There are some who could never forgive Artur Boruc for the crime of throwing a loaded water bottle in the direction of the Chapel Kop, but most appreciated his service to Southampton Football Club.

A couple of weeks ago it looked certain that Artur Boruc would be lining up against Saints at St Mary's this Sunday, however a couple of error strewn games have put that reunion in doubt and he might be replaced by Adam Federici, however Saints fans should give the Polish keeper a warm welcome.

Love him or hate him Artur Boruc is a larger than life character and although yes he is prone to the odd error or two every now and then, the fact remains he was a good keeper for Saints.

His career here did not get off to the best of starts after arriving here overweight and the aforementioned bottle throwing incident, but when he came into the side for good in January 2013 against Arsenal he never looked back and played a big part in Saints pulling away from relegation danger and an even bigger part the following season as we took another step forward into 8th position.

In fact in that 2013/14 season I felt that if there was a better keeper than Boruc in the Premier League then I hadn't seen him.

Yes there was the odd error, the most notorious being his attempted Cruyff turn, not just once but several times before being dispossessed and Arsenal scoring, but these in my opinion were far outweighed by his good games, not least in our 1-0 win at Anfield that season when he was outstanding and pulled off one of the saves of the season.

Therefore in the summer of 2014 as some saw the grass as greener on the other side, at least we had a solid keeper still at the club, but little did we know that like the big names that had left, Boruc had already played his last game for Saints.

Boruc can feel very hard done by and indeed he di by refusing to play second fiddle to Fraser Forster, but football is a very harsh game and Saints suddenly finding that Forster was available and feeling that if they didn't get him now they would perhaps miss out, had to make a tough decision and having spent £10 million on a keeper you are not going to leave him on the bench was the stark reality for Artur Boruc.

So he was off to Bournemouth on loan, where he was first choice and played 37 games in their Promotion winning season, just about all the games he could have played after joining them in mid September of last year. When his contract was up at Saints he was off to Bournemouth permanently and started all their Premier games bar the defeat to Man City when he hurt his back in the warm up, he was reinstated for the last game at home to Spurs and perhaps the back wasn't up to it as by all accounts he had a nightmare.

So the big question on both Saints and Cherries fans lips is who will start for Bournemouth in goal at St Mary's, only Eddie Howe probably knows that at present.

But whether he is n the starting line up or on the bench, Saints supporters should give Artur Boruc a big round of applause for his service to Southampton Football Club, ok his 49 Premier League games for us isn't put him at the head of Saints keepers in terms of games played, but he played a vital role in stabilising the defence in that first season at a time when it could have gone either way, certainly with only the nexperienced paulo Gazzaniga and Kelin Davis to call on we could easily have still gone down when Boruc made his third appearance for the club in that game against Arsenal on New Years Day 2013.

We didn't and Boruc played a big part in that.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters