Swansea Home Won 3 – 1
Games don’t always pan out as they start, but early indications were that Southampton and Swansea would fight out a good game: Stamenic broke down the left and into the penalty area for an immediate threat, then Scienza responded down our own left flank in a move that ended with Azaz firing over the bar. Azaz wasn’t to be denied for long, though, with a much more circumspect finish, following good work by Downes. Tonda had given indications that we might start with a midfield three, but that turned out not to be the case, so expect another points deduction for feeding false information. Saints had done their homework on Swansea though (hopefully legally) and their expected pressing game did ensue, but with our team brave enough to attempt to play through it. That all set up an exciting encounter with Stamenic and Yeo looking to benefit from their teams’ accurate passing until Saints consolidated their upper hand with a break round the press down our right through Bree and Fellows before Larin stretched to guide home the winger’s low cross. Tactically it was all very satisfactory for us and less so for the Swans, so they made a change at the break. It was though, more through sloppy home play than strategy that they got back into the game soon after the restart, a sequence that culminated in Bree pushing Vipotnik who successfully took the resulting spot kick himself. A terrific save by Vigouroux stopped Scienza’s cross shot, but Saints opened up their two goal lead again soon after: that break through the press was again effective only this time it also took a timely challenge from Azaz to allow substitute Matsuki to set up Scienza who chose a more deft finish to foil Vigouroux. It proved surprisingly easy to see out the remainder of the game for a second successive impressive home win against former table toppers.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
4. Flynn Downes, working well with Ward-Prowse.
7. Leo Scienza, the biggest attacking threat on either side.
10. Finn Azaz, a goal and a half assist.
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