Southampton: Player produced his best Saints game yet vs Newcastle

Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy put in a stunning performance on Saturday despite his side’s 1-0 loss to Newcastle in the Premier League.

The Saints shot-stopper played to the best of his abilities and produced a superb range of saves to keep the hosts at St Mary’s in the game until late on.

For this reason, it is hard to argue that this was not his best showing since arriving on the South Coast in 2016.

During the match, the 30-year-old began his contributions with a brilliant triple save just seven minutes in.

A cross from the right bobbled right into the middle of the Saints box and led to McCarthy blocking Dwight Gayle’s attempt on goal. However, he wasn’t content with just that and got up quickly to then deny Miguel Almiron twice from even closer range.

Gayle was then denied again from point blank range as his stooping header found the man between the sticks in the way again, but the best moment of the first-half was still to come.

Sofiane Boufal’s careless handball inside the area led to VAR awarding a penalty and gave Newcastle their best chance yet to end the goal drought they had been experiencing.

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It had been a long time since Saints fans had seen one of their goalkeepers save a spot-kick, but they would have been unaware of how long it had actually been – 2,743 days to be precise, with the last being Kelvin Davis’ stop against Manchester United and Robin van Persie.

McCarthy was the hero this time though as he flew to his left to parry Matt Ritchie’s strike from 12 yards, whilst Davis was watching on from his coaching role on the Saints bench.

Allan Saint-Maximin eventually netted the match-winner late on but McCarthy quite rightly gets praise for his showing that kept the hosts in the game for much of the afternoon.

Back in the 2017/18 season, McCarthy did produce a couple of performances against Bournemouth at home and Swansea away that were of a similar level.

However, this latest showing against Newcastle was just that little bit more impressive and came just a week after he had made a mistake at West Ham.

Saints have only secured six clean sheets from 29 Premier League games this campaign, with McCarthy in goal for four of those.

He and the Saints fans will be hoping that this late burst of form will be able to provide a few more clean sheets to get over the 40-point mark and to safety.