Preston 3 Saints 1

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

For the visit to Preston, Saints left new loanee Danny Guthrie on the bench where he was joined by Saganowski (not that we knew any of this as the announcer at Deepdale seemingly didn't think his audience was interested in Southampton's substitutes).

We were told that Rasiak was back, but none of a string of first half chances fell to him. With the wind making things difficult, Saints were coping far better than the home team, but goalkeeper Lonergan denied Belmadi twice, and Surman with his best save of all, while Jones blazed over when well placed. In amongst all that, we had a scare when Davis had to be alert to prevent Baird's poor back header falling to Mellor, but that moment had long been forgotten when Saints contrived to throw away all their good work.

Bale, presumably, ought to have prevented Ricketts heading a free kick back into the danger area, but then Davis had another will-he-won't-he moment and the ball eventually fell to Mellor who guided it in from close range. It is so frustrating how often we give away such very preventable goals at crucial moments, which is why I had a major rant at Davis. TV replays showed that whilst it was not very impressive keeping, his was not the major error; but a similar rant at QPR had only been curtailed by a surprise referee's whistle so Davis had it coming anyway.

Things weren't going so well after the break and Mellor missed from a similar position to Jones. However, Saints did eventually get the ball over the line, if not actually in the net, when Rasiak forced a goal at the second attempt after Lonergan's parry.

Jones went down with an injury that clearly meant he couldn't carry on, but Southampton's staff didn't seem to be concerned that we were effectively down to 10 men - inevitably Preston took advantage, finding Nugent completely free and he provided a classy finish. The Davis/Baird axis has been responsible for many horrors this season, so we shouldn't be surprised that they contributed to the decisive third home goal: Davis couldn't get to Sedgwick's low cross, but Baird could, for an o.g. Are we having a go at Baird now? Well yes; when you count up all his mistakes, he does have a case to answer.

Man of the Match: Djamel Belmadi, who displayed a good attitude as well as performing effectively.

Saints: Davis, Makin (Guthrie), Lundekvam, Baird, Bale, Belamdi, Wright, Viafara, Surman (Saganowski), Rasiak, Jones (Wright-Phillips)