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Quality On Bench Can Help Us Come From Behind To Win

Saints didn't quite manage it on Sunday at Anfield, but the quality we now have on the bench should help us be able to turn games round and come from behind to win now.

One of the things that is rarely pointed out especially by Spurs fans when they are singing the praises of their new manager is the fact that under Mauricio Pochettino we never ever came from behind in a game to win it, the reasons in my opinion were quite simple, Pochettino never concentrated on building a squad or indeed using the options he had in the squad so rarely made decisive substitutions off the bench.

In fact most of his substitutions tended to be like for like and the system never changed.

We have to go back almost two whole seasons, to 22nd September 2012 for the last time that Saints came from behind to win a game, that was at home to Aston Villa when after trailing 1-0 at the break we stormed out in the second half and won 4-1, since then we havent won a single Premier League game in which we were at some stage losing.

But that could be about to change, Ronald Koeman has been looking to build a squad up, not just in numbers but in players who can change roles if needed, under Pochettino we were very monotone, Koeman has made signings that can adapt to different games, for instance Tadic can play out wide or in the centre, Gardos can play in central defence or in a holding role in midfield, Bertrand can play wide left as well as left back, in fact just about the only players who cant adapt from one position that Koeman has signed are Pelle and Forster.

Add to that that our youngsters are starting to come through and that Koeman shows that he will actually use them rather than only in an emergency as his predecessor did.

This all adds up to Saints now being able to change tactics and have options off the bench to do so, at Liverpool Koeman was able to change the shape of the team, bringing on Long in a deeper role than normal and then Isgrove to add width.

This bodes well, Koeman will adapt to games as they change whereas before either Plan A worked or it didn't.

If we can bring in another player or two before the end of the month then we will be strong in all areas and we still have Jay Rodriguez to return sometime between now and Christmas, when that happens there will truly be competition for places.

We are still a work in progress but already you can see competition in the side for the first time in ages, players know they have to work hard and they know that there are those coming through that could replace them, they also know that we are going to be flexible so that they will get a chance through reasons other than injury.

There are those who claim that last season's team was the most exciting ever, it was good that can't be denied, but I don't think it was as exciting as we perceive, when our system worked it was brilliant and we put teams to the sword, but when it didn't work then we were stumped and we can now look back and see that when we went a goal down that was it in terms of winning.

Now we have genuine options to come back and win games, Koeman's style is different, it doesn't rely on keeping the ball so the opposition cannot score, it is about attacking, I just have the feeling that we won't get too many boring games this season and that we might see a few fight backs the likes of which haven't been seen much in the last two years.

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