How Liverpool Turned St. Mary's Into Anfield On Friday Night

       

 
WARNING: the following may be considered graphic in its wholesale and thoroughly disgusting depiction of the Southampton-Liverpool relationship

     The Liverpool fans made the surroundings of St. Mary's definitely sound and feel like Anfield, even after a bright start and an early lead from Southampton hurt Liverpool in the 1st half, the chorus of Scouse voices rose higher than that of the wary fans in the white and red stripes, terrified under hoods and scarves, the late Winter chill in England still ripping in off of the South Coast.
    It actually confused me for a bit until a closeup of Reds midfielder Naby Keita, clad in purple, reminded me this was Liverpool away....shocking scenes indeed, as the confines of St. Mary's became a Merseyside cathedral.
        It may as well be their 2nd home ground, at least psychologically, for we all should know about Liverpool's binge on Southampton stars in recent years, profiting considerably:
        Liverpool not only stole the main defensive prize in world football last January, Virgil Van Dijk (who's solidity kept Liverpool alive as they advanced to the 2018 UCL final), but his center back partner Dejan Lovren came from Southampton as well for a 20 million ransom (Lovren went to the World Cup final with Croatia this last summer), but before that the Fenway Group had already grabbed (the guy who was "Southampton's Messi") Sadio Mane for an absolute juggler's fee (34 million Euros) in the summer of 2016; they took their heart out, too when Adam Lallana came (his fee only nine million less than Mane's) at the end of the Rodgers era in the summer of 2014 when three Southampton players were sold to Liverpool (Lallana, Lambert and Lovren: laugh now at Lallana, but his world class abilities heralded in the Klopp era's aggressive, attack-oriented work ethic ethos before cruel injuries struck him down in his prime).
           Then came Nathaniel Clyne in 2015, a top class right back at the time (who doesn't start for Liverpool now due to a Lallana-curse set of injuries), and Liverpool even took someone Southampton needed (and Liverpool didn't) like Rickie Lambert just because...why not? Lambert was once scoring 20+ goals in a single season believe it or not, pushing 'Hampton deep among the Europa league positions on the EPL table.
        However, for Southampton fans this is hard to shake off...this was a snatching of a single crop of players from a club that was successful in the English premier league; for those fans, this is an "older brother theft from the little sister" type of ordeal, the kind that's almost too easy in the fact that the older brother doesn't even have to steal the candy from the younger sister, Liverpool (the older brother) just had to convince Southampton (the little sister) with ridiculous "gentlemen's agreements" and complaining about the "high fees" they'll have to pay for the players (hilarious, considering all of those players began to be worth a few times the amount of which they were sold to Liverpool for, Lambert aside). 
       The sagas get drawn out for months before suddenly, the smaller club is just too powerless not to sell, the player is excited to go to a bigger club and the dominoes fall...the boot comes down.
       Ya get what I mean?

"Why the hell not?"

