Saints At Manchester United The Verdict
Saints almost snatched a point at Old Trafford and put in a sterling performance, but it also highlighted our weakness's and the difference between us struggling and being comfortable.
Saints came through a difficult opening period and initially it looked like it might be a long afternoon , but then they found their feet and gave as good as they got as they played without fear and took the game to the home side.
You couldn't fault any player out there for effort and Saints were good for a 1-0 half tie lead after Yan Valery smashed home a long range effort , but after the break it was a different story that saw Saints weakness's exposed and three goals conceded.
We still played very well in the second half but it has to be said that in conceding three goals we have to look at ourselves and the manner in which we conceded them.
Yes one was off side but it was such a close call you cannot really blame the officials for getting it wrong and in fairness to the referee and our penalty claims, they were tight ones and the home side could make a claim or two themselves.
The other two United goals were stunners, but it exposed our weakness of not getting close enough and getting blocks in, you have to say that the likes of Van Dijk or Alderweireld would have got tighter on the man and perhaps blocked the shot.
That was especially the case on the second, someone really should have thrown themselves at the ball, a sliding tackle to block, but no one made the challenge.
Likewise up front we struggled to get any sustained attacking threat, Charlie Austin battled gainfully but you felt this was not his game, Long was better suited to this type of game, but wasn't on the bench, perhaps Gallagher should have come on earlier to offer some running, but it seems that Hasenhuttl does not have the faith in him.
Overall there is a feeling of relief about this result, in terms of points we got nothing out of it, but we did show that we are a lot better than our league position suggests, if we perform like this in the remaining 9 games then we should get more than enough points to pull clear well before the season's final day.
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