Leicester City under the lights at St Mary’s. What could possibly go wrong?

Before Leicester fans start crowing too much about previous victories against us, they would do well to remember that they have been in the same division as us for the last four years as both clubs have gone down, up and then down again and now find themselves with expectations of competing near the top of the Championship this season.

Both clubs changed managers in preseason and whilst we binned off Will Still when we were fourth from bottom of the table, Leicester have stuck with Marti Cifuentes so far, probably because they’ve not been ‘that’ bad but they have certainly not been that good either. There seems to be an element of chickens coming home to roost for Leicester because as anyone knows, they are suspected to have broken various financial rules over the past few seasons and up until now, have got away with it. There surely has to be a punishment coming this season because in their last promotion campaign they had this hanging over them and were allowed to be promoted, even though charges had been brought against them. Here we are approximately two years later and there still has been no punishment.

It does seem though that they have been largely unable to pay transfer fees for players this year because they know what’s coming in terms of some sort of punishment for the past financial misdeeds. They appear to be tightening their belts and so consequently, when main striker and professional shithouse Jamie Vardy finally ended his long association with the club and moved to an Italian football swansong, they were unable to bring in a replacement and have had to rely on Patson Daka who was already on , not to mention the £25 million that he cost when he signed in 2021. It’s hard to feel too sorry for them. He scored his first goal of the season on Saturday in their decent win against Stoke. Hopefully he’ll go at least one more game before he gets his next one.

They still have a few players who will give us nightmares from games gone by, namely Abdul Fatawu who has absolutely tortured Ryan Manning in the last few games between the clubs. Stephy Mavididi also looked very good against us in the Championship two years ago, but he too has been struggling for form this season, though he two scored in their win on Saturday.

Leicester have four very experienced players in the middle of their team with Vestergaard and Faes in central defence and Winks and Skipp in the centre of midfield. Lots of experience, but also not a lot of pace so it’ll be interesting to see who comes out on top in those particular areas. Adam Armstrong certainly won’t get much change out of going up against the two central defenders in the air, so let’s hope that he can do what he did against Charlton and drop off the front and get the rest of the team playing.

This is of course the fourth game of Tonda Eckert’s interim managership of Saints and easily the best opposition that he has come up against so far. If he wins this one, it is very difficult to imagine that he won’t get the full-time job. Momentum is huge in the Championship and we should be flying into this game with a lot of confidence, though Leicester of themselves have won their last two.

Tonda is of course up against Marti Cifuentes, who had a largely unremarkable spell at QPR before getting a better job at Leicester. Yes, there are financial difficulties and there will probably be a points deduction but I struggle to see how Marti’s agent even got him in the door for an interview to be quite honest , bearing in mind the expectations at Leicester for this season and beyond. He has a reputation for patient build up and knocking the ball around at the back and strikes me as one of these managers who will arrogantly pursue this no matter what. Hopefully we can take advantage of that today And I’m hoping that with the pace and legs that we’ve got in the team, we will be able to do that

Questions remain over exactly who will be playing in the centre of midfield for us. Caspar Jander will certainly be one of them and then it could be either Cam Bragg or Flynn Downes stepping into the breach. Whoever it is will have to severely bring the energy to nullify the experience of Skipp and Winks. You have to remember that Leicester paid £25 million for Skipp, which is ridiculously overpriced and when you look at that, it’s not hard to see how Leicester got themselves in a bit of a mess.

Team news and the changes that Eckert was hinting at are Flynn Downes coming back in for Cam Bragg and Josh Q starting ahead of Captain Jack. I guess the latter is a master plan to combat the threat of Leicester‘s big central defenders at set pieces and maybe the threat of Fatawu off of our left.

Away we go and the question of who is going to have the most possession is answered by us dropping off and letting Leicester have it. Josh Q has a couple of shaky moments at the start but then begins to settle down. Our first break up the pitch comes after Leicester corner and predictably Scienza who picks it up and turns and runs at the retreating Leicester defence and debutant left back. Aluko cynically runs across the back of his legs and picks up a very deserved yellow card. Young lad has now got 84 minutes with Tom Fellows running at him to deal with now. Potential red card if ever there was one

There is some danger from a familiar source as Mavididi creates havoc down our right before delivering the cross which is half cleared as far as Winks on the edge of the area and his effort deflects for a corner. In it comes when we don’t deal with it very well and THB ends up throwing himself all over the place to block about three shots. Nothing gets near Baz though, which is the main thing.

We lose the ball on the edge of the Leicester area, with Armstrong being tackled and it goes loose to Fatawu in the right back position but his touch is crap and Manning gets in front of him and then does that shit house he thing where he stops and draws a foul from the overeager Fatawu, determined to make up for his shit first touch. In it comes from Manning‘s left foot and there is THB, totally unhindered by his marker Wout Faes, to nod powerfully past Begović and 1-0 and fucking get in there.

