Saints seemed to get lucky in the draw for the team line up and put in a decent performance, however their luck ran out in the second half, as Liverpool got all the luck when VAR was called into action.

The Southampton team that ran out at Anfield for once seemed to have some balance at the back, a back four with two actual central defenders, two holding midfielders in front of it, with 3 attacking midfielders, but there was no striker with Albert Gronbaek appearing to have been pulled out of the hat to play up front.

For much of the first half Saints were under pressure, but they dug in and kept Liverpool at bay, indeed during the game the home side had 28 attempts on goal, but only 7 on target and when they did, Aaron Ramsdale did his job.

The job was made harder when Jan Bednarek departed injured on 19 minutes to be replaced by Armel Bella-Kotchap.

Many Saints fans headed under the stand for half time as the injury time board went up, meaning that they missed the sublime goal by Will Smallbone.

Many see to have Smallbone as the current scapegoat, but he harassed the Liverpool defence, forcing hesitancy and then after collection the loose ball, initially looked to be trying to pull it back, before suddenly swivelling and firing home after noticing Liverpool had no cover on the line.

This looked a fairly simple goal in many respects, but Smallbone should be given all credit for the way he created the opportunity for himself and gave Saints the lead.

So 1-0 up at Liverpool at half time, very few Saints supporters would have predicted that one !

The second half was always going to be a battle and Liverpool piled forward, but in simple terms the game changed in just a few minutes after the 50th minute, firstly Nunez scored, then Will Smallbone gave away a penalty.

After that we knuckled down and at times held on, if we had done this in a few more games this season, we might well have got a few more points on the board.

As we headed towards the 90 minute mark with the score still at 2-1, you could feel a sense of nervousness creeping into the Liverpool players and the crowd, even in the away section there was a sense that we might sneak something here, but again VAR didn't go for us for the 3rd time in the game and Liverpool put the game to bed from their second penalty.

So the talking points were the 3 decisions from VAR and to be honest I thought 2 of them were correct and 1 was got wrong.

The first came in the first half when Darwin Nunez scythed down Kyle Walker-Peters, I though that this one was got right, it was a bad tackle, it was not mistimed but calculated, but it was just scything down KWP, it was not dangerous with the studs up etc, so for me that was just a yellow card, the only question is whether the decision would have been different if it was Walker-Peters on Nunez.

The second controversial moment came just a few minutes after Liverpool had equalised, as the home side poured forward, we struggled to clear the ball and Nunez went down under a challenge from Will Smallbone, of course it went to VAR, but I think that they got this one wrong, look at the picture below, Smallbone's feet are on the ground, he did not make a tackle, Nunez felt a touch and went to ground, but a touch isn't a foul, physical contact is allowed, this was no penalty.

The final moment came in the 88th minute when no one in the away end could work out what was going on, it looked like we had cleared the ball, but then came the VAR call to the referee who hadn't seen anything wrong either.

But he soon changed his mind and in fairness this was a good call, Sugawara although he had kept his arm by his side, did use his elbow to divert the ball, it was very cute, but with VAR these days you don't get away with it, I don't know why he needed to do it.

So it all ended 3-1 and I suspect that there wasn't a Southampton supporter in the ground , who wouldn't have shook on a 3-1 defeat, if cricket rules could have been applied.

But the worry is that once again we saw some strange decisions by Ivan Juric, not so much this week in the starting line up, but in the substitutions.

Obviously when Bednarek went off it was simple, and Archer for Gronbaek was again understandable, but Suguwara for Dibling entailed a reshuffle as we now had 3 fullbacks on the field. but for me he gambled too much when taking off both his defensive midfielders in Ugochukwu & Smallbone in quick succession in the final quarter, take one off, but both left us open to getting overrun in the midfield.

In the past he has said that he would not play Adam Lallana at the same time as Matteus Fernandes, but this happened, in the final 10 minutes with Tall Paul Onuachu also now on the pitch as well as Joe Aribo, we had lost a bit of shape.

It was a brave gamble from Juric, perhaps a desperate one, but ultimately one that didn't pay off.

So now we look to next Saturday when Wolverhampton Wanderers are in town, this is an important game, our only goal now is to avoid being the worst Premier League team in history, we need 3 points to avoid that and on paper the game against Wolves is our best chance of getting a win between now and the end of the season.

It needs a full St Mary's behind the team to get that win under our belts.

