Saints got off to a bad start in Nathan Jones first home game in charge, it didn't get much better for the rest of the game, but the main thing was the result and from that perspective we got the job done.

If Nathan Jones was hoping to a blistering start to his career at Southampton FC, then he would be disappointed, Lincoln were a goal up before some supporters had taken their seats, the ball bounced up and Gavin Bazunu should really have dealt with it, although in fairness it did look like he was impeded, in the Premier League a foul might well have been given.

For the first 20 minutes or so Saints looked awful, they were disjointed and Lincoln bolstered by their early goal fought like tigers.

But gradually Saints started to get on top and keep the ball and stem the Lincoln attacks, they started to create chances of their own and then on 25 minutes they drew level, a noice cross from Moi Elyounoussi was met by the head of Che Adams who planted the ball in the net.

Now if VAR would have ruled out Lincoln's goal it would definitely have disallowed Adams effort, he was a yard offside, but the linesman failed to pick it up.

Saints were now on top and Lincoln would barely threaten for the rest of the half, but there were few chances being created by the home side, Lincoln defended in depth and we struggled to break them down, but more of that later.

The second half started very much in the vein of the latter part of the first once Saints had settled more early bluster from the visitors, Saints huffed and puffed, but were too one dimensional in their build up play, but on 74 minutes came the winning goal, Theo Walcott's cross was met by Elyounoussi who saw his effort scrambled off the line and Che Adams was there to net the rebound from close range.

The game now changed as Lincoln had to come out of their shell, next came the third dubious incident of the game, the ball was played in towards the left hand corner of our penalty box, Romain Perraud may have been nudged, but bizarrely he threw up his arm and appeared to have cleared the ball with it, neither the ref nor the linesman, both in good positions close by seemed to notice this.

The final minutes were end to end Gavin Bazunu pulled off a decent save to redeem his mistake at the start of the game and then catching the Imps on the break, Saints squandered two glorious chances to put the game to bed, firstly Moi Elyounoussi being 2 on 1 against the keeper on a break out, unselfishly passes the ball to Sam Edoozi who with the keeper stranded and an open goal, put the ball an inch wide of the post.

Then a minute or two later, a three man break saw Che Adams not pass it and go for his hat trick, but he took too much time and the keeper blocked his shot for a corner.

That left Saints holding on a little, but they defended well and never gave Lincoln any chink of light to get back in the game.

So what did we gleam from Nathan Jones first game in charge ?

Firstly he played virtually the strongest team he had available, although strangely Romeo Lavia was absent even from the bench
He started with a 3 man defence augmented by KWP & Romain Perraud as wing backs with a three man central midfield held firm by James Ward Prowse with two strikers up top.

But truth is we looked disjointed and a team that had never played together before, my first question would be why we didn't play more friendlies in pre season, only two have emerged as being put on behind closed doors, if that was the case it clearly wasn't enough.

In essence we were rusty, we didn't have a feel for the ball or the first touch that comes from being match sharp, hopefully this game will help.

Secondly Jones was willing to adapt when it wasn't working when after the hour mark he made a triple change and reverted to a back four.

Thirdly I think we seemed to be playing to a rigid plan, whereas before we used to pass the ball around and look for openings, last night it seemed that the players were told that after a certain number of passes we have to hit it long, too often we tried long balls that were never really on.

This cannot be dressed up as a good performance, but conversely we should not look too deeply into it, to play badly and win, whatever the standard of opposition, is still better than playing well and losing.

Hopefully by the poor performance Jones has learnt far more than he would have if we had blown Lincoln away.

The issues we had can be ironed out, our first touch was awful, I can't remember a game when so many players on our team let the ball run under their foot or failed to make simple passes, Ashley Maitland-Niles was one serial offender here, this wasn't good to watch, but you know the players are better than this.

My main worry was about the one dimensional pattern of play whichever line up we played, for me it was too regimented, you could see from the stands where the next passes were going, there was little free styling or flair on show, we played to a plan and never deviated, even when it wasn't working.

