Manolo Gabbiadini,an Italian striker with six full caps under his belt, made immediate history after joining Southampton on the last day of the 2017 January transfer window from Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli.

Scoring on his debut against West Ham United he then went on to score in his next three matches to become the first player to score in his first four games for the club.

His third game had been the League Cup Final v Manchester United at Wembley when he had scored twice and also had a perfectly legitimate goal ruled out wrongly for offside. This feat immediately endeared him to the crowd and a big future beckoned for this linking darting forward with a powerful left foot and an ability to finish, but it just didn’t happen. An injury sidelined him for a few weeks over the second half of March and the beginning of April and when he came back his goal touch had vanished, not able to find the net in any of his six starts before the season ended.

The following year Saints had a different manager, Mauricio Pellegrino and Manolo only made 11 starts compared with 17 appearances off the bench. He did score five goals however and one of these came in the vital away relegation clash at Swansea. It was a typical poacher’s goal poked in with his left foot (see below) but it was priceless in terms of Premier League survival and ensured he will always be remembered at Southampton for more than being robbed of a Wembley hat-trick.

When Ralph Hasenhuttl arrived Gabbiadini’s days were numbered as his style did not fit in with the new manager’s high pressing philosophy and he returned to one of his old clubs for a fee of approximately 10m Euros, some 4m less than Saints had laid out two years previously despite the fact he had won a further five Italian caps while at St Mary’s. In Match 2020 he became one of the first professional footballers to test positive for COVID-19.