Saints fans arrived at St Mary's on Saturday hoping to see high profile signing Che Adams first goal or Kevin Danso shore up the defence, but it was a third new signing who caught the eye.

Perhaps the best thing to come out of Saturday's defeat against Liverpool was the display from Moussa Djenepo.

The winger joined up with the Saints squad late due to International commitments so has missed much of his new clubs pre season, but despite a lack of time left he made an instant impact looking strong both defensively and going forward.

It was a bit of a tough ask for him as although he is essentially an attacking player, in replacing Ryan Bertrand he had to do as much chasing back as going forward and he seemed to relish the task.

He got back when needed and worked hard and when he got the ball he looked keen to run at defenders and create things.

Ralph Hasenhuttl was certainly impressed with his debut saying :

“It's important that you don't give up, I saw a team that was believing until the last minute. Unfortunately, okay is not good enough against teams like Liverpool."

“To win against such a team you need to have a perfect game and we didn't quite have that.

“Bringing Moussa on was an offensive substitution. We tried to bring him into the game and force 1v1 situations and he had a few good ones.

“One situation was the moment where we created a chance. It's good for him to come in and to be able to show strength first time.”

Liverpool was always going to be a tough start for Djenepo, but from a fans perspective we saw enough to suggest he can be a threat when it comes to most of the other games in the Premier League where we can attack a lot more than we were able to on Saturday.

The squad is now stronger than a year ago in that in Djenepo and Che Adams we now have more options in attack and when you add Danny Ings, Shane Long and Michael Obafemi that is five contrasting strikers who will offer the manager plenty of food for thought both in the starting line up and on the bench.

Photo: Action Images

halftimeorange added 15:44 - Aug 20 I have one serious reservation over our contrasting strikers and that is a similarity - not one of them is even 6 feet (1.83 metres) tall. Had Che Adams been that height he would surely have scored his header on Saturday. Lack of height reduces our penetration from head high crosses against tall defenders and our defenders don't score many goals. I only hope that Kevin Danso changes all that.

1

SaintNick added 16:14 - Aug 20 Or to give him his full title Che Zach Everton Fred Adams
0

saintnik added 18:15 - Aug 20 And unfortunately most of the time they are unable to hit the target
1

Newdawn2014 added 18:37 - Aug 20 HTO re height , maybe the exception is Shane "Maasai warrior " Long
2

inthebox added 23:09 - Aug 20 Yoshi managed to get his head to decent chance
1

SanMarco added 21:48 - Aug 21 Why would this guy be a surprise package'? He was one of our big summer signings. We should play 2 CBs and get him in there vs Brighton.
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Southampton Polls