Saints 3 Carlisle United 2

The dream has gone!

This was a much better Saints performance than Tuesday night - once we got going. Carlisle were a different side from the one we beat at Wembley. They defended strongly, showed imagination and guile going forward and were up for it. Full credit to them in a game that largely meant nothing in terms of league position - but meant everything in terms of pride. Well done to the away fans - all 411 of them. A long way to come.

Our first goal came a minute or so before half-time. It was odd as the cross went in was headed on and then out of nowhere was lashed into the back of the net. I hadn't seen Antonio, he was obscured behind a clump of players. Literally a minute later we gave away a needless free kick. When you have someone of the calibre of Ian Harte in your team, it is always risky to give away free-kicks on the edge of the area. He struck it brilliantly and at half time it was 1-1.

In the 46th minute, Rickie Lambert slotted home from a narrow angle and 10 minutes later Antonio got his second. There followed a series of substitutions that saw McNish make his league début. Then the comedy five minutes.  Fonte, under pressure, flipped a looping back-pass to Davis who had to struggle to reach it. It was going to go in so he had to catch it high off the ground. An instant free-kick on the six yard line for Carlisle. Only Davis wisely sought to delay the taking of the free-kick and fell on the gathered ball. The Carlisle striker Price, tried to wrestle Davis and kneed him in the ribs. A general scuffle ensued. Davis was booked and Price - sporting a trendy birds nest of hair, got off scot-free! The resulting free kick was a farce with 11 Saints players on the line and the entire Carlisle team more or less over the ball. The ball eventually cannoned into the wall and all was well. Carlisle scored a consolation goal three minutes into injury time. Final result 3-2.

On a day when we needed Huddersfield to lose they won 0-6 away at Stockport. End of the dream. Colchester drew and that enabled Saints to rise to 7th place. A tremendous effort given where we were in September. If the last 75% of the season determined the table, this is what it would like - bear in mind Saints had a -10 points starting position:

Norwich 79
Saints 71
Millwall 71
Swindon 64
Huddersfield 62
Leeds 57
Charlton 55
Colchester 51

Well done Alan Pardew and the whole management team - and especially the players. Let the pre-season preparations begin here and now. Let's win this league next season!

COYR

Saints 0 Oldham Athletic 0

The dream has gone. A frustrating evening game which saw a battling and committed Saints denied victory by a dogged Oldham side who played for the draw from the outset and a Referee who was several leagues above his competence level.

With Wotton in for Spiderman, the mid-field was never going to set the game on fire - especially with Oldham playing five across the middle. Wotton is a capable enough stopper but his distribution is always suspect and last night particularly so. Puncheon kept him company on this occasion. Barnard, Lambert and Lallana kept running for as long as they were on the park. Lloyd James was introduced at half time but withdrawn 25 minutes later after a wonderful impersonation of a head-less chicken!

The crowd was disappointing (18,366) given the importance of the game, but the fans were deafeningly loud for most of the game - spurred on by the inept and inadequate Referee Mr Wright who proved on the night to be more a Mr Wrong. The stats show what a spoiling game Oldham played:

There are some aspects of the Saints game that need to change:

• Hurried and wasted free kicks
• Short corners that come to nothing
• Corners and crosses that are gently lofted to give the keeper catching practice rather than allow a glancing header on target.

Our defence is looking very good - I was at last impressed with Otsemobor. The mid-field lacked fluidity and class without Spiderman. Well done Saints for the effort - disappointing result. Appalling Referee.

It is now virtually inconceivable that we will make the play-offs. That will allow Pardew to plan a pre-season programme that will set us well for the next season. It will be difficult coping with the clubs coming down from the Championship, but we must battle and be there or there-abouts for the entire season if our dream of promotion is to be realised.

Enjoy the remaining three games. have a well-deserved rest and win the division next season.

COYR

Yeovil Town 0 Saints 1

What a nail-biter this was! A difficult away game with hostile home fans and a poor playing surface meant that the home side were favourites to win. This was a dogged performance and although Saints dominated the first half-an-hour, they were not able to score.

Clearly the tension and high level of expectation were ever-present with the players - a projection from the fans. Mid-way through the second half, Spiderman hit out at a Yeovil player and was given a straight red card. On one level it's good that the youngster has such passion and cares so much, but on another he needs to learn lessons from these occasions as he will be missing for the next three critical games.

