Saints have quite often been a friend to teams who come our way nursing a losing run. I feared this game. Our desire for revenge was obviously not as big as Bristol's desire to get out of their precarious position/prove they're as good as any team in the division - good on them. Rather lose to them than someone up there with us - though does seem a bit of a waste of 9 points to have chucked away on them and Doncaster. Good to get a wake up call at the halfway point - we ARE beatable at home, and can no longer afford to rely on our SMS form to navigate our way through this tough season. Question is, will Brighton's MASSIVE chip outweigh our desire to get back on a winning run?
I'd like to see Adomah at Saints, tbh. It's an annoying result and to lose the unbeaten home record on the 364th(!) day of the year (so near, yet so far...) is pretty galling but, well done to City, who played well and deserved the win.
Well played today City - summed up my thoughts in another thread but we were beaten deservedly. I'm not happy and we shouldn't have lost, but there we go, they've done the double on us and they've deserved both wins. Was always going to be a tricky game, but I still thought we'd win. Alas, I applauded off both teams at the end as I felt they both deserved it.
Just back. I thought city looked like they wanted it more than us, and we looked off the pace. So, it's a shame to lose the record, but consider this. Had we lost a game earlier in the season and won tonight we would have exactly the same number of points, and would probably all feel much better. The most disappointing thing was the loss of discipline at the end. How many unnecessary fouls during time added on.? Too much like the bad old days for my liking.
We're defensively good but not brilliant. We rely on scoring a couple of goals and if we don't there's always the danger of dropping points, especially if we don't get the early goal. Still top and likely to stay that way until Monday. Let's move on to Brighton.
Not only did BC's game plan work (again), but they seemed to want it more than we did. They won the vast majority of loose balls, 50/50's, second balls and whenever we did get the ball they closed us down quickly. I gather this is what happened up at their place, and yet we still didn't have a plan B. Very disappointing and frustrating evening. The positives for me: Aaron Martin played well against tricky strikers. De Ridder had a good game for me, he had a few dodgy moments/crosses, but also went on countless marauding runs, had the beating of the defender and put plenty of good balls in to the box. The final positive is, unless Boro/West Ham go on a scoring frenzy, we are still top. Happy New Year On a side note: and this is taking nothing away from BC because they played well, stuck to their plan and deserved what they got. But I found the referee very one sided today. Lambert was fouled out of the game, it was constant and blatant. The ref saw it every time and gave nothing, the only time he gave a foul in Lambert's favor was when he went to ground. Then when the BC players went down it was free kick, free kick, free kick. Seemed like he was conned by BC tonight or maybe we were too honest.
I've got to say I didn't think the referee was bad. I try to judge him as objectively as possible and try to forget I'm a Saints fan when judging his decisions and I thought he got very little wrong tonight. No complaints from me.
There was a few tonight that did not earn their corn. We allowed city to smother our play and we do not appear to have the answer to it. Sometimes playing teams like that we have to come down to their level and do the same. Use the speed of the players we do have which when we did do it we had the breaks. We seem to try and walk it in when sometimes we should have been shooting on sight. They relied on the break and got it....we relied on playing tip tap football and got sod all.Just about sums it up for me. Very disappointing.....
Sorry Dan can't agree with you there......he got caught ball watching on more than a few times. Rather than watching play.....Ricky was given a couple of free kicks he should never of got but on the other hand was not given a few when he should have got them. Also his use of "lets see what will happen" in other words playing on actually saved Saints on at least two occasions when there was clear advantage. He also missed a couple of very blatant shirt pulls and pushes down the chapel end in both halves. I am not saying he cost us the game or anything like that but he didn't in my opinion have a very good game either.
Beddy - Talking with my lot from the start of the season I mentioned about how we play. Without doubt the best footballing team by far, but sometimes we need to boss the game. Bossing is not outplaying/passing the opposition but getting nitty gritty. I have said from the start of this season we need a "bully" that we can deploy. Was tonight a game that we could have got "down and dirty". West Han do it and I fear this will be our downfall.
Their centre backs were all over Lambert, and he was given maybe one foul? I did like how he very clearly tried to stop Bristol City time wasting, especially when he escorted their player off the pitch when he was being substituted to stop him walking off!
Did anyone have a clear view of James carrying the ball out of the area? It seemed strange that when he did let go of it as soon as our player went in for it, was judged to have fouled, it all looked a bit tenuous to me, I reckon the Referee bottled out.
That's Bristol City taken both records off us this season so far - first club to take our record of scoring in every league game; first club to beat us at home. Are there any more records left, or can we get those distractions out of the way, and hit the final half of the season with the ultimate goal in mind?
Well a home defeat had to happen sooner or later and it could not have come at a better time with the transfer window about to open giving us the opertunity to strenghen
I literally sit right down that line, and for me James took it out of the penalty box. Only just mind you, but I'm very confident that for a split second 100% of the ball was the other side of the line.
That was how I saw it, and when he let go of the ball our player challenged for it as he was entitled to do and was penalised!
I can't really comment on what went on afterwards - I was too busy standing on my feet, screaming at the ref (I assumed that one of our players illegally kicked it out of James' hands). Oh goody, didn't realise that Leicester-Pompey was on TV now. Time for a bit of a cheer up then - whatever the result in this one, I'll be very happy.
