Southampton v Swansea

[jackaway]

Southampton v Swansea Sat 18 Oct 12:30

Swans had nine players on International duty. They travel to Southampton on Friday for Saturday early kick-off. :

Lawrence Vigouroux, Chile - Iran v Chile - Tue night match cancelled
Ethan Galbraith, NI - N. Ireland v Germany - played full match Mon night
Adam Idah, RoI - Republic of Ireland v Armenia - played last 10 mins Tue night
Zan Vipotnik, Slovenia
Cam Burgess, Australia - USA v Australia - played full match, finished 4am Wed morning
Marko Stamenic, New Zealand - Norway v New Zealand - played 76 mins Tue night
Ben Cabango, Wales - Wales v Belgium - played full match Mon night
Liam Cullen, Wales - Wales v Belgium - unused sub Mon night
Eom Ji-Sung, S. Korea - S Korea v Paraguay - played 66 mins Tue night
Malick Yalcouy? - Ivory Coast U-23 no record found since last game in June

Cannot see Burgess playing he will be jet-lagged

[jackaway]

Both teams have had average starts to the season, Saints winning three from nine games so far.
Southampton had a torrid time last season in the Premier League finishing bottom after being promoted from the Championship through the play-offs with Russell Martin in charge. Here is the final table:
W2 D6 L30 F26 A86 GD-60 Pts12
Half way through the season, on 15 Dec Martin was sacked after a 5-0 home defeat against Spurs. He left the club with 1 league win in 16 matches, and Saints bottom of the league.
Former Roma boss Ivan Juric took over from Martin on 21 Dec and fared just as badly, lasting only 108 days and relegating Saints with only one win to his name.
Will Still was appointed head-coach in May from French Ligue One RC Lens.

[jackaway]

I left out Zan Vipotnik - Slovenia, he came on in the 70 minute Slovenia 0 v Switzerland 0

Burgess was playing for USA in Colorado until 4 am this Wednesday morning. Can’t see him getting back here to make the Southampton match, so who takes his place. His back-up is new signing Ricardo Santos who has been recovering from injury and is yet to make a first team start.

[jackaway]

UK is 7 hours ahead of Denver, Colorado. I expect Cam Burgess will catch this BA flight back to UK tonight and be met at the airport by a Swans rep and driven back to Swansea. It must be exhausting travelling long distance for all these players involved in international friendlies.

Denver(DEN)
18:35
Scheduled: 18:35, Oct 15
Denver International Airport

9h flight time

London(LHR)
09:55
Scheduled: 10:35, Oct 16
Heathrow Airport T5

[jackaway]

It will be a welcome relief to get back to Championship football after watching Wales losing against England and Belgium.
Can Swans give us something to cheer about on Saturday?

[Estoban]

Still waiting for a revenge win against that lot after they relegated us from the PL all those years ago when they had Mark Hughes in charge.
For us it’s been an underwhelming start to the season after a busy transfer window with supposed quality additions coming in and as a result our expectations were high. I can’t see our ambitious owners putting up with poor results if the trend continues much longer.
The coaching team led by Sheehan are underperforming as well as the players, with odd team selections, tactics and substitutions.
The defeat against an average Leicester side was hard to take, especially with our best signing of the summer Galbraith on the bench.
The International break will not have helped either, with so many of the squad absent.

[Estoban]

If Burgess is not fit to play who will replace the left-footed left centre-back?
Kaelan Casey is a right-footed right centre-back, so is Cabango.
Ricardo Santos can play on either side, but his natural foot is right, which typically indicates he plays on the right side of central defence. Will he be risked as he is coming back from injury and has not played a first team game yet since signing in the summer.

[Iolo]

Alan Sheehan Press Conference - Southampton game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HVa36JvU4o

[Iolo]

Here we go guys, back to league football after two weeks off. Tough game this one, first of seven in the next three weeks.
He’s going to have to utilise the squad without affecting performances.
After this batch of games we’ll have a clearer idea of whether we can do something this season or remain a mid-table team.

[jackaway]

Southampton: Alex McCarthy, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Adam Armstrong (c), Ronnie Edwards, Leo Scienza, Nathan Wood, Cameron Archer, Caspar Jander, Shea Charles, Welington, Elias Jelert

Subs: Gavin Bazunu, Ryan Manning, Flynn Downes, Jack Stephens, Finn Azaz, Tom Fellows, Ryan Fraser, Damion Downs, Jay Robinson


Swansea: Lawrence Vigouroux, Josh Key, Ben Cabango (c), Cameron Burgess, Josh Tymon, Marko Stamenic, Goncalo Franco, Ethan Galbraith, Ronald, Zeidane Inoussa, Zan Vipotnik

Subs: Andy Fisher, Jay Fulton, Melker Widell, Malick Yalcouye, Jisung Eom, Ishe Samuels-Smith, Liam Cullen, Kaelan Casey, Adam Idah

[jackaway]

FT: 0-0
Good away point if you hadn’t seen the match. We were awful. It was so one sided. Pure good fortune that Southampton didn’t score, they should have had four or five goals. Key was targeted as our weak link and he had a torrid time, beaten continuously out on the right, not that anybody else was much better.

[jackaway]

Post match reaction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UB6udcs2Y

[Estoban]

Such a one sided match, here are the extended highlights and it is a grim watch -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C-bjWVYoLs

[Estoban]

Southampton the worst side in the PL last season. It looked like Southampton were playing a non league side yesterday with their dominance and all the chances they had. Surely we can do better than that.

[Iolo]

It’s all about results and it was an unexpected point at a place that we’ve rarely done well. We move on guys and gals.
The team must be given the benefit of the doubt with travel fatigue for some due to the international call ups plus they are still not gelling as expected.