The view from Southampton: 'Mane's impact is no surprise'
To learn more about Southampton's form and threat ahead of Liverpool's trip to St Mary's on Saturday afternoon, we spoke to Saints fan Stuart Howden.
He told us how his team have changed since the appointment of manager Claude Puel and highlighted the players Jürgen Klopp’s side will potentially have to stop.
Stuart also revealed why Sadio Mane’s impact since swapping the south coast for Anfield in the summer has come as no surprise, and much more…
10th in the table after 11 games – how have you been performing so far?
I’m happy so far. We started slowly, with a couple of disappointing draws, but I think this was just a case of a new manager, new playing style and new players (after another summer exodus). Since those draws we’ve played much better and seem to be improving each week. We’re still defensively sound, as we were last year, but seem to have more attacking intent too, playing much more possession football as opposed to counter-attacking. We’ve had good wins against some big teams this year and we’re looking good in the Europa League, beating Inter Milan here at St Mary’s. It looks like we’ll progress to the knockout stages of that. If we keep this up, another top-eight finish isn’t out of the question for us. Watch out Liverpool.
How much has Claude Puel changed since he took charge?
A lot, actually. During the Koeman years we had become used to a team who were defensively solid and functional in possession, if rarely spectacular. Puel places greater emphasis on taking the game to the opposition rather than countering what the opposition has decided to do, and is much more expansive. He plays in the ‘Southampton way’ – much more possession-based and attacking. Check out our stats for the amount of possession and shots on goal we’ve had in recent games. Just as important is that Puel believes in our youth players and has featured many this year in the first team. In our last League Cup match, we beat Sunderland with a team that featured five players from our academy.
Charlie Austin has eight goals this season, so is he the biggest individual threat to Liverpool?
He’s the biggest goal threat, alright. He’s a natural goalscorer, he only needs a sniff and the ball will be in the back of the net. That said, he needs the service and supply to put the ball in the back of the net, so I think the biggest threats to Liverpool will be our attacking wide players. The player Liverpool need to look out for in particular is Dusan Tadic.
Who are the unsung heroes in your team?
Oriol Romeu. He does so much in a game – running, passing, tackling – but doesn’t always get the headlines as he isn’t in the goals. It’s not just the amount of stuff he does in the game either, it’s the quality of it – pinpoint passing, perfectly-timed challenges and he gets box to box. Without him, I doubt we’d be playing as well as we are now.
As an outside observer, what have you made of Liverpool?
Liverpool are looking really good. I predicted they would in my pre-season preview and went as far as to say they could finish in the Champions League spots. That’s looking pretty spot on now. Liverpool clearly have a lot of confidence at the moment and are a nice attacking team. The game on Saturday should be a good one, as you know that Liverpool won’t be holding back. Klopp’s 100 per cent intensity and full-on attack style makes good watching.
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Did you expect Sadio Mane to have such an impact so quickly?
It’s not surprising – he did the same thing when he joined us a couple of years ago. He came in from a different league, a different country, but went straight into the team and was in the goals straight away. Mane is a good professional and is clearly willing to learn. With his pace, dribbling ability and shooting he would have made an impact immediately wherever he went. I was gutted to see him go because I knew we’d expect these kinds of performances for his new team. Let’s hope we can keep him quiet in this game.
Where do you expect the game to be won and lost?
We’ve been good defensively but although we have created lots of goalscoring opportunities, we haven’t been that clinical in front of goal. So missed goal opportunities will be where we’ll lose the game. We can win it with our set-pieces – Van Dijk and Fonte will be a real test for your centre-backs. We need to shut down Liverpool’s midfield if we can.
Any tips for Reds fans travelling to St Mary’s?
They’ll have to sing loud – be prepared to be out-sung and over-awed by the mighty Itchen End!
What is your prediction?
Score draw – 1-1.