Going to Manchester City was never going to be an easy day out, but its even harder when as a team you prsent chances to them on the plate.

The book Animal Farm by George Orwell is the source of many quotes that are in use today, one of those "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others" could be applied to the many comments I have seen about Saints performance on social network sites when its quite clear that despite far from being the only culprit, Paulo Gazzaniga is clearly the scapegoat for this defeat.

But although Gazzaniga didnt cover himself in glory, nor did some of his more illustrious team mates who followed on from an error ridden defeat at Spurs by continuing their slack marking and lapses of concentration, Gazzaniga didnt play at Spurs but Im sure some people blame him for that one as well.

So lets look at where Saints went wrong, the first error was were Jose Fonte found himself caught out of position after only two minutes, perhaps Im harsh on Fonte on his positional sense but Eden Dzeko turned him inside out, with Fone going one way and Dzeko the other there was absolutely no benefit to Fone throwing up his trailing leg behind him to waist height, it was no where near the ball and never going to stop Dzeko, the only outcome was going to be Dzeko taking the opportunity to throw himself to the ground, he did and the penalty was given and despatched with the game two minutes old, the penalty was harsh but there was contact and contace no where near the ball is a foul, yet another lapse in concentration im afraid.

But Saints did start to get the ball and play well but sadly the next pivotal moment would be game changing in that the loss of Jay Rodriguez who went down clutching his knee after landing awkwardly would in the grand scheme of things severely limit Saints chances of catching City on the break.

On 37 minutes Saints were handed a lifeline, Jack Cork surged into the box and was tripped, Rickie Lambert obliged as he does from the spot.

It looked like Saints would go in level at the break, but as the board for 4 minutes of injury time went up, they went behind, replays showed that the goal was five yards offside, an appalling blunder by the linesman and to a degree the referee who should have spotted the flick that meant that Nasri was way off side.

The third goal has been put down to Gazzaniga and yes it wasnt his best moment, but was he completely at fault ? I would say no in that he had to go for a cross he wasnt positioned for, Dzeko had lost Lovren at the far post and would have headed home te cross, Gazzaniga had to try and get a ball that was a little too far out, the outcome would have been the same had he stayed on his line.

In the second half it was damage limitation for Saints with the slight hope they might snatch a goal back, the truth was they didnt have the pace to do that on the break, and they didnt have the options available on the bench to offer that.

Gazzaniga made several decent saves in the second half, one of which one on one no one questions just how the City player got in that position, the fourth goal was another debacle, but the game was over long before then.

Better teams than Saints have gone to the Etihad this season and come away with far worse, perhaps we should chalk this one down to experience.

But what we need to address is the error prone defence, seven goals conceded in the last two away games plus those two late goals that Norwich were gifted ask questions about certain players.

Gazzaniga is the scapegoat for this one, he seems to be a player that certain elements of our crowd like to get on the back off, the same people who hounded Danny Fox out of the club and ruined Guly's career here, we should win as a team and lose as a team, but for some that is not the case there always has to be a scapegoat and it always has to be the same individuals.

Gazzaniga is a young inexperienced goalkeeper, at this stage of his career he should be out on loan getting experience, yet every so often he suddenly gets thrown into the lions den and on Saturday he was faced with the highest scoring home team in the Premier League, he had the right to be protected by a defence in front of him that would stand strong, lead by example and protect him, the two senior professionals in our defence did not do that on Saturday, add to that the two teenage full backs who played with maturity above their years but are still it should be remembered are also learning their trade, then Gazzaniga was always going to be heading for a fall.

But it wasn't the fault of Gazzaniga for being out there, given that Kelvin Davis has been injured since December and we know Boruc is injury prone, why did those responsible for the squad not bring in some experience for the bench, there are plenty of keepers out there with Premier quality who could have been picked up on loan for the rest of the season, blame has to be placed at not Gazzaniga but for those who have not addressed the bigger issue, our much vaunted transfer committee headed by our ex CEO and Mauricio Pochettino has to take a portion of blame here.

Overall this defeat did us no damage, Manchester United winning at Newcastle meant that they are pulling clear and that win for them kept Newcastle behind us, not only that but Villa & Stoke two teams who could possibly catch us also lost means we are another game down and the gap remains intact.

