

Southampton v Crystal Palace
Tuesday, 2nd January 2018
Match Report
IBO Reporter : channonite
Talk about a game of two halves, totally on top in the first and with Shane Long scoring his first goal since last February. Then came the second half and Roy Hodgson completely outmanoeuvred MP2. From the moment McArthur scored for Palace in the 69th minute, there was only one team that was going to win the match and it wasn’t Saints.
The first bad news came with the team selection, as Hoedt was missing, having suffered concussion at Old Trafford. In his place was Stephens, with Pied slotting into the right back place. Otherwise it was a case of ‘as you were’.
From the start Saints were completely on top and could have had two, or three goals, by the time Long swept home a cross from Pied in the 17th minute. In fact, such was their dominance, that the halftime stats showed Saints with more than 70% possession.
I will bet that there were a few fans who thought at halftime that we might go on to win by a greater margin, but this is the new Saints, where one goal is never, ever going to be enough.
Almost immediately it became clear that something had changed. Saints looked tentative, whereas Palace looked transformed. At this point the only change to the personnel was that van Aanholt had replaced Cabaye, but the Wiley old fox, Roy Hodgson had changed the formation and Pellegrino was slow to realise what had happened. At 64 minutes he brought on Sako for Schlupp and the team was now a full 4-4-2 and Saints were overrun in defence.
This paid almost immediate dividends, with McArthur volleying home for the equaliser in the 69th minute.
Now Pellegrino reacted. He brought on Gabbiadini, Davis and Redmond for Højbjerg, Ward-Prowse and Tadić. This only made matters worse and they were now backpedaling under the onslaught.
You just knew what was going to happen and sure enough, it did, in the 80th minute. Milivojevic curling in a shot from 25 yards, which McCarthy clearly thought was going wide. It wasn’t. The crowd started to drift away. According to Solent there were huge gaps in the stands by the end of the match. The Palace fans were naturally boisterous. A small amount of extra time cam and went. Saints were now all but in the bottom three of the Premier League, only saved that ignominy on goal difference.
Make no mistake, unless someone does something soon, this club will be in the Championship next year.
This man was the difference for Crystal Palace
Southampton
13 McCarthy
26 Pied
5 Stephens
3 Yoshida
21 Bertrand
14 Romeu
23 Højbjerg (Gabbiadini 75')
16 Ward-Prowse (Davis 70')
11 Tadić (Redmond 79')
19 Boufal
7 Long
Substitutes
8 Davis
18 Lemina
20 Gabbiadini
22 Redmond
33 Targett
35 Bednarek
44 Forster
Crystal Palace
13 Hennessey
24 Fosu-Mensah - Booked 57'
34 Kelly
5 Tomkins
15 Schlupp (Sako 64')
18 McArthur
4 Milivojevic
10 Townsend
7 Cabaye (van Aanholt 45')
11 Zaha
17 Benteke
Substitutes
1 Speroni
3 van Aanholt
14 Lee Chung-yong
23 Souaré
26 Sako
27 Delaney
44 Riedewald
PREMIER LEAGUE
Season 2017-18
Southampton 1
- Long 17'
Crystal Palace 2
- McArthur 69'
- Milivojevic 80'
HT 1-0
Referee : Stuart Attwell
Attendance : 28,411
Possession
- Southampton 61%
- Crystal Palace 39%
Shots
- Southampton 10
- Crystal Palace 11
Shots on Target
- Southampton 3
- Crystal Palace 4
Corners
- Southampton 4
- Crystal Palace 7
Fouls
- Southampton 8
- Crystal Palace 11