The popularist view regarding Saints lack of goals at the moment is that we lack strikers, this is not the root of the problem, we have the strikers we just don't create chances for them.

The disenchanted masses leaving St Mary's on Saturday were moaning about Saints failure to buy a striker in the summer or indeed the summer before that when many of them had been complaining that we had sold Mane and Pelle, two players who were perhaps given more stick than most of their team mates by the very same supporters ranting that they had been sold.

But the issue is deeper than just buying a striker, n Saturday against Watford you could have borrowed just about any Premier League forward you would care to name and he would have struggled to get a chance on target let alone a goal.

The real issue is creating not finishing, in the previous game against Huddersfield we created a few chances late on, but they fell to the wrong men, the problem is creating chances for our strikers, if we do then we will start scoring again.

Look at Manolo Gabbiadini a man who is capable of 15 Premier League goals or more, he has barely had a sight of goal all season, certainly not in the last two games, likewise Charlie Austin a man who has scored 15 in a Premier League season, he is not seeing the ball in the positions he needs to either.

Shane Long is a man who got 10 goals two seasons ago, only one less than either Mane or Pelle and in less games than either, he has created a few chances as he did against Huddersfield, but he has not been on the end of enough.

The strike force we have is more than capable of scoring goals if they get the chances, but the problem is they are not getting those chances.

On Saturday Mauricio Pellegrino took a brave decision, he left out Mario Lemina, the reason he did this was that he felt that against Watford he did not need two holding midfielders, that one would be sufficient and that he could replace Lemina with a more attacking player.

For that he must be applauded, but the truth is it did not work, in fact it upset the rythym of the team meaning we looked disjointed and could not find any real attacking momentum, dropping Lemina wasn't a mistake as such, indeed Watford rarely caused us any problems when they attacked and it would have been a 0-0 draw if their two speculative long range efforts hadn't flown in, but thats how it goes when your luck is out.

Pellegrino is not short of creative players either, Redmond and Tadic can both create and score and the two full backs are capable of getting forward, but on Saturday we did not have the balance right, but that does not mean we never will.

The manager has to get back to the basics, he needs to set the side out in a way that they know how to play, when Puel did it last season we got goals and we got results, but too often he tried to be too clever and that got the fans on his back.

His replacement needs to look back to last season and learn from it, start off with a solid back four, the solid holding two and then make sure you have room to get people down the line to get the ball in the box to create chances.

So far this season Gabbiadini has become too isolated, we cant get the ball to him in the right positions and no one is backing him up to keep the ball in the danger areas, we have to consider how we can sort this out, in some games this could mean a second striker ie Charlie Austin, indeed if we are playing a lone striker up front then perhaps Austin is a better bet than Gabbiadini, he has more physical presence.

But one fact that can't be changed is that we cannot do anything else till January other than use the players we have at the moment, we have to rely on the manager to deal with the situation and overcome it, the same people who were moaning about Pellegrino on Saturday were the same ones who were moaning about Koeman two years ago when our start was identical from the first four games, ie 1 win, 2 draws and a defeat, the only difference then was it took us 4 games to win and then we scored 3 against Norwich.

Koeman got more leeway because he had done so well the previous season, we have to give Pellegrino that leeway now.

That means backing him and not deciding after only four games that he is not the man for the job, that happened to Claude Puel and it did not help our season one iota.

I want Saints to succeed, I am not blind to the results, however we need to look at the root cause of why we are not scoring and not just blame it on our failure to sign another striker in the summer.

Hopefully Mauricio Pellegrino can get to the bottom of it and get us back to the form that this squad is capable of.

Photo: Action Images

nysaint added 17:05 - Sep 11 Totally agree our problem is providing good opportunities for the strikers.. for me Tadic, Redmond and Boufal are a little selfish.. Tadic had the ball in the box but seems clueless and resists passing the ball back for a cross then he loses the ball... they all look to score themselves and don't consider themselves play makers.. they all want to be strikers.. I think we need to play Long as a playmaker .. he can run in the box and force chances for Gabbiadini.. we need Long and Gabbiadini and /or Austin to work together..

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LordDZLucan added 17:43 - Sep 11 Boufal is a liability unless you give him a free role and tell him that you don't want him in our own half. I don't think he's that good, I'm afraid.
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saintmark1976 added 19:59 - Sep 11 Well Nick at least your not blaming Yoshida and Stephens this time so I suppose that's some sort of progress? Bearing in mind that we have let Jay Rod go and sent the young lad out on loan it appears to me that a decision has been made to play one striker in every game this season both home and away. Should this in fact be the case then I don't fancy the manager's chances of keeping his job beyond the end of October at the latest. Put simply such an approach is just not the Saints way. Fortunately there is still time for a change of approach.The question now is whether the manager has the sense to see the problem and the ability to change. On what I've seen so far I seriously doubt it.

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SaintBrock added 20:46 - Sep 11 If we start with the premise that football is a simple game it seems our coaching staff are spending their time brain washing our players into believing that it is actually much harder than that. My guess is that if we put all the coaches on gardening leave for a week or two and left our players to their own devices, they'd turn up and play football with much more imagination.

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Keesie66 added 21:47 - Sep 11 A win against Watford would have seen us fourth tonight...... there's a fine line between losing and winning...
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ElSanto added 23:07 - Sep 11 I was looking at Boufal's history. I really don't think we will get much back for him - maybe 8 million at the end of the year if he keeps his current form. It's a shame as he seems like a genuine guy from club videos and possesses some lightning quick feet. I just worry it could be a case of him not suiting the premiership. With limited game time due to the pressure to win in this league he might not ever progress. I agree with some on here that pace is something we genuinely lack. Our pace lies solely in Redmond and Long (our fullbacks don't count as they rarely play as wing backs). I think with VVD, Hoedt, Romeu & Lemina we have enough strength to not be bullied. It's pace in our midfield that we miss. Look at the chances liverpool have created this season using Mane and Salah; United have created with Rashford and Mihiktaryan etc. The other teams what they lack in pace they make up for in incredibly skillful midfielders (the like of which we don't have). For example De Bruyne, Willian, Silva, Fabregas, Sane, Alli, Eriksen etc.

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