The stats suggested a comfortable Saints victory should have taken place, sadly we defended poorly in the second half to gift Wolves three points that we really should have had in the bag.

Once again VAR played a big part in the game, although Saints inability to defend was what cost us all three points, not the controversial video system.

Even though Saints dominated the first half and took a two goal lead through excellent goals from Jan Bednarek and Shane Long, the writing was on the wall with Wolves missing a couple of chances where they had one man in the box and 3 or 4 defenders nowhere near him, luckily for us they missed.

Likewise a flap from McCarthy should have seen the visitors score but the luck held for that on that one as well.

The second half started brightly and for the first 8 minutes there didn't look like there would be anything other than a convincing Saints win , but suddenly Wolves broke and we failed to get in a couple of tackles we really should have made, Neto was in the box with 3 Saints defenders marking fresh air, he had time to bring the ball down and pick his spot without a challenge made, sadly a return to the shambolic defending of a few months ago.

That changed the game, suddenly Wolves heads were up, then came the controversy, firstly Jonny should not have been unmarked and have been able to get through on goal as he did, secondly we were clumsy in the challenge and that gave the opportunity for VAR to do it's job.

Having watched the replays several times over I can see why VAR gave the penalty, however I think that they got it wrong, Jonny was diving before he even reached Stephens outstretched leg, he knew the ball was away from him and threw himself forward, he went down not because of any Saints contact with him and that in my book is no penalty.

Now it was game on and although Saints had their chances notably a glorious shot from Redmond that hit the bar, but we would again be caught on the break, Traore was played on side and surged forward, we had five players in the box and aside from Traore there was only Jiminez, yet we watched the ball and no one took a blind bit of notice of Jiminez who received the ball completely unmarked and again at least 3 Saints players marking fresh air, it was the easiest chance that he would get not only in this game but most of the others and he didn't miss.

We huffed and puffed in the final minutes and Boufal really should have done better blazing over from close range and the game ended on a bizarre note when a young child invaded the pitch for some reason, Sofiane Boufal stopped him, the only thing he caught cleanly all afternoon (OK harsh but i'm not above the odd cheap joke)

So this was yet another game thrown away by poor organisation and poor defending, we lack leadership and when we get a two goal lead we have no one on the pitch keeping us focused and therefore we defended like schoolboys, chasing the ball and not marking up players.

It is not the end of the World, in fact it is a warning sign to us that although we have had some great victories we still need to improve the team in key positions, the defence has been good in recent weeks, but it was appalling today at key moments and that has to be rectified and that means getting someone in in the transfer window, the issue isn't the full backs, we need a leader in the centre of defence.

We have to learn from this defeat, perhaps we got a little overconfident, but mainly because of what I have been saying all season, sometimes we will get away with our lapses and sometimes we won't, this was one of those days when we didn't.

This doesn't make us a poor team, it makes us a good one with issues.

We have a good foundation to avoid relegation, we need to stick to the task ahead and get ourselves over the finish line.

Photo: Action Images

warrens76 added 11:02 - Jan 20 In the most direct words possible, our team is short of THREE players who could instantly displace regular Ralph starters... Midfield, defence and front all need a player 'substantially better than what we have, take the high press wonderful, however because our passing is not a patch on the Adkins, MoPo era we have many players running out of steam by the hour mark, it's physical limitations because we have to chase too much, it happened in the last ten with MoPo but we also had a midfield of Spider and Wanyama, Spider had Europes best interceptiions and passing stats in Europe! none of our midfield are a patch on them or Cork for that matter. Defence, Fonte baby, Toby, VVD, no one can currently lace their boots...Clyne and Shaw as was where substantially better than Cedric and Bertrand of the last 3 years. Front...Ings excellent but were is the SRL, the Pelle, the Mane, Lalla, JRod, even Sharp is way ahead of Che and Obafemi.. The excuses, justifications, analysis are all secondary to the fact we need substantially better players in 3 prime positions.

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Burlers added 17:32 - Jan 20 One of those games that Saints should have killed off after an amazing first half, but credit to Wolves... We stopped pressing, made a few stupid errors at the back and got unlucky with their third that looked offside and a handball but not sure VAR saw it.
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I_would added 18:17 - Jan 20 What about the job that's supposed to be done by DM's? They're specifically employed to help protect the back four. They do practically zero attacking but never seem to be there in defence when we need them. Yes, the CB's were at fault but if the DM's are not going to share the responsibilities for defending then we might as well employ two AM's and bench PEH and JWP.
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