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Saints V Burnley The Verdict

With a great chance to pull away of the pack on 31 points up for offer, Saints put in a poor disjointed performance that saw all of the bad things in our play return.

I said in the preview that we should not kid ourselves that all was rosy again that there would be some games we would get away with mistakes and others we wouldn't, it was clear this one would be one we wouldn't after a bizarre first minute goal.

The in swinging corner looked pretty innocuous and Danny Ings really should have dealt with it, for some reason he either thought that it was going out or someone had called for it as he let it run past him and the ball sailed straight into the net.

In fairness Saints rallied and Ings made amends by becoming only the 5th Saints player in the Premier League era to score 15 goals in a season with a great strike from the edge of the box.

For a while it looked like we would go on and win the game, but despite plenty of the ball in both halves we failed to really make domination count and create attacks into attempts on target.

Sofiane Boufal looked lively in the first half before having to go off before the break, his replacement Djenepo was not the answer in the second, he continually dropped deep to pick up the ball instead of running into space and creating room for Ryan Bertrand to attack behind him.

We were disjointed in every department and it was no surprise when we conceded yet another soft goal, a long ball forward finding Vydra completely unmarked in between Vestergaard and Stehens, highlighting yet another lapse in concentration at the back.

So this was a game that showed how much we relied on Nathan Redmond going forward at the moment and how we really should have got a central defender in, it was almost as simple as that.

On reflection this was always going to be a game that didn't suit us, we can't play against teams that sit on their own area at St Mary's, we keep getting caught on set pieces and on the break because we lose concentration and cannot mark as was evident with both goals, away from home we do well because we have pace going forward, but at home we cannot open up sides like Burnley and it is no coincidence that since we lost Fonte & Van Dyke we have lost 3 and drawn 3 of the 6 games played, and each of those games has followed the same pattern, they catch us on the break or set pieces after we have had more of the possession.

Add to that the weather was almost identical to the opening day up at Turf Moor with the swirling wind and rain helping their robust style aligned with hoofing the ball forward and this was never going to end well for us.

But this is not a cause for mass hysteria on social media, we can't change anything now till the summer transfer window, all we can do it make do with what we had, we will hopefully win enough games to ensure that we don't flirt with relegation again, but we should not gloss over our weaknesses, we have the 2nd worst defence in the league for good reason and that is because of games like this where we have 64% of the ball, but the opposition has 6 of their 9 attempts on target, breaking with numbers and also scoring from dead ball situations.

The only real bright note of the day was that loanee debutant Kyle Walker Peters looked tidy and played well, ironically though the only real bright spot of the weekend happened on Sunday afternoon when Arsenal's late late 4th goal against Newcastle meant we moved up a place on goal's scored.

But it could have and should have been a weekend that gave us momentum, but we should not be too shocked after all we have seen it all before !

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