Former Watford striker Troy Deeney has warned Russell Martin about a Southampton weakness after their 1-0 defeat against Newcastle United in their Premier League opener.
Russell Martin has made huge changes at Southampton in a short space of time as he has spent the last year completely overhauling the playing style.
After years of playing counter-pressing football under Ralph Hasenhuttl, Martin implemented his possession-based style with great success as Southampton were promoted from the Championship last season.
Now that he has earned his first crack at the Premier League as a manager, Martin is in no mood to suddenly change his principles.
His style will be undoubtedly be divisive over the course of the season but Southampton showed against Newcastle United that they can compete with England’s top sides playing this way.
Troy Deeney thinks Southampton ‘give you a chance’ playing Russell Martin way
Southampton enjoyed 78% possession in the 1-0 defeat to Newcastle as they kicked off their Premier League return.
The fact Newcastle played 63 minutes plus added time with ten men after Fabian Schar’s 28th-minute red card was of course a huge factor in this statistic, but even before then Southampton were showing they will be brave playing through even the most intense of presses this campaign.
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They were unfortunately made to pay for a huge error on 45 minutes, though, as Alex McCarthy received a pass under some pressure and passed straight to Alexander Isak.
The striker squared for Joelinton to slot a finish into the far corner and Troy Deeney feels this is a sign of things to come due to Martin’s tactics.
The TalkSPORT pundit was a guest on Ben Foster’s The Cycling GK Youtube channel where he said: “Whenever you play Southampton, they are going to give you a chance.
“So, even if they scored two, Newcastle will go ‘they will play out from the back and mess it up at some point’ because before that game we knew they play out from the back, you know what Russell does and they will give you a chance.
“You can’t give chances away to these international players.”
Martin will pay Deeney comments on Southampton tactics little attention
What Deeney said is true, Southampton will concede chances playing this way, but the reality is they would also concede chances playing any other way given the quality of the Premier League.
The insistence on playing out from the back perhaps increases this possibility, but it is also makes Southampton a far better team who play some wonderful football at times and it is a style that has brought success.
The Joelinton goal was perhaps a symptom of the style, but it should not be ignored that this was a huge error from McCarthy; a goalkeeper who Southampton are keen to upgrade on with a more adequate distributor before the transfer window shuts.
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Martin uses doubters as motivation but will likely pay little heed to the comments of Deeney who won none of his six games in a 29-day spell in charge of Forest Green Rovers being before being sacked.