Sometimes you win a game that you had absolutely no right to get anything out of, the victory at Elland Road for Saints was perhaps one of those games.
They say that the sign of a good team is that it still wins when it has played badly, if that is the case then Saints are the best team in the division as they were absolutely battered at Leeds.
I do realise that all that matters in the cold light of day is the three points, especially given that Reading are coming up behind us like a speeding train with failed brakes, however on this site i do always try to analyse just where we went wrong and why and before we get to the plus points lets get the negative ones out of the way.
To be blunt we seemed to get our starting line up a little wrong but more to the point we made substitutions at half time that left us completely shapeless and once again with the four central midfielders all playing meaning we lacked both width and pace, I have often said that when a team makes a double substitution at half time it shows that the manager has got it badly wrong in the first half.
Many were surprised to see Tadanari Lee start the game, in truth he didnt have a bad first half including a great knock back for Rickie Lambert's goal, but seemingly jet lag showed and he couldnt last the pace, the surprise was that his repalcement was Guly and not Billy Sharp, whose running and ability to hold up the ball would have been a better bet than Guly, it also beggars the question whether Nigel Adkins actually was responsible for signing Sharp, he seems relectant to use him and having been completely benched for the past two games, it seems that Sharp is actually fourth choice striker at the moment.
Most I have spoken to felt that if two subs were to be made, Guly coming on for Puncheon and Sharp for Lee were the most logical changes, certainly in the period after half time we were at sixes and sevens and seemed to have lost all shape.
Its not that hard to pick a man of the match, Kelvin Davis made a string of excellent saves to put in a performance that is as good as any I have seen a Saints keeper make and he deserves all the credit for that, the irony of the situation is that perhaps his best save of the night came from his only error of an otherwise faultless performance, he came and flapped at a cross and as the ball dropped he threw himself at what looked a lost cause and made a wonderous block to keep the ball out, but whilst acknowledging how much we had elvin to thanks for these three points, we should also question just how the men in front of him capitulated so easily on so many times, this was not organised and calm rearguard action, at times it was chaotic and how the ball stayed out of the net is anyones guess, on another day we could have easily have lost this game by four or five, frankly this was our worst away performance of the season.
But the fact is we didnt lose and we took the three points more by luck than judgement, but three points never the less, we got away with our tactical errors and scraped and crawled our way to the win, on the plus side we never gave up and although Leeds not scoring was down mainly to Kelvin and woeful finishing, at times we did throw ourselves into last ditch tackles and we dug in to make sure that we kept the ball out, at times we were running on nothing but team spirit, we lacked a leader on the park, we lacked shape, but we didnt lack guts and thats a good sign.
Yes it was a very bad day at the office and questions have to be asked just how Leeds were able to dominate us so much, but it will do a lot for confidence and morale that we can still win in difficult circumstances.
Man of the match by a country mile was Kelvin Davis with 9.85 out of 10, regular readers will know that of course i cant let that flapped cross go without punishment and that has cost him what would optherwise have been a perfect 10