Saints 1-1 Ipswich Town
With Lallana back, hopes were high that Saints would build on the win at Leeds by comfortably seeing off Ipswich at St. Mary’s – after all, we’d put five past them at their place.
The team could have been well on the way to repeating that feat had Lallana shown more composure with the first half opportunities that came his way, but goalkeeper McCarthy foiled him on every occasion, despite being fortunate in keeping out Lee who had been deceptively quick when chasing down an apparently lost cause.
It’s nice to have the lead at any point, but it helps the team relax when expectations of a win are high, and inevitably frustrations started to creep in – and inevitably many of them stemmed from Do Prado, occupying the wide role on the opposite flank to Lallana.
Mr. Adkins isn’t usually so cautious with the substitutions, but it wasn’t until the 70th minute that we saw a change, with De Ridder replacing Do Prado. This brought near instant success with the winger’s low cross met sweetly by Lambert with the usual result from the leading scorer.
As against Millwall (F.A. Cup – remember?) taking the lead at this point should have been sufficient, but despite the more flamboyant Lallana giving way to Cork, Saints couldn’t hold on. Hooiveld will be disappointed at the way he slipped to allow Chopra some space, but Scotland’s eventual goal at the end of this move owed a lot to a deflection, and that disappointed nearly 23,000 people.
There will no doubt be many more twists before the end of the season, but dropping two precious points in such a fashion was a big blow.
LSSC Man of the Match: Morgan Schneiderlin, although it ought to have been Lallana, if he’d bought his shooting boots – this in a week where Messi looked to be just that bit better.
01 Davis
02 Richardson
03 Harding
06 Fonte
26 Hooiveld
04 Schneiderlin
10 Guly (De Ridder – 70′ )
14 Hammond
20 Lallana (Cork – 83′ )
07 Lambert
19 Lee (Sharp – 75′ )
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