Match Analysis: Saints v Reading

Saints came off worthy winners in their 1-0 win against Reading yesterday, an assured all round performance gave Saints a much needed and deserved three points to take us to the dizzy heights of 15^th in the Premier League.

Here’s some analysis on the game itself.

Formation:

Line-Up: Saints made two changes to the Starting Eleven with Kelvin Davis coming in for the injured Paulo Gazzaniga and Jay Rodriguez starting in place of Gaston Ramirez who had just returned from Uruguay.

Match

This game showed one major point that will determine how the season runs for both teams; Predictability.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Saints have become less predictable in the games where they have picked up points; again they managed to continue this unpredictable style of play in the Reading game.

Saints mix up their play with varied types of passing; for example, they go long, short, diagonal and direct. Therefore, the opposition never know what they will expect. Starting Rodriguez gave Saints a different approach when going forward, not often this season we have had a front man getting in behind the defence, as we can see below.

This picture was a ball played through by Lambert which Rodriguez managed to take on and get an effort on goal, you could say that there should be someone supporting him but in this particular incident a few seconds later there were runners coming in to give him an option. But on occasions Rodriguez did get isolated so that could be an area of improvement.

As mentioned, most of the time there are runners supporting the player with the ball, one thing I was deeply impressed was with the way Saints got numbers into the box supporting the player crossing the ball or penetrating through the Penalty area. See Below.

As we can see in this High Definition picture… Saints have five players all ready to support the player with the ball, on a number of other occasions they also had six players up ready to attack. Therefore, giving Saints more options to get a shot on goal. During these attacks, I’ve noticed how Cork and Schneiderlin also get forward, but as one gets forward the other stays back supporting the defence. Again, they mix it up so Reading hasn’t a clue which midfielder is popping up in the box. Notably, if the opposition manage to counter attack both are fit enough to get back and defend, Schneiderlin has ran 103 miles so far this season more than any other player in the Premier League.

Having a player like Rickie Lambert means Saints can look for the direct ball into him; however, if you play it into him you need runners to support him. See Below.

This picture shows Lambert playing it on to Lallana who has come off the flank to take it inside and as a result got a shot on goal, as mentioned earlier Saints have become less predictable, look at the two Reading midfielders already behind play, failing to pick up on Lallana run.

Reading had the same sort of direct approach, they looked to play it into Roberts who could lay it off to support players or win a free kick so Reading can get a ball into the box. Readings Goalkeeper Federchi played 25 long balls out of 26 passes with 96% into Readings attacking half, showing their direct approach to the game. However, this proved to be their downfall as no one was close enough to support Roberts, therefore losing possession. Not to mention the great performance put in by the two Saints centre backs Maya Yoshida and Jose Fonte, the latter winning every single one of his aerial duels (6/6=100%). Due to this, they attempted to target youngster Luke Shaw by getting balls played long and high into the left back position, this is shown with Luke attempting more tackles (6) and aerial duels (8) than any other player on the Saints team, as well as challenging for (9) ground duels. Of which Luke won 4/6 tackles, 4/8 aerial duels and 7/9 ground duels. Further showing his incredible development for someone so young, at times it did work for Reading as Luke gave away (4) corners which is one of Readings main attacking threats (see Reading Scout Report) and they did manage to work a shot on goal.

Looking at the Set Plays, Southampton did ever so well to minimize the risk of a Reading chance to be created. Firstly, Saints didn’t give any ‘silly’ free kicks outside the area where Shorey could’ve had a shot on goal. Saints at times managed to stop the main threats getting onto the ball from set plays by keeping tight to them decreasing the momentum they could’ve gathered when jumping for the ball. Saints gave themselves an outlet by keeping two players up from corners, just in case the ball gets played out for a chance of a counter attack. Therefore, this shows how predictable Reading are, they look at playing it long and winning set plays where they can get a shot on goal. However, when this doesn’t work like yesterday, they have no Plan B. If they want to stay-up they’re going to have change a few things, maybe even their Manager…

The Goal

Another part of Saints attacking play, where the full backs are looking to get forward and get on the overlap to get in behind the defence and get a ball into the box. This was very effective as Reading defended in numbers, therefore Saints were carving out situations where they were getting the Readings full back in a 2 v 1. Cyne and Puncheon are forming an impressive partnership and this continued with the only goal of the game. See Below.

As we can see Rickie has the ball and played Clyne in who has got forward on the overlap, he then played a ball inside to Puncheon who finished well. There are 6 Reading defenders around 4 Saints players, yet due to the high tempo Saints play at, as well as the movement of the players, this caused them all sorts of problems and as a result Saints took all three points!

Stats v Reading

Overall, a dominant display by Saints which was capped off with every player, including substitutes doing extremely well to bring back the win and clean sheet. Saints have put themselves into a good position where they can now push on, Yoshida and Lallana both left the ground on crutches yesterday as a precaution but they now have two weeks to recover before we next play.

Thanks for Reading!

Sources: EPL Index (stats) SaintsFC Pics