Saints completed the most physical part of their pre season programme with a win over Beiktas after coming back from behind.
What is clear from the way Saints pre season has been constructed is that Mauricio Pochettino seems to presfer to have a tough physical start to the programme, then taper it off as the season approaches, this has its advantages in that it enables the squad to get to a level of fitness and then hopefully maintain it without any injuries as the Premier League season approaches.
The end to the visit to Austria came with a fixture against Beiktas of Turkey, one thing that we should remember though is that if we are going to adopt a stance of fitness etc being more important than the result in defeat, then we should maintain that in winning.
Again it was a game of two halves with multiple changes being made in the second, however all the action was agin in the second half as well, the Turkish side opened the scoring on the hour and it looked like it might be a second defeat in the stadium for Saints, but then in the final twenty minutes came the comeback, on 70 minutes Lambert took a Jack Cork free kick on his chest before smashing home, then what was effectively was the winner came from an unlikely source as Mayuka did the first thing of note in his Saints career to give Saints the lead on 78, the icing on the cake was in the final minute when Luke Shaw made a great run and crossed for Lloyd Isgrove to be the second player to open hsi Saints first team account.
But as I say the result is secondary, the real worry in the camp at the moment seems to be the absence of Natahn Clyne who was once again missing with Callum Chambers filling in, staring his fourth game in a row, this has to be a major concern for the manager.
On the other hand Lloyd Isgove's goal asks another question and that is whether the player will be good enough to challenge for a first team place next season, if he is he could not only save the club multi millions but fill a huge gap in our team, Mayuka's goal was very welcome, so far I have seen absolutely nothing from the player to suggest that he can have a future at this club, but we will now see if this goal can be the catalyst, being honest Im not convinced that it will, but stranger things have happened.
So a satisfactory ending to the trip to Austria, although as I say the result will not tell us much but the manager will have learnt a lot about his players, the pre season will now taper down towards the big kick off now, with the final weeks seeing only two friendlies, although it could be that Saints have at least one other set up behind closed doors.