For a large part of this season Nathan Redmond has come in for criticism from a section of the Saints support, but he is now starting to prove them wrong.
Nathan Redmond could well have been asking himself just what he had let himself in for when he reported for pre season training, he had agreed to sign for the club before going away on England U21 duty, but by the time he had formalised the deal the the manager who had wanted him Ronald Koeman had left and he found himself under Claude Puel who wanted to change the style of the play and that did not include out and out wingers.
That being the case the spin put on it by the club was that they saw Redmond as a striker.
Add to that the fact that Sadio Mane had departed for a big fee and that he was being touted as the replacement and Nathan must have wondered what he had let himself in for.
As Saints struggled to find any rhythm under the new manager and system despite scoring on the opening day of the season our new signing from Norwich found himself increasingly the target of the section of Saints support who always have to have a scapegoat.
This was slightly unfair, although his form was not at it's best at times, he was being asked to play in an unfamiar position and in a team that was misfiring.
Come late October with 9 Premier League games under his belt and 3 goals to his name, he should really have had a lot to be pleased about, but yet he was stillthe one that was getting the stick on social media from some supporters.
Many of these fans now had an inflated impression of the man Redmond had replaced, Sadio Mane was now mooted as a player who had been brilliant for Saints and amnesia was rife and many could not remember that for most of the mid part of the previous season Mane had been awful, yet no one took this into account, Redmond was judged on Mane last 8 or so games for the club and not the first 3/4 of the season.
It would have been easy at this point for Redmond to have lost confidence and hidden, but he didn't he stepped on to the pitch and got on with doing his job and ignored the knockers.
Yes sometimes they had a point, but for the main part they didn't, the club had made a rod for his back championing him as a goalscorer, but the reality was that he was more of a provider, albeit one that could chip in with a few goals.
But being a provider only gets the credit if the person on the end of the ball puts it away, that was not happening, there were many occasions where Redmond did his job and got the ball into the box, but we had no one who could put it in.
One game that sticks in my mind was in December when Middlesbrough where the visitors, it was an awful game with only a wonder goal from Boufal to make it a little better, but late on Redmond disposessed a Boro player out wide, got down to the byeline, put in a cross that disected both keeper and defence needing only Jay Rodriguez to put it in, sadly J Rod could not finish it from close range and the score stayed the same.
This was typical of the season Redmond was having, he was taking the stick for the whole team, but people did not see his own contributions.
For much of the first half of the season Saints had no target man, at least not in the way that Puel wanted to play, Charlie Austin got goals, but did not have the mobility that Puel's system needed, apart from that for much of the first half of the season Long and Rodriguez were injured and this worsened when Austin was ruled out for four months.
Saints were a team without an outlet up front, the fans were blaming Redmond, but he was never going to be the solution to that problem. Unfairly though he was going to be compared to Sadio Mane, but as stated, not the Mane of the first 3/4 of the season, but the last 9 games, fans forgot that Mane himself only had 3 goals himself up until late March, the same number as Redmond had going into the new year.
But January would be the month that changed the course of the season for Nathan Redmond and it would be two events that did so.
The first was scoring the winner in the home game in the first leg of the League Cup semi, that capped a great performance from Redmond who was arguably the man of the match.
The second was the signing of Manolo Gabbiadini, this meant that Claude Puel now had the type of striker he wanted to spearhead the team and that he could tweak the system and use Redmond in a wider position, one that suited him better.
Since then he has flourished and has been a crucial element in our resurgence, ironically he has perhaps still not got the plaudits, Manolo Gabbiadini has been the hero, but it has to be said that without Nathan Redmond his impact might not have been so great.
The two goals at Watford capped his resurgence and he is now ahead in the goalscoring stakes of where the man many judge him against Sadio Mane was at this stage last season.
With 13 Premier League games left Nathan Redmond now has a chance to kick on and show those who doubted his class that they were wrong, in doing so he can perhaps force his way into the full England squad after being the U21 player of the year last season.
Of course a month or so of good form does not make a season, but now everything is in place to give Redmond the chance to flourish, he has a team that is geared towards the way he plays and he now has someone who can finish in the box.
The time is now here for Nathan Redmond, hopefully he will take it with both hands, or more accurately both feet.