Saints fans worried that Morgan Schneiderlin could leave too big a void to fill could be pleasnatly surprised by Jordy Clasie who seems to be a more all round player.
Morgan Schneiderlin was a great player for Saints, of that there can be no doubt, but if he had a flaw in his game it was his inability to turn defence into attack quickly and that is why Jordy Clasie could well turn out to be an upgrade on the now Manchester United player.
Claise like Schneiderlin is best when he sits in front of the central defenders and is superb at anchoring the area in front of them and cutting out attacks before they can stretch the defence, Schneiderlin was a master of this and that showed in Saints defensive record last season and much of that was down to Schneiderlin.
But going forward the Frenchman lacked the ability to turn defence into attack quickly, yes he could hit a nice pass, but rarely was it decisive, he needed that extra second on the ball to control it and assess where to pass it and although his accuracy was normally impeccable with those passes, they usually kept Saints in possession moving forward rather than stretching the opposition.
Reports from Holland suggest that Clasie has that same defensive ability, however what might make this an upgrade is that he is able to turn defence into attack quickly, he can pick a through ball into dangerous areas from deep quickly and accurately.
This was something we lacked at times last season, we attacked quickly down the wings but sometimes found it hard to get strikers one on one with a defence splitting pass.
In fairness Pelle is not that sort of player, but Sadio Mane was and showed that side of his game to full effect in the final home game of the season and it is this pace we will loo to utilise more if Claise as expected signs.
It will give Ronald Koeman a lot more options, last season as things got tough he suddenly found that he had to keep playing Pelle due to his options being limited with firstly mane off to the African cup of nations and then an injury to Shane Long.
This meant that Pelle had to soldier on when he clearly needed a rest and when the team clearly needed a different approach.
Late in the season we were able to change that approach but the problem was that we had no one in the central midfield that could pass from deep, both Wanyama and Schneiderlin as good as they were at winning the ball did not have that knack of moving the ball quickly that was lost after Jack Cork departed.
It was no coincidence that Cork's departure coincided with goals suddenly drying up, Cork could move the ball quickly in a way that no one else in the midfield could do, perhaps he didnt hit the balls to the jugular, but he could catch teams on the break by getting the ball out wide quickly.
Now we have in Clasie's arrival a player who can do this, but not only the quick short balls but something a little more longer as well.
Ironically perhaps Saints most successful piece of transfer dealing last summer was £30 million from United followed by signing Ryan Bertrand for an eventual £10 million, this was a definite upgrade and it could be that this scenario is repeated with Schneiderlin replaced by Clasie.