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Goals, or rather the lack of them, contributed hugely to the demise of Claude Puel, but new Saints manager Mauricio Pellegrino looks like he has no intention of following the same path.
For all the chatter that surrounded Saints’ first win of pre-season against St Etienne in Chambery, and Pellegrino’s first as the club’s manager, there was one stand-out factor.
Pellegrino found a way to get Charlie Austin and Manolo Gabbiadini into the same team.
There has already been debate as to exactly how effective it was or wasn’t, but given it is very early days it is impossible to draw too many conclusions.
The more important thing to note is that Pellegrino did it. It’s a sign of a more attacking and adventurous style, and that he perhaps is conscious that for all of Saints’ strengths, they lack goals from other areas of the field.
They really have two guys in the squad that they can rely upon to get on the scoresheet.
Gabbiadini can be streaky but when he’s on a roll we know what he can do. Austin scores for fun when he’s fit.
You can, therefore, fully understand Pellegrino’s logic and his desire to find a way to name them in the same side.
He clearly wants to play with a 4-2-3-1 formation, which poses an obvious problem. There is only room for one out-and-out striker.
The 4-4-2 has gone out of fashion for the time being, and so it was that one of the duo would play as the main striker, with the other in the number ten type of role just off of them.
Pellegrino must have thought long and hard about the right way to play that combination.
Austin is not known as a creative force from deep but as a goalscorer at his most effective when he is in and around the box with decent delivery into him.
Gabbiadini has played the number ten position in Italy, and to good effect by all accounts.
However, as a striker he offers you a bit of pace and the opportunity of getting in behind a little more often.
That obviously proved to be the clincher for Pellegrino, who cast Gabbiadini as the lead striker, with Austin in behind him.
It certainly provided food for thought.
On the positive side, the pair did manage to make their positions fairly fluid. Gabbiadini would drop deep and Austin play further up. At times they almost became a pair.
If you were being critical at this very early stage you could say it didn’t really make use of Austin’s prowess as a finisher.
Whatever, both of them played well against St Etienne, and more intriguing, encouraging even, than how it went on day one is that Pellegrino is thinking so positively about his team, that he is making goals a priority.
There was also evidence of progress from the previous two pre-season matches, not just in the result but the style of play, as Saints pressed higher up the pitch.
St Etienne are only a week away from the start of their Ligue 1 campaign, and though they fielded a mix and match side, they were strong enough opposition.
The first half was a fairly dull affair until the final ten minutes.
Kevin Monnet-Paquet started the action with a shot into the side netting before Gabbiadini had a hat-trick of chances.
He missed a golden opportunity when he put wide sliding in just a couple of yards out intercepting Loic Perrin’s truly awful pass across his own six yard box.
The Italian also fired over from just inside the area and forced Stephane Ruffier into a good save down to his left moments later.
Saints were much more dominant in the second half.
They got a couple of early let-offs as Jonathan Bamba’s deflected shot struck the post, while a weak header from Kenny Rocha Santos made life much easier for half time sub Stuart Taylor than it ought to have been.
But after that Saints never looked back.
Ruffier made a good save with his legs from Sofiane Boufal’s diving header before Saints bagged two goals in two minutes.
Matt Targett, a second half replacement for Ryan Bertrand, supplied them both with crosses from the left.
Gabbiadini’s header for the first on 64 minutes must have taken Ruffier by surprise. It did come quickly but the keeper stood and watched it in despite it being fairly close to him.
Ward-Prowse had only had his first seven minutes of pre-season action when he side footed home Saints’ second from ten yards out.
A little extra gloss was put on the scoreline four minutes from time as Ward-Prowse’s corner was met by a powerful header from Maya Yoshida.
It’s back to work again at Staplewood now for Saints ahead of their final two pre-season matches at home to Augsburg and Sevilla.
Despite all the talk surrounding Virgil van Dijk, Saints fans can take comfort from the news that their team is making progress and, after all the complaints surrounding negativity last season, Pellegrino certainly seems to be trying to be positive.
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