Leicester show what they made of immediately after the goal with us for some reason standing off of Vestergaard like he’s Andrea Pirlo or something, and allowing him to find Mavididi out on the left wing. His cross into the mixer is met by James and it’s bouncing down towards the far post but Baz gets across to make a sprawling save. Decent save by Baz but one that he should save.

Even though Fatawu is not doing much, there’s always the threat that he might but then he collapsed looking for a free kick off Jander which he doesn’t get. Manning knocks it forward to Armstrong, who plays it first time around the corner to send Scienza running away against Faes, who does nothing. Scienza releases the ball perfectly for Finn Azaz to take a touch beyond the last defender and smash it past Begović for 2-0. Fucking amazing football from the boys.

It gets better a minute later as we build up down the right hand side with Azaz playing a ball in between the lumbering Skipp to send Fellows away behind Aluko who shows he’s as brainless as his namesake pundit by grabbing hold of Fellows as he goes past him and pulling him down for a very obvious second yellow card and off you go mate. For once I actually feel a little bit sorry for an opposition player as he’s a 19-year-old on his debut, but this is Leicester, so not too much.

Now it’s a case of whether we can get a third goal to put this to bed and Azaz picks up a lovely pass from Jander and plays it through to Fellows who gets his effort all wrong and launches it over the bar. Armstrong shows his newfound creativity once more by turning and sending Scienza away on the left and he heads diagonally straight towards the goal before leaving both of the Shit Twins, Vestergaard and Faes on their arse with fake shots before it opens up and Leo places a shot towards the top corner, but unfortunately, 47-year-old Begović reads it takes off and tips over the bar. Brilliant save by the Skate Bastard to be fair..

Our attempt to find another goal before half time sees THB finding Fellows on the right and he finds the marauding THB with a return pass and his cross is blocked away for a corner. From the corner there is a coming together where Nathan Wood feels that it’s a penalty until he realises that it’s Flynn Downes who’s accidentally tripped him up? It’s still a corner though and then it comes from Ryan Manning as an in swinger and THB again loses the hopeless Faes and plants are simple header into the net. 3-0 and in all likelihood, game over and the sub-1000 strong contingent from Leicester are not happy.

Half-time, standing ovation. I don’t know what’s happened but suddenly we are looking like the complete Championship side. Leicester are shit and their attitude is shit. I think their manager has realised they ain’t getting back into this game and both Mavididi and Fatawu are taken off. This is going to go one of two ways. We are either going to score in the first ten minutes of the second half in which case it could be five or six, but if we don’t, I reckon this ends 3-0.

The second half starts with THB winning a header against Daka, who under the lightest of contact, decides to lie on the ground rather than get up and actually put any effort in. Fair pay to the referee for not stopping the game and we build up down the left-hand side with Manning’s cross being met by Adam Armstrong and put wide. The Leicester players, led by the Shit Twins, put in more effort than they put in for the whole of the first half in running after the referee. It’s not head injury so fucking get on with it.

After some fucking around at the back masquerading is trying to pass out, Harry Winks aims a rather aimless chip upfield, which THB heads straight to Fellows and then Winks finds himself trying to stop him, and he doesn’t as Fellows gets to the line and chips it back and Armstrong slides in but can’t get a decisive touch and it’s cleared by Choudhury. The clearance only goes as far as Jander who gives it back to Scienza who cuts in and forces another save out of Begović and Armstrong‘s prodded attempt at the rebound hits a defender and goes off for another corner.

The excitement dies down and it begins to very much resemble the second half against Charlton with both teams settling for the score that it is at the moment. Manning and Azaz are the first to to be replaced with Wellington and Aribo. Should’ve taken Flynn Downes off really because he immediately clatters into someone and picks up a booking which means he will miss the game against Millwall at the weekend. Another 10 meaningless minutes go by and Fellows and Scienza are replaced by JRob Rob and Damion Downs and Downes is eventually replaced with Cameron Bragg with five to go.

There is just time for Bragg to find Aribo on the edge of the box and he plays a lovely reverse ball behind Skipp for Robinson to run onto and just when you think we might round this off with a fourth goal, JRob doesn’t try to pick out Damion Downs, which woudl have sparked a pitch invasion, and instead of that, very wastefully balloons it over the bar.

Four wins on the bounce, including two on the bounce at home. What has happened to the Southampton I knew, that has been generally shit for the last 18 months and driven me up the fucking wall?

I absolutely loved that performance today. It wasn’t just the win, it was also the manner of it in that we made Leicester look incredibly ordinary and they really shouldn’t be, bearing in mind they got more than double the amount of points that we got last year and have the parachute payments the same as we do. Such is the nature of the Championship that a month ago this would’ve been 21st against 6th, but as of now, we sit above Leicester on the table.