From the plus points Lyanco looked solid at the back and carried the ball forward well, Che Adams looked hungry and in form, but in general virtually every player had some good moments and also had some appalling ones.

The hope is that this was a team that with some injured players back as well as some of the new younger players is one that can put this down to a lack of playing together and can Gel when the Premier League returns.

So in conclusion, there was little to be gained from this game in terms of whether Jones has changed much from Ralph Hasenhuttl, it is too early to give a verdict on his influence on the squad, this will only be found out in the coming weeks.

Photo: Action Images

HythePeer added 10:46 - Dec 21 Having an Argentinian girlfriend I have been forced to watch them for 3 weeks...that 90mins at St Marys was coming back to Earth with a bump!
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JoeEgg added 10:46 - Dec 21 A very fair and honest review of what was quite frankly a very disappointing performance by Saints. Probably the only folks really happy would be those that either play for or support Brighton!
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wibbersda added 11:12 - Dec 21 It's clearly going to take time to shake off the last 4 years of playing style
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saintmark1976 added 11:18 - Dec 21 One of the best match reports you have made for months, if not years Nick. Concise and honest with praise and criticism given in equal measure. A complete breath of fresh air and so different from your endless support for Ralph whatever he did. I look forward to many more such reports as we battle against relegation during the remainder of the season. Reference Romeo Lavia and his non appearance. The rumour mill suggests he’s played his last game for us and will be away as soon as the transfer window opens, giving us a substantial fee to purchase a couple of quality players, in particular a goal scoring centre forward.

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Number_58 added 11:28 - Dec 21 As usual we looked much better when Stu and Edozie came on. In a side desperately lacking anyone who can run with the ball surely one or both of these two should be starting. Also, why didn't Ballard or JJM get a game? Could they have possibly contributed less than AA did last night?
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SaintNick added 11:50 - Dec 21 SaintMark, I didnt have endless support for Ralph, I just didn't see that there was a better option to take over, last night if anything suggested that ! But I will give Nathan Jones a fair crack of the whip before I condemn him. If we sell Lavia for £40 million that will be a good profit and a chance to buy a striker and our strategy is working, although I fear that if he goes most will be it as a negative than a positive

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Kenm added 11:52 - Dec 21 if this is how we may perform against Brighton ?, the championship is looking to come our way ?, we need to be united and not disjointed like we were against a league 1 team !, the premiership teams will destroy us on this performance ?
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felly1 added 13:04 - Dec 21 If we sold Lavia for 40 million we would end up making a profit of about 20 to 25 milliononce you take off the initial fee we paid City plus the 20% of the profits selling on fee. That's not great when you think we have basically not benefited from his ability to help us win games and it would afford us a decent striker but a much weaker midfield. Our opponents on Boxing day are an example of how to make this work and still sit in the top 10. 130 million made on three players for a minimal outlay. Cucorella 63 million, White 50 million and Bissouma 25 million.

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codge added 13:26 - Dec 21 Sadly if this is the new look Saints then we will be in the Championship next year,didn’t see anything new looked just like watching the same old drivvel we saw before the World Cup. Brighton will be a much tougher test to see if any changes are an improvement hopefully but on this performance l fear we could be in trouble if we don’t turn things around soon.COYS.
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Block8 added 13:48 - Dec 21 Pretty good report Nick. The first half we played like a bunch of blokes who had just met in the car park for a kick about, it was awful. We definitely needed to move the ball a bit quicker than we did under Ralph but goodness me, it was like watching an under 8's game where the big nipper at the back just boots it forward. I'm sat thinking OMG no, please no! Lots of running yet so little enterprise, we were crying out for someone to put his foot on the ball and start to get the others playing. That came with the introduction of Stu Armstrong who entered the game looking like he'd not been away, unfortunately very few others gave the same impression, although Edozie looked a prospect. We've never looked good with a three man defence and KWP & Perraud looked lost as full wing backs but we settled down a bit after going to a back four and to be fair to NJ he did notice and make the changes. I don't agree about Lyanco and consider him a risk trying to dribble out of defence, however he can kick it a long way! Difficult to really judge and we're not going to be the only ones a bit rusty but we need to improve rapidly with the games coming thick and fast, important winable games at that. I think selling Lavia to provide a striker will leave us too short of defensive midfield and weaken us at the back. However if we can get around the 50 million mark or higher and then loan him back it may be worth a shot. Realistically we don't want to weaken one area to strengthen another but then I don't hold the purse strings!

