The Tonda Express moves on to Millwall and a trip to the New Den to play a team who are not in great form, who are somehow fourth in the league table. Their last five games have seen two draws, two defeats and on Wednesday, a very scratchy 1-0 home win against Sheffield Wednesday, but four wins on the bounce in October have them in this lofty position. Talking of four wins on the bounce, that’s where we are of course after the dicking of Leicester City on Tuesday. Surely Millwall will be the favourites today being at home to the team in 13th place. We will see.

Millwall managed by Alex Neil has always been a miserable bastard, be he in charge of Norwich or Stoke or anyone else. I wonder if he’s smiling with being fourth in the League? Apparently he’s not been smiling much about the injury list that they have got which eased slightly on Wednesday with the return of their best player Femi Azeez who popped up with the winning goal. One of their injured is of course our very own Will Smallbone who tore a hamstring about five games into the season and it’s apparently is a bad one along the lines of the one Ross Stewart has, so he’s not expected back until the New Year.

Last time here of course we needed a very late goal by Wee Man to go home with the three points. Personally I would prefer another first half obliteration of the opposition and then coasting home in the second, but we know not every game he’s going be like that, so we have to find ways to win when it doesn’t all go all our way from very early in the game. A last minute winner will do fine.

If Saints are to go again after the Leicester win, then they might have to do it without Leo Scienza who apparently has been ill. The bench will probably not feature Damion Downs for the same reason. I’m guessing that we will miss one of those players if they are not available.

A question for today is who replaces Flynn Downes in the centre of midfield and it seems almost inconceivable that Oriol Romeu will not be at least on the bench for today’s game. Elsewhere I would expect Jack Stephens to come back into the team instead of Josh Q.

Unless Tonda’s interim managership gets extended, this is the fifth and final game and then it’s over to Sports Republic to decide what to do next. Though on the one had he of course is lacking in experience, Tonda’s winning a four games as Saints manager certainly stacks up well against the reasons why they appointed some of their other managers. Nathan Jones was appointed because he had good metrics in a different division, whilst Ruben Selles was appointed because he was here, had a lucky win at Chelsea, wore a nice polo neck / suit jacket combo and was highly regarded. Ivan Juric was appointed because he had metrics almost but not quite as good as Nathan Jones and Simon Rusk was appointed because he was here and there was no point in spending any money because we were fucked anyway. Then we get to Will Still, who was appointed because he had a bit of success in France and was not employed and therefore cheap, young and trendy and was going to make Sport Republic look clever and ahead of the curve.

I’m sure that Tonda will eventually be appointed, but as it stands at the moment, I’m sure he is happy just dead-batting every question, preparing for the next game and winning it.

Disappointingly, Leo Scienza doesn’t make the match day squad so Jay Robinson starts, in addition to Cam Bragg who comes in for the suspended Flynn Downs. Oriol Romeu has made it as far as the bench. As expected, Captain Jack comes back in for Josh Q.

Saints have the first effort as Fellows cuts in from the right and Armstrong’s touch sees the ball sit up and his attempted volley from a standing start from the edge of the box which is comfortably caught by Crocombe in the Millwall goal.

Millwall are pressing high and our attempts to play out from the back are looking a bit more risky than usual. Robinson loses the ball in our half in lightweight fashion and the ball goes left to Emakhu puts a low effort just wide of the far post. Robinson shows what he’s about the other end of the pitch as once again Fellows cuts in from the right hand side before slipping a ball into Robinson who takes it first time left footed and drills it lower across the keeper, forcing him into another good save but Millwall clear the danger before Azaz or Armstrong can close in.

There’s a lovely turn by Robinson in the middle of the park as he turns away from his marker and allows THB‘s long throw to go past him. From there he runs towards the edge of the penalty area before putting Manning in on the left, who has a couple of options and easily the worst one is attempting a shot, which he does and balloons it into the home fans and quickly looks away from Adam Armstrong who is probably calling him every name under the sun seeing as he was totally free in the middle.

It’s a very even half though and Emakhu puts over a low ball which is stabbed away by THB and de Norre on the edge of the box has a shot which deflects and Baz gets down well to his left to claw it out of the bottom corner.

