Saints Face Central Defensive Crisis Ahead Of Stoke City Game
All of a sudden the trip to Stoke City has become a vital game and Saints have the task of replacing suspended Jose Fonte who will be suspended.
Saints travel to the Brittania Stadium without suspended skipper Jose Fonte and Ronald Koeman now has a massive problem about how he replaces him.
Back in January I warned that Saints should have considered signing another central defender to replace the departed loanee Steven Caulker, when he left for Liverpool that left only Maya Yoshida as fit and experienced cover for regular central defensive duo Fonte and Virgil Van Dijk and to be blunt this is Yoshida's fourth season at St Mary's and he has yet to convince that he is of Premier League standard.
If the suspension had happened a game or two later then Florin Gardos could have come into the frame, but after his 8 month injury lay off he has yet to play even a U21 game and give that last season despite being fit he didn't play even a minute after February there are doubt's that Koeman would have wanted to play him anyway.
So why is playing Yoshida such a worry for Saints ?
The answer is that he is so prone to errors and lapses in concentration, he is a player that can look good for 89 minutes and have you wondering just why you ever doubted his ability, but then he will make a lapse in concentration or error, some that go unpunished and others that don't.
This has been a trait of his game ever since his arrival, this season some have been punished as per his giving the ball away at Manchester City to gift the opening goal and some go unpunished as did his clumsy challenge only seconds after coming on for the last couple of minutes at Swansea City when it could easily have been a penalty.
But sometimes he is just not up to the job as was shown on Saturday when he failed to make a challenge for Sunderland's goal.
Yes it is harsh to single him out in this way, but Premier League football is harsh, I said back in January that our squad now had Premier quality cover in every position, but central defence and now that is coming back to haunt us at a crucial time.
So in my opinion Ronald Koeman has to think outside the square to replace Fonte, he needs to do something different.
My own view is that he should play a central trio of Martina, Van Dijk and Bertrand, flanked by Cedric and Targett.
This is not ideal, Martina is not the greatest of players at this level himself, but he has experience and he can play either in the centre or full back so is versatile enough to cope with the formation, he also offer a little more height.
It is not the ideal scenario, but then again we do not find ourselves in anything near the ideal scenario.
This is a vital game for Saints and defeat would make it very difficult to launch a challenge on the top six in the final games of the season, e find ourselves in adversity so therefore have to do something different to break out of our three game winless spell.
What to read next:
U's Vs Accrington Match Preview As the round of matches over the festive period draws to a close, we have the visit of Accrington Stanley on that most rare of events in our football history, a Sunday afternoon kick-off. If you filter out play-off and cup games, in the league this accounts for just 25 games since we were formed, seven won, six drawn and 12 lost. As you would imagine, Sunday games are generally focussed around Christmas and the New Year, or more recently, Sky-mandated final games of the season. It’s been a pretty positive holiday schedule for the U’s too, eight points from four games, and with other results often going our way, we’re now just two places and three points outside the play-offs.
U's Vs MK Dons Match Preview Happy New Year U’s fans! After two hard fought 1-1 draws away from home across the festive period we kick off the New Year with a home match against Milton Keynes. Tickets look to be selling well, although not in the West Stand it seems, so should be a decent crowd providing MK bring more than their normal coach load. I know it doesn’t count for anything but the calendar year League Two table has us in fifth with 72 points from 46 matches played so 2025 hasn’t been a bad year to be a U’s fan.
Gillingham Vs U's Match Preview First and foremost, I hope you are all having a pleasant Christmas break relaxing with family and friends, and wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. This will be our final match of 2025, with a trip to Priestfield to face old adversary Gillingham, our second game against them this month and our third this season. This will be our 112th game in all competitions against the Gills, a relationship that started with a Ted Davis U’s side winning 2-0 at Layer Road on 27th August 1938. At the final whistle tomorrow we will also be at the halfway point of the season, so considering at the end of September we were 20th, plenty of optimism for the second half of the season.
Crawley Vs U's Match Preview Merry Christmas U’s fans! Boxing Day in proper football leagues means football matches and the U’s face one of their shortest trips of the season as they venture across the Thames to face creepy Crawley. Crawley’s “stadium” is one of the few grounds I’ve gone away with the U’s (the 3-1 League Cup win back in 2019) and it felt like a ground that should be in the National League South but Crawley have been established in the football league since 2011 with two promotions to League One during that time which is impressive given the relative size of the club. We don’t have a huge history against Crawley Town, with just 24 meetings to date of which Crawley have won 11. In fact since that memorable League Cup win we hadn’t managed to beat Crawley until the, not as memorable but probably more important, 3-2 away win towards the end of the 2023/24 season that went a long way to helping us stay in this division.
U's Vs Newport Match Preview And so, Danny and Nicky enter their second century of games managing the U’s, at home to struggling Newport – let’s hope it starts a bit better than the first century finished. There won’t be many games we score three and lose, trouble is there’ll be even fewer where we concede four and win. That being said, I couldn’t fault the first hour of the Salford game, with the U’s in control of a game against good opposition, and on a typically heavy pitch. Then we kind of fell apart, certainly defensively, helped in no small part by a masterclass from ex-U’s Luke Garbutt (how is he only in League 2?). Credit must also go to 250+ of the faithful, a long trip starting at stupid o’clock – they deserved more than that for their support.