Pre-season recap: Southampton 0-3 Borussia Mönchengladbach

Southampton today suffered a heavy defeat in their last pre-season match of the summer, with the German’s strolling out as comfortable victors.

The Saints finish their summer’s friendlies with three wins, one draw and two losses in total, although both defeats having now been 3-0 drubbings which are bound to raise concerns.

Furthmore, excluding the absent Cedric who missed the match because of a supposed stomach bug, Mark Hughes fielded perhaps his strongest side – one that could at least start next week against Burnley.

However the Saints were behind after just 21 minutes after some lovely passing from BMG opened it up for Fabian Johnson down the left – the American squared it perfectly for Patrick Hermann who finished smartly. Overall, the tracking from Wesley Hoedt will have raised a few alarm bells, as he failed to get goal-side of the German winger.

Many Southampton supporters – myself included – have cried out for the Dutchman to be dropped and for Bertrand to sit deeper as the left-centre-half, allowing Matt Targett more opportunities as the wing-back. This is something Hughes will have to consider Hoedt’s frankly poor pre-season.

After the interval it was more of the same unfortunately, as Denis Zakaria scored a wonderful goal after failing to be closed down by the Southampton back-line. The young midfielder ran with the ball at his feet for a good 25 yards before striking across goal from the edge of the box.

Before the hour things were all wrapped up, as the German side scored again courtesy of a second from winger Patrick Hermann. Some poor marking and another slick pass saw Monchengladbach split Southampton’s defence open on the counter, with the 27-year-old scoring with a calm, right-footed effort. Whilst this game was of course only a friendly, it should be noted that Hermann didn’t score a single goal in the Bundesliga last campaign.

All in all the performance was disappointing, mostly because any confidence gained through the side’s last-gasp 3-2 win over Celta Vigo in midweek would’ve been totally bashed. We can hope the mentality of the players is stronger than this, but we would be a lot more optimistic going into Sunday’s game against Burnley if the result was more positive.

Despite some good chances from Maya Yoshida and Shane Long, Southampton on the whole looked fairly toothless going forward today, something of great concern with the transfer deadline this coming Thursday.

It’s perceived that the club will not sign any more players until further funds are made available through sales, meaning the £10 million brought in from Tadic’s transfer may be all the Saints have left to play with, based on their policy.

After this is massively concerning as there are plenty of strikers on the market who could fit the bill for the club right now, whether they be someone of around £10 million or three times that. All in all it would be concerning if Southampton didn’t recruit further before that Thursday deadline.