Southampton were undone in a poor 3-1 defeat away from home against Brentford.
Southampton once again struggled in the Premier League as they suffered their third defeat on the bounce as Yoane Wissa and a brace from Bryan Mbuemo saw off the Saints.
It was a fairly gutless performance from a large majority of the squad, with midfield pairing Will Smallbone and Joe Aribo struggling in particular against Brentford.
Whilst there are very few positives to a 3-1 comfortable defeat, Russell Martin may take satisfaction from Yuki Sugawara’s goal, which gets him off the mark for Southampton.
It was the Japanese full-back’s first goal for the club, and Southampton’s first of the entire Premier League season, however there was not much else that Southampton fans could cling on to bar the decent performance from Sugawara.
The full-back was one of the few solid performers for Martin’s side and the stats certainly back up this case.
Southampton full-back Yuki Sugawara played a brilliant role despite loss
The Saints’ new signing has already proven to be a brilliant piece of business for Southampton this season, and he did not take long to show this in his Southampton career after playing a blinder away at Newcastle United, despite tallying just one half of action.
The Southampton man has continuously been outed as a shining light in what is undoubtedly an under-performing Southampton outfit at this moment in time,
The new Saints full-back has been described as both ‘excellent’ and ‘great’ on social media, and looking at the stats it is clear why.
Stats back up Yuki Sugawara’s case of being an incredible signing
Per SofaScore, Sugawara was handed an 8.1 rating, which was higher than any other fellow Saints player, and it is as a result of his ability on the offensive side to cause havoc on the right-flank as shown by the heatmap.
Sugawara also managed to create one big chance and completed an incredible 57/65 passes.
There is very little doubt at this point that Sugawara will prove to be a thorn in the side of any team that Southampton face, no matter the current form of Martin’s side, and that is a testament to the full-back’s work ethic and determination that he showed running up and down the right flank so continuously.
Very little more could have been done by the Japanese defender in his brilliant performance, and there can’t be much that he has to improve following his start to life for Southampton in general, and Saints fans will have every bit of confidence at this point that they have a trusty right-back at Premier League level.