Saints V Everton The Verdict Monday, 27th Nov 2017 11:48 Saints produced their most comprehensive home performance in 18 months to put Everton to the sword and show that they can now look up the table and not down it. Mauricio Pellegrino didn't change much in terms of tactics, indeed when the team news came through before kick off many cynics in the Saints support were predicting another dire attacking performance. But the difference was that in Charlie Austin up front Saints had a target man for the crossing ability of their wide players, I have been saying for weeks that the issue was not one of a poor squad, but one of playing to our strengths, suddenly Saints wide men had a player to aim for who could scrap for the ball in the box and win headers, no disrespect to Manolo Gabbiadini, but that isn't his game and we haven't the players in the squad who can pass the ball enough times to get him in on goal. But it was a test of Saints character, after going ahead with a well worked Dusan Tadic goal Saints dominated possession and looked comfortable, then in on the stroke of half time came an equaliser out of the blue, it was an unstoppable shot, hit with such force and to a millimetre accuracy, it shaved the underside of the bar bounced down, bounced back up again and then went in off the post. At half time you wondered whether this would be a hammer blow to Saints and revive Everton and which way the game would go. But Saints showed they had found the character missing in recent weeks and again in was Ryan Bertrand who was the provider and Charlie Austin powered home a header from an angle. On 58 minutes Everton were effectively beaten with another Austin header, this time Tadic being the provider and from then on it would only be a case of how many. But despite a couple of good efforts and most of the attacking play it would only see one other goal for Saints with Steven Davis rifling home an effort from the edge of the box to complete the scoring, a fifth goal would have seen Saints leapfrog Brighton into 9th, but sadly this would not be the case. It was in many respects a perfect performance from Saints with only that wonder goal as a blot on the copybook, they won the game, kept things tight to close it out and made some good substitutions. The good thing though was that not only did Saints provide the result, but they provided the performance, yes some will say it was only Everton a team in disarray, but their performance was no worse than our half hearted display at Anfield last weekend, we can only beat what is in front of us. So what prompted this change around, in essence Pellegrino changed little in terms of the way the team was set up, but the difference was Charlie Austin, he provided an outlet for the teams method of attacking, as mentioned earlier if you are going to rely on crosses, not only from the likes of Tadic etc, but the overlapping play of Bertrand and Soares, then you need someone who can hold his own in the box and Austin is best equipped from all our strike options to do that. The team spirit seemed to be back and clearly there had been a clear the air meeting in the dressing room during the week, the team played to their strengths and reaped the rewards with some decent performances from those who have been out of favour and also under fire players. Fraser Forster had little to do but what he did he did well and could not be faulted with the goal. Dusan Tadic scored a sublime goal and created another and looked more like the player he was in his first two seasons at the club. Pierre Emile Hojbjerg was in many peoples eyes man of the match, he did everything right and showed why he could have a big future at the club. James Ward Prowse alongside Steven Davis controlled the midfield and finally Charlie Austin did what he used to do so well and that is score goals, hopefully that can continue. This is a good Saints squad, it just needed to get back to basics and play to it's strengths. But one good win doesn't change everything, what it shows us is that we can now move up the table, Mauricio Pellegrino now has to show that he has learned his lessons and will continue to do so, if he does then perhaps those calling for his head were premature, but one win is not going to decide that. We now go to Manchester City, in essence a free hit in that we are expected to lose to them, after all they have won every game but one, but we have the players to go their and perhaps raise a few eyebrows. So this result has bought us time, we are as near to Burnley in 7th as we are West Ham who are 3rd from bottom, we sit in 10th, but we are a team that has had our bad patch and come through it, we now need to get the City game out of the way and look to get a run of games together where we put a few points on the table, if we can end the year still in and around 10th then we will have played 4 of the top six away from home and come through it well. Last week I was despondent. this week I have a lot more hope than I thought I would, yes it was only Everton, but too often both this and last season we have failed to put away the so called lesser sides when we really should have, so from that perspective we have the green shoots of recovery. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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