ll the emotions of a pssionate derby game in the space of a minute as Saints looked to have snatched victory only to cruelly throw it all away.
I am going to keep this verdict short and sweet, if only because i dont want this sounding like a big told you so rant, all season I have been pointing out various things about the way Saints play and the frailties of certain players and many of these facts came home to roost on Saturday against Portsmouth, indeed if they hadnt already done so the previous week at Blackpool.
Starting in the back four, the two centre halfs are always making mistakes, at least one of them sometimes both will commit a howling error in each game, sometimes it goes unpunished, sometimes it doesnt, they are fine against teams that dont apply too much pressure, but when the chips are down they are just not good enough and do not compliment each other, hear howls of derision about clean sheets etc, well we kept a clean sheet at Leeds, but that wasnt the greatest defensive display I have ever seen, one of the luckiest definately, but best ? not a chance, on Saturday our failure to cleanly win the ball and or distribute it meant that Pompey's five man midfield was often able to run at us after picking up the knock downs, look at the second goal for Pompey a poor header with Norris left unmarked on the edge of the box.
Many will say Guly had a bad game, but the fact is Steve De Ridder came on and did absolutely nothing of note, in fact after guly went off Pompey with an extra man in midfield dominated the game for a period, sadly De Ridder is positionally poor and this gave Pompey plenty of room, yes Guly wasnt playing well, but he was in an outnumbered midfield and he did better than his replacement.
Billy Sharp, his tow goals show that he was held on the bench for far too long, you sign a striker for end product and that means goals and assists, Sharp is more a poacher than Lambert and certainly from that point of view he will score far more than he will make, but sadly sometimes supporters only see pace as an asset, hence Tadanari Lee was heralded because of his hard rumning game, which as good as it was, didnt produce much when the chips were down, whilst Sharp was almost ridiculed on this very site about his lack of pace and weight, but six starts plus four as sub and five goals is a great return for a striker, in fact better than Rickie Lambert's if you take out the penalties.
Finally Im afraid i have to bring up Dan Harding, very harsh in that he spent only about two minutes on the pitch and in truth Nigel Adkins didnt have much choice but to bring him on, needing to run the clock down and only having either Martin or Barnard as an option other than Harding, but Harding is a left back and it showed, Norris was completely unmarked for the equaliser, Harding was three yards away marking space, how we could have done with Chaplow or Butterfield at that moment, players who whatever their faults know how to take up positions and who to mark.
This felt like a defeat, worse that that it felt like a death blow to our promotion hopes, it wasnt just the late goal, it was the manner in which we conceded it, on the back foot to a side of loanees and thrown together, they ran us ragged in injury time, just when all we needed to do was remain cool calm and collected, but we were a rag tag.
A look a the league table is a little more reassuring, lets hope we arent going to throw away another good lead at the top of the League as we did earlier this season.