Southampton: Why do the Saints desperately need a striker?

With the loan departure of record signing Guido Carrillo, Saints have essentially weakened their striker depth in the current transfer window, and must now seek a new addition before the start of the season to help drastically improve the squad.

It was clear that the former-Monaco player did not quite meet the cut in a Southampton shirt, having failed to make a real impact since move back in January with a return of zero goals to his name. With having done this though, the club must now bring in fresh blood despite still having another four striking options at their disposal.

The south-coast club have been linked to a few players who can lead the line in Paco Alcacer, Andrea Petagna and most recently Filip Kostic, so you could say that there might be some interest in investing in this area of the pitch, however none of these links have proven to be concrete as of yet and therefore it is not certain on what Southampton’s intentions are, and despite having the depth, why is another striker required?

From the past season, there was evidence to suggest that the strikers at Mauricio Pellegrino/Mark Hughes’ disposal where not up to the task, despite having some pedigree in their attacking game, it is hard to pinpoint why this might have been the case, though all strikers had various reasons as to why they might not have hit top form.

For one, constant rotation in this position did little help to players confidence, most notably Manolo Gabbiadini who looked a shadow of the star he was from the previous season, and to add Shane Long’s finishing ability was very much lacklustre on numerous occasions and only really offered a high work rate up top, the Irish international having the worst season of his Southampton career thus far.

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Saints’ other striking option in Charlie Austin had the best record of the three strikers having scored seven goals throughout the whole campaign, which Gabbiadini (five) and Long (two) both managed for the campaign combined, though the English striker would inedibly sustain an injury in amongst a streak of hot form – being injury-prone a long term problem with Austin.

With the return of Sam Gallagher who had been loaned out last season, Southampton do have another player that can be trialed and tested though the academy graduate has been linked away with a permanent move and is largely unused in the Premier League, meaning it would be risky to rely on him to make an impact.

This means to say that the current striker situation at the club is one that is not great, with Gabbiadini not looking at his best through lack of confidence, Austin being injury prone, Long not being technically sound and the somewhat-inexperienced Sam Gallagher making up the numbers.

Therefore, to rely on this would be incredibly naive of the Southampton hierarchy and recruitment team, to think the club could push on despite having these problems and being excused due to investment in other areas of the pitch in Mohammed Elyounoussi, Stuart Armstrong and Jannik Vestergaard.

Of course with the addition of a new striker, it would most likely mean that one of Gallagher, Long, Austin or Gabbiadini would be offloaded to accommodate playing time to each player fairly – though doing this would help to freshen up squad morale amongst players and keep competition for the starting line-up at a high level, and therefore giving Hughes the opportunity to select a fully competitive squad.