Heart attacks and top by friday

[ted1965]

Okay deep breath, heart rate slowly returns to normal and trying to make sense of all that happened tonight. The first and most important thing, we won, yes may have not felt that way in the second half version of the Alamo but we gathered three points and now with a win over Scunthorpe on Friday night we will be sitting proudly on top of the league.

They say football is a game of two half’s, well that proved it perfectly, first half we dominated totally, it was men against boys Southampton hadn’t a clue how to cope with us and every time we got a set piece you just felt we would score, they seemed to have no answers to our style of play. When the half time whistle went think everyone was sitting expecting a comfortable win and wondering how many it would be, think the players relaxed mentally, assumed the game was over and were caught cold by John’s goal, when you relax and take your foot off the pedal you followed by a goal for the opposition you immediately hand them a lifeline. Then we saw wave after wave of pressure and players who normally stand firm begin to panic, losing concentration and making errors not seen for a long time. Thankfully, we weathered the storm, yes damn lucky not to concede more goals but we regained composure as the half wore on and came away with the victory.

I am sure this will serve as a timely reminder to the players, a game isn’t over until the final whistle blows and actually may serve as a perfect example to us all, football is a game of 90 minutes, if you relax mentally then you lose the initiative, the good points being we held on and took the points, it can only do all concerned good, okay not for us watching but it’s one more win towards the final outcome we all crave promotion.

So well done lads, full credit for the first half and if lessons are learnt then we can hopefully avoid another second half like tonight. Though lets face facts, that’s why we all love football you just never know what is coming next.

TBF…………Top by Friday, well done lads and thanks for the near heart attack.

[trebor63]

At half time I turned to the girl who sits behind me and said 'thank god for that we can actually enjoy the second half without worrying ourselves stupid'

I should have bloody known better after being put through the mill for the last 37 years!!! Still alls well that ends well!

[Jamo on the wing]

I blame Bunny, he said it wasn't over at half time and we all laughed.
Bstard ;D

[Davef]

Southampton were so bad in the first half that I half expected two or three of their players to have buggered off home at half time. Griffin, Delap and Diao put in some really meaty challenges and they didn't want to know.

God only knows what happened during the interval. I mentioned to Paddock that we needed to put something in Ricky's tea to calm him down, but it looked as though Ricky was the only one who had nothing put in his team at half time!

Still, three points is three points.

Vintage Stoke though. If there's a way of doing something, we'll make sure we do it in the hardest way possible.