Southampton: Osvaldo To Juventus - Will You Miss The Mercurial Hitman?

At the end of the day, everyone has to have a bit of a soft spot for clearly unhinged, mercurial Italian strikers.

Dani Osvaldo’s time in Southampton was marred by poor performances and committing actual bodily harm on a team mate, but besides all that - was he really that bad? Allowing him to join Turin giants Juventus (on loan, it must be said) feels like a mistake in a season where Southampton need the firepower.

An undoubtably talented player, Osvaldo always looked to us like the kind of guy who’d be deadly after a solid run of games but he never really got that chance as lantern-jawed Bielsista Maurico Pochettino didn’t give him one.

A player prone to silky touches mixed with erratic shooting, perhaps, but - unlike Lambert - Osvaldo was a striker with the ability to turn nothing into something. An invaluable trait. The goals he did score ended up being pretty bloody spectacular.

Who doesn’t want a player whose highlights video starts with a shot of the crumbling Flavian amphitheatre?

I always think you need a player like that in your ranks, it keeps everyone on their toes (because he might punch someone at any given minute) but also serves to take pressure off his teammates when they’re a goal down against a team they don’t look like equalising against - they can continue playing their game safe in the knowledge that it’s quite likely that the Khal Drogo-alike up front will stop sulking, ‘meg two men and curl one in from twenty yards whenever he feels like it.

It raises the team because they want to work to raise him.

Maybe that’s just me, though. Maybe I’m just an optimist.

Follow Sam on Twitter, @SamDiss

Click here for more Southampton features