Pelle or Rickie ?

If they were both the same age, and you had to pick one, who would it be ? Much as I respect and appreciate Rickie, and it may seem like sacrilege, I would tend to opt for Pelle.

 

So this is championship season Rickie vs Pelle?

That's a tough one. One of his best.

 

Too soon to judge. Rickie got us 2 promotions...can't even compare. I know you mean all things being equal, but I have to go for SRL for all he's done for us.

 

Rickie struck a ball much cleaner than Graziano.

But then Graziano scores goals Rickie couldn't, such as that over-head kick. Can we combine the two?

But yeah, as Fran says - SRL.

 

On the other hand, imagine if we had signed Pellè at 27 when we were in League One. I hate to be disloyal to Sir Rickie but Graziano could very well have got us promoted first time.

 

Both. We'd have won every game by about four goals.

Vin

 

Of course it's impossible, as it always is, to compare past with present. Maybe a more suitable choice would be Pelle v <insert any striker in the world> at the moment. The boy is on fire. Well I think he is anyway. The truth is that I hope I'm wrong and that this vein of form is simply his standard game and that his goalscoring exploits abroad which he is now mirroring here are simply going to continue. What. A. Signing.

 

It didn't happen and I'm not going to put myself in the position to even wonder about it. All I can say is that I was slightly concerned for Rickie as he got older and the pace of the Premier League was faster, that he'd cope. Well, it took going to Liverpool, where they have a different attitude, that showed that in a fast paced game, putting Rickie up front is totally the wrong thing to do, and doesn't exploit his skills. Liverpool haven't bothered to accommodate Lambert into their style. It's something Saints would never do and never did.
Saints were either extremely lucky or extremely professional, or a bit of both, to land Graziano Pelle after losing Rickie. They are different players, but they are similar too. And Pelle's story is almost as interesting as Rickie's humble beginnings as to why he couldn't score hat-full's of goals until 2-3 seasons ago. He has everything, but most of all he has someone who has faith in him, which gives him faith and confidence in himself. How he has stayed under the radar after his previous two seasons is astonishing. Pundits go on about the ease of scoring in the Eredivisie, but if you score 55 goals in 65 games [or something like that] for one of the biggest clubs in Holland then you are no mug.

Rickie paid off his fee time and again. I'm full expecting Graziano to do the same. Different players for different eras.

 

Who is this Rickie you are all on about?

 

Pelle.

 

Luckily, we didn't have to make that choice.

 

It's like choosing between Adkins and Poch; different people for different times.

 

Pelle just.

 

I think Rickie at that age playing for Koeman (meaning as a CF not as an AM as he has in recent years) would have been just as good as Pelle is now if not better Plus he is better than Tadic @ free kicks and probably penalties.

 

How do you know?

 

He'd have been a little less mobile.

I'm not going to pick one, however, as Pelle uses his "loaf" we should really be singing "Nice one Pelle, nice one son; nice one Pelle, let's have another one"

 

Think you are forgetting Rickie's free kicks and penalties...neither of which are Pelle's forte. SRL was a one man goal machine.

 

Well, we've seen one Tadic penalty, soft and down the middle. I hate those, even if they do go in. Lambert's penalties were pretty much unstoppable even when the goalkeeper guessed right.

Free kicks, well Lambert was demonstrably better.

That said, I actually think that Tadic is the man at the moment, maybe even more so than Pelle. I get the feeling that even Gallagher would score a hat full if he played alongside Tadic.

 

I think Rickie was at his best in our first season back at the EPL. He was, other than a huge creative force, also a force of nature, physically strong player who won duels against just about everyone. But at that time our team hasn't yet reached it's peak, and the next season Lambert started to decline physically. He still remained a hugely influential player on the pitch because of his intelligence and vision. People often overlooked that part of his game exactly because he was so physically imposing player. Back at our first season in the EPL, when he was at his peak and combined both those virtues, sublime creativity and sheer force, he was a player I watched in awe and genuinely think if he had somehow in his career pulled 5 or 6 years playing on that level, he would have been a world class player.

 

by the time we got to the premier league i felt rickie wasn't taking long shots any more or hitting free kicks particularly well.

we may well miss the penalties because yes tadic's first penalty was not the same ilk, and i've seen pelle's penalties aren't either.