Mauricio Pellegrino took charge of his first competitive home fixture as Southampton’s manager on Saturday as Swansea visited St. Mary’s.
The game ended in a goalless stalemate with Pellegrino’s side dominating possession and chances, just failing to make their way on to the scoresheet for the sixth successive home fixture – an unwanted club record.
After the draw Pellegrino said that he was “a little bit disappointed because we did everything to win the game”. His side missed golden opportunities to take home the three points, especially in the second half, and were denied a clear penalty for handball.
Here at Read Southampton, we thought it would be a good idea to assess the manager as well as his players…
The Starting XI:
Pellegrino’s starting XI was identical to the last starting XI that Claude Puel lined up with in his final game – a 1-0 defeat at home to stoke. Despite this, bar one alteration, I would say that it was the strongest starting XI that Pellegrino could have chosen from the players that he had fully available. Personally, I would have started Sofiane Boufal over James Ward-Prowse after Boufal’s strong pre-season and naturally creative play.
The Tactics:
It was clear from the get go that the tactics against Swansea were to press them high whilst they were in possession and dominate the ball to neutralise any attacking threat that the Swans had. Saints were positive on the ball, looking to create chances and stretch the play and did so effectively tallying up a total of 29 shots. Tactically speaking there wasn’t more that Pellegrino could do to influence the fixture as Saints were clearly dominating and creating chances for themselves which was encouraging for the crowd to see, the only problem was that Saints weren’t clinical enough in front of goal.
Tactically speaking there wasn’t more that Pellegrino could do to influence the fixture as Saints were clearly dominating and creating chances for themselves which was encouraging for the crowd to see, the only problem was that Saints weren’t clinical enough in front of goal.
The Substitutions:
In his first competitive fixture Pellegrino elected to use all three of his allocated substitutes in order to have an influence pn the game.
In the 69th minute Pellegrino elected with a double switch as he swapped James Ward-Prowse and Manolo Gabbiadini for Charlie Austin and Sofiane Boufal. These were very understandable and reasonable switches to have b made as Ward-Prowse struggled to make an impact on the game and Austin is a different style of striker to Gabbiadini so there was a hope that he would do better in certain situations.
The third and final substation came in the 85th minute when Pellegrino opted to swap Ryan Bertrand for Sam McQueen. This for me was a strange substation as Bertrand was overlapping and support the attacking play well, as well as being solid with his defensive duties. Maybe it was to allow Bertrand to have a longer recovery as he has had a lesser pre-season. Or maybe it was because McQueen is naturally more a winger than a left back so he could have contributed more to the attacking play.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen an introduction of new signing Mario Lemina possibly for Oriol Romeu to help drive from the centre of the midfield going forward.
Post Match Comments:
Pellegrino’s post match comments were actually quite refreshing to hear compared to the ones we saw from Claude Puel last season. Pellegrino alluded to his side’s dominance and creating chances but was left frustrated that his side wasn’t clinical enough to put the chances away.
Overall Assessment and Mark out of 10:
Overall, despite failing to win the game, I would give Pellegrino a 7 out of 10 rating as there were a lot of positives to take out from the game against Swansea. And the way that Pellegrino conducted himself and the decisions he made also gave for a positive viewing as now all the focus goes to the game against West Ham.
