Wembley. It’s been a while. Actually, it hasn’t, just the two years since we were last here in the play-off final. Last time here in the FA Cup was 2021 when we played a semi-final in front of 4000 people. The fans weren’t the only ones who didn’t turn up that day as we lost one now to a League 1 side. Leicester weren’t a lead one side at the time of course but that joke seems somewhat topical and maybe they can use at on the intro of their next DVD. Prior to that, there was a semi-final in the FA Cup against Chelsea in 2019, which again was a bit of a miserable experience when we allowed Olivier Giroud to dance past four of our defenders on the edge of the box and score the decisive goal. Latter day Saint Willy Caballero got lucky when he dropped the ball into his own net but overall, we were well beaten.

One fact that I didn’t realise is that the other than a the traditional big five and Spurs, we are the team that’s played here the most often in recent times, which seems somewhat bizarre, given that there are much bigger clubs than us who are below us in that particular table. Our level of familiarity with the surroundings is nothing compared to our opponents today however, so it certainly is not going to feel like a home game, especially against Manchester City who will be playing their 23rd game at Wembley under Pep Guardiola, who took over in 2017.

We will however, certainly outnumber them in terms of fans and they will certainly outnumber us in terms of charges, they have 115 which have been hanging over them for years and we have one from last Saturday. Unlike theirs however, ours got sorted straight away and it means that Flynn Downes will be suspended for this game and the remaining two regular season games in the Championship. It’s all a bit fucking annoying and smacks of double standards as we all thought he got away with the slightly wild challenge at Swansea. It wasn’t the worst challenge I’ve ever seen, but the EFL have decided in their wisdom to throw the book at him, whilst they and the FA in the Premier League let things go seemingly every single week. I do feel it’s the kind of challenge that we may be could’ve appealed but by accepting the charge, Flynn misses this game and the next two league games and will be available for the playoffs. A delay in the ban starting or an increase would mean him missing what are probably going to be the most important games of the season.

Downes absence is likely to meet Cameron Bragg starting the game so what an opportunity for him. Welington will come into the side for the suspended Ryan Manning and the only real questions are who starts on the right wing, I expect it will be Tom Fellows, and who starts upfront, where I expect Ross Stewart to get the nod. Whoever is a substitute will undoubtedly get on at some point.

Much will be made of the fact that we will have many more fans in the ground and Manchester City, but is it really a surprise that it’s not very well subscribed for Manchester City fans. It is after all, only a semi-final which for them is nothing and it’s another long trip down to Wembley, where they visit all the time. Also of course, it costs a fortune in travel, food, beer, and ticket prices. It’s a tired old argument but of course the semi-finals should not be played at Wembley. The FA come out with some bullshit about maximising use of the national stadium for football, but this doesn’t apply to the Community Shield which has been pied off to Cardiff, because Wembley has been booked for a concert by The Weeknd. I wonder what would happen if Taylor Swift or Oasis wanted to book Wembley on FA Cup Final Day? I wonder if Liam and Noel will honour us with their presence today? The FA are a disgrace but I quite fancy a trip to Cardiff anyway.

Before we get to Cardiff, however, we have to win this game, then the final. Standing in our way are this ridiculous Manchester City team who have just hit the top of the league after the Arse has fallen out of Arsenal. They have never recovered from getting beaten by Saints in the quarter-final and I hope for Arsenal fans must be that City won’t recover after we’ve beaten them and The Gunners will find form again and romp to the League title. Unlikely on many counts.

Yes, we beat Arsenal when they were top of the league and now we’re playing the current league leaders. This is a different bag altogether however as City are a completely different level to any other team in the country. Pep has been tinkering with his side this season up until Christmas but he has now found the most settled eleven I can never remember him having in his time as Manchester City manager. He will probably rest the goalkeeper and play James Trafford but other than that I confidently predict that their team will be the one they put out against Arsenal in the league last weekend. They are aided by the fact that they don’t have a fixture for nine days after the semi-final, whereas we have the ‘shit or bust’ game at home to Ipswich on Tuesday. What that means is basically there is no need for City to rotate anyone and even if they do rotate, who do they bring in? Foden, Reinders, Marmoush, Kovačić, Ruben Dias, Stones, Gvardiol… It’s fucking ridiculous.

