The9

It's a big place.

Seeing as he scored 2 vital goals to win Montpellier the French League last season, I think he may have undermined his cover a tad sooner than this. I had forgotten about him though.

Weirdly I also heard, before Sunday's match that it was an impact injury caused by Guly - the person who told me was by no means a Guly hater, but it could have just been someone who was saying it and it getting taken as the truth. I also heard that he was admitted to hospital to get the blood drained from it - which is implied by Adkins' comment about "the blood having nowhere to go" above, but I haven't seen it actually said in this thread anywhere. The full range of Quadriceps Contusion / Thigh Contusion / Charley Horse / Dead Leg diagnosis is here: http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/sport-injuries/thigh-pain/dead-leg Amazingly I think we've managed to find a footballing injury I've never had. As far as Ramirez goes, obviously a big shame he's injured so soon, but at least it's happened whilst we're still used to not having him and aren't going to have a "Lambert sent off against Brighton last January"-type collapse as we struggle to work out how we're going to cope without our star player for weeks on end, as he's not integral to our goalscoring yet - though I fully expect that will be the case by April 2013 if he stays fit.

You can't argue with the goals. If all of his goals this season also came from "concerted pressure or chances created by others" we wouldn't be complaining. I don't see anyone slating Lambert because all his goals are "concerted pressure or chances created by others" ? Well, not yet anyway, give me a chance! If we go down the "creating your own chances" road, that's been one of my main criticisms of Lambert - that he doesn't have the pace to threaten to do that. An example at the moment is his shot against Villa - 4 defenders around him, because they knew he wasn't going to run anywhere with it. Rodriguez against (admittedly only) Sheff Wed took a touch into space behind the defence and finished under no pressure because they couldn't get to him in time. So "not creating your own chances" is a stick to beat more strikers than just Sharp with. Plus Sharp's movement created more time and space for Lambert and also offered a threat to distract defenders from only marking Lambert, allowing him more freedom than when he was carrying the load alone. Oh, and Johnno Forte and Lee Barnard v MK Dons are the ultimate example of a game going away from us and a piece of magic changing things our way, but I'm not advocating them as starters either.

I was happy to keep him, I'd anticipated that we'd signed him to improve him and play in the Prem, which we did by increasing his overall fitness and physique at the end of last season - though when we signed Rodriguez and Mayuka there was some question as to how he'd fit in, just as there was about Lambert, Lee, Barnard, Forte...

Specifically I mean not having 5 players who can be by-passed with one lucky bounce of the ball not putting any pressure on attacking players in front of our back 4, whichever way that manifests itself in the concept of a "defensive midfielder". But from your two descriptions I'd say the latter - though by necessity they'd also be playing deep to be able to protect the back line. Not so bothered about filling in the back line itself, but stopping people being able to kill us in front. Though I readily accept that against Fulham it was not stopping Fox having to face 2-on-1s that was the main problem, both goals coming from that (the OG coming from a cross from their right wing going all the way out the other side of the box before the shot came in from Riise, the second goal a cut back from the right wing into the "defensive midfielder hole" near the penalty spot).

It does if you note that whilst Rodriguez was on the left we only conceded 1 goal in 60 minutes and when he went off we shipped 2 in 30. His defensive workrate and ability to retain possession and take the ball up the pitch were obvious strengths. Adkins said numerous times after that match that we played the way we did in the first hour in order to give ourselves a chance to do something later. When you're hugely overmatched as we'd expect to be against City it made sense to try and minimise their impact for as long as possible, and hanging Rodriguez out to dry up front (where Guly's hard working and tracking back was very useful for the first hour and wasn't something you'd expect of Lambert) wasn't the way to do that. We didn't do anything like that at Arsenal, left Lambert up isolated, didn't have Rodriguez supporting the left back, and got murdered, particularly from midfielders being the wrong side, not pressing or not tracking back - none of which Rodriguez failed to do against City. Our fitness didn't look suspect against City either, and he only came off when we decided to switch in Lambert as the focal point instead of Guly, having gone behind. The one bit I can't explain is why Rodriguez went off instead of Guly at City, but I guess that came down to either overall fitness (you don't get the rest in midfield you do as a striker and Guly's probably got a better engine overall) or the need for us to play on the break with players who mostly knew each other's strengths and movement tendencies from the previous season.

Ah, the power of hindsight. I don't recall all of the calls from you lot for Sharp to be dumped as he "clearly wasn't a Prem Player" when he was dragging us across the line last season with his run of scoring...

This is the crux of the matter. Much as I like Billy Sharp, and thought he was less likely to get injured than Lambert this season , with the players we signed in the summer, his poaching skills, ability to play as a mobile front man and general nippiness and movement around the box in a pair to create space for his strike partner are not things that can't be provided (and possibly better) by either Rodriguez or Mayuka, and they have a far greater likelihood of being able to develop further.

He's a longer term replacement for the 31 year who plays in his position at the moment. I'd think that playing him elsewhere is an indication of how highly regarded he is for his all-round ability. It's fairly obvious that 2 up with one behind top suits our best players, but it isn't necessarily the best system for us to be playing. There's also the little matter of Ramirez's best position being pretty much Lambert's best position (heading aside), and the fact we have a mental block on playing without Lambert at the moment. Give it 6 months and Ramirez will be the one we can't do without, and we'll be strides towards the Lambertless future which is inevitable within a couple of seasons given his age.

Lallana was excellent in our first game of the season and that was a vastly changed system, he didn't need much time to "gel" in a more narrow position with a striker playing alongside him on the left and Guly up front for 55 minutes. His recent dip in form is almost certainly down to his new baby's arrival - although his higher profile might also mean he's now being reduced by opposition tactics.

