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Southampton At Watford The Verdict

It was another game unbeaten, but at the final whistle it felt like a loss to the Saints supporters up at Vicarage Road, once again it was a failure to kill off the game with a 2nd goal that cost Southampton dearly.

Russell Martin once again needed to re jig and reshuffle for the relatively short trip to Watford, Flynn Downes was unable to play after going down with an illness, so that saw Joe Aribo into the side for only his second start of the season in the League.

A look at the bench showed just how many Saints have out at the moment, once again one of the academy players, this time 18 year old Callum Bragg had to fill in the places, although at the other end of the scale Jack Stephens returned to the squad for the first time since August.

Saints as usual had the majority of the possession, but one stat that did change was that we did not have the advantage in terms of attempts on goal, the home side had 11 compared to our six.

It was Gavin Bazunu who was the busier keeper and it was Watford who should have led at the break not Saints.

That saw Russell Martin make a change at half time, on came Ryan Fraser and off went Charley Alcaraz, in truth this was not surprising , the Argentinian had looked flat, he was struggling to get into the game and when he did he could not seem to get his passing game together.

Ryan Fraser seemed to bring more impetus to the side, but it was the home side that nearly opened the scoring with Bazunu making a very good save to keep the scores level.

Che Adams went close and then came the opener, once again Ryan Fraser put in a decent cross, Adam Armstrong had a tight angle and it must have been tempting to head for goal himself, but he was aware of who was around him, he headed in back to Che Adams who chested it down to find space and fired home.

You would have hoped that Saints would now put the game to bed, certainly they could have, the lively Fraser seeing the keeper make a good save, but it was unfortunately a repeat of the Huddersfield game that was looming, we seemed to be complacent again and feel that we were comfortable.

Certainly as 96 minutes appeared on the scoreboard it looked like they had, but then came one of those moments, Watford hit a shot more in hope than anything else, it was hard and it was low and that was perhaps the problem, if it had been a foot the other way Gavin Bazunu would turn it around the post, but he got his hands mixed up and it went under them.

This was cruel on the Saints keeper, up to this moment he was a big candidate for man of the match.

So it felt like a defeat and certainly spirits weren't revived by news elsewhere, all of the three sides above us won.

But we still didn't lose and this is a marathon not a sprint, we have to concentrate on what we need to do, keep hitting the average points total rather than individual setbacks, that is still good, 7 points from the last 3 games is still 2.33 per game, 14 out of the last 6 is still 2.33 per game, we are doing all we can, it is just that the other 3 are matching us at present.

The Saints supporters up here were loud, certainly much louder than the home crowd, but why did virtually every song have to be about Portsmouth and when it wasn't it was the tiresome abuse of Wesley Hoedt.

I am not quite sure why Hoedt came in for such abuse, where was the old adage Once A Saint Always A Saint ?

Hoedt's only crime whilst at St Mary's was coming into a side that was in a mess, he wasn't the worst player in the squad during first season and in truth was the man of the match in the penultimate game at Swansea City were a defeat would have meant almost certain relegation, he was strong in a 1-0 win.

His second season ended with the arrival of Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Austrian manager just didn't seem to fancy him as a player and he would spent the rest of his time at the club out on loan.

So why the abuse, I suspect Ryan Manning might have had a wry smile at it, surely supporting the team should be the priority at a game, rather than singing songs about rivals or abusing a player who in truth was only at the club for a short time and left only because he was ostracised by the manager who just didn't fancy him as a player.

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