Our regular collumnist Dan takes a look at the last of the scheduled public pre season friendlies as Saints take on Sevilla.
On Saturday, Saints take on strong Spanish side Sevilla in their final pre-season friendly before the real deal starts next weekend against Swansea City. After a dismal defeat in their last pre-season game, a lot needs to change before the Premier League opener.
As a quick reflection on the Augsburg game, I felt like a defeat may have been needed just to help Pellegrino realise the teams’ flaws and who isn’t ready to participate in the starting XI. Of course, there were plenty of regulars in there but some hadn’t started a pre-season game yet (James Ward-Prowse and Nathan Redmond). It also made me realise that Pellegrino really needs to work out his best team soon before the season starts so they can get used to playing with each other but also some signings definitely need to be made but that may not be possible before the start of the season.
Anyway, getting onto Saturday’s game. Sevilla are a good side who managed a fourth-place finish in La Liga last term and have some familiar faces to the Premier League in their team including Steven N’Zonzi, Jesus Navas, and Nolito. They too are under new management after their previous manager took the Argentina vacancy but may not be in the same shape as Saints as their competitive season starts a week after ours, however we could have said the same for Augsburg.
Like Augsburg, I honestly don’t know what to expect from Sevilla but from Saints I expect a team almost identical to the one that will be played against Swansea and the firsts few fixtures of the season. I didn’t expect our first-choice side on Wednesday but I didn’t expect a result like that so I hope that it was an anomaly and all of the fans making naïve comments such as "we’re going to get relegated” or "Pellegrino isn’t the right manager”. With a result against Sevilla all the doubters will have their minds changed.
As mentioned previously, I do feel that a centre-back or two (depending on the situation with Van Dijk) need to be bought relatively soon as a partnership including two of Yoshida, Stephens, or Bednarek won’t allow us to compete for the position we will want to achieve. So, for now, this is my strongest team and the one I hope is played on Saturday.
Forster, Cedric, Stephens, Yoshida, Bertrand, Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Tadic, Redmond, Boufal, Gabbiadini
Some of those positions don’t have certain takers but in the case of defence, I think it’s best to go with the pairing that know each other best after playing together during the second half of last season. In midfield, I think Ward-Prowse should be playing but not as a defensive midfielder; he could play a bit further up the field than Romeu. The attacking trio plus striker are pretty potent if playing to their quality but I feel that Austin will really compete with Gabbiadini and if there is a way to play both of them at the same time like against St.Etienne than I have no problems.
I can’t really make a prediction due to the fact that it’s pre-season but I expect Saints to show up on Saturday and learn from their mistakes and it would be so Southampton to beat the better side and get smashed but the worse side so I’ll go with a 2-1 win but not with much confidence!