Usually when I’m writing a preview of a League game, I’m looking at the opposition and trying to work out who the danger man is and pondering how THB, Nathan Wood or Jack Stephens is going to deal with them. Sometimes it’s not a name, I’m particularly familiar with. Last week for example, I had never really heard of Zan Vipotnik until earlier on this season. Today, Erling Haaland. Fucks sake. Apart from the fact he’s a fucking brilliant striker, I love Erling Haaland for his attitude. He isn’t going to dive and he isn’t going to go down if one of the defenders sticks his face in his, as he didn’t do against Arsenal at the weekend. Good job there’s no retrospective punishments in the Premier League it seems.

City have also got this maverick talent Rayan Cherki, who Pep has integrated into the team this season as he leads all the other managers in a merry dance, because he stopped any maverick tendencies in players like Jack Grealish a couple of years ago, but now he’s fully embraced it and all the other managers are playing catch up. The other managers are always playing catch-up, as can be illustrated by looking at full backs and how Pep has used them. Pep started playing inverted fullbacks with players like Cancelo, then a year later everyone copied that, by which time Pep already moved on to playing four big central defenders as his back four, with the likes of Gvardiol, Ake and Akanji being used as full backs. Teams copied that, especially Arsenal, who are still doing it and in the meantime, Pep has moved on to using Mateus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly at full backs and they are basically midfield players. The man is always one step ahead.

So that’s the challenge for Tonda Eckert over 90 minutes at Wembley. I am absolutely sure he will be loving the challenge and hoping that the players can carry out the game plan he will come up with. We were lacking our usual energy against Bristol City a few days ago and that simply cannot be the case and it certainly shouldn’t be the case with over 35,000 Saints fans making one end of Wembley a wall of yellow.

Can we win? Yes, will we win? Probably not, but we can definitely have a fucking go. Earlier this week I watched City play against Burnley and they only won 1-0 against a side that will be in the Championship next season. Burnley basically defended deep and tried to hit City on the break. They struggled like mad to get hold of the ball but they had their moments and stayed in the game that’s got to be the plan for us. Stay in the game for as long as possible. It’s going to be a hell of a task but let’s give it a go. Shea Charles off the bench against his former club maybe.

There are no recriminations for losing this game so therefore, what have you got to lose? The 50th anniversary of our 1976 FA Cup win has already been done massive justice to. The fact that we have reached Wembley again is ridiculous bearing in mind we are in the Championship and the wave of nostalgia from wearing yellow and blue makes this an even more special occasion. The fanbase is going to bring it to Wembley on Saturday. Saints fans always do the big games very well and this will be no exception. All I ask is for the team to give it a decent go.

Up fucking yellow and blue 50th anniversary Saints.

Wembley is huge. Even though it was only two years ago since I was last here, I’m still surprised when I get sight of the pitch and see how huge it is. As our end starts to fill up, predominantly yellow of course, you can tell this is going to be a special day. Team news and our is as expected pretty much. Braggy and Welington are in for the suspended Downes, Stewart up front, Fellows on the right wing. The City team is a bit of a surprise, bearing in mind they have no game for 9 days after this. Apparently it’s eight changes from the last league game. Regardless, it’s still a ridiculous side, bringing in players like Trafford, Stones, Ake, Gonzalez, Foden, Marmoush, Reijnders and Kovacic. Cherki is still there, along with full backs Ait-Nouri and Nunes. Their bench is hilarious, including the likes of Haaland, Semenyo, Doku and Guehi.

The game starts in predictable manner with city monopolising the ball and us just trying to close the spaces down. There is an early indicator of how we want to play as from virtually our first touch of the ball with Azaz sending Scienza away up the left, but his cross into the middle is too deep and City pick up the ball again.

Marmoush is nominally the City centre forward but you have Foden, Reijnders and Cherki seemingly with license to go wherever they want. Nunes threads a ball down the line to put Marmoush away and he looks offside as he pulls it back and Reijnders shot is brilliantly saved by Peretz via the post before there’s a bit of a scramble which ends with THB smashing the ball away from on the goal line and then the linesman decides to put this flag up for the original offside. Wanker. Do your fucking job. Oh no, he can’t do his job because we have VAR today.

Welington has had a nervy start but gets out to challenge Reijnders and it deflects away for a corner. The corner is cleared by THB and Man City pass it around a little bit until it goes to Foden and Caspar Jander does his burglary trick, leaves Foden on the ground and comes away with the ball. It ultimately comes to nothing but it does give us a little bit of possession with the ball and we look a little bit more confident.

