Southampton v Newcastle – England Trio Strikes Again

Source: Southampton FC official Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/southamptonfc

Southampton was welcoming Newcastle United at St Marys yesterday. With both Nathaniel Clyne and Jay Rodriguez leaving the field early last week due to injuries and Morgan Schneiderlin out last week, it was questionable which players would be fit to start for the Saints. These are a lot of first team injuries, however they have some great substitutions at their hand to start when necessary.

The team sheet showed a good surprise which was Jay Rodriguez fit to start the match. Morgan Schneiderlin is fit enough to start on the bench, which is also good news. The only big name missing now is Nathaniel Clyne who’s out with a groin/pelvis injury with now clear return date yet. We do have young Calum Chambers who has also proven his worth as a right back. Maya Yoshida sustained a knee injury during training and is probably out for 7 weeks, this might ruin his changes for the world cup.

Southampton starts the match with high pressure play, like they’re used to. While Southampton is full on attacking, no one seems to be sure what Newcastle’s game plan is as they aren’t even trying anything. After 26 minutes of the match have been played, the Saints have produced 10 attempts of which 3 on target, the Magpies however haven’t even created an off target chance yet.

In the 38th minute Moussa Sissoko finds it necessary to pull Steven Davis down. The referee Andre Marriner spots this and blows his whistle while José Fonte slides in to stop Sissoko. Lucky for Fonte Marriner already blew his whistle for Sissoko’s foul, who’s now lying on the field grapping his own leg. All I could wish for is that Fonte would have got him harder to teach him a lesson for the low foul he just committed.

It takes up to the final minute of playtime in the first half for the Saints to finally get lucky and score their first, well-deserved goal. Rickie Lambert finds himself onside while he runs up, Jay Rodriguez runs up with him on his left side with only one slow Magpie defender in between. They quickly outrun this Magpie while Lambert crosses the ball to Rodriguez. Goalie Rob Elliot had his eyes fixated on Lambert, giving Rodriguez a clear path as he shoots the ball from the centre of the box to the centre on the goal. Elliot didn’t stand a chance though, there was no way he would have been able to cover both attackers.

With this goal, the Saints go into half time. It’s good for them they finally managed to score just before the break as this might give them the confidence they need to score more goals and win this match as they are the only right team who deserve to win after watching this first half.

Newcastle makes two substitutions right at the start of the second half. Probably in the hope to turn the game in their favour, however they have to work real hard if they want to turn this match around.

These two changes don’t seem to have much effect on the overall game as after one minute Southampton is already back at attacking. In the 3rd minute of the second half Adam Lallana crosses the ball perfectly to Rickie Lambert, Lambert is onside while teammate Jay Rodriguez is just offside so this is a good decision by the Saints captain. Lambert takes one touch on the left side of the 6 yard box and puts the ball in the high centre of the goal. What a start of the second half this is for the Saints and what an awful defensive work on the side of the Magpies.

Papiss Cissé makes a poor challenge on Calum Chambers in the 60th minute when he moves into Chambers leg with his studs up. This challenge could easily cost Cissé a red card. Unfortunately Andre Marriner seems to scared to pull out either card or even reward the Saints with a free kick.

Only 5 minutes after this challenge, another Magpie moves in to take down Luke Shaw. Marriner is in a real good position to see this happening but again he doesn’t blow his whistle. Maybe Marriner is just scared to get a decision wrong and decides therefore to not make a call at all. But as he doesn’t make a call at all he’s definitely making the wrong decision. I mean if you’re not sure about what you’re supposed to be doing as a referee and are too afraid to use your whistle, well then maybe it’s time you hand over your referee licence and choose another career.

In the 69th minute the Magpies make a challenge on Jack Cork, who goes down. But before he goes down, he passes the ball onto Adam Lallana. Lallana takes a clear strike outside the box with his ‘weak’ left foot. The ball flies into the top right corner, what a great finish that was. This awesome Lallana goal is definitely England squad material and World Cup Worthy. This was probably Marriners best decision as he didn’t stop to match to appoint Jack Cork a free kick after the challenge. Even though he didn’t even gesture the advantage, it was the best he could have done to just continue the match or else we would have missed this fantastic Lallana goal.

In the 72nd minute Steven Davis makes way to give Morgan Schneiderlin some time on the pitch.

It takes up to the 75th minute when Andre Marriner finally decides to pull out a card as Massadio Haidara makes a bad foul and receives a yellow card. It seems obviously that Newcastle is so desperate that they’ve decided to make challenges to maybe try and get some strong Saint players out. But the Magpies are even performing poor on making these challenges.

Gastón Ramirez comes on in the 82nd minute to replace goal scorer Rickie Lambert.

In the 88th minute Gastón Ramirez has the ball and with his good football inside decides to play a through ball over the Newcastle defence. Jay Rodriguez is waiting at the other end of the ball. There is only one defender on Rodriguez, but Rodriguez easily gets around him and shoots the ball from the left side of the box to the bottom left corner. With this he makes his second goal.

Mauricio Pochettino makes his last substitution in the 90th minute when he takes of captain Adam Lallana to bring on Sam Gallagher. I’m not sure about this decision since I reckon Adam Lallana is man of the match and as the captain I think he should have played the full match.

