Wolves Home Lost 1 – 2
Smallbone was injured and concussion protocols automatically ruled Bednarek out of the home game with Wolves, but no matter as we had Bella-Kotchap available… so that would be alright… wouldn’t it…? The match represented one of the more realistic opportunities to take the points total into double figures and Saints were looking decent enough in the opening stages, Sulemana revealed by slo-mo to have had a better chance than first thought. Then around the 20 minute mark, Saints stood back a bit and let Bellegarde get in a cross that nevertheless shouldn’t have posed much of a threat, only Bella-Kotchap decided Strand Larsen wasn’t worth tracking and the Norwegian’s header somehow found its way past Ramsdale who didn’t seem to be expecting anything like that coming his way. Ivan had brought back Sugawara, but if you regard him and Manning as operating as wing backs, it was really a back three that, importantly, kept Suga away from anywhere he might do something stupid. We also featured Fernandes as a lone forward, but that wasn’t allowed to continue as he was replaced by Onuachu at the break. The coach said of Tall Paul that he has some good things and some bad things he can do better – one of the bad things is failing to keep the ball when it’s played up to him from defence and he soon showed that fault again, allowing Wolves to go forward and eventually see Strand Larsen stroke his second past Ramsdale who seemed to dive too early for quite a tame effort. Remember, though, that Paul has ‘some good things’ and he did well to find Dibling for a decent shot that hit the post, and then it was Onuachu who reacted first to the rebound as he scored his first home goal. Earlier, Dibling had wasted a good headed opportunity and Sá had saved from Sugawara with ‘one for the cameras’ so we might have been on for an exciting finish – but it didn’t turn out that way, not helped by now having Archer on to make his usual non-contribution at this level.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates for you to choose from:
2. Kyle Walker-Peters. Credit him for turning up every week only to find himself let down by team-mates.
6. Taylor Harwood-Bellis. Those team-mates have caused him to be left out of the senior England squad, with all sorts of ordinary players preferred.
16. Yukinari Sugawara. The bloke on the BBC coverage thought he was good, so maybe it’s just me who didn’t.
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