Saints have confirmed that Jay Rodriguez has suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament and will be out for around six months.
Jay Rodriguez season is over and his World Cup dream in tatters at least for another four years after suffering a cruciate injury in the game against Manchester City, falling innoccuously to the ground as he leapt for the ball without a City player challenging it was clear from his expression that he knew that he had done something serious, you could perhaps see on his face then that he knew that was his season over.
Sadly for Saints it also means that he is likely to be out till October and he will be a big loss to the team having become its main goalscoring threat over the past six months.
Rodriguez has had to work hard since he joined the club to win the fans over, there were many who saw him as a replacement for Rickie Lambert and would not accept him, indeed some even up until fairly recently were quite open in their criticism of him.
But Jay just got on with things and did his talking where it mattered on the pitch, so much so that he forced his way into Roy Hodgson's England squad and although his chances of going to Brazil were far from certain, it has to be said that in making himself second to only Daniel Sturridge as top English scorer in the Premier League this season he was with every game forcing himself into the England boss's plans.
His strengths were his versatility, initially he was seen as a centre forward and a replacement for Lambert, hence some fans refusal to recognise just how good he was becoming, but he showed he could play different roles and over the season he also showed Roy Hodgson that he had a lot in his locker, he had pace, he had aerial power and he had the ability to score all types of goals, whether it was a tap in as against Norwich, a run at defenders followed by a shot from distance as against Fulham away, a header as against Fulham at home, a cool finish as at Spurs or just sheer determination as was shown by his goal at Crystal Palace, the England boss was seeing a player that offered a lot more to the squad than just one type of play, that I think would have sealed his place on the plane to Brazil.
But the biggest loss is to Saints, we have no one to really replace him, yes we can push Steven Davis or James Ward Prowse out wide, but they are not attacking options in the mode that Jay is, in short we are going to have to change our style of play to a degree as unless one of the untried youngsters comes in and is an attacker then we are going to be a bit lop sided, Mauricio Pochettino's only other option would be to go 4-4-2 with Gallagher joining Lambert up front, although again this is not ideal as we have no one out wide to provide them with the service.
Adam Lallana aside I think that Jay Rod's loss to the team will be felt more than any other player and I think if there is one good thing about this it is that some of his doubters amongst Saints fans will now start to realise just how vital he was to the way we play.
Im sure all Saints supporters wish Jay a speedy recovery from his injury and look forward to seeing him once again in a Saints shirt and knocking in the goals.