Southampton saw off Dutch opposition, FC Groningen, to end their tour of Holland in the best possible way – three wins from three.
Charlie Austin’s 75th minute header was enough to overcome the ‘Green and White army’ in a pretty boring, standard pre-season friendly, in all honesty.
Virgil van Dijk captained the side against his former club and Dusan Tadic was another who returned to the side.
Groningen had Hans Hateboer sent off just before half-time for a second bookable offence, after he pulled back Nathan Redmond and prevented him from advancing towards goal. The game also saw the return of two of the four players that exited EURO 2016 at the Last 16 stage – Shane Long played 45 minutes and England goalkeeper, Fraser Forster, played the whole game.
However, Steven Davis and Ryan Bertrand were not involved but it’s likely that they will return for the Espanyol friendly at St Mary’s, this coming Wednesday.
Jay Rodriguez wasn’t involved either because of a minor illness.He will return next week, also.
Without further ado, here’s how I rated the Saints players in this afternoon’s 1-0 win over FC Groningen at the Euroborg.
