This week St Bangkok gives us his opinions on the Saints business in the transfer window
Perhaps a real debating article this one as at the end you will see one option of many strong first team line ups. To be honest I did not give this line up a lot of thought, I just banged it out, but it just goes to show the strength now of this squad as I have had no room for De Ridder, Cork, Guly, Barney, Hammond and new boy Lee. Perm any combination you fancy, come on and give it a go.
OK, so no marquee signing, which to be honest I think we all knew. But in Lee, Sharp and a clearly rejuvenated Puncheon, we have three first class additions on the goal scoring front, surely enough extra pace, dimension and fire power now to score us out of this league?
I have seen many comments that perhaps we missed a trick by making a good CB addition to the squad, and perhaps yes this is true. But in saying that with Martin coming better with every game, Fonte looking to be back well on the road to his best and Jos perhaps to join in soon (maybe even the return of Danny Seabourne lurks around the corner) I think we should have enough.
And as I said on the forum, often in this game the best form of defence is the offence and with our midfield coming back to its best, with Punch back on the bus and the added dimension of pace I think we will be taking a lot of the pressure off the back four by pushing most side back for 90 minutes. That said I am sure we will still leak the odd silly goal here and there but that is why we are in the NPC and not the PL, as we are not quite the finished article yet.
Going into this window I think most of us truly had eyes fixated on adding firepower, what with the suspension to Rickie and the huge loss that obviously was. We have also heard many a cry on this site all season long about the lack of a plan B, another dimension and or pace. Well, in Lee and Punch we have the pace and bag of tricks and at last in Billy Sharp we have a true predator who can feed off Rickie, something we all know DC can do, but not often enough due to age and injuries.
All in all, when ones views a likely strongest line up and bench option, we are clearly going to be trying to score our way to wins, so there will be few dull moments between now and May. Options upfront now include Rickie, Barney, Guly, Lee, Sharp with a few others who can play there besides. This is pretty awesome in my opinion and clearly has some goals in it.
So what would out strongest line up be? Well, how do you fancy a bit of this:
Davis – Fraser – Fonte – Jos – Fox – Punch – Chaplow – Morgan – Lallana – Rickie – Billy………
OK, we can all tinker with that quite a bit, but that works for me. The future is very bright for the last 18 games with the assurance of some very entertaining encounters.