There will be those Southampton supporters that will be very uncharitable to Gavin Bazunu when he returns to the club on Saturday in the colours of Bolton Wanderers, but he does deserve a warm welcome & not abuse.

I read some Southampton FC message boards and social media and continually see the phrase "Once A Saint Always A Saint" used when ex players are discussed, although I do have a wry smile when some of those using it, go on to regally slag off certain players and that could well be applied to Gavin Bazunu.

So what has Bazunu actually done to deserve some of the abuse that he gets, was he born in Portsmouth, did he support Portsmouth, did he play for Portsmouth (well yes on that one but so did a lot of club legends), did he refuse to play for the club, did he demand a transfer, it was not any of these things, his crime is that he let in a few goals he perhaps should have saved, some cost us points and some didn't.

There are plenty of ex players who are feted as club legend's who have made mistakes in their career at the Dell/St Mary's, in fact I would hazard a guess that there isn't a single player out there who played more than a handful of games for Saints who didn't make a mistake or two along the way.

Gavin Bazunu's start to the club was not great joining as a 20 year old in the summer of 2022, he had experience in two loan spells, Rochdale in league two and Pompey in League One, but he was ill equipped for the situation he would step into at St Mary's

A 20 year old being thrown into the Premier League behind what would turn out to be the worst defence in the Premier league, we would use 6 central defenders in total that season, indeed 13 different defenders.

So it is not surprising that Bazunu did not excel, however not every game he played was a bad one, and when he was replaced by Alex McCarthy for the final 7 games of that season, we lost 7 and drew just one, conceding 17 goals along the way, the issue that season was not the goalkeeper, it was the total disarray the team and the club was in.

The following season, Bazunu was first choice, he was still only 21 and shellshocked from the previous campaign, but as we challenged for promotion he played a part where in our 23 game unbeaten run, we were also the tightest defence in the Championship in that period.

How did we do that with a keeper so bad as Bazunu and for that matter the equally hated by some sections of our support in that period, the worst left back in the Championship in Ryan Manning.

The answer is of course that they played a part in that unbeaten run, yes mistakes were made by Bazunu, but with only 7 draws in that run, not many actually cost us points.

We were progressing up the League table and by the time of his injury we were already nailed on play off candidates and still in with a chance of automatic.

When Alex McCarthy took over for the final 5 games of the regular season, things did not get better, 9 goals conceded in those games.

Last season again he initially found himself in a team that was in complete disarray under Will Still and he paid the price after a 3-1 debacle at Hull, however in the game previous to that he had kept a clean sheet at home to Pompey.

In the next 7 games with Alex McCarthy in goal, nothing changed much just 1 win and 3 draws.

It is significant that when Tonda Eckert took over for his first game in charge we won at QPR 2-1 and then went on a run that saw 6 wins out of his first 7 games in charge, the one defeat 3-2 at Millwall, saw Bazunu make several decent saves and it could have been worse.

It didn't go so well after that and as we know, Daniel Peretz was brought in, but Bazunu had played a part in the first half of the season and helped us into the position where we could mount a challenge on the play offs.

Gavin Bazunu will not go down in history as the best keeper in the history of Southampton Football Club, but he was far from the worse and as I have mentioned did nothing off the pitch other than be a model professional.

He played 92 league games for the club and to put that in perspective, took part in those two runs where we lost just once in 30 games.

If we want to be more charitable and take out that first car crash of a season for the club, then his performances in the two championship season saw him play a total of 60 games of which 30 were wins, 15 were draws, and 15 defeats with 105 points gained.

That is play off form, ok some would say we should have got automatic promotion, but in both seasons that was more about issues both on and off the pitch.

There will some who read this and say here I am sticking up for Bazunu again and yes they do have a point.

But the point I am making is not that Gavin Bazunu was one of the best goalkeepers that this club has even had, but that he played a part in two memorable seasons and deserves some credit for that.

Remember that current players James Bree & Ryan Manning played a lesser part than Bazunu in the time scales he spent at the club in those two seasons, yet are now considered heroes of varying levels by the supporters.

IF you can't be charitable enough to give him a round of applause when he comes out of the tunnel at St Mary's on Saturday, then at least give him the respect he deserves for the service he gave this club.

I am sure that this story will invoke frothing at the mouth from some, but maybe some will stop and think, that supporting a football club should be just that, we all have favourite players and those we don't rate, but when they have gone we can truly judge them fairly and in Gavin Bazunu's case it is clear that he isn't a club legend, that he made errors, but so has every player, he is now gone if you can't applaud him then stay silent, his only crime was to let in a soft goal or two.

So good luck Gavin Bazunu wherever your career takes you (Apart from back to Portsmouth) may it prosper.

Via Reuters