Redmond Starting To Adapt To New Role Tuesday, 25th Oct 2016 11:16 Nathan Redmond is starting to adapt to his new position and is showing that he might just be a better all round contributor to the team than the man he is seen to be replacing Sadio Mane. All of the talk in the early weeks of the season was about how Saints had sold Graziano Pelle and Sadio Mane and that they hadn't replaced the goals that these two scored last season, both hit a total of 11 goals each in the Premier League. In the case of Pelle it was not quite true to say he hadn't been replaced, knowing the Italian intended to leave at the end of the season, the club had snapped up his replacement in January in the person of Charlie Austin. A player with a better goal scoring record than Pelle. Now both Austin and Redmond have started to show just why the club signed them and they are answering those that say that they cannot replace the goals of the two they replaced. This time last year Pelle had 5 goals in the Premier League and Sadio Mane a mere 2, if you compare that with the 4 that Austin has and Redmond's 3 then the totals scored are exactly the same when comparing the two respective duo's after 9 Premier League games. That means the argument that we haven't replaced the goals of Pelle and Mane does not hold water, of course their is a long way to go in the seaso, but indications are that this season's pairing can outscore last terms. As mentioned Pelle had 5 this time last year and ended on 11, that leaves Austin needing only 6 goals to replicate him and 29 games to get them. Likewise Mane scored his 3rd goal of the season in the 10th game, but didn't score his 4th for another 5 months, a total of 20 games without a goal, indeed if Redmond is to outscore Mane then he merely needs to be consistent over the next 7 months, nothing more nothing less. But the supporters also need to remember that Redmond is changing the way he plays, he is used to being an out an out winger with an eye for goal, now he is being asked to play more centrally and be a little more clinical in front of goal, although I would imagine his goals to chances ratio would just need to stay the same, he will naturally get more chances in a more attacking role. Like Mane he has skill and pace so will bring a lot more to the team than just goals, but the fans need to realise that he is still a work in progress, speaking to the press Redmond said. “I’m learning a new position,” “I’m playing up front. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will I transferring into becoming a striker. “I’m learning daily in training and learning during the games as well. The more I get in those areas the better I’ll get at finishing.” Redmond has drawn comparisons with former Arsenal winger-cum-striker Thierry Henry but naturally is keen to downplay those. “If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t be playing,” he explains, when asked if he'd rather have continued to play as a winger. “He [Puel] made it clear he wasn’t going to play with wide players, but he also made it clear that he’d watched me before and seen me play, so he knew I had the potential to play there [up front]." “It was about trying it in pre-season and once it came to the first couple of games of the season he told me I was going to be playing there." “It was either adapt and learn or sit on the sidelines, and I’m never going to shy away from a challenge.” Saints supporters are slowly but surely being won over by Redmond who apart from his 3 Premier League goals has shown that like Mane he has much to contribute in the built up play when attacking, his pace is a threat to any defender and he has an eye for a cross. But their memories need to be a little longer, for most of his time here Mane was not a hero to the fans, indeed for much of his first season a sizable section of the crowd thought that we had wasted our money, his late burst of goals in that first season silenced his critics, but those voices of dissent re'emerged when he went those 5 months without a goal. The £35 million we got from Liverpool made many forget his two seasons and let the fee cloud their judgement and therefore put him up as some sort of goal scoring hero, something he was certainly not apart from the last few games of both of his seasons here. In Nathan Redmond we might just have found the perfect replacement for Mane, yes it will be about more than just scoring goals, but the reality is that in terms of season's total Redmond doesn't have to do that much to match Mane's 11 form last term, he just needs to be consistent in his scoring over the entire season and not just the final half dozen or so games, if he does that he might well earn us a few more points in the middle of the season than Mane did last year, if that is the case it could be another great season. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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