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IanRC added 13:54 - Dec 21 I will be completely pi$$ed off if we sell Lavia. Hold onto him and help him develop then if we must sell him for a lot more than the £50 million Chelsea apparently bid last window.
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halftimeorange added 14:06 - Dec 21 Nathan won't have learnt anything last night that he wouldn't have gleaned speaking to any regular attendee at Saints games this season. That would have taken no more than ten minutes. Instead ninety minutes of rubbish was dished up to 16,000 paying customers. We all knew that JWP does nothing these days, but slow down play and put in too high crosses. We also knew that in Stuart Armstrong we have the one player who can open up determined defences. It looked to me as though Nathan had a team sheet picked by Ralph. There was nothing new but, an added layer of confusion amongst the team. Add to that a referee who had no relationship with his assistants and the whole match experience was like having a new balloon and seeing it slowly deflate. As my friend said later "If you didn't think we were in trouble, you certainly should know now".

2

halftimeorange added 14:06 - Dec 21 Nathan won't have learnt anything last night that he wouldn't have gleaned speaking to any regular attendee at Saints games this season. That would have taken no more than ten minutes. Instead ninety minutes of rubbish was dished up to 16,000 paying customers. We all knew that JWP does nothing these days, but slow down play and put in too high crosses. We also knew that in Stuart Armstrong we have the one player who can open up determined defences. It looked to me as though Nathan had a team sheet picked by Ralph. There was nothing new but, an added layer of confusion amongst the team. Add to that a referee who had no relationship with his assistants and the whole match experience was like having a new balloon and seeing it slowly deflate. As my friend said later "If you didn't think we were in trouble, you certainly should know now".

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underweststand added 15:15 - Dec 21 Without VAR many will say that we got away with that one ( Adams first goa) and maybe we did, but I wonder what VAR would have made of the Lincoln goal?. For the past few seasons referees have been told to "protect goalies", but their striker looked to have gone into Bazunu clumsily - even before the ball got to them. It goes in the book as an own goal, but that too might have been ruled out with a fair VAR assessment. This has to be regarded as a turning point in the competition - especially if we get to Wembley in the Spring, but it really was a " bummer " in terms of entertainment. I thought that Edozie looked like a breath of fresh air after he came on, but he too proved that it's easier to miss -even when you're so close to scoring and yet still miss. The sight of three Saints strikers inter-passing to each other inside the box in added time, and no-one could put the ball in the net (!)...tells the whole story of this game.

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Gadge60 added 16:53 - Dec 21 Someone made the comment after the match that they were as underwhelmed by the match as they were by the appointment. I have to agree. I don't understand why we started with a back 5, this wasn't Chelsea. I thought this was very negative. I also don't understand why Stuart Armstrong started on the bench. If we get spanked by Brighton then I believe the appointment was misguided (something I feel anyway) and we are still in the do do....

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Ninja9 added 18:29 - Dec 21 Absolute garbage of a performance . and i cant see it getting any better . Wrong appointment IMHO , i hope im wrong but if RH had to go the club should have been more ambitious with their replacement .
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Ali_Diarea added 21:07 - Dec 21 This squad needs more than just a new goal scorer and for Tino to return from injury to solve its problems. What have they been doing during the World Cup, did Jones gives them the month off?!
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aceofthebase added 20:08 - Dec 22 I do think that if JWP was on the field for our last England match then we would have reached the semi-finals What bothers me about JWP is that he seems to prefer playing for Saints alongside our centre-backs rather than playing more forward and creating chances for our forwards. Edozie must be given more game time, he is a real find, such a pity he messed up his open goal chance

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