Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has publicly backed Graziano Pelle and talked of hos vital he is to the way that the team play.
Graziano Pelle is in the midst of a goal drought that cannot be denied and that has led to some supporters getting on his back a little, however that is not looking at the big picture and now Saints boss Ronald Koeman has come out in support of his striker.
Pelle has not scored in the Premier League since netting in the 3-0 win against Everton on December 20th, but the lack of goals is not down to the strikers form but in the way that Pelle's role in the team has evolved both through natural progression as the team starts to gel, but also due to the fact that injury, suspension and International calls has forced the managers hand in the style he has had to play at times.
Ronald Koeman certainly feels that Pelle's game is not just about scoring goals.
"Graziano is important to the way we play because he is always the target man," the Saints boss told reporters.
"He is not a typical number nine who at the end of the season has scored goals and nothing else. He is doing well but every striker looks to score.
"We are creating good chances but are struggling to score. I am not worried because we have good quality attacking players in our squad and it will change."
That is very much the way I see it, whereas earlier in the season Pelle's role was more about getting on the end of balls into the box, his role is now a lot more deeper and about winning the ball, laying it off to others who can play in the likes of Mane, Elia or Long ie those with pace.
This is well and good and i take the points of those who say that hasn't worked in recent games and they are right, but as mentioned for many of the games in the past two months Koeman has not had many option other than to play this way, against Everton and the game after it at Palace we were starting to click and had variety and were almost scoring for fun with options everywhere.
But since then we have been missing too many players at the wrong times and this has impacted on Koeman's options to change things.
Now however we have all our striking options back and indeed we also have all our midfield options available for selection, Koeman can now mix and match and change things and hoefully this will see Saints get back in the scoring groove again.
Yes Pelle needs a gaol, but as Koeman says his game is much more about scoring himself its about bringing others into the game, the Dutch manager has not let us down so far, we have to trust his judgement and let him be the one to decide if Pelle is contributing to the level we need or not.
One thing is for sure it will not help Pelle or indeed any player in our squad to get verbal abuse. we have an important few months coming up, if we want to achieve things then we need everyone to be kicking in the same direction and all the supporters to be behind "All" the players.