Adam Lallana is a former England international now surrounded by potential England stars at Southampton. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, for one, is the ball-playing centre-back who was four when Lallana made his first Southampton debut.
He captained England’s under-21s to European glory last summer after agreeing to join Southampton on loan from Manchester City with the option of a permanent £20m transfer from Manchester City. It was an option the Saints exercised this summer and Harwood-Bellis signed a four-year contract on the south coast in the summer.
He has been joined at Southampton by a player he has sometimes partnered in central defence for England Under-21s: Nathan Wood, a £3m summer recruit from Swansea, where the 22-year-old played under Martin previously.
St Mary's has been a hotbed for English talent for decades
Elsewhere at the club there’s Ronnie Edwards, who played for England U20s last term and even at 27, Adam Armstrong hasn’t given up on his international dream having made four appearances for the England U-20 team who won the World Cup in 2017 – England's first win in a global tournament since 1966.
The talent pool is deep at the club, and with Lallana’s own son playing for their academy, the conveyor belt is likely to continue producing for club and country.
“I still feel I can offer something on the pitch and I can help the young players,” Lallana told FourFourTwo in an exclusive interview. “I’ve been speaking to a few of the younger players. I’ve been in this league for the last 12 seasons, so I know what’s required to stay in the Premier League; what habits you need to see day in, day out on the training pitch, and the application you need.”
Lallana is only two years younger than his new boss, Russell Martin, for whom he was happy to commit to, even before Southampton knew which division they’d be playing in this season.
“I knew before the end of last season that I was coming back here – the deal was agreed regardless of what league the club was in. But it was a huge bonus for me when the lads got promoted.”
He’d been away for ten seasons, via Liverpool and Brighton. His £25m exit to Liverpool in the summer of 2014 came after he had just captained Southampton to eighth place under Pochettino. The midfielder was the second of six players to make the switch from St Mary’s to Anfield over the course of four years, following Rickie Lambert and preceding Dejan Lovren, Nathaniel Clyne, Sadio Mané and Virgil van Dijk.
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But this is a new era. “I’ve loved my first few weeks back at the club. When you get to my age, you take it year by year. I don’t know at this point how long I’ll play on for – we’ll see what happens towards the end of the season. I just want to enjoy this year as much as possible”.
He speaks highly of Russell Martin too. A former Scotland international – actually born and raised on the south coast, in Brighton – who has impressed many onlookers in a fledgling managerial career that saw him implement an attractive brand of passing football at MK Dons and Swansea, then convert that into promotion
in his first season at Southampton, via a club-record, 25-match unbeaten run.
“He’s got great ideas, he’s so enthusiastic, and he’s forward-thinking,” Lallana says.
“There are going to be tough moments, where we might have lost two or three on the bounce, when we need them to stay calm, stay behind the team and stay behind the manager. It’s not going to be easy. But we’ve got good players and an unbelievable young coach. I’m quietly confident.”
