Was this a pont gained or two points lost ? this was the question after the game amongst the travelling supporters and no one could quite agree !
This was an awful game and one that the watching Saints supporters fully expected to lose once the home side had equalised, it was a tale of two sides, one newly promoted to the Premier League was full of players who were desperate to prove themselves at this level so played with passion and determination an then there were Saints who despite the undoubted quality in the side again played with fear and well below their best.
The big shock before the match was the dropping of Yoshida for Hoedt a decision I said should be made in the pre match article on here, it gave us better balance at the back and especially in the second half Hoedt carried the ball forward and used it well, not that it did much good in the final third.
But it started well with Saints moving the ball well and looking like they were ready to capitalise on last weeks late winner and kick on, James Ward Prowse hit the woodwork with a free kick and there was Steven Davis to head home the rebound.
This wasnt the cue for putting the Seagulls to the sword though, if Saints controlled the first ten minutes then the home side had the net fifteen, before another ten of Saints looking comfortable.
But Brighton went into the break looking stronger and you felt that they would come out in the second half and have a go.
That was the case and 7 minutes into the second half they were level, again Saints supporters are divided on whether Fraser Forster should have done better, having seen it on TV mulitple times both at the stadium and back home, I'm still not sure, it wasn't the hardest of headers in terms of power and that perhaps foxed Foster who was expecting it to be headed back across him.
At that point I wouldn't have put much money on Saints getting even a point out of the game.
But we weathered the onslaught of much Brighton possession and balls pumped forward and to be fair finished strongly, or at least strongly up to the final third and in the final ten minutes perhaps looked more likely to win than lose.
But a point was all we got and for our lacklustre performance, it was all we deserved.
So what was the problem ?
The same as every week is the answer, we are playing without passion, we are playing with fear and we are not set up in midfield to create chances for the way we are playing up front.
Brighton played with an energy we lacked and the fact that we could hold them fairly easily despite all their bluster suggests that it is not the quality of personel that is not right, but something else that is hard to pinpoint.
I had hoped that it was something that could be cured by a win or two or a goal or three, but we are struggling to do either and that in itself is draining the confidence in the side.
It started last season and for whatever reason Mauricio Pellegrino is finding it hard to change the mindset, the bench looked strange yesterday, Yoshida, Stephens, McQueen was very defensive and to be blunt none of them would have got in the Brighton side yesterday and that is telling us something, Austin was injured so that left the manager short on bodies, but the bench was weak so much so that Pierre Emile Hojbjerg was on it and came on for his first appearance of the season.
Saints didn't play badly in this game in terms of the fact that they didn't get beaten or really look like getting beaten, but it is still the final third, we only created six chances with only one on target, Brighton were no better managing only one more chance both in total and on target.
But Brighton are a strong home team, in their previous three games at the Amex, they had beaten West Brom and Newcastle, drawn with Everton who needed a last minute penalty for the point and lost only to Manchester City, this is a harder place to come than most would think, from that perspective this was a better result than it would first look.
The manager has a lot of work to do, if you are going to play wide players, Redmond and Tadic are essentially wingers, then you need someone in the box to get on the end of crosses, if you only have one man and he is barely 5ft 8, then he is always going to struggle to win the ball against two big centre backs, something has to change we have to get the right balance.
We either have to play more through the centre of midfield, or we have to get an extra man up front, we cannot keep playing with two wingers, the fans moan about Tadic and Redmond continually checking back and not taking the man on and crossing the ball, but the reality is that they look up and can't see an end ball, so choose to keep possession rather than hit and hope.
The fact that we got a draw and that we sit 9th in the league is testimony that we have a good squad, we need to use it better and more importantly get our players playing like Brighton's with passion, with energy, with enthusiasm and with confidence, once the fear is gone we can prosper.