Steve De Ridder has left St Mary's with immediate effect after two years at the club although he will mainly be remembered for a silly chant.
Saints fans over 25 will perhaps feel that they have seen Steve De Ridder before, back in 2003 Neil McCann arrived at Saints for £1.5 million with a reputation as a pacy winger, he followed that up with some pre season performances that suggested that he might be a star in the forthcoming season, the reality was somewhat different and in 21(19) League appearances for the club he consistently failed to deliver and earned a reputation as a bit of a one trick pony before after a little over 2 1/2 years at the club he was let go on a free transfer to Hearts.
Now in August 2013 its deja vu as Steve De Ridder has had his contract cancelled by mutual consent to enable him to try and find another club, Saints once again finding themselves writing off £1.5 million for a player who hasn't really been worth the money.
There are those however that will say that De Ridder was worth the money, the truth is he flattered to deceive in the early days and there were those that mistook pace for quality, the longer the 2011/12 season went on however it became clear that Steve was a bit of a one trick pony and once the opposition had him sussed out then he would be effectively marshalled into dead ends and as his crossing lacked the accuracy of say his predecessor Alex Oxlade Chamberlain his contributions were little, those that initially liked De Ridder and sang the Steeeeeeeeeve chant, soon found that it was increasingly being used in an ironic fashion.
That's not to say he didn't have the odd contribution, his pace would usually mean that he would go past his full back in the first minutes on the pitch but soon the marker would get to grips with him and as mentioned keep him under tabs, if Steve started he would usually have a decent first ten minutes followed by a totally ineffective 50 or so followed by being subbed, however bringing him on with under ten minutes or so to go in a game could reap benefits in that he could have those first initial runs and perhaps do something before he was sussed.
That was born out by looking at his stats in 2012/13, all three of his League goals came in the final ten minutes of a game, two of them in the final minute and one in the 80th in perhaps his best moment for the club up at Reading where he latched on to a ball and thrashed the ball home for an unlikely equaliser with Saints down to 10 men.
Overall though his contribution in most games was little and mainly restricted to cameo roles at the end of a game in the hope that his pace might just change something before he was sidetracked.
There were perhaps those who thought he was one for the future and that he would play a big part in the Premier League, I was not one of them and I was proved right, he didn't make an appearance till December when surprisingly he came on for the equally surprising man in the starting line up Mayuka, he followed that up for a cameo against Arsenal on New Years Day and a clock running down few minutes up at Villa Park in a game that more than any kept Saints up, his last appearance in a Saints shirt was in Mauricio Pochettino's first game at home to Everton, his 3 minute stint at the end didn't seem to impress the new manager though and within days he was shipped out to Bolton on loan, in a two month spell there he started 2 league games plus another as sub, in his two starts he was subbed off before the hour mark in both and he would never feature again before coming back to St Mary;s two months early.
All in all when Saints went shopping in the lowlands in 2011 they signed the wrong man for £1.5 million, some would say that given our position now in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter and I can see their point, but if we had been a bit more vigilant we could have signed Wanyama for the same fee as De Ridder and we can see the value of both now.
So goodbye Steve De Ridder, you tried hard and not to be too harsh contributed something to the clubs promotion season from the Championship, not perhaps just as much as you really should have for the fee paid .