Listening to the commentary for today's match at Burnley, the opinion seemed to be that The Ref should have handed out a few cards, but issued none. I also heard that Saints have the best disciplinary record in the league so far this season. This is such a turnaround from Pardew's time, when the match stats always showed that as well as a good number of shots on target, we always topped the "fouls committed" count. I remember some of the posters raising this at the time. It's a change which has happened under Adkins. It seemed that we were forever giving away needless free kicks in dangerous positions, in the last 10 minutes of games, but that is nowhere near as prevalent. Since the results have been so good, who cares about the stats? But I wonder if this change is a significant part of our success?
No Saints player wants a suspension because it would let another player in and could be hard to get back in. Fouls are usually the result of desperation and we're not desperate yet. If it's close at the end of the season or we're in the play-offs and an opposition player is running clear on goal, I'm sure one of our players is quite capable of putting him into row Z.
Row Z? I am sure that you are right, Fran. Maybe at some point, someone will have to "take one for the team", but I hadn't thought about the competition for places keeping the players disciplined. Good shout.
