Southampton: The Bold and The Brave

 

It’s happened! A win! The first competitive win since March 4th, our Championship campaign underway nicely.

Stylistically the performance was as expected however the dominance Southampton showed was astounding - setting a new championship record for passes (987) in a match, registering 80% possession.

Russell Martin (RM) consistently emphasised pre match that the performance will be determined by the players courage & bravery to play the way he wants. Had Southampton been in their black and gold third strip, there could’ve been a Southampton/Batman: The Bold and The Brave mash up analogy. 

Alas not to be, a botched headline will have to do.

Having been challenged to show these qualities, great composure was shown by Stephens & Bednerak, players you wouldn’t have considered as ball playing centre backs yet adeptly carried out manager’s instructions. Manning may be new to the club but for role he is playing this was not his first rodeo, seamlessly executing the ‘Guerdiola’ style full back inversion. On the other side of the pitch, the link up play between KWP & Tella reminiscent of prime Bertrand/Redmond.

With certain players a base level of quality is expected, Alcaraz and JWP are both technically superior than the league they find themselves in so their performance levels were no real shock. Will Smallbone on the other hand, eye catching. 

Most passes completed in the match (142) with a 97% accuracy and 5 ball recoveries - one of which lead to Alcaraz’s shot that went marginally wide. The academy graduate dictating play throughout.

Edozie too shining, sending Wednesday right back ‘for a hot dog’ on multiple occasions. If he could shoot, oh boy we’d be cooking!

Let’s for a second halt the positivity train - hate to do so but devil’s advocate and that.

Southampton registered an xG of 1.34 from 23 shots suggesting that while we did score twice the quality overall of those chances were low. 

A common criticism of previous RM sides is they struggle to break down teams to carve out ‘proper’ chances. With respect to his former clubs the talent pool at Southampton is significantly better, players have the initiative to sniff out opportunities. As seen with the winning goal, JWP noticed a lapse in concentration regarding Wednesday’s defensive shape, he drifted forward and instinctively pulled the ball back for Adams to score. 

In pre season a lot of the goals conceded were in transitional moment, concern grew among supporters that archetypal bottom half Championship sides sit back, defend deep and could catch Saints on the break. During this thought process we collectively forgot how truly woeful we were at defending set pieces last season.

Sure enough Wednesday’s equaliser came from a corner.

Southampton have appointed a new set piece coach, Andreas Georgson from Malmo FF. His appointment announced earlier in the day on the 4th so can be forgiven for this particular goal. It will be interesting to see how Saints look against Norwich from a set piece perspective after the Canaries caused Hull City numerous problems from corners in there opening match.

Conceding from a set piece and a relatively low xG, not bad as the two ‘nitpicks’ from the game. The former is hardly new and it appears steps are in place to improve this. Secondly, the only real statistic that matters is goals not expected goals providing the ball does cross that white line it’s all good.

Ultimately Southampton are off and running in the Championship. The possession heavy nature of the performance creating headlines and turning heads with the passing records set. 

Only five more wins needed to match last years tally!

*Bonus feature, thank you for reading this far! 

What did we learn about August opponents?

The Championship fully underway, with two home fixtures against Norwich and QPR sandwiching a little 153 mile trip to Plymouth what can we takeaway from the opening games for these sides.

Norwich 2-1 Hull City

Norwich have signed experienced players this summer in Ashley Barnes, Jack Stacey and Shane Duffy - all of whom started against Hull City.

Statistically Norwich dominated their match; 57% possession, 9 corners & 28 shots. Their ability from corners could be a concern for Southampton, centre back Duffy managed 4 shots all from corners, hitting the woodwork once. 

However, as seen with the goal they conceded, their back line isn’t the most comfortable when put under pressure. The pace & persistence of Armstrong or Tella may prove fruitful going forward.

Plymouth 3-1 Huddersfield

After some frankly awful attempts at clearing a cross by Huddersfield, Plymouth took an early lead in a first half primarily dominated by the visitors. The Terriers equalising in the 45+6th minute as Plymouth looked shakey after periods of sustained pressure.

In the second half it must be said that Plymouth looked good, very good. Remarkable fluidity of the front three of Mumba, Hardie & Whittaker. Mumba is direct, dynamic and blisteringly quick, his goal Boufal-esque as he restored Plymouth’s lead. Moments later Whittaker and Hardie combined to finish the scoring, the former stealing the ball ahead of a Huddersfield midfielder to deftly slip in Hardie to slot home.

This was Plymouth’s first Championship game since 2010 and they didn’t look out of place in the slightest in the second half.

Watford 4-0 QPR

Norwich looked decent and Plymouth looked good whereas QPR looked woeful. Conceding inside 1 minute against Watford, easily played through. 

Like Sheffield Wednesday, QPR are tipped for relegation, in theory Southampton should dominate the R’s throughout. RM will be looking to be more clinical this time around - Watford scoring all four in the first half, killing the game. Southampton should look to do the same.