Southampton couldn’t have started the Premier League campaign in a worse manner if they had tried, with a 3-0 defeat against Burnley flattening any pre-season enthusiasm that previously emerged.
Saints were awful at Turf Moor. Barring a couple of solid first-half chances, it was a toothless performance, and the Clarets took full advantage of the visitors’ defensive shortcomings.
Ashley Barnes latched onto a missed header from Jannik Vestergaard to open the scoring before doubling his tally for the afternoon after ghosting in behind the Dane once again.
Johann Berg Gudmundsson added insult to injury shortly after as he dispossessed a lackadaisical Ryan Bertrand to curl the ball beyond the reach of Angus Gunn.
It was a dismal, unacceptable performance and result at Turf Moor. However, who makes our first Power Rankings of the season?
This will be a list of five players who impress – or in this gameweek’s case, are the best of a bad bunch – consistently over the course of the campaign.
As this was the opening game of the season, though, and few players really caught the eye, it’s safe to say that these rankings will change a fair bit as 2019/20 progresses…
