After the huge win against Coventry, we are now back at St Mary’s after four away games in a row, to play Norwich City. Like ourselves, Norwich are a completely different side to what they were earlier on in the season down to their new manager, replacing the hapless and hopeless Liam Manning, with Philippe Clement. The transformation in Norwich particularly since the New Year has seen them go from looking like relegation certainties to maybe thinking they could have a run at the playoffs themselves. In truth, it’s probably a little bit too late for them but they are certainly one of the form sides of the division and not a side to be taken lightly this evening.

Plus, we owe them one. When we went to Carrow Road in the early days of Clement‘s reign, we were literally booted off the park. It was a strange game – head thug Harry Darling gave away a penalty for needlessly clattering Scienza when the ball was virtually off the pitch and that fired up the crowd and the energy of that meant that referee James Bell completely shat himself for the rest of the game and didn’t give anything against Norwich. Kenny McLean and Pelle Mattsson were allowed to kick lumps out of every player Darling then took his personal assault on Scienza one step further by stamping on him when he was on the ground. I don’t think he got booked for either incident and he later played a part in the winning goal which was slapped into the net by the hand of Norwich striker Makama. Norwich certainly had a lot go for them that game but to be honest, they deserved to win. It can be true that they deserved the win and they kicked the shit out of us and it annoys me when people deny that it happened. They deserved to win because we missed the penalty and once Norwich took the lead with about 25 minutes to go, we were absolute shit and didn’t have a shot. The bottom line is that we didn’t stand up to the physical challenge that Norwich presented and didn’t deserve anything from the game.

We’re a different side now. That game was back in the days when we were playing three at the back and had square pegs in round holes all over the pitch, including Welington playing right wing back, Jay Robinson at left-wing back and all that kind of shit. Luckily, those days are gone. I think it’s safe to assume that if he had not ditched that formation and had not stopped putting square pegs in round holes, then Saints would not be where they are now and Tonda would not be sitting on a sofa at home looking at the manager a month award on the mantelpiece. I’m sure he doesn’t do that anyway – he doesn’t strike me as the sort. Today, he has a new challenge and that’s how to win a home game without both Leo Scienza and Ross Stewart. I am assuming that neither will play though the injury news on both is promising and they may yet make an appearance either today or at the weekend against Oxford United.

With just three points separating us and the team in 6th place, we certainly need to follow up the win at Coventry with a win here today. This however promises to be a very difficult game and so patience may well be required.

It’s almost warm this evening as the team news drops and unsurprisingly, Leo is not being risked and Ross is not back from the dead. Just the one change with Sam Edozie getting a deserved start and Cam Bragg dropping to the bench as we go back to our default formation pre-Coventry. The Norwich team sees the head thug on the bench but Jack Stacey is directly up against Edozie, two years after derailing his Saints career by hitching a ride on his ankle at Carrow Road. That probably didn’t happen either as I’m reliably informed on social media that Norwich didn’t in fact boot us off the park at Carrow Road this season and I should ‘have a day off’,

As a result, I’m confident they won’t do that tonight, so it’s a big shock when the ball goes up to Sam Edozie and McConville waves a boot in his face and then looks like he connects with a swinging arm. Referee Lewis Smith decides that’s ok and so the tone is set. It’s also ok for Maghoma to pull back Jander and commit two other fouls within the opening ten minutes. I’m sure that none of this happened though.

After the usual physical threat, Norwich threaten in the proper way and win the ball high up on the left when Matsuki overplays, and the ball finds its way to Ben Slimane and he smashes it at the near post and Peretz has to get across smartly to beat it away for a corner.

Saints first real attack sees Azaz pick up the ball on the right and send in a deep cross to the back post and Jack Stacey writes another instalment in his quest to smash Edozie to bits by grabbing his arm and throwing into the floor. It’s a clear penalty but once again the referee does fuck all.

Captain Jack comes gallivanting out of defence and his ball on the deck finds Larin on the edge of the box and he feeds it to Edozie on the left, whose shot is blocked as far as Bree, who absolutely smashes it and it’s pushed out by the keeper. Jander goes in and it’s blocked out to Edozie who smashes it into the net. Disallowed for offside, I presume against Azaz, which looks absolutely fucking ridiculous. The Norwich fans give us a quick ‘sit down shut up’ as the goal is disallowed.

Play restarts with the Norwich keeper Kovacevic trying to play out to his left back and kicking it straight out of play for a throw. Embarrassingly shit. Bree takes it, flicked on by Larin and Azaz bundles past two players before rifling over the keeper and into the top corner. You sit down and shut up, you bunch of wankers. 1-0.

It all goes a bit cat and mouse for the next twenty minutes with no real openings. The referee eventually gets fed up with all the kicking that Norwich don’t do and Ben Slimane, Stacey and Fisher all end up in the book. Stacey was beaten to the ball by Edozie so guess what he did – absolutely wiped him out. Accidental of course because Norwich don’t do that. Anyhow, Norwich take a quick free kick in midfield and Maghoma works his way into the penalty area before crossing low across the 6 yard box and Kvistgaarden can’t get a touch with his attempted diving header.

Half time and winning and happy days. It’s been a bit of strange one to be honest, with both teams seemingly happy for it to be played at a very slow pace. Norwich bring on Mattsson, to no doubt perform the same role as he did at Carrow Road.

After an early Norwich attack, Saints break out through Azaz, who ball juggles like Le Tissier before feeding the ball onto Downes bursting forward. He turns it into the path of Edozie who is tackled and Larin should hit it first time but takes a heavy touch and gives the goalkeeper the chance to get across and push it wide.

