Match date: 23 August 2013

Both Southampton and Sunderland started this year with a different manager than the one they had at this time last year, with both clubs sacking their managers last year and hiring new ones, with both Pochettino and Di Canio improving their new sides. With a full preseason to work with their teams, each are hoping to build upon their relative success of last year.

Pochettino brought a new style of play to Southampton, looking to play a more patient, but rather vertical style to the Saints, while also instilling an intense style of pressing when his players have lost the ball. Di Canio brought to Sunderland a new energy as well as about a dozen new players to the Stadium of Light over the summer.

Southampton’s Forward Passing

As mentioned, Pochettino has brought a new style of play to Southampton, as he looks for his team to have a high amount of possession, while also playing long passes into the forward’s feet as well as possible, which has resulted in Southampton playing the highest number of long passes in the Premier League through the first two games.

Throughout the match, there seemed to be about 20 yards in Sunderland’s half, starting just after the edge of the centre circle in which Southampton would bypass. After a slow build-up phase in their defensive third, the likes of Victor Wanyama and Morgan Schneiderlin would pick up the ball from the centre backs (who did the following as well) and look to play to the feet of Rickie Lambert as quickly as possible so that Lambert could lay the ball off to Jay Rodriguez, Adam Lallana, and James Ward-Prowse when he was on the right of midfield. Below is a pass that was played by Fonte, intended for Rickie Lambert, that was intercepted by Jack Colbeck.

The picture may be a little deceiving as it might look like this ball is being played out to Ward-Prowse, but it is going well beyond him, intended for a Lambert.

The problem with this however, was that Sunderland were able to play a bit deeper, as the likes of Lambert, Rodriguez, and Lallana were always looking to make lateral runs, rather than checking and coming deep to collect the ball, unless Southampton had just been defending in their half of the field. The other problem was that neither Wanyama or Schneiderlin looked good at passing the ball forward on the day.

If you look at Wanyama and Schneiderlin’s passing above, you’ll see that all 10 of Wanyama’s unsuccessful passes were forward passes and 6 of Schneiderlin’s 7 unsuccessful passes were forward passes, with the other one being a square ball payed in Sunderland’s penalty area. Overall, of Southampton’s 81 unsuccessful passes in the match, 64 of them were forward passes.

Above, you can see the number of unsuccessful forward passes by the entire Southampton team and to the right of that, you can see where the forward passes played into the attacking third came from. A large majority of which came from the either Southampton’s defensive half or just around 10 yards into the Sunderland half. A very patient build up at the back, as you can see the number of passes in and around the defensive third of Southampton, but then the Southampton players looked to play a quick, vertical ball into the feet of Lambert to try to break the Sunderland defense.

James Ward-Prowse

The 18 year old impressed throughout the match; starting first on the right hand side of the 3 of the 4-2-3-1. His ability on the ball gave Southampton, specifically Rickie Lambert, numerous chances to not only equalise, but win the match. It was in fact Ward-Prowse’s set piece delivery that equalised the game for Southampton.

In the second half, Ward-Prowse moved in alongside Wanyama and played in a holding position in central midfield. He was not tested on the defensive side of the ball and did not attempt a tackle in the whole of the game, but was able to push Southampton to attack when Gaston Ramirez and new signing Pablo Osvaldo came on.

Sunderland’s Post-Goal Plan

Once Sunderland got their goal in the 3rd minute, they sat back and looked to absorb Southampton’s possession for the next 87 minutes of play. Southampton were very high up the field and kept Sunderland within their own half for most of the game, with Jozy Altidore relatively isolated in Sunderland’s 4-4-1-1.

The picture above shows just how deep Sunderland were, allowing Southampton to push higher and higher up the pitch. As discussed before, though, Southampton did not have much success playing the ball into the feet of the forward line and you can see that many of the tackles and interceptions that Sunderland were able to have were, first, almost all within their defensive half of the pitch, and second, were within that 20 yard area where Southampton just seemed unable to get the ball, credit to Sunderland’s defending as well as Southampton’s rather poor forward passing.

On the other side of the ball, after the goal, Sunderland failed to really test Southampton’s high line. Many of Sunderland’s passes into the attacking third came from very deep within their own half, mostly from the Sunderland centre backs. Altidore was able to get one another good chance on goal, but Boruc was quick off his line to smother the ball.

Conclusion

Sunderland, perhaps, should have looked to try to get another goal, but instead sat back and absorbed the Southampton pressure. With that said, Sunderland’s defense were up for the task, and while Southampton’s possession made one think that they deserved their goal, they lacked real penetration and finishing.

Southampton’s biggest problem was getting the ball into the feet of their forwards. Lambert, Rodriguez, and Lallana all stayed too high up the pitch rather than getting the ball to their feet in deeper positions and it allowed Sunderland to simply sit and wait for the Southampton defenders and holding midfielders to try to play a 40 yard pass into the Southampton forwards’ feet and then intercept it.

Pochettino brought on Pablo Osvaldo for his debut, changing Southampton’s system slightly, but the alteration had little effect on the outcome of the match.