There is great significance in that it’s Leicester who we beat as well. It’s a proper statement because amongst other things, they have won the last four games against us and in general been a bit of a nemesis going back. Ourselves, them and Ipswich are three relegated teams expected to be doing well this season and this was easily the toughest game of Tonda Eckert’s time as interim manager. Leicester are not a shit team, but we made them look like a shit team and everything about our performance meant that they just wanted to get out of there, more or less from the first whistle. The body language from the Leicester players at the end of that first half, around the time of the red card, was absolutely horrendous and they are not a team that is playing for the manager. Their fans need to trust us on that because we know what that looks like. That first half was so bad for Leicester that at half time, the two players we were worried about before the game, namely Fatawu and Mavididi, we’re both taken off as Marti Cifuentes settled for not getting beat by too many, in the same way that Nathan Jones did on Saturday.

Whilst it would’ve been nice to pile in in the second half and score a few more, mainly because of the history of Saints and Leicester under the lights at St Mary’s, it doesn’t matter at all that the second half was almost as boring as the Charlton second half. The job was done and we’ve got another game in a few days.

We did have a little bit of fortune with the first goal because it looked offside but ehen you see the replay from the linesman’s side, the young lad Aluko, who got sent off late, was behind all the other Leicester players and leaning towards his on goal so if there had been VAR then it would have been a case of lines being drawn and trying to guess where the sleeve was, so it’s marginal and not clear cut at all. Regardless of whether it’s offside or not though, that’s no excuse to give up and start skulking about like Vestergaard, Faes and Winks did, especially when Aluko got sent off for two yellows, neither of which could remotely be argued about. That red card gave them the excuse they needed to down tools. Like I said, we know what team that is not bothered, looks like.

Isn’t it better though when you put the effort in and look bright and lively and the fans become proud of the team again? As was the case on Saturday, there was not one player who didn’t put in a decent performance. I’m always worried by the goalkeeper but he produced an important save at 1-0, a kind of sprawling stop from a Jordan James header, which will hopefully give him a bit of confidence going forward. The contentious selection of the day was Josh Q on the left-hand side of the back three, but he did well apart from a couple of shaky moments in the first few minutes. Fellows and Manning were everything you want wing-backs to be, with Fellows continuing how he left off against Charlton, by constantly tormenting whoever was playing left back for Leicester, be it the young lad Aluko or Oliver Skipp who must’ve been absolutely delighted to be put a left back after the red card. Manning did considerably better against Fatawu than he has done in the past and of course stuck two free kicks on the head of THB who, apart from his goals, again proved that he is back to his best with a very solid performance in defence, alongside Nathan Wood who didn’t feel the need to get involved in any fights today.

Also back to somewhere near is best was Flynn Downes, who was clearly told to keep it simple and just patrol in front of the defence And he never let Leicester settle in there, steaming around the pitch at one point making three tackles in a row before inevitably picking up a yellow card which will rule him out of the game against Millwall on Saturday.

The forward line were again top notch. Adam Armstrong didn’t have many sights of goal today but his newfound ability to drop away from the central defenders and get the game moving was present and correct with a brilliant ball to send Scienza galloping up the wing to set up the second goal for Finn Azaz. Azaz flits in and out of games at times, it’s four goals in three games for him now and it was another good finish today. Scienza was his usual electric self, tormenting the right hand side of Leicester‘s defence and but for a brilliant save by Begovic would’ve had a goal to go with his assist and general all round brilliance.

Man of the match wherever you looked was of course either Leo Scienza or THB, depending on whether they went for the flavour of the month player or the goalscorer – but they’re wrong because the real man of the match was Caspar Jander, who was brilliant. Barely wasted a pass, won possession back and was absolutely everywhere. Lots of shit has been thrown at Johannes Spors over the recruitment, mainly because of the failure of Damion Downs to adapt to English football in the Championship, but Jander is proving to be an absolute wonderful piece of business.

The question of whether we give Tonda Eckert the full-time job is becoming a case of when rather than if. It’s not just the fact that we’ve won four games in a row, it’s also the style in which we’re playing. He’s taken a team but barely look like it couldn’t raise a jog whilst Will Still was the manager and turned it into some sort of flying machine. I always think that the mark of a manager is what he can do with the resources he’s got available and the transformation in the performances particularly in the last two games, has been ridiculous. As I said, I pin a lot of blame on the players and the fact that they clearly weren’t putting in as much effort for Will Still but that’s gone and all we can do is look at what Tonda has achieved. It’s still a risk because of the lack of experience, but when things have been as bad as they’ve been for 18 months, how do you turn down the intoxicating string of results and the performances that the team is putting in. Leicester, despite being shit yesterday because we made them look shit, are one of the benchmark teams in the Championship this season and we absolutely smashed them.

It’s funny to think back to the Nathan Jones appointment and the fact that he was appointed by Rasmus Ankersen because of metrics but the only metrics that really matter are goals scored, goals conceded and games won. Four games, four wins, 13 scored, 3 conceded, 12 points. We’d better get him signed up quick before Man United come in.

Isn’t it great to feel proud of the team again and I’ll take all the boring second halves you can throw at me, if it means we’ve won the game by half time.

Up the fucking Saints