Ratings, poor refereeing and filthy indiscipline

[Olgrligm]

Simonsen - 6 - He flapped a lot, he also kept us in it.
Griffin - 7
Shawcross - 6
Cort - 6
Pugh - 6
Lawrence - 7
Diao - 6
Whelan - 5 Good first half, but no guts in the second half, didn't get any tackles in and became anonymous. I was glad we didn't bring Gallagher on given the state of play and that we already had 2 passengers on the pitch.
Delap - 7.5
Sidibe - 10 - ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Fuller 5 - Couldn't get himself into the game, some gesturing at Southampton fans and a stupid booking.

Zakuani - 6

First half we were great. They were arguing with anything that moved (and some things that didn't), we over-ran them and they barely got out of their half. If the first goal hadn't gone in it was almost certainly a penalty for the foul on Shawcross. Having seen it on TV just, it would appear that the second goal was headed into a Southampton player by Shawcross and that caused it to maintain its height. As for the third goal, turns out it was the winner. Everyone in the ground went mental, especially Mama, it was bloody brilliant. He smashed the corner flag to pieces and got mobbed by the whole team. He's not a non-scoring striker anymore ;D. Their players were fighting with each other, harassing the referee and how Ostlund, the dirty gypsy, escaped without a booking I'll never know. Clear as day he shoved Pugh in the face in front of the referee and linesman. Speaking of which, Fuller was bloody lucky in the opening minutes not to get sent off. I've no idea what happened to provoke him, but he went for Powell and dropped out of the game after that.

Second half, buggery knows what happened. We came out and conceded a goal, which to be fair to Stern John was an excellent effort with his left foot. Cort and Shawcross were at fault though and he made a fool of them. The second goal was jammy, punt into the box from the effeminate cheat Idiakez which fell to John, who'd broken free of the offside trap. We can't expect Simonsen to bail us out at every one-on-one this season and John took the chance fairly well. We were trapped in our own half and their management team must have done something brilliant because the argumentative indiscipline of their team had gone and they were all smiles. They were steamrolling through us, their defence was big and held their own and they just hammered their way past the midfield. Lawrence hurt his arm and was off balance for a while and Whelan seemed to have no heart for a battle. Pugh looked weak too. Can you imagine if Gallagher had actually come on? Fuller not in the game, Whelan not in the game and Gallagher is hardly renowned as an all in fighter. It would have been useful to keep Eustace, we could have brought him on to get stuck in. We held on and their timewasting backfired on them as it settled a visibly shaky defence down and let us get into the game a bit more.

Special mention for Ostland. He shoved Fuller in the face three times down in the corner with the referee watching and got away scot-free, just like he did when he attacked Pugh. The referee let the Southampton players give him far too much flack and would have done better to book them all for being whiny and ill-mannered. Their antics and gamesmanship were disgusting, but apart from Christiano Ronaldo, cheats never prosper.

Told you West Brom won't go up this year.

[apb1]

seems a reasonable, balanced account ;D

[StoKeith]

Thanks for that - great report!

Ostlund was booked near the end though.

[POS51]

A fair assesment Mystical.

Just remember, we were there when Sidibe scored!!

[n01stokie]

dissagree about whealen thought he played well and kept his composure and didn't put a foot wrng first half

[Olgrligm]

He did a good job first half and looks good when we attack, but he missed out second half.

[stevetheboater]

I'd say Southampton had done their homework. They knew who to wind up our players and how to disrupt our play. They didn't seem to have a game plan of their own other than than to spoil ours, which I'd take as a compliment. If John's admittedly excellent strike hadn't happened I suspect we would have murdered them. As it was we were luck to survive the onslaught for 20 mins but realistically over 90 mins deserved to win by more than one goal. Though the ref had a shocker given that it was blatantly obvious from 2 mins in that they just wanted to kick us off the park. OK he probably could have booked Fuller at the start for his retaliation to being stamped on but he could also have shown at least one of the Southampton players a second yellow card. I'll take the points and forget the game.

[Premiership for hutchstokie]

daio 6 and whealn 5 no chance , daio was very poor more like a 4 and whealan 6, thought rory was man of the match

[Titan Uranus]

Simonsen - 6
Griffin - 7
Shawcross - 6
Cort - 6
Pugh - 6
Lawrence - 8 (for his set-pieces)
Diao - 4
Whelan - 5
Delap - 8
Sidibe - 7
Fuller 6
Zakuani - 6

[Godo]

I thought Diao did very well first half and put in a couple of stinging tackles. He did then fade badly but we do need to recognise that he is still a long way short of match fitness. Just look at the transformation in Rory over the last 6 games to see how long it takes. Whelan was also okay for the first hour but I'm not sure that retreating to the edge of our box every time we lose the ball suits his game!

I would have brought Gallagher on for Ric because you just knew he'd get booked!

We might need to think about Pughy or Delap in central midfield on friday? If we can just battle through to another 3 pts they've got 8 days to recover then.

[Pugsley]

Diao was OK when he had the ball but the game passed him by - especially in the second half. He is clearly unfit. Whelan had a good game but found it difficult in the second half as he was covering for Diao.

As for Delap, other than the throw ins he had a shocking first half. Constantly out of position and gave the ball away a lot. Improved in the second half but not great. Lawrence by far the best Stoke player followed by Pugh.