It wasn’t quite the festive cheer Southampton were hoping for, as they were humiliated by Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley in a 5-2 defeat, which saw Harry Kane break multiple records.
Mauricio Pellegrino made four changes to the side that suffered a disappointing draw against Huddersfield. Shane Long, Oriol Romeu, Pierre Hojbjerg and Sofiane Boufal were all brought in to replace the suspended and injured Charlie Austin, Steven Davis, James Ward-Prowse and Dusan Tadic respectively.
Virgil Van Dijk was still left out of the 18 man squad and a deal between the Saints and Manchester City are said to have been agreed for the Dutchman, for a fee of £60m.
Kane broke his first record of the afternoon, previously held by Alan Shearer for the most goals in a calendar year after 22 minutes of play, and it was made rather simple for him, as Christian Eriksen’s cross from a free-kick evaded everybody and was easily nodded in by the English marksman.
French ‘keeper Hugo Lloris nearly had an absolute nightmare after a routine header back to him by Danny Rose was spilled and had the Frenchman scrambling all over the place to prevent the ball from crossing the line, but blushes were spared.
Saints were being dominated in the midfield and 17 minutes later, Kane scored his second of the game after some passing between Dele Alli and Eriksen found Heung-Min-Son making an overlapping run beyond a static defence and squared the ball to Kane who was left completely open to tap the ball into an empty net, unchallenged. Baffling? Not really.
Just after the break, Saints had a couple of good chances to put the ball into the net. Firstly, Long was played in on goal, but the striker, who hasn’t scored for an abnormally long period of time yet is constantly played ahead of Manolo Gabbiadini, had a shot comfortably saved by Lloris. Seconds later, Mario Lemina did well to wriggle out of trouble and fire a shot bound for the roof of the net, if it weren’t for the crossbar.
In typical Southampton fashion, just after having chances of their own, a goal was conceded at the other end and it wouldn’t be Saints without some form of laughable defending. From a simple punt upfield, Saints fail to clear their lines initially, then the Spurs cavalry arrives. Son gives the ball to Alli, who cuts infield beyond Romeu and hits a shot past Yoshida, who didn’t seem to be trying his hardest to block the shot, and Forster seems rather slow to get down to the ground and the ball is already past him. It was painful to watch and it was only the third goal.
A minute later, it was 4-0, literally given to them after a poor pass from Redmond which allows Spurs to counter attack through Dele, and Son is running through Southampton’s defence for all to see. He ran beyond Wesley Hoedt and the South Korean smashed a shot into the bottom corner.
Just after an hour, Southampton somehow managed to find the net thanks to some dodgy Lloris goalkeeping. Boufal simply struck a hit-and-hope shot which went through Lloris and should’ve been saved.
Three minutes later though, Spurs shot Saints down again and Kane completed his hat-trick. The ball was in the Spurs half from a Southampton throw, Alli played the ball between two centre-backs to Kane, Yoshida committed too early and ended up on the floor and Kane just lofted the ball confidently over Fraser Forster.
Southampton made the score-line look slightly more respectable, once again from some questionnable Lloris goalkeeping. Before the corner, Lloris saved Hojbjerg’s goal-bound shot with a sensational save, but from the resulting corner, he attempted to punch the ball out of the box, which only found substitute Dusan Tadic, who lofted the ball over the Frenchman who got a strong touch on the ball but couldn’t keep it out.
That’s now 1 win in 11… relegation form written all over it. The players don’t want to play under Pellegrino, the fans call for his sacking every game. The board have to do something otherwise the Championship is Southampton’s destination. Next up is a trip to Manchester United… can’t wait.
