Southampton V Everton The Preview Friday, 30th Sep 2022 11:14 Saints take on the toffee's barely 7 months after last hosting them back in February, a game that saw Shane Long come off the bench and secure a well deserved late victory, a lot has changed at both club's since then. Little did we know it as we poured out of St Mary's buzzing after a great win, 7 or so months ago, that things were about to change, we would win against Norwich a week later that would give us hopes of a top 10 finish, but after that we collapsed in spectacular style. But as I have said, things have changed, if we look at the line up that started against Everton back in February, of the 20 players on duty that day, 8 are not playing their football at St Mary's this season, either left permanently of gone out on loan.
Of the other 11, Theo Walcott & Willy Caballero are fringe players now and sadly Tino Livramento is out injured. So that leaves just 9 of last season's 20 who are likely to play any part against Everton on Saturday afternoon. That perhaps highlights just how much change has gone on over the summer at St Mary's and of course with change comes periods of adapting, that being the case the fact that we have got 7 points out of the opening 7 fixtures is a steady if unspectacular start.
I do have to have a wry smile though on social media when I see the same people who back in August were ranting about Ralph Hasenhuttl and how with a tough opening fixture list we would be lucky to get 1 or 2 points are now complaining that we have only got 7 points , they make every disappointing result such as the Aston Villa game as the one to judge progress on, not the wins such as against Chelsea. However as mentioned 7 points is solid, but we know that the squad can do better, we know it is a better squad than a year ago and it is now time to look to the future not the past.
But the visit of Everton is very much a game we have to win, it is fine to go on about promising youngsters and better squad's but having made a solid start we now have to go on and turn that into more wins and this is a game that could see us up in the top 10 after the final whistle and looking back at Everton or it could see us looking firmly over our shoulders again. So from this respect it is one we really need to take all three points from. Everton though have become a team that is hard to beat, they don't score very many, but they don't concede many either, they are unbeaten in their last 5 Premier League fixtures, they won last time out 1-0 against West Ham at Goodison and preceded that with 4 draws, three of them 1-1 and a 0-0 against old enemies Liverpool.
But in their opening games they have not faced two many teams of note, Chelsea at home in their opening fixture and Liverpool are their only opponents of note so far this season. They have relied heavily on their goalkeeper Jordan Pickford who was outstanding against Liverpool when the 0-0 scoreline didn't reflect the game. However Pickford wasn't in goal for the clean sheet against West Ham missing that game with a thigh injury, Frank Lampard has said he is now fit and returned to training on Wednesday, but for a goalkeeper being fit is not the main criteria to the job, it is all about timing and confidence and that comes from playing games.
Pickford has had a month out since his last game, that means he won't be as sharp as he would have been when he was superb against Liverpool in that fixture, we have to pinpoint that and put him under pressure, PIckford is a good keeper, but his temperament is his flaw, when things go wrong he loses concentration and when his timing is out he makes mistakes, we have to look at that and exploit it. But this is not going to be an easy fixture indeed it is going to be one that we don't historically flourish in, we like to play against teams that will come out at us, but the stats say that is not how Everton are playing at present, they look to keep a clean sheet first off and then see what they can get. They themselves will be much changed since that defeat back in February so it will be hard to judge progress made against last season for either side. So what team will Ralph put out, most Saints fans will probably be in agreement with most of the starting line up. I would think that there would not be much challenge to the selection of Gavin Bazunu in goal, Salisu & Bella-Kotchap in the centre of defence, James Ward Prowse in the centre of midfield and Adam Armstrong & Che Adams up front.
Those 6 places are in my mind nailed on for this game based on form and also who else is available, some may disagree with the two strikers, but as of yet Sekou Mara has shown flourishes but not enough to force his way into the starting line up. So who should fill the other positions ? This will depend on the formation Ralph wants to us, I would suspect that we would got for 4 at the back, so who will play left back ? the three candidates are Moussa Djenepo, Romain Perraud and new boy Juan Larios, I know most won't agree but Djenepo might be the man here, he has pace and we are likely to be spending more time in Everton's half than defending against them, from this perspective he offers more of an attacking option than the other two.
in the centre of midfield i would expect Ibrahima Diallo to be the holding player alongside JWP and in front of them Joe Aribo. Diallo is getting criticism in some quarters, but truth is he is not a creative player, his job is to work hard and spoil, when he gets the ball to pass it short and quickly, he does this well, but some think he should be hitting 25 yard passes and spraying the ball around, but that isn't his game, it is about chasing and harrying not what he does with the ball. Wide men in midfield should be either Stuart Armstrong & Samuel Edozie
Bazunu. Walker Peters, Bella-Kotchap, Salisu, Djenepo S Armstrong, Ward Prowse, Diallo, Adams, A Armstrong This I think should be our starting line up, it has the balance of a solid formation that can adapt during the game, but it also has an attacking look to it. But we should also have a strong bench that can offer us different things depending on the game. So Alex McCarthy in goal aside I would expect to see. Caleta-Car That for me would be our best line up given the players that appear to be available, although it would not surprise me to see Romeu Lavia on the bench although he may be a week or two away from a full return yet.
So of course this is a must win game for Saints, every game is a must win, but what we need to do is start to turn the doubters into believers about what this squad can do. Yes in hindsight it could now be said we should have made a better start and certainly the results at Wolves and Villa were disappointing, but it should be remembered that at the start of the season we were trying assimilate 6 new players into the squad and for the last two games another 4 more, this takes time. So a win against the Toffee's will make everything look a lot better, lets make this a game where we click as a team and start to turn a young promising squad into one that can challenge for something higher than 14th place. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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