For Lambert, the award was on the peripheral of his sole focal target: “The main thing is to get promotion and that’s the only thing that matters to me and my teammates and everyone at the club too.” At current, Lambert is averaging a goal per game-and-a-half and if Saints are to hold on to the top spot, which they’ve managed to do so for the majority of the season, admirably competing with relegated West Ham and last season’s play-off losers Reading, the continuation of his goal-scoring form will be needed.
Saints have 10 games left to seal promotion and as it stands, Southampton are three points ahead of third place Reading: however, The Royals have a game in hand. The breathing space between Saints and fourth place Middlesbrough, who lost 2-0 to Leeds at the weekend, is much more favourable to the top of the table club, with ten points separating the two sides. Yet, they too have a game in hand.
It looks as if the two automatic spots will go to two of Saints, West Ham and Reading and with the lattermost still to face Southampton and The Hammers, points from those two games will be needed for Reading to stay in with a shout for an automatic promotion place. Fortunately for the Berkshire club, they go into the end of the season run with the best form in the league, having picked up 27 points from the past available 30, now on an eight game winning run.
It will be a ferocious end to the season and the teams as far down as seventh can rightly hold on to hopes of achieving a top two finish, too. It looks as if more points than normal will be needed to secure promotion to the Premier League, without the added competition of the play-offs, and Southampton will be no stranger to this, having to hold off a formidable Huddersfield side last season, who narrowly missed out on automatic promotion despite a 24-game unbeaten run.
The competition is so fierce at the summit, the normal benchmark of 80 points for automatic promotion, which has been enough in the past four seasons, does not look like securing a return to the Premier League this campaign and therefore, the form of the Football League Player of the Year will be essential in ensuring Southampton return to their home of 27-years – the Premier League.
To Southampton fans, Lambert is the man who “wears the shirt of Matt Le Tiss”; to his team mates, such as the award’s runner-up Adam Lallana, he is the player who “fully deserved” his trophy; but for the player himself, he is a man in love and happy on the South Coast: “I love it at Southampton; there’s no other club I want to be in the Premier League with.” Fans and players alike will be hoping the Player of the Year gets his wish God knows he deserves it.
Written by Jordan Florit for www.maycauseoffence.com/ For more articles visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit
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