Good luck to him at the City Ground, although he wasnt one of my favourite players he had his moments in a Saints shirt.

Some people on this website think that I had some sort of grudge against Dan Harding, nothing could be further from the truth, I simply felt that he flattered to deceive and that his end product at the end of a run was somewhat lacking.

The book Soccernomics is a very interesting book, in one chapter it actually relates the story of how a Premier League club several seasons ago, noticed a trend emerging from its scouting system, the scouts were recommending a disprportionate amount of blonde players for more detailed analysis, who on a second look were actually not that much cop, it was found that blonde players were sticking out more in the scouts mind and standing out, this very theory could well apply to Dan Harding.

Harding of course stuck out with his blonde hair and wristbands and it cant be denied that he went on some great runs down the wing, but a view of statistics showed that rarely did these runs come to much, his record of assists was poor, indeed Danny Fox provided more assists in one game last season that Harding had done in the entire season before and this is the reason why Nigel Adkins felt the need to replace the man who had been Alan Pardew's first signing, Adkins is a man who thinks about the game deeply and with the technology to hand that tells everything from assists to goals, even to how far a player runs during the game, you can be sure that he had noticed than Dan Harding was not producing.

In Nigel we trust, is a phrase that you hear used often by Saints supporters, although it seems that many didnt seem to trust him in his judgement at left back, hence Fox has never had the unquestioning backing from certain Saints supporters that Harding enjoyed, they could not quite accept that their hero was part of the problem and not part of the solution, therefore opinions of Fox being poor defensively are bandied about, again the truth is not quite backing up this "fact" for instance in the last ten games Saints conceded 13 goals, some would have you believe that Fox was at the heart of all of them, a look back on Saints Player actually shows that he was at fault for precisely one, Reading's opener and even then his mistake should have been marginalised if our central defender had been marking his man properly.

So good luck to Dan Harding, he gave great service to this club, although sadly for him the club progressed quickly into areas that were above his capabilities, if Nigel Adkins had been content to sit on his laurels last season, then im sure Harding would have done a job and played most of the games, Adkins though was thorough in his plans and what positions he needed to strengthen in long before a ball was kicked, great for Southampton Football Club not so great for Dan Harding, Nottingham Forest ball boys beware !!!!!!!            

Zambucco added 17:35 - Jul 29 I felt exactly the same as you Nick, Harding always have his best, but unfortunately his best want good enough. I never hated him but always found plenty to moan about. I'm sure he will fit in very well at Forest, and do a great job for them.	0 forum posts 48 news comments 1 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

ItchenNorth added 23:42 - Jul 29 Shame Dan Harding has left but he's gone to a decent club in Forest. I always preferred Harding to Danny Fox, but the truth is neither are really good enough for the Premiership moving forward and one seemingly had to go to get more regular football. This wouldn't have been my choice though but there was not much between Harding & Fox in my view. Dan always gave 100% for the Saints, I liked his willingness to get forward (not to dissimilar to how Kenna or Benali were for us). I'm sure he could have done a job as cover for us in the Premiership (as Fox should do for a better full back hopefully) but far play to Dan, he's got himself a great move to another really good club.

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bstokesaint added 13:27 - Jul 30 Good luck to him. I personally never saw much difference between Fox and Harding. He played his part in our back-to-back promotions and I hope he has a very succesful time at Forest.	2 forum posts 445 news comments 1 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

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