Killer

A year ago my first blog was about my disappointment that the football season had started and all my hopes about the season ahead had been shattered by two games both of which the Saints had lost.

Today was the first game of this season and we lost 2-1 at Cardiff to a last minute goal so somethings don't change!

While I'm still disappointed, today my hope remains intact as all the reports say we played well, should have got a point and I do believe that we are a work in progress and it will take time for us bed in the younger players. Many teams will go to Cardiff this season and come away well beaten with fans no where near as happy as ours seem to be after this afternoon.

One of the main reasons for my hope is that this season at the heart of our defence we have Michael "Killer" Svensson, who hasn't played football for three years through a knee injury. Last season we Saints fans accepted that his career had effectively been finished by the injury as each "come-back" ended with more treatment/surgery. At the start of pre-season training, however, he rejoined the squad after the latest series of treatment had restored his knee to being able to at least train and start to play again. The last few weeks have been a journey that we have all watched with amazement has Killer has returned to playing as we all hoped but never really believed he would.

His injury was one of the main reasons why we were relegated as with Claus Lundekvam he formed a solid central partnership that was at the heart of our Premiership success. Svensson was the organiser of the defence and without him we were never the same team and relegation followed.

Now he's back! Assuming he can stay fit (and the signs so far are good) he will give the centre of our defence a real Premiership quality player who will instill confidence in those around him, the main thing that our defence lacked last season.

There will be a lot of Championship centre forwards this season who will find that Killer is back and may well find out how he earned his nickname.