Southamp­ton will need a strong fin­ish to the Cham­pi­onship sea­son if they are to win pro­mo­tion from the Pre­mier League.

The Saints cur­rent­ly sit 4th in the table. They are nine points adrift of the auto­mat­ic pro­mo­tion places, with a game in hand.

How­ev­er, they are at least well set to secure a top six spot, which would give them a shot at pro­mo­tion via the play-offs.

One play­er who wll no doubt be vital to any hopes Southamp­ton have of seal­ing a return to the top-flight this sea­son, is Adam Arm­strong.

The 27-year-old has been in excel­lent form this sea­son, scor­ing 18 goals in 36 league appear­ances. That has put him in con­tention to win the Cham­pi­onship Gold­en Boot come the end of the cam­paign.

Now, one pun­dit has backed him to do just that.

Adam Armstrong tipped for Championship award

Cur­rent­ly, Armstrong’s 18 league goals mean he is the sec­ond-high­est scor­er in the Championship’s indi­vid­ual scor­ing charts this sea­son.

Lead­ing the way is Sam Szmod­ics, who has found the net 21 times for Armstrong’s for­mer club, Black­burn Rovers, dur­ing the cur­rent cam­paign.

How­ev­er, with Southamp­ton chas­ing pro­mo­tion, Ryan Dilks believes cir­cum­stances may allow Arm­strong to over­haul Szmod­ics to win the Gold­en Boot.

Speak­ing on the Sec­ond-Tier Pod­cast about why he thinks Arm­strong will claim that indi­vid­ual hon­our, the EFL pun­dit said:

“I think it’s def­i­nite­ly between Szmod­ics and Arm­strong, but I’m just going to edge it to Adam Arm­strong. My think­ing is; Southamp­ton have two games extra to play over Black­burn, which could just push him ahead, and if they [Southamp­ton] want to be in the auto­mat­ic pro­mo­tion race, they have to go for it and go front foot in every game, so I can see that lead­ing to loads of chances and then more goals for Arm­strong.”

Next up for Rus­sell Martin‘s side after the inter­na­tion­al break, is the vis­it of Mid­dles­brough to St Mary’s on Fri­day after­noon.

Southampton getting the best out of their striker

Arm­strong signed for the Saints back in the sum­mer of 2021, fol­low­ing two pro­lf­ic sea­sons with Black­burn Rovers.

How­ev­er, the pre­vi­ous two sea­sons had been frus­trat­ing for the strik­er, who man­aged just four Pre­mier League goals in that time.

Now though, he is once again thriv­ing in the Cham­pi­onship, which is allow­ing Southamp­ton to get some­thing of a return on their invest­ment in him.

Indeed, that has not just come with his goals but with oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ties too. He also took on the captain’s arm­band ear­li­er this sea­son.

Giv­en the much stronger posi­tion Southamp­ton are in, and the extra games they have to play com­pared to Black­burn Rovers, Arm­strong should have chance to go past Szmod­ics in the scor­ing charts too.

It would then be inter­est­ing to see if he could make a more sig­nif­i­cant impact in the Pre­mier League next time round, if the Saints win pro­mo­tion.

The fact he woud be mov­ing up to that lev­el with a club he is already famil­iar with and where he under­stands the sys­tem and man­ag­er, could give him a bet­ter chance to do so than last time.

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