Southampton defender Jannik Vestergaard has blamed the weather conditions for his side’s performance against Burnley.
Vestergaard says that the tough weather conditions meant that Southampton were unable to play as quickly as they normally do, causing them to struggle.
Speaking to the Daily Echo, Vestergaard said:
It was extremely tough conditions. Which made it not a very beautiful game to watch, I believe.
It definitely wasn’t a great performance, but the conditions made it tough to play the quick style of play that we like to.
Both teams struggled with it with mistakes on both sides, but it’s very frustrating as we didn’t really concede any chances but conceded two goals.
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The wind certainly did not help Southampton, or Burnley in fairness. Southampton like to play long balls into the channels in order to initiate counter-press situations, and that was made more difficult by the wind disrupting the flight of the balls from Southampton’s defenders.
This made it harder for them to play their style effectively, leading to a lack of chances created by the Saints – as they mustered just two shots on target.
However, the two goals Southampton conceded had very little to do with the weather. The first one came via a huge error from Danny Ings, as he opted against clearing a ball at the near post, allowing it to drop into the goal – seemingly thinking that it would behind for a goal kick.
The second goal was then a mistake from Vestergaard, as he failed to track the run of Matej Vydra. Burnley’s striker then brought the ball down and skipped past a challenge before smashing in the winner.
So, the performance may have been affected by the conditions, but the result was down to two lapses in concentration from individuals.
