Stage 1 of 3 completed.
Looking at the scoreline Saints beat Huddersfield easily, however although it cannot be denied that we ultimately deserved our win, for a period it looked completely different and the yorkshire side to their credit kept going and looked a threat to the final whistle.
For the best part of half an hour Saints were all at sea, although going forward they looked dangerous and indeed could have opened the scoring themselves, Huddersfield could well have scored three before they hit the games opener, in that first period the back four were at sixes and sevens and in quick succession Hudderfield ht the woodwork, then missed an incredible open goal before Fonte was caught in no mans land and Novak was left unmarked to head home, at this point it looked like it might be a repeat of the Brentford game.
But it all changed in the space of four minutes around the half hour, first Lambert swivelled and hit a shot that most of the ground thought had gone into the side netting, but somehow squirmed through, there was a delayed reaction to the goal from most, then Chamberlain controlled the ball well before firing home to give Saints a surprise lead.
You could see that now Saints looked a different team, suddenly Fonte & Guly gelled and the visitors through balls were intercepted rather than tearing us apart, up at the other end Saints were creating chances and the only surprise was that we didnt add to the tally.
On the 51st minute Jaidi powered home a header and Saints were truly in the driving seat, when Chaplow added the fourth the result was assured..
The question now is whether Saints can now build on this win, although on paper it looks good especially against a side up there in the race for promotion, but what this season has shown us is that at home if we get on top we can usually boss a game and against the Terriers that was the case, but we have to start putting winning runs together, beating Exeter on New Years Day will go a long way to doing that, but after that game we will have played 13 home games and only 8 away, we have to start winning on the road,
The first 25 minutes or so of this game showed that all is not quite right just yet and as the saying goes, one swallow does not make a summer, Exeter have to be dispatched and then Saints have to win a few away games, lets be blunt Dagenham are currently third from bottom, might actually be bottom by the time we get their, anything less than a win is not acceptable, with respect to the Essex side we have to start blowing teams in their position away.
Another note was the mutterings that followed every Guly chance, yes he didnt have his shooting boots on, but he didnt hide and worked hard to keep getting in the positions, at times creating chances for others as well, Rickie Lambert has been allowed to stroll around for 19 games barely getting a shot on target but doesnt recieve any stick, Guly works his butt off yet is only one miss away from being booed, if Saints had 11 players that worked as hard as Guly then we would probably be in a better position that we are now, time and time again I have seen sides take points off us who have not ggot anyone near the class of our players, yet they have worked hard whilst we have not,, Saints fans should reflect on this and before they ridicule Guly ponder whether if he had been given as many straight games as SRL, whether he would have contributed a lot more.