So what we need to do now is learn our lessons from this game, we need to look at those players making the errors and ask whether they need to be replaced or are just suffering from a temporary lack of form, lets remember though that we have been conceding sloppy goals now for a long time, Gazzaniga has not been playing in those games, so the problem yesterday was not a one off we need to look at the bigger picture not brush in under the carpet and blame our favourite scapegoats, if we do that we can move forward.

What we also need to remember is that we want to hang on to 8th place, next week we can take a big step towards that against Cardiff, if Boruc is still injured then we as supporters need to get behind Gazzaniga not crucify him.

In the preview to this game I warned of our need to cut out the lapses of concentration and errors, we didnt and the problem continues.

Photo: Action Images

LesVivian added 11:16 - Apr 6 I agree about Gazz - he is not ready yet, but he comes in when called on and does his best, what else can he do? We need experienced back-up. The real problem is at centre-back - Lovren is not back to his best after injury, and Fonte has had a good season playing above himself, but sooner or later world-class players are going to find him out! That's why he is not selected for Portugal. Is Lovren fit? Or are we playing him because no-one else is better than him half-fit? Chambers plays centre-back for England - a possibility for us for the remainder of the season? Jack Cork can play right back while Clyne is injured, with Wanyama having a lot to prove in mid-field, he would get a chance to show that he can do more than just tackle!

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thegeneral added 11:22 - Apr 6 My first thoughts are with JRod, i hope its not as bad as it looks and wish him a speedy recovery. As for the game, Fonte had one of his 'stupid' moments which is not good enough for the level we want to achieve, the goal was offside and the lino should be punished, players are for mistakes. Too many very poor decisions this season, its time to up the technology. Gazza needs to go on loan if he's going to improve and we can't do this without a decent number two so time to say goodbye to KD. The biggest problem though was attacking options from the bench, when we lost Rodrigues there was nobody as an even close replacement, we are paying the price for poor transfers in several areas on the pitch, hopefully this will change with a more democratic club management in place. As a work in progress we are doing well, keeping this squad together is essential but we need two or three new players to kick on next season.

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abingdonsaint added 11:29 - Apr 6 Fair report, and agree that picking on individuals, especially during the game, helps no one and is totally embarrassing! This match though was a perfect example of small details affecting results. We may well still have lost, but the offside decision came at a time when we were looking comfortable and their fans were getting edgy, so who knows how things may have turned out? We didn't help ourselves at times however, and Jose's trailing leg was plain daft. Always find it interesting though that any sort of contact on a forward means they are 'entitled to go down', but thinking back to Spurs, defenders 'need to be stronger'.....

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slynch added 11:55 - Apr 6 Had Gazza stayed on his line they would have scored cos the guy was free; he had to come out for it and he is young, fit and six foot 10, and if he couldn't reach it then no one could. Besides that he did some good saves and dealt efficiently with the one or two hospital passes the defence were determined to give him to build up his confidence! As regards the penalty, someone will have to explain to me, which Fifa rule of football exactly, did Fonte break to cause a direct free kick? It's a pity they pulled down that old Art-Deco swimming pool in Southampton they used to have a good set of diving boards in their the City team could have trained there the night before - disgraceful! JRod going off should have resulted in Gallagher coming on, in my opinion, his speed would have kept City on the back foot instead they threw up a wall that JWP just kicked balls up against. Despite that the very-slightly-better-team won, albeit by a bigger margin than they should have and they are nearly top.

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wazzosan added 12:23 - Apr 6 At 1-1, the ball was playing in to Dzeko who was marginally offside, who then played in Silva who was massively offside. You saw that the Saints defence stopped playing at that point as the decision was so obvious. I think the team were still shell-shocked when the third goal was scored and can't really blame them. When was the last time you saw a decision so bad. It had me wondering if I had fundamentally misunderstood the offside rule all these years. In the second half Pelligrini made some good substitutions and started winning the midfield battle. We should have made our own changes at around 50-60 minutes rather than leaving it to 75 which was far too late. We had no outlet with any pace and really missed J-Rod. Best wishes to him by the way. I hope it isn't as serious as it looks. I also thought that Davis had a great game up until being substituted as did Cork. I would have brought on Gallagher much earlier as slynch previously suggested. Why wasn't Gaston on the bench? Is he injured? He would have been a quality sub to bring on. Our fine run up to November went to shite when Boruc, Lovren, Wanyama and Ramirez all got injured. We have a small squad and the loss of key players hits us much more than it does a Man City, Chelsea or United. For me, we need to retain our key first team players this summer, Lovren, Shaw, Cork, Schneiderlin, Lallana, Lambert, JRod. I would also keep Davis, JWP, Chambers, Clyne, Boruc, Fonte, Ramirez and Wanyama. But we need an attacking midfielder with pace and central defender and a possibly a striker. Ship out the rest (except the kids) and reduce the wage bill. And finally for such big guys, Yaya Toure and Dzeko go down far too easy. I was embarrassed but I guess that is the way the game has gone.

