Burnley Home Drew 2 – 2
With no new injuries and a continuing suspension, an unchanged line-up was expected against Burnley but the coaching staff see things we don’t and in came Wallace for Djnepo – they probably now admit that was unwise. These opponents are annoyingly difficult and it’s important not to give them anything to cling onto, yet Saints did just that on 13 minutes after what had seemed a promising beginning: Lowton crossed from the left and Cornet was left unmarked to head home, Livramento having fallen asleep at the wheel. The Southampton response went in fits and starts with Walcott missing badly in the first start, with a second one coming in the lead up to half time. In this Redmond was guilty of an awful point blank miss. and with Elyounossi poised behind him as well. Livramento seemed to be involved in nearly all the good bits, and most of a suspiciously large announced attendance thought he must have equalised just after with a left foot shot that somehow came back off the inside of the post. Within a minute, though, the full back had his first senior goal, and one that had seemed certain to arrive in this game, when he headed in a Redmond corner. Buoyed by achieving parity by the interval, Saints continued on the front foot and the ever-impressive Broja, who had created the Redmond chance, notched a goal for himself after taking advantage of a Tarkowski error. At that point it looked as though we would make it past the line, although inevitably with a few alarms. Unfortunately, though, there was to be not just one Cornet goal, but two, and this one was a good strike after the ball sat up nicely for a volley, with Bednarek maybe not quite close enough to his man. Stuart Armstrong replaced Walcott, which seemed an overdue move, and then Broja limped out of the fray; just as against Leeds, he seemed to have picked up an injury in the act of scoring. When Redmond also went off, we were left with Adams and Adam Armstrong up front and without our most creative player on the day; it was a throw back to the early season line up and the team’s form declined visibly as Burnley now looked the more likely to snatch all the points – McCarthy had to be alert to cut out a low cross and Westwood fired just wide, so maybe we ought to be more grateful for a point than we were at the time.
LSSC Man of the Match: Nathan Redmond. A straight choice between him and Livramento, but both had committed important errors in the game. Redmond’s miss, epic though it was, came shortly before Saints equalised anyway, and Livramento’s poor defending for Burnley’s opener maybe had more consequences.
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