Late goal sinks Saints

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Saints had the luxury of a week between matches before facing Charlton at St. Mary's and only lost one player through injury in that time - Euell failed to recover from a knock.

However, it was obvious that all was not going well and Dailly soon moved into defence, allowing Viafara to add extra competitiveness to the midfield. The visitors had already hit the bar and Southampton's tactical change had little obvious impact until Semedo quickly followed a booking for an unnecessary foul with a second yellow for a 'professional' challenge on Viafara as Saints attempted to break from a deep position.

The remaining 10 minutes before half time turned out to be the only period with Southampton on top. It was certainly difficult to see which side had the 10 men after the break, but there's good reason to suspect that Charlton might have been a bit more adventurous with a full complement.

As it was, the prompting by Reid in midfield still left Saints with questions to answer, while it took until the 88th minute for the home side to threaten seriously when Idiakez lined up a free kick. Weaver saved, however, and when Charlton broke strongly they might have done better.

The goal-less draw that was then on the cards would have been rare and indeed unearned by Saints, but they didn't even get that. Deep into injury time, Varney exposed a lack of pace in debutant Davies and Iwelumo headed in from close range. Saints couldn't even blame an over-fussy and sub-standard referee, as Charlton with their seven bookings (including two for Semedo) fared far worse at his hands. Keith Hill of Hertfordshire: remember the name as he's sure to be on the FIFA list in a couple of years.

LSSC Man of the Match: Phil Ifil, another quietly effective game from him.
Southampton: Davis, Ifil, Thomas, Viafara, Vignal (Davies 72), Dyer, Dailly, Idiakez, Surman (Hammill 68), Wright-Phillips (Rasiak 68), John.
Subs Not Used: Bialkowski, Saganowski.

Booked: Ifil, Surman.

Charlton: Weaver, Mills, Sodje, Fortune, Basey, Sam (Moutaouakil 77), Semedo, Zheng, Jerome Thomas (Varney 82), Reid (Ambrose 90), Iwelumo.
Subs Not Used: Randolph, Bougherra.

Sent Off: Semedo (36).

Booked: Semedo, Sam, Zheng, Jerome Thomas, Moutaouakil.

Goals: Iwelumo 90.

Att: 23,363

Eric's report to follow.

Ref: Keith Hill (Hertfordshire).