smokey
Honorary Master
To me, honestly, his "great" season was 2005. When he netted those two goals to clinch us the league - he was idol worshiped. though on the balance of it, 2006 was better in general terms. You are right that he sucked in 2007, but only because he was injury-prone for some obscure reason. Look at it this way, it was his first sub-31 game league season since 96/97... Where he is usually ever present, he was not noticed and that maybe led to him being labeled as having a sucky season (all things are relative after all)...
Yeah - I remember that goal as well... *sigh*
Point is - the team got on without him, whereas this season everything hinges on him (and as an aging midfielder - that's a problem) and if he didn't play a game, or was slightly off-colour (no one has 40 brilliant games) we sucked big time. Ballack/Malouda/Mikel were pathetic without Lamps holding them together. We also missed Cole, who takes a bit of pressure off of Lampard.
Yeah - I remember that goal as well... *sigh*
Point is - the team got on without him, whereas this season everything hinges on him (and as an aging midfielder - that's a problem) and if he didn't play a game, or was slightly off-colour (no one has 40 brilliant games) we sucked big time. Ballack/Malouda/Mikel were pathetic without Lamps holding them together. We also missed Cole, who takes a bit of pressure off of Lampard.