Saints ran out comfortable winners against Jiangsu Sunning on Wednesday evening, our man in China gives his report.

Mark Hughes took this game a little more seriously than the last in that he chose not to switch the entire side round at half time, it should be remembered that the Chinese side are just coming out of a month long mid season break and Saints are barely a week into pre season training and it showed.

Too many passes went astray and there was too much sloppiness, when Manolo Gabbiadini headed home in the 26th minute it looked like it would be easy for Saints but within 8 minutes they were behind and it was all down to sloppiness at the back. But they drew level when Nathan Redmond slotted home from the edge of the box after an awful flap from the keeper.

Hughes kept faith with most of the side at half time and in truth a couple of scrapes aside when Fraser Forster made a smart save or two, Saints had much of the ball, the game was won by a smartly taken goal from Sam Gallagher and it was a deserved win that in the final stages looked like it could have been by more.

Overall verdict is that this is a game that is difficult to take anything out of it, it is too early in the preparations for Saints to be anything like fit or sharp, it was all about team bonding and most of the squad to get a feel of the ball.

It was not about the result but about Mark Hughes getting to know his squad and where he needs to improve, with the slack defending for both goals he may have a few ideas.

Photo: Action Images

IWOZTHERE added 16:32 - Jul 12 No doubt it was a useful workout. I saw none of it but I was concerned to hear that Hoedt looked shaky at times. I hope Vestergaard comes in soon enough for MH to mould our back line into an effective unit before the season starts.Does anyone else think we may have an 'understanding' over a move for Bert? I hope not, but it seems strange that we turned down that £10m bid for Targett?

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BuyEastleighFC4aBtea added 17:48 - Jul 12 I've seen the highlights, and our defence looked shocking! Blooding shocking in fact! I also disagree with ulgy that the result isn't important I've heard that tosh before! Mainly from our Academy coach Fleming and that's why we are no longer in the Elite academy league and failed to return to the top league why we haven't sacked I'll never know? That aside good luck to the new intake of youngsters! So yes mind set matters a winning mindset.. we also need two new centre halfs ours need to improve the guy said to sign at any moment isn't much better why his team still let in 50 goals sorry Reed plus blackbox has failed us again mark my words I've said many times we need Johnthan T.a.h.

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underweststand added 18:57 - Jul 12 To Buy Eastleigh to be fair (if thats possible) ..the U18's especially had a wretched season injury-wise, and even played a number of 16 year olds at times. They weren't helped by losing key players through injury and even Obafemi ...who moved up to U23 level (for similiar reasons). They looked much better after New Year after we acquired the talented Enzo Robise, and finally finished the season strongly win 3 wins in the last 4 games. It's hard to criticise (Fleming ) and the U18's where some years ago the likes of JWP, Targett and Shaw stood out as stars in comparison to a lot of younger lads who (sadly) never made it to the higher level.

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redandwhitedee added 20:44 - Jul 12 Shame ‘man in china’ didn’t take his report more seriously. After the few lines on the last “report” and now this .. I hope he already lives out there and didn’t fly all the way for that. Or maybe just watched on internet.
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highfield49 added 08:38 - Jul 13 All I've seen are the brief clips showing the goals on the official site. The club might be wondering if that was a good idea in view of the criticism some of the sloppy play from defenders, as well as Romeu and Lemina, is bound to attract. What really surprised me though was the lack of any elation from the goalscorers, it was the sort of muted reaction you see from players who have just relegated their former club. I'm wondering if this is a Chinese cultural thing, that it is in some way disrespectful to humiliate your hosts, and the players were told to be somewhat less than animated. Only guessing, anyone actually know?

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andywelsh added 12:50 - Jul 13 This game is little more than a training game so early in pre season. I doubt any players would be somersaulting with joy if they scored in training and the response to scoring in this game was appropriate with the seriousness of the match.
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KriSaint added 19:23 - Jul 13 Yes - our goal scorers didn´t smile for any of our goals (?) but lookedquite heavily suffering from the heat in stead. The most annoying thing was that Redmond looked like starting an argument about something after having scored....(?) LOL (just shut up and play Redmond. You are too short to argue so often. In Denmark we call such behaviour "small guy syndrom". Decent goal by the way, but ok, the keeper had left his goal for some strange reason. Still - good shot). I think Romeu was at guilt for their first goal (not tracking their player the 4-5 meters back into the box while Stephens covered some ground and other passing options) and Hoedt was at guilt for the second goal (awful clearing). An absolute peach of a cross from Armstrong for Gabbiadinis goal. The stadium looked great, and I liked the set up from the hosts. It looked like a cup final set up with every player accompanied by a child during the "march in". It warmed to see chinese people in the crowd wearing a Saints shirt.

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