A comprehensive victory to take Saints through to the 3rd round.
Saints took the game by the scruff of the neck from the word go and never let Cheltenham have a sniff of the 3rd round in a tie that showed just what strength in debth Saints have, but for every plus point there was a downside.
From the moment Adam Lallana gave Saints the lead after a good interception, run and pass by Ryan Dickson the game was never in doubt. the four players thrust into the side , Guly, Gobern, Holmes and Bialkowski all gave good accounts of themselves, although sadly Holmes looked to have picked up another injury and banged his fists on the ground in frustration. But all four played their own cameo roles in the victory and have given Nigel Adkins food for thought.
Downside was that once again Rickie Lambert fired blanks, how many more games can he be allowed to play through his bad period, if he cant score against Cheltenham, then perhaps its time to try a different tactic and rest him.
Oscar Gobern performed well and like Guly took his goal well showing that he is perhaps worth more of a chance than he has been given in the past couple of years although part of that is down to injury, its certainly another iron in the fire for the manager.
Sadly it was the lowest ever crowd at St Mary's for a competitive game (JPT aside) and the first to dip below 10,000, yes it was a cold day, but no colder than last January when over 18k turned out to see Saints beat non league Luton in the 3rd round, in my opinion ther eis only one reason for that and that is the perception of the game put out by the club to the fans, bluntly by closing stands they put out the message that this was not a game worthy of being classed a first team fixture and the fans took their lead from that, of the people i normally go with 25% of them chose not to go Saturday due to not being able to sit in the Kingsland and the consensus was that it was a mistake to close the area of the ground were the most supporters chose to sit, even thos who usually sit in the Itchen were not happy at the areas they usually sit in being occupied by a different type of supporter thanwould normally sit there, at SMS the different parts of the ground are occupied by supporters who although are equal and one type is no better or worse than the other , do like a different atmosphere, to throw them all in together is very short sighted, not to mention how it affects the gate.
Saints now face another home game in the 3rd round, lets hope the Club promote this properly, keep the prices low for a club who although premier are not a big draw.