Wembley stage is set for Long to play leading role
SHANE LONG turned 30 last month. It’s not just his babyfaced features which make that hard to believe. He seems to have graduated to veteran status without any of us really noticing.
Given that it’s Oscars night in Los Angeles, you could view him as the perpetual supporting actor, never fully trusted to take on a leading role. More than a third of his top-flight appearances have come off the bench, so Claude Puel is clearly not the first manager who has had difficulty in believing the Tipperary native could be his team’s focal point in attack.
Long’s physicality and searing pace – he was revealed to be the fastest player in the Premier League earlier this season – mean he is the type of striker central defenders dread. Just ask Mats Hummels. However, his genetic and athletic advantages can’t camouflage the basic failing of his nomadic career. He doesn’t score enough. And goals are the tricky part.
It’s a recurring theme as he moved from club to club, aggregating £24m in transfer fees along the way. There was always someone else in his role judged to be more reliable. Long can be considered unlucky that his current rich vein of form (four goals in the last seven games including the stunning strike at Anfield that sent Southampton into today’s EFL Cup final) has coincided with Monolo Gabbiadini hitting the ground running at St Mary’s. But the truth is that Puel wouldn’t have gone to Serie A in search of a goalscorer if Long (below) had been finding the net regularly. Nonetheless, if Saints fans are searching for a match-winning hero in the mould of the late Bobby Stokes, who bagged the winner against Manchester United in the 1976 FA Cup final, Long ticks all the boxes. He doesn’t score enough goals, but he does have a knack of scoring important ones. In a career that will be remembered for brilliant moments, rather than consistent brilliance, it would almost be fitting if Long enshrined himself in Saints folklore, as another journeyman striker did against United at Wembley 41 years ago.