Rickie Lambert's outstanding season has just got better after he was named Football League Player Of The Year at a ceremony in London on Sunday night.
When Rickie Lambert joined Saints one game into 2009/10 season there were probably not too many people who would have predicted just how succesful his next three years would be at the club, although he had plenty of admirers in the St Mary's crowd who glee fully sang "He'll take us to the Premier league" in truth not many of them really believed it, in his first season Lambert got a lot of goals, but there was a feeling that he was a little too slow and a little too one dimensional to even play in the Championship let alone the Premier.
In his second season Rickie and Saints started badly, by Xmas Saints were only in ninth place and Rickie had notched only six goals in eighteen games, poor by the high standards of the previous season, especially when you consider that four of those goals had been penalties and a fifth a deflected free kick which in all truth should have gone down as an own goal, in contrast Lee Barnard with much less game time on the pitch had scored five, all from open play. Rumours abounded that Lambert was carrying an injury and wasnt fit and it certainly looked like it.
The second half of the season though saw Lambert start to find his form again, he started to not only score but create goals for others as well, he started to look sharper and back to his old self, but there was more, he seemed to have added extra dimensions to his game, he no longer just shot from anywhere, he brought others into play, by the end of the season his next 27 games had seen him add another 15 goals to his tally but that didnt tell the true story as Saints had now become a team that werent relying just on the goals of one man, but were scoring from all positions and lambert was playing a big part in that as creator.
But during the summer of 2011 there were still those who wondered whether the man dubbed Super Rickie Lambert truly had it in him to make that step up into the Championship, it had taken him a long time to get there, so was he truly good enough, the answer soon came and from the off SRL looked leaner and keener than ever before, it seemed with every opportunity (on and off the pitch) that came along, he raised his game and knew that if he didnt take it with open arms he might not get the chance again.
This season he has carried on in the same vein as the second half as last, no longer is he a player that if he doesnt score, he doesnt do a lot else, he has added a lot more to his game in the last eighteen months or so, indeed even in the last year come to that.
So we now stand on the cusp of the words of the song coming true, Super Rickie Lambert might indeed take us to the Premier League, there are still those that say that he wont be good enough if we do, that may be true, hopefully we will find out next season, but I for one would not write off Rickie raising his game another notch if we do get there and truly make himself a Premier class player, he has seen his old team mate Grant Holt do it with Norwich, Im sure that this will act as a further spur, if he needs one.
So just recognition for Rickie Lambert last night, lets hope the fairytale rise of the lad from Fazackerley continues.