Oriol Romeu was again a mainstay of the Saints midfield, only Ryan Bertrand started more Premier League games than him.

It was always going to be tough for Oriol Romeu to match the previous season's efforts when he had been voted player of the year, however he was the one consistent performer in the centre of the midfield and his 34 starts in the Premier League was a lot more than the other two main candidates for a central role Lemina & Hojbjerg.

This probably tells you a lot of why things were going wrong, football teams are built with strong spines and we never built winning partnerships on a long consistent basis either in the centre of defence or the centre of midfield.

Oriol Romeu therefore was probably the most consistent performer in the central area, yes Pierre Emile Hojbjerg had a better second half of the season, but he wasn't selected for the first chunk of the term.

In the main Romeu was a solid performer, but he did have one fatal flaw at times and that was a habit of letting is man run off him at set pieces perhaps well illustrated by Bournemouth's equaliser at St Mary's when Romeu got caught napping.

This wasn't the first time that this had happened although in fairness he was not the only culprit in the team in a season dogged by poor marking.

Overall though Romeu has proved a shrewd signing for Saints and in his three years at the club has made 86 Premier League starts and 12 as sub, the only drawback being a lack of goals, all of those games have only seen him score 3 times, this years effort being the equaliser at Manchester City back in November.

I would say that the central midfield area is our strongest department in terms of the quality available, last season saw it badly misused by Pellegrino, hopefully that won't be the case under Mark Hughes

Photo: Action Images

underweststand added 11:28 - Jun 7 Romeu ....yet another " Chelsea reject " who has DAJFU since the day he arrived. Tough in midfield , although he often collects a few more yellow cards than perhaps needed, but still manages to retain that " choirboy expression " when booked for "heavy challenges". Was a tad disappointing last season, but I put some of that down to the constant change of midfield partners who were unfamilar with each others style. He was at his best when playing in Koeman's attacking formations than in the Puel/Pellegrino defensive set-ups which put extra pressure on the backline / defensive players. I see him retaining his position, but the likes of a rapidly improving Hojbjerg may put some pressure on him to be able to nail down regular selection.

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KriSaint added 18:12 - Jun 7 He seems very devoted to Saints and he deserves the fact the fans love him. Should always play in the games where our best available defensive formation is required, primarily our away games.
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