'I was 16 stone and top scorer but still branded a f****** disgrace by Alan Pardew'
When Rickie Lambert was called into manager Alan Pardew's office he was expecting to be congratulated for being Southampton's top goalscorer – instead he got a telling-off that set him on the path to fulfilling a dream
“Absolute. F*****g. Disgrace”.
Well that wasn't the praise ex England striker Rickie Lambert was expecting after topping his division's scoring charts.
But that's how a seething former Premier League boss Alan Pardew who scolded the Scouser when he was expecting a pat on the back.
Lambert has gained notoriety in recent months for his outspoken views online including his bizarre theory about how you can talk to water.
Pardew had bought Rickie for Southampton when they were languishing in League One in 2009. But the raging silver-haired gaffer felt a touch of complacency had crept into the Merseyside striker’s game.
READ MORE: 'I stumbled into hardman Julian Dicks' room before match – what I saw stunned me'
“I started scoring straight away,” Rickie told podcaster James English. “I was on about eight goals, I was leading goal scorer in the league.
“So he called me in and said sit down, so I thought he was gonna go ‘well done how are you enjoying it? … you're doing really well”.
But instead, Pardew ordered him to “lift his f*****g top up”.
A bemused Rickie did as he was told, at which point Pardew pointed at his burgeoning belly: “See? That's what I'm talking about. Absolute f*****g disgrace that”.
Rickie had been scoring his fair share of goals, but had perhaps been celebrating a little too much after the games.
From a fighting weight of about 14½ stone his weight had ballooned to over 16 stone – mostly, he says, as a result of too much booze.
With the club’s fitness coaches standing silently behind him, Pardew carried on: “The way you handle yourself is a disgrace and the way you eat the way you drink.
“You think you can do that Southampton, you can do at Bristol Rovers, you can do that in Rochdale. You can do it in League Two… but you can't do it at Southampton.
“I'll give you six weeks to get that belly off,” Pardew raged, “or you're out of this club”.
“I was absolutely shook to core,” Rickie said. Up until that point He had always believed he knew best. But, he says, he decided “I’m going to listen to [Pardew]. He’s right”.
He set up a fast-track fitness plan with coach Nick Harvey, starting an extra hour before every team training session and finishing an hour after his fellow-players had hit the showers.
“I felt like sh*t,” Rickie says. “Couldn’t play …couldn’t score”.
But Pardew told him not to worry, to stick at it and he’d get a game every week – “the goals will come,” he promised.
“After four or five weeks I started to notice a bit of difference. The weight was off, the muscle was on.
“I was already a step ahead of everyone else in League One,” he said. “So when I became fit, I started noticing I was two steps ahead”.
The extra training “became like a drug”.
“I became addicted to it, he says, “and that’s when my career went off like a rocket”.
The 11-cap international, who represented the Three Lions at the 2014 World Cup, had a distinguished playing career that saw him play for Southampton and Liverpool before hanging up his boots in 2017.
He enjoyed five successful seasons at Southampton and was selected for the 2013 England squad before achieving a lifetime goal by moving to Liverpool: "I have always dreamt of playing for Liverpool,” he said at the time, “but I did kind of think the chance of playing for them had gone. I didn't think the chance would come"
To get more stories from Daily Star delivered straight to your inbox sign up to one of our free newsletters here .