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#3 Liverpool number 9 - Rickie Lambert
Brendan Rodgers has been heavily criticised for the quality of his recent signings. Rickie Lambert was on fire as Southampton’s “old fashioned” number 9, a shirt number he took over when arriving at Anfield to spearhead Rodgers’ Anfield revolution. Well, that was the plan at least.
His limitations in Rodgers’ inventive formation has been exposed time and again and despite professing to be a boyhood Red, Lambert hasn’t enjoyed anything like the adulation he might’ve expected upon signing. When you’ve scored less than half a dozen goals in a season, what do you expect.
How the Kop must yearn for the days of El Nino, Fernando Torres.
Despite the Spaniard leaving in acrimony, there is little doubt that he was one of the best marksmen that Liverpool have had in recent times. Perhaps the best. Not even Robbie Fowler or Michael Owen got to 50 Liverpool goals as quickly as Torres did, in just 72 games.
His movement, link-up play and quality of finish were as good as it gets and Torres deserves to be spoken about in the same breath as other Anfield legends. It is just a pity that Lambert hasn’t really been able to make a lot of the chances he has got at Liverpool.
