Southampton's youngsters deliver the kind of fighting spirit the club are seekingBy Ron Lewis
timesonline
Leicester City 0 Southampton 1 IF THERE WAS AS MUCH FIGHT BEING shown on the pitch at Southampton as there is for control of it off the field, the future might look rosier for a team who seem in freefall. Mud was being slung around freely yesterday as Andrew Strode-Gibbons, head of a consortium that wants to take charge of the club, Rupert Lowe, the chairman, and Sir Clive Woodward, the director of football, exchanged insults with all the dignity of children in a schoolyard scrap.
This season has clearly been given up as a dead loss by Southampton, to judge from the way that players’ squad numbers are being exchanged. George Burley, the manager, has used this month’s transfer window as an opportunity completely to refurbish his squad, with long-term gain the aim rather than a short-term fix. Brett Ormerod joined the exodus over the weekend as he signed for Preston North End and Nigel Quashie, the Scotland midfield player, who has missed the past two games, was in “talks with a club”, according to Burley, that club believed to be Rangers or West Bromwich Albion. Burley said that he hopes to sign three or four players by tomorrow’s transfer deadline, including a striker. “Some offers have been accepted and we have had one offer of more than £1 million turned down,” he said.
But the club continue to turn up impressive youngsters, despite selling Theo Walcott to Arsenal.
A largely undeserved win on Saturday was secured by a goal by Kenwyne Jones, 21, set up by Darren Potter, 21, on loan from Liverpool. Southampton’s best player was Nathan Dyer, 18, while they also fielded Dexter Blackstock, 19, and Simon Gillett, 20. It is also unlikely that victory would have been achieved had it not been for a fine save by Bartosz Bialkowski, an 18-year-old Polish goalkeeper, from Elvis Hammond in the second half.
Jones is likely to be in the line-up for Trinidad & Tobago when they face England in Germany this summer and he hopes that Saturday’s winner, scored six minutes after he had come on as a substitute, will help him to secure a regular spot for his club. “I’d like to play as regularly as possible,” he said. “I’m trying not to think about the World Cup but it’s hard because it will be a great occasion for my country.” It is difficult to imagine many good times in the near future for Leicester, who, after a desperate first half, had the better of the second before being stung by the last-minute breakaway winner. Teams that had managed just one win between them in the Coca-Cola Championship served up the sort of football one would expect, neatly summed up by Burley as “a scrap”.
Rob Kelly, who is caretaker manager after last week’s departure of Craig Levein, said that he is taking matters on a day-to-day basis, but he believes the squad is good enough to pull away from relegation trouble. “The players haven’t given up. I think that some of them have looked around and seen we have some good players and know we should be doing better than we are,” Kelly said.
Leicester City (4-4-2): R Douglas — R Stearman, P McCarthy, P Gerrbrand, N-E Johansson — A Maybury, S Hughes, J Gudjonsson, R Smith — I Hume, E Hammond (sub: M de Vries, 67min). Substitutes not used: C O’Grady, P Henderson, J Wesolowski, P Kisnorbo
Southampton (4-4-2): B Bialkowski — C Baird, C Lundekvam, D Higginbotham, J Brennan — M Oakley, D Potter, D Prutton (sub: S Gillett, 36), N Dyer — M Pahars, D Blackstock (sub: K Jones, 83). Substitutes not used: P Smith, R Fuller, M Cranie
Referee: N Miller
