As the season approaches rapidly, Saints fans are wondering when a new central defender might appear at St Mary's.
With just over a fortnight to go till the big kick off at Manchester City, Saints have still not signed a Prmeirship quality central defender and for many supporters thats a big worry.
Last season's partnership of Jose Fonte and Jos Hooiveld in the main did well in the Championship, but both players seemed a little ill at ease alongside each other and didnt quite seem to gel, it was hard to put a finger on it, because at times the partnership looked rock solid, but at others it was weak and both players had a tendency to lose concentration at key moments, meaning that although our goals against record was good, in truth it should have been a lot better and in the final run in 13 goals shipped in the final 10 games saw Reading overtake us after we had lead nearly the entire season and West Ham a little too close for comfort.
In football the best teams know that resting on laurels is a sure way to failure, its easy to identify problems when you are getting beaten, not so easy when your still winning games, whilst many supporters espoused on websites about how great the team was and how happy they where with the way it was playing, a look back at a few games shows that in the end it was a close run thing, at Leeds we could of and really should of been beaten by four or five, only an inspired display by Kelvin Davis won us that match whilst at Millwall only two late penalties saw us take three points, defeat in either of those games would have seen us in the play offs.
The truth is that late on too many of our promotion rivals scored soft goals, Reading and Blackpool put three past us apiece, virtually all six goals could be attributed to defensive frailties, Middlesbrough got too soft goals to beat us and even Pompey notched a brace at St Mary's, we got away with a few things in the Championship and got promoted, that cant be denied, but we wont get away with them in the premiership.
When Aarron Martin was loaned out to Palace many assumed that it would clear the decks for a new centre back or two, yet six weeks after Martin left, despite being linked with a few names, none have yet come to fruition and its starting to become a worry, if im blunt I dont feel that either of our first choice pairing are up to Premiership football, definately not as a pair, and with our only back up being Dan Seabourne, a player that wasnt considered good enough to be first choice in League One, Im a little worried.
Hopefully my worry is ill founded, perhaps I will be made to look foolish with a raft of signings shortly after the publication of this piece, I certainly hope so as with the season growing nearer, we are running out of time.