Saints rounded off their home season in the Premier League with a battling performance, but ultimately a narrow defeat as Liverpool kept their hopes of winning the title alive, now we can move forward.

The changes were rung by both sides for this contest with Ralph Hasenhuttl making some enforced switches due to injury including the return of Alex McCarthy in goal.

From the start it was obviously going to be a tough night as Liverpool knew they had to go for it, but it was Saints who struck first blood with a superb effort from Nathan Redmond, however the lead lasted just 14 minutes and The visitors were level before the half hour mark.

This was a case of deja vu, we battled hard but at certain times failed to do the basics and ultimately this is what cost us the game.

Ex Saints loanee Minamino was allowed too much space and he fired in a decent shot but truthfully McCarthy should have saved it, letting in yet another goal at his near post.

You couldn’t see much for Saints now, Liverpool swarmed forward and we had to dig in and work hard.

This we did but you sensed it was only a matter of time and the winner came in the 67 th minute, again it was a failure to do the basics, From a Liverpool corner Elyounoussi seemed to have a simple header out and into touch, instead he dried to swivel and just directed it into the centre of goal where Matip was credited with a header into the net although it looked like the last touch was Walker Peters who could do little else.

Saints did have a little flourish late on as Liverpool nerves jangled, but we never deserved much more than a narrow defeat.

The problem was the same as all of this season, a lot of hard work was done, we restricted Liverpool to just 5 on target out of 24 attempts, but stupid mistakes cost us the game.

In truth most Saints fans walked out of the ground relived that it was just a 2-1 defeat.

Now there is just one more game to go and we need to get that out of the way and then start rebuilding for the future, some out there showed that they are part of that future, but equally others showed that they are not.

I.m not going to mention names, we all saw who did their jobs and who did their jobs but got caught out far too often for comfort.

Now we need to put this season behind us, give the new owners a chance to show what they want to do with the club, if they feel that Ralph Hasenhuttl is their man then we need to give him the opportunity to show what he can do with the tough restrictions he has worked under now to a degree lifted.

The past is behind us now, there is no use moaning about it and the past includes this game, we now look just to the future.

Photo: Action Images

saintpete01 added 06:23 - May 19 In Ralph we RUST
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SaintStu7 added 11:06 - May 19 For me this was the single worst performance in all aspects I have seen under Ralph. At least with the 9 nil defeats there was a red card that could be used for some of the blame. This performance was shocking from start to finish. The team selection, the tactics, the inability to change tactics, the gutless nature of the player performances, lack of meaningful substitutions, lack of respect for the fans, lack of respect for Championship race, lack of leadership, quality on the ball, lack of ideas on the ball…. I could go on. Some players made absolutely no contribution to the game, Diallo, Ely, JWP, Broja,Tella. Good finish by Redmond and Lyanco and Saliusu put in a shift. I was truly embarrassed to be associated with that performance and god knows what Man C fans thought of it.

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SaintStu7 added 11:07 - May 19 For me this was the single worst performance in all aspects I have seen under Ralph. At least with the 9 nil defeats there was a red card that could be used for some of the blame. This performance was shocking from start to finish. The team selection, the tactics, the inability to change tactics, the gutless nature of the player performances, lack of meaningful substitutions, lack of respect for the fans, lack of respect for Championship race, lack of leadership, quality on the ball, lack of ideas on the ball…. I could go on. Some players made absolutely no contribution to the game, Diallo, Ely, JWP, Broja,Tella. Good finish by Redmond and Lyanco and Saliusu put in a shift. I was truly embarrassed to be associated with that performance and god knows what Man C fans thought of it.

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onetowatch added 23:51 - May 19 Nick, it wasn't many weeks ago you were enjoying mocking those that questioned RH, boasting about how a likely top half final position belittled those who thought he needed to go. Do you feel comfortable now that belittling?
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underweststand added 08:56 - May 20 Little to add to the many good analyses (above). Saints 1 Liverpool "B" 2. We won't see many of those names in Liverpool's CL final line-up, but In all fairness, it was a last chance for one or two Saints players to show -up , before possibly departing, and Ralph chose a defensive set-up intent on keeping the score down. At least that part worked, but with L' pool's 24 shots ...to our 4 perhaps we should be glad that they weren't at full strength, where the result may have been much worse. Like many other teams this season we saw the huge gap between the Liverpool squad ....which may be one of the best teams to grace the Prem........and the rest of us. Bottom line. At least we survived another season, thanks only to beating Arsenal 1-0 a month ago, but it really is time for a major re-think of the entire squad this summer.

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