Van Dijk strikes first as Southampton cruise to win over sluggish Swansea
Southampton 3 - 1 SwanseaHome team scorers
Virgil van Dijk 11
Dusan Tadic 54
Sadio Mane 61
Away team scorers
Gylfi Sigurdsson 83 Pen
Ronald Koeman’s team, who came into this match after trouncing MK Dons 6-0 in the Capital One Cup, were comprehensive winners again here against a strangely sluggish Swansea City.
As Southampton begin to sense a return to the form of last season, the bright start to this campaign by Garry Monk’s side seems a remote memory. No cause for the Welsh side to panic, but plenty of room for improvement.
The former England forward James Beattie scored 68 goals during six and a half years at Southampton but his task since last summer, when he was appointed as Swansea’s first-team coach, is to sharpen the strike force of Monk’s side. He has had his work cut out for him in recent weeks, as Swansea arrived at St Mary’s on the back of three games without a goal.
A team that is blunt up front better be robust at the back but in the 11th minute here, Swansea were infiltrated in the most basic fashion. After another returning ex-Saint, Jack Cork, failed to keep track of Virgil van Dijk from a corner, the Dutch centre-back headed James Ward-Prowse’s delivery into the net at the near post.
The goal was fair reward for a bright start from the home side, although the clearest chance before then had fallen to the visitors after Maarten Stekelenburg parried a long-range shot by Jonjo Shelvey into the path of Ki. The Korean sent his subsequent shot way over the bar, in the process probably booking himself into extra finishing lessons with Beattie next week. Mind you, Ki did threaten to score in the 23rd minute when his long-range shot almost squirmed under Stekelenburg.
Southampton’s finishing could also do with some polishing. Graziano Pelle and Sadio Mané both miskicked when in promising positions early on. Last week Saints were eventually punished for missing chances to make it 2-0 after taking the lead against Manchester United and the agitation of Ronald Koeman on the sideline suggested the manager dreaded a repeat here.
But at least his team remained on top for the rest of the first period, regularly forcing Swansea into ceding possession in midfield, where Victor Wanyama was particularly commanding.
Monk tried a new approach for the second half, with his two half-time substitutions seemingly intended to give his team more width and punch but, if that was the ambition, it did not work. Eder, introduced at centre-forward instead of the ineffective Gomis, gave an early indication that his sights might not be finely aligned by whacking a 25-yard shot over by about the same distance.
No one at Swansea will appreciate the irony of what happened in the 54th minute, when Ki finally helped the ball into the net, inadvertently deviating a cross by Dusan Tadic into his own goal after a flowing move featuring a fine looped pass by Pellè.
Things quickly got worse for Swansea and much better for Southampton, who had the pleasure of watching Ryan Bertrand play a key role in their third goal on his first start of the season after injury. The left-back led a counter-attack just after the hour mark before playing a low pass to Pellè, whose weak shot was deflected by Williams to Mané. The ease with which the Senegalese stroked the ball into the net from 13 yards rather summed up the fact that Southampton won with a comfort that must be unsettling from a Swansea perspective.
Fabianski had to make solid saves to avoid incurring further damage. First the goalkeeper kept out a 20-yard free-kick from Van Dijk and then he blocked a near-post header from Pellè. Seven minutes from time José Fonte gave Swansea the perfect chance to break their duck, clunking into Neil Taylor to concede a penalty, Gylfii Sigurdsson converted but Southampton had already secured the points.
Guardian
