Emmanuel Mayuka's agent, Nir Karin - has spoken out about Mayuka's status and future at Saints. He has said: "Next season, Mayuka is in Southampton." Says Saints and Mayuka are committed to each-other for the long term and there is no desire to leave Southampton for another club. DTLW
More from Mayuka's agent: “Southampton didn’t say anything and he has four more years on his contract. Next season, Mayuka is in Southampton. I don’t know who’s this ‘source’ you all copy from, Mayuka knows his situation better and he fights for his place. We believe he will play more next season. He’s just 22 and maybe you forgot he helped bring you the Africa Cup. Sad that the Zambia football family doesn’t help each other and focuses on bad things only and rumours. That’s one of the reasons you have so few players in Europe."
Unless we're going to pay up his contract, I think he can be pretty certain Mayuka will still be here next season. Whether he will get to play more is of course another matter...
If he's not gonna displace Lambert or Rodriguez I wonder if a loan to another Premier League club could be on the cards, Rose/Lukaku style. Maybe someone can turn that into an ITK rumour.
I think there is plenty more to come from him. Looks very raw but I feel that Poch can get the best of him if he knuckles down and heeds the advice of those around him. Was brilliant earlier in the season against Villa and I thought he was going to be an important player for us this season after this. Would like to see him play a bit more at the end of this season as he is bound to have a bit of fire in the belly and a point to prove. It definitely looked that way after his brief cameo against Swansea
If we are going to push on next year we will need four forwards in order to deal with injuries, suspensions and drops in form, we only have Rickie, JRod and Mayuka so we already need another striker so if we move him on then we need to to buy two this summer. I would rather keep him as number 4 striker and work on him to see if our coaches can turn him into a premiership quality player
If Mayuka has the requisite qualities (and he probably has), he is in the right place to progress. Remember he is still young...knuckle down and learn and his chance will come. Remember it's not going to be easy to displace Rickie and JRod.
He did..! I know it was only four minutes, but he nearly scored the winner, and it was only a brilliant save by Vorm that stopped Saints winning that game. One to watch.
It was at the end of a tiring game on a hot day, when the game had become very stretched, so that cameo doesn't really say much. If he can replicate that form from the start, then great, but we haven't seen much evidence of that yet. We only play with one centre forward so we probably don't need more than three really.
PTF - most of the CL clubs all have four top strikers apart from Chelsea who have a well discussed issue and generally only play with one true Y up front
Except that both Lambert and Rodriguez play in games, not just one of them. We need another CF to cover Lambert as Mayuka is more like a winger.
Same. Poch fired a bit of a shot across his bow a few weeks ago, which suggests that it's been a lack of focus or work on the training ground. The talent is there; if he fights hard for a spot in training and pre-season, I still think that he'll be a real asset.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make at all. Rodriguez doesn't play as a centre forward when Lambert plays. We have lots of players who can fill the three slots behind the striker, we don't really need 4 to fill that one position.
He's making the point that there's room for all of them; just as Rodriguez slides over to play the hybrid wing/wide forward role in the 4-2-3-1 to allow him to play alongside Lambert, so too can Mayuka.
Ok sure, but just because we can accommodate four strikers by playing them on the wing, that doesn't mean we need that many. It's radical I know, but we could play wingers there!
