Saints At Burnley The Verdict Sunday, 25th Feb 2018 10:05 Suddenly a goal came out of nowhere and pulled Saints out of the bottom three, what are the plus and minus points from this game. Although Burnley were in a worse run of form than even Saints, this was never going to be an easy game and it was a tale of two sides who put caution before trying to win the game. No one was complaining about the side that Saints put out, although some would not have picked Nathan Redmond and would have preferred Pierre Emile Hojbjerg or even Josh Sims, the reality was this was a side that most would have selected bar one change, that being the case the focus was on Mauricio Pellegrino to make it work and take home the points. It was evenly matched with few real chances and Saints looked to have a game plan of keeping it tight and then looking to win it late on. That game plan went out of the window in the 67th minute when Burnley scored a goal out of nowhere, did Saints go to sleep ? I would have to say yes for about the only time in the game we lost a bit of concentration and paid the price. After the goal Pellegrino threw on Josh Sims for JWP, then Sofiane Boufal for Oriol Romeu and then finally Manolo Gabbiadini for Tadic, none of these substitutions seemed to change the game much although Sims made a decent chance for himself and drew a good save from the keeper via the post, at least he was wiling to have a go. But then in the final minute suddenly the game changed and perhaps the season, with the supporters turning on the manager and many offering abuse rather than encouragement to the team something changed. Ironically it was referee Bobby Madley who started the move when he got in the way of a Burnley player, Sean Dyche whinged like mad after the game and even suggested that Madley should have given Burnley a free kick during the move to even things up, but the fact remains that the ref is part of the pitch and it is down to players to avoid him not the other way round and Madley was not exactly blocking a Burnley player in the penalty area but exactly where you would have expected him to be. But then came what could be the best worked goal of the season for Saints, Nathan Redmond has come under fire but he did exactly what you wanted from him, he carried it forward and created space, he laid a perfect pass for Josh Sims who had overlapped and from his cross Guido Carrillo headed the ball down for Manolo Gabbiadini to lose his markey swivel and fire home. Suddenly Saints had a bit of luck and this goal pulled them out of the bottom three, if we can do this a few more times then we won't have many problems. But there did not see to be many Saints fans in the visitors section espousng that theory as the minutes ticked down on the clock, there were more than a fair few more interested in hurling abuse at Pellegrino in the final minutes than supporting the team and raising them to s spirited ending, more than one person told me afterwards that they felt that those around them seemed almost disappointed that we had equalised ! So is this the start of the end of season surge towards safety ? or is Pellegrino really so hated by so many Saints fans that they won't allow him to succeed. The last 15 minutes or so did see a sense of urgency in the players lacking not only in the first 75, but for many games this season, was this down to their own endeavors or the manager ? The board are clearly not going to sack Pellegrino before the end of the season now, not unless there is a dreadful run of defeats, so some have to ask themselves this question, do they want to see Saints go down so they can tell people I told you so, or would they prefer that we battled out of trouble and perhaps even had a Wembley appearance to cheer up an otherwise troubled season. If it is the former than I would suggest that you stay at home and save your money, yes I know that the stock answer to that is " I have paid my money I'm entitled to my opinion" no one is saying that you should not tell the world what you think, but those of us who prefer the latter option, would prefer that you stay at home and do it on social media rather than turning an atmosphere toxic at games of football where we need every point. This is not happy clapping, we all know things are not right, but the bulk of us are "supporters" of Southampton Football Club and if you don't know what the definition of supporter is in the dictionary then look it up, there will be plenty of time for ranting after the final game. For me this was an awful game, but I am not interested in whether I'm being entertained for the rest of the season, I'm interested in picking up enough points to stay in the Premier League, so from that point of view it is a step forward, as the saying goes We March On ! The new slogan should be "Be part of the solution not the problem" Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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