Southampton 1-1 Crystal Palace: Premier League – Three Key Players

Oriol Romeu

Romeu was getting into crunching tackles from the first whistle.  It was actually unbelievable that he did not earn himself a yellow card in this contest, with the majority of Southampton’s eleven fouls in the competition.  However, he did earn himself the role of the enforcer, and has become arguably the most important player in Ralph Hasenhuttl’s team shape.

The early challenge with Palace’s Cheikhou Kouyaté left his lip bloodied, but set the tone for the game’s physicality.  Romeu bounced right back up when many footballers would have rolled around for three minutes trying to milk a yellow card out of referee Andre Mariner.  He also had the important job of taking Andres Townsend out of the game, which he nearly did in the build up to Zaha’s goal, but effectively sent a reminder that he would always be lurking near by.

It is honestly unfathomable how Mark Hughes could not deploy a player of such character for the first half of the season.  However, we can thank him now, because our bruiser is fit and ready to go during and important stretch run that will make or break Southampton’s season.