Rasiak-9-

Griezmann from Sociedad please. I've had quite enough of building our team around a target-man. Lets have some pace and finishing and get a proper partnership going with Rodriguez.

If you feel that he has underachieved and that he's a poor manager, where do you feel we ought to be in the league? To what extent do you feel we are underachieving?

...and that our manager is supposedly not all that great. Do you really think we've underachieved given the players we have at our disposal? Where do you think we *Should* finish? Do you really think our players/team is the 7th or 6th best in the league? Or are we all still in a mood because of the cups? Incidentally, for what its worth its very obvious that what has held us back is a thoroughly inadequate centre-forward who's been a major weakness for us this season; the fact that we're way too thin at the back in terms of muscle and the fact that we haven't incorporated one of our two most talented attacking players into the team where he can interlink with our other most talented attacking player. Other than that, its been a pretty good season. It is of course, only our second season in the Premiership. We need a new centre-forward. A left-footed left winger with pace and another centre-back to go alongside Lovren. Oh and Clyne >>>>> Chambers. Chambers is decent but I really, really think Clyne is better defensively and his raw pace gives us more of an option going forward.

He's simply not as good as a lot of our fans think he is. Today was again, like playing with 10 men. His continued presence in our team is one of the main reasons our form has been on the slide.

Having calmed down a bit after last week, I feel I ought to communicate myself a little bit better regards Rickie Lambert and why, not just he, but his worshippers frustrate the hell out of me. I don't think Rickie is a bad player and I think he'd still be useful to have around. He's got a great dead ball delivery and of course, will always be a Saints legend. The problem is that unfortunately, his legs really seem to have gone and at times, its literally like playing with 10 men. As I've said before, quality defenders figuring him out has coincided with him looking slower and softer. His goal against Manchester United at the start of last season was one of those goals that you just don't see him scoring anymore, beasting in at the back stick after the ball was hung up in the air and just completely bullying Rafael whilst bashing the header back down across goal. Anyway, like I said, I think he still could have his uses off the bench and of course, I hope his form picks up. My frustration isn't really at Lambert. My frustration is far more towards a certain group of our fans who not only value loyalty before reason, but do so for no other reason than that Rickie is 1) English and 2) a striker (and the guy who scores the goals must be the best player right?). These fans are genuinely, genuinely attempting to make criticism of Lambert punishable by a forum ban and essentially consider any complaint made against him a thoughtcrime. No other player, no matter how vital they are to us, has had that kind of attitude extended towards them. Morgan Schneiderlin has been just as, if not more vital to our team throughout his time here (been here longer than Lambert) and people won't have any qualms about criticising him should he have a poor game (which rarely happens, but you catch my drift). Jos Hooiveld is another one who (whilst he wasn't here as long as Rickie) was easily in our top 3 players from our promotion season and is clearly a great guy to boot; but very quickly after we were promoted, people realised (again, correctly) that he sadly fell into the category of being great in the champo and just wholly inadequete in the Premiership. No other player has been afforded the same protection from criticism as Lambert. No-one. No-one has one rare moment of quality (such as the pass vs Fulham) drawn out as an example of why they should be in the team for the next half a dozen games, no matter how isolated that moment of quality is. Ramirez's pass against West Brom was infinitely more skillful, yet that was dismissed as one moment of quality and the cliches about swallows and summers were drawn out once again (some even bitterly argued it was a fluke) No other player is allowed to have as poor a work rate as Lambert. If Rodriguez waddled around the pitch with his hands on his hips for half the time that Lambert spends doing so people would be slaughtering him. I could go on... Kevin Keegan once said about his time at Saints that neither he, nor his teammates ever had a bad game at home, or put in anything less than 100%; because "the fans wouldn't let them". I think that more-or-less sums up my frustration. Certain fans are letting Lambert have bad, even terrible games, certain fans are letting him put in less than 100%. THAT is why I get a frustrated as I do.

The age old question is to define precisely what counts towards a club's 'size'. You need to exactly define that word before anyone can make a meaningful judgement. Size of ground, trophies won, average league position over the past 50 years? Fame and fanbase abroad? Strength of current first XI? Size of city/region represented?

My username is totally, utterly irrelevant to the discussion and is/was something I decided on as a complete joke considering Rasiak was probably the laziest, least talented, most goofy looking player Saints have had. But what on Earth has that got to do with the fact that Rickie Lambert, our current centre-forward is a complete passenger in our team and a major weak link who needs replacing ASAP? Besides, it isn't just Lambert's laziness thats the problem. Its the fact that he doesn't shoot, can't beat a man, can't run, has to drop into midfield to avoid getting caught offside and is regularly owned by every half-decent Premiership centre-back under the sun. He has two goals from open play this season in the Premiership. Two. Its literally the same thing as England had with Beckham all those years ago. He's getting into the team on 1) past reputation 2) loyalty taken beyond reason and 3) his dead-ball.

You make a thread criticising him, and people's one defence is to focus on the utter irrelevence of your joke username. ...and then the thread gets pulled. Proving my point exactly that people just want to bury their heads in sand. Anyway, all joking aside. Can we please have a realistic discussion about how we're going to develop our front line for seasons to come? Persist with the 4-5-1 and bring in a Benteke/Lukaku type striker? Or see if we can bring in a pacey winger and go 4-4-2 with another smaller striker to play alongside Rodriguez?

Hooiveld not being able to tackle with his right foot and Wanyama pussying out of the challenge were infinitely more to blame.