This newfound confidence brings us a break up the right hand side with Fellows and his low pullback is met by Jander on the edge of the box and he falls over a challenge by Reijnders, which would certainly have provoked a VAR review in the Premier League, but not today. The City right provides another good ball down the line for Marmoush, and once again he looks offside but he bears down on goal before seeing his effort blocked superbly by the sliding Woody. Once again the fucking flag goes up late. Such bullshit.

We take the free kick short to THB, before Peretz launches it up towards Stewart. He gets beaten by Stones with the ball drops down to Azaz, who slides it through to Scienza who they are not catching. He’s into the penalty area and slots at past Trafford. Pandemonium at the other end of the ground for a second and then that sinking feeling. Leo is not going mental and that’s because we’ve had fucking flag go up at the other end, which of course, we can;t see from our end. Definately onside, says the guy behind me, with the X-Ray vision.

The game settles into a pattern of City building up to the edge of our box before we get a foot in. Kovacic decides to try a different way, picking it up 40 yards out and just running at the defence. He goes past Azaz and Jander and in between Welington and Wood before firing a low ball across towards the far post and luckily for us, no one is close enough to tap it in.

Saints are having their moments though, building up patiently before attempting a ball into the box. From one such passage play, Ross Stewart tries to flick it around the corner to the overlapping Breezy, but Ait-Nouri is awake and clears the danger. Leo gets away again down the left and swings in a cross towards Stewart that he heads over the bar, but yet again, another late flag. Fellows gets chopped down as he tries to cut inside Cherki on 25 minutes. Welington chips in the free kick, but City clear and break up the left before Cam Bragg has his best moment so far, stopping Marmoush in his tracks.

We are taking it to them now and there’s another lovely flowing move up the right hand side for Saints, with Azaz playing the ball into Fellows, which he flicks around the corner to Bree and his low cross is intercepted by Stones in front of Stewart before Kovacic it clears up. We are getting situations that could develop but as yet, not finding the final ball.

City have gone a bit quieter than attacking sense, but it’s never too far away and Kovacic gets his head up and threads a lovely straight ball through to Marmoush in the left channel and he drives at the near post but Peretz sticks out a boot to kick it wide for a corner. We survive all the passing around on the edge of the box from that corner and we also survive the attempted bicycle kick from Reijnders at the back post which flies miles wide.

We have another little spell as we approach 40 minutes, which starts with Fellows and builds up all the way down the left side before it ends up over with Bree who swings in another cross which is headed away, but we picked the ball up again and cross it again before City counter attack before getting to the edge of our box and slowing everything down, and allows us to get everyone back and when the cross eventually comes in Welington just lets it fly over his head for a goal kick. We’ve defended superbly so far, holding our ground and not allowing them to pick their way through too often.

As we approach half-time, Nunes goes down for about three minutes and so there is a question of concentration as the game restarts. City are still controlling the ball around the edge of our penalty area and eventually ping it wide to Cherki, who goes into the box before being robbed by an immaculate tackle by Welington, who has really grown into the game as the first half has gone on. That’s more or less the last incident of the first half, in which we have been quite frankly, superb given the nature of this particular game.

I would have snapped your hand off for 0-0 at half-time and here we are. Undoubtedly City will up their game after Pep has had his say at half-time, whereas Tonda will be planning for his substitutions and asking for more of the same. I feel that we will be ok as long as we maintain some sort of attacking threat.

No changes and the second half starts and Peretz booms a clearance long, whilst the corporate seats are still empty. Stewart flicks it on and Azaz pokes it through and suddenly Fellows is clean through. There is a moment when he has to hit it, but he doesn’t and that allows Ait-Nouri to get back in and put the challenge in and it runs harmlessly through to Trafford.

Once City settle into the second half it begins to become very difficult. They are playing the ball forward more quickly now and we are struggling to get out anyway. In two separate incidents, Ake and Ait-Nouri get to the byline in the penalty area and their pull backs are cleared away by Jander and THB. We now seem to be playing with all eleven of our players in our own penalty area. City win a free kick when THB wrestles down Marmoush. City take it quickly and work it to the edge of the box and Foden puts it into the crowd because he’s having a shit game. In a brief respite, we build a little attack down the left with Scienza playing it infield to Stewart, who curls an effort out towards the fire post, but Trafford catches it easily. It probably is our first shot on target though.

