Saints played their best football in weeks but couldnt get the breakthrough
The smallest ever gate for a league game at St mary's 17,981 turned up to see if Saints could extract revenge on Sheffield Wednesday for the 5-0 thrashing at Hillsborough.
The answer was that they couldnt, but that shouldnt detract from the performance that saw them find both team spirit and confidence in adversity
In truth it was a very makeshift side especially in defence and it got worse when Andrew davies took a knock to the head half way through the first half, but Saints pulled together and although it took a couple of good saves to keep them in it from Kelvin Davis, the overall performance was good.
Of course it was disapointing to draw a blank in front of goal and certainly Saints had their chances, including a glaring miss from Alan Bennett with an open goal after the keeper had spilled it, but the team can draw many positives from this result and can hopefully take the same confidence into the Hull game.
One conclusion that it did draw though is that our problems earlier in the season could perhaps have stemmed from Burley having too many players to select from and therefore resorting to changing certain positions far too often, with limited options he put out a team that wasnt first choice but battled for all it was worth.
Perhaps the most pleasing aspect was the form of Alan Bennett, yes he was appalling in the opener against Palace, but last night he was good and you can perhaps see why the board refused to sanction another months loan for Christian Dailly, perhaps they felt that the manager had taken in enough signings and loan signings and couldnt just sign another when he wasnt happy, if that was the case it paid off as Burley was forced to use Bennett and it paid dividends.
It was a disapointment, anything less than a win at home always is, but Saints are now in a little run and can use this as a springboard to move forward, Coventry showed by their win at West Brom that board room turmoil is no excuse for losing, Saints have the squad, they now have the confidence, the manager now has to go on and install a positive attitude.