If you and your friends sat down to construct the Premier League's 'overrated XI', you'd come damn near close to picking the Fulham first team. Parker, Sidwell, Hangeland, Senderos and Berbatov earlier on in the season, Bent (albeit only nowadays now that he's lost his burst of pace)... incredible really

I think its quite unlikely we'll catch United as I think once the pressure begins to fade after its just generally accepted that they won't be reaching the top 4, I think they'll string a few results together and beat teams with a bit more regularity than we will. You might notice that in Novemeber/December they hit a bit of form after the shock of United being out of the title race began to subside and people generally just accepted that for this season at least, they're part of the chasing pack for fourth. The pressure has since increased hugely now that people have realised its even worse than that, and its actually very unlikely they'll make the top four. Once people are kind of 'over' that. I think they'll probably kick on and finish in 6th above Everton. City/Chelsea/Arsenal/Liverpool/Spurs/United/Everton/Us/Newcastle/West Ham is my prediction for the top 10. Having said that, it'd be great to push them right to the wire and even better to pip them on the final day of the season.

Yes?

I'd be happy to lay anyone on here odds of 8/1 that no-one will be relegated with 39 points or more.

I've said it time and time again. The necessary additions to our squad are very very simple. We need a young, quality centre-forward who can hold the ball up, a centre-back and a left-footed left winger with pace.

Second season syndrome. Similar to Grant Holt at Norwich really.

He held it up well and came close to scoring, whilst generally looking impressive as he did in short bursts at Saints. He's a better player than Lambert and its a great shame that he's a complete headcase. I'm frankly gutted that it didn't work out because there is very clearly a decent player there who had a great deal of potential and anyone pretending that he's anything else is burying their head in the sand with a serious case of sour grapes. Having said all that, we obviously need to sell him at the end of the season as of course, we can't possibly welcome him back after the fiasco he's caused. I hope he does as well as possible there so that we can get back most of the money we spent on him. The goal Juventus conceded was pretty unfortunate, but primarily down to an injury to Chiellini which would hit any team with him in it very hard indeed. Standard. Stay classy fella.

Say what you like about Osvaldo's time here, but the fact that he's been starting for the Italian national team and has been signed by the Serie A Champions who feel he can add something to a strikeforce already comprised of Tevez, Llorente, Giovinco and Vucinic should tell you something about how his ability is perceived abroad. I've got Juve in an accumulator so currently watching their game; bloody hell how good is Pogba? He literally has it all.

Say what you like about Ramirez, he WILL take the responsibility to at least TRY and create something rather than the passengers in many teams across the Premiership (at least 6 of them start for Manchester United each week) who hide in big games, repeatedly passing the ball backwards rather than taking on the challenge of trying to find that killer pass or take players on. That fantastic assist for the Lallana goal vs West Brom? Had he not pulled that very difficult pass off he'd have got a massive groan from the crowd and people on here would be rolling their eyes and *****ing about how he always gives the ball away. On the other side of the coin, he could have avoided that situation by taking a touch, and rolling it back to our defenders. Someone else's responsibility now. Not my problem. ...but he didn't. He attempted the very, very difficult pass despite the risk of looking like a fool, pulled it off. We won 1-0. Look at how long it took Lallana to even be remotely effective in the Champo and League friggin' 1! And this wasn't as a teenager! This was as a 22-year old! Precisely the same age Gaston is now!

Goodie. Shows we're toughening up and getting a bit more savvy when it comes to tactical fouling. Don't hate the player, hate the game. (and incidentally I really am beginning to hate the game when it comes to stuff like timewasting/playacting/diving/shirt-pulling in the area etc.) However! Everyone else is doing it, so you're at a disadvantage if you're naive enough to opt out...bit like Facebook really.

Carroll is a player who's been overrated and overvalued through no fault of his own, but is still a potentially very destructive player on his day even though he might not necessarily be the one to put the ball in the back of the net. Very, very, very few strikers can have a brilliant game without scoring. Carroll however, is one of them. Incidentally its a laughable decision and Carroll's arm swing is very obviously an instinctive 'get offa me' having just been jumped all over and strangled about a quarter of a second earlier, but one that I'm happy Saints will benefit from in the short term.

Useful. Another player who is relatively decent but has become a bit of a figure of fun because of overhype and overvaluation which of course, wasn't his fault and shouldn't really reflect on his actual ability. Plus he's been sent to numerous injury specialists which without alleging anything whatsoever, would be precisely the story I'd go with if my talented and too-rich too-young striker who loved the playboy lifestyle had been to rehab for a drug addiction. Anyway, he'd have caused us problems. Useful that he's out.

There you have it gents. Its out in the open and right there in black and white; you cannot criticise Lambert. Not because he's had a good season or is likely to be an effective player against the big clubs, but because: "Rickie Lambert is a Saints legend and therefore should be beyond criticism as a footballer" Incidentally I think Rickie has his uses and had a good game yesterday but what the above attitude is making it much harder to appreciate his efforts!

Its incredible that Schneiderlin and Lallana were part of the team that was relegated from the Championship in 08/09 and are now two of the three best players at a top-half Premiership club.

Against a team who will be playing in the Championship next season. He had a good game but we will need to upgrade in the summer. Goals-wise he's taken his tally to 4 from open play this season and we need a centre-forward with mobility. Did well in the second half though. More of the same please.

Rickie Lambert has once again proved immobile and disappointing. The ball doesn't even seem to stick up front aside from the fact that we have no pacy outlet. We're crying out for a left-footed left winger.