Saints V Crystal Palace The Verdict

Saints got caught out too many times that ultimately cost them a place in the last 16 of an FA Cup competition that is now wide open.

The big question is how did Saints lose this game ? the tightest defence is the Premier League was suddenly ripped part by a Palace side that attacked us and caused us all sorts of problems on the break.

It all started so well when Graziano Pelle opened the scoring in the 9th minute, but within 2 minutes Palace were level, Forster did well to stop the initial shot, but failed to get it out of the danger area and it was prodded home by Chumash who was the quickest to react.

Saints were soon ahead again though this time an OG but again the lead didn't last long as Sanogo scored with the aid of a wicked deflection to make it all square again, Saints defence was so at sea it was no surprise to see it carved apart again in the 38th minute with Chamakh scoring what would turn out to be the winner.

Saints had plenty of possession in the second half and the introduction of Long looked likely to add something to the attacking aspect of our game, however his afternoon was to last barely ten minutes before he became yet another victim of Saints injury hoodoo which has seen almost an entire team sidelined at some point since he start of December.

It was one of those days for Saints and given that this was our first defeat since the exit from the league cup at Sheffield United we can't have too much cause for complaint, indeed in some ways it could be good to get a defeat out of our system, this game had an air of complacency about it, too often our players expected things to happen easily instead of working at it, by the time they had realised that it was too late for this game.#

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for Saints fans trudging out at full time was the news that Chelsea and Manchester City had gone out of the competition, there was a real feeling that we had missed a glorious opportunity against Palace to put ourselves into a last 16 that we had every chance of winning on a day that the top three in the Premier League went out.

But on thing this season that Saints have done and that is learn and hopefully they will do that from this defeat.

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