Lallana's emergence has solved the problem of where you can find a player intelligent and mobile enough to play in the hole, as shown with his deserved call-up to the England U21s.
Up front Poortvliet has gone for numbers bringing in Pekhart and Robertson to add height and competition to the lone striker role that has rotated between David McGoldrick and Stern John. In fairness, these numbers do allow Poortvliet to have a Plan B to play two strikers when his young side are struggling.
One of the key problems for Jan Poortvliet all season has been a lack of genuine attacking wingers able to play in his front three. Dyer, Wright-Phillips, McGoldrick, White, Thompson, Lallana, Robertson and of course the injured Holmes, have all been tried on the flank, while Rudi Skacel remains on the sidelines for reasons unknown.
However, only Holmes has nailed down a position on the wing, until his untimely injury. Rather than admit defeat, Poortvliet has brought in Millwall's Smith and Strasbourg's Gasmi on loan.
While not the biggest, the two players add pace and trickery to allow Saints to break at pace and hopefully provide much better delivery into the box as well as a goal threat, although with a combined career goal tally of two goals Saints may well be better served to indeed play two genuine strikers.
Poortvliet will be hoping that the 4-1 drubbing away to Coventry is a blip on Saints' steady improvement and that the new players once established and fully fit will add vital competition and versatility to a squad already suffering from Saints' traditional injury blight.
If they cannot, then the Dutch Total Football experiment may well have to concede to that most English of traditions, 4-4-2.