Leicester Home Won 3 – 0 – It’s 4 Wins
Stephens was benched against Leicester for some reason – maybe connected to the start of a run of four games in 12 days – but also we had Flynn ‘Mr. Injury’ Downes back, somewhat blowing that theory. It was a centre back, Harwood-Bellis, who set Saints on their way by heading in Manning’s 18th minute free kick; the replay was shown on the big screen, somewhat unwisely as there was more than a suspicion of offside about it – happily we don’t have VAR reviews to put up with any more. Like Southampton, the visitors’ league position doesn’t reflect some of the quality in their squad and we had an excellent Bazunu save to thank for keeping the score at 1-0. However, for the second game running, Saints swiftly followed the opener with another goal and, also for the second game running, they provided a ‘picture’ one by breaking excitingly from the back, this time led by Scienza, freeing Azaz who scored easily. They say 2-0 is a dangerous lead, but two is better than one, and playing against ten is better than facing eleven – a situation that was created in Southampton’s favour when Aluko marked his full debut with a second yellow card for pulling back Fellows, who was causing him all sorts of trouble. A gloss was put on a very satisfactory first half when Harwood-Bellis scored again from a Manning set piece, this time a corner. The Foxes made two changes at the break leaving a more defensive set up to go with a clock-management strategy that sucked the life out of the game, although substitute Bragg forced Begović into a save to match Bazunu’s effort – he’d saved well in the first half as well, so clearly not fazed by continual reminders of a misguided career move in his past. The Southampton keeper had had little to do, but there was some interest in seeing whether sub Downs could find the net – he couldn’t.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from :
5. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, for two goals as he didn’t really have much defending to do.
13. Leo Scienza, chiefly for a memorable assist.
18. Tom Fellows, whose attacking play saw for poor young Aluko.
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