With last season's captain Adam Lallana departed for Liverpool, the big question now is who his replacement might be, here we look at a few options.
I always found it strange that Adam Lallana was Saints captain, not for any reason other than I have never thought that so called flair players make good captains, in my book a captain needs to be able to lead from a central position be it at the back or midfield and needs to be the cool calm collected type.
That being the case Adam didn't fit that bill as Matthew Le Tissier didn't in another era, flair players need to b left to do what thy do best, in my opinion captaincy doesnt suit them.
So who will take over the armband for next season ? the obvious choice would have been Dejan Lovren, if he stays then perhaps it still would be, however many would find it unpalatable after the words attributed to him this summer.
Jose Fonte could be another candidate, he has all the attributes in that he has been at the club for a number of years and has that cool commanding presence on the pitch, my initial thoughts would be that he could be a good match for the armband.
But there are another couple of contenders in the centre of the park, Morgan Schneiderlin like Fonte has all the right qualities as does Jack Cork.
But perhaps the main requirement for the Captain's job is to be playing week in week out , that being the case then from our current squad we dont have a lot of players who have not only the basic requirements of a cool calm head but can be guaranteed first team regulars, in fact so far you cant look that far past the four players I have mentioned and if we believe the media two of them will soon be gone.
Another option would be to hand the armband to one of our new arrivals, the two so far don't look to be Captaincy material so it will be interesting to see who arrives.
A newbie might be good from the point of view that it is a fresh face and voice in the dressing room, someone who has not got any baggage from last season but who is Koeman's own man.
From this point of view I think that this could be a good option a clean start with a new Captain could prove to be a breath of fresh air to the squad.
There is of course no hurry to appoint the Captain, Koeman will be looking at just who he should pick over the coming weeks, he will be looking at the squad as to who has the personality for it rather than just hand the job to either your longest serving player or the fans hero.