Back we come and a Millwall mistake from a THB clearance gifts the ball to Armstrong in the middle of the park and he sends Robinson scampering in on goal from the left-hand side but he can’t get it out of his feet and gets too close to the keeper and his stabbed effort is easily kept out.

There’s an alarm a minute later as we don’t deal particularly well with a high ball into the box and Stephens attempts to head it back to Baz, who gets cleaned out by Millwall centre back Taylor, who then taps the ball in the net and acts surprised when it gets disallowed . Assault on the goalkeeper has always been a freekick I think you’ll find.

With halftime approaching in the game still goalless we have another half chance as Azaz picks up the ball in the number 10 position and slides it through to Armstrong and his shot is snatched and going well wide until it hits the defender and forces Crocombe into another decent save.

Though the half has been quite even, I can’t help but feel that Millwall have been the better side. They look physically much bigger and stronger than us and this is going to be a problem as the game goes on. No changes at half time and Millwall start the second half on the attack With Emakhu winning a corner off of Fellows who is doing his job and stopping crosses is coming into the box. Full-backs doing this should really be part of our game plan. The corner is punched-slapped away by Baz and sent back into the mix before Emakhu hammers it back in, saved by Baz, carnage, mis-kicks, panic with everybody hacking at the ball about three yards out and eventually we get it clear.

We play out from the back with THB finding Jander in space in the centre of midfield and now it goes left to Armstrong and eventually Jander gets carted over on the edge of the penalty area by Azeez. Manning’s free kick is headed away for a corner and Manning goes to take the corner and hits an absolute shit one at knee height to the first defender at the near post but THB has hit the deck and the referee has pointed to the spot. What the fuck? There’s a moment when I think he’s given something else and he’s pointing at the foul rather than the direction of the attacking team but no, it’s definitely a penalty and up steps Armstrong, with the derision of Millwall fans ringing in his ears and having ballooned his last penalty into the crowd at Sheffield United…. and bang, no problem, top corner, 1-0, get in.

Tonda uses the opportunity to make his first sub with the tiring Jay Robinson coming off to be replaced by Joe Aribo who looks tired just when he’s jogging on and the overall team energy gets less. It’s nearly 2-0 as Manning finds Azaz on the corner of the penalty area and he takes one step towards goal before viciously curling an effort at the far post, but the keeper takes off again and that’s a really good save. Though that could have been 2-0, we are not in control though and MIllwall aren’t going away and the usual unimpeded cross from our left is met in the middle by Ivanović who heads it just wide.

More Millwall pressure and Azeez picks up the ball on the right and plays a simple one too with Crama as Manning fails to make any sort of challenge, and Azeez suddenly finds it all open up for him on the edge of the box and he drills it into the far corner, low past Baz who has no real chance of getting anywhere near it. Fuck.

There are 20 minutes to go and suddenly there looks like only one team that’s going to win it. Saints make the substitutions that they were going to make before the goal went in with Romeu and Fraser coming on for Bragg and Fellows but they have no time to have any impact on the game as the ball gets played square to Taylor about 35 yards out and with Aribo laying his body on the line and showing extreme bravery by jogging out there and turning his back, he absolutely thunderbastards one into the top right hand corner. Brilliant strike to be fair – an absolute worldie.

We look gone and Millwall look the team most likely to get the next goal but as we get to the last five minutes of normal time, we are still having our moments and from one of these, Manning gets clumsy fouled by Emakhu and we win a free kick out on the left. Manning might not be able to defend for shit but he can definitely swing in a decent free-kick towards THB and once again, the Saints centre back gets up well and nods goalward and once again, the fucking goalkeeper pulls out a brilliant save but this time it drops to Finn Azaz to run it into the net via a slight deflection to get us out of jail.

For some reason, we are running into the net to go and get the ball as if we’re gonna launch some sort of grandstand finish and grab a winner. This seems a little bit tone deaf because we are only gonna get battered for the rest of the game and so it proved. Seven additional minutes and now that Fellows has gone off, there is absolutely no one stopping crosses coming into the box from either side. Over comes one from the left and Nathan Wood has to get up to head the ball out before crashing into the net himself. In comes the corner and it’s a free header and Ryan Manning boots off the line in his first defensive contribution for about three years.

