Southampton, England's Young Guns, Part 1

Article by e-Southampton Correspondent Bastian Houdini

When England's Roy Hodgson states that certain players are unlikely to be used for England in the run-up to the World Cup most people take notice, mostly Chelsea fans, with Ashley Cole and John Terry being mentioned specifically.

Then it's Southampton's turn, although for us it's not about players being left out, but about how many players are being talked about for inclusion, young players, players with potential, all brought through by the club.

To quote Roy: "The pool of players (England has to choose from) has increased this season and more teams are injecting young English players into their teams and trusting them,” he said.

“Southampton are regularly using people like [Luke] Shaw, [James] Ward-Prowse, [Calum] Chambers, Jack Cork, [Jay] Rodriguez.

“So more and more teams are turning to their academies and the young players they are bringing through, which is of course a positive thing."

Everyone has probably now heard of Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana but this article is aimed at providing you with a bit more information if you are unfamiliar with Saints and their stars of the future.

Some of these young guns everyone is talking about, others might be a bit more obscure if you don't watch them at St Mary's and only rely on Match of the Day, the producers never seem to give Saints much good exposure, for a view of young footballers and the chance to watch them play.

Let's start with the most obvious, the one who is going to Chelsea/Man United/Man City/Liverpool/Arsenal, I mean why would he want to stay with Saints and their stars of the future when he could join Manchester United and their current glorious trajectory!

… that's a story for another day, if you've had your head under a rock let's tell you a little bit about Luke Shaw.

Luke grew up a Chelsea fan in south London, discarded by the Chelsea Academy for being too small at the age of 8 (how could they possibly tell at that age, it's ridiculous, he is now 6'1"!) He was spotted by a Southampton scout and invited down to Southampton where it quickly became obvious Chelsea had dropped a major clanger.

At the age of 16 Luke made his professional debut for Southampton in the last 13 minutes of the FA Cup game against Millwall, the following season, upon promotion to the Premier league, Luke was offered a professional contract.

He has played for England under 17's and under 21's and is almost certainly, barring injury, going to be picked for England seniors for the next friendly against Denmark in March 2014.

On the pitch he is a left sided attacking full-back, he has a lot of energy and is very quick, strong and defensively solid, is technically very gifted and his concentration levels, for a young defender, are excellent.

A lot of people are putting one and one together and not making two when they compare him with the world's most expensive footballer, Gareth Bale. Some of this is because of Shaw's surging runs down the left wing, very much as Bale used to do as a youngster for Saints, and the fact that Bale started off at Southampton as a left back, though, for me, that's about as close as the comparison gets.

Bale always had an overtly attacking edge to his play, he was always willing to shoot from almost anywhere and he also had an extraordinarily good left foot from free kick situations which gave him a taste for goals, these are attributes that Shaw does not share.

Saying that, Shaw does like to attack, but it is nearly always in support of others rather than to be the cutting edge himself, although he has scored goals in the past, this is not the main thrust of his game.

Shaw is a much better defender now than Bale ever was, his size means he doesn't often get pushed around, his tackling is excellent with great timing and, he has such a turn of pace that he seldom gets outrun by any opposition player.

So, is he any good? Well if you'd ever seen him play you would have no doubt that he is much more than potential already, he is very very good and he's only 18 so his only going to improve even more over the next few years.

Which leads me onto why most Saints fans laugh at the stories linking him to clubs elsewhere.

Let me put it this way, how much is England's future left back going to be worth in a couple of years?

I'm pretty sure it's more than the paltry sums being quoted in the national newspapers!

The next name on uncle Roy's list was James Ward-Prowse, here's what you need to know about JWP.

JWP is a midfielder, I personally think he is better in the middle but he often plays on the right-hand side of the Saints midfield formation, although contrary to most papers and TV commentary, Southampton's formation is a lot more fluid than many of the traditional formations trotted out by the pundits, so to be truthful, he could turn up anywhere across the middle or even in that number 10 position.

Anyway, be that as it may, James is 19 years old and is another academy product from our prodigious conveyor belt (I had to get that in somewhere in the article didn't I?!), despite being a Portsmouth fan he made the right choice and joined us as an 8-year-old and signed professional terms with the Saints in the 2012 season.

James has played for England in the under 17's, under 19's, under 20s and under 21's and, although I think it unlikely that he will be called up for the next England squad, it is very interesting that his name has been mentioned by uncle Roy recently.

He has mostly been used by Southampton as a substitute this year and although the previous manager, Nigel Adkins, was most impressed with him, current evidence points to Mauricio Poccetino preferring Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Davis and Cork ahead of him.

All of these players are excellent, Cork in particular was mentioned in the same quote from Hodgson and I will talk about him in my next article, however, and this is significant in the game time he's getting at the moment, all the others are either physically different types or far more experienced than JWP is currently.

That being said, JWP has been used in many games as a substitute and always provides energy and desire during that last phase of the game when legs are getting tired.

He's not your traditional tricky and fast winger and he has excellent delivery from set pieces, there are a number of links to videos on the FA website that show James instructing people how to take a free kick.

On his way through the academy he was known as a creative goalscoring midfielder, though goals have been few and far between after the step up to the first team compared to his excellent form for the development teams.

Is he good? Yes he is, he wouldn't be linked with transfers to some big clubs as he has been if he wasn't.

Has he got a way to go? Yes he has, he needs game time and he's not getting it at the moment, maybe towards the end of the season, but he certainly needs to play to improve and on the weekend showing in the FA Cup game his progress is slowing and despite his immense potential, real game time is required for us all to get to know a bit more about what he's capable of.

One thing is sure though, he's a thoroughbred, he is a Premier league player, he just needs to prove it now.