A pulsating accounter at St Mary's but once again no points and some worrying sloppy play in defence that leaves Nigel Adkins with some tough thinking to do in the break.
The nation watching on television would have enjoyed a great game and indeed Saints can come off with their heads held high after playing their part in it, but to come within 3 minutes of victory and lose and the manner in which we did so was very disapointing.
Over the last two years the phrase "Saints fit" has been bandied about on message boards, but in the last 15 minutes on Saturday Saints looked dead on their feet and as Gordon Strachan used to say "Tired minds make tired decisions" that was true of us as just when we needed to raise our game and hang on to the lead in the last 15 of the game, we allowed ourselves to be pushed further and further back and rather than try and hold the ball were content to hoof it anywhere.
In truth we were the architects of our own downfall, as the game neared its end we became sloppy and almost determined to hand United an equaliser, Kelvin Davis's kicking was dodgy at times and on more than one occaion he played his back four into trouble, added to that our two central defenders and Fonte in particular were diving in and panicking rather than holding a cool head and leading by example.
But perhaps the moment the game changed was when we made a flurry of subs in a three minute period from the 75th minute, Lambert coming off was an obvious choice, he looked dead on his feet and we needed to put somebody on who could try and stop their back four playing, Manyuka was perhaps the obvious choice for his pace, but in reality it didnt work, part of it was the fact that we hoofed the ball and he was forever chasing lost causes, but I feel that this was perhaps the wrong moment to throw him in, Rodriguez might have been a better option for his experience in English football.
The other two changes were baffling, Lallana and Puncheon had had decent games and were two players on the pitch who could hold the ball rather than kick it anywhere, Lallana might have been a bit tired and there is some merit in that, but Puncheon looked strong, taking him off was definately the wrong decision and weakend the team. If we were going to take Puncheon off then Richardson would have perhaps been a better bet to slot in the midfield and offer cover to Clyne, a look at the list of substitutes showed an imbalance, two defenders and three attackers with only one midfielder in Guly, for a side that is only going to play one up front, what is the point of having three forwards on the bench ?
If Saints had had Richard Chaplow to call upon, his tenacious style of play and work rate was just the thing we needed, in the last 15 minutes instead of being stronger we looked a team totally disjointed and like rabbits in the headlights, all the good work of those previous 75 minutes was undone in an instant.
There were some plus points in that we scored a couple of decent and well worked goals and did well as a unit going forward, but the facts still remain that we have shipped eight goals in only two games and this is far too much, yes some will point ou that in two of those games we have played the two strongest sides in the league, but we get nothing for artistic merit and the hard fact is that we have no points on the board and are bottome of the league.
On another plus side, we have two players coming in who can help address the problems we had on Sunday, Ramirez will add pace and width and Yoshida will hopefully bring some balance and stability to the centre of defence who again although defending manfully at times cost us dearly through a lack of concentration, I have always preferred Fonte over Hooiveld, but have to say this was Fonte's worst performance in a Saints shirt and his failure to clear the ball cleanly on two many occasions cost us dearly.
Our nightmare run of games is coming to an end, but after Arsenal there can be no excuses, we are already playing catch up we cant fall further behind.