Saints V Brighton The Verdict
Saints huffed and they puffed but they couldnt blow the house down.
Saints put Brighton to the sword at St Mary's but the truth of the matter was they sorely missed the guile of Richard Chaplow and lapsed into one dimensional play that the Seagulls in the main dealt with fairly easily.
The match stats tell the story of a game in which Saints dominated 11 shots on target compared to the visitors 3, 10 shots off against 5, but it was Saints fortunate to get a point in the end thanks to a great Kelvin Davis penalty save.
If Saints had got an early goal and in the first half Brighton barely had a kick, then the game could have been oh so much different, but plenty of possession and chances did not mean plenty of saves from the visitors keeper who in the main had routine stuff to deal with, perhaps the best chance of the game for Saints fell to Rickie Lambert just after half time but he put his free header from six yards over the bar when he should really have scored, that probably summed up Lamberts season and Saints night.
But its not all doom and gloom, yes its two points dropped and we dropped out of the top six, but its another game unbeaten and earlier in the season its one we would have lost, plenty of other results went our way on the night and automatic promotion is stiill only four points away
Another disapointment was perhaps the crowd, yes it was a big one at 26,237 and that is superb in this division, but after taking into account the Brighton fans that meant 23k home supporters, the diapointment being that this was only 2,000 more Saints fans than turned up on Saturday for the Peterborough game, given the great result on Saturday and this was against the league leaders I would have thought more than an extra couple of thousand would have turned up, you cant slag the 20,000 Saints supporters who turn up every week, but if the floating Saints fan wants to see the Club climb back up the leagues and enjoy more great days out such as Wembley along the way, then they really do need to put their hands in their pockets and get along to St Mary's a little more often.
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