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Zambucco added 14:10 - Apr 6 I fear Jay will miss the rest of the season, the only good that could come out of that is maybe more pitch time for Gallagher, I was surprised he was not used to replace Jay. Possibly lack of pace? But to the real problem, silly mistakes in defence, it is almost as if they have become cocky after all the plaudits, and are starting to relax. This is not good, they must have 100% concentration for 100% of their playing time. Yet again Fonte has produced an amazingly daft moment to gift an unnecessary goal, I remember Arsenal quite well. I think a spell on the bench will do him some good, unfortunately it will do us more harm. Lovren is a real cause for concern, I can't believe he is unfit, but something is effecting his play. He has become error prone lately, possibly transfer speculation? This is truly an exciting time for the Saints and we are going places, our progress probably slow down, following our meteoric rise up the leagues, for now we have to start building for the next push. I would say 3 - 5 seasons before we are a real force, with a squad that can maintain top credentials for a full season. I hope given the fact that we are virtually safe, the Pochettino will use this time to blood more of the youngsters, and yes that includes Gaz!

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saintmark1976 added 15:09 - Apr 6 Another excellent report Nick and well done for standing up for Gazza. With the way our luck went yesterday we could have had Peter Shilton in his prime in goal and it would have made no difference. My main gripe yesterday was with the comments made after the game by David James who appeared to me to be enjoying the fact that the Saints had lost.Hardly surprising I suppose for an ex Pompey player? His after the match remarks about the off side goal were a joke. Something along the lines of "even if it had been disallowed Man City would have scored again and would have won in any event". This at a time when it was one -one and the crowd were beginning to get on their backs.What is he a clairvoyant? Because he is certainly not worth whatever B T paid him as a commentator.

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bstokesaint added 15:37 - Apr 6 To be fair SaintMark I think David James is actually a top pundit. He actually makes some insightful comments and is an intelligent bloke. I've also heard him make some very complimentary comments about us previously. What's more, without hearing all his comments yesterday, but from what you've quoted I'd be inclined to agree with him. It's all very well not getting on the keeper's back during the game and getting behind him (this should go without saying), but I know I was not alone in changing my prediction for the game when I saw who was in goal. For me he's another Bart and can undo a lot of good work done further up the pitch in a second. Fonte's mistake was stupid, but Gazza looked hopelessly lost out there. We should have sorted this issue months ago. Adkins struggled with the keepers and we're still there. We don't have to sign the next England keeper. If necessary just sign a 35 year as a no.2 for the short term. Someone who has experience and can give the defence a lift. Sadly I don't think Gazza is in control at all. On a final note get fit soon J-Rod. Was heartbreaking to see how gutted he was knowing this could be the end of the season both for Saints and England.

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IanRC added 16:40 - Apr 6 To be honest whilst I often question MoPos decisions I thought he was spot on with his comment that the officials killed off the game with the ridiculous offside decision. That too after a soft home penalty, don't know why we never seem to get these decisions. If I recall correctly Tevis scored from an offside move last season too. Agree with your comments about Gazzinga Nick even though he should have done better on the third goal. Really feel for JayRod and like all fans hope it is not as serious as it looks. Hoping for good news from the scans. That said even after he went off we were by far the better side in the first half. On another day Adam would have brought down Rickie's through ball but yesterday was clearly not our day. There is really something special happening on the south coast and if we can keep our youngsters and other key players and sign a couple of good backups we will be winning these games next season. In the meantime swift recovery Jay.

