Saints take on Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, looking to try and get a result, but perhaps more importantly trying to come through the game with the squad not picking up any more injuries.

Multiple changes for Saints as they take on City with Ralph Hasenhuttl clearly trying to protect his squad ahead of the game against Brighton on Saturday.

Biggest surprise is the return of Alex McCarthy, although Hasenhuttl had hinted at this in the pre match built up, presumably to protect the confidence of Fraser Forster

Starting XI: McCarthy, Bednarek, Vestergaard, Salisu, Bertrand, Stephens, Ward-Prowse, Armstrong, Djenepo, Redmond, Adams.

Subs: Forster, Walker-Peters, Ramsay, Diallo, Watts, Ferry, Minamino, Tella, Nlundulu.

Manchester City

Starting XI: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Laporte, Zinchenko, Fernandinho, Mahrez, Gündogan, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Foden.

Subs: Steffen, Stones, Cancelo, Mendy, Rodri, Torres, Sterling, Jesus, Agüero.

Photo: Action Images

WestSussexSaint added 17:06 - Mar 10 Interesting ploy by Ralph playing 4 centrebacks. If that’s not a message that we are parking the bus I don’t know what is!
0

codge added 17:10 - Mar 10 Good luck with this lot hope it works but looks very slow at the back😢
1

felly1 added 17:20 - Mar 10 Damage limitation exercise.
0

SanMarco added 17:23 - Mar 10 Bednarek or Stephens at RB + Redmond back. Be scared, very scared...
1

sandywelsh added 17:27 - Mar 10 Dont hold out any hope with that team, could be another high score in Manchester
0

darthvader added 17:38 - Mar 10 I cant see why the heck so many changes . Tella surely doesnt need to be rested. ? The RB situation scares me . So FF HAS let in one goal in i dont know how many matches .and is dropped? Lambs to the slaughter ... Please prove me wrong . 0-0 id be happy as larry
1

saintpete01 added 18:05 - Mar 10 OMG
0

DPeps added 20:49 - Mar 10 It's a sign of the times that my main reaction to tonight is relief that it wasn't worse 😂
2

Boris1977 added 21:52 - Mar 10 Ralph experimenting with Stephens in midfield was bloody irresponsible and not fair on the player. A real kick in the balls and his confidence that once he was subbed off the goals stopped leaking. Like others my expectation was zero but was happy it wasn't another 9. At least he made the change to limit the embarrassment but his selection caused it. Hope the confidence of the team hasn't taken another bashing with just 9 games in which to rebuild it if required.

-1

SanMarco added 22:32 - Mar 10 It took some doing to contrive to concede 3 in that first-half. If we had been good enough we could have hurt Man City. As it was we helped to gently play them back into form. Yes - we feared a hammering, but that was from an expected strong performance by the best team in Europe. What we got was the usual pretty stuff followed by ineptitude. Man City were rubbish in the first half and still scored 3.

3

Blogs 32 bloggers

Southampton Polls