Southampton 1 Leicester City 4: all hail the patron Saints of chaos
Something for the weekend: another smashing at St Mary’s against our relegated rivals. Don’t mind it at all, writes Joe Brewin…
Russell Martin’s managerial profile page on Wikipedia initially makes you wonder why he’s not delivering StatsBomb seminars while wearing rollnecks and sitting on buckets.
At MK Dons, his “side scored after a 56-pass move, a new British record at the time.” Then, “at the culmination of the 2020–21 season, only Manchester City and Barcelona had a higher average possession percentage in Europe. His team also had the most touches in the opposition box in League One…”
Stop it!
“… despite mixed results throughout the season which saw the club finishing 13th in the league.”
We barely need reminding about the self-inflicted agony of death by passing, but Southampton seem to be a particularly special case at the start of this Championship season.
For a brief moment last summer, Martin was touted for the vacant job on Filbert Way; a pound shop possession merchant in the Brendan mould, linked to prolong the pain of relegation. The rumour proved to be meaningless, of course, and in came a manager with a special skill of his own: coded lineups that only he can understand.
Send in the clowns
It might not have been very pretty so far, but it’s all just about working for Enzo Maresca. This time he offered the pleasing sight of James Justin back in the starting XI after Wout Faes’s international exertions, starting on the right of our back three to mess up Sky’s pre-match graphic once again. Jamie Vardy replaced Kelechi Iheanacho; the other semi-surprise was Cesare Casadei left on the bench once again behind Wilfred Ndidi. On this evidence, he might be waiting a little longer yet.
It all barely mattered in the opening exchanges, though, as Southampton kicked off with the kind of composure you might attack a game of Operation with after six hours working a pneumatic drill. Six games in, they’ve conceded 16 goals – and for the second game running, leaked one inside the first minute here.
This time, it was to Vardy, on 21 seconds, after some careless passing from the back let in Mavididi to swap passes and tee up the goat for 1-0.
It summed up a clownish opening 25 minutes from both sides – for the neutral, a thrilling lack of composure where it would have been more surprising to see a streaking unicorn than five passes strung together successfully; for the Leicester fan, a relief that Southampton’s blunders turned out to be more comical than our own.
Nevertheless, we exchanged pleasantries: first, Saints gifted Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall possession that he gloriously converted to gold with a fine slide-rule pass through to Kasey McAteer for No.2; then sadly, Callum Doyle obliged at the other end by dummying his own shadow and eventually allowing the hosts to halve their deficit. It was slapstick stuff.
It was at that point that we finally gained a foothold. Harry Winks resembled a teacher trying to gain control of an unruly class, and slowly things began to take some shape. It could, and should, have been more before we got our third on the stroke of half-time – this time a masterful move that started with Stephy Mavididi pirouetting in midfield and Ndidi applying the dummy and finish like a prime Messi.
Southampton were best summed up in the first half by the fact that 1) Gavin Bazunu had made several saves, 2) we’d been pretty wasteful and yet 3) still managed to score three goals.
The good, the ugly
The second half was a mercifully quieter affair, killed on 67 minutes when Mavididi robbed possession inside his own half, sped upfield and slotted home with ease. It was actually a strange game for the summer signing: he looked exciting, comfortably our biggest threat and ended with a goal and two assists, yet his decision-making was also honking more than once and can’t have endeared him to his team-mates. But how can you argue with these results?
McAteer, too, showed exactly why he keeps getting picked in this side. Since a jittery opening day display he’s scored three goals, consistently getting himself into the right positions to make things happen. And it simply wouldn’t be fair to ignore Jannik Vestergaard on his old patch – booed upon his every touch for reasons unknown, the lanky Dane was an assured presence at the back, and not for the first time this season.
Truthfully, though, this baffling football match said more about the hosts than it did us. There were 34 shots in total, Southampton had 19 of them, yet we finished with four goals and a slight underperformance (-0.14) on our xG. We won’t be encountering many other teams that defend like this and make you come away thinking you really could have had nine goals. Saints are just kind like that.
But are we good? Are we bad? Who can say. The reality is that we’re a team still finding its feet under new management, have started far better than most of us expected after a turbulent summer of change and monsoon-mangled friendlies – and just trounced our supposed biggest title rivals 4-1 on their own patch.
For now, chaos reigns. Five wins from six. Vengeance for Vesty! Norwich on Wednesday.
Main photo: Chris Wise
