Southampton crashed out of the League Cup in just the second round following a 2-0 defeat at home to Championship high flyers Wolves – Mauricio Pellegrino’s first competitive defeat as Saints boss.
Last season’s cup finalist made six changes to the side that snatched a late win against West Ham at the weekend. In came Jan Bednarek for his debut alongside Jeremy Pied, Sam McQueen, James Ward-Prowse, Sofiane Boufal and Charlie Austin.
The visitors made a full 11 changes to the side that lost Saturday’s Championship fixture to Cardiff City.
After the game, Pellegrino criticised his side and his players for not being 100% focused and claimed that they have taken a step backwards following Saturday’s win against West Ham.
Below we have a review on Pellegrino’s performance as boss following the disappointing loss.
The starting XI:
On paper, the starting XI was a lot stronger than what I personally was expecting. The formation at first looked as if we were going to see Jack Stephens partner Oriol Romeu in the customary 4-2-3-1. But as we painfully saw the formation ended up being something along the lines of a 3-4-3 or at least a poor representation of it.
Bednarek came into make his competitive debut for the Saints and what we saw from the youngster was pretty much what we saw over the course of pre-season and U21 European Championships – a shaky, mistake prone centre back.
On the overall a strong starting XI on paper but definitely the wrong system and formation.
The tactics:
To be totally honest, I am completely baffled about the change in tactics. The high attacking press and the dominant displays in possession had worked thus far for Pellegrino against West Ham and Swansea respectively and it was a shock to the see the team play completely different to that against Wolves.
The tactics for this game looked to neutralise Wolves attacking qualities in a system that they had spent the entirety of preseason. Whereas, this game and tactics for Pellegrino was an experiment of the system and the tactics and it is safe to say it failed.
Tactically speaking it was a poor night all round for Pellegrino and his players.
The substitutions:
In the space of about two minutes we saw all three substitutions from Pellegrino. The first was taking Bednarek off for Nathan Redmond. Just two minutes later we saw a double change with Charlie Austin and Sofiane Boufal being replaced by Shane Long and Manolo Gabbiadini.
All credit to Pellegrino for making attacking substitutions and changing the formation in an attempt to get back in the tie but they were just made too late and the subs struggled to make an impact on the game.
Post-match comments:
So far during his reign, we have seen Pellegrino be brutally honest in his post-match reaction and the game against Wolves was no change. Pellegrino questioned his side’s focus as well as claiming they had taken a step back from the West Ham game. He did also state that there was only a little period where Saints had their chances but failed to take them.
Pellegrino claimed that the only way to rectify the mistakes and lessons from this game was to put all the focus and attention on Saturday’s trip to Huddersfield and the three points up for grabs.
Overall assessment and mark out of 10:
With all that considered, I am going to give Pellegrino a four out of 10. His only saving grace from this game was his brutal honesty and his professionalism which is still very much to be admired.
However this result has provided him and the squad with a learning curve as well as giving them something to react from which will make Saturday’s a fixture at Huddersfield a whole lot more interesting.
