itsbeautifuloutside

Southampton 2

• Rodriguez 23'
• Lambert 35'

Yet another wonderful game from Saints. This really is turning into a great season and Mauricio Pochettino has made a huge difference, both to the way the team plays and their self-belief. Once again Crash tells it like it is.

channonite

Match Report:

What I have been waiting for has just arrived, your friend and mine, consistency, And by this I don't mean consistently crap.

Also, a new-found belief in our defensive resilience, the ability for the coach to say "actually, we will keep them out, we won’t continue to press them and make our self exhausted, we will just not let them score." Brilliant.

That being said, there were a couple of disappointments but by and large, an excellent performance with a couple of big hitters missing (although some would say lallana is not regularly enough a big hitter?)

Player Ratings:

Boruc: Did well although not really presented with a lot in the way of things he had to do in the half he played, 6/10, no goals got scored and his kicking was as crap as ever but for some reason he does give me confidence.

Yoshida: He had a really good game, he has the unfortunate tendency to do something really idiotic at least once a game but thankfully yesterday it didn’t really matter. When he came out to get that ball and missed it entirely which let them through for a well taken goal (which thankfully turned out to be offside) I did think to myself “no please, not one of those games today Maya” but I was worrying for nothing. His pace was more than adequate to keep out Torres (who was quite obviously lost without his horse trigger… Boom boom). 8/10, I would have given him a solid nine if he learned to pass the ball properly.

Hooiveld: Jos did well although I was surprised that Torres beat him in the air as often as he did, still, not really troubled and covered well for a surprisingly badly playing Shaw. Good game and nice and solid 8/10.

Clyne: Carried on his excellent form from the Liverpool game, he is really starting to show just what a bargain we got when we got him to come to us. I like him a lot and I can tell why Chelsea like him too, pace, directness, willingness, intelligence… Some of the things he showed at the beginning of the season under Nigel, a lot of them he is now demonstrating on a much more regular basis playing for Pooch. 9/10, excellent and only beaten to man of the match by somebody we fecking love.

Shaw: This was the first game I can remember in a long time where he looked out of his depth from the first whistle to about 70 minutes he was okay going forward but hopeless defending. He demonstrated a distinct lack of motivation in getting back to his own position after running forward and by and large was Moses bitch. Saying that, the last 20 minutes he suddenly got his shit together. Ended the game on a bit of a high with the appearance of Foxy in front of him (brilliant substitution by the way) so not all bad. I think he just showed his Age a little bit against Chelsea, he caught it and got better so I’ll just leave it as a 6/10 for his attacking performance and fully expect him to be his normal mechanical brilliant self in the next match.

Davis: Very very solid, where he was needed and generally tried to get Shaw out of a hole as much as he could, still needs to work on his shooting but put in a good central midfield performance complementing Morgan and Corky well. If he keeps doing this I can’t see lallana or possibly even Ramirez getting much of a look in, this is the player we were hoping to see originally, simple play, lots of energy, box to box, actually, a good captain’s performance 7.5/10

Jack Cork: I’m running out of things to say about him, excellent performance, not perhaps as smooth as he usually is as he got some hassle from fat frank and co but still the glue that holds us together. Is there a better English midfielder playing at the moment?

Southampton

Possession

• Southampton 53%
• Chelsea 47%

Shots

• Southampton 13
• Chelsea 7

On target

• Southampton 8
• Chelsea 4

Corners

• Southampton 7
• Chelsea 7

Fouls

• Southampton 12
• Chelsea 6