You're not alone. I'm going to a higher proportion of matches because they seem few and far between (I think there have been 3 midweek Championship rounds already, we didn't have a game for any of those), but my expectations have gone from "hope we win" to "I wonder if we'll get a point".

Honestly, I saw ONE interview with Adkins where he mentioned Europe, and that was around the time we were looking to bring in Rodriguez and Buttner in, so it made sense to be talking the club up publicly. After that, no-one's said anything about our prospects other than the usual vagaries about working hard and pushing on. And yes, with the way Everton started we've had 4 probable zero pointers out of the first 7. Wigan were in form when we played them and we learned a lesson about the level needed in the Prem. Villa we beat, Fulham we needed to take our chances better. 9 points would be a good start, 7 would have been ok. Anything more than that would mean an away win against one of the top 5 or beating Man U at home and would be excellent. We've got 4 because we made basic mistakes against Wigan and Fulham, which cost us two reasonably feasible wins - but fixing defensive problems is usually easier than fixing creative ones. At the moment it's as simple as sitting a couple of defensively-minded players in midfield and not asking them to support the attack as often -that would impact on our chances of scoring as many, but by how much ?

I'll refer you to the glory years of 2007-09 to remind you that you don't always get to win every week in the Football League either. Just because we made it look easy doesn't mean it was, and no-one should forget how well Adkins has done for us to get us here. As for the substitutions, I'm yet to see one which couldn't be logically explained. I can't help you with why we chose to stop passing the ball on the ground for 15 minutes against Man U when leading (other than brain fatigue) or seem so incapable of playing without Lambert in the team (60 mins against Man City aside) though.

Well, you say that but Sunderland and Stoke have only lost once (the same number as Everton and West Brom who are 4th and 6th) and are only 3 points ahead of us. We've lost the most in the division (5 along with QPR) and we aren't in the bottom 3. Wigan have also lost 4 (along with Reading and Norwich) and are 15th. So it's just not that simple.

Yup, still can't believe they came away from half of the matches they played in March and April with wins, especially the two weeks before they played us, when *Someone* (can't remember, Palace?), then Brighton and finally we pummelled them and somehow lost. Still, if you fancy a laugh, Google Adam Le Fondre's full name.

I'd be surprised if it had happened more than two or three times in 20 years of the Premier League.

I haven't seen anyone say anything about us "taking time to gel" this season other than this thread. "Taking time to have a defensive midfielder", yes.

Well, I had some "fun" yesterday mucking about with the stadium editing fencing options and worked out I could overlay two different advert designs on the front of the stand by alternating the transparency - but then having come to this exciting conclusion and tested it successfully I also worked out that if you did that then none of the fonts on the ad boards would look the right size, so I've stuck with the original plan of an adboard per stand. I'm also trying very hard to recreate the perspex boards at the back of each stand (which is tricky because the image needs to block out the ad boards running along the back, but also doesn't reach the top of the stand and leaves a genuine gap). I've used red for the back of the Chapel to help give the impression of the disabled bit in the middle of it. As it is, I've now imported : A 6 panel off-white underside ceiling pattern for Northam, Kingsland and Itchen A 4 panel off-white ceiling pattern for Chapel, with perspex-effect panels at the front A 2D "lighting and speaker rig" for 4 stands along the front of the roof (though the model ignores this and shows the lights coming from the top of the stand) Perspex backboards for the Northam and Kingsland Red Wall backboard for the Chapel "Corporate Boxes" for the back of the Itchen along with 2 rows of corporate seats ! 4 x Transparent "fencing" to remove the fences along the front of each stand 4 x different adverts around the front wall of the stands : Kingsland : http://www.halo-ce.co.uk Itchen : http://www.twitter.com/officialsaints Northam : http://www.facebook.com/officialsaints Chapel : http://www.saintsfc.co.uk Player In addition, the coup de grace : A mahoosive big rusted metal gas container towering over the rear of the Northam and Albion Towers peering over the Chapel end of the Kingsland, thanks to the power of the 360 image wrap around the ground and some judicious cut and pasting. Oh, and I've finally got around to image mapping Ramirez and Gazzaniga's faces and changing our shirt number font to something generic. Still lost to bloody West Ham and Norwich last night though, I should spend more time playing and less time editing.

I have lost all faith in the education system. As for dyslexics, amazing how many of them there are nowadays when people can't spell isn't it ?

Ho ho.

Agreed on that point especially, Fox played well until Fulham started attacking 2 on 1 against him (though that was mainly because they'd targetted Yoshida on the opposite wing for obvious reasons). Lambert was gash, but it's an indicator of how infrequently he actually performs poorly that it was so glaringly obvious this time. He's usually very consistent. The biggest problem seems to be a combination of lack of depth (especially yesterday with injuries) and an inability for the team to adjust to not having Lambert on the pitch. I thought the combination of Rodriguez and Lambert gave us quite a few options yesterday, with Rodriguez's pace basically doubling the passes we could use and maximising the opportunities for Lambert's passing ability to be effective by giving an option other than just rolling it to the right winger. I somehow doubt it'll be Lambert who makes way when Ramirez comes back though, which is the point about not maximising our opportunities to score that I've been making since before we even signed Ramirez. Of course, not conceding stupid goals all the bloody time would probably help more, we're scoring plenty as it is.

I should think he's probably knackered from just having his first child, on which basis he's doing remarkably well.

Oh, and I'm not enjoying it much, but then that's hardly a surprise, we've been braced for this for almost a year and it's everything we expected.

Newcastle didn't do badly from 1993-1997... completely irrelevant of course, and they won nowt. Not sure how "unprecedented" doing something Norwich did the season before us can be considered either, but other than that, I broadly agree with you. The only people getting in a massive lather are people who like to get in a massive lather and generally have ridiculous expectations based on ignorance to begin with.