All Photos Via Reuters

SanMarco added 10:39 - Mar 10 The revolutionary idea of 4-4-2 with players playing in their right places worked quite well. Who would have thought it!! The VAR worked correctly to the extent that neither was a clear and obvious error. As long as if the ref had made the opposite decision on both, they would also have NOT been overturned then that is how it needs to be. We know from earlier in the season though that 'clear and obvious' is not consistently interpreted. Unless mistakes are blatant I think VAR should only get involved if the ref has not seen something. Also there should be a rule change so that a footballer collapsing is seen as a medical matter unless the propulsive force applied to him was adequate to send an average person down. i.e. if Nick was in the bar and was nudged like Nunez was he would have no choice but to crumble like a sack of the proverbial. Also on the red card - I was, in the end, secretly pleased that in the second half we lost against 11. I'd put my mortgage on the fact we would have lost anyway and this way was less disappointing - and we had the first pen to moan about!! PS note to future managers - if we play Liverpool while Sugarwara is still here DONT play him. PPS Anyone else remember all those incessantly whining scousers after the game at our place. All decisions seem to have been just fine this time...

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HythePeer added 11:23 - Mar 10 Saints came back from one up. This time using stupidity.
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davidargyll added 12:02 - Mar 10 There is no doubt that Liverpool are a class team and we are amateurs in comparison. But Saturday’s game was interesting because it showed that, underneath all this season’s disappointments, perhaps the Saints aren’t really such a bad cohort of players, not PL standard certainly, but… Yes, Liverpool looked off the pace in H1 for various reasons, but also because, to a greater or lesser extent, for the first 45 minutes we did give them the run around. OK, so in H2 they got off their bums and we suffered as a result. But in doing so they did give us a very simple lesson in how to win a football match: WHEN YOU LOSE THE BALL MAKE SUPERHUMAN EFFORTS , PRESS, PRESS AND MORE PRESS UNTIL YOU WIN IT BACK, AND THEN BREAK HARD AND FAST. There is no doubt that we are fitter than we were under the dreadful Russell Martin but, with the honourable exception of Adam Armstrong - who scored again for West Brom on Saturday - even now virtually every Saints player would be left floundering in the wake of every Liverpool player in a 100 metre dash. Whether or not we have players with sufficient skills is one thing - their H1 performance though did suggest that they are better than some have made out - but if next season the manager, whoever it may be, makes his number one priority to get the team SUPER FIT, then I believe we just may do a lot better in the Championship than some are predicting. PS. Will Tyler Dibling for ever be the grumpy teenager? Or does he have any chance of becoming the next Harvey Elliott? Compare and contrast ….

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Bowlercow added 12:06 - Mar 10 We lost the chance of a point because of two errors One by VAR in giving a penalty and one by Sugawara Why does he do that? Unlike you Nick I thought Nunez should have been sent off He didn't kick KWP but in a reckless manner he attempted to According to rule 12 that is a red card The other way around it would have been Other than not having a striker the starting 11 and formation were what the majority of supporters have been calling for and I can't help thinking that if RM had used iht and adapted his possession game he would have still been here and we may not have been struggling to reach 12 points

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Colburn added 12:50 - Mar 10 Nunez challenge was definitely a red according to the rules and they took 4 minutes to find the excuse to not overturn the weak ref. The first penalty was a joke decision and again the dodgy VAR did its job for the big team. Nunez shouldn’t have been on the pitch to equalise or dive for the penalty. I would suggest that Juric actually got the right starting line up given that we were one nil up at half time away at the Champions elect. I know the fans don’t like Sugawara but he obviously didn’t do it on purpose and he was nudged. In trying to regain his balance elbowed the ball. It’s interesting how we see the positives cans defend some players yet can’t wait to criticise another as if they did something on purpose. I didn’t think the handball in the home game was deliberate either, it’s just a corrupt VAR who find and interpret what they like. That one came off his chest first and in the rules should not have been a red but feel free to blame Suga if you want to misrepresent the situation. Last note, the police were a disgrace at Anfield, removing people for claiming Nunez took a dive.. psycho police with fabricated attempts to charge people who were just having fun. Evil and calculated police behaviour. One woman was in her 60’s, utter disgrace what went on, I will be writing to the MP for Liverpool and their chief of police after their behaviours because it was an awful abuse of power.

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