Yesterday saw the start of Southampton’s 2017/18 campaign at home against Welsh side, Swansea City.
After 3 months off, football is finally back and Southampton played host to Swansea City. The away side were without some of their key players Sigurdssonand Llorente, just to name a few.
It was a solid afternoon for the Southampton defence who didn’t have that much to deal with, the only clear cut chance for Swansea came early in the second half when Tammy Abraham turned Yoshida, but Cedric was there to block the shot. Southampton fans are still worried about the lack of centre backs, if saints get an injury or suspension then god knows what they’re gunna do. All round it was a decent performance from Southampton, just a shame we couldn’t take our chances in that final third.
Traditionally Southampton always draw their first game of the season, with a few exceptions. A draw was always in the cards and it didn’t help that Swansea obviously came for a pointed and were very defensive from the get go. Southampton did create chances, 25 shots on goal in fact, but the resulting factor is that only two of those were on target.
Our opening 3 fixtures against Swansea(H) West Ham(H) Huddersfield(A), on paper we probably have the easiest start out of all the teams in the league and Southampton really should be picking up six points, minimum from these three games. Next Saturday see’s West Ham travel to St Mary’s for what should be a really interesting game. They didn’t have the best of times last season, but their form did pick up as the season drew to a close. West Ham have done some brilliant business in the transfer window, signing players such as Chicharito, Arnautovic, Zabaleta and Joe Hart. Saturday will be a big test for saints and it will be interesting to see how the boys do.