Horses for courses

[swedish dave]

Reading an interview with Paul Onuachu, (who found his scoring talent after returning to Turkey)

.One is bound to ask the question...why he was dubbed a failure during his time with Saints. 

He raised the point that continual changes of manager, and (consequently) formation ...contributed

to his failure to score goals with any sort of regularity. It never ceases to amaze me that this situation

continues when clubs continue to try and solve their various problems, be it defence, midfield or up top,

when some managers have no plan B and simply insist on staying with the one formation " they believe in"

regardless of whether it works or not.  Importing new talents who played well elsewhere is no guarantee. 

 

As someone who recalls Saints teams from the early 1960's when Derek Reeves became record club

goalscorer (and probably still is ?) was to a large degree a formation with two teenage wingers, 

namely Terry Paine and John Sydenham, and we saw the subsequent deluge of goals.

Fast forward a few seasons and the arrival of " a natural CF"  in Ron Davies (1966) with performances

that surpassed even the legendary names of that era. 

Quite simply, clubs fail to acknowledge the fact that a player's success is mainly due to those around him

and buying-in a good goalscorer is not a certainty of him repeating his achievements, and the current rash

of new signings in the Prem. (sometimes at huge fees) is plainly proof of that mistake. 

Back in the day, Rickie Lambert seemed to score for fun in his career with Saints, in part because he 

got the service, whilst the arrival of Jay Rodriguez was a disappointment at first when he was outlawed to

the LW spot and rarely saw the ball.  It took a revamp of the system for both men to benefit.

Sadly, Saints have not been immune to the problem, and after the sudden departure Ronald Koeman

(whose teams were a revelation to many), we embarked a long series of ill-planned buys of players

who may have shown up well in other teams / other leagues yet proved to be costly errors for us. 

The list has become embarrassingly long, and shows little chance of changing in the near future.

 

Replacing like for like is hard, but expecting people to play in unfamiliar roles is a recipe for disaster.

In our case, few deny that Larin and Azaz have shown up very well, but when I look at the bench and see

the likes of Fellows and Dobbin sitting out games. It's the same question.. What do we expect of them  

in the current set-up. How long will we have the patience to wait....before asking the inevitable question?.

[beatlesaint]

I know I'm in the minority on this and ok had he stayed we may never have heard of Cyle Larin but nothing will ever convince me that especially the way Tonda sets up I firmly believe Onuachu would have scored a hatful of goals in the Championship.