Saints snatched a draw from the jaws of victory when they really should have wrapped up a game they had taken by the scruff of the neck.
Nigel Adkins for once seemed to be aware of what threat the opposition might provide and not only brought in Guly to provide protection for Luke Shaw but also added height in all areas of the team.
The inclusion of Guly brought raised eyebrows for many but fact was that he was a genuine contender for man of the match, not only did he provide cover for Luke Shaw and add height in our own box at corners, but he provided some great crosses especially in the first half, none better than the one that opened the scoring, in the preview I mentioned that the lack of accurate crosses was a reason for a lack of goals, last season Fox & Richardson could deliver a ball into the box to the far post with accuracy, this season our main goal threat hasnt been there, Guly put in a peach of a cross for Lambert.
But once again the Guly knockers will be out in force due to the fact that he should have scored to make it 4-1, yes he should have scored, but to be blunt that isnt the worst chance missed by Saints players this season and it wasnt even the worst chance missed in the match that fell to Kenwynne Jones who should have equalised our opening goal.
For an hour Saints put in a great display but Stoke were relentless and to be honest once again we did not make full use of the substitutes available to us and it was a rather tired team that limped over the finishing line to take a point that at the start of the game we would have settled for, but at the end seemed like a defeat.
But we should not castigate individuals for this, in truth yes Guly should have scored, but up at the other end we had plenty of opportunities to prevent all three of the goals although the third was a screamer that could have gone anywhere, we were a little tired in the lead up to it, Stoke sensed blood and even playing with a man short in the last 20 minutes were pushing us further and further back, we had the extra man but it didnt look like it.
The problem is the words "Deja Vu" are coming to mind, in our last season in the premier we had a penchant for giving away leads to last minute goals and in some cases, like at Stoke they were two goal leads given away, back then there were at least 4 of them and if we had held out in any of them we would have stayed up, how costly will this game be to us come the final reckoning, in the short term it has plunged us back into the bottom three for the end of the year and with Arsenal next up it looks unlikely that we will pull out of it in the next couple of weeks at least with the FA Cup up next weekend.
This was a harsh lesson for our manager and our team, it tells them you can never sit on your laurels, it also tells the manager that the areas that we are short in still need strengthening and need to be done fast.