Steven Davis seems to be trying to emulate a predecessor in the Saints team from Northern Ireland with his scoring exploits for the International side.
Back in the 1980's Saints signed Colin Clarke from Bournemouth after his scoring exploits for the Northern Ireland team at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, it seems that almost 30 years later Steven Davis is looking to emulate his fellow country man who scored 13 times in 38 games for the Irish.
Now Davis who last night scored the only goal against Latvia in Belfast is fast becoming the scoring sensation for the Irish having now scored 5 goals in the last 9 games he has played for Northern Ireland, ironically Latvia are managed by Marian Pahars, a very familiar name to Saints supporters himself.
Hopefully Davis can continue his run of scoring form for his club when he returns to action at St Mary's against Stoke City next weekend.
On a serious note though, Davis is the unsung hero of the Saints side, since his arrival just over 3 years ago, in the Premier League he has started 93 games plus a further 20 as sub, ironically though he has only scored 6 times , only one more than he has scored for his country in the last 9.
But his performances for Saints are about far more than scoring, he is the type of player that just gets on with things in a game, his work rate is phenomenal and he not only keeps things moving when Saints are in possession of the ball, but harries and chases when the opposition have it.
Players of this type are often underated by fans, the average supporter applauds 50 yard passes and spectacular goals and although Davis can do this, as he showed against Aston Villa recently when he his a superb cross field ball to Dusan Tadic that started the move for the second goal, his game is generally not all about that.
As Lawrie McMenemy said four decades ago, in every team you need hod carriers and violinists, the violinists get the plaudits, but without the hod carriers they would be nothing, given the very low price we paid to Glasgow Rangers back in 2012, there is a very big argument that the signing of Steven Davis was the best piece of transfer business Saints have done since returning to the Premier, when you consider price paid and the contributions made by Davis.