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Graziano Pellè scores late winner for Southampton at Stoke
Graziano Pellè scores late winner for Southampton at Stoke
(about 1 hour later)
Southampton completed a league and cup double over Stoke City, Graziano Pellè scoring his second goal of the night in the 89th minute, but only after withstanding a furious second-half assault in which Peter Crouch was sent off for two bookable fouls inside 80 seconds.
Southampton earned a Capital One Cup quarter-final draw away to Sheffield United courtesy of Graziano Pellè’s second goal of the night in the 89th minute, but only after withstanding a furious second-half assault in which Stoke City’s Peter Crouch was sent off for two bookable fouls inside 80 seconds.
Pellè claimed the winner after Steven Davis’s free-kick deflected his way off Erik Pieters following Crouch’s lunging foul on Davis. Mame Diouf had equalised for Stoke eight minutes from time, when he headed in Charlie Adam’s corner, after Southampton had cruised into a two-goal lead at half-time, four days after their 1-0 victory over Mark Hughes’s side in the Barclays Premier League.
Stoke, 2-0 down at half-time after losing to the same opponents in the Premier League last Saturday, staged a feisty comeback to make it 2-2 when Mame Diouf equalised eight minutes from time but Pellè’s 10th goal of the season for club and country enabled Southampton to win for the ninth time in 10 games as he capitalised on the free-kick that Crouch conceded for a lunge on Steven Davis.
Southampton’s ninth win in 10 games earned them their first foray into the League Cup quarter-finals since 2003/04 and yet the first half had been a leisurely affair, apart from a late and high tackle by Morgan Schneiderlin on Jonathan Walters that went unpunished by referee Lee Mason. That fired Stoke’s sense of injustice and Adam and Crouch seemed hell bent on revenge when they went on as substitutes to fire a comeback that ultimately proved in vain.
Ronald Koeman’s team showed impressive character in the last quarter of the game after Charlie Adam and Crouch came on as if they had a mission to kick Southampton into submission. The visitors’ response reflected they possess steel as well as silk.
By the half hour mark Southampton’s sizeable travelling contingent were chanting “we want eight” as their team strolled and passed their way into a winning position with goals from Pellè and Shane Long.
“They were physical and brought Crouch in and it’s difficult to defend,” Koeman, the Southampton manager, admitted.
Although Stoke would always have expected to provide a sterner test than Sunderland, who went down 8-0 at St Mary’s recently, Southampton are passing every test coming their way right now.
“It’s not the way I like to play but that’s Stoke. You can’t always win the football way. Stoke made it very difficult and made it a battle in second half. But my team showed spirit. Even after the disappointment of going 2-2 my feeling was positive on the bench.
Second in the Premier League, the quarter-finals of the League Cup, they are in the kind of hallowed place that comes from getting the balance right between ambition and prudence. Selling £88m worth of talent in the summer that they lost one upwardly mobile manager in Mauricio Pochettino, the £57m reinvested by Ronald Koeman is reaping dividends week on week.
“Maybe [with] the red card for Crouch we were a little lucky but we deserved to win – we had more chances than Stoke.”
Certainly everything Pellè touches at the moment seems to turn to gold. Receiving Matt Targett’s ball in to feet 25 yards from goal, the Italian was afforded a tad too much respect from the Stoke defence, with Geoff Cameron guilty of standing off him, but how he took advantage was audacious, as he took one touch before curling the ball into the top corner for a sixth-minute lead.
Crouch could not argue too much because, after he had been booked for fouling José Fonte, he overreached in his bid to reclaim the ball from Davis who, after receiving treatment, got up to deliver the free-kick that ricocheted off Erik Pieters and into the path of Pellè.
It was Pellè’s ninth goal in 13 games this season, including the winner against Malta a fortnight ago on his international debut. The £8m that Southampton invested in the 29-year-old is shrinking by the goal. But then Koeman knew what he was getting having worked with the striker at Feyenoord for the past two years.
Everything Pellè touches at the moment seems to turn to gold. In the sixth minute of a first half in which Stoke were simply not at the races, he took Matt Targett’s pass to feet 25 yards out and curled the ball into the top corner for a sixth-minute lead. The £8m that Southampton invested in the 29-year-old is shrinking by the goal.
Shane Long by contrast has had to be patient and he started last night as Sadio Mané, the matchwinner in the teams’ league meeting last Saturday, was suffering with an ankle injury.
Shane Long by contrast has had to be patient and he started last night as Sadio Mané, the matchwinner in the teams’ league meeting last Saturday, was suffering with an ankle injury.
Stoke’s good moments had been few and far between, Bojan Krkic turning adroitly to send Marko Arnautovic in down the inside-left channel only for the ensuing low cross to fall behind Mame Diouf, but Southampton moved the ball around so muck more slickly and deserved their two-goal lead.
Davis was again the orchestrator as he kept on the move when playing a one-two with Dusan Tadic and overlapped to pull back the low cross from which Long tucked in his first Southampton goal.
Davis was the orchestrator as, receiving Victor Wanyama’s square pass from a headed clearance, he played a one-two with Dusan Tadic, keeping on the move as he overlapped before pulling back the simplest of low crosses for Long to tuck in his first Southampton goal.
Stoke’s hearts were in their boots at this stage, even when Jonathan Walters’s shot high into the net was disallowed for offside, but an unpunished and dangerous tackle by Morgan Schneiderlin on the Ireland forward a minute later evidently served to incense Stoke.
Pellè then produced a sublime moment of skill, chesting down Tadic’s neat chip, nicking the ball away from Marc Wilson and then volleying just wide. Stoke’s hearts were in their boots at that point. Walters showed some fight, and was unfortunate when his shot high into the net was disallowed for offside as Diouf’s deflected effort fell his way.
Steven Nzonzi made it 2-1 within four minutes of the restart, when he motored from the halfway line to unleash a low 30-yard shot into the bottom corner, and the introduction of their A-list substitutes soon raised the tempo another notch.
Hughes, a League Cup winner with three different clubs as a player, had every right to be seething at half-time at how his team had performed. While Southampton were impressive, Stoke had been insipid. But within four minutes they were back in a game from which they could have been out of sight.
Davis and Long spurned clear opportunities to reclaim Southampton’s two-goal buffer before Adam hacked Schneiderlin down savagely for his yellow card to get the crowd fully firing.
Arnautovic was lax with his short free-kick from a left-back position, obliging Steven Nzonzi to stretch to get past his man but boy how he motored on from the halfway line, getting away from Wanyama before unleashing a low 30-yard shot into the bottom corner.
Stoke had five successive corners before Diouf headed in Adam’s delivery to set up the grandstand finish. “If we could have got to extra-time at 2-2, I felt we could well have gone on to win the game,” Mark Hughes, the Stoke manager, said.
Southampton had clear opportunities to reclaim their two-goal buffer but Davis and Long, both getting free, spurned them before Stoke, fired up by Charlie Adam’s heated impact as a substitute, finally gave it a go.
“But the emotion of getting back into the tie may have spilled over a little bit and when we lost Crouch, it took the wind out of our sails somewhat and we haven’t dealt with the free-kick.”
