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Saints At Watford ! Dan's Report
Monday, 6th Mar 2017 08:00

Dan gives us his view of the win at Watford, a game that gave us several milestones for this season.

After heartbreak in the EFL Cup Final, Southampton showed lots of character to bounce back immediately after winning a thrilling game of football with Watford away at Vicarage Road 4-3.

Despite winning the game, Saints did go behind after just four minutes when an illegal throw-in from Younes Kaboul led to Troy Deeney volleying Watford into the lead. Deeney showed great composure, skill and accuracy to score a clever goal.

However, despite bossing the play and having James Ward-Prowse’s shot saved by Heurelho Gomes, Saints did find their goal through Dusan Tadic after neat build up play lead to the ball being cleared out to Tadic who smartly finished into the bottom right corner from 18 yards.

But the best goal of the game from the away side fell to Nathan Redmond. Great passing, and team play lead to the winger bagging his fifth goal in a red and white shirt. An acute turn from Ward-Prowse found Tadic who passed to Redmond who finished incredibly accurately to give Southampton the lead going into half-time.

There have been plenty of situations this season when Southampton can’t capitalise on a lead and fall short, drawing or losing a game which they should’ve won; this looked to be the case once again. After forcing plenty of saves from Watford keeper Heurelho Gomes, the away side didn’t look like they would be able to put the ball into the back of the net. Once again this was typical as Watford equalised against the run of play through Stefano Okaka. A nice ball in from Success was successful enough (the puns write themselves) to reach the Italian.

Jack Stephens saved the day for Saints however, when he put off Okaka from scoring a second and giving Watford the lead and the challenge lead to Southampton re-taking the lead. After a tame shot from distance from Sofiane Boufal, Gomes, who was brilliant despite conceding four by the end, spilled the shot into the path of our talisman Manolo Gabbiadini. 3-2, six goals in four games. Lovely for the Saints fans.

But we weren’t done there as Nathan Redmond, who had way too much space on the left-wing, produced a rigorous shot that flew past Gomes for the winger to get his much-deserved brace. Nice fact, Redmond has now scored as many goals as he did for Norwich this season with 12 more games to spare!

However, the thriller didn’t stop there as a small proportion of Watford fans saw their side’s third as Doucoure halved the deficit in stoppage time.

Man of the match: Even though Redmond deserves it as well, Dusan Tadic is the man for me. One goal, two assists. Dusan looked like the player we all knew and loved from the last two seasons who has been a shadow of late. He was very much a part of the action and his passes were key to our goal-scoring. He needs to keep it up as we march on to the end of the season.

Next up is Spurs away and once again, we have another two-week break. After scoring three goals per game in our last three league outings, we have no obligation to have confidence going to White Hart Lane. It reminds me of the build-up to last season’s win there: we won our last two league games with four goals (two 4-2 wins over Villa away and Man City at home) before going there and winning 2-1. Yes, they had the disappointment of losing the title but we could cause an upset. Up the Saints!

Photo: Action Images



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highfield49 added 09:43 - Mar 6
Best case scenario is probably to have VVD and Caceres in the team to play Spurs, but at the very least Caceres has to play. Spurs will be very much aware of our defensive frailties and equally aware of our new found goal scoring potential. I'm confident in the attacking formation giving them a headache and equally confident about our defensive line up giving us a headache. Puel has given Yoshi and Stephens plenty of game time and will be aware that they aren't good enough as a pairing at this level, squad players certainly but not front line first choice defenders. Other than that more of the same, although there is a case for Boufal to get game time I think keeping the same midfield set up is probably the right decision at present.
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Sanguin added 09:53 - Mar 6
I don’t think Watford’s second goal was against the run of play, we had a fantastic 15-20 minutes at the beginning of the second half but when Watford scored their equaliser they were definitely on top; we couldn’t deal with their physicality and couldn’t win second balls.

I also believe that this is the first time that Redmond has ever scored two Premier League goals in a game? Maybe he is on the road to coming good as a striker.
0

pete_boggs added 11:09 - Mar 6
I agree with most of Highfield's comments except that I would drop Stephens, Forster, Davis and, of course, JWP. It's 3-0 to Spurs otherwise. They will exploit our defensive frailties and overload us in midfield. It is damaging to have un-droppable players and favourites in a squad. Players should be picked on form and merit. Claude, tell Les to keep his team-sheet to himself for once.
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SanMarco added 11:50 - Mar 6
If Manure and Watford can get 3 each then Harry Kane and friends will get at least that. We can't go to WHL with this same back two. Cacares has to come in (too much to hope for VVD too.) It's too much pressure on our attacking resources if we need to get to least 3 for a point. At least the opposition now expect us to score!!
2

dixiefrog added 12:13 - Mar 6
Whilst I think Yoshi and Stephens have done a reasonable job, if Caceres is fit then why not play him. There's U23 games both tonight and on the 13th, why not give him a run out for either or both just to sharpen his match fitness.
3

bstokesaint added 13:03 - Mar 6
Caceres is a big risk if he's had no game time. If he does play in the U23 side and does well then I'd be all for him coming in to play alongside Yoshi, who in my opinion has done little wrong. He has constantly been criticized for his lapses of concentration, but without them, he's just as capable as Fonte ever was for us, and has more pace. I think people forget that Fonte played alongside Lovren, Toby and VVD, all of whom would have raised Fonte's game too. Yoshi hasn't had the luxury of having played in a first team pairing of most of these, when instead he came in to replace them. If Caceres is as good as we all would like to believe then I'd feel a lot more confident of him and Yoshi steadying the ship until VVD comes back.

My biggest concern still remains with the goalkeeper. How much longer is Forster going to keep that no.1 spot? I really think he needs a break and some time to get his game back to where it was last season.
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davepid added 13:59 - Mar 6
Hi so does anyone know if us scoring four goals in back to back away games is a premiership record?
Seems to be a record worth claiming if we are the first!

Also, I really enjoyed us clearing the stands at Sunderland four weeks ago and again ( pretty much) at Watford.
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dixiefrog added 21:04 - Mar 6
U23 game against Chelsea just finished in a 0-0 draw. Nothing spectacular here other than Caceres making his debut, keeping a clean sheet and also sending a strong message to the Boss.
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