Stacks Image 949108

Southampton

2

Lallana 13′ 

Lambert 59′

Spurs

3

Adebayor 25′, 64′ 

Hooiveld 54′ (og)

St.Mary’s - 22nd December, 2013


Referee : Chris Foy

Attendance : 31,455



Report 

Match Report


No Crash this week, as he is away in Germany, so a change in style, with a more old school report.

Once again Gazzaniga was in goal, the rest of the team was pretty much as expected, with all the usual frailties in defence, including Fox at left back and the inexperienced Chambers at right back, with Hooiveld coupled with Lovren in the centre.

Temporary Spurs manager Tim Sherwood, who took charge for the 2-1 League Cup defeat at home to West Ham on Wednesday, picked an attacking line-up that included no recognised defensive midfielder.

After less than quarter of an hour, Fox passed to Lallana, who was allowed time to turn, run at goal and shoot low past goalkeeper Lloris. That prompted Sherwood to race down from his seat in the stands and take up a position on the touchline. He is nothing if not demonstrative.

Saints nearly doubled their lead after Danny Rose lost possession to Rickie Lambert. He passed to Lallana, who found JRod, only for the striker's curled shot to drift narrowly over.

Two minutes later, Spurs were level as Adebayor stretched to volley in Soldado's cross from the left wing for his first league goal this season.

Spurs then went ahead in fortunate circumstances early in the second half when Hooiveld scored an own goal. Eriksen played the ball to Rose, whose pull-back was prodded into the net by Hooiveld, the ball squirming underneath Gazzaniga.

Spurs then conceded the 18th goal in their last seven league matches and a wonderful goal to watch it was too. Lallana raced through and pulled the ball back to Lambert, who had the simple task of finding an empty net with Lloris stranded.

Before the game, only five teams had scored fewer league goals than Spurs, but they got their third of the afternoon and, as it turned out the winning goal, when Adebayor capitalised on some more indecisive Saints defending from a throw-in, to curl the ball past Gazzaniga.

After the match Pochettino said:

At 1-0, we had the game under control and we could've gone 2-0 ahead, but we conceded and practically gifted them a goal.

In the second half, we dressed up as Santa Claus and gave them many presents. We made many mistakes and when you make these mistakes, you are punished. We are obviously very angry.

At the beginning of the second half, we were controlling the game, but we conceded the second goal and it was hard to get back in the game. We were risking a lot.

We just have to keep on working as a team. Before we had a run of seven games winning and were looking up. Now we are on the wrong side and the only thing we can do is keep working.

Saints really have to cut out these ridiculous defensive errors, but in spite of everything we are still in 9th place after 17 games, just four points behind ManU in 8th place.


Channonite

23rd December 2013

Teams 

Saints


25 Gazzaniga

22 Chambers

13 Fox (Gallagher 78')

18 Cork (Ward-Prowse 63' Booked)

05 Lovren

26 Hooiveld

08 Davis (Ramírez 69')

04 Schneiderlin

07 Lambert

20 Lallana

09 Rodriguez


Substitutes


03 Yoshida

06 Fonte

10 Ramírez

16 Ward-Prowse

38 Reed

40 Gallagher

41 Cropper



Spurs


25 Lloris

02 Walker

03 Rose

23 Eriksen

20 Dawson

06 Chiriches

11 Lamela (Chadli 60')

19 Dembélé (Bentaleb 50')

09 Soldado (Defoe 85')

10 Adebayor

22 Sigurdsson Booked


Substitutes


14 Holtby

15 Capoue

18 Defoe

21 Chadli

24 Friedel

42 Bentaleb

43 Fredericks



Stacks Image 33

Match Stats


Possession

Southampton 57%

Tottenham 43%


Shots

Southampton 12

Tottenham 13


On Target

Southampton 5

Tottenham 3


Corners

Southampton 2

Tottenham 5


Fouls

Southampton 10

Tottenham 18