Southampton made their second longest trip for the first away game of the season on Saturday.
Southampton made the trip to Huddersfield with the aim of keeping their unbeaten start in the Premier League going and looking for a reaction following the midweek disappointment at home to Wolves.
The game ended in a goalless stalemate with the hosts looking the stronger with their attacking display.
In all honesty, the only improvement from Wednesday’s night defeat to Wolves was the fact that the side didn’t concede. Southampton looked shaky defensively and until late on offered very little in an attacking sense.
Nathan Redmond missed by inches in the only chance that Southampton managed to create in the first half. Both Maya Yoshida and Fraser Forster made poor errors only to be let off the hook by an inexperienced Huddersfield side.
Throughout the game Huddersfield failed to create any clear cut chances but a whole load of half chances and shots on the Southampton goal. Ryan Bertrand had a golden chance for Southampton in the final few minutes but saw his header cleared off the line. James Ward-Prowse also had a penalty appeal that was waved away by referee Stuart Attwell and rightly so in my opinion, as it seemed to me in the stands that there was barely any contact with the midfielder.
Afterwards, Mauricio Pellegrino described the affair as “a tough game” and this side struggled with second balls.
Below, we have a review on Mauricio Pellegrino’s first competitive game in charge of the Saints away from home.
The Starting XI:
Mauricio Pellegrino picked the same starting XI from the win against West Ham, which consisted of:
Forster, Cedric, Stephens, Yoshida, Bertrand, Lemina, Romeu, Redmond, Davis, Tadic, Gabbiadini.
A strong line-up on paper given how they played against West Ham before the red card to Marco Arnautovic. A personal concern of mine was that against West Ham the defence looked to struggle against aerial attacking play, and Huddersfield’s Steve Mounie is very aggressive and dominant in aerial situations.
Personally I would like to have seen Wesley Hoedt make his debut for the club given his physical advantage over Jack Stephens and Maya Yoshida to deal with the aerial threat of Mounie.
The Tactics:
With the same starting XI that started against West Ham and following the midweek tactical change that didn’t pay off, I was expecting a return to a high attacking press and dominance in possession; similarly to how Huddersfield go about their trade.
However, Southampton didn’t revert back to the tactics that were used against West Ham and Swansea respectively. Against Huddersfield it appeared that the tactics were to absorb the attacking pressure from Huddersfield and try to expose them on the break, for the first half at least.
At the start of the second half Saints grew into the game a lot more, seeing more of the possession but still failing to create a great deal with going forward. Despite this, Huddersfield still looked threatening and had a clear attacking intent on the ball, which Saints have seemed to lacked in the last two games.
Personally, I would like to have seen us match Huddersfield in n tactical sense with the high attacking press and intent that we saw against West Ham and Swansea, as the side look a lot more confident in possession with an attacking purpose rather than spending large parts of the game on the back foot.
The Substitutions:
In the space of ten minutes we saw all three substitutions from Mauricio Pellegrino.
The first came in the 64th minute as Mario Lemina was replaced by Shane Long who supported Gabbiadini up front whilst Steven Davis dropped back to partner Oriol Romeu. I thought this was a wrong move from Pellegrino as Mario Lemina was one of the better players in the game for the Saints with his tackling, passing and getting forward despite giving the ball away on the odd occasion.
The second came in the 71st minute and to the shock and anger of the travelling support as Manolo Gabbiadini, who was beginning to have an impact in the game despite the real lack of service to him, was replaced by James Ward-Prowse. This substitution actually prompted boos from the travelling support.
The third and final substitution came just three minutes later in the 74th minute and it was a strange one. Dusan Tadic was replaced by Sam McQueen. Now, Tadic hasn’t started the season in great form and the game against Huddersfield was no different as he didn’t really do anything, but the surprise was bringing in Sam McQueen for him instead of Sofiane Boufal. And in the end result McQueen didn’t really do anything of note going forwards or defensively.
For me Pellegrino got the substitutions wrong in this instance. Despite Lemina having a better game than most I was impressed when another striker came on as it seemed the system was changing to give more support to Gabbiadini, who had been isolated for the entire time he was on the pitch.
I would have brought on Sofiane Boufal, Charlie Austin and Wesley Hoedt for Tadic, Davis and Yoshida as I feel that this would have changed the dynamic going forward and given a better chance to deal with Huddersfield’s aerial play.
Post match comments and reaction:
So far Pellegrino has been entirely honest in his post match comments but against Huddersfield I am a little lost with his comments and reaction. We all expected Huddersfield to be a tough game following the start they had made to the season and we weren’t wrong. He also alluded to his side getting better as the game went on, but he appeared to be happy with the outcome and happy to come away with a point.
The sense coming out of the away end of the John Smith’s Stadium was that the performance was, for me, appalling, and that in fact Southampton were lucky to come away with a point and a clean sheet.
Overall assessment and mark out of ten:
I am going to have to go with a five out of ten for this performance away at Huddersfield with the only improvement being that Saints took a point from the game.
For me, there was a wrong tactical set up, wrong substitutions and confusing post match comments. However a positive is that the unbeaten start to the season continues and Pellegrino now has a full two weeks to work with the majority of his squad ahead of the game against Watford.
