Alan Pardew threatened to leave David Connolly out of the side to face Norwich – but changed his mind after the striker left him in no doubt he should be playing.

The Saints boss was testing the water with his new hitman and got exactly the kind of response he was hoping for when he discussed the potential move to the bench in his office last week.

Connolly showed fire in his belly at that time and took it into the game where he set up Saints’ first and netted a wonder strike himself in the 2-2 draw.

Pardew admits that his side don’t look totally comfortable with playing 4-4-2 at the moment.

But with 14-goal top scorer Rickie Lambert and Connolly up front, he feels he has no choice but to persist with it.

He said: “I feel perhaps we’re not ready for 4-4-2 as a team to be honest but I can’t not play 4-4-2 with those two.

“Lambert didn’t have one of his greatest games but we know how brilliant he is and we have to improve as a back eight.

“When you think about the run we’ve had, this is only our fourth game with 4-4-2 and that showed.

“We had a bit of inexperience in terms of when to keep the ball and when to take the sting out of the game.

“But Connolly is a very good player and the goal he got would have graced the Premier League and maybe even international standard.

“I actually pulled him into my office this week and said I was thinking maybe about a five against Norwich because they move the ball around.

“He told me exactly how it should be.

“I understood then that the fire in his belly was still there because if he would have accepted that it wouldn’t have been the old Connolly.

“We had a nice chat and I needed a cup of tea after it.”

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