After a drab first half performance with the usual suspects making the same old mistakes I thought we rallied and were robbed by VAR whose job is to improve the quality of games and decisions but, as is too regular an occurrence, they determined the outcome and not what went on on the pitch. Football in this land is sick and possibly terminally ill.

4

TV commentary hugely condescending and biased against Saints but I thought they matched Brighton, especially in the second half. Dibling was outstanding, defence still looked sieve-like, especially in the first half, but the dubious VAR decision cost us the game.
Archer was ruled onside but apparently Arma was interfering with play even though he didn't touch the ball, and it was behind him, and the ball was far away from the keeper's line of sight. Seems to me it wasn't a clear and obvious decision and the goal should have been allowed to stand.
Seems to be VAR were trying extra hard to find a reason to disallow the goal. Talking mathematically; the odds against it not being a legitimate goal were much higher than the odds against.
It's the first time in a long while I've agreed with Martin but that decision needs investigating. If found guilty of corruption, Saints should be awarded the win - I'm dreaming again, I know. Real justice is a hard thing to find in any form of life these days.

5

Shocking commentary. Alan Smith was dreadful.

I thought Carlos Alcaraz was blinding !!!!

2

Good second half fightback. Robbed by VAR. Will miss the three suspended players against Chelsea. Downes was fortunate not to get a red with a number of potentially bookable tackles after his yellow. Good decision to take him off. Side looked more balanced tonight but need players back from injury and suspension.

3

I hate VAR and wish it gone as much as anyone. I may be wrong here but the goal was disallowed on the field, the Linesman/ referees assistant had signalled. VAR surely was applied correctly in that they did not overturn the referee's decision because there was no clear evidence. Still took 5 minutes to do it tho.

Agree with all the above, nondescript first half but played well in the second. Shame about the yellow cards. With injuries we will be 5 first team regulars down against Chelsea.

Thought our style had shifted for the better last night, we were definitely clearing the ball from defence and there were a few balls played forward into space for Arma to run onto. Both these tactics worked well and forced Brighton players to turn rather than just attacking the ball for a stray pass.

Good point away but Chelsea is going to be tricky on Wednesday.

COYR

2

I came away pretty upbeat - for a Saints fan - after that second half effort, VAR nonsense aside. We competed toe to toe with a top side and - at last - were not always overcautious in the final third. Dibling and Fernandes were great, others such as Archer, Fraser and Manning put in good shifts. On the downside: I don’t think Arma and Archer works as a combination; Downes and to a lesser extent KWP playing like bears with sore heads that might have seen a red card or two.

4

0

Better. Might prove enough to keep the Martin out crowd away for a while!

On the VAR:
The infield decision was that Archer was offside. He wasn't so that got overturned - good use of VAR. (For those moaning about VAR use in this instance, the goal wouldn't have stood if VAR didn't exist!)
The mistake in my view is then to use VAR in that moment to look for other minor issues. Yes Armstrong was offside but that wasn't originally noticed, or it was noticed but he wasn't deemed to be interfering with play. It's the overturning of that decision that is wrong in my opinion. It's not a clear and obvious error to say he wasn't interfering. If he was interfering then it was very marginal and not clear cut. The reason given (obstructing the keeper) is rubbish.

As is always the case with VAR, the issue is not the technology it's the people operating it who seem determined to try to make decisions into a science. Overturn obvious mistakes but leave everything else alone

1

5 minutes to find a way of disallowing a goal for us. If it was City or Liverpool the goal would have stood.

2

The key for me on the disallowed goal is that Archer was given offside and as a line decision it was nothing to do with clear and obvious. He was onside so then you give the goal UNLESS the ref's overlooking of Armstrong being 'offside' is a clear and obvious error - which it obviously wasn't (they would have done it in 10 seconds if it was). The disgrace is that VAR hides behind its regulations to avoid blame when defending itself but here it totally ignored its regulations in order to find a way to disallow a perfectly good goal.

It ISN'T bias - it is a system that isn't working properly. Yes - without VAR the linesman's error would have disallowed the goal but that cannot be used to excuse VAR - which is supposed to be ironing out those errors not committing more of its own.

That said we were a bit lucky that Downes didn't get a second yellow. We need at least three points from these next three. I doubt we will get them from Chelsea but at least this performance was BETTER!!

0