Manchester City Away lost 1 – 0
We always travel hopefully but many going to Manchester City would have been having second thoughts about the journey after Southampton’s capitulation in the second half against Leicester. Russell Martin had no choice but to find a team that might be competitive against the serial champions and chose one that included Manning as the ‘spare’ defender and also Stephens, with Sugawara benched; there’s a good case for dropping Sugawara because of his defensive naivety but it takes time anyway to recover from one of Vardy’s ‘special’ tackles – ask Virgil Van Dijk. Further forward, Lallana’s experience was preferred to Aribo’s physique while Archer had the thankless task of leading what attacks there may be. You’d have thought a good start would have been essential but it was far from that as Haaland out-muscled Bednarek to get in a powerful shot bouncing off the ground to take Ramsdale by surprise. Saints, though, continued with the plan and executed it pretty well, thanks mainly to a level of concentration sadly lacking in most defensive campaigns thus far – and they nearly reaped a surprising reward just before half time when Stephens got Archer clear, but from a difficult angle so it was a good effort to shoot against the bar. The only ones not really contributing to the rearguard were Archer (excused) and Dibling (still learning) so it was a wise move to bring on Armstrong for the youngster at the break. Had Archer managed to equalise, heaven knows what City would have thrown at Southampton along with the kitchen sink, but we had plenty to deal with at 1-0 anyway. Haaland, despite the goal, seemed off his game but he could have ended up with three or four, being denied by Harwood-Bellis clearances, including off the line, or Ramsdale saves. With that scoreline, teams will always dream of having a puncher’s chance so, after Lallana’s withdrawal on the hour, we tried Bree for Manning and then the pairing of Sulemana and Onuachu for the last few minutes… City, meanwhile, brought on Gündoğan! Tall Paul may not be the manager’s favourite, but he does scare opponents, and we even saw Pep forced to go to Stones off his bench to try to cope. Of course the threat from on high came to nothing, and nothing (except a return to 20th position) was all Saints got, although our travellers came away pleased enough with the effort shown on their behalf.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
4. Flynn Downes. Did a lot to break up City’s attacks.
6. Taylor Harwood-Bellis. Might have benefitted from not being designated to mark Haaland.
10. Adam Lallana. Shame he’s not trusted to last more than an hour.
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