Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Southampton will look to earn a modicum revenge for their EFL Cup back in February as they play host to Manchester United at St Mary’s in fairness there is nowhere near the same amount at stake as both teams season have all but come to a premiture end.
The Saints have actually moved up a position by virtue of Manchester City’s win over West Brom last night and they now find themselves 8th in the Premier League. So if they do have anything to play for it will be being the best of the rest what with the top 7 places having been locked out for some time.
Claude Puel took the opportunity to shuffle the pack away at Middlesbrough on Saturday but they still managed to come away with a relatively comfortable 2-1 win. It could and should have been more but Shane Long’s penalty is still flying in orbit somewhere in the North East.
Patrick Bamford’s scant consolation was not enough to cause Southampton any real scare as they delivered a first league win in five matches. A welcome one at that as failure to do so could have seen them as low as 11th. It’s an incredibly congested area of the table so any points they can get hold of in this final week will do them a world of good.
In terms of Puel’s first season it has been relatively successful. Should they finish 8th then it is not all that much of a drop off since Ronald Koeman departed for Everton last Summer, couple that with the aforementioned trip to Wembley and it has not been all that bad.
Southampton are perhaps at their natural level of 8th, I think its fair to say that they were slightly punching above their weight with Koeman but you do also have to take into account the annual summer purge of talent from the South Coast and this year should be no different.
There perhaps is not as much talent to prize away this Summer but the jewel in the crown Virgil Van Dijk will certainly be on a number of big teams shopping lists in the close season and he has more than likely already played his last football for the club.
One of the destinations that he ends up at could very well be Manchester United as although they seemed well stocked in centre backs there are a number of question marks hanging over some of the personnel and with another busy transfer window planned in the off season the former Celtic man could well call Old Trafford his home.
Jose Mourinho named four centre backs in his starting lineup last Sunday and it was not an inspired move as Tottenham ran out 2-1 winners. Both goals came from crosses as the make shift full backs of Phil Jones and Daley Blind failed to deal with the constant wide problems that Tottenham caused.
In a sense the team that Mourinho named was something of a free hit as by now we all know that the Europa League Final is the sole focus for United so in defeat he can quite simply point to the fact that this was a much changed starting eleven what with the fixture against Ajax in mind.
You could also make a case for Jose Mourinho perhaps giving some of those fringe players enough rope to hang themselves what with the performance they gave on Sunday. Phil Jones looked pedestrian for most of the game while Michael Carrick was showing signs of age as he and the rest of the team failed to deal with Tottenham’s high tempo.
This game like Sunday is a dead rubber for United so expect to see a similar line up to the one that took part in the final White Hart Lane fixture at the weekend. Truth be told it is hard to get excited about this one if Mourinho is showing the same level of contempt. Two well rested sides, you do the maths. Result….who cares!