       Well, even if I left you behind back there in between the 25 million Euro fees or the Summer of 2014, it is now that we've seen Liverpool become Southampton's incestuous uncle in the 21st century, with a string of 7 transfers from the South Coast club dating back to their 8 million pound purchase of Peter Crouch in 2005, the same year Southampton were relegated from the Premier League after 27 successive seasons in the top flight (Crouch was a 20 goal a season striker who played in a UCL final for Liverpool in 2007 and could've dragged the Saints back into the Premier League had he stayed on for another season in the Championship). 
          Some of these transfers have been as cold and as dirty as Coutinho and Dembele to Barcelona was...
          After all of these fact-based assaults on their club's bullying of Southampton, Liverpool fans are thinking "hey man, we at least gave you Danny Ings and Grobelaar at the end of his career!"
       ...hell, the former Arsenal man (and current 'Pool midfielder) Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain also played for Southampton as a youth product....
         Southampton is up and down the Liverpool squad list, and has been since 2014.
         Liverpool have stolen a lot from the little sister club in such a short time, which is bizarre considering their 5 European cups and 8 trips to the final; hell, Liverpool unnecessarily began pursuing their former #10 Dusan Tadic before his move to Ajax last season....they did it just to do it.....they had no intentions of buying Dusan Tadic, this was club to club bullying and trolling on a level we haven't seen since Dortmund was raided by Bayern Munich with Gotze, Hummels and Lewandowski leaving, Reus, Gundogan and just about everyone else rumored to leave. Klopp has felt the pain of having his core players stolen by a larger domestic rival, too.
        Liverpool beat Southampton, that's what they do.
        Liverpool take Southampton players and turn them into stars who play in European finals...that's another thing they do, too.
       It's not like Liverpool don't produce their own great players: the brilliance of young Alexander-Arnold or the fantastic longevity (even throughout injury) from worthy captain Jordan Henderson (especially when Arsenal midfielders Jack Wilshere and  Aaron Ramsey were fading fast); current City freak and former Liverpool star, Raheem Sterling came from the rain-soaked bruiser-sessions at Melwood; Joe Gomez (who began his career at Charlton, yet is very much a Liverpool-developed asset), there's also barely utilized, but highly promising Welsh international forward and midfielder Ben Woodburn; elsewhere on loan is Sheyl Ojo, a highly talented young British player that's going to be a great one. 
       Liverpool also stole Chelsea youth asset Rhian Brewster when he was only 14, with Brewster now being 19 and still waiting for his first string of matches for the Reds after much courtship from other clubs, including Klopp canceling a friendly between Liverpool and Borussia Monchengladbach after Gladbach's front office had "tapped Brewster up" according to Sky Sports.
         The Saints have a good young core, with former Barcelona youth product Oriol Romeu having been there for a good amount of time and still possessing skill and workmanlike panache, the versatile Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg: a Dane who should've played at the last World Cup, the bizarrely curious case of Nathan Redmond (at some times amazing and at others wondrously woeful); Southampton also possess one of the untold, unrealized best talents in English football, the 24 year old 'Hampton product James Ward-Prowse: a dead ball specialist and creative midfielder in the mould of Christian Eriksen, but a player who could burst on to the scene again, as Ross Barkley has (Ward-Prowse was selected for England by Southgate in the last break, optimistically). Ward-Prowse could be fascinating if he manages himself correctly, as we've seen his form dip and levitate at times over the course of his development. 
        But does this lineup even come close to reaching that of Liverpool's?
        Obviously not...that's why the scene of Klopp's squad retaining their two point "advantage" in the Premier League title race at St. Mary's was almost too perfect, too good to be true for Liverpool fans and so awful and humiliating for Southampton fans...Saint Mary's became a theater of shame for the Saints as they lost their innocence.

        Where did Soufiane Boufal go? 
        Oh yeah, to become a top 5 dribbler in European football and a highly skilled attacker, but while being wasted at relegation threatened Celta Vigo in La Liga....not exactly the South Coast of England.
        Why is he there?
        Why did their front office let Dusan Tadic go, too? 
        How did Tadic go from getting 3 assists and beating Manchester City and 3 assists in an 8-1 victory over Sunderland, but yet never reach his highest potential on the South Coast of England as he has at Ajax? Tadic had some world class moments for Southampton, but he never hit his ultimate like he has in his maiden campaign at Ajax, with his apex being the definitive 4-1 shutdown at the Bernabeu of Real Madrid, a match Tadic, Ajax, Southampton and Real Madrid will always remember. 
        And he could've had that with Southampton: if the squad still contained Van Dijk, Boufal and Tadic, this Southampton club could've been pushing for Europa League spots or further, and frankly, considering Ward-Prowse's potential, Tadic's prolific creativity, Boufal's ability to beat anyone off of the dribble and Van Dijk's perfected defending, this Southampton team should've been.
         So, with all of this in mind, on Friday night when the Liverpool fans began taking over the noise levels of the St. Mary's grounds, loud in voice long before Liverpool took the lead in the 80th minute through a record-breaking Mohamed Salah goal, it wasn't surprising when the chorus of "You'll Never Walk Alone" was ringing out like a siren song to Southampton, almost a beckoning for their ship to capsize, their bow to break. And break they did as Liverpool's steady probing of Southampton's dogged back line finally paid off and unexpectedly, Jordan Henderson, who hadn't scored in nearly 2 seasons, sent the fans at St. Mary's to the exits...leaving the stadium to the control of the Reds fans.  
        It's not Liverpool shoving Southampton fans' faces in the dirt...in the shit...in the mud and the muckery, the mockery, the lunacy of their upper management. They'll always give Liverpool a game, though, and for that Reds fans should be grateful and also wary, for there is nothing more dangerous than an angry, beaten wild animal forced into the corner.....
       ....and they nearly cost Liverpool yet another title race....
       ....so until Liverpool actually cross that finish line, break through that threshold of winning a Premier League title, or beating Barcelona in the Champions League semifinals, they could arguably also be considered a Southampton farm club...