Why are Saints in the market for another striker ?
This season has seen Saints often crush sides and scoring goals is rarely a problem, indeed in Lambert, Guly & Barnard they have three players all capable of hitting 20 goals this season, add Connolly on the bench and firepower isnt the problem with Saints, especially since Lallana & Chamberlain are no slouches and of course there is still Oxo, at time of writing anyway.
Given that firepower, saints may only be fourth in the goalscoring charts at present, but take away their poor form early season and you would not bet against Saints being top scorers come May.
No the problem with Saints has not been attacking its been defending, some may find it strange I say this, given that with only 22 goals conceded, only Brighton have a meaner defence, but its not been the number that we have conceded its been the manner.
Truth is too many soft goals have ben let in, in games when keeping a clean sheet is needed to be able to get a grip on the game from the start, Tranmere was a typical example of this, it was a game like most away games, where Saints need to weather an early storm, get a grip on the game and then impose themselves on the opposition, but a soft goal was conceded meaning that not only were Saints playing catch up, but the opposition spirit was up and suddenly Saints were needing to dig in against a side now fighting for every ball like it was the final minute of the FA Cup final.
A Look back at the results over the season, shows a plethora of games where we have dropped points through silly defensive lapses, Plymouth at home, Orient at home, Yeovil away, Carlisle away and now Tranmere, all games were defensive lapses cost us dearly, at a guess 7 points have been dropped in those games, if we had just got half of those points the table would look a lot better for us (that extra 1/2 point might be vital lol)
But as i said, Saints have one of the best defences in the league, so wheres the problem ? well the problem lies in the fact that in having one of the tightest defences it allows the opposition less shots on goal, meaning that on shote on target to goals ratio, it actually has one of the worst, Plymouth had one shot on target, Orient three, Yeovil one, Carlisle 4, and finally Tranmere two.
Add that up and what you have in those 5 games is a total of 11 shots on target and amazingly 8 goals going in !!!!
What that tells us is that we have a defence and goalkeeper who are prone to lapses of concentration, everyone tells me that Kelvin Davis is a good shot stopper, well statistics do not back up these facts, in those games we did not even keep out 1 in 2 shots, compare that to the other end where we need about 5 on target for every goal and it should be telling our management a few things about what needs to be changed.
Some will say that this is another rant at kelvin, its not, its just a look at some statistics, like it or not statistics play a big part in the game nowadays and these are very relevant, for those that say that you can make statistics say anything, I have tried hard this morning and i cant seem to make them add up to an extra 7 points and that the hard and fast statistic that counts.
But its not just a Saints thing, the trouble with this game is that managers are willing to splash out on forwards but not on goalkeepers and to a lesser extent defenders, but its these players that are the foundation of every succesful team.
Test the theory by taking a look at any Premier team, Arsenal have struggled relatively in recent years, but take a look at how much they have paid for goalkeepers and then compare it to forwards, Chelsea are big big spenders but Petr Cech only cost £7 million, even Man Utd whilst spending multi millions on the likes of Rooney always went for the cheap option with keepers after Schmeichel left and it took Sir Alex a while before he actually went out and signed someone good instead of just expensive.
So if every great football team has been built on a great goalkeeper and they have, just think of any succesful side and a good keeper is behind it, why do managers so rarely have a goalkeeper as a priority and indeed a position they are prepared to spend decent money on.
Hence we have Saints being linked with just about every forward in League 1, despite having three of the best to start with, but seemingly not doing anything about the goalkeeping problem.
The problem will not go away, just as good players dont become bad overnight, habits of a lifetime done change either, in this division we need to have a keeper that comes out and commands his box, in all of those five games mentioned, a fair chunk of those goals scored could have been prevented by Kelvin being in the right position and catching simple balls into the box, he is not going to suddenly start catching crosses at this stage in his career and as i have proved he is hardly stopping that many shots, so do we keep faith with him because he is good at dealing with a problem that doesnt exist, or do we do something about a problem that does !
Many have short memories, in 06/07 we dragged ourselves into the play offs after a change of keepers brought a new confidence in the side, simiarly in 07/08 it took the arrival of Richard Wright to tightenup the defence, at this stage if we have aspirations of automatic promotion we need to tackle this problem now.
Of course i would like to see the likes of Charlie Austin arrive at St Mary's, but before that happens i would like to see the real problem areas addressed.