Last season Saints basically relied on two forwards to get their goals, this season we have three and this could be crucial in how the season pans out in the second half, but all signs suggest that this years trio could outgun last seasons duo.
In season 2020/21, Saints basically had two strikers Che Adams and Danny Ings, backed up in the first half of the season by Shane Long and in the second half by Dan N'Lundulu.
Ings on 12 Premier League goals and Adams on 9 meant that between them they scored 21 goals at an average of .55 a game.
Neither Long or N'Lundulu managed a Premier League goal between them, neither die now departed Michael Obafemi who had previously been considered a 1st team striker, basically if either of Ings or Adams were out injured then we had to mix and match.
But this season has seen goals hard to come by, although now we have the added advantage of three strikers instead of two, early doors they struggled to score but now they are starting to get into gear and Armando Broja's goal against Crystal Place has take his tally to 4 for the season in the Premier League, which when added to Che Adams 3 & Adam Armstrong's 2, means that between them they have now hit 9 between them in 17 games, that is a rate of .53 per game and getting very close to the .55 of last season.
But 8 of those goals have been scored in the last 10 games after that slow start and that give the trio a rate of .80 goals per game and that is starting to look impressive.
If they maintain this rate in the final 21 games of the season then that will give them another 17 goals and a final total of 26 between them, a significant increase on last season.
That will be an average of almost 9 goals a season each, which doesn't sound a lot, but when you consider that only 27 players in last season's Premier League got 10 or more, then hitting 9 as Che Adams did last season is a decent total.
So the aim at the start of the season was for our trio of strikers to get 27 between them and as i said they are gearing up towards that and that bodes well for our ability to climb up the league rankings.
If they can hit 30 between them then that would be an amazing achievement and would mean that at least one perhaps two would have got into double figures.
At this moment in time I would say that both Che Adams and Armando Broja have the ability to do just that and Adam Armstrong who has had a slow start will have a purple patch at some point and could reach 8 or 9.
Our issues in the second half of last season came when injuries hit the forward line and we had no back up, last night at Palace we had two strikers out injured yet still had one front line player in Broja on the pitch, again last season we wouldn't have been able to have that sort of back up and it shows how we have moved on.
Of course are issues are far more than just our forward lines ability to score goals, but it is good to report a positive upward trend and that one problem area is starting to come good.
As was shown at Palace last night we can still lose two strikers and have someone replace them who can score goals.