Match Report and MOTM vs Southampton

Rodmorg

First Team
Not so Merry for the Saints at St Mary’s

Southampton had never lost to Bournemouth at home in the Premier League before, but an impressive first half and diabolical defending by the Saints allowed the Cherries to snatch 3 points from the St. Mary’s, but not all was merry as complacency took over as the Cherries hang on to the lead in the second half.

Eddie opted against some suggestions of a 4-3-3 by sticking to his usual 4-4-2, with the only change being Jefferson Lerma in for Lewis Cook, who had a notably good game after his return from a long term injury. He also decided to keep super-sub Fraser on the bench.

Vocal support for the Kings of the South-Coast was high from those who had made the short trip to Southampton as the game kicked off and this was maintained throughout the first half until half time as it was deafened by boos by the home support. The commentators had mentioned the height advantage Southampton had over Bournemouth, but it only took ten minutes for this to be proven as Southampton’s towering centre-backs were not able to deal with NATHAN AKE’s 5ft 11in frame as he powered home a header from a corner, with Diego Rico grabbing another assist.
Southampton were determined to find a leveller but the defensive skills and bravery of the ever-present Cook and Ake partnership put Southampton’s chances of pulling one back next to nothing. The Cherries were literally centimetres away from grabbing a second 25 minutes in, with another counter attack culminating in King having his goal correctly disallowed for offside.

But Bournemouth only had to wait another ten minutes for a deserved second goal to come, with Billing starting a move in midfield with Rico, and the former drilled a beautiful ball in from the left for HARRY WILSON to slot into the bottom right hand corner; Bournemouth’s second, and Southampton’s defence ripped to shreds once again. Perhaps jealous of what had just occurred, Southampton attempted to replicate the goal that they had conceded but to no avail; as Hojbjerg’s shot was smartly saved by Ramsdale.

Half-Time: Southampton 0-2 Bournemouth

Southampton gained a stroke of luck with Big Cook clumsily giving away a penalty, and JAMES WARD-PROWSE halved the deficit by sending Ramsdale the wrong way. And once again the debate for the implementation of VAR was thrown into dispute as Cedric deliberately tripped King in the box and after a lengthy check by VAR the penalty claim was turned down despite clear contact by Cedric and King, and Cedric not touching the ball. To note, the referee on VAR was Graham Scott, who us fans may remember as the referee who denied a blatant penalty on Callum Wilson when he was hauled back by Luke Shaw of Man Utd a few years ago.

Southampton began to up the tempo as they searched for a leveller, but were denied chance after chance by the impressive goalkeeping of Ramsdale and Steve Cook there to block any shots or through balls in the Bournemouth box. Eddie threw on Fraser for goalscorer Wilson to bring in some energy and Lewis Cook for solidity in midfield, something that Southampton lacked defensively. After Andrew Surman came on for Josh King, the nerves were relieved as a defensive mix up with Southampton’s goalkeeper and defender resulted in CALLUM WILSON grabbing an easy goal after a somewhat quiet night on the pitch.

Full Time Southampton 1-3 Bournemouth

Player Ratings:

Aaron Ramsdale 8: Impressive goalkeeping undermined by poor passing

Jack Stacey 5: Nervy with the ball due to his Premier League inexperience (and hence exploited by the opposition) but a good block to deny a seemingly certain goal.

Steve Cook 9: Rock in defence. Block after block, cleared the ball at every opportunity. Great captain’s contribution. Would be a 10 if it weren’t for the penalty.

Nathan Ake 8: Grabbed a goal but certainly undermined by Cook’s performance.

Diego Rico 7: Impressive first half by dancing past players pressing him but ultimately faded in the second.

Harry Wilson 6: Good positioning for his goal, certainly better than last weekend. (Fraser 4: Quiet and next to no involvement)

Jefferson Lerma 6: Good interceptions and great passing. Standard performance.

Phillip Billing 7: Much like Rico, good assist too.

Josh King 7: Danced past defenders with determination and pace but seemed quite selfish. Close to grabbing a deserved goal however.

Dominic Solanke 3: Oh dear. Goal drought continues. Could have had an assist through a simple pass but largely ineffective again.

Callum Wilson 5: Very quiet but goal somewhat redeemed himself. Did press quite well first half however.

