee's going to go any time you change direction. I haven't got any younger or less injured.

We got 2 CBs in (Yoshida and Forren) and have a good chance of 10th - or failing that we "only got one starting CB in" and are likely to come between 10th and 15th. Hooiveld and Fonte together have also been hit and miss, so fair enough I think.

There are actually some pretty good shouts on here. I'm not sure if I did start that comparison thread though - or someone said "did this last week" or something.