We start our assessment of each player who played for Saints this season with Polish Glovesman Artur Boruc.
For some reason, possibly due to his controversial start to his Saints career, Artur Boruc doesn't quite have the affection amongst some Saints fans that he really should have, indeed it's strange that no one has really put him forward as perhaps our best signing of the Premier League years with all things taken into consideration, not least that we got him for absolutely nothing, other club's in this division have paid an absolute fortune for goalkeepers who have been less than brilliant.
Of course there has been the odd error or two by Artur, not least the well publicised one at Arsenal, but in the main he has given us stability in our goal that we have truly lacked since Antti Niemi left us eight years ago.
Boruc has a command of his box that not even Niemi had and sometimes supporters don't realise just how much pressure a goalkeeper who does this can take off his team defensively, but it doesn't stop there, as a shot stopper he is pretty decent as well and our win at Anfield back in September was build on several outstanding saves from Boruc.
Some would say though that his kicking lets him down sometimes, would say his distribution is again something that is essential to the way we play, Boruc is asked to pass the ball out of goal rather than just hoof it aimlessly, when he kicks out he aims at specific players trying to keep possession for us, like any outfield player he cant hit every pass accurately especially since he is usually passing at a far bigger distance than most.
Overall though Boruc has been top knotch, perhaps the only thing we are lacking at the moment is an experienced Premier quality deputy as the only thing in my mind that stops him getting 9/10 for this season is the fact that he is a little injury prone, playing only 29 games out of the 38.
So for me its 8 1/2 out of 10 for Artur, I really can't see us getting any better than him unless we want to pay a lot of money and at 34 he has a year or two left in him yet.