Middlesborough Away Lost 4 – 0 – Abject 2nd half performance
No selection experiments at frozen Middlesbrough, so no start for Bragg, despite playing pretty well last time out; no Stephens either as his rotation strategy continued. A brief early flurry gave way to passive defending as ‘Boro soon established control, with Saints struggling to get forward. Then a misplaced pass gave Azaz a fine opportunity against his old club, which he failed to get on target. That seemed to give us confidence and/or drain it away from the hosts and Saints went on to miss a number of scorable moments before the break. Next to fail to find the net was Downes, set up nicely by Azaz, and he picked his spot wide of goalkeeper Brynn but not past covering defender Malanda. If that wasn’t enough, Azaz next played Fellows in but an ordinary first touch meant a rushed shot with his wrong foot that went a long way over the bar. There was more than just one voice suggesting that we might regret such generosity, especially when Malanda denied Armstrong at the restart, also denying what could have been a hat trick of assists for Azaz. Then Middlesbrough scored their first goal in five games through Whittaker – well they had to get one in this one, didn’t they? They would have had to wait to celebrate had VAR been available, and may even have been disappointed, but the assistant was on the far side and unlikely to see the need to flag. Whittaker had shot between Bazunu’s legs, which isn’t a worry as he was making himself ‘big,’ but statistically the worst shot stopper in the league should have done more to prevent Silvera making it two after the narrowness of a dedicated three man back line was badly exposed. Two soon became three in just 12 minutes and this one showed up the Southampton defensive outfield when a slight deflection on a cross caught out a whole clutch of them and Whiitaker scored with ease. Saints were chasing shadows so Tonda added three substitutions, plus Bragg, already on for Jander. They would have a good view of Bazunu parrying Hackney’s tame shot for Browne to make it four. Time for a saviour, and the manager turned to the broken body of Stewart for the last few minutes – will he still be fit come Pompey? Apparently the team didn’t come over to acknowledge their fans, many of whom had been abusing both players and owners for the last 20 minutes – I can’t vouch for the conclusion as it was too cold to stay any longer than necessary.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
10. Finn Azaz. Should have scored, but his efforts should have produced more than one goal for his colleagues. ‘Should have stayed at the Boro’ sang the home fans.
13. Léo Scienza. Just about did enough to get on the short list.
17. Joshua Quarshie. As the least ‘regular’ of our defenders, he bears less collective responsibility.
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