All the problems mentioned in Yesterday's preview came to haunt Nigel Adkins.
In some respects Nigel Adkins went for the predictable against Hull City in trying to solve his midfield dilemma, but he found that three central midfield players into four doesnt add up to a side with width, with that in mind you could also see why he brought in Harding and rested Fox, he hoped that this would perhaps add pace down the wing, but unfortunately it was the wrong wing and Fraser Richardson pushing forward on the other flank only added to our defensive frailties which once again surfaced.
For the first half Saints looked very disjointed and couldnt seem to find any rythym whatsoever, Hull playing a crisp passing game were finding it easy to cut through us and it was lucky for us that it was only one goal down at the break.
Second half Adkins introduced Steve De Ridder and his arrival unsettled the visitors, in truth we werent really creating anymore chances, De Ridder for all his running delivered little and always seemed to want one touch too many, but his speed helped unerve Hull and make space for Richardson.
The game was changed in the first ten minutes of the second half when just about the only two crosses of any accuracy where met with just about the only two pieces of clinical finishing (OK three if you include Guly's first effort) outside of these two pieces of play though and it was mainly huff and puff.
From a minus point of vierw, Nigel got it wrong with his first half team tactics and selections, Saints have done well with the fact in Richardson and Fox they have two full backs who can go forward and deliver accurate crosses, with the abscence of width this was perhaps needed more than ever, if harding was meant to get down the line and deliver, he certainly didnt and this lack of service from both sides being unbalanced instead of just one, meant that our front two got little service and were left fighting for scraps meaning they both had relatively poor games.
Second half was better but only just, we ran about a bit more but didnt create much more than the first half, I made a point last week about signing Lucas Jutkiewicz and having no options in the way we play if Rickie is out injured or off form, this came home to roost last night, in fairness to the manager he did try to change patterns late in the game by taking off Lambert and bringing on Barnard with 20 minutes left, but we still struggled.
According to the stats we enjoyed 70% possession, that being the case to only get six chances on target was appalling, two of them came when Guly scored the first goal, perhaps that highlights the lack of accurate service our forwards got, they werent missing chances, they just werent getting good balls to work with.
On the plus side, we still won a game in which we played badly and against one of the better sides in the Championship, teams will always have dodgy spells, no matter what division or standard, in this league what wins you promotion is your ability to play through those spells and keep getting points and last night we did that.