BURNLEY COMMENTARY

4 mins left to score a goal

Burnley attack and get a throwin with Davis not collecting cross

Saints push forward with Wotton firing tired ball forward.

Saints throw everyone forward including Davis.

Saints are down. -10 point deduction will count.

That was a good game really, Wotte says he is please with the players. I am amazed and therefore disgusted that we didn't win. The players tried hard but some of them have got to concentrate better so they don't fluff things up and make mistakes. BWP and Gillett both missed one-on-ones. DMG missed the penalty. James completely missed a clearance to let Paterson one-on-one. Saeijs made a half-hearted and stupid tackle to give away a stonewall penalty.

In the first half Saints were really bright, created loads of chances and fully deserved to go in in front. But it should have been 4-0 not 2-1. In the second half Burnley came at us and we couldn't get out our half a lot of the time. DMG's penalty was just lame like normal and then guess what they score from a corner. I thought we should have had 2 penalties for Saeijs and KD (he went forward at the end) being wrestled down in the box blatantly but refs are normally too scared to give these things. The ref wasn't terrible, but tended to give a lot of 50-50s against us.

At the end there were chants of "on the pitch" and loads of dicks ran on the pitch and tried to get to the Burnley fans. A couple of smokebombs went off and apparently bottles thrown according to others. I don't have much problem with celebratory pitch invasions, which was what many fans were doing, but the intention from some was obviously aggressive and won't help the clubs image at all at a time when we are trying to attract investors. Some fans ran towards the dugouts and the Burnley coaching staff had to be escorted down the tunnel. Rumours of various other scuffles going on around the stadium. Meanwhile Paul Wotton was lying on the ground in a bad state after being flattened by Clarke Carlisle. It was the kind of incident that could have broken his neck. Certainly not deliberate or malicious by Carlisle but looked bad for Wotton.

Was listening to 606 earlier and it was near to hear a few fans from other teams coming on and saying we were unlucky with the points deduction and that Southampton will always be a good family club etc. Was talking to a Reading fan in West Quay after the game as well, said Saints had cost them promotion! and wished us the best for next season

So it's minus ten points next season then, meaning that we'll be bloody lucky to avoid relegation to League 2. League TWO FFS!!!! As Le Tiss said, the systems a joke. I hate L**e, the board and the Football League.

Worth reading some of the comments on a Burnley forum (Have you spammed that one yet Mike! :lol: ) about the pitch invasion

http://boards.footymad.net/forum.php?tno=104&fid=297&sty=2&act=1&mid=2126215532

Just heard that Wotton had a couple of teeth knocked out.

He'll take it on the chin though :lol:

Now we can do no more than wait. Wait to see if we have a buyer. Wait to see if we have a manager we can relate to. Wait to see whether we will be able to challenge for the promotion we need next season.
Funnily enough we have the makings of a half decent side. Add five or six good professionals and we could easily mount a serious challenge next season. This has been a really tough learning season for several of this team and some will never recover. Others like James, Surman and Lallana have shown they have some heart and can learn. Davis and Saeijs want to stay and I would be happy to see Kelvin and possibly JP here next season. Perry is getting slower and I would hope that we could find a replacement for him and we definitely need some full backs. Gillett has been missed lately and for me Spiderman has not earned his wages. Euell, Skacel and Saga will leave and not before time. Though to be fair to Rudi he has done reasonably as a left back when he is patently to slow for that position. James has improved after a really dodgy start at right back. I would still like to see him play right midfield as he has more going for him than Lallana. Lallana needs to add some weight to his frame or else he will never be able to survive the hurly burly of lower league soccer.
As I said at the beginning all we can do for now is wait. However I feel that now our fate has been decided regarding our position in the leagues, I don't think it will be long before we know who is going to be our new owner. Long live the Saints.

Good effort by the team but too little and much too late. Another missed penalty has cost us dear. If all the penalties had been scored we could have been safely ensconced in mid table I would imagine.

Reading this post made me think.
We fully deserved to be well in front by halftime. If we had been we might have got a result here, and in our final game, and got out of the bottom three. Though the ten points would have seen us go down anyway but then we would have started with a level playing field this season. However we lost and now Burnley have just beaten the English champions in their first home match of the season.
As I say it's a funny old world.