Leicester Away Won 3 – 4, Saints Make History – First Time Winning From a 3 Nill Deficit
Somewhat surprisingly, Downes was fit enough to face Leicester so the only question was whether Stewart or Larin would lead the attack… only it turned out to be Archer instead – all I can think of is an attempt to exploit Vestergaard’s turning circle but the Dane didn’t make the Foxes’ squad. After Archer had missed for Saints (to be fair, he was there to get on the end of Scienza’s cross) Mukasa was allowed to make space for a shot that beat Peretz and gave the hosts the lead within the first ten minutes; some have blamed the keeper, I’m not so sure, and Bazunu certainly wouldn’t have saved. The spotlight remained on the stopper for the second goal when Fellows badly underhit a long back pass which Peretz was committed to trying to reach, but couldn’t; Daka made no mistake in putting the ball in a now unkept goal. The game soon got even worse for Saints when Fatawa hit a powerful shot inside Peretz’s near post within the half hour and Leicester were on course for nine goals – something their supporters were quick to hit upon. It’s illogical, but such hubris usually has consequences – something fans always seem to forget. Saints managed to get through to half time without falling further behind, and they then made three changes, bringing on Charles, Matsuki and Stewart for Jander, Fellows and Archer. The new shape certainly improved prospects even before a deft Stewart goal from Scienza’s cross gave travelling fans something to cheer – and at least we weren’t being embarrassed. It could have turned ugly again had Daka taken advantage of awful defending, but then manager Eckert risked replacing both Bree and Welington, putting Manning and Larin on the pitch. The clock was against us until Stephens lashed in the loose ball after a period of pressure, and the game was truly on with eight minutes plus added time remaining. You could feel the confidence draining from the blue sector of the stadium to find a home in the red and white corner, and I can’t think that taking off Fatawa helped their cause. The 90 minutes were still not up when Manning scored with a peculiar header from a peculiar corner. I’d have taken the draw at that point, but to be honest, there was only one side going to win this game of two halves. That the man to seal it was Charles seemed as unlikely as anything that had gone before, but from our lofty position in row KK behind the player, there was no doubt that his curling shot would find the top corner of Begović’s net – who knew our man had something like that in his locker? Cue wild scenes as there were surely only seconds left. When the game eventually restarted, time was duly played out and the whole squad this time were over to the north east corner for more celebrations.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
11. Ross Stewart. Only half a game, but managed a goal and two assists in that time.
13. Léo Scienza. Got a second half assist and was behind a lot of what we did right in the first period.
24. Shea Charles. Another one half wonder as a goal (that goal!) gets him onto the short list ahead of Downes.
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