Southampton V Grimsby Town The Verdict Thursday, 2nd Mar 2023 10:41 Saints departed the FA Cup to League Two opposition in shocking fashion, this display was as bad as any that the two previous managers had presided over, so you have to ask what has changed. Saints as expected dominated the game against a Grimsby side who have not exactly been setting the League Two table alight, but as at Leeds on Saturday and to be blunt in countless games this season before, what cost them the game was the shocking lapses in concentration in defending. The team selection saw multiple changes in the starting line up from Ruben Selles first two games, only Romain Perraud and Romeo Lavia survived from the 11 that had been in Selles two line ups since taking over from Nathan Jones. But you have to say that 6 of the side were new signings this season, alongside some experienced Premier League pros and it should have been a side capable of beating Grimsby.
However when looking at the bench you had to say that Selles had left himself little proven attacking options, of course Che Adams was injured, but there was no place for the two latest signings Onauchu & Sulemana nor Stuart Armstrong & Moi Elyounoussi. This would come back to haunt us. It was no surprise to see such a poor crowd, given that there were over 4,000 Grimsby fans in the crowd, the announced attendance of 17 thousand something meant that this was perhaps the lowest number of home supporters in the ground for a truly competitive game in many a year, perhaps ever. Perhaps this wasn't truly Saints hour of need, but the reality was that the Saints support had voted with their feet and deserted their side. That meant the first half mirrored the support, at one end you had 4,000 visiting supporters celebrating their cup final as the song goes and the other 3 sides were at best busy but quietish or as in the Chapel end virtually empty. On the pitch that meant that you had a Grimsby team battling their socks off and a Saints team passing the ball around well but with no real intent.
On the one occasion when it looked like we had scored a well taken shot from Sekou Mara, VAR took about 4 minutes to decide it was offside, yes it was but anyone watching the TV would tell you, within the first viewing it was clearly off, so why did it take so long. Saints paid the price shortly before half time, they had a lase in concentration and Grimsby broke down the right, in the build up the ball appeared to have hit the players arm, so under the rules this should have been disallowed, however VAR seemed to conveniently ignore this, the ball was crossed and it hit Lyanco's arm, was his arm in a un natural position ? no ! again VAR took 3-4 minutes before calling the ref over to take a look, in my book total ineptitude by the officials. The second half started as badly as the first ended, the ball went back to Alex McCarthy from a through ball, no one complained about anything, but Caleta-Car appeared to have punched or perhaps even shot the Grimsby player who went down like a bag of ****. Again VAR showed that Caleta Car had slightly slapped him on the back, any other area in the pitch it would not have been given, but again after a long VAR look it was, it was just embarrassing, if you are going to give free kicks or indeed penalties for this then the game is finished, I am in favour of VAR, but the way it is being used is scandalous. Ruben Selles took a little time over subs, but they were a combination of obvious, JWP for Lavia was the right move, Lavia was having a good game, but he is essentially a holding midfielder , Edozie for Orsic was perhaps justified, Orsic hadn't really got into the game, but then again Edozie has yet to produce any end product and this would be the case again. On 65 minutes Caleta-Car atoned for his error with a well taken goal after being left unmarked in the style of the Saints defence 2022/23 and you thought there would be only one result.
But truth is that we had no firepower left to bring on, Walcott & Aribo arrived and it did look like Walcott had equalised, but up popped VAR again for a decision that was measured in millimetres. This was a time when we needed a goal scorer, yet we took off two who were potential scorers and brought on two who have barely played since before the World Cup break. Everything we produced in the last half hour was driven by Ward Prowse & Walker Peters, who constantly played balls down the right wing, but rarely did we get a chance produced and this was the problem, some would moan at Adam Armstrong and Mara, but when were they given a chance to get an effort in, very rarely.
It could have been worse , Romain Perraud tried to be too clever when the last man and luckily we got away with it. This was an appalling result which showed us a couple of things, firstly nothing has changed, we are still making schoolboy errors at the back and not producing good chances at the other end. Secondly if Nathan Jones had picked this team to start the game he would have been booed on to the bench, let alone at the end. The problem before the World Cup break was never the manager, but what Ralph Hasenhuttl had to work with, he didn't have a striker and he had plenty of injury issues. We sacked a good experienced manager who would have seen us through the storm.
I left the game feeling that the board had bowed to the fans in sacking Hassenhuttl and had been to quick to appoint Nathan Jones, no one can make any excuses for Jones he was out of his depth, but again we were too quick to replace him, the crowd were backing Selles both before, during and after the Chelsea game and the club announced that they were appointing him to the end of the season. That may come back to bite us, they jumped in before testing the water properly. Selles made the mistake in this game of picking a second string side and compounded that by leaving himself no get out of jail cards on the bench, no Tall Paul, no Sulemana and he too appears to have listened to the crowd in naming Dominic Ballard as a sub and bringing him on for the final 4 minutes.
It was a desperate gamble, Ballard did little, not entirely his fault, there was little being produced, Selles hoped for a fairytale home debut, with a late goal as in his only other appearance in the Carabao Cup at Cambridge, sadly it didn't happen. Well done to Grimsby Town, yes our performance handed them the game, but they deserved their win by the sheer guts they showed and a determination not to lose. Truth is now Selles has to vindicate his decision to rest so many by bringing back these players for the visit of Leicester on Saturday, that is all that matters now, the only good news of the night was Everton's defeat at Arsenal, not only does it mean we are still only 3 points behind them with a game in hand, but there are now only a 3 goal goal difference between us. They travel to Nottingham Forest, defeat for them there and us beating Leicester could see us go above them.
This game is now done and dusted, we have to move forward and march on, on Saturday we need a full house roaring us on, if we get that it means one thing is in place to enable us to win and we will then find out if Ruben Selles is the man for the job and indeed if he has the players up for the task ahead. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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