Charlie Austin was at the heart of Southampton’s emphatic 4-1 victory against Everton at St Mary’s.
Mauricio Pellegrino named Austin in the starting 11 for the first time this season instead of Shane Long, as well as replacing the suspended Oriol Romeu with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. The final change was bringing in James Ward-Prowse for Nathan Redmond.
Everton’s caretaker manager David Unsworth made eight changes to the side that was humiliated by Atalanta during their mid-week Europa league encounter. Joel Robles, Cuco Martina, Ashley Williams, Tom Davies, Beni Baningime, Wayne Rooney, Davy Klaassen and Sandro out; Jordan Pickford, Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka Morgan Schneiderlin, Idrissa Gana Gueye, Aaron Lennon, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin in.
Austin had two opportunities. Firstly, a Ward-Prowse corner broke free towards an open Austin, but his effort went high and wide. Minutes later, Cedric’ Soares’ cross was met by Austin with a rather unorthodox shot. Although Pickford was rooted to the spot, the ball hit the outside of the post and went wide.
Saints took the lead after 17 minutes after some exquisite passing between Hojbjerg, Sofiane Boufal and Austin found it’s way to an overlapping Ryan Bertrand. His first time cross was met by Dusan Tadic who produced a fantastic finish.
Everton equalised on the brink of half time through Iceland international Sigurdsson, who made space for himself and hit a shot from around 25 yards, which went over the stretching Fraser Forster and hit the bar three times before crossing the line.
Saints restored their advantage seven minutes into the second half through Austin, as his near post run was spotted by Bertrand who produced a fantastic cross and Pickford could only watch the ball power past him.
Five minutes later, the ball was once again in the back of the net thanks to Austin, in very similar fashion to his first goal. Tadic had an initial pass deflected, but the Serbian showed a lot of effort to react quicker to the loose ball and pick out Austin at the near post once again.
Saints were dominating Everton and even Shane Long nearly found the net. Using his pace to beat Jagielka on the flank, he attempted to curve an effort beyond Pickford, who made a fantastic finger-tip save to deny Long a goal.
But Southampton capped off the afternoon with a beautiful goal thanks to the skipper Steven Davis. Ward-Prowse picked him out on the edge of the box, and Davis’ shot, always curling away from Pickford, nestled into the inner side-netting perfectly.
The score-line and performance will provide the players with some much needed positivity, following a string of poor performances as well as dominant performances but no points or goals to match.
Confidence will be high within the squad and it’ll have to remain that way, as Saints travel up north to face the unbeaten, sensational Manchester City.
