Leeds United 3-0 Saints
For the second time this season, Saints dropped their entire starting line-up for the following match: the Capital One Cup, of course, and it would have been naïve to expect anything else after a Premier League encounter ended just 51 hour earlier… but the Yorkshire Post’s correspondent wasn’t the only one surprised that our subs bench at Leeds could muster only 6 league appearances between them this season – and Gazzaniga accounted for 5 of those.
Kelvin Davis came in for Boruc, who may be in disgrace anyway, and he was kept busy while Jamie Ashdown could have sat out the game in the stands for all the work he had to do at the other end. Saints hadn’t managed a worthwhile effort by the time Tonge struck home the loose ball after a Davis save on 34 minutes, but the truly worrying statistic is that remained the case by the time the team were finally put out of their misery and we could make our way back to a well-earned pint after enduring an embarrassing evening.
Varney, another ex-Skate, had kept the match even by somehow managing to clear his own goal-bound shot with his trailling leg, and then he hit the bar when a misplaced header from Seaborne set him clear. Yes, it could have been far worse than even the scoreline suggests, and brief moments of hope when teenagers Isgrove and Shaw livened things up were extinguished when Diouf, the game’s outstanding player, scored easily after an exposed Davis could only parry Austin’s shot.
Referee Foy had given the home side some soft free kicks and he finally awarded a penalty as well in added time, converted by late substitute Becchio after a trip on Tonge.
Fortunately there were few Saints fans left to see it, but some of those who did remain suggested in often obscene terms that Nigel’s public support is on the wane.
LSSC Man of the Match: Jos Hooiveld, but without much to be proud of.
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