MOTM: Big Cook. A Cook-like performance and a saviour to a team that essentially dwindled in the second half. Maintained the determination and concentration he had in the first half and transferred it to the second. Ake and Ramsdale not far behind

Verdict:

Phew! A bipolar performance. A team dripping in determination and desire in the first half and a team dripping in nervousness and frustration in the second half. Southampton improved in the second half – no doubt – but we attempted to play at the same pace as the first half. Southampton won the ball high up the pitch and this was due to complacency; the players held on to the ball attempting to move out of trouble by playing it out rather than making a simple pass. This was evident in the set up for the second goal, and the change in attitude in the second half. Notably, Solanke gave the ball away so many times, he seems to have no motivation to play. He still hasn’t scored which is disappointing. He needs to improve in the future, and I feel his position as a striker could be threatened when Danjuma and Brooks return from injury.

VAR will be the topic for debate. Both penalties, in my opinion, should have been given. The only downside to Cook’s magnificent display was his clumsy tackle, which can be viewed as a harsh decision. Hence, if a borderline decision such as Cook’s tackle means a penalty, the barge on King should have produced a penalty too.

In all, I’m glad that we finally grabbed a win over the Stains at the St Mary’s, a fluid counter-attacking display in the first half created what was to be an embarrassing second half, with defeat avoided due to the awful defending Southampton produced and the luck Bournemouth had with Cook, Ramsdale and Ake only continuing to impress in the second half.
 
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Thanks Rodmorg. We needed to hold the ball in the second half ... there was a case for bringing on Cook and Surman earlier. Thankfully Southampton became increasingly frantic and never really threatened.

Looking forward to Smith and Kelly at FB and L Cook in midfield. That could be some team ...
 
Not so Merry for the Saints at St Mary’s

Southampton had never lost to Bournemouth at home in the Premier League before, but an impressive first half and diabolical defending by the Saints allowed the Cherries to snatch 3 points from the St. Mary’s, but not all was merry as complacency took over as the Cherries hang on to the lead in the second half.

Eddie opted against some suggestions of a 4-3-3 by sticking to his usual 4-4-2, with the only change being Jefferson Lerma in for Lewis Cook, who had a notably good game after his return from a long term injury. He also decided to keep super-sub Fraser on the bench.

Vocal support for the Kings of the South-Coast was high from those who had made the short trip to Southampton as the game kicked off and this was maintained throughout the first half until half time as it was deafened by boos by the home support. The commentators had mentioned the height advantage Southampton had over Bournemouth, but it only took ten minutes for this to be proven as Southampton’s towering centre-backs were not able to deal with NATHAN AKE’s 5ft 11in frame as he powered home a header from a corner, with Diego Rico grabbing another assist.
Southampton were determined to find a leveller but the defensive skills and bravery of the ever-present Cook and Ake partnership put Southampton’s chances of pulling one back next to nothing. The Cherries were literally centimetres away from grabbing a second 25 minutes in, with another counter attack culminating in King having his goal correctly disallowed for offside.

But Bournemouth only had to wait another ten minutes for a deserved second goal to come, with Billing starting a move in midfield with Rico, and the former drilled a beautiful ball in from the left for HARRY WILSON to slot into the bottom right hand corner; Bournemouth’s second, and Southampton’s defence ripped to shreds once again. Perhaps jealous of what had just occurred, Southampton attempted to replicate the goal that they had conceded but to no avail; as Hojbjerg’s shot was smartly saved by Ramsdale.

Half-Time: Southampton 0-2 Bournemouth

Southampton gained a stroke of luck with Big Cook clumsily giving away a penalty, and JAMES WARD-PROWSE halved the deficit by sending Ramsdale the wrong way. And once again the debate for the implementation of VAR was thrown into dispute as Cedric deliberately tripped King in the box and after a lengthy check by VAR the penalty was overturned despite clear contact by Cedric and King, and Cedric not touching the ball. To note, the referee on VAR is Graham Scott, who us fans may remember as the referee who denied a blatant penalty on Callum Wilson when he was hauled back by Luke Shaw of Man Utd a few years ago.

Southampton began to up the tempo as they searched for a leveller, but were denied chance after chance by the impressive goalkeeping of Ramsdale and Steve Cook there to block any shots or through balls in the Bournemouth box. Eddie threw on Fraser for goalscorer Wilson to bring in some energy and Lewis Cook for solidity in midfield, something that Southampton lacked defensively. After Andrew Surman came on for Josh King, the nerves were relieved as a defensive mix up with Southampton’s goalkeeper and defender resulted in CALLUM WILSON grabbing an easy goal after a somewhat quiet night on the pitch.

