Maguire still flying but Bertrand feels the pain
You could forgive Ryan Bertrand for feeling a pang of envy towards Harry Maguire.
Having been left out of Gareth Southgate’s World Cup squad despite playing a key role in the qualification matches, the Southampton captain was forced to watch England from afar as Maguire and his team-mates excelled in Russia.
He must have felt his luck was changing when he scored a wonderful second-half goal against Leicester to put Southampton in control on his 150th appearance for the club.
But hesitant defending and Pierre-emile Hojbjerg’s calamitous dive, which earned him a second yellow card, gave Claude Puel’s side a way back.
That culminated in Maguire’s 30-yard low shot flying through the legs of two defenders in the 93rd minute, prompting him to remove his shirt and race towards the jubilant away support. Not a bad summer, then.
“A last-minute goal in front of the away fans – there’s nothing better,” said Maguire. “I don’t often score goals that aren’t with my head.”
“He has a good shot,” said Puel. “He works after training sessions.”
Bertrand, meanwhile, was consigned to suffer the familiar sinking feeling of a team who have won only three times in 28 league games.
“It’s very tough to take,” said Bertrand, calling on his team-mates to “show maturity” and “do the basics”.
“There’s positives to take. We addressed the situations we needed to from the previous games and we managed to start sharply and we [deserved] to win the game up until the sending-off.
“You can’t come away with a loss. You have to stick in there and get a point at least.”
Southampton have only one of them from their opening three games, causing unease among supporters, even in August, due to their narrow escape from relegation last season.
Bertrand described Jonathan Moss’s dismissal of Hojbjerg as “a poor decision and definitely not a sending-off ”.
It gave Leicester the impetus to search for a winner after Demarai Gray had capitalised on Cedric Soares’s poor clearance to equalise.
Bertrand, reflecting on his own impact, said: “Individually, I’m improving. Game by game, [I can] do more.
“But it means nothing if we don’t come away with something.” Six of Cardiff City’s next seven Premier League games are against teams who finished in the top seven last season:
Sunday Sept 15 Sept 22 Sept 30 Oct 6 Oct 20 Oct 27
v Arsenal (h) v Chelsea (a) v Man City (h) v Burnley (h) v Tottenham (a) v Fulham (h) v Liverpool (a)