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.

So was the comeback the result of Pellegrino's bold substitutions as some media reports have suggested, certainly Saints played with a lot more urgency as the game went on and the stats say we had a lot more chances than the home side and twice as many shots on target.

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

SaintBrock added 13:05 - Feb 26 Getting rid of the Clown would be part of the solution but as you say it isn't likely to happen now, it's been left far too late. Our performance was hapless rather than inept but that's our normal game now and this is how it will e for the run in. Somehow at Burnley we bumbled our way to a late equaliser rather than as a result of any master plan involving introducing the right subs at the key moment. Pellegrino doesn't possess that level of insight or decisiveness. Before Saturday it seemed to me that we are where we are and this is how we play so all else being equal nothing much will change now and we should expect to collect 10 more points and end up on 36. Well, we have one of those ten so my hunch is we'll get another 9. Whether or not that will be enough is debatable but with everyone else playing erratically, there is always a chance it may be. 3 of this 9 have to come from the match on Saturday. As things are going this match may well be the defining fixture of our season, anything other than a win surely will consign us to relegation. Despite your pleas Nick, if we only draw against Stoke or lose even we will be as good as down and all hell will be let loose at St Mary's and Pellegrino, Reed and Uncle Tom Cobley and all will get a terrible tongue lashing from understandably very upset and bewildered supporters.

4

PezzaSaint added 16:23 - Feb 26 Did anyone notice how many Saints players were in the box when we equalised on Saturday, 5 or 6. Why does it take us until the last minute to commit so many players in to the box? I don't believe that Burnley are the type of team to break on you quickly and therefore we could have committed more players forward much earlier than we did. MP is simply not brave enough for me, he has a reactive frame of mind rather than a proactive one! Frustrating!

7

Blogs 31 bloggers

Charlton Athletic Polls