Match report from yesterday (a serious one - long post):

After watching Southampton deservedly triumph in this intriguing contest at St. Mary?s, the two managers will contemplate the impending opening of the transfer window with contrasting emotions.

For Norwich?s Peter Grant, it presents an opportunity to restructure and rejuvenate a tired Norwich squad that desperately needs both strength and guile in midfield and less pressure on Darren Huckerby to create chances for himself and Robert Earnshaw. For Southampton?s George Burley, it will represent a month-long struggle to retain Gareth Bale, the club?s most exciting youth product since Theo Walcott, ultimately prized away from Hampshire just under a year ago.

Bale, still 17, was crucial to Southampton?s victory in a match perhaps hyperbolically billed as ?the most important game of the season? by the St. Mary?s PA. Whilst the match lacked both the significance and the intensity of Southampton?s exhilarating 4-3 win over the Canaries in April 2005, it was a keenly-fought affair that, while producing few genuinely clear-cut chances, remained open and engaging throughout.

Norwich went into the game having lost their last two matches; Southampton had ended a run of four straight wins with a defeat to struggling Southend. The surprising selections for both teams were in midfield. Burley opted to start with defender Pedro Pel? and Jermaine Wright ahead of Colombian anchorman Jhon Vi?fara and playmaker I?igo Idi?kez, whilst Grant preferred the industrious Andy Hughes and the ineffectual Carl Robinson to Moroccan schemer Youssef Safri.

In the absence of any central midfield player capable of dictating the play, both teams attempted to attack through the channels, both threatening far more down the left. Still over-reliant on the man integral to their promotion three years, nearly every Norwich move involved Darren Huckerby, who gave Alexander ?stlund a torrid time but frequently failed to provide a telling final ball.

The Southampton midfield did, however, manage to pin Norwich in their own half early on, and allowed Bale and Sk?cel, as well as ?stlund and Andrew Surman on the right, plenty of space to swing in dangerous crosses, giving Burley?s side the better of the early exchanges. The threat of Kenwyne Jones and Grzegorz Rasiak was, however, well managed by a Norwich defence co-ordinated by Dion Dublin, twenty years older than Bale, who was Norwich?s best player and looks likely to be an important figure in Grant?s attempts to reverse the Canaries? sliding fortunes.

As in 2005, it was Norwich who took the lead. After a Bale free kick had gone close and Jones and Rasiak had failed to convert intelligently-crafted chances, Earnshaw, given far too much space by Southampton?s centre-backs, latched on to a loose ball to fire past Kelvin Davis from 20 yards in Norwich?s first threatening attack.

Huckerby?s inability to end penetrating runs with incisive passes and the creative paucity of Norwich?s midfield prevented the visitors from asserting themselves more definitively, and Southampton gradually took control of the match. Another free kick from Bale went very close ? the St. Mary?s scoreboard announced an equaliser to cheers from the home fans before they realised that the full-back?s shot had struck the post, gone behind and rolled across the back of Paul Gallacher?s net.

A genuine equaliser materialised from the inevitable source. Uriah Rennie decreed that Dickson Etuhu had fouled Sk?cel and Bale, at the third attempt, fired an unstoppable curling shot past Gallacher.

Both sides upped the tempo as the second half began, their attempts to play crisp, passing football still hampered by the workmanlike nature of their midfield talismen. Rasiak went close after a swift Saints counter-attack, taking advantage of Dublin?s instinctive decision to join a Norwich attack. The introduction of Lee Croft after 55 minutes, with Andy Hughes dropping to right-back to replace J?rgen Colin, gave Norwich more balance and more cutting edge, restricting Bale?s freedom to support Sk?cel and diverting the attention of Southampton?s centre-backs away from Huckerby.

As in 2005, it was Southampton who scored the final, decisive goal. One of the home team?s many corners was covered poorly by Gallacher and his defence, and Kenwyne Jones, otherwise ineffectual, headed home what proved the winner from close range.

The alertness of Kelvin Davis prevented Peter Thorne, desperate for a goal to kickstart his unhappy Norwich career, from stabbing home a deft Huckerby cross ? the last effective contribution from the Canaries? winger, who was surprisingly replaced by veteran defender Craig Fleming shortly after. Southampton?s defence managed to soak up late Norwich pressure, with Dublin joining Earnshaw and Thorne in an attack that was fed far increasingly directly; the visitors were limited to a long-range effort from Etuhu that sailed well over Davis?s bar.

Perhaps using his Scottish connections, particularly at Celtic, Grant will look to add both steel and creativity to a midfield bereft of ideas and technique, and a target man capable of feeding the ever-dangerous Earnshaw. Burley, who may well use his Hearts connection to bring Stephen Pressley into an often brittle defence, will hope that one of his late substitutes, Bradley Wright-Phillips, will use his brother?s example to warn Bale that he may derive more playing experience, and greater satisfaction, from starring in Southampton?s promotion push than in warming the bench after a move bankrolled by one of the Premiership?s foreign oligarchs.

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot on December 17th 2006 at 10:17:56

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