Saints have once again broken their transfer record, after a lengthy chase they have finally landed Itallian International striker Pablo Osvaldo.
Saints quest for a striker finally ended on Sunday evening with the announcement that Pablo Osvaldo has been signed from AS Roma on a four year contract for a reported fee of around £15.million thus smashing the club's transfer record itself set only a month or so ago with the arrival of Wanyama.
Certainly Osvaldo looks to have impressive statistics, in his two years with Roma he has averaged almost exactly a goal every two games, a pretty good average, it has been in recent years that his career has blossomed, in fact after joining Mauriccio Pochettino at Espanyol he started to hit the goals a lot more regularly bringing a move to Roma for around the same fee that they have received for him to end his spell in the Eternal City.
Aged 27 Osvaldo began his career in his native Argentina before moving to Italy in his late teens qualifying for Italian citizenship through his great grandfather he opted to represent that country rather than that of his birth and won his first cap for the Azurri in October 2011, after a spell out of favour he was recalled and scored 3 times but has recently found himself out of favour again not making the squad for the confederation cup in Brazil in the summer, however he did play in Italy's recent friendly against Argentina and will be hoping that doing well at Saints will help him get into the squad for the World Cup in 2014.
A strong powerful player he is a colourful character in March 2012 he punched a teammate in the face for not passing to him and was suspended by Roma and this move has been shrouded in controversy as Roma looked to cash in on him despite being leading scorer last season.
What this will mean for Rickie Lambert is unclear, ironically after perhaps the best week of his career he now finds himself for the first time with his place under threat at Saints, the problem as lambert will be well aware is that if you pay £15 million for a player then he is going to play and with Saints playing only a lone striker and both players being of the same ilk it is going to be one or the other rather than a formation to accommodate both of them, Rickie is the man in possession of the shirt and although Osvaldo looks likely to be available for the game against Sunderland next week, he should start ahead of the new man, however he needs to be on top of his game as Osvaldo wont be happy sitting on the bench for long, if Lambert continues to score, Pochettion might have a tough decision on his hands and with both men knowing that if they are to make their respective countries squads over the season and get in the World Cup squad, then they wont do that if they are not starting regularly, Sadly this could mean that one of them isn't with Saints by the end of this season.