Saints did what promotion chasing sides have to do, they kept battling and put themselves in a position to win the game when the chance to do so came along.
saints are still top of the league, but it was a close run thing, the pubs around London Bridge was packed were packed with Saints supporters pre match and in a conversation with one reader of this site, I got some interesting feedback about these match reports, to cut a long story short I promised that I would take a more positive angle in today's verdict, as he quite rightly pointed out now is the time for everyone to be behind the team in the final run in, as they say though I sure picked the wrong game to be positive in !
However a promise is a promise and there were several positives to be found in a game where to be frank most of the team were awful, however they kept battling away after handing the hosts two goals and put themselves in the position to win the game when the opportunity came along.
It wasnt pretty but now all that matters is winning games and clocking up the points to take us to promotion, Saints did start well though, after ten minutes Rickie Lambert reminded us of the days when he used to shoot from anywhere when he thundered a shot off the crossbar from well outside the area and when Danny Fox laid a sublime chipped throughball down the right hand side for Morgan Schneiderlin to run on to followed by a perfect cross where lambert couldnt miss, it all looked like it would be a good day at the office.
Then in five minutes of madness Saints lost their composure got caught on the break and found themselves a goal down in a game they had looked about to cruise to victory in, from then on Millwall had their hackles up and scrapped for every ball and Saints struggled to find rythym and consistency, indeed as we approached the final five minutes just about our only decent chance since our goal 70 minutes earlier had been an effort by De Ridder just after the break that was headed away from goal and then came five minutes that come the end of April might just have changed our season.
At this point news that Reading were cantering to victory was filtering through, it was clear that unless something happened quick, they were top of the league, then came the first penalty, in truth it was nailed on, Sharp laid the ball across goal for Lambert who couldnt really miss and he was tripped, an equaliser out of nowhere, but it got better as two minutes later Saints got a second penalty in controversial fashion, Hooiveld leapt to meet a cross and was clearly shoved in the back, he then appeared to handle the ball, the referee blew for another penalty amid protests from the Millwall players, the ref seemed to be indicating that the penalty was for handball, if he gave it for that then he made a grave error, however Hooiveld was pushed of that there was no doubt and for that alone it was a penalty.
The game had changed and despite five minutes of injury time signalled and six played, Saints were not going to lose it now.
The relief and adrenalin was flowing amongst the Saints players as they swarmed towards the jubilant fans punching the air with passion, yes we got away with it and didnt deserve the win, but the only thing that matters is that we got it and took another step forward and gained another couple of points on West Ham.
The positives from this game are three goals, three points and plenty of fight and determination, they say the sign of Champions is playing badly and still winning, well we certainly did that on Saturday at Millwall and perhaps this will help to ease the nerves and storm to the run in, certainly Reading fans who would have been looking anxiously towards South East London would have been buoyant with five minutes to go and their bubble must have been well and truly popped when the final score came through, they must think just what do they have to do to overtake us.
So nine games to go and four wins is still looking like the number that will take us through, win our four home games and we will be there, if we can add a couple away from home then we might cross the finishing line without a nerve wracking final day.