Saints V Swansea City The Verdict Wednesday, 1st Feb 2017 09:40 On a day when Saints failed to land a central defender in the January window, their defensive frailties were exposed down in South Wales. Claude Puel cannot be accused of not putting out his strongest side for this one, apart from Virgil Van Dijk this would probably be as strong a team that we could take the field with injuries or no injuries. So where did it all go wrong ? Saints started brightly enough, after 15 minutes you thought that this might be an easy three points, but then Swansea started to become more direct and to be blunt we struggled to cope with it and when they scored just before half time it was no surprise. Our two central defenders were constantly muscled off the ball and we had lost all sense of confidence and rhythm. The second half started in the polar opposite of the first, the home side dominated and we looked like we would be in for a drubbing if we were not careful. But then Shane Long scored and the game turned on its head, from then on in the main we pushed the Swans back and they were looking decidedly nervous. Now with Sofiane Boufal pulling the strings and showing why we paid so much for him you felt that Saints were the only side who could win this game. But they once again failed to turn chances into goals, only two shots on target in the whole game is perhaps the story of the season and then came the moment Swansea won the game and this perhaps showed why we needed to sign a quality central defender. Saints were camped in Swansea's box one minute and then seconds later the home side had broke and we appeared to have left no one back to cope with it, with two against one we did well to hold them up and get men back, but having seemingly done the hard work, we then allowed them too much time to pick a pass and Sigurdsson had too much time to pick his spot in Fraser Forster's right hand corner. This was a total lack of concentration and a total lack of discipline in the back four, Yoshida had gone walkabout when he should be marshalling his troops. I said after the Liverpool game that the result papered over the fact that on the night we had left Liverpool unmarked in the box with a free shot at goal, it was only poor finishing that saved us, yes we had defended stoically for most of the game, but that is worth nothing if you keep losing concentration at crucial times, at Swansea we were punished for that. But we cannot change this result now, all we can do is look forward, the main problem this season has been scoring goals and we now have Shane Long in scoring form having hit 3 goals in the last 4 games he has started and in the one in the last five when he came on as a sub he earned a penalty. It is essential that he is kept in the team whilst his confidence is high, we can now also add Manolo Gabbiadini to the mix. Claude Puel is at crisis point now, yes some of that is not of his making due to our horrendous injury list, but some of it is and he needs to rectify that. On Saturday he needs to show that he will pick his strongest team and that he needs to play players in form to give them confidence and get the momentum back in the team. He has to answer a few tough questions on Saturday, he has Long scoring goals, he has Sofiane Boufal looking fit and raring to go and a player who can create chances and he has a new striker, will he start them all on Saturday or will he just keep doing the same things and getting the same results ? Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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