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Redmond To Serve Ban After Spurs Red Card

Nathan Redmond will be banned for the visit of West Bromwich Albion to St Mary's after being sent off against Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.

Nathan Redmond will serve a one match ban after Saints decided not to appeal his red card from Wednesday evening, although some fans will see this as a positive thing, I am not one of them.

Redmond has become the whipping boy recently and many seem to be too quick to blame him for everything they see going wrong at Saints at the moment, although if going wrong is 8th in the league and a League Cup semi final then I wish we had got it wrong a lot more over the years.

Redmond is not to blame for any of this or indeed the awful form that some think he is in, he is a player stuck in the middle of a situation not of his making, he arrived at the club in a deal struck when Ronald Koeman was still at the club, a manager who wanted a winger.

Before he could even officially put pen to paper Koeman was gone and not long after he had signed Claude Puel was announced as the new manager, a man who does not use wingers.

That left Redmond a little out on a limb and the club not wishing to be left with egg on their face have persevered with trying to use him as a striker.

This has had mixed results but they have not been as a bad as some would have you believe and Redmond has created a fair few chances, think the final minute of the Boro game when he won the ball and put in a peach of a cross that J Rod sliding in could not force home, or the 3rd goal at Bournemouth where his persistence meant the ball could not be cleared and J Rod fired home, it is not his fault that they have not always been converted.

He has had to do this with a vocal minority on his back, to his credit he has never hid nor given up trying, it is not his fault he finds himself in this situation.

So if you find it a cause for celebration that he is suspended then I find it very strange, we are all meant to be supporters of Southampton Football Club and when they are playing we should be behind every player whatever our views on them.

In truth Redmond's suspension will not be too much of an issue, with three games to be played in the space of six days, it helps Claude Puel decide who will play and when.

I am not gong to completely defend Redmond, his form has not been brilliant, but if the fans get off his back, perhaps he will find that form and help the team to stay in the top 8 and even get to Wembley.

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