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Number_58 added 19:20 - Apr 6 Whilst I agree that abusing your own players during a match is totally counter productive, can you please explain exactly how we've 'ruined Guly's career here' as you put it? Are you seriously suggesting if we didn't sing that stupid 'we're on the pitch if Guly scores' song we might have the next Neymar on our hands? On the plus side I thought Rickie was superb again. If only we could fit him into our 'system' eh Nick?

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bjwg added 19:37 - Apr 6 The writer stands up for all players regardless of performance, that's his prerogative. There is no reason why as paying supporters we saints fans should not be the most vociferous of critics when it involves our own squad in my opinion. Yet again Gazzaniga failed to step up to the plate, and yet again he not only gifted them goals, he scares the defence to such an extent they themselves lose confidence and we end up on a hiding to nothing. I don't think any of our keepers are top class, but at least Boruc walks the walk, even if at times he drifts off into his very own match, one where nobody else is playing! Anyway, shame we didn't get something based on the overall performance. Shame for J but I don't think he was going anyway. Hope RL gets the nod as his touch and vision seem to get better with age even if his legs don't. Lallana is nailed on and could stop off in Madrid on the way home to sign on the way he is playing.

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Fordy added 08:38 - Apr 7 That is at least the third soft penalty Fonte has given away against the top sides this season (Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City) and you have to conclude he just isn't quite up to it at the highest level.
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davepid added 09:26 - Apr 7 We weren't ruthless up front , just like several times this year. We are pretty, we hold possession , we play as if it's an exhibition match sometimes. Wev
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Fordy added 10:16 - Apr 7 I think it is hard to criticise our front players. We are a bit short of pace without JayRod and it is a shame we didn't have Gaston to bring on. But we have scored in almost every game this year and only about 6 teams have scored more. When JayRod went off I would have liked to have seen Morgan pushed up into that JayRod role. I think he could cause all sorts of problems there but I guess we will never know. But our main problems are with how many we are conceding. We are never going to score a huge amount of goals away at places like the Etihad and WHL and the only way we will get any results is by being tight at the back. The problems are with how many we are now conceding and we

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davepid added 13:29 - Apr 7 Fair point Fordy. I should look at the stats. The bigger picture tells me this has been a good season for us overall, if you overlook the idiotic team selection for the fa cup at Sunderland. But I find myself frustrated after every defeat and sometimes after victories too because I think we could have won/ drawn or scored more. That's what I mean by being more ruthless up front , though your point about conceding is equally valid. I get frustrated because we start so well but then either don't take the scoring chances we create or else we give away leads or both at the same time! I get frustrated because we seem to be almost casual in our play when we need to be more street wise. I get frustrated when I see the possession stats and shots to on target ratio. Wish I knew what the answer is other than obviously get some more defenders for next season and a replacement for rickie and a second keeper.

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Whatsforpud added 17:51 - Apr 7 We had a huge amount of possession in that first half, and even when we conceded control in the second half, we still managed 56% overall. We are very good at winning the ball in midfield, and passing in around in midfield, but all this possession was not translated into threats on goal. Joe Hart had one of his easiest games. A lot of our forward attempts were balls over the top (like Lambert to Lallana) or centres (Lallana to Lambert), which were too high or awkward to deal with. We needed to cut through them on the ground. This needs our hard working midfield engine to move forward more. Indeed, in one of the rare times that Cork has got himself into the box, it resulted in our penalty.

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cheltenhamsaint added 21:54 - Apr 7 Good article Nick, as always. The only thing I would question is that we are not in a position to take an experienced back up keeper on a short term contract. We have 4 senior keepers (21 or over) on the wage role and I'm not convinced taking a fifth would have gained us anything this season. I would like Saints to review the position in the summer but for now we take the hand we are dealt. Davepid - I was initially frustrated with your anti MP approach but I am warming to you. I don't necessarily agree and perhaps have a little more patience it what we are building. There are no instant solutions other than chucking £100m at the problem but then again Spurs did that last summer and it didn't get them any progress. We would all like to be "ruthless" but this is an elixir of football supporting (and managing). My humble advice is to enjoy the football we are playing, look for positives and may be, just may be, we can put a cat among the pigeons in the seasons to come. If you concentrate on the frustrations at our lack of effectiveness currently you are not maximising your enjoyment of the club we both support. Have fun, enjoy the journey and the rest, as they say, will take care of itself.

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