A devastating day for Saints supporters after eight minutes of madness saw defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

For over an hour on Saturday it looked like the Saints of old, passion enthusiasm and plain old rolling their sleeves up and fighting.

When Jan Bednarek put us 2-0 up on the hour it looked like Saints could finally turn this season around and get themselves back on track to stay up.

But then with 20 minutes left came 8 minutes of chaos.

It started when referee Mike Dean pulled play back for what looked like an innocuous challenge, Chelsea tried to take the free kick from around 15 years from where the offence took place, Dean indicated where he wanted it taken and then after they had moved the ball only 3 years towards the spot allowed them to take it with Saints clearly thinking they had to move the ball back to the spot where the offence occurred.

This was symptomatic of a referee who rarely had control of the game and allowed Chelsea to literally do what they wanted continually stealing 10-15 years at throw ins and free kicks and completely ignoring Dean when he sometimes tried to usher them to the correct spot and the referee did nothing.

But I am not blaming Dean for what happened, we as a team lacked leadership on the pitch at a crucial moment, someone should have been stood on the ball, we lost concentration and we paid a price.

The following minutes were painful to watch as Chelsea twice pumped balls into the box and we defended deep and when cleared the ball fell first to Hazard and then Giroud who both fired home completely unmarked and able to pick their spot.

In fairness we found our composure again and went hard for an equaliser, but the damage had been done and all we can take from this game is that there is the spirit there for a great escape but only if we stop shooting ourselves in the foot and for once get a piece of luck.

But survival is looking very difficult now and if we fail to win at Leicester then it could be almost impossible after nest weekend when we don't play in the Premier League.

Now is the time for the spirit that was showed most of the game to be shown in the final five games and make this a Great Escape season.

Will that happen ?

I doubt it, in 1999 we believed that we could stay up and found a run of wins to do so, now the fans don't believe it and spend their time moaning about the performance of certain individuals who will always be the scapegoats, not spotting the irony of criticising those players for a lack of passion.

But this is football nothing is over till it is mathematically impossible to finish 4th from bottom, we have to keep fighting, we have to keep optimistic and we have to try to keep the atmosphere that St Mary's had for the first 70 minutes on Saturday when for the first time in a long while the crowd was fully behind the team.

Photo: Action Images

IanRC added 18:04 - Apr 16 The error we made was not stomping hard on Giroud's calf as soon as he came on. According to our referee on Saturday that is a perfectly acceptable tactic. If Dean had done his job properly then Alonso would not have been on the pitch to supply the cross that started the rot. Instead the tosser decided to book Ward Prowse for a very innocuous challenge whilst incensed with the failure to deal properly with Alonso. The gods are not smiling kindly on us this season we have goals punched in against us and generally very poor refereeing. That said we really need to get a handle the n marking in the box. Bertrand had a very good game generally but ignored a call to close up on Hazard until far too late. Gutted.

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LordDZLucan added 18:11 - Apr 16 ItchenNorth, Chelsea scored 3 goals in 8 minutes. How can a dip in atmosphere be a contributory factor to that? We hardly had time to breathe in between goals let alone chant!
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ItchenNorth added 18:25 - Apr 16 Hi LordDZLucan We shouldn't need time to breathe, just get back on it as fans as soon as the whistle goes. Players, fans; we haven't got time to take a breather in our position, time is running out.
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TeamCortese added 18:41 - Apr 16 NICK! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR DEFENCE OF THE BOARD? WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE YOU'VE SOO VEHEMENTLY DEFENDED FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS? WHERE IS LES REED? WHERE IS RALPH KRUGER? WHERE IS KATERINA LEIBHERR? WHERE ARE THE GAOs? NO WHERE TO BE SEEN! STILL HAPPY WITH US SELLING OUR BEST PLAYERS? ARE WE STILL A VICTIM OF OUR OWN SUCCESS? WE'VE MOVED FROM QUALITY MANAGERS LIKE POCH AND KOEMAN TO MARK HUGHES IN THE SPACE OF 3-4 YEARS. ALL THAT HARD WORK PUT IN BY YOUR VILLIAN 'CORTESE' AND MITCHELL and co WILL MOST PROBABLY BE FOR NOTHING COME THE END OF THE SEASON. THE ROOT CAUSE OF OUR SITUATION LIES WITH KATHERINA LIEBHERR. I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS AND IT FALLEN ON DEAF EARS WITH SO-CALLED 'REAL SAINTS' SUPPORTERS. BOTTOM-LINE IS NICK YOU'LL DEFINITELY NEED TO EAT YOUR WORDS REGARDLESS OF WHETHER WE GET RELEGATED. AND FOR ALL THOSE SAINTS SUPPORTERS STILL BACKING THE LIKES OF DAVIS, JWP AND REDMOND GIVEN THEIR PERFORMANCES THIS SEASON ARE COMPLETELY DELUDED AND SHOULDN'T BE COMMENTING ABOUT FOOTBALL. WE NEED TO FOCUS ON ACTUAL TALENTED PLAYERS THAT CARE ABOUT OUR FOOTBALL CLUB AND HAVE A NEVER SAY DIE ATTITUDE (BOTH IN THE SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM). PLAYERS LIKES YOSHIDA, ROMEU, HOJBJERG, SIMS, GABBI, LONG AND BOUFAL. GOODNESS ME THE PEOPLE MANAGING THIS CLUB ARE DRIVING ME MAD.

