Who do you reckon? For me it's Lovren with an honourable mention to the two full backs. EDIT; Forgot to put up a sodding poll.
Maybe not MOTM but I thought Chambers did well, looked composed and got forward and supported attacking positions, with a bit more luck he might have scored?
Did very well. Save for a couple times where he ended up caught in between when City got him 2v1, his positioning was solid and he got the balance between defense and attack right. Beyond the header, he made a couple other runs from deep to the back post on crosses...quite like that from fullbacks, because more often than not they don't get picked up.
Didn't see match myself, but pundits seem to be praising Shaw, JWP and Chambers (possibly because they are young). One said how confident Reed was for his cameo at the end...added yet another one off the assembly line who looks like he belongs in the PL. Glad to see Cork back and doing well....though didn't want Wanyama injured in order to see it.
Plaudits for everybody: Gazzaniga 7 Chambers 8 Fonte 7.5 Lovren 8 Shaw 8 Cork 8 S.Davis 7.5 Ward-Prowse 7.5 Lallana (c) 8.5 Rodriguez 7.5 Osvaldo 9 [an extra point for that superb goal] Reed 90 N/A RamÃrez 86 N/A Lambert 76 N/A
Oops, meant to give him an 8. Corrected. Now I feel guilty for awarding anyone less than 8. That's how good everyone was today. Fonte, Davis, JWP and JRod played their part. And Gazza didn't let anyone down either.
Cork/Lovren/Shaw - pick one. Whichever should win it, I must say, the whole team made me incredibly proud to be a Saints fan once again. We felt like a Mauricio inspired cohesive unit once again. Delighted for Dani to get that goal too.
There wasn't a stand out man of the match so I had to think about it. Steven Davis just about shades it for me.
Just for the record-- Cork made 1 of 2 tackles and had a 78% pass completion. Not saying he was bad, just that it's difficult to judge ball-winning midfielders by the stats. Cork puts pressure on opposing teams due to his workrate and constant harrying of players. It's an impact that doesn't show up in his personal stats. Wanyama is just such a physical beast no one wants to mess with him and that also disrupts play in a way that doesn't show up in his stats. I would give MOTM to Lovren, but all of the back four were good today. The whole team was, really. Davis put in a pretty gutty performance. Really a lot like Cork's just higher up the pitch but he never seems to get the same plaudits. I would say that only Gazzaniga wasn't that great, but he did enough. I'm okay with him staying on his line, but even if you play conservative you still have to be confident and assured while doing so, and he wasn't. There were a couple of sketchy backpasses played back to him which put him in a bit of a rough spot that he handled well, all things considered. But I also think those backpasses were sketchy because the defenders didn't expect him to be sat quite so far back and because he wasn't really looking for the ball the way a more assured keeper would be. He's in a tough spot though, so can't really be too harsh on him. I just hope he gains some confidence and experience from these games.
Yeah, it was a superlative team effort, so i'm going to sit on the fence on this one (is that booing I hear?)...oh ok then, I'll go for Luke...that was a performance of a seasoned International not an 18 year old rookie, he is so composed on the ball, it's frightening to think what he could become.
Cork without a sodding doubt. Excellent today. Thought everyone was excellent though! Top marks all round
