Billy Sharp's time at St Mary's was short and well sharp ! but in his brief spell he was a major factor in the club's promotion to the Premier League before being shunted out by the then Saints CEO, now he is at LA Galaxy and he says his time at Southampton is helping him settle in.

Billy Sharp's career as a first teamer at Southampton was short and sweet, but it was productive, in 11 starts and 4 sub appearances for the club as they pushed towards promotion at the end of the 2011/12 season he scored 9 goals and as Ricky Lambert started to falter in the run in, Sharp's took up the mantle and banged in some vital strikes.

But he was shunted out by then Saints CEO Nicola Cortese who made it quite clear he might have been in Nigel Adkins first team plans, but he wasn't in Cortese's.

Two short appearances off the bench were his only action in the Premier League plus his final appearance overall for the club where he scored in a League cup win at Stevenage.

Loan spells at Nottingham Forest for the rest of that season, followed by loan stints at Reading & Doncaster in 2013/14 followed before he left permanently in the summer of 2014 to join Leeds and then Sheffield United where he has spent the last 8 years.

Now he is at LA Galaxy and as footballleagueworld.co.uk have revealed, Los Angeles is not proving hard for him to adapt, especially with the Spanish speaking players there, due to his time in the St Mary's dressing room with Sharp telling them:

“It’s a bit like when I was at Southampton; it was quite South American in the changing room then. I can’t speak Spanish, but I understand some of the words and their jokes. One of the first times I sat down to eat my lunch at one of the tables, it was just all Spanish. They asked me, ‘Do you want us to speak English?’ and I replied, as a joke, ‘No, I understand what you’re saying.’

“They’ve all been great. That was one of the things for me: going into the changing room was weird because I’d had it the same for eight years, and I was the captain. It took two or three days, but a lot of things are the same: the talk and the banter.”

Southampton supporters will be glad to hear that at 37 Sharp is not only still playing but broadening his horizons, so far for the Galaxy he has started 2 MLS games plus 4 off the bench, scoring 6 times, showing that there is still life in him yet.

Nicola Cortese felt that Billy Sharp was too slow for the Premier League, that at 26 he was too old, it could be said that he was bought to do a job and he did that job, blasting Saints back to the Premier League.

But in the first half of that season you felt he had something to offer that other options at the club didn't, yes perhaps he lacked a yard of pace, but he had an eye for a goal, something that them man signed to replace him Emmanual Manyuka never had.

Photo: Action Images

SanMarco added 10:32 - Sep 21 The only trouble with this is that in Sharp's whole time at the club there was only one Spanish player at the club - a gentleman called Falque on loan from Spuds who played once. No other Spanish speaking countries. Perhaps he is thinking of a couple of Portuguese speakers? Either way I fear he is talking total twaddle...
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felly1 added 11:09 - Sep 21 San Marco beat me to this..Spanish players or Spanish speaking players at Saints??...in the first team we had Fonte and Guly who both spoke Portuguese. Why are you bringing this up about whether Sharp would have been good enough for Saints in 2012??..who cares. Always look forward not back.
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