Flynn’s next action is to get booked for pulling a player back in exactly the same way that Maghoma didn’t get booked for in the first half. Norwich and now playing with a bit more urgency and McLean let’s fly from 25 yards and Peretz gets down to comfortably push it wide for a corner. We survive that but we are struggling in midfield now with Downes handicapped by his booking he’s replaced with Cameron Bragg.

We are not getting near enough to the Norwich midfield and Ben Slimane sends in a low effort from the edge of the box goes, which through some legs towards the bottom corner and Peretz gets across well to push it out but straight to Fisher, who has to score but he reckons without the fact that we have a proper goalkeeper now, who spreads himself to block it wide for a corner. The Norwich players with heads in hands is worth the admission money alone.

Fifteen to go and Jander and Edozie are off for Fellows and Charles but Saints are struggling to get out until Manning plays a long ball over the top to find Larin in the left corner. We work it back through Fellows and Bragg and then Manning place a cute pass in field to Charles who tries to roll it in the bottom corner from the edge of the box and the keeper gets down well to push it wide.

It’s still mainly Norwich pressure though and you can tell that because we take Matsuki off and put Wood on. McLean and Mattsson in the midfield are driving Norwich forward and a low cross comes in from the right in between Stephens and Peretz, and Jack sticks his foot out and sees it loop off the top of his foot and bounce on top of the bar and over. Shat myself expecting it to drop in to be honest.

In comes the corner, punched away by Peretz, fired back in but Saints can’t get hold of the ball. Back it comes with Saints getting increasingly desperate for the final whistle and out on the right wing, Wright skins Bragg and puts the cross into the back post and it’s met with a header down towards the bottom corner but Peretz plunges to his right to push it away.

99 gone of 97 and another cross comes in which ends up with Manning, who controls and he’s about to thump it away when the referees final whistle goes. Thank fuck that’s over.

There are two ways of looking at that game. Firstly, the pragmatic way which is that we got the three points against one of the divisions in-form teams, without our two best attacking players, on top of a very punishing fixture schedule with the players running on empty. With Wrexham losing yesterday, there was an opportunity for us to break into the top six and when the door is left open, good sides burst through it and take the opportunity. By doing that and breaking into the top six, we have in effect said to the chasing pack that we are the big dog in this fight and you’ve now got to try and remove us. I’m realising more and more in the Championship that you can’t play well every game and you can’t play with high energy every game because there are just too many games. You have to find a way to be able to win no matter what and that’s not always going to look pretty. To be honest, the pragmatic way of looking at it is the only way.

However, if you look at the game as an individual game, it was fucking dreadful and we were realtively fortunate to get the win. In the first 20 minutes, I thought that both teams were trying to slow it down and then we had a little purple patch where we kept winning the ball back off of Norwich and this led to our goal, which was a hilarious combination of circumstances. Edozie puts the ball in the net, we all celebrate, disallowed for offside, Norwich fans give us a load of sit down shut up, their goalkeeper restart the game by kicking it straight out of play, we take the throw and Azaz scores, sit down shut up.

We get to halftime ahead and the second half is one where we made a very average Norwich team look very good by not pressing with any energy whatsoever and our goalkeeper ends up being man of the match, which should never be the case in a home game against Norwich. Throughout the game but especially in the second half, we did not seem to be able to inject any pace into the game at all. There was the occasional moment when Edozie had the ball in the first half, but of course he got clattered by Stacey, which was one of three yellow cards for Norwich in the first half when in all truth. It probably could’ve been about five with Maghoma in particular being allowed to foul at will in the opening 10 minutes. The one thing I don’t understand is that over the course of the season, Norwich’s yellow card count is less than ours, so it looks likes something they reserve for the teams they think they can intimidate.

In the second half however the yellow cards evened up. Flynn Downes picked up a stupid one for an identical offence to what Maghoma didn’t get booked for in the first half, and was then playing on eggshells and had to be removed for Cam Bragg. When he went off, a lot of our energy went off with him and this made Norwich look half decent and they weren’t. We saw what they were like in the first half when we put them under a bit of pressure and they just kept giving the ball away. In the second half, with no pressure on them, they kept it and inevitably created a few chances and even though Peretz ended up as the official man of the match and deservedly so, the closest Norwich came to a goal was when Captain Jack scooped that cross on top of his own crossbar.

We did however show once again that we can defend the shit out of it now if we have to with the back four and the goalkeeper now really showing the value of being settled in their positions. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing and the combination works really well. When did we start this unbeaten run? – Sheffield United at home. When did we finally abandon playing a back three in the league? – Sheffield United at home.

As said, Peretz was excellent again, keeping another clean sheet and being the official Man of the Match. The pivotal Sheffield United match was his second league game and of course, we haven’t lost since. What a difference it makes to have a goalkeeper up near the top of the ‘expected saves’ stats and not at the bottom. The low saves in the bottom corners were harder than they looked and springing back to his feet and making himself huge for the double save can be added to his highlight reel. Aside from Peretz, Finn Azaz had a great game, not only scoring the goal but being at the heart of everything decent that we did in possession. He is coming into form at exactly the right time, both for Saints and for Ireland, with he and Ryan Manning off to play in a World Cup playoff after the Oxford game.

Onwards and tired we go to the last game in the international break, at home against Oxford, where we will once again have to find a way to win and this time, with an expected low block coming our way. We are going to have to inject some pace into things from somewhere and the thing I want to hear most when the team sheet is read out is “Number 13 Leo Scienza”. That would make me a lot more confident, be he on the bench or starting.

13 games unbeaten now and in to the Top 6.

Up the fucking Saints