Not a fan of Lallana. There always seemed to be something a bit sickly about him. It's not just the heart problems but it's his pasty complexion, his slightly drawn features, even when 'fit' he didn't exactly exude vibrant well-being. Then there's his less than explosive style, the sense that despite his endeavour he takes slightly too long to recover from bursts of exertion, he's better at sustaining a regular output than varying his pace, he lacks pace, could never maintain energetic bursts and would rarely be able to complete 90 minutes.
He's technically very good, genuinely two-footed, but often tries to do too much on the ball. It can slow our play down just when it needs a quick one or two touch interaction. His pressing is massively overrated (AOC, for example, has been shown to be more than twice as effective) and his good games infrequent. He struggles to influence the bigger games.
He's also now showing increasing injury issues that were largely predictable and won't improve. He'll be 31 by the end of the season, 2 years older than the superfit and reliable Milner was when he joined. He'll still have a year to run on his contract but finding a buyer will now be difficult if we want to recover any value. We should have sold him two years ago.
As for whether he's a good bloke or not, I don't know. He comes across to me as a bit of a prick. Certainly Clattenburg thought so but then he's a bit of a knob as well.
Anyway, never warmed to him.
