Re: Lansbury & Pacheco

OK, I understand they may not be as uber brilliant as they appeared to be last season - we will probably never know - but they were both good enough to be in the starting XI. The reason they were mostly used as substitutes was because of Lambert's policy.

He had a squad who had won League 1 and then were pushing for promotion / playoffs in the Champs and he wanted them to be allowed to finish it off. He brought in Pacheco and Lansbury as quality depth as he didn't want to end up in the situation where we had injuries and had to play youngsters or far weaker players which might then mean failing at the last hurdle after all the great effort everyone had put in. It also enabled him to have options if he wanted to change shape, or to put those in if one of the regular players start to drop in form. I think he just realised it was a great shot at promotion and didn't want any bad luck or sequence of events to ruin it, and had those two in as an insurance policy.

I think it may be different with De Laet and perhaps even Naughton as they are season-long loans in from the start of the season. They are also here as insurance in case one or another of the regulars turns out to be a step short of hacking it in the Prem, which of course may well be the case for one or two of them. He realises how important the first half of the season is when it comes to surviving in the Premiership.

Posted By: Steve in Holland, Jul 22, 12:16:43