Bournemouth Home Lost 1 – 3
I don’t think it’s outrageous to speculate that Ivan Jurić had concluded that he made a massive error in taking the Southampton job, but has now decided to enjoy himself by sending out some bizarre teams – Smallbone given a starting role against Bournemouth for instance? Players who should always be automatic selections aren’t helping the cause either, and Saints were on the back foot from the opening minute when Walker-Peters conceded an unnecessary corner. The Cherries were two up before the game was 20 minutes old, the first headed in from Christie’s inviting cross by unmarked Outarra, leaving Bednarek glaring daggers at Wood – but in truth it looked as though he had lost his man as Outarra got between the central defenders. Bednarek was certainly to blame for number two with a misplaced pass that left gaps at the back that no-one seemed interested in going out of their way to fill; this time Christie was the scorer rather than the provider. It was a pretty woeful first 45 minutes from Southampton, quite reasonably eliciting chants of ‘you’re ****ing ****’ from our near neighbours, although I really don’t think it became the home supporters who joined in. Wood must have got a fair amount of the blame as he was replaced at the interval, with Aribo moving back, despite Bella-Kotchap being named on the bench (actually, has anyone ever seen him there?). Jurić is apparently no longer talking to last year’s player of the year Downes so Ugochukwu was the player introduced, along with Sugawara for Welington who didn’t seem to have done much wrong. Given that it could hardly have got worse, there was some improvement from the new look, but it needed a couple of decent, indeed brilliant, saves to prevent the scoreline getting out of hand so when Sulemana pulled a goal back with plenty of time remaining, some ridiculous hopes were kindled. Walker-Peters somehow managed to force a flying save from Ramsdale before Tavernier put the game out of Southampton’s reach; Ivan isn’t the only coach to do odd things as Andoni Iraola took 67 minutes to realise that Tavernier is a better player that Brooks, or maybe it was a mark of genius to hold back his player as his freshness showed in the latter stages, including this decisive left foot finish. What did Ivan do to rescue something from a near-impossible situation with time running out? Bring on Archer and Manning for Sulemana and Aribo, of course! At least we’d had Dibling on the pitch since the 56th minute.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates for you to choose from:
18. Mateus Fernandes. I don’t usually see him as being as good as some think he is, but clearly a strong MotM contender today.
20. Kamaldeen Sulemana. A nice finish too – not normally his strong point.
30. Aaron Ramsdale. Some good saves and not much of a chance with the goals.
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