Saints Blogs

The big 18/19 issue that should force Southampton into making changes – opinion

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Ralph Hasenhuttl will be heading into his first full season as the Southampton manager and has already started to change his team. The Austrian appears to have identified a lack of goals as an immediate cause for concern, despite having Danny Ings, Charlie Austin and Shane Long within his squad.

Even with these strikers at St Mary’s, the fact is Southampton were 16th out of 20 when it came to goals scored in the Premier League last season according to Whoscored.com. The numbers are even worse when looking at the individual figures, the three forwards combined only managed 14 league goals.

This is an area that has been identified by the manager and he looks set to try and improve it. Last week the club announced their first signing of the summer, buying Mali winger Moussa Djenepo from Belgian side Standard Liege.

The Sun reported the 21-year-old has signed a four-year deal and will be moving to St Mary’s for £14 million. His stats on Transfermarkt show the Mali international scored seven goals and provided three assists in league games last season. That is equal to Ings, and five more goals than Austin managed last term.

Southampton was ninth in the table for shots per game and tenth for shots on target per game last season with an average of 4.3 according to Whoscored.com. With these numbers posted it is no surprise Hasenhuttl wants to make changes and is a good reason he is close to bringing his second player of the transfer window.

According to the Telegraph, the club are about to sign Birmingham forward Che Adams. The outlet suggests he will also move for about £14 million and he was a target for the club in January. The 22-year-old demonstrated last season he can score goals, the Englishman scored 22 and provided five assists in his 46 league appearances.

The numbers show exactly why Hasenhuttl has identified the players he has gone after, the team finished the last campaign with a goal difference of -20, so he will be aware he cannot rely on the defence, he needs goals within the team.

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