itsbeautifuloutside

Sotonian's Report

2nd v 3rd. Lots of optimism amongst Saints fans in the pub before the game, could Saints actually put some real space between them and the visitors?

The game started at a lively pace, which found Man City going for it from the start, running Saints ragged, Saints struggled to gain any sort of control of the ball, then after just 7 mins we had the first booking, Toure made a run towards the Saints area only to be pulled down from behind by Wanyama who was rightly booked, a booking this early did worry me, Wanyama now had to be careful, another booking followed just a couple of minutes later, Aguero got hacked down on the edge of the box by Fonte, amazingly the ref viewed this as an Aguero dive and promptly booked him.

After 15 mins Saints at last settled into the game, and had a great chance. A cross from Mane fell to Davis, who's shot was well saved by Hart. In the following scuffle Kompany managed to get in the way of Pellè and Tadić to stop them poking it home. The game now was a lot more even and very end to end.

Jovetic had a chance right in front of goal and probably should of scored, the shot goes through Forster's legs but is cleared off the line by Alderweireld.

Saints had a shout for a penalty, Pellè's cross hits Mangala on the arm, but nothing given, the rest of the half was fairly uneventful, with possession fairly even.

Half Time 0-0

The half time chat amongst Saints fans that we had ridden the early storm and were now more than matching them, the bookies were busy during the break, taking a lot of money on a Saints win.

Second half, the teams come out Yoshida was coming on for Saints, big check to see who had come off, when we realised it was for Schneiderlin, it caused a big crowd debate as to why it wasn't Cork coming on, it seemed strange to alter a defence which had defended so well in the first half, Alderweireld moved into midfield and with his first touch of the half had a great shot from distance that was very close, maybe Koeman had pulled a master stroke? (Ed. Those that had being paying attention at the start would have already noticed that Cork wasn't even on the bench!)

Following a broken down Saints attack, Man City broke away, Aguero had so much room in the box and laid it back to Touré who was unchallenged to hit a shot past Forster. 0-1.

This goal put Saints into shock and any disciplined game plan seemed to go out of the window, Man City seemed to now have so much space to play in.

Long came on for Mané to try to get things going again and it bought nearly instant results. On a run towards the goal Long gets pulled down by Mangala who gets his second yellow card of the game and is sent off. Saints had 15 minutes to play against 10 men to get something out of this game, the resulting free kick is wasted as Tadic hits the ball straight into the defensive wall.

Saints still didn't seem to have any structured plan in place and were panicking to all push forward, giving Man City so much room to play in. It was no real surprise when Man City grabbed a second goal, the two Man City subs Milner and Lampard combine to get the second, Lampard totally unchallenged put the ball in from the edge of the box.

A couple of minutes later, Aguero is through, one on one to the keeper, but Forster does exceptionally well to keep it out, but it was only a short reprieve, as following another dreadful Saints corner, Man City break away, the ball goes to Clichy who grabs the third, with a great shot into the top corner.

To rub salt into the wounds Kompany got injured and Man City played the last seven minutes with just 9 players, Saints still didn't look like scoring!

Final Score - Southampton 0 Man City 3

Saints have not suddenly become a bad team, it's just that you can't have an off day when playing a side with as much talent as Man City

sotonian

30th November 2014