Full Time Southampton 1-3 Bournemouth

Player Ratings:

Aaron Ramsdale 8: Impressive goalkeeping undermined by poor passing

Jack Stacey 5: Nervy with the ball due to his Premier League inexperience (and hence exploited by the opposition) but a good block to deny a seemingly certain goal.

Steve Cook 9: Rock in defence. Block after block, cleared the ball at every opportunity. Great captain’s contribution. Would be a 10 if it weren’t for the penalty.

Nathan Ake 8: Grabbed a goal but certainly undermined by Cook’s performance.

Diego Rico 7: Impressive first half by dancing past players pressing him but ultimately faded in the second.

Harry Wilson 6: Good positioning for his goal, certainly better than last weekend. (Fraser 4: Quiet and next to no involvement)

Jefferson Lerma 6: Good interceptions and great passing. Standard performance.

Phillip Billing 7: Much like Rico, good assist too.

Josh King 7: Danced past defenders with determination and pace but seemed quite selfish. Close to grabbing a deserved goal however.

Dominic Solanke 3: Oh dear. Goal drought continues. Could have had an assist through a simple pass but largely ineffective again.

Callum Wilson 5: Very quiet but goal somewhat redeemed himself. Did press quite well first half however.

MOTM: Big Cook. A Cook-like performance and a saviour to a team that essentially dwindled in the second half. Maintained the determination and concentration he had in the first half and transferred it to the second. Ake and Ramsdale

Verdict:

Phew! A bipolar performance. A team dripping in determination and desire in the first half and a team dripping in nervousness and frustration in the second half. Southampton improved in the second half – no doubt – but we attempted to play at the same pace as the first half. Southampton won the ball high up the pitch and this was due to complacency; the players held on to the ball attempting to move out of trouble by playing it out rather than making a simple pass. This was evident in the set up for the second goal, and the change in attitude in the second half. Notably, Solanke gave the ball away so many times, he seems to have no motivation to play. He still hasn’t scored which is disappointing. He needs to improve in the future, and I feel his position as a striker could be threatened when Danjuma and Brooks return from injury.

VAR will be the topic for debate. Both penalties, in my opinion, should have been given. The only downside to Cook’s magnificent display was his clumsy tackle, which can be viewed as a harsh decision. Hence, if a borderline decision such as Cook’s tackle means a penalty, the barge on King should have produced a penalty too.

In all, I’m glad that we finally grabbed a win over the Stains at the St Mary’s, a fluid counter-attacking display in the first half created what was to be an embarrassing second half, with defeat avoided due to the awful defending Southampton produced and the luck Bournemouth had with Cook, Ramsdale and Ake only continuing to impress in the second half.

Thank you. Pretty much how I saw it (on telly), although Stacey's block was more luck than judgement and I thought Solanke was worth 6 in the first half, although he did fade in the 2nd, but then most did.
 
Good report! Not sure anyone was worth 3 in a game as epic as that though. More a 5 as I agree that along with Stacey he looked a level off the rest.

Rico was Jordi Alba first half and Jessica Alba second half. Strange game for him. Another great assist though.

What a result though, think we ran out of steam second half and needed Cook earlier but we got there and that moment when Wilson was running towards the empty net was magical.

Cook and Ake joint Moms today for me. They were immense and having to cover two rookie full backs too. The fact we have got through with six points using full backs learning the game is great.

Only real worry is Solanke who doesn’t offer us any cover for our forwards if they get injured and we need Danjuma back soon.

What a night!!!
 
Solanke didn’t have his best game tonight for sure but let’s not be too harsh on the lad, he offers us something our other forwards don’t and although I don’t think he will provide goals galore he is the only forward we have capable of linking the play. If King had just held his run a second longer we’d be talking about what an intelligent piece of link play and a great assist. I think it’s fair to say everyone bar the two cb and Rambo were pretty poor second half anyway. Solanke was certainly no worse than the rest!
 
Solanke looked dreadful from the sofa !
Couldn’t hold it up at all and offered nothing .
We really need to have the wherewithal to play it out long when we need to - the amount of times we buggered about with it at the back and lost the ball , in both halves , was shocking .
At least Eddie saw it and said as much after the game .
But we scored a couple of great goals and sometimes you get the luck from digging in ....
 
Nice summary. As always I’m just going to piggyback on other match reports with my own player ratings:

Ramsdale 8 - Quick off his line, strong in the air, simple, effective shot stopping. Amazing how much more faith I have in this youth than I did in Begovic.

