Matthew le Tissier was perhaps the first Saints player to attract this headline when he famously dated one of the cast, but why is Rickie Lambert able to score away but not at home.

Rickie Lambert heads up to Carrow Road hoping to score in not only his third away game in a row, but to make it seven goals out of the last eight away games, having so far netted a goal in each of our last seven trips on the road excepting the trip to Old Trafford where Jay Rodriguez notched our goal.

Such a decent run of scoring is not unexpected from a player who has scored exactly 100 times for Saints, but what is strange is that as good as his away record is, he hasnt scored at St Mary's in 3 1/2 months, ironically enough when Norwich visited at the end of November and that goal in itself was his first strike in front of his own fans for over two months prior to that.

So why is it that Rickie can be so lethal away from home rather than at St Mary's where we will create a lot more chances and presuambly that would mean a lot more for Rickie as well ? The answer is something that I cant quite put my finger on, the only thing I can suggest is that at home we have more attacking options, we bring more people into play in the opposition penalty area so therefore we dont rely on Rickie so much whereas away from home we spend more time on the back foot and when we attack, being the lone strike Rickie is the only option to aim for.

What has changed in our number 7's play though is the way he scores his goals, when he first arrived a large number where shots from distance and free kicks, now these only represent a small percentage of his repetoire, indeed his recent goals have been scored from close in, the header virtually on the goal line at Wigan, the header in the six yard box at Chelsea, being just two examples, but for whatever reason his game is now more about getting on the end of the ball in and around the six yard box than it ever was before and perhaps that is why he is now scoring away from home more than at St Mary's.

Rickie's 100 goals have been spread across four competitions as follows.

League 156(4) appearances 90 goals

FA Cup 9 (2) appearances 4 goals

League Cup 4(4) appearances 3 goals

Johnstones Paint Trophy 7 appearances 3 goals

To a striker a goal is a goal and Rickie alongside all Saints fans will be justifiably proud of this record, however to be truly considered a great Saints goalscorer he will be looking to notch that century of goals in the league, if he does so he will be only the 9th player in the clubs history to do so     

Photo: Action Images

blambo added 17:30 - Mar 8 does anyone score from distance for Saints anymore ?
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