There is activity on the City bench – we don’t want that. I was kind of hoping that Pep had forgotten all the players who were sat next to him or that he had decided to do that thing he sometimes does and not put on any subs, but sadly not and Doku and Silvinio are warming up. In the meantime, it’s turning into the Nathan Wood show in defence as he throws himself in the way of two shots in succession before Foden and Kovacic go off for the new arrivals.

Doku is of course a completely different type of threat to what we’ve been used to and the first time he gets given the ball, he puts Fellows on his heels before passing it inside to Reijnders, who takes a shot at the far post and it curls just wide as Peretz gave up on it. We haven’t got to grips with either of the wide players who have come on. Silvinio wins a corner off Welington before Doku threads a lovely ball through to Ait-Nouri, who pulls it back for Marmoush and he leans back and spoons it over the bar. That’s the closest they have got as I put my heart back into my chest. I am getting eyestrain looking a hundred yards up the pitch.

Time for some substitutions of our own with Larin on the for Stewart and Charles on for the tiring Cameron Bragg. It suddenly getting a little bit worrying as City up the pace again. Cherki rolls a wonderful cross along the 6 yard line which no one can get a touch to. We are literally penned into our own penalty area with no way out and Silvinio has a shot which Peretz must see like through a crowd but dives to his right to push it away. Jander then becomes the first Saints player to get anywhere near Doku and wins the ball before getting clattered in midfield and Larin‘s pass is too far ahead of Fellows which allows Trafford to clean up. Surely though we go back to the foul on Jander, Craig? No, we fucking don’t.

As we approach 70 minutes, there is more ominous looking movement on the Manchester City bench and it’s a big blonde viking guy with a ponytail, alongside their player of the moment Nico O’Reilly. Shit. Well, at at least it shows that they are certainly taking us seriously now. Haaland and O’Reilly come on for Marmoush and Ait-Nouri.

Saints have things under control with Nathan Wood and he plays it into midfield to Shea Charles, who dithers and City get a foot in. Gonzalez runs through and smashes it but Peretz beats it away before Cherki’s shot is blocked by Charles and then Reijnders drills it wide. Lucky bastards we are and we certainly got away with one there..

Doku cuts in and has another shot which is blocked wide for a corner by Charles and Welington is down for the second time, presumably with cramp. Jelert is on the bench but it’s not him coming on, it’s Matsuki who has gone straight to left back. 15 to go.

City start another move from deep with Cherki on the left-hand side, but Caspar Jander is with him, so of course Caspar Jander comes away with the ball. He takes it forward down the left before finding Scienza. Scienza plays infield to Matsuki, who was made a break from left back and he rolls it across to Finn Azaz who spins to make space and waves his right foot at the ball and sweeps it majestically past Trafford and just inside the far post. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!!! What a fucking brilliant goal. Absolute pandemonium in our end. People falling over, limbs, tears, the fucking works. We’re gonna win the fucking lot – come on!!!

Now – ten minutes of carnage. City kick off and the first real incursion into our see Doku get the ball out on the left and we get it clear again. No respite, down the other side through Silvinio and he combines with Nunes before the full back gets virtually to the line before seeing his cross booted away by Peretz for a corner. City are flying into everything now and the ball ends up with Doku at the top of the penalty area on the left and he cuts infield, followed by Fellows and he hammers it with his right foot and it deflects off of James Bree’s thigh bounces down onto the ground and spins into the net of the far corner past Peretz dive. Fuck sake. Lucky deflected bastard.

Any response? Straight from the kick off, Saints go down the other end and Shea Charles has the ball and gets to the byline before pulling it back for Larin, who turns down having a first time shot and instead feeds the ball to the edge of the penalty area where Matsuki comes steaming in and his side foot effort is shovelled over the bar by Trafford. It’s our first corner of the game and after the initial challenge is cleared by Haaland to Doku who accelerates into our half but who is there, Caspar fucking Jander to make yet another tackle to stop City in their tracks. 6 to go.

Pep call another big gun from the bench and Bernardo Silva comes on for Reijnders. More city attacks, more repelling by Saints defenders with Nico Gonzalez seeing his powerful effort blocked. City recycle the ball again and give it to Gonzalez about 35 yards out and he advances a little bit from the left hand channel and absolutely thunderbastards it into the near top corner of the net. Fucking hell. What can you fucking say about that? 2-1

Bree and Fellows are replaced with Archer and Edozie as we give up on formation and just go for it. Why the fuck not there as there’s only a minute or two to go. Edozie’s first touch sees us win a corner which is cleared for a corner on the other side. We could really do with our Championship set piece ability translating to this game but Scienza’s corner is cleared and City break away through Doku, with Peretz coming flying out to the halfway line and missing the ball and suddenly Doku is in our half with the ball and the goalkeeper is nowhere. Edozie tries to hold him up and he finds Silvinio, whose effort is kicked off the line by Matsuki, which sends Scienza away down the left and this game is now unstructured and mental, which is hilarious given the two managers. THB, who is still up there for some reason, swings the ball out to the right for Azaz but his cross is poor and is cleared.

