New West Brom signing Rickie Lambert got his career with the Baggies off to a bright start by grabbing two goals in his debut match against former club Bristol Rovers. The striker forgotten by former club Liverpool showed that he can still provide the goods when needed, although it was a match against a lower calibre opposition than what he is used to. In the coming season Lambert will be looking to prove himself as the lethal striker who established himself as a Premier League quality forward during his time at Southampton; scoring 15 and 13 goals in his two respective top flight seasons there before earning a move to Liverpool where he became a fringe player.
Lambert was signed by West Brom a few hours prior to making his debut and West Brom Head Coach Tony Pulis was quoted as saying: “Rickie is a good, strong, solid player who is a great character, good in the dressing room and good on the pitch.” Per the club’s website; this transfer gives Lambert a new lease on life as he can look forward to getting some first team Football, something that he was barely afforded in his ill fated season at Liverpool. Lambert was consistently linked with moves away from Liverpool after the first few months passed by and nearly transferred to Aston Villa in January; he opted to stay with Liverpool claiming that there wasn’t enough time for him to decide and ended making a total of 25 Premier League appearances with 18 of them being from the bench.
As a youth product, Lambert was released from Liverpool and signed by Blackpool. From there he spent the better part of 15 years playing in the football league’s lower divisions, working to perfect his craft as striker until he earned his move back to his boyhood club, however that move quickly turned sour and his time at Liverpool was a season to forget.
Given that Liverpool have a wealth of attacking talent at their disposal which includes England international Daniel Sturridge as well as new signings Christian Benteke, Danny Ings and Roberto Firmino alongside the returning Belgian international Divock Origi plus Fabio Borini, Mario Balotelli and Jerome Sinclair who could possibly see game time in the league; it could only be assumed that Lambert would have fallen further down the pecking order.
Last season the Baggies managed to claim 44 points scoring 38 goals in the process but were short on proven goal scorers, with 14 of their league goals coming from the 21 year-old youngster Saido Berahino. Before moving to Liverpool Lambert had consistently scored 14 or more goals over five seasons and if given the playing time then it’s possible that he could return to his goal scoring best and help West Brom to higher heights.
