Southampton manager Claude Puel has explained his reasoning behind dropping Jose Fonte for today’s win over Bournemouth, the Belfast Telegraph have reported.
When I saw him after the game, he was very happy for the team, for the club and for himself, because it was a strong game. And it’s not just the players on the pitch that won this game – it’s the whole squad.
Puel’s decision to leave club captain Fonte on the bench today in place of Maya Yoshida was one that puzzled many Saints fans and led them to question why the Frenchman had seen fit to use Yoshida ahead of Fonte, who is more often than not the first choice central defender next to Virgil van Dijk.
Yes, I think of course all the players want to play every game, especially Jose as captain.
But it’s important that at 32, he’s strong physically and without injury. It’s important he keeps this quality every game. But to play a match every few days, this is not possible.
However, Puel explained after the match that the reason for excluding Fonte was purely down to maintaining his fitness levels and not risking injuries.
It’s not possible for me that 11 players can play all the games. From the beginning of the season we’ve now played 26 official games. And now for international players like Jose it’s not possible to keep a good level every few days.
The festive period always brings frequent matches and given that Fonte is 33-years-old this month, Puel saw the game against The Cherries as the ideal opportunity to prevent Fonte from playing three games in the short space of nine days.
We are lucky also to have quality in the squad, with Maya, (Virgil) van Dijk, Jose and (Jack) Stephens in the under-21s.
It’s important to develop all the team and to maintain the play with quality and good spirit for the future, because we need all our players.
His decision paid off as Saints came away with a 3-1 victory and Yoshida himself had a solid game.
