It is easy to point the finger at a goalkeeping error but that wouldnt tell the true story of the game.

Many Saints fans will blame goalkeeper Bart Bialkowski for this dropped point and there is no doubt that it was a howler, but if we think back a year ago, almost to the day when Saints last lost a league game at St Mary's 2-0 to Brentford, that also saw a goalkeeping howler from Kelvin Davis, it happens from time to time and sadly for us and Bialkwoski it was on Saturday.

But Saints should have had the game put to bed long before this event just after half time, the first half has seen Saints look well in command and only some good goalkeeping aligned with some poor finishing from several Saints players meant that when Blackpool scored they could go in at the break even rather than trailing by a couple of goals or more, it was the age old problem for Saints we seem to take a lot more chances to score our goals than the opposition needs and we ned to reverse that trend.

In truth the problems stemmed in the midfield, again it was unbalanced and although wepushed Blackpool back for long periods, when they got the ball they easily passed their way through our midfield and too often got a man bearing down on our defence with the ball with our midfielders left for dead.

On a plus point though Saints kept going and reaped the rewards, as many know im not the greatest fan of Dan Harding or Steve De Ridder for that matter, but I could see why NigelAdkins brought them on, we were at a point in the game where Blackpool were playing a high tempo passing game, in a lot of ways similar to our usual style and were were way off the pace, bringing on Harding & De Ridder upped our tempo and enabled us to put pressure on them, the downside was we lost a little in delivery, but in the case of on the right hand side, De Ridder pushed forward in a way that hadnt happened all game and that enabled Frazer Richardson to push into the space behind him a lot more and this paid dividends with the equaliser.

This goal late as it was, was vital, Ok we lost that run of winning games, but we remain unbeaten at home in the league for a year and thats as good as i can remember, but the goal meant much more, initially it meant that not only could West Ham not overtake  us later in the day if they eat Reading, but it also meant that Cardiff could not do the same if they won their next two games, at this point in the day if we had lost to Blackpool there was a real danger that we might face the embarrasment of going to Fratton Park not even in the top two.

Of course results later in the afternoon went for us and the initial threat of dropping out of the top two has passed for the moment, indeed we could still be top if West Ham dont win by more than two goals next weekend, but  perhaps this should emphasise to us that winning promotion is not going to be an easy task and if we get too complacent then we are lining ourselves up for a big fall, we cant keep relying on other teams dropping points.

So we can take positives from this game, however we are in the middle of a bad run we have slipped down the current form table with only ten points from our last six games and when we consider this was an easy run of fixtures as we are likely to get all season its not good, so much so that Pompey actually go into next weeks game above us in current form.          

Photo: Action Images

tiptop added 12:58 - Dec 11 Big point. Improved performance, yes still coming through a sticky spell but i felt considering that we still looked stronger than Blackpool who aren't bad.If it wasnt for Bart's inexplicble handling and kicking which in effect limited us to 10 players at times we would have got the 3 points. COYR
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131153 added 14:12 - Dec 11 Certainly if MS and RL had taken chances in the first half the result would have been decided before half time. However this is a very tough division as the later results illustrated. I felt the situation with Bart affected the whole team starting with the dropped ball in the first 2/3 minutes the second one where he saved wiith his chest sent shivers through the team and the crowd. Having said that there is no point or value in the crowd getting at him. The equaliser late on was great not only in rescuing a point but Holloway crowing would be too much to bear. His personna as all round good egg and card has clearly gone to his head, which is now located a long way up his own backside. Onwards to Nottarf krap.

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mg2104 added 15:05 - Dec 11 well said. the hammers actually need to win by a goal margin of six or more = GD between us and them is +5 and we've scored more goals.
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trotsky added 00:34 - Dec 12 I admire your attempt to look beyond a simple reason for not winning, and to highlight the fact that the performance was under-par by recent standards. However equating Bart's display with previous mistakes from Kelvin obscures an important point. Saturday's match was an accident waiting to happen rather than simply a bad day at the office, as Kelvin has had on a few occasions. BB actually seems to lack any basic goalkeeping technique: sitting behing the Chapel goal, you could see his inability to get his body behind the ball when collecting it time after time (on the occasions that he elected to use his hands, that is). The position that he ends up in after the second goal conceded to Manchester United indicates this perfectly, and it makes mistakes inevitable and costly. He also lacks sharp reactions: hence the times he is left standing and watching the ball head goalwards. So either he just isn't cut out for goalkeeping, or suffers horrific stagefright. Either way, it is difficult to see a promising football career ensuing. This was - as pat has already said on the forum - a chicken coming home to roost: an area of the club neglected by manager after manager (and ignored by most fans, in truth). Hopefully it will only cost us a limited number of points and Adkins won't feel the need to try and be too clever by offering BB the chance to redeem himself next week. Nothing improves your stock at SFC than not playing, but even so, I've always been mystified by those who thought BB was a credible replacement for Kelvin, and have stated as such here before. This isn't a personal attack on BB. He must be feeling terrible and I did/do feel sorry for him. In the light of recent events, you hope he's a tough character.

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