Frustrating for Saints

There was some brighter news, and we now have a Ted Bates statue that looks quite like that bloke who used to manage us. SFC invited various dignitaries from its past to the statue's unveiling, and they stayed to watch the game. Bet none of them had played football anything like the sort they saw during the afternoon.

Nigel Pearson has opted to produce a side with the same playing style as that so readily adopted by most of our Championship peers, and it's no surprise as you don't need many fingers to count the teams that concentrate on passing the ball around a bit: just West Brom, Cardiff, QPR and Ipswich, really. But it is Branfoot-ism with an added degree of cynicism based on the theory that if you get the ball in the danger area often enough, something is bound to happen. Well, it did, sort of, with as many opportunities created as under Burley's pass it all over the place ploy. The trouble is, when nothing does result, it's all about as interesting as watching a coin toss competition, and there were times when our forwards could do nothing other than occasionally wander offside.

Eventually that clear chance did come, in the 81st minute, but Schmeichel stuck out an arm to keep out John's shot from point blank range, and you sort of knew that was it from Saints. With Davis still unavailable, Richard Wright was acquired to perform in goal and apart from an embarrassing incident when he surprised Powell by coming out to try to catch a cross, he did rather well, including an important save from Gray in the dying minutes. Wright-Phillips was back in favour amongst the management at least, but his appearance off the bench was greeted by as many boos as cheers.

This bunch of players has lost contact with their fans, and that probably disappointed the statue's guests as much as the on-pitch activities.