STATS: Southampton’s Dusan Tadic topping Liverpool’s Adam Lallana

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Liverpool spent £25 million on Adam Lallana but have seen him fail to match the Premier League numbers of £10.8m Southampton replacement Dusan Tadic.

Southampton were understandably reluctant to part with Adam Lallana last summer, with another product of their academy system being lured away by the bright lights on offer elsewhere.

The Saints were, however, able to get £25 million out of Premier League rivals Liverpool and wasted little time in investing part of that fee on a suitable replacement.

Ronald Koeman’s knowledge of European football proved invaluable in that search, with FC Twente winger Dusan Tadic quickly identified as the right man for the job.

He was acquired for less than half of what his St Mary’s predecessor generated, with £10.8 million tempting his Eredvisie employers into a sale.

A quick look at the Opta statistics for the 2014/15 campaign suggests that Southampton will be laughing all the way to the bank.

While Liverpool have faltered and Lallana has endured his struggles with injury, Tadic has hit the ground running in England and shown himself to be a more than capable Premier League performer.

Goals scored is the only notable area where Lallana trumps Tadic, but the latter is more of an out-an-out wideman and a creator of chances rather than a taker of them.

His figures make for impressive reading whichever way you look at them, with his true vale shown when breaking them down game-by-game.

Serbia international Tadic sees considerably more of the ball in any given 90 minutes that his English rival and often does more with it, with it easy to argue that he would be valued on a par with Lallana were either to find themselves on the move again any time soon.