Saints At Crystal Palace The Verdict Monday, 14th Dec 2015 09:39 Ronald Koeman made several changes, some enforced other not, but still Saints could not quite find their form and zest. Saints didn't play badly in this game, they had 56% possession and with 15 shots that was 3 more than the home side, but the fact that Palace had 5 on target whilst Saints only had 3 perhaps gives an indication of why Saints lost this game, Palace played with confidence and Saints did not. Ronald Koeman made several changes, Paulo Gazzaniga in goal was the most surprising in that in the absence of Stekelenburg you would have thought that Kelvin Davis would have got the nod, but this was not the case and Gazzaniga perhaps answered his critics by making several good saves and keeping Saints in the game in a short burst in the first half when the home side had three good chances in literally a minute, meaning the keeper was arguably Saints man of the match. Saints stil looked out of sorts and lacking confidence though, it would be easy to blame the loss of two key players in the summer, but it is more than that, it is not that we are a bad team, we are just playing badly. Palace are in their best spell in the Premier League, yet we were still quite comfortable, a brief period in the first half apart and really should have got something out of this game. Indeed it took a great save to keep out a Steven Davis header with the scores level. Just as we seemed to have weathered the storm they scored and once again in we seemed to lose concentration in the minutes leading up to the break, Jose Fonte really should not have been outmuscled by Bolasie who breezed past him and pulled the ball back from the byline for Cabaye to put in from close range. In the second half Saints were comfortable but so were Palace, we almost equalised in injury time and it took a smart save from Hennessey in the Palace goal to deny Shane Long, but that was too little too late and we did not trouble Palace enough in the final third. Saints need a break at the moment, I though that maybe that came in the Villa game, but obviously not, all teams have a turning point in a season and we now need to find ours. The season is still wide open in that with Spurs losing on Sunday we did not lose ground on them in 5th place, we now have the chance to close that next Saturday and we can do that, if the St Mary's home crowd stay with the team as the travelling support did at Palace on Saturday. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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