Southampton extended their unbeaten run in the Championship to eight games with a 2-1 win over West Bromwich Albion, with Mason Holgate starring.
Saints took an early lead at St Mary’s, scoring in the fifth minute through Republic of Ireland international Will Smallbone.
Kyle Bartley equalised for the away side in the 65th minute, with Russell Martin’s side then having to go up another gear to get the winner.
It only took 14 minutes until they did get that winner, with the top scorer for Saints so far this season, Adam Armstrong, scored his ninth goal of the season to seal all three points.
The result left Southampton sitting in fourth place going into the November international break, nine points off the automatic promotion places.
One player received some praise in particular, that being Mason Holgate.
Defender praised for ‘brilliant’ display
Speaking to the Daily Echo, manager Martin was full of praise for Holgate following the victory, saying:
“Mason gave us a brilliant performance today.
“Mason has had to wait for his opportunity and had a tough start to life here, which was my fault – I put him in too early.
“It’s so different to playing centre-half in any other team that he would have played for before. He has done fantastically well since then, against Preston and today.
“It was good for him to have that today. Now Mason needs to make sure he is ready to keep performing when he gets opportunities in the team at some point.”
Could Holgate nail down a starting spot?
Like Martin said, it has taken Holgate a while to give more chances after his loan move from Everton, but he has definitely taken them.
In what was only his second start since the end of September, Holgate has found game time limited due to the great partnership building at centre back between Jan Bednarek and Taylor Harwood-Bellis.
But he stepped in for Bednarek, with the Polish centre back suspended after picking up five yellow cards.
He performed admirably, with SofaScore giving him a 7.3 out of ten rating.
He won 86% of his duels, whilst also having the joint most clearances in the game with six, and the joint most tackles in the game with four. He also had the second most interceptions, with two.
As Martin said, Holgate has found it hard to play for his team with their passing and possession-based style.
But that did not look to be a problem on Saturday afternoon, as he had a 92% pass accuracy.
Now with another international break in which Holgate can work on his game under Martin, he could look to build on this performance and maintain a starting spot, with Bednarek and Harwood-Bellis away with Poland and England U21s respectively.