With rumours persisting that Adam Lallana will be out for a long period, speculation is that Nigel Adkins will reshuffle his formation to cover his absence.
At yesterdays pre match conference ahead of the visit of Sunderland Nigel Adkins was very shy of talking about Lallana's injury almost to the point of annoyance to the journalists present, whilst of course club's have to maintain some sort of confidentiality regarding injuries, the transcript of the conference see's Adkins being very flippant about the injury and refusing to comment further other than to confirm that the player would miss Saturday's match saying
"We're just going to say he is out for the Sunderland game and you can ask me the next question ahead of the next game."
That didnt ask the question that Saints supporters want to know and indeed this cloak of secrecy only fuels rumours that Lallana could be out for the long term.
But the absence of the Saints skipper could work to Adkins advantage as it could see him change his formation moving from a 4-5-1 line up that he doesnt seem to quite have the players to play, to a more traditional 4-4-2 and this would offer him more flexibility in whom he can select.
This would be the case especially up front where to be blunt he really only has two options under 4-5-1, that is Rickie Lambert or Jay Rodriguez, but the flexibility of playing two strikers gives him the option of playing a contrasting forward alongside Lambert.
This could bring Mayuka into contention as well as Tadanari Lee who has been frozen out since his return to injury, in truth neither has what it takes to be a lone striker and they need to play off a big man up front, it should also be noted that neither are truly wide men either not having the tracking back abilities needed.
But I dont expect either to be starting the game on Saturday, against Reading, Adkins had reverted to a 4-4-2 and i expect the only change in this line up to be similar to the one after Lallana had gone off injured with Ramirez being used out wide left.
If Adkins does go with 4-5-1, then although he could push J Rod into midfield I feel this wouldnt be the best option in terms of his ability to play the role and I think that Guly would probably come into the side to play wide left.
From a more controversial view I think that a long term injury to Lallana might actually be of benefit to Saints in the New Year in that it will force the manager to make a change that he has been loathe to do for some reason and that is play a defensively minded player to cover the left back on the left, time after time in the early part of the season teams murdered us on our left flank due to Lallana's inability to truly defend, dont get me wrong I love Adam Lallana, he is one of our best players of recent years, but the fact of the matter is that in our 4-5-1 formation it requires the wide players to track their man back and this is just not Adam's game.
For whatever reason the manager seemed unable to address this problem, yes results have improved of late but a lot of that is down to playing lesser teams, the trip to Liverpool showed that the problem is still there with Raheem Sterling and Glen Johnson rampant down our left often two on one on Shaw.
In the next six weeks or so we are playing plenty of teams with a better ability than Liverpool to exploit this weakness and whilst Lallana seemed to be an automatic choice despite not always being the best option tactically, now Nigel Adkins might have no option but to address the situation.
However this isnt the pressing need, against Sunderland we need attacking option on the left, but after that the next three games require us to be able to defend, if we are to keep out of the top three we truly need to be able to pick up some points in games we are not expected too.
Hopefully Adam Lallana wont be out for too lon, I like most Saints fans just wish the club would be a little more open when asked fairly straightforward questions about his injury.