Saints Lose Opening Pre Season Friendly

Saints have kicked off their pre season programme with a behind closed doors friendly against Portugese club Benfica, although not a lot can be gained from this game, given the number of players who are unlikely to be still at St Mary's come September.

It was not just a game of two halves, but two halves of two teams, as Saints played an almost different XI in the second 45 minutes than they started the first with.

The line ups were as follows.

Saints first half: McCarthy, Bree, Lyanco, Stephens, Maghoma, Alcaraz, Ward-Prowse, Doyle, Amo-Ameyaw, Mara, Dibling.

Saints second half: Bazunu, Livramento, Ä†aleta-Car, Salisu, Walker-Peters, Smallbone, Lavia (Doyle 75), A. Armstrong, Amo-Ameyaw (Dibling 70), Adams, Djenepo.

It was a mixed side in each half and there was little to be found in terms of who would be staying or going, Indeed 4 of the Academy youngsters were in the starting XI.

Notable abscences from the two teams selected where Bella-Kotchap, Stuart Armstrong, Kamaldeen Sulemana. Dominic Ballard, Ibrahima Diallo, Jan Bednarek, Joe Aribo, Nathan Tella & Sam Edozie as well of as course the two new players signed this week.

The fact that we could use 21 players in this game and still be missing 9 of our squad players is perhaps testament to how bloated our squad was last season, of course some of these have only just returned back to training and i'm sure Russell Martin wanted to keep things simple and not also make multiple substitutions.

Benfica opened the scoring in the 11th minute when Neres fired home with a shot that was just inside Alex McCarthy's left hand post, you felt that the keeper was slightly out of position.

Benfica dominated the game and it was no surprise when they doubled their lead on the stroke of half time, this time it was Ristic who scored, firing a shot across goal that beat McCarthy' despairing left hand and to be blunt was not something we have not seen before.

The second half was all change, but Saints dug in and made sure that the score did not get any worse, Gavin Bazunu making a superb save to block a close range effort.

As I said nothing much to be gained from this game, we included players who will not be here this coming season and we were missing some who may well be staying, it was about Russell Martin getting a look at his squad and also getting them to play the possession based football that became his trademark at both MK Dons and Swansea City

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