Great Expectations – Dusan Tadic

After a reasonably successful debut season in the Premier League harvested four goals and nine assists in 2014/15, Southampton’s Dusan Tadic enjoyed an even more fruitful campaign last time around.

The Serbia international plundered eight goals and 13 assists to steer his side to a sixth-placed finish – a tally made all the more impressive by the fact that he started just 27 of the Saints’ 38 matches, with a further seven outings as a substitute.

Tadic struggled to nail down a regular role under Ronald Koeman amidst rumblings of a personality clash between the pair but with the Dutchman now off to Everton, the playmaker will be determined to step up as a key figure at St Mary’s for the season ahead.

KEY FACTORS

• Tadic ended the campaign in red-hot form after re-establishing himself as a regular starter from Gameweek 29 onwards, racking up two goals and eight assists. Over the last ten matches, Tadic totalled 52 touches inside the opponents’ box, with only team-mate Sadio Mane, Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez and Bournemouth’s Josh King registering more. He also produced 20 goal attempts in this spell, mustering a shot on goal every 39.3 minutes. Having ended the campaign in such outstanding form, the former Twente midfielder should arrive back during pre-season in confident mood.

• Many commentators talk of “second season syndrome,” but Tadic dispelled any such notions, increasing his frequency of goal attempts in the box by 27% compared to his debut campaign. The Serbian also scored or assisted 47.6% of Southampton’s goals whilst he was on the pitch last season, compared to 31.4% during 2014/15. Tadic’s influence on the Saints attack certainly looks to be growing, then, although his minutes per goal attempt (40.6 to 40.8) and minutes per chance created (31.6 to 32.4) numbers were both slightly down on his first season in England. That can perhaps be explained by the fact he was substituted 19 times last term, compared to 13 times during the 2014/15 campaign.

• Tadic has a crucial part to play at St Mary’s in regard to set-piece duties. The midfielder only notched one of three Southampton spot-kicks last season, but is expected to be the designated penalty taker heading into the new campaign. He’s also likely to remain influential from direct free-kicks, whilst sharing corner taking duties with Steven Davis, Ryan Bertrand and James Ward-Prowse. Fantasy managers are often drawn to players who should at least be able to fall back on attacking points through dead-ball duties, and having only blanked in two of his last nine starts, Tadic should again provide a reliable stream of attacking returns.

• After coming in at 7.0 in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) last season, Tadic can be expected to rise to around 8.0 this time around, thus remaining out of the premium bracket. With doubts hovering over the future of team-mate Sadio Mane once again, the Serbian could finally be afforded the platform to emerge as the main man at St Mary’s and stake a viable claim for our five-man midfields. A lack of international duties for Serbia over the summer should also ensure he’s well-rested prior to the 2016/17 campaign getting underway.

• Looking at the fixture list, Southampton’s first five road trips (mun, ars, whm, lei, mci) are admittedly far from appealing. It’s worth noting, however, that Tadic picked up points against four of those sides last time out, with only United keeping him at bay. Considering that the Saints were second top scorers at home in 2015/16, their first four fixtures at St Mary’s (WAT, SUN, SWA, BUR) in the new season offers hope that he could hit the ground running.