The match ends in a 4-0 win for Southampton, a well deserved win. They probably should have scored more goals as they could have been ahead with 4-0 by half time. And with 23 shots, of which 11 were on target, against only 5 shots from Newcastle. The Magpies only had 2 shots on target. I’m still trying to figure out what their game plan was since all the seemed to be doing was defending and even at that they were hopeless. Their best player probably was Rob Elliot but with a defence who wasn’t even aiding him when he needed them too, didn’t he stand a chance against Southamptons force. It is more than fair that the Saints took all 3 points as they absolutely deserved it and with this win they move into 8th place on the ladder, overtaking the hopeless Magpies.

Newcastle United v Southampton FC

Source picture: Southampton FC official Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/southamptonfc

Last Saturday Newcastle United were hosting Southampton at their home ground, St. James’ Park. The starting line up for Southampton is kind of surprising. Firstly why is Jos Hooiveld starting instead of José Fonte? Fonte is on the bench and now news has reached us about him being injured, which makes me question if this was a good move by Pochettino. Morgan Schneiderlin is also on the bench, probably because he isn’t fit enough yet to play a full game after his groin injury. But most surprisingly, why is Adam Lallana sitting on the bench? Surely he hasn’t shown any play bad enough that the former captain deserves to start on the bench.

This is the first game since October that both Rickie Lambert and Dani Osvaldo are starting, with Rickie Lambert playing behind Dani Osvaldo. This is the second game in a row this season that Jack Cork is starting since Victor Wanyama is injured, based on his performances last week, this should be promising. Also Calum Chambers is starting again in the spot of the still injured Nathaniel Clyne. It is good to see how Pochettino is handling all these injuries. He doesn’t complain about it, he just moves on and tries to make the best team with his remaining players.

Around the 11^th minute the Saints players are waiting for a flag which will never go up. They stop in their play waiting for the offside call while Newcastle just keeps on continuing. Paulo Gazzaniga gets outplayed but luckily academy graduate Calum Chambers was the only player awake enough to rush over to the goal line and block the ball from crossing it.

Unfortunately it only takes up until the 27^th minute for Newcastle to definitely break through the Southampton’s defence and score a goal. Jos Hooivelds first reaction definitely wasn’t his best as the right footer tried to block the ball with his left foot. But instead of blocking it, he played it right to Yoan Gouffran who used this opportunity to the fullest which resulted in a goal.

Last February Jos Hooiveld actually made an own goal at St. James’ Park, according to the commentator he is willing to look for better memories today. That didn’t completely happen since he messed up which resulted in a goal for Newcastle, but at least it’s a step up from scoring an own goal. Hopefully next time he will actually be able to stop the ball.

At half time all we can say is how Southampton have been far from promising so far. Even though they have had possession almost twice the amount of time Newcastle has had it, Newcastle has been the more attacking team. The Saints seem to get more pleasure out of playing the ball backwards since there weren’t any good opportunities to set the forwards up. Newcastle has been able to break through the defence of Southampton and have actually been face to face with the goal several times, while the Saints don’t even seem to be able to break through the hosts defence. And when they do break through, Dani Osvaldo gets called offside.

The second half starts surprisingly with Adam Lallana replacing Dani Osvaldo and Morgan Schneiderlin replacing James Ward-Prowse. With these substitutes Jay Rodriguez moves up front into Dani Osvaldo’s position, Rickie Lambert moves to the left wing and Adam Lallana gets in behind Jay Rodriguez. It’s surprising that Mauricio Pochettino has used two substitutes so early on in the game, but on the other hand it shows that he realized his formation wasn’t working and he had to adjust it. And better to adjust it sooner rather than later. Mauricio Pochettino seems to have enough faith in Jack Cork to continue playing the rest of the game since Morgan Schneiderlin came on for James Ward-Prowse.

These changes prove to be the right decision as soon as the second half starts. With Jay Rodriguez getting a chance in the 50^th minute but unfortunately his shot goes wide. In the 61^st minute Adam Lallana is running towards goal, the only assistance he gets is from Luke Shaw running up the side but Lallana can’t find him. Shortly followed with Steven Davis creating a chance for himself which results in the ball hitting the post.

In the 64^th minute Adam Lallana gives a good pass forward towards Jay Rodriguez, who receives great support from Steven Davis. With Jay passing the ball towards Davis and Davis passing it back to Jay to get past the last defender, it sets Jay Rodriguez up with a great chance resulting in a stunning goal. This proves how important those earlier subs were, they turned out to be game changing.

In the 71^st minute the tables almost seem to turn again when Paulo Gazzaniga can’t hold the ball. It looked like Loïc Rémy was getting too comfortable with this chance, which could have easily been a goal, but his shot went wide.

After a long 96 minutes referee Michael Jones finally blows his whistle for full time. It has been a good second half for the Saints and the draw was well deserved by both sides.

It is good to see Southampton using their younger players on the field too. Calum Chambers has been great throughout this whole game. He has been everywhere in the game and even made a great clearance off the goal line. At only eighteen years of age he will be a very promising player and we will be sure to see a whole lot more of him.

Paulo Gazzaniga seems to have grown as a goalkeeper compared to his skills last season. He seems to be more confident when it comes down to making saves and is actually able to hold the ball a lot more now.

It is also good to see Jack Cork back on the field. The time spend on the bench doesn’t seem to have discouraged him in his game play. He has had two full games to play now and he has used them to the fullest. Showing what he is capable of doing and hopefully convincing Mauricio Pochettino to consider keeping Jack Cork in the starting line even when Victor Wanyama is fit again.

Even though the Saints have had a few bad results in the last couple of games, the season isn’t over yet and they seem to get their grip back on their game play. It is safe to say that we haven’t seen the last of Southampton yet.