Saints scrape past 'unlucky' Scunthorpe

George has tried this before, and we usually come unstuck - and that could have been as early as the first minute as Idiakez immediately lost possession and Davis's ugly parry from Patterson's created more danger. At least Davis's afternoon was going to get better, but Idiakez compounded the error by shooting wastefully when set up in Saints' first attack. In fact there could easily have been 6 goals in the first 10 minutes, and most of them would have been scored by the visitors as Davies and Thomas failed to gel, and Vignal wandered around like a lost soul in search of a defence.

The best of those six chances fell to Saints, though - specifically to Idiakez (above) and Wright-Phillips. In an open game, especially in front of Davis, it was surprising that we had to wait 25 minutes for a goal which proved to be the only one; Surman shot or crossed across the face of the keeper and Rasiak blasted the ball high into an empty net.

Scunthorpe weren't finished, and hit the bar before the break, but you would have expected Saints to regroup and win comfortably in the second half. Things might have gone to plan had a poor referee (even by Championship standards) spotted a handball and had an offside Wright-Phillips not got a final touch to a Hammill shot that would have completed a memorable goal. Scunthorpe responded with a shot from Sparrow that clipped the bar, and from that point Southampton's game and tempers fell apart and they were lucky to escape with the win.

How anything less would have been received at St. Mary's we will never know, but I suspect plenty of paying customers have still to be convinced that we should be lining up against the likes of Scunthorpe, never mind struggling to beat them.

LSSC Man of the Match: Kelvin Davis - who had to make several good stops to preserve the lead.