Printer-friendly pageSunday, August 12, 2007
Saints started the 2007/08 campaign against Crystal Palace without any of last year's four preferred centre back options and without Kenwyne Jones due to an injury that few fans were prepared to take at face value.
We were also missing Kelvin Davis, and while many were ready to welcome that, Bialkowski doesn't seem to have made many strides forward from his promising beginning and that memorable display against Wolves. He's certainly been coached out of coming out for crosses, although the corner on the half hour that led to the first goal may have been a bit to deep to chase; unfortunately the makeshift centre back pairing of Bennett and Makin wasn't up to keeping the experienced Scowcroft quiet and his goal was an inevitable consequence.
It took less than a minute for things to get much, much worse as Bennett had neither pace nor strength to handle Scowcroft on the ground while Bialkowski's positioning left him vulnerable to a lob, albeit a well executed one.
Palace, despite the eventual scoreline, are no great shakes either, and Saganowski's snap shot in first half injury time gave Saints hope. They didn't have much time much time to mount a realistic chase for at least a point as Bialkowski's bad day got worse. It could have been dramatically worse, had he conceded directly from the downfield punt by opposite number Speroni, but he was at full stretch to keep it out and the ball fell for Scowcroft to complete his hat trick in a manner he scarcely expected.
More poor defending sewed the game up after less than an hour as Morrison scored from close range and most of a healthy crowd had left before the end - probably in search of a nervous cigarette outside the stadium.
LSSC Man of the Match: Youssef Safri. Who? He's the bloke we signed from Norwich just before the Big Kick Off. Where? In that role George likes a midfielder to play, just in front of the defence (defence? what defence?). Why? Decent enough on the ball, and alert enough to use it successfully.
Southampton Bialkowski, Ostlund, Bennett, Makin,Vignal (Skacel 67), Viafara (Hammill 63), Wright, Safri,Surman, Saganowski (Wright-Phillips 76), Rasiak.
Subs Not Used: Davis, McGoldrick.
Booked: Viafara, Makin.
Goals: Saganowski 45.
Crystal Palace Speroni, Lawrence, Cort, Hudson, Craig, Green,Watson, Soares, Kennedy (Butterfield 68), Morrison (Kuqi 62),Scowcroft (Freedman 75).
Subs Not Used: Flinders, Martin.
Goals: Scowcroft 30, 31, 55, Morrison 57.
Att: 25,054