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BoondockSaint added 19:39 - Apr 16 I did like Hughes comment in the post-match Q&A when asked about the refereeing: "Maybe that's why they are not in the World Cup this year!"
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simmo400 added 06:45 - Apr 17 People point to a few decisions don't forget the previous games of the season. Leaving it late has cost us, teams around us we would defeat at home and often draw away to stop them gaining points has not happened this season. this 6/8 point change has cost us bigtime.
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SaintBrock added 12:54 - Apr 17 It's not fair to bracket Mr Gao with the rest of the incompetent money grabbers upstairs, the only mistake he has made was not to do his due diligence properly. Had he done so he would have realised that the Fat Cat had sold all the decent player assets to cash in her chips. Now the poor sod can see what he has bought - a Pig in a poke! Probably he doesn't even realise teh consequences of being in the championship next season, that the money doesn't come rolling in by the bucket load every September along with a fat Sky TV contract. Once the penny had dropped no doubt his relationship with the Fat Cat and her lap dogs will hit all the ground level zeroes and they'll be out the door faster than your average Chinese take-away has you rushing for the loo!

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SaintBrock added 13:01 - Apr 17 Flattering to deceive? How many goals has Macarthy let in so far compared with Forster? Just asking?
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mikesaint added 14:04 - Apr 17 I see the Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso has been charged with violent conduct by the Football Association for a tackle on Shane Long. Fat lot of good that is to Saints now, he should have bee sent off on Saturday then we would have won. I don't care about the F A cup. I also think it might be time to play Forster again he cant do any worse. On Thursday someone needs to stamp on Vardy.

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SanMarco added 14:52 - Apr 17 What did McCarthy do wrong? Of course with our luck a stamp on Vardy will be immediately red-carded. You are using the wrong Chinese take-away SaintBrock. Also I expect Mr Gao will know exactly what is going on and use the relegation fire-sale and parachute money to recoup the investment he hasn't even made if the debt reports are true. I wonder if we will have youngsters playing 'total football' next season - maybe Poorvliet is available to manage them????

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BoondockSaint added 15:35 - Apr 17 Don't know if Mr. Gao did due diligence before buying, but Kat sure didn't do due diligence before selling. Surely if she wanted to preserve what her father had done for us, she would have found a buyer with deep pockets to build the team going forward? I still get the feeling that Cortese is monitoring the situation and when the bloom goes off the rose (and the income drops) for Gao, Cortese will swoop in and grab the team at a discount. Don't know if that would be a good or bad thing, but a least we would have someone to stand up to the rich clubs. As Don Henley said of Eagles manager Irving Azoff "He may be Satan, but he's our Satan!"

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TeamCortese added 17:53 - Apr 17 Well said BoondockSaint! ps: I still don't get why your name's based off an Adult Swim cartoon lmfao
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BoondockSaint added 18:33 - Apr 17 HAHA TeamCortese! No confusion on your name! You are thinking of "The Boondocks" cartoon which was originally a comic strip in the newspapers. Which I like-Very well done and original! However, I swiped my name from the Boondock Saints movies (If you like Lock, Stock you might like them) and the fact I am so far from St. Mary's I am "out in the boondocks" as the saying goes! If we get relegated, I may change may name to Metallica's "St. Anger"! All the best!

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