Although the own goal wasn’t entirely his fault, Southampton need to drop Wesley Hoedt for the tough clash this week against Wolverhampton.
The Dutchman has been a figure of controversy since his arrival on the south coast last summer, as despite some good performances he has, one the whole, been relatively poor for the Saints.
Despite this, both Mauricio Pellegrino and Mark Hughes have regularly selected the ex-Lazio defender, suggesting that coaches must value him highly despite the lack of obvious reason why.
However after the own goal against Liverpool this past weekend it seems like the best time to drop the 24-year-old, no less because the Saints have a plethora of talented centre-halves waiting in the wings having had limited play-time this campaign.
Jan Bednarek performed really well at the end of last season and even had a respectable World Cup, but so far the Polish defender has played just 35 minutes of Premier League football so far this campaign.
Furthermore, if Hughes doesn’t want to risk the inexperienced Bednarek alongside Vestergaard, then the level-head of Maya Yoshida would make much more sense.
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The Japanese international is more of a ball-playing defender like the rest of the Saints’ other options, and therefore would be a logical partner for Vestergaard.
Even Jack Stephens would offer more than Hoedt as the Englishman is much less accident-prone than the latter, and therefore he may not of made the knee-jerk decision to poke his leg onto Shaqiri’s deflected shot which saw Liverpool took the lead.
Granted, Hoedt had started the season reasonably well as it appeared that he worked well with the taller and more physical Jannik Vestergaard, but in recent weeks he’s returned to the form we saw for the majority of last season.
Above all, the 24-year-old lacks any real ability make snapshot decisions under pressure which often sees him make mistakes or worse, allow attacking players to breeze by without much of a challenge.
Southampton have been dangerously fragile at the back and as they seem to be sticking with a four-man defence, swapping out Hoedt for a more composed replacement seems like a logical route around the problem. Any of Yoshida, Bednarek or Stephens would offer this – Hughes needs to drop the Dutchman.