Dan made the long trek up to East Anglia to see Saints take on Norwich City in the FA Cup and almost win through to the 4th round.
After a three-hour journey up the country, travelling Saints fans provided all of the atmosphere in an almost empty Carrow Road as home supporters were fulfilling a boycott because of high ticket prices. Less than half of the stadium was full, and the colour of all of the seats gave the stadium a colourful feel when usually you would only see the heads of hopeful fans.
A positive start from the away side got the fans who travelled from the south-coast motivated and noisy but, like most games this season, they couldn’t find an immediate breakthrough.
The pick of the bunch of chances was a good free-kick from Dusan Tadic which made Norwich keeper Michael McGovern leap to his right to push the ball away.
However, Saints did make the breakthrough just after 30 minutes as a superb cross from Dusan Tadic wasn’t cleared following a corner and Virgil van Dijk replied with a superb volley into the ground that bounced past the Norwich goalkeeper for 0-1. Van Dijk celebrated with an appreciated hit of the badge in his celebration.
Us fans don’t know what Claude Puel said to the players in the dressing room but it didn’t seem to help as a back pass to debutant goalkeeper Harry Lewis caused the 19 year-old to make a heavy touch which found the feet of Cameron Jerome. Lewis made a foul on the Norwich striker, conceding a penalty. Steven Whitaker converted, giving the Championship side an equaliser.
Josh Sims, who made his debut for Southampton’s first-team just over a month ago had a great chance to score his first first-team goal. A delightful cross across goal from Dusan Tadic deserved a goal however, the 19 year-old failed to get the crucial touch.
Luckily for the Saints, they re-took the lead after a casual, high-quality cross from Pierre-EmilleHojbjerg met the head of defender Maya Yoshida who nodded the ball past the Norwich keeper.
Saints should’ve attempted to kill of the game and caused McGovern to make some more saves but they were punished for not killing the game as a late header from an unmarked Steven Naismith gave the Canaries a replay at St.Mary’s. A disappointing result however we’re still in the competition and have a home game to get us through where we are very competitive against high-quality Premier League sides and not a Championship sides’ reserves.
Man of the match: Pierre-Emille Hojbjerg. I felt like Pierre had one of the best games that I’d seen him play in a Saints shirt. He definitely shook off his last couple of bad performances and was ever present in midfield. The Dane made crucial interceptions, tackles and passes and even got the assist for Yoshida’s goal.
The main positive that I can take from the game is that our two goals came from casual crosses in the box which we aren’t creating enough of. Tadic put some great balls into the box and yes, both goals came from defenders but it’s hopefully a promising sign as we look to score many more goals this half of the season than last.