Southampton forward Shane Long says that he was frustrated earlier in the season when he was not able to get into the team.
Long revealed that it was a tough time for him as he struggled to make the starting line-up ahead of the likes of Che Adams and Michael Obafemi.
However, he has since forced his way back into Ralph Hasenhuttl’s thinking and has been a regular in 2020.
Speaking to Southampton’s website, Long said:
I felt in a good place going into pre-season. Obviously Che (Adams) came in and Michael (Obafemi) is stepping up again, so there’s always going to be competition for places.
I was frustrated not to always be in the starting eleven, never mind the travelling squad at times.
It was a tough time for me. I pride myself on training as hard as I can every day and it’s hard to keep your head on when you’re not involved in the team.
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After signing Adams from Birmingham in the summer, it made sense to us that Hasenhuttl wanted to give him game time and a chance to show what he could do in a Saints shirt.
The forward arrived for a reported fee of £15m, after scoring over 20 goals in the Championship, and impressed in pre-season with a few goals.
This meant that he was getting played ahead of Long at the start of the campaign, which might have been Long’s main frustration.
However, the Irishman put his head down, as he says, and worked hard to get back into the side and has been successful.
Long has scored two and assisted one in his last six appearances in all competitions for the Saints, scoring against Wolves and Spurs and assisting against Leicester.
It is his positional play, rather than his goalscoring, which has impressed us though. Whilst Adams has failed to score a single goal, Long’s movement is what puts him ahead of the Englishman in our eyes.
Long is excellent at dragging defenders out of position and creating space for his teammates. This means that he is a facilitator in Southampton’s team, rather than the main threat, which allows him to take the pressure off the likes of Danny Ings and do the running off-the-ball himself.
