Saturday 16 January 2016 19:48, UK
Ronald Koeman feels he has signed the natural goalscorer Southampton have been missing in the shape of Charlie Austin.
The 26-year-old striker, who scored 18 goals in the Premier League for QPR last season, signed for Saints in a cut-price £4m deal on Saturday morning, and watched from the stands as his new club beat West Brom 3-0 at St Mary's.
"I hope he will bring goals, that's why he was our target for this transfer window," said Saints boss Koeman.
"I think we need a player like him, everybody knows his number of goals. He's still only 26 and it's good to have him in now. It's good for the other players and it's good to see what his physical state is.
"He gives us more competition. We are always trying to make the squad stronger and signing that sort of player is very important.
"Every Premier League team has competition. And at the moment Graziano Pelle is still not 100 per cent fit, Jay Rodriguez is not training, so if something happened to Shane Long we'd have no one up front.
"Now we are also prepared for next season. He is here now and it's good for the boy. He needs to adapt to how we work and he'll know everything for next season."
Saints certainly appear to have picked up a bargain, with relegated Rangers asking £15m for Austin last summer.
But Koeman added: "I don't talk about money, that's not my job. We said to the board that he was the No 1 target and I'm very pleased Charlie is a Southampton player."
After one goal in his previous 92 league appearances, James Ward-Prowse struck twice in the first half to send Southampton on their way to victory over the Baggies on Saturday, and Koeman is hoping the floodgates have now opened for the young midfielder.
"The free-kicks are one of his qualities," Koeman said. "We tell him to keep working on them in training because he can score out of that situation.
"It's important for the boy, it will lift his confidence. And that free-kick was so important to break open the game. Then when you are 1-0 up West Brom have to do more and do things differently.
"It was a comfortable win. We know how difficult it is to beat West Brom. It's a very good result. We had total control of the game, they didn't create many chances and we had chances to score more. It was a very good team performance."
