Southampton FC legend had a Cardiff City nightmare in sad ending to career: View | OneFootball

Cardiff City thought they had made a brilliant move when they brought Southampton legend Ricky Lambert to the club.

The former Liverpool forward joined the club for an undisclosed fee in the summer of 2016. Despite being 34, he was handed a two-year deal, with manager Paul Trollope hoping he could help the club return to the Premier League.

Given that he had scored goals in the Premier League and for England, this did not seem like an unrealistic expectation. However, Lambert struggled in his last three seasons at Liverpool and West Bromwich Albion, netting just three times in the league after leaving the Saints.

Lambert was a legend at Southampton. The striker spent five years at St. Mary's, scoring over a hundred league goals in the process. He was the club's top scorer in League One, the Championship and the Premier League as he became a fan-favourite for the Saints.

The move to Cardiff proved to be a risk, especially with the club handing him an estimated £30,000 a week wage. This made him the highest-paid player at the club by far, and put huge pressure on the England international to find the net at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Ricky Lambert struggled with injuries during his Cardiff City career

Despite being the highest paid player and the biggest name in the squad, Lambert's Cardiff career did not go the way anybody would have wanted.

Lambert admitted when he signed that he wanted to get amongst the goals, but he didn't manage to do that at the Cardiff City Stadium.

The England striker scored just four times for his new club in his sole season in South Wales. Those goals came in three matches, and all of them were scored before Christmas.

However, his record of 0.36 goals per 90 minutes was a decent return. Those four goals came from only ten shots on target, which does show how clinical he was in front of goal. That did mean he only managed 0.89 shots on target per 90 minutes, which explains his lack of goals for the Bluebirds.

Sadly, injury curtailed his season, limiting him to just 18 appearances for his new club. Lambert only played four matches in the second half of the season, as a new-look Neil Warnock side impressed as their highest earner was on the injury table.

Lambert's Cardiff exit before retirement

Lambert suffered a nightmare end to his career at Cardiff, deciding to call it a day after just one year with the Bluebirds. He struggled to find time on the pitch once Warnock took over as manager, just six weeks into the season.

Trollope was sacked in October, by which time he had scored two goals. Both of those came in a 2-1 win over Rotherham, the only league win of Trollope's tenure.

The England striker claimed that Warnock made it clear that he wasn't part of his plans early on in his tenure. Lambert spoke to Bristol Live to discuss the falling out with the manager, saying: "And Neil Warnock came in and told me pretty quickly that I wasn’t in his plans. He was fair and honest, and said I need energy up top, I need someone to be closing defenders down, and you can’t do it."

After playing just 18 matches for Cardiff, Ricky Lambert terminated his two-year deal in the summer of 2017. This was one year short of the deal he signed with the Bluebirds, and he retired from football in October 2017, after failing to find a new club. It was a sad end to a wonderful career, with his injury clearly taking a toll on his body in his final season in football.