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Southampton B continued their pre-season with a 2-1 win over seventh tier side Salisbury, with former Chelsea academy starlet Dynel Simeu making his first appearance in Saints colours.
Southampton’s youngsters continued their preparations for the upcoming Premier League 2 campaign as they travelled to Wiltshire to face Salisbury on Tuesday night.
Salisbury play in the Southern League Premier Division South. A reincarnation of Salisbury City, Salisbury were founded in 2015, but very much still base themselves off their predecessors in everything but name.
Salisbury FC’s formation in 2015, with the backing of Ian Hammond and Steve Claridge, saw them enter the 9th tier of English football. Their backing meant that promotion was a formality, and they found themselves in the Southern League system after just one year.
Salisbury were promoted from the eighth tier at the second attempt in 2018. In the last season to be completed in its entirety at this level, 2018/2019, Salisbury finished in 4th position, before being knocked out in the play-off semi-final by Metropolitan Police.
At the time of the 2019/2020 season curtailment, Salisbury sat in 7th place. The club has set the clear goal to get Salisbury back up to the National League and, eventually, to the Football League.
The Whites’ pre-season has been a busy, but largely successful one, playing six times and winning five whilst losing just one. Their victories came up against AFC Portchester, Lymington Town, Moneyfields, AFC Portchester, Fareham Town, and Andover New Street, with their only blemish coming in the form of a surprise home defeat to AFC Totton.
This test against the best Southampton’s academy have to offer was the first of two matches designed to really get the team up to speed, with a game against old foes Eastleigh scheduled for this Saturday.
As for the young Saints, they looked to carry on from where they left off at the Testwood Stadium, after they dispatched of AFC Totton 4-1, with a couple of trialists getting another opportunity in the Southampton lineup.
This match also posed as a debut of sorts for 19-year-old Simeu, who recently signed for the Saints having spent a decade in Chelsea’s academy system, earning caps up to and including U20 level for England.
Simeu impressed over the years at Cobham, playing way above his years and commanding the backline, whilst also proving his quality on the ball. Back in 2020, aged just 18, Dynel lifted the Premier League 2 trophy as a Chelsea U23 player, and has featured in the English Football League Trophy for the past two seasons as well as making an appearance on the bench for the senior team in a Champions League Last 16 game against Bayern Munich.
The clear first-team pathway is believed to be what attracted Dynel to the south coast, as he turned down a new deal at Cobham to come and play under Ralph Hassenhuttl’s regime.
Simeu has, for now, been placed in the B team, but it has been stressed that there is a good chance he will get some first-team football this season.
Simeu will also be buoyed by the arrival of his former Chelsea teammate Tino Livramento, who signed a four year deal for the Saints this week.
This match also featured an Olympian, with Caleb Watts returning from representing Australia in Tokyo to get back into club action for Southampton.
The young Saints struggled to get going in the game, with players giving the ball away on a few occasions. After the opening exchanges played out, the Saints started to settle as Kazeem Olagibe manufactured an opportunity for himself, dragging his shot just wide of the post.
Salisbury were the first to seriously threaten though, with Southampton B carved open way too easily with one through ball sending Harry Baker through on goal. The attack looked ominous, but a last-ditch tackle from new signing Simeu prevented the shot from bearing down on Jack Bycroft.
The academy prospects started to exert their quality on their opponents early on, with Benni Smales-Braithwaite working tenaciously on the byline to cut the ball back to Trialist A, who glaringly missed the target from 6 yards out.
However, Southampton did look vulnerable whenever their opponents graced their penalty area, emphasised by a goalmouth scramble on the half-hour mark which somehow didn’t lead to a Salisbury goal. Salisbury were to be punished for missing this chance.
As half time approached, the young Saints started creeping forward more and more, and eventually, a Sam Bellis strike was well saved by Patrick O’Flaherty but Olagibe was on hand to slot home into an empty net to give the visitors the lead.
The damage for the home side was done either side of halftime, as less than 40 seconds into the second period, the Whites found themselves 2-0 down. Smales-Braithwaite dropped deep and provided a sumptuous through ball for Trialist A, who made amends for his earlier miss with a cute finish dinked over the goalkeeper.
Salisbury could have fallen into the trap of letting the game get away from them, but were rewarded for some pressure with a gift to half the deficit.
Salisbury had applied some pressure on the Saints B backline but had seemingly lost out until a skewed clearance struck the arm of Simeu, who subsequently gave away a penalty on his debut.
The initial penalty kick was a poor one from Yemi Odubade, but Bycroft’s save only parried the ball directly back into the path of the former Eastleigh player, who made no mistake at the second time of asking.
Substitute Teddy Davey nearly made an impact as he stormed through on goal, but he was subsequently forced wide and his shot from a. Tight angle rippled the side netting.
The game got scrappy in the last twenty minutes, with the plethora of substitutions probably not helping the flow of the game.
However, Trialist B came on and despite a shaky start looked impressive as he dazzled the Salisbury backline with his ball control and skill, before offloading the ball to Kaya Tshaka who set himself and drilled a shot in, but it spun directly into the welcoming gloves of Marcus Beauchamp.
All in all, this was exactly what both teams wanted in that it was a great run out for both sets of players. However, with it being so late on in pre-season, the coaching staff will have wanted to have seen a little more quality from their respective players.
There is no doubt Southampton’s youngsters were deserved winners, but they were given a tough test by Salisbury, who ought to do well in the Southern League once again this year.
Giving away a penalty may not have been the ideal debut for Simeu, but it was a rather unfortunate situation for him to be in as there was little he could to pre-empt or indeed get out of the way of his teammates mishit clearance.
On the whole, Simeu looked at ease on the ball and picked out some good passes, whilst also commanding the backline and barking orders at his players, despite being one of the newest faces. The 19-year-old will also be pleased to have got off to a winning start at his new club and get some vital minutes under the belt.
The young Saints team as a whole, bar the opening ten minutes, looked comfortable on the ball as you would expect and showed good build-up play, with the final ball sometimes lacking.
Trialist A struggled in the first half, with that early miss possibly just knocking his confidence. However, he will have done his chances of earning a contract no harm by scoring less than a minute into the second half.
Trialist B also started nervously, but grew into the game in the half hour he was given, starting to trouble the Salisbury defence late on.
For Salisbury, they’ll look forward to playing old rivals Eastleigh on Saturday in what is sure to be another tough test. They will look to make their final adjustments before the important business starts with a trip to the Metropolitan Police in their Southern League opener.
Southampton B meanwhile play a Yeovil Town development side before they get their Premier League 2 campaign underway against Norwich City U23.
Playing senior teams will have been a vital experience for Southampton’s young prospects, with the Papa John’s Trophy and the Hampshire Senior Cup providing the only other chance to test themselves against experienced players.
Salisbury: O’Flaherty; Davis, Somerton, Knowles, Roberts, Kennedy (C), Odubade, Wakefield, Fitchett, Baker, Diaz
Substitutes: Beauchamp, Ball, Jones, McReadie, Starr, Mullings, Brooks
Southampton B: Bycroft; Payne, Carson, Simeu, Tizzard (C), Watts, Bellis, Chauke, Smales-Braithwaite, Trialist A, Olagibe
Substitutes: Ross-Laing, Hall, Lett, Tshaka, Davey, Trialist B
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