It was the warmest day of the year but Southampton passed up the opportunity to turn up the temperature on those above them in the relegation scrap. Mark Hughes took some encouragement from the fact he has collected his first point as Southampton manager and ended the club’s run of four successive league defeats, yet this is a time of the season when he needs victories rather than draws to improve Saints’ survival prospects.
Against a Leicester side who have badly lost their way, Southampton played with a curious lack of ambition and urgency, summed up by Hughes’s decision to replace one striker with another at a point in the game when the travelling supporters were entitled to think he would throw caution to the wind and chase the win that would have cranked up the pressure on Swansea, in 17th place. Strangely, however, Southampton looked like they were content to settle for the draw that leaves them four points adrift of safety with four matches remaining.
Leicester, with nothing to play for, were obliging opponents and the chorus of boos at the final whistle said everything about how this listless performance was viewed by their increasingly disillusioned supporters. Claude Puel, who was sacked as the Southampton manager at the end of last season, has now won only four of his last 17 league matches and there were times here when it was hard to work out what his players were trying to do.
All of which added to the feeling Southampton, who play Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final on Sunday, missed a chance. Asked whether it was a point gained or two dropped, Hughes replied: “We don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait until the end of the season to see if that’s a significant point one way or the other. I think given the fact we haven’t been able to pick up points of any note in recent weeks, it’s a positive. Performance-wise, I don’t think we got anywhere near the level that we showed against Arsenal and Chelsea, but we didn’t get any points out of those games.”
Hughes admitted there was “a little bit of apprehension” in Southampton’s play, yet his tactics and substitutions arguably contributed to that situation. There seemed to be no real desire for Southampton to attack with more intent, even in the closing stages, with the decision to replace Shane Long with Charlie Austin a case in point.
‚ÄúIt’s like for like because Shane Long had a huge effort against Chelsea, he was clearly flagging when we took him off,” Hughes said. “It was a little bit of a stick or twist situation, to be perfectly honest. The importance of taking something out of the game shouldn’t be underestimated. But clearly we’re going to get to a point with the games that we havewhere we’re just going to have to throw everything at it. Maybe tonight wasn’t the case for that.”
Southampton did have a couple of good chances either side of the interval and both fell to Long. The Republic of Ireland international squandered the first after he was caught in two minds as to whether to shoot or pass and ended up doing neither. His next opportunity ended with Ben Hamer, the Leicester goalkeeper, dashing from his line to make an instinctive save as Long turned sharply to spear a close-range attempt at goal.
Pedestrian in possession and devoid of ideas going forward, Leicester were plodding their way through the match. Kelechi Iheanacho placed an early chance wide but Leicester had to wait until the 69th minute, when Jamie Vardy’s first-time volley from Marc Albrighton’s pass was tipped over the bar by Alex McCarthy, for their next decent attempt. It is now five home league games without a win for Leicester. “It’s a pity but the performance was OK,” Puel said.