Stacey 5 - Feel this is quite a generous score. Has good qualities to his style of play but not quite up to speed with this level yet.

Cook 8 - Brutally effective, no nonsense defensive display. Solid as a rock. Poor for the penalty though it has to be said.

Ake 10 - Bet City wish they’d stumped up the money for him now eh.

Rico 7 - Suffered in the second half. However, he put in an awesome, swashbuckling display in the first half; playing a role in both goals. Starting to gel with the attackers as well.

H. Wilson 6 - Lovely finish; but again, fairly anonymous. He’s never bad, just doesn’t influence the game nearly enough for me.

Billing 7 - Sometimes too cool on the ball for his own good, and like others faded in the second half. But a great assist, with some all round decent midfield play.

Lerma 5 - Hmmm. Not good at all by his high standards. Very sloppy on the ball and not much of his trademark tackling either. Behaved after his stupid booking, but also didn’t influence the game much either.

King 7 - Gave this game absolutely everything. So many fantastic, driving runs, but poor when it came to release it.

Solanke 5 - Good link up play in the first half, but quite a ponderous, wasteful display in the second. Doesn’t look like a goalscorer atm.

Wilson 6 - Scrapes a 6 with that hilarious goal at the end. Was very poor throughout if we’re being honest though.


L. Cook 6 - Didn’t have too much of a say, some nice touches and dribbles.

Fraser 4 - Difficult game to come into, given the pressure we were under. But he didn’t really do anything well. Spent most of his time tracking back but without actually stopping attacks, and poor passing to boot. Was also apparently injured, so there’s that.

Surman SENSIBLE - Didn’t get a chance to see him do anything at all- but I’ll assume he did whatever he did sensibly.

Some general comments:
- Stains were an inform team, with a good defensive record, so to go there and score 3 is a fantastic achievement.
- If the second half was even a teeny bit better, I think we would have blown them away. Unfortunately the second half drags down most of the players overall scores.
- VAR doesn’t come into play if it involves overturning a refereeing error. I hate it, it’s pointless, it’s badly implemented, it’s inconsistent, its irredeemably shite. Could have cost us today.
- Ake is the best player outside the top 6, and is worth every damn penny of his “ridiculous” valuation. We’re lucky to have him.
- Ramsdale could well end this season with an England call up imo. Certainly better than Gunn was today.
- 4 consecutive 3-1 scores in our matches. Bit weird.
 
Far too harsh on Solanke. Part of his job is being in the right place to link up the play. Before our second goal (I think, unless it was King's disallowed one) he drops deep to be an outlet on the right hand side. This allows the attack to be built quickly when play is switched and voila, goal. This kind of play goes unnoticed so much.
 
Just reading the BBC report and it says we had 35% possession.

Anyone else surprised by that? I may be getting carried away with the win but thought we had nearly all the ball first half.
 
Just reading the BBC report and it says we had 35% possession.

Anyone else surprised by that? I may be getting carried away with the win but thought we had nearly all the ball first half.

Posted in another thread but the answer to this question

On the talk of stats, I do think we need to make to clear how the possession stat is calculated nowadays (as in since the mid-00s). It isn't like a chess clock, it's about numbers of passes. So I receive the ball from kick off, spend five minutes dribbling around everyone and shoot wide. Then keeper boots it upfield, they win a nod-down and the possession stats will say 66% opposition
 
Phil McNulty on the BBC website isn’t the best when it comes to reporting on teams like us but I think he calls it right. Southampton huffed and puffed in the 2nd half but Bournemouth were the more composed, clinical and powerful
 
Hard to determine possession at times, there were many periods when the ball switched from us to them and back and forth without anyone playing a pass or getting control of it. 35% does seem a bit low though.
I see they allegedly had 26 shots as well. Most of them were of more concern to the people sitting near the corner flag
 
Possession is based literally on the number of passes. A ruthlessly efficient counter attacking team don’t need many passes to score. A side that has 4 kickoffs will have more.

Seriously though, any PL club which scores twice relatively early against similar calibre of opposition will lose the possession battle. Had we gone behind early we’d have had 65% possession
 
....gritty performance and great win obviously, thought Lerma and Solanke were poor though, Callum was quiet probably because Southgate was there watching!....King,Rambo,Cook and Ake were immense.....would be surprised if Ramsdale doesn’t get into the England squad soon?
 

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