We are into the last of the seven minutes that have been added from somewhere and Millwall attack down or left and bundle their way past Romeu’s off balance challenge and a cross is chipped to the back post to the unmarked Crama, who almost scuffs his shot goalwards through Ryan Manning‘s legs, past the off-balance Baz and THB can only smash it into the roof of the net and I think it was probably over the line anyway. Fuck off. The end.

Well, that performance was a bit of a blast from the recent past and we can’t complain about losing that game because basically, they were better than us. We didn’t stand up physically to Millwall and didn’t do enough of the ugly stuff to enable us to go out and play and dominate the game. We had moments going forward in the first and the second half, but overall, you can’t argue that Millwall didn’t deserve to win.

Too many players were below their usual level today. Caspar Jander and Cam Bragg seemed to struggle with the physicality of Millwall and Jay Robinson was knocked around and not helped by a referee who didn’t give very much in the way of free kicks for challenges. Adam Armstrong sparkled occasionally, as did Finn Azaz but not enough to really influence the game and of course it was a huge loss with Leo Scienza not playing. Jay Robinson like others, had the odd moment but not enough and he does always seem to take too many touches. In hindsight, I think the two changes today with Robinson and Bragg coming in for Scienza and Downs, meant the team tipped over a little bit too far into lightweight / inexperienced territory and that’s fatal in the Championship.

So, Tonda has his first defeat and I’m not sure it was a great game for him though in truth, he didn’t have a lot of choice regarding who to bring in to play instead of Downes and Scienza. I don’t know how long Romeu was capable of playing for but it seemed to me about 10 minutes too late to bring him on. The earlier substitution was Joe Aribo, who again proved what I’ve always said about him. He is absolutely fucking useless as a player to bring on as a substitute because he has absolutely no energy and that’s one of the main functions of the substitute coming onto the pitch in the second half. His lightning quick closing down and bravery on the second Millwall goal will go down as the stuff of legend and certainly indicative of a player who is just not what we need at the moment. He’s too slow to be playing as a forward and Matsuki should be getting given the minutes that Joe is getting at the moment.

Millwall’s first goal was far too easy as well, with Azeez playing a 1-2 with Crama, with Manning allowing an easy return pass by just being on his heels and not making any sort of challenge. He is honestly one of the worst defensive fullbacks I’ve ever seen, right up there with Lee Todd in Saints crap defensive left back annals. If the first and second goals were bad, the third goal should’ve been cleared by Romeu and the marking was poor. Manning was marking Captain Jack’s man and Captain Jack was ball watching, meaning Crama was free at the back post. From there on luck played a part because he didn;t hit it properly and it squirted through Manning’s legs, flicked off of Baz and that did for THB on the line.

Our goals were a decent poachers finish by Azaz, and a penalty which gave the illusion that we were going to be lucky for the rest of the game. Manning’s absolute dog shit corner was going nowhere when the referee rightly gave a penalty for a shirt pull, which was 100% correct and a referee correctly applying the laws of the game.

I’m not sure why but we looked leggy today. We had one more day to recover than Millwall did but it didn’t look like it, and we deservedly got beat. It’s annoying to concede in the 97th minute but you really can’t complain. There just wasn’t the zip about us today particularly going forward and we stopped playing forward as much which was particularly frustrating. Make no mistake, Leo Scienza was badly missed and you have to question whether there was the forward runners that there have been in the last few games.

A recurring problem for us is stopping crosses coming into the box. Playing with a back five and wingbacks leaves absolutely no excuse to not get out to wingers us who are looking to cross the ball. Tom Fellows does a half decent job considering it’s not really his game, but Manning on the other side never gets near anyone. All of the defenders in the middle stuck their head in where they needed to stick it, but in the end the pressure was too much.

And so I come to pass that the Tonda hype train got derailed a bit and our surge up to the table has hit the buffers for now anyway. I guess you could say the bottom line is that we lost a team who are now in third place. Letting a point go in the 97th minute will always be a savage kick in the nuts though. They might be third but no one in the league is that good. We have been saying that we don’t know how Tonda will react with any sort of adversity and now we get the chance to see that assuming no other manager comes in out of the blue next week before the visit of Birmingham and West Brom to St Mary’s.

Up the fucking Saints.