Belated thoughts on last night

1. We were a bit fortunate to win but not as fortunate as some Saints might make out. They had lots of chances but we also had 4 or 5 excellent chances and hit the woodwork ourselves. Sats show we had 16 attempts at goal and that is the big difference under Roeder in comparison to Grant and Worthy. We are prepared to attack and therefore are giving ourselves a chance of getting something in every awayday.

2. We really missed Fozzy when he went off which shows again how thin the squad is. Up until that point i thought we looked the equal of southampton if not the better side. After that we lost shape and gave the ball away a lot. Pattison was absolutely, totally and utterly dreadful although picked up a bit in the last 15 minutes.

3. Credit to Shack and the Doc for last night. Aside from an iffy 10 mins and giving away that ridiculous penalty the Doc was good and him and Shack won everything in the air. I have been critical of Shack of late but last night he was probably MOM and even his passing was quite good. I'm still not convinced by the two of them as a pairing in the long terms but at the moment they are doing well.

4. Another very good game from Russell - player of the season candidate.

5. Another good game from Dion - Russels main rival for player of the season.

6. Hucks looked sharper last night - injection has hopefully done the trick for a while.

7. Good turnour from our fasn for a Tuesday night. About 900 I would say. Bit quiet in first half though. Large areas of empty seats at St Mary's a bit embarrassing for the Saints.

8. Good on Roeder if we are going to get 3 or 4 players in in the next 48 hours but damn him for again announcing it in advance. Does he not realise that i will now spend the next 2 days checking the internet every half an hour and not doing the work I need to do!

Posted By: Jim, Jan 30, 09:36:20