Coventry Home Drew 1 – 1
Stephens sat out the game against league leaders Coventry on the bench, suggesting a fitness problem as this has happened before; Fellows was also among the subs following injury. Recent games have seen Saints dominating the opening quarter before being pegged back, but this one had the reverse pattern, with Cov. having all the early possession before Saints replied strongly with a long period where we kept the ball, a sequence only broken by an attempt at goal from a free kick. We had also threatened on the break but Armstrong never had proper control when clear and shot wide, while Scienza was denied by the left foot of goalkeeper Rushworth. It was sloppy defending that led to Coventry’s 44th minute goal as Saints had opportunities to clear before a cross was headed in by unmarked Mason-Clark as, not for the first time this season, none of our centre backs took control of the situation. To be fair, the Sky Blues were threatening and Harwood-Bellis’ challenge on Mason-Clark looked like a penalty at the time – repeat viewings are, at best, inconclusive. The dynamics of the match turned just after the break when Welington seemed to beat Dasilva to the ball to draw a late tackle but replays do show a nasty challenge that caused a straight red card. Coventry responded with a defensive substitution and soon took off Mason-Clark for a full back; they will point to having a lead to protect and an end result that was at least positive, but they did concede all possession to Saints, and that eventually cost them an equaliser. It came on 56 minutes after Scienza’s cross following a corner created havoc before the ball was recirculated for Wood to head in his first Southampton goal. We brought on Fellows for Welington, which seemed sensible, and Archer for Jander, which didn’t, but Saints aren’t too good at breaking down a massed defence and when they could get a shot away, it always went too close to Rushworth. Twice in added time we sent Bazunu forward for corners, the footballing equivalent of Baz-ball as it could have given the visitors the opportunity for an unlikely winner of their own. Nothing of the sort happened at either end and, as usual, I made my way out at the final whistle before handshakes to signal the end of a well fought game… only it didn’t happen like that. The instigator of a melee seems to have been Frank Lampard Junior who lived up to his suffix by showing the safe standing Saints fans that they’d got under his skin when suggesting that he was a sh*t Steven Gerrard. I don’t recall his father being upset at being called a sh*t Denis Hollywood.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
13. Léo Scienza. A second successive full 90 minutes, half of which were in circumstances that didn’t fully suit his game.
15. Nathan Wood-Gordon, at last finding the net.
32. Gavin Bazunu with a couple of impressive first half saves, and he did actually come close to forcing a winner upfield.
Frank a bit of friendly advise if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen!
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