Cedric Soares was the most frequent Southampton right back last year, but the strange thing is how he fell out of favour in the final games of the season.
Soares took a little while to adjust to the Premier League, but after a month or so he had found his feet and looked to be a solid player and a worthy successor to Nathaniel Clyne.
Indeed it was revealed last week that in terms of tackles won with an average of three per game he was in the Premier League's top 20 tacklers, add to that of full backs who made at least 20 appearances he was 4th in terms of chances created per game (1.1) and 3rd in terms of accurate crosses per game (1.3).
All this lead to him being named as the right back in the Guardian's Premier League team of the year.
But suddenly he seemed out of favour at Saints and in the final 10 games he would start only 2 of them and not even get off the bench in the other 8.
Whilst Cuco Martina did raise his game and did not play badly, he is not the player Soares is and you have to feel that there is something going on behind the scenes that we the fans are not aware of.
Certainly after the turn of the year Soares was a vital part of a defence that shut up shop and went six games without scoring a goal then suddenly after the Bournemouth defeat he was dropped and he was certainly not the most culpable in that debacle.
After 3 games out he was back and had a solid display at Leicester City, dropped again and then came back for the Villa game and then sat on the bench for the final 3.
Up to the point of his being dropped I would have given Soares a solid 8 out 10 for the season and spoke of how he looked set to lay the ghost of Clyne to rest in the final games of the season, but then suddenly he is out of favour and i don't think it is for his performances.
So are Saints back to square one for right back next season, I would like to hope that whatever it is off the field is being resolved, because I truly think that Soares is the man for the right back spot long term, but there is something that I am unaware of that means Ronald Koeman does not seem to agree with me.
Overall verdict. Fine season up to March and 8/10, but after that what happened off the pitch ?