Saints are really going for it as we go into the seven minutes extra. Archer finds Azaz, who finds Edozie, then Charles, who is kind of playing at right back tries to find Larin in the middle with a low pass but Stones cuts it out. Back up the other end and City win a corner and none of their players want to take it. Craig Pawson is unbothered as a full minute goes by. Eventually they do take it and Doku is dribbling and trying to keep the ball in the corner. I suppose we should take it as a compliment though if I was playing, I would boot him up in the air.

96 minutes and one more free kick on the halfway line, which Matsuki pumps forward and it’s won by THB but City get it clear. Leo goes down after being handed off but Craig Pawson isn’t interested and clearly has a bus to catch because after the extra seven minutes, on the dot, despite there being about two minutes of timewasting from City in those seven minutes, he brings the game to an end. There’s a momentary crap feeling in my stomach and then it changes with the players coming down to our end and appear genuinely moved by the Saints fans and the reaction to them. The vast majority of the Saints fans stayed until the last players (Leo and Welington) had turned and headed back towards the tunnel.

So how am I feeling after that? Am I angry? No, definitely not, but normally I would be after conceding two goals in the last five minutes. Gutted. A lot has been said about the 50th anniversary and all that but the bottom line is that it’s about good players and a bit of luck. The Doku goal was a massive deflection and the second goal was a ridiculous strike that no one could do anything about. In the same way as the Zlatan Ibrahimović EFL cup winner against us in 2017, I knew the game was over when Nico Gonzalez’ strike ripped into the top corner of the net. I’m glad in a way that it was a brilliant goal that beat us, rather than someone making a mistake or something.

Am I feeling proud of the club ? Yes, I am. Heroic losses are ultimately not a lot of use but in them, you can often see the good in what you are trying to do. Firstly, everyone who set foot on the pitch today in a Southampton shirt did themselves proud and they did the 35,000 Saints fans in the ground proud as well. You can be grumpy and miserable about it and say that heroic failures are still failures but football is about moments and that Finn Azaz goal and the explosion of joy from our end of the ground, is right up there. Personally, I was directly behind the flight of the ball and knew as soon as it left his boot that it that was fizzing inside the post. What a moment.

The fans, my God. Absolutely outstanding in our version of the yellow wall in the west side of the ground. We turn up for big games and as predicted, the City end paled into insignificance compared to what was coming out them from the other end. All you could hear was us, before the game, during the game, for the two minutes we were winning and for the last 10 minutes and after the game, even though we had lost. You couldn’t argue that we deserved to win the game based but we deserved that moment when Finn Azaz turned and hit it and tore the fucking roof off.

The thing that separates Manchester City fans from fans of the other big clubs is that they do have a small measure of humility, certainly the older ones who remember the League one pre-sportswashing days and all that. The problem comes because they expect to win all the time and they do it so often that a semi-final is nothing to them so they don’t get the big numbers and there just seems to be an acceptance among most of their fanbase that they are just going to win. There’s a world of difference between watching your team and supporting your team and I do wonder if the younger generation of City fans will ever understand that.

Anyway, on the pitch, during the game I was a little bit concerned at the time that we didn’t maintain any sort of attacking threat, especially in the second half, but the reality is that City were too good and we just couldn’t get out. It’s important to note that they are superb without the ball as well, on the few occasions they have to be. At the end of the day you’ve got to look at the gameplan and ask if we executed it and did it work? The answer is that it did work perfectly – we got to the 80th minute without City scoring and then scored ourselves. The gameplan defensively was to defend our own penalty area because that’s where Manchester City score the vast majority of their goals from and we did that. The issue is that once we went ahead, they altered their game as great sides do and tried something different and unfortunately for us, this was shooting from outside the penalty area and two of them went in. At the start I thought we needed everything to go our way and it more or less went to plan until Doku‘s shot defects off of Bree and Nico Gonzalez scores a goal of the like he will probably never score again.

