Southampton’s Adam Armstrong continues to lead the line effectively for his South Coast club, the former Newcastle United attacker breathing down the neck of current Championship top scorer Sammie Szmodics – who has 14 goals for Blackburn Rovers – with 12 strikes for the St Mary’s outfit this season.
Two of those goals came in Southampton’s last game versus Cardiff City, a routine 2-0 win for Russell Martin’s men who are already eyeing up an immediate return back to the Premier League after a disastrous relegation saw them drop down to the second tier.
Martin will hope that he has prolific strikers at his disposal elsewhere so the Saints don’t just overly rely on Armstrong in the hunt for promotion, Che Adams springs to mind who can be a reliable option off the bench.
There’s one young Saints attacker, however, who Martin will hope can become a crucial hero in the senior ranks away from this campaign.
Dom Ballard is the attacker in question, who has been a potent goalscorer for some time now in many youth squads at Southampton.
Dom Ballard’s statistics at Southampton
The teenage sensation is a natural-born finisher, scoring a ridiculous 52 goals for the Saints at U18 level and in the B team.
This campaign, before a loan move out of the building materialised for the 18-year-old sharpshooter, Ballard had netted six goals in just three games in the Premier League 2 – wearing the captain’s armband proudly, hitting back-to-back hat-tricks against Newcastle and Aston Villa in the process.
Ballard even has a senior goal on his already sparkling Southampton resume, scoring in the EFL Cup last season when substituted on to help his team beat Cambridge United 3-0 on the night.
That goal meant Ballard joined an exclusive list at the Saints – coming in as Southampton’s fifth youngest goalscorer since 1961, joining esteemed company in Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott and more who all netted in the infancy of their respective senior careers at St Mary’s before making it big.
The teenager’s clinical goalscoring prowess alerted Reading to his services this summer, in a loan switch that started swimmingly for the 18-year-old but ended in disaster.
Dom Ballard’s time at Reading
Ballard very much took to League One football like a duck to water for the Royals, scoring three times for Ruben Selles’ men from ten starts in the division.
He would add another two goals to his overall Reading total in the EFL Trophy, his new employers trouncing Exeter City 9-0 in a cup tie that saw Ballard also set up his teammates with two assists in a blistering match at St James’ Park.
Yet, the loan spell – that could have been the making of the 18-year-old – was cruelly stopped in its tracks after Ballard picked up a horror injury versus Wycombe Wanderers.
Selles was understandably distraught by the promising starlet’s setback in the aftermath of the Chairboys game, stating that he knows Ballard will go on to have a ‘very good career in an interview after the match.
Suffering a broken patella injury, the Saints youngster will now be out of the rest of the season which has curtailed his promising Royals loan spell abruptly.
Martin will pray that his lethal attacker comes back from this lay-off still eager to fire goals in regularly, ready to one day follow in the footsteps of Walcott, Bale and Co to start regularly for the senior team.
