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Southampton At Wolverhampton Wanderers The Verdict

On Tuesday night we had the highest of highs beating Chelsea, on Saturday at Molyneux we came back down to earth with a bump, it wasn't a bad performance but two lapses in concentration, one at each end meant the 1-0 scoreline was in favour of the home side and not the visitors.

We knew what Wolves would be like and how they would play and for most of this game we coped well and didn't let them catch us on the break as they have done seemingly so many times in the past few years.

But on the stroke of half time Wolves got their usual breakaway goal, catching us short at the back and Podence completely unmarked scored at the back post, should Bazunu have done better ? No I don't think he could have done, the Wolves man dinked the ball and wrong footed him, did he mean to do it, having watched replays I think he did, but he really shouldn't have been in that position in the 2nd minute of first half injury time, we have to learn to shut down things.

In the second half it was Saints chasing the game who had more of the attacking play and then came what looked like the equaliser, all Che Adams had to do was head it in from barely a yard out after the goalkeeper had fumbled it backwards and upwards, it looked like he had done, but replays showed he completely mistimed his jump, missed his header and it hit his arm and went in, Adams continued his penchant for scoring the difficult chances but missing the easy ones.

Later on he almost redeemed himself by getting in a clean header that rattled the crossbar. It was not a day for Saints headers, Armel Bella Kotchap should have scored in the first half with what was a free header and he tried too hard to get power and direction and in doing so put it wide.

Ralph Hasenhuttle could not be accused of sitting back, on 56 minutes he made an attacking double substitution taking off the defensive minded Diallo and the innaffective Elyounoussi and bringing on Djenepo & Stuart Armstrong, on 73 minutes it was two of the new signings on, Edozie & Maitland Niles for Aribo & Perraud and on 83 minutes Mara for Adam Armstrong.

We had some promising attacks but ultimately couldn't break down the Wolves defence, so it was a game of two lapses in concentration, defending we gave them a goal and at the other end Che Adams mistimed his jump, on another day the 1-0 scoreline could have been reversed, to be truthful neither side deserved to win, a draw would have been the fairest result, we would have taken that.

Some Saints fans have been complaining about the team selection, truth is that this was with the exception of the injured Lavia, the team that beat Chelsea, it deserved the chance to go and beat Wolves.

From the new signing point of view, Edozie looked a handful and made a couple of decent runs, Maitland- Niles less so, but they both looked good additions to the squad.

It will be interesting to see what Ralph does next week against Brentford, he now has plenty of options, this game was a disappointment, but Rome or for that matter football teams were not built in a day, but we can see a far better squad now being assembled than this time last year.

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