Southampton 3 City 0
Report by Colin Murrant
A 12.00 Sunday afternoon kick-off time, a 150-mile journey to Southampton with no public transport to get you there on time, the match live on SKY, yet a full contingency of the faithful City fans made that journey. By half time most of them probably wished they hadn’t bothered. By that time, City had conceded two and looked in total disarray.
The match had been switched to Sunday from its original Monday night slot to accommodate The Saints EFLC 2nd leg match at Anfield. The City fans were housed in the Northam stand, the day was cold yet very sunny and an increasing number of the city fans had to shade their eyes to see as the sun moved east to south. There was good humour amongst the two sets of fans with some Soton fans applauding Leicester as they sang ‘We know who we are, Champions of England ….’ Now I know on some blogs there is some thought that singing this in our current plight is embarrassing, personally I think sing it, we may never have the opportunity again.
The match started with city defending the Northam stand end, the formation was not obvious but thanks to Ranieri’s apology afterwards we now know it was a midfield diamond with Ndidi at the rear, Mendy and Drinkwater either side, and Okazaki at the front: Vardy was up front with Gray who focussed primarily on the left wing.
What was obvious in the formation was that no one seemed to know what they were doing, with Drinkwater in particular looking increasingly frustrated. If any system was open to be pulled apart then it was this and anyone who saw MOTD2 will have seen Danny Murphy do just that; one still showed all four of the diamond on the left wing within 5 yards of each other. The confusion allowed Southampton to press on against Simpson and Fuchs as the full-backs were exposed; the fact that neither played well exacerbated the situation.
In the early exchanges The Saints were on time and Højbjerg went close with a shot and then City appeared to be getting into the game. Gray had a couple of good runs dipping his shoulder and ghosting past defenders but he got over ambitious with his shots when Vardy was better placed.
However, in the 26th minute City fell behind as their midfield frailties were exposed. Van Dijk's cross-field pass set Redmond away, he cut inside Fuchs, passed to Soares who whipped in a low cross and a crisp, spinning shot from Ward-Prowse from 18 yards that eluded Schmeichel’s despairing dive.
A few minutes later a bizarre incident occurred when Schmeichel collected the ball and, looking for a quick outlet to Gray, had to withhold his kick as Gray was not in position. Kasper was none too pleased and was seen to be shouting and gesticulating at Gray.
On 39 minutes the match was effectively over as a Southampton free-kick on the City right was headed badly by Huth and the ball fell to Rodriguez who drilled home from 5 yards.
In the second half Albrighton replaced Mendy as City returned to a more familiar 4-4-2. Leicester looked to compound their misery when a poor clearance from Schmeichel resulted in an even worse pass from Fuchs who set Højbjerg in on goal, luckily his shot went wide of the far post.
A city corner resulted in Huth heading the ball to Morgan who somehow conspired to shoot wildly over when unchallenged and about 6 yards out. The day then got worse for Morgan, who is looking increasingly out of sorts, as first he conceded an own goal from a free kick only for a crazy off-side decision to save his blushes. Then minutes later, beaten for pace, he clumsily brought down Rodriguez for a blatant penalty, Tadic firing home from the spot. This was the point for an exodus for a lot of city fans in what had been another lethargic performance and a Lazy Sunday Afternoon.
As I was taking my grandson back to Chichester on the train, I reflected that it was little under a year from that magnificent win at Manchester City and how I came out the Etihad that day and for the first time thought this really could happen, we could win the Premier League. Sunday I was thinking, we really could get relegated, recent performances give little reason to be optimistic particularly as Swansea and Hull are showing signs of a fighting spirit under new management; it’s my opinion that fighting spirit is our biggest failing.
We magnificently won the league which surpassed all of our expectations with a bunch of good but not great players, and I imagine that all their expectations, if not their dreams, were surpassed as well. Whatever they do, or we as fans witness, nothing will ever eclipse last season, and therefore if one have done the best one ever can by excelling yourself above your wildest dreams, do you have the motivation and drive to do it all again? If that theory is correct, and I really hope that I am wrong, then whatever system the Tinkerman plays, it will not get results.
In terms of optimism I think Mendy and Ndidi will be assets to the side, Gray is dynamic if not team aware yet, Chilwell is a better option than Fuchs at this moment in time. Amartey is still away with Ghana and I think he will be a good player, will he be ultimately that speedy centre-back we crave? Mahrez and Slimani are both now on their way back from the African Cup of Nations and both have found the net during the competition. However, the senior players need to step up to the plate and ease the youngsters through this last half of the season.
SOUTHAMPTON: Forster, Soares, Yoshida, Rodriguez (Long 80), Tadic, Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Van Dijk (Stephens 55), Bertrand, Redmond, Højbjerg (Clasie 73) , SUBS NOT USED: Taylor, Martina, Sims, McQueen
GOALS: Ward-Prowse 26, Rodriguez 39, Tadic pen 85
CITY: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan (c), Huth, Fuchs, Ndidi, Mendy (Albrighton 46), Drinkwater, Gray, Okazaki (Musa 63), Vardy
SUBS NOT USED: Chilwell, King, Kapustka, Zieler, Benalouane
REFEREE: Michael Oliver Attendance 30,548
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation