Southampton returned from Oxford on Boxing Day empty-handed, having suffered their third consecutive away defeat.
Southampton’s failure to preserve a clean sheet cost them again as they lost 2-1 away to Oxford United on Boxing Day.
The Saints have failed to shut out the opposition for six consecutive games, and Head Coach Tonda Eckert has become obsessed with making that a priority.
Eckert stated on the official Southampton FC website that “we need to work towards clean sheets.” His view is that it is completely OK to win a game with a scrappy goal as long as you don’t give up.
Eckert’s pragmatic philosophy is founded upon rocky grounds.
Eckert has been refreshingly open about it. He would “prefer to win an ugly game rather than lose a beautiful one,” a sentence right out the pragmatists’ football bible.
Eckert believes this is not a rejection of offensive football. Far from it. It acknowledges that promotion seasons are not based primarily on four-goal thrillers. Sometimes, one objective is enough.
That mindset is gradually influencing the Saints’ organization. The transition to a back three isn’t about fashion or novelty. It is all about control. As the manager puts it, it’s all about numbers behind the ball and ‘between the sticks’. It’s about minimizing chaos and managing moments.
Unfortunately, it isn’t working.
Eckert’s inflexible approach of playing with three at the back, regardless of the conditions, has resulted in a team that struggles to move the ball forward and keep control.
The three in the back play too deep and too centrally, inviting pressure down the wings behind Ryan Manning and Tom Fellows. The clear reality is that only Taylor Harwood-Bellis, out of the three that started at Oxford, is genuinely good enough to play in this system.
Defensive errors against Oxford were completely avoidable
Southampton enjoyed lots of space in the heart of midfield throughout the first 20 minutes against Oxford, creating clear-cut chances for Azaz, Scienza, and Flynn Downes. Azaz and Downes’ shots, however, ended up in the stadium parking lot, while Scienza’s effort was deflected onto the outside of the near post due to a delay in pulling the trigger.
Oxford’s opening goal came against the run of play, but it was completely expected. After Tom Fellows gave the ball away carelessly around the halfway line, Oxford made a good transition and forced a corner. That corner was never completely cleared, and no one had tracked the corner taker, Tyler Goodrham.
When the ball fell to Goodrham on the edge of the box, he struck it well, although he faced little pressure from Caspar Jander, who turned his back on the ball as it was struck. Taylor Harwood-Bellis extended a tentative leg, and the ball may have deflected off his foot as Bazunu launched himself to his right. The Keeper was able to get a glove on the ball, but not enough to keep it out.
Oxford’s winner was the result of Saints’ poor defence from their own attacking corner and some fortuitous ricochets as the home team surged forward. Nathan Wood and Cameron Archer botched their challenges on Siriki Dembélé and Stanley Mills, respectively, allowing Mills to sneak the ball past a badly positioned Bazunu in the Saints’ goal.
Eckert must stop obsessing over three at the back.
While Southampton’s three-man defence did not directly contribute to the goals conceded against Oxford, it did restrict their energy moving forward. Fellows and Manning may have profited from possession if there had been an overlapping full-back or an extra man in midfield to pass to.
Something has to change quickly if Southampton is to get anything from their road game against Birmingham City on Monday evening. Despite Southampton’s victory at St Mary’s a few weeks earlier, Chris Davies had Tonda Eckert’s tactical game under control.
Birmingham made 48 wide-area crosses in that game and were unlucky not to produce more chances than the one Furuhashi cut over from a couple of yards out.
Saints struggled to hold the ball in forward transitions and finished poorly against Oxford yesterday. “Today is entirely on us; every time we got into their half, we were unable to conclude and complete the actions,” Eckert said after the match.
The 3-4-3 system hampered rather than aided their attacking play, and the fewer details about the substitutions the better. Only Jay Robinson and Harwood-Bellis emerged from that fiasco with any credit.
The sooner Tonda abandons his three-at-back fallacy and his concern with defensive numbers in the box and between the sticks, the better.
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