Emmanual Mayuka has returned from the Africa Cup Of Nations to a club much changed from when he left a month ago, but will this be good or bad for his Saints career.
Its fair to say that Mayuka seemed to be a signing forced on formar manager Nigel Adkins, clearly from the pre season games Adkins was going to give Billy Sharp a chance in the Premier and the ex Doncaster striker was clearly the man on fire in the pre season games, however the insistence that we had to play only one up front seemed to suggest that we were top heavy with strikers and that there was intense competition for places up front.
So the arrival of Mayuka seemed a strange transfer, why did we need another forward to add to Lambert, Sharp, Rodriguez & Tadanari Lee all vying for the one place available up front ? although that was soon reduced to a mere four again with the departure of Sharp to Nottingham Forest on loan.
But although Mayuka's pace suggested that he might be able to offer something, clearly someone presumably Adkins didnt see what that could be, therefore Mayuka became a permanent fixture on the Saints bench but rarely ever got off it, indeed by the time he left for the ACON he had managed only 1 start and 6 appearances off the bench some of them very brief.
Perhaps indications of the managers views to him came at Anfield where 1-0 down with the clock running down fast Adkins didnt gamble and throw on Mayuka for a bit of pace at an elderly back four, even stranger was that a couple of weeks later, some seven weeks after his last piece of action a 14 minute cameo at the end of the defeat at West Brom he was suddenly handed a full debut against Sunderland, in truth he looked lost, but given that he really isnt suited to our formation that wasnt surprising, his full debut lasted only 55 minutes before he was hauled off and again he was consigned to the bench with no hint of even being brought on as sub in the four games before he went off on international duty.
So probably Mayuka feels that he now might have a chance at Saints with a change of manager, this could be the case although I cant see where he will fit into the system any more than I could before Pochettino arrived, but perhaps the new manager will give him more of a chance than the old one did, perhaps he will take it or perhaps Nigel Adkins was right in his assesment about him.
The next few weeks will show us the answer, lets hope he makes a significant contribution ratherthan becoming like Tadanari Lee and Billy Sharp another expensive player who just doesnt fit into the system that we want to play.