Brighton Home Lost 0 – 4
It could be that the most interesting part of a Southampton match day is to see what sort of team the coach is putting out this time – after all, we know what the result will be, come what may. Against Brighton we had Aribo at centre back and Archer up front; I suppose it’s better than the other way round. Ugochukwu was in midfield, and in referee Bond’s book after two minutes for a foul that might have attracted more attention from the VAR official on another day. Then Bednarek went down, apparently unchallenged, and limped out of the action to be replaced by… Bella-Kotchap! Well, Stephens was also on the bench, probably not really fit, and maybe McCarthy in an outfield role wasn’t totally out of the question, but here was a rare example of common sense coming through for Southampton. Aribo, meanwhile, was out of his depth and lucky to escape with no further punishment than a free kick for a foul on the edge of the box that came to nothing, although quite how the visitors weren’t out of sight after the first quarter is only down to poor finishing and good goalkeeping – not much else was keeping them at bay. Southampton’s good fortune ran out on 23 minutes when not one but two lucky bounces favoured João Pedro de Jesus who nevertheless scored with a flourish. To be fair, Saints did get forward occasionally before the break and even forced a couple of corners, but it was still amazing that the defence hadn’t been breached again. That meant that a lucky break could still bring Saints level, and for many Archer had provided one, at least for a moment or two; he always looked offside to me, though, and indeed he was. Meanwhile we still had Aribo in an unsuited position and when he lost his footing, Minteh was able to set up Rutter for the easiest of finishes. After that we can only be thankful that it didn’t get really messy. Minteh was guilty of the worst of Brighton’s misses, one of them notable enough to make the highlights package amongst Albion’s actual goals, including for Mitoma on 71 minutes (racing through that soft centre as he left Bree, Aribo and AB-K in his wake) and Hishelwood on 82 (some particularly poor marking at a corner). The ground began to empty alarmingly at 0-3 anyway and the police may now have to consider stopping traffic on Northam Road rather earlier as there are precious few fans remaining to go home after 90 minutes.
For the second time this season I can only offer one LSSC Man of the Match candidate:
30. Aaron Ramsdale, the reason BHA had to settle for four.
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