Graeme Souness has launched some heavy criticism of Southampton for their defending in Newcastle United's 4-1 win at St Mary's. The Magpies heaped the pressure on Saints boss Ralph Hasenhuttl with a comfortable victory on the South Coast to move up to third in the Premier League table.
Newcastle can now not be any lower than fourth in the table heading into the World Cup break next week, with a superb start to the season that has seen them lose just once so far. However, rather than praise Newcastle's quality in their fourth successive win, Souness instead opted to look at the deficiencies of their opposition, who are now in the bottom three after another poor display.
Souness was extremely critical of the defending for both Miguel Almiron and Bruno Guimaraes' goals, with the former opening the scoring and the latter rounding it off. Speaking on Sky Sports, Souness claimed that the Southampton defence are not brave enough to put their bodies on the line.
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"Again, look at Maitland-Niles, he turns his back on the shot, you have to stop the shot! Take on for the cause, that is not last gasp defending, it is too easy.
"Where is the desire to stop shots towards your goal. He just passes the ball into the net. Southampton are a team who are fighting for their lives and unless they improve on being more aggressive, willing to take one for the cause, they are going down."
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