Losing to Manchester City is certainly no disgrace. We all loved the throwbacks to 1976 and the nostalgia and the yellow kit and all that and the manager and team have done brilliantly to give us an FA Cup campaign to be proud of to mark that 50th anniversary.

Can I complain about the officials? Timekeeping aside – not too much. There was one incident in the first half where we got given an advantage, butchered it straight away and he didn’t go back and give us the free kick. In the second half Pawson extended that courtesy to City. There were three incidents in particular in this game where the epidemic of linesman not putting their flag up when a player is clearly offside, becomes fucking ridiculous. The first was when Marmoush got played through and was about 5 yards offside but play went on and Peretz had to dive to make a save and the next one saw Woody pile in to block a shot. Either of those incidents could’ve led to an injury to someone but no matter. If Woody had piled in on Marmoush and absolutely clattered him, it would’ve been given as offside, and there’s no way you could hand out a booking.

Leo‘s disallowed goal which was clearly offside, but of course we couldn’t see that from our end of the ground and Leo ran away celebrating and we were all going mental and then he bothers to put his fucking flag up. Linesman in general, have been completely marginalised in the modern game by VAR. but I’d be hard pressed to argue that any of this has any effect on the final score.

There’s not a player out there who didn’t give their all in that that game and they can all be proud of their individual performances. Daniel Peretz made saves when he had to and was always trying to influence the game. THB and Woody threw themselves in the way of absolutely everything, with James Bree and Tom Fellows doubled up in a defensive effort on our right and Welington, before he inevitably cramped up, did a better job against the magician that is Rayan Cherki, than many Premier League counterparts. Cam Bragg got through his work and looked completely unfazed by the occasion and Finn Azaz had a quiet game and struggled to get on the ball very much but none of that will be remembered, just that goal. Up front. Leo Scienza was a bright spark whenever we got him on the ball and it was such a shame that that first half goal got correctly disallowed for offside as it was a great finish. Ross Stewart and Cyle Larin were mainly part of the defensive effort and going forward they were living off scraps. Of the other subs, Kuryu Matsuki showed exactly why he should be playing every game and I feel that we maybe missed a trick a little bit by having him as a substitute as things improved massively when he came on albeit in the very unfamiliar left back position. An assist for the goal, a shot that Trafford had to tip over and clearance off the line. Not bad for 20 minutes work in an FA Cup semi-final.

The one player I haven’t mentioned so far is Caspar Jander, who was absolutely ridiculous in the centre of midfield, winning the ball back from City on countless occasions, progressing up the pitch and all those things that he is incredibly good at. Performances like that in a game of that magnitude and exposure, will have clubs beating a path to our door regardless of what division we are in next year, but especially if we are still in the Championship.

As for the gaffer, well, Tonda Eckert had a good day as well and competed well against the genius that is Pep Guardiola. I feel that his calmness in situations and the way he answers questions post match, stand him in good stead for what is sure to be a very long managerial career. Basically, his gameplan worked and there’s not many who can say that when they come up against Pep and City.

City, even though they made so many changes are so ridiculously good. They know they’re going to be coming up against low block defences in virtually every game and the amount of times they find themselves with opportunities due to quick passing and movement is scary and then you’re relying on your goalkeeper and last ditch defending to keep them out. We managed that but when they brought more width into the game with Doku and Silvinho coming on, it just stretched us out a little bit and opened up a bit more space, which allowed those efforts from the edge of the box. Erling Haaland helps as well of course because of his reputation which means that defenders will always be looking for him and worrying about where he is, even if he’s not involved.

There will be attempts from the wilfully hard of thinking, to somehow diminish the fact that we did so well and equate it with City resting so many players but I’ll just point you at the headline in The Independent newspaper on yesterday‘s match report which says “Unlikely £50 million hero sinks Southampton“. Yep, the winning goal was scored by a player who City bought for £50 million, that they hardly use. I can’t be bothered to add up how much Manchester City’s starting eleven cost compared to ours but I’m sure you get my drift. As ever, the only thing that is fair about the fight is that both teams start with 11. That’s it.

Now the attention switches to Ipswich on Tuesday night. Whilst the day was progressing yesterday, Ipswich drew at West Brom, Middlesbrough won 5-1 and on Friday night, Millwall got a last-minute equaliser to get a point. All the permutations and what ifs are irrelevant unless we can win on Tuesday. So let’s go and do that.

We may have come up short but another day when I was exceptionally proud to be a Southampton supporter. Up the fucking Saints.