It’s a return to Premier League 2 for Southampton’s B team this weekend, with Manchester City visiting Staplewood Campus on Saturday.
THE MATCH
Saints B vs Man City
Premier League 2
Staplewood Campus
Saturday 7th November, Midday GMT
After a young outfit took to the field representing Saints’ B team on Monday night in the Hampshire FA Senior Cup, Dave Horseman will welcome back several regular faces for Saturday afternoon’s fixture.
These names include Harry Lewis, Will Ferry and Callum Slattery, who scored a free-kick last-time-out during the harsh 3-1 defeat at an experienced Derby County.
Manchester City on the other hand enjoyed a fruitful afternoon a week ago, beating strugglers Arsenal 4-1 at the Manchester City Academy Stadium.
Having seen the Gunners take the lead, goals from Felix Nmecha, James Mcatee, Liam Delap and Alpha Dionkou secured the three points for the Citizens.
LAST MEETING
The two sides last came into battle at the start of December 2019 with Saints coming away with a 2-0 victory at AFC Totton’s Snows Stadium.
Slattery opened the scoring just shy of the half hour mark from the penalty spot after a dominant opening few minutes for Horseman’s side.
The dominance continued just three minutes later, Christian Norton with an instinctive volley which completed the scoring.
After a dramatic 4-3 victory away from home on opening day, that result sealed the double over City.
MANAGER’S NOTES
Following his side’s defeat to Eastleigh on penalties Monday night, Horseman was under no illusion of the need to improve going into Saturday’s game.
“We’ll have a lot of players to come back in [for Saturday against City],” said Horseman, “and probably have a different team to what played tonight.
“We have good players and this season, in PL2, we’ve actually played really well. We have to slide in quicker at the back to deny a bit more space and we have to make sure when the ball is in and around their box we have a bit more movement.
“They’re [Man City] probably the most talented team in the country, most of them have just played in the FA Youth Cup and they’ve just beaten Chelsea in the last minute of that.
“They pay the most money so they get players from all over the world so they’re outstanding, but we beat them twice last year.
“Ok the first game may have been a little fortuitous but in the second game we were really good. We’ll have a model, we’ll study how the first team play against their first team and we’ll try and put those into practise from just after the project restart.
“Although most of the boys who will play on Saturday didn’t play tonight [at Eastleigh], we’ll expect a reaction from the group. In fact we’ll demand a reaction.”
You can follow LIVE updates of Saturday's game on our official twitter account.
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