The Sport Republic owner Dragan Solak has been prominent in the media in the last month or so, but he won't find many Southampton supporters who will agree with him on this suggestion, however history tells us that his prediction could well come true.

saintsmarching.com have lead with a story quoting Dragan Solak's claim that Damion Downs should not yet be ruled out to be a success at St Mary's after he returns from his loan spell at SV Hamburg.

The article points out that although Downs struggled at St Mary's during the first half of the season, that he has proved himself in Germany where in 29 appearances in Bundesliga 2 he scored 10 goals and added 5 assists and he has also scored twice in the Bundesliga itself in 22 appearances.

That isn't a bad start for a career and it should also be noted that Downs arrived at St Mary's having only just turned 21, an inexperienced youngster moving to a country he was unfamiliar with.

Initially at St Mary's he looked good in pre season, a superb goal at Espanyol, showing that he does have something about him.

But it was no surprise when he failed to ignite in his early games, no one can argue that he looked a fish out of water, but he was surrounded by players who were also looking poor, the established players were struggling, the experienced new signings were struggling, so no one should be surprised that Downs should not have been looking good himself.

So on the face of it it is not surprising that Saints supporters should be writing off Damion Downs, but as Dragan Solak points out, that shouldn't mean that he can't flourish and prove everyone wrong !

Over the years I have been supporting Saints there have been countless examples of players who have initially failed to set the World alight when arriving at the club, but gone on to be big successes.

Perhaps the biggest example of this would be James Beattie, arriving as a 20 year old from Blackburn in the summer of 1998 as part of the deal that took Kevin Davies in the other direction, Beattie definitely did not have the same impact his predecessor had enjoyed.

In his first season he took 3 months to score his first goal for the club and ended up with just 5 goals in 35 Premier League appearances, two of those coming in the final 3 games of the season.

In his second season he played just 18 league games and failed to score in any of them.

It was only in his 3rd season that he truly started to show his potential, his first two months again failed to produce a league goal, but then he exploded into life with 10 goals in just 10 games.

Obviously he was not going to keep up this scoring ratio and he would only score once in the remaining 17 league games.

But he had his breakthrough and didn't look back and is now fondly remembered for his time at the club.

This perhaps suggests that the lessons to be learned are that sometimes youngsters take a bit of time to flourish and that you should not write them off without giving them a chance, I would suggest here that Damion Downs 1 start in the League plus 10 games as sub for a total of 275 minutes on the pitch, is not enough to judge him on.

In a different context, many are now bemoaning the loss of Ross Stewart, yet back in January there weren't too many who would have been unhappy to see him leave the club, the phrase "I'll drive him there myself" was often used on message boards.

Yet his final 4 months at the club truly showed that he was a class act at Championship level.

The stands at both the Dell & St Mary's have been full of people singing the praises of the heroes of the hour, who have been their biggest critics in the past.

So I agree with Dragan Solak, Damion Downs might yet surprise a few people, whether it is at St Mary's or not, who knows, but at least he should be given a chance, those around him in the opening months of the season who were underperforming have now shown their class, could Damion Downs yet join them.

All Photos Via Reuters