Southampton have had a relatively successful season so far but one man who didn’t live up to The Guardian journalist Ben Fisher’s prediction is Che Adams.
What did he say?
After scoring 22 goals in 46 Championship games for Birmingham last season many would have been forgiven for expecting Adams to shine in Saints colours.
Fisher was one of those, and he wrote at the beginning of the current season that he expected the 23-year-old to make an immediate impact on the south coast, but in reality the opposite has occurred.
Adams has played in 27 games without scoring for the club, and he can’t exactly blame teammates or a lack of service since Danny Ings has netted 15 times in 29 league games.
In his prediction previewing Southampton’s season, Fisher described Adams as a “powerful striker”, and made a comparison between the forward and current England international Callum Wilson, writing in The Guardian:
“The arrival of Adams from Birmingham City represents a major boost. Named after Che Guevara and released by Coventry at 14, the former Birmingham forward has the tools to transfer his goalscoring form into the Premier League, in the same way Callum Wilson prospered along the south coast at Bournemouth.”
That has proved far from the case and Southampton even contemplating loaning the striker out in January, with Leeds interested, though that is not to say that he can’t show his quality in the future.
Reasons to be positive
Given the way in which the Saints’ season has panned out there are not many who could have predicted how things have gone.
A 9-0 defeat would ordinarily hint at a team struggling for much of the campaign, and although the south-coast outfit were sitting in the relegation zone in mid-December a run of fine form means they haven’t had to consider the threat of relegation for some time.
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They are now seven points clear despite the lack of form of Adams, though the former Birmingham man did play a significant role in the memorable wins at Chelsea and Leicester, grabbing an assist against the latter.
Now the team has a few weeks off Ralph Hasenhuttl should do whatever he can to work out how to get the best out of Adams, and if Southampton do secure safety with games remaining then he should be given a chance to start in order to get off the mark.
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That could prove vital to his confidence ahead of next season, and if he manages to return to form then Hasenhuttl could have a lethal partnership with Ings alongside him up-front.
In other news, Southampton should look to boost the squad by looking at players at a certain club they’ve had success buying from before…