Southampton V Hull City The Verdict
At West Brom you could tell from the first minutes of the game that Saints were well organised focused and disciplined, against Hull it was the exact opposite, from kick off you could tell we had none of these attributes.
In the preview to this game I said that Russell Martin should play his best team for this game, but truth of the matter was that he left Ryan Fraser and Che Adams on the bench and we struggled to get balls through to the forwards and create chances, although to be fair we had the opening chance of the game when Will Smallbone pressed and pushed the ball through to Joe Rothwell who saw his shot deflected wide by the keeper.
But at the back we were shaky and Hull pressed at the right moments, but the truth was we were putting pressure on ourselves, continually giving the ball away cheaply during the whole game and constantly out of position.
On 11 minutes came the opening goal of the game, it was well worked by Hull who surged forward at the right time, Gavin Bazunu made a decent save from the initial shot, but the Saints defenders were static and stood and watched as Zaroury fired home the rebound.
On 36 minutes it got worse, and it was an individual error that was punished, the ball from Bazunu to Rothwell was fine, the Bournemouth loanee had plenty of time to control the ball and pass it on, but he took a heavy touch and tried to run it across the edge of the box and was tackled and we were left exposed and Hull made it 2-0 and it could have been 3 before the break as a buoyant Hull side forced Saints into errors and at times unforced errors and with some better finishing could have put us to bed before the break.
At half time three changes were made, Adams for Mara was understandable, although the issue was about getting the ball to Mara and in essence not a lot changed it was just Adams who wasn’t getting the ball.
But what were we doing taking off our top scorer at a time when we needed goals, Adam Armstrong is arguably our best player, yet he is taken off at half time, maybe he had a knock, certainly he is bing taken off early in games lately so he might be carrying an injury, but if not the was plain stupidity from the manager.
Brooks coming on to replace him was also perhaps wrong, Ryan Fraser has been one of the best players since Xmas, yet in recent games his minutes on the pitch have been reduced.
We huffed and we puffed but we didn’t blow the Hull house down, Sulemana coming on for Stuart Armstrong was also wrong, Sulemana is talented, but he has not shown anything to deserve to come on ahead of those still on the bench of for that matter taken off before him.
The tally of just 3 shots on target was poor, on 88 minutes Joe Aribo pulled one back, but by then we were a disjointed rabble with no one sure who was actually playing where, a lack of leadership both on and off the pitch.
So a very bad day at the office and Russell Martin has to hold his hands up here and admit he got the team selection and tactics wrong, but in his defence show me a manager who hasn’t got it wrong at some point, so we can forgive him here.
We are now in 4th place and the pendulum has swung the other way for us, but it doesn’t mean it has to be terminal, we are still just 2 points off the automatic promotion places, even after losing poorly in two of the last three games.
There is still a lot to play for, this season is far from over, against Millwall, Russell Martin has to stick with the tried and tested formula, hopefully we will have Flynn Downes back and Ryan Fraser starting and get the season back on track.
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