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Saints At Swansea City The Verdict

Who would have believed Saints could be in second place after five games, we must have a few more meltdowns and fire sales around here !

This was a tough game against a Swansea side who are well organised and disciplined and it was clear from the off that Saints were going to have to work hard, in truth we started badly, our passing game was struggling to get going and we constantly seemed to be giving the ball away cheaply giving the impetus to the home side.

Despite their domination though we worked hard to restrict their chances and they rarely threatened to score, but they did have two glorious chances, firstly they clipped the bar and then Bony saw his header cooly cleared off the line by Bertrand.

The game changed though on the sending off, Bony had initially been booked for a stupid follow through on Yoshida, needlessly crashing into the central defendder as he rose for a header, then he went straight through the same player shortly through the break.

Gary Monk was irate with the decision, although tv replays show he can have little complaint.

After the break Saints understandably dominated both possession wise and chances, although they were finding it hard to break down the home defence, Tadic was unlucky to see a shot deflected on to the roof of the net and a few other half chances were dealt with by the keeper.

But the winner came from an unlikely source, Wanyama is usually a player you use to anchor themidfield not give it goalscoring flair, but it was the Kenyan who latched on to a through ball and toe poked it home from 15 yards, a scrappy goal to win a scrappy game.

Monk is understandably irked by the result, up to the sending off his side were having the better of the game, but to their credit, Saints dug in didnt give too much away and made sure they kept in the game, from our perspective it showed that we can not only win well but win ugly.

We can also win lucky, I have rightly praised Koeman for his tactical nous, but not even he would have fancied bringing off Ward Prowse and put his hopes on Wanyama winning the game, Ward Prowse's mis fortune in having to go off injured had the golden lining of his replacement scoring the winner 10 minutes after coming on.

Some wins are pleasing for the way in which they are won, last week it was for the flowing football, this week it was for the determination and Saints showed in the first half that even when playing badly they can keep their shape keep their discipline and dig in, last season a lot was talked about team spirit, but I feel that this season's surpasses that.

So second in the league and our best start in the top flight for 26 years and we still have Sadio Mane and Jay Rodriguez to come into the squad.

Man Of The Match
He was only on for 20 minutes but he made a bg contribution with the goal and for that reason it has to be Wanyama, but we shouldnt forget his team mates who in the previous 80 minutes had firstly dug in and then capitalised on the situation to dominate the game and thus made sure that Wanyama's strike was the winner rather than an equaliser or worse.

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