Southampton: Shane Long – Winger or Striker?

For the majority of Saints fans Shane Long is the metaphorical Marmite, you either love him or hate him.

His passion, energy and commitment on the pitch makes him very easy to like, but then he gets the ball in front of the goal and all his effort to get there goes out the window, well most of the time it does…

The Irishman has struggled in recent seasons, for me this is mainly down to where he’s being deployed.

Under Koeman, Long was used out wide playing as a winger off Graziano Pellè, he used his pace to get behind the defence, mainly between the full-back and centre-back as he runs into the wide area of the box.

Under Puel he was mainly used up top on his own or alongside another striker when the diamond 4-4-2 was applied. With 25 goals in 115 Appearances for Southampton it’s easy to see he isn’t a goal-scorer.

This brings me to my point. If he doesn’t score goals, is it really a good idea for him to play as a striker? He works his socks off for the team, but a striker is the main goal threat of any team so for me you can’t have a player like Long leading the line.

Long joined from Hull during the big exodus at Saints. Koeman mainly used a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3 system during his spell at the club with Pellè always leading the line as a target-man. Behind Pellè was Mané, Tadic and Long. Two pacey wingers and a creator who would feed off the knockdowns of the target-man and thread passes into the advancing wingers & fullbacks.

Both wingers were comfortable hugging the touch-line to create width and then find Pellè who made his way into the box late.

But they were also more than happy to dart into the box from wide ready to receive an exquisite pass from Dusan or a cross from the opposite wing.

This for me is where Shane Long is at his best, busting a gut to chase a pass down the wing to square it into the box or arriving into the box in-and-around the far post waiting for a floated cross to fall to him.

In two seasons under Koeman, Long made 60 Premier League appearances scoring 15 goals and grabbing nine assists, arguably his best spell in Premier League football.

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• Grading the Southampton Transfer Window Part 2: Arrivals
• Grading the Southampton Transfer Window Part 1: Departures
• It’s time to talk about Gavin Bazunu
• Rain clouds on the horizon? Southampton beat Plymouth Argyle
• A lament for Southampton legend James Ward-Prowse

And it’s not just his direct goal impact that was impressive. He also averaged one key pass per game (compared to 0.5 under Puel) & an average of 1.75 shots per game as a winger but only 1.2 shots per game as a striker under Puel. (stats via WhoScored)

Towards the end of Claude Puel’s reign he deployed Ward-Prowse on the right of the three and it was much better than the beginning of the season. During the early stages with Pellegrino he has done similar. In some games Tadic is on the right, others its Ward-Prowse. But I still think that wide right position should be Long’s

According to Wikipedia description of a winger:

"“In football, a winger is an attacking midfielder in a wide position. Wingers are usually players of great pace or dribbling ability so as to provide cut-backs or crosses from which strikers can score. Their main function is to support attack from the wings. Wingers do lots of high-speed running from defence to attack.”"

Great pace, cut-backs or crosses & lots of high-speed running… If that isn’t the perfect description of Shane Long I don’t know what is.