Saints fans send Sam Gallagher to Blackburn Rovers with their best wishes ringing in his ears and hoping that we will see him back at St Mary's in a Premier League game in the future.

This was a move that needed to happen for both Southampton FC and indeed Sam Gallagher himself who as he approaches 24 needs to be playing first team football as well as having the confidence that comes for playing for a club who see you as their first choice.

Strikers thrive on confidence and hopefully Sam Gallagher will find it at Ewood Park.

It seems a long time ago that he made his debut and it is a little under 6 years since Mauricio Pochetino handed him his debut in 2013/14 season, initially in the League cup in a game up at Sunderland and then in the Premier League when he came on as a sub in the final minute in a 1-1 draw at Sunderland.

Sadly for Sam his debut season would be his best for the club, he scored his first goal in the FA Cup against Yeovil and then a minute after coming on against Norwich at St Mary's he scored what would be his only League goal for Saints.

He would end the season starting 3 games in the Premier League plus another 15 as sub, with a sub appearance in each cup, but the following season injury would halt his progress and when he returned the Ronald Koeman era was in full swing and he was down the pecking order.

An aborted loan spell at MK Dons in 2015/16 saw him kicking his heels on his return to St Mary's and then loans to both his new club Blackburn and then Birmingham followed and finally he seemed to be getting his career back on track.

Last season he was back in the Saints fold and playing in pre season and hoping that he could force his way into Mark Hughes plans, but it was not to be either under Hughes who played him only once bringing him on as sub in a League cup tie at Brighton where it has to be said his running sparked a final ten minutes that saw us win the game, or under Ralph Hasenhuttl who added only 4 sub appearances in the Premier League and one in the FA Cup to his appearance total.

In fairness to Gallagher, Hasenhuttl didn't give him much of a chance, his first 3 sub run outs totalled 9 minutes with only 23 minutes at Brighton being significant game time.

But managers have to make hard decisions and the Austrian had clearly decided that Gallagher would not fit into his plans going forward.

So it seems a good deal for both parties, Saints can put £5 million or so into their coffers and also get some wages off the books and the player himself can look to truly kick start a career that had stagnated at St Mary's.

So good luck to Sam Gallagher, i think his career path might just follow that of Saints supporter Sam Vokes who after initial success had to take a step backward to truly find his feet and enjoy a good career in the Premier League with Burnley.

I truly hope that it does !

Photo: Action Images

schatfield added 14:14 - Jul 15 I wonder if there are no comments on this forum now because its becoming near impossible to add a comment with the 10,000+ adverts that appear below the article.....shame
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SanMarco added 17:09 - Jul 15 Quite right schatfield - and its all old stuff or sh1te about other clubs. What is wrong. It took me so long to scroll doen here that I have forgotten what the article was about...
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aceofthebase added 21:03 - Jul 15 something is wrong with this site, (stating the obvious). Old articles appearing after main written comment and comments.
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