The name Holmes conjures up many happy memories of the Southampton midfield, most of them however refer to 70's/80's legend Nick, but can Lee Holmes kick start his St Mary's career.
It should be mentioned that Lee Holmes has never let anyone down in a Saints shirt, in fact in most of the games he has played he has been very good, the problem has been that he has rarely played in the two years since joining the club from Derby County.
In just over two seasons all he has managed has been 13 starts in the league(plus 6 as sub) 1(2) in the FA Cup 2(1) in the Carling Cup plus a sub appearance in the JPT, When you then look at when those appearances were made you will find the bulk of them where in the first half of his initial season and more succinctly almost 50% of his entire total in the opening month of his Saints career such has been the injury problems he has suffered.
Indeed it could be said that in his 26 months at Saints he has only been fit for three of them, August 2008, January 2009 & January of this year on all of these three occasions he featured prominently albeit off the bench in many cases, but as has been mentioned staying injury free has been the problem for Lee, not being out of favour with the manager and in his short spell at SMS he is now into his fourth boss.
However it seems that he is now back fit again and raring to go and looking for his first start of the season after four outings off the bench, in two of those he only saw a minutes play but on Saturday against Colchester he showed that wide play is not all about pace, in truth its about end product, all the speed in the world is no use if you cant deliver an accurate ball into the box and on Saturday Holmes put in more telling crosses than I have seen from a Saints winger in a long time.
So the big question for Nigel Adkins is whether he uses him on Saturday from the start or again uses him off the bench, of course the worry is that he isnt up to a full game, last season he only managed two, the last of which was in January against Stockport, so it could be a risk to do that, however he seems certain to play a part at some stage of the game.
Lee Holmes could be the player who can kick start Saints season, we have lacked a killer ball into the box and he can deliver that, too often this season and last we had wide men who can beat a player down the line through pace, but couldnt put a cross on a pools coupon, with Holmes thats not the case and if he can stay fit he could be a key element if we are to push for promotion.
But the its os a big IF and he has suffred far more injury riddled periods than the time he has been fit and that obviously has to be a factor when selecting him and only the Saints medical staff really know if he is up to ful games and has just been unlucky with injury or whether his body & muscle system is not strong enough, meaning that he has to be used sparingly.
Either way he is an asset, however one word of caution, this season probably represents his last chance at Saints, if he spends most of it injured, the club would probably have to cut their losses, but he is still only 23 so young enough to overcome his problems and show why he was Derby County's youngest ever player.