Soares Omission At City Should Not Be Repeated
Cedric Soares has shown that he is Premier League quality, but for some reason sometimes Ronald Koeman prefers Yoshida, the game at Manchester City proved that this rotation does not work.
In his three years at Saints Yoshida has been a solid defender, however he is seen as more as a squad player than a first choice by most supporters, his problem always seems to be that in most games he suffers from a lack of concentration at key moments and these lapses too often cost Saints dearly.
This was the case at Manchester City on Saturday, as it was against Manchester United at home earlier in the season when an awful back pass resulted in a goal that turned the direction of the game and cost us at least a point.
At his best Yoshida is a reasonable back up centre half, as a right back he is not Premier quality, I can see why Ronald Koeman would sometimes want to use him as a right back in that against teams that offer a more aerial threat he does offer extra height in the air than Soares does, but that wasn't going to be the case on Saturday against City.
But Ronald Koeman seems to favour this switch of late and hopefully now he will see the error of his ways.
In many respects it seems to cast a shadow on how highly the manager rates Soares, last season it would be hard think that Koeman would have contemplated dropping Nathaniel Clyne for Yoshida, indeed it would have been unthinkable, so why is Yoshida played out of position at Soares expense ?
With Soares Saints look a lot better balanced and Soares is a round peg in a round hole, he is a right back and a good one at that, he was rock solid at Chelsea, so I do not believe that Saints are any better defensively with Yoshida, yes there is the height issue, but Saints have enough big players to bring back into the box to defend set pieces.
I do not want to crucify Yoshida for the mistake at City, but it is not his first this season and his career at Saints have been littered with these lapses, he is a trier and a good squad man, but that is it, with everybody fit he would not be in most Saints fans starting line up and indeed many would say that Steven Caulker should be on the bench before him.
Football is all about progression and learning from mistakes, hopefully Ronald Koeman will have learn't something on Saturday.
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