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Saints V Wolverhampton Wanderers The Verdict

Saints didn't play well but they still took the three points to give themselves an eight point advantage in the battle to stay out of the bottom three to send the fans home happy again.

Ironically a week ago Saints played well and lost 3-1 to Liverpool, against Wolves they struggled to find form and any sort of rhythm, it was the same scoreline again but this time for the home team.

Ralph Hasenhuttl made a couple of changes to the starting line up for the visit of Wolves with Oriol Romeu dropping to the bench along with Shane Long and Josh Sims and Danny Ings coming in.

The game could not have got off to a better start with Sims crossing low and hard with two minutes not yet on the clock and Nathan Redmond firing home from close range.

But this would not signal dominance for Saints and the game soon fell into a pattern that would continue for virtually the whole 90 minutes.

Wolves had most of the possession and individually Saints could not get it together, our passing was woeful and even the usually reliable James Ward Prowse and Pierre Emile Hojbjerg could not seem to be able to pass to a team mate even from short distance.

So it was no great shock when the away side drew level with a header from a corner just before the half hour mark, but the lead would be short lived and two minutes later Nathan Redmond restored the lead dinking the ball over the keeper after a sublime through ball from Danny Ings.

Although the pattern of the game didn't change Saints really should have put the game to bed with Josh Sims wasting two good chances, the first seeing him opting to shoot and firing wide when he perhaps wold have been better to have squared for Ings and the second when he put the ball wide when one on one on the keeper.

The 2-1 half time lead looked fragile and the second half started with the same pattern, Wolves dominating, however their problem was that for all the dominance they were struggling to create chances, Angus Gunn had to be on his toes and he did his job well, but there was never an occasion when you had to say he had kept us in it, this was testament to the way that although we were playing badly as individuals, as a team we dug in and made sure that we didn't give it away.

Ralph Hasenhuttl made a double change on the hour mark bringing on Long & Romeu for the two players that had replaced them and it soon paid dividends, Saints got their first corner of the game on 71 minutes and as Wolves struggled to clear credit must be given to Yoshida who firstly tried a spectacular overhead kick that was blocked and as the ball fell near him from the rebound he managed to divert it to Shane Long who flicked it home from close range.

That broke the spirit of Wolves and although they still dominated you fel that Saints spirit would see them through and it did.

Nathan Redmond would understandably be most people's man of the match, but interestingly on Match of the Day they highlighted the contribution Danny Ings made.

Ings didn't score and too often strikers are judged solely on the number of goals they score, certainly Shane Long would tell you that, but that is a very narrow way of ooking at things and against Wolves Ings was a major contributor in sending us into the break ahead and it should have been a bigger margin.

Firstly for the opened, Ings played a cushioned header down to start the move that led to the goal and then for the second it was his perfectly weighted through ball that sent Redmond clear to score.

He then laid the ball for Josh Sims and should have had a return ball for an easy chance and if his ball for Redmond was sublime, the one he put through for Sims second chance was better and he really deserved a second assist for that one.

Ings is a player who like Long offers more to the team even when he is not scoring in holding the ball up and creating space for others, Redmond deserves his MOM award, but if Josh Sims had firstly played the ball back to Ings to bury and then took his second chance himself, then it would probably have been Ings taking the award and not Redmond.

This result along with Cardiff's defeat at Burnley and Brighton's at home to Bournemouth has put Saints on the cusp of safety and we should now be able to march forward and secure that with games to spare.

I said ahead of our trip to Brighton that we were starting a trio of games that would go a long way to deciding how our season would play out in the final knockings, I said then that 4 points would be a good total, we have managed 6 a very good return.

Mark Hughes averaged .64 points per game, Hasenhuttl maintains 1.5 per game after this victory, that is an average that over a season would usually see you in 7th/8th place, last season 57 points would have given us that position, the season before we would have fell a little short and would have been 8th, the position we actually finished, but we would have had 11 points more.

The hope going forward is that if Ralph Hasenhuttl can achieve this points ratio with a squad that has not only been ravaged by injury to key players at times, not to mention being short of quality in a couple of key positions, then what could he do with those problems solved next season.

But for now we look to the final five games and after this result we can look upwards and not over our shoulder, Ralph has set a target of 40 points for absolute safety, but we should look at perhaps what we can achieve in the final table.

Our first goal should of course be to avoid relegation, our second should be to improve on last season's placing and that means finishing above Brighton, then we should see if we can catch Bournemouth, they are five points clear, but if we can beat them at St Mary's then that would cut the gap to two and we have a game in hand.

I can see them getting 44 points, so that should be our target, if we both ended with that figure then by nature of the results we would have both achieved, we would probably have a better goal difference.


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