For some reason Billy Sharp took a little more time to play his way into the hearts of the fans at St Mary's and didn' get the adoration others did, but is that all set to change.
Saints seeminlgy chased billy Sharp long and hard last season, after failing to land him in the summer of 2011 they continued to be publicly linked with him right up to the moment that he signed, strangely though when he arrived he didnt find himself the man of the moment and struggled to get into the starting line up and sometimes even off the bench as Tadanari Lee took centre stage in the incoming list.
Many Saints fans suggested that it was because he wasnt as some put it, "Saints Fit" whilst there is some mileage in that, the fact was, whatever his fitness he was still one of the leagues leading scorers even after being out for the first six weeks of the season with a broken leg sustained on the opening day.
In the meantime Tadanari Lee scored a wonder goal and attained a greater status than perhaps one goal should have given him, whilst Lee is a decent player, the fact is Saints needed that extra bit of firepower to push them towards the finishing line and once Sharp got his chance he took it and there was never any question that he should not be in the team, whether he looked a bit portly or not.
Sharp is one of those players that has a knack of scoring goals and a lot of them at that, they might not be spectacular, but he just has that talent of being in the right place at the right time and thats something that its hard to coach, in the past at Southampton perhaps the nearest comparison would be Steve Moran and in terms of build that probably as near to Billy Sharp as any Saints player from the past.
So whilst everyone mentions the likes of Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana as being the vital cogs for Saints, perhaps it might just be Billy Sharp, next season is not going to be as easy as the last, we wont dominate sides as we did in our build up and certainly wont create as many chances, last term although we scored a lot of goals, we needed to create a lot of chances to convert them, if you look at the goals against stats, our opponents always seemed to have a lot better ratio of goals scored against chances created.
In the premier League therefore we are going to need someone who can put it away when needed and in our current squad Sharp would certainly fit that bill, the spectacular we have always done well, its the bread and butter tap ins that we havent been so prolific at and thats where sSharp comes in.
So I dont expect him to win goal of the season next year, but players like Billy Sharp will score goals in any division and that might just be our saving grace next term, sometimes pretty football has to go out the window and an end product has to be produced, Sharp by name Sharp by nature !