From the moment Stoke’s Marko Arnautovic was sent off at the mid-point of the opening half a goalless draw felt a hardly surprising result given the old cliche about 10 men being difficult to break down.
Southampton dominated what at times was a nasty affair but “could have-should have” is another football maxim which concerns the bottom line being all about the result of a game. So, by the close Claude Puel’s side must have rued their profligacy and Mark Hughes’s troops could feel pride at their bloody-mindedness in hanging on for a point.
For this quintessential mid-table affair – 12th versus 11th at kick-off – both managers made three changes. In came Ryan Shawcross, Glenn Whelan and Jonathan Walters for Stoke, with Ryan Bertrand, Steven Davis and Shane Long selected for the visitors.
Stoke threatened first. Xherdan Shaqiri wandered in from the right, slipped the ball beyond José Fonte, and Joe Allen’s shot forced a corner after Fraser Forster saved. This amounted to nothing as Charlie Adam’s overhead kick was off target.
This early warning was followed by more for Southampton. Allen again found space, this time a little deeper near halfway, and Adam passed into him and made the visitors scramble to clear.
The best riposte for Southampton was to ask a question of Stoke and they did so twice. Whelan dawdled where no player ever should – on the fringe of his own penalty area – and he was robbed by Sofiane Boufal, whose snapshot was saved by Lee Grant. The second poser derived from another Stoke mistake, this time from a stray Erik Pieters pass, and from here Shane Long took aim at Grant.
The next culprit in this series of Stoke errors was the entire defence – Bertrand raced along the left and his cross should have been cleared but it was allowed to roll in front of Grant all the way to the other side of the pitch.
Now came the end of Arnautovic, a particularly unprofessional early exit. Only 24 minutes had been played when the Austrian stabbed a boot high into Boufal’s thigh. Out came Anthony Taylor’s card for a straight red that means a three-game ban for the 27-year-old, who should know better. The referee’s decision was accompanied by boos and when Bertrand took the free-kick he aimed it straight into Grant’s hands.
Hughes was not happy at the decision. “I was disappointed with the sending-off – it is a mistimed tackle, he was clearly caught but I didn’t think it was intentional, just a mistimed tackle. Officials seem to think they come here and need to give early yellow cards to settle [down the game]. Those days are long gone, we play a different type of football,” he said.
Hughes, taking charge of his 400th Premier League game, was proud of his players. “To a man we were excellent,” he said. “It was easy to accept our fate, and [accept] the game has gone away from us.”
Some relief came for Stoke when Pieters repeated Bertrand’s trick at the other end and skimmed a ball in from the left that raced before Forster, went uncleared and ended up on the opposing flank.
The niggle factor remained, though. Allen launched a tackle at James Ward-Prowse that found only a foot and the Welshman was cautioned as a result. The unsavoury stuff had also included Long aiming an elbow at Bruno Martins Indi; the striker may yet face retrospective action as Taylor seemed not to see the incident.
Hughes was unimpressed, comparing this to the Arnautovic decision. “All you ask is officials get key decisions right, and if you’re not it’s not good,” he said.
Southampton used their one-man advantage well in the second half. Cuco Martina was booed throughout – perhaps (strangely) for taking the throw that led to Arnautovic’s red card – yet he was a persistent threat along the right and Redmond displayed a willingness to switch wings to aid the defender.
Hughes had sent on Mame Diouf for Shaqiri, a move that had the Swiss punching a seat and plonking himself down in a major huff. This may have been the emotion felt by Puel, too, when one of his own replacements, Jay Rodriguez, hit only air from close range when Boufal laid on what appeared a certain finish.
“It’s a disappointment,” said Puel afterwards. “We lost two points tonight.”
