Southampton ended the season with a 1-0 loss against a strong Stoke City side.
It was a poor performance from both sides, to be frank, but it was ex-Saints and Pompey striker Peter Crouch who made the difference.
Claude Puel made two changes to the side that drew 0-0 with Man United, as Ryan Bertrand replaced Matt Targett and Charlie Austin made his first start since December, replacing Manolo Gabbiadini.
Saints started well as they were pushed on by the terrific atmosphere from the South Coast, and had a few good chances to score, with Austin going close on a few occasions.
Stoke’s only chance of the first half came from a rare Cedric Soares error, as a weak pass back found the feet of Crouch, but Maya Yoshida made an outstanding sliding tackle to keep Saints in the game.
Southampton had the majority of the ball in the second half, but couldn’t find a way through the impressive Jack Butland.
As the game went on, it became more likely that Stoke were going to grab a winner, and they did with half an hour left on the clock, as a cross was met by a good header at the back post by Crouch, who gave his side the lead.
Saints tried to push on for a late goal, but Stoke held firm, as Jack Butland made a terrific triple save to keep his side in front.
Steven Davis had a good chance to grab a point in the dying embers, but his weak free kick from close range hit the wall, and Saints finished the season with a game that very much resembled their entire season.
Here are five things we learnt after the loss:
Story of our season
What a disappointing performance. We were absolutely useless and showed no quality in the attacking third. It summed up our season perfectly.
We dominate possession of the ball, we have countless attempts in front of goal, but we just cannot find a way through, and the opposition go up the other end of the pitch and score, so we miss out on valuable three points. This needs to be worked on during the summer.
Manolo Gabbiadini
He’s just lost it, hasn’t he? How on earth did that happen?
Gabbiadini looked to have lost all confidence when he came on in the second half, and the tactics that Claude Puel uses don’t utilise his talent enough.
But most importantly, how did he miss that?
Give it some fight!
This is one of the main things that have let us down this season.
The vast majority of our players always come second best when a player from each team are fighting for a loose ball. Hardly anyone gives any fight or desire.
To add a little more positivity on this point, I was really impressed with the likes of Romeu, Cedric and Yoshida. They all try incredibly hard to get the ball back and will never go down without a fight. We need to keep these three this summer.
Claude Puel
Now, the big debate. Puel In or Puel Out? Puel Out.
I would personally like him to stay another season to see what he could do, but I don’t really want a manager with his tactics and decision making to take us forward as a football club.
Once again he didn’t learn from his mistakes, as he took Ward-Prowse off, therefore losing our consistency on free kicks and corners. I bet if Ward-Prowse was on when we had the free kick in the last minute we would have scored – just saying.
By the way, why did Jeremy Pied come on for Ward-Prowse? A right-back, for a right midfielder…
Our Season
If anyone who wasn’t a Saints fan looked at our season in terms of our league position and success (almost) in the EFL Cup final, many would say that it was a good season. No, no, no.
If anything, this season has been a joke. It’s understandable that we had a very long season, but finishing the season with 46 points is laughable.
I think we need to have a big change-up ahead of next season. Puel needs to go. I’m sorry Claude, it just wasn’t good enough.