In the third minute of injury time Lee Barnard headed home the only goal of the game. What a marvellous result. Well done Saints. With Colchester losing and Saints still having a game in hand over them and Huddersfield, the dream is still alive. It continues tomorrow evening at St Mary's - bring on Oldham Athletic.

COYR

Bristol Rovers 1 Saints 5

Well, it was a tense affair watching the BBC live text - at least for the first half. Having seen the goals on TV since, I can think 'what's the problem?'. Rovers scored first - a soft penalty really, but well put away. Then Rickie Lambert got into his stride and banged in two in quick succession just before the break. The second half saw Spiderman score a contender for goal of the season and this was followed by two more from Lallana and Puncheon. Job done.

It was encouraging to see that nearly 25% of the fans were Saints fans - well done everyone. The victory was brilliant but the edge was taken off the evening by two late goals from Huddersfield Town against Walsall. If Walsall had managed to hang on to their lead, the prospect of the play-offs would be closer to be being realised. Let's hope we can win again on Saturday at Yeovil.

COYR

Kali Mirchi - fine Indian cuisine

A borrowed photo from a review

I have now eaten here 5 times and each time it simply gets better. The menu has a tremendous range from across the sub-continent. The food is never produced quickly and it really does taste like every dish is cooked to order rather than a variation on 3 or 4 stock sauces as is the case in too many Indian restaurants. Here it tastes like they have a range of palettes from which the spices are freshly prepared. All of the spices blend in subtle combinations that excite the taste buds. I am even salivating writing this!

The Naan bread is the best I've tasted this side of Delhi (with the possibly exception of a dodgy back-street cafe in Rawlpindi). I would particularly recommend the Lamb Nihari which presents a marinated and slow cooked Lamb Shank in a mouth-watering tomato and spice gravy. The King Prawn Balchio, a Goan dish, is also excellent and highly recommended. The Combo Starter is excellent value for money and while you wait for that the poppadoms are refreshingly non-greasy and fresh. The pickle accompaniment - especially their home-made apple Chutney is excellent.

I live 20 miles away and drive past dozens of Indian restaurants to get there - but it's worth the effort. The evening a la carte is to be preferred to the lunch-time buffet. The Head waiter is good fun and the service is attentive and pleasing. If you have any special dietary requirements, they will adjust recipes to accommodate you.

I would encourage everyone within striking distance of this restaurant to visit one evening.

Kali Mirchi

98 Shirley High Street

Southampton

SO16 4FB

023 8070 1038

Saints 1 Charlton Athletic 0

It was a lovely warm and sunny spring day in Southampton yesterday where over 23,000 fans watched a tense and entertaining display from a rugged Saints against top-class opposition. Charlton are virtually guaranteed a play-off place, we need to win every game and rely on Huddersfield and Colchester slipping up to allow us into the pay-off's.

Charlton were well disciplined and organised. They had a strong physical presence which a Saints team of old would have been crushed by - but not this current squad. At then end, Charlton were playing with three strikers who were extremely physical and bruising. Overall, Saints had 56% of possession and made it tell. One or two players were still in 'let's pass the ball to the opposition' mode and Puncheon was challenged by playing in a new role playing through the middle up front just behind Rickie Lambert. The two centre backs, Fonte and Seaborne were immense and for the first time seemed to gel as a pair. Harding was his usual 100% reliable and Lallana's endless running gave Charlton plenty of headaches.

For me the enjoyability of the games was spoilt by Mr Hegley the referee. He blew his whistle like at tin-pot dictator for a thousand minor offences whilst allowing much bigger crimes to go completely unpunished. The game was never allowed to flow and when 23,000 with one voice tell the ref "you don't know what you're doing" - well they can't all be mistaken can they? The number of clear handballs was well into double figures - but he gave none of them. We were lucky to escape one mad passage of play when the ball pinged abound like a pin-ball and twice struck a Saints arm - neither were given as penalties for Charlton. It is also clear that League One teams have watched each other and learned how to minimise Rickie Lambert's threat in the air from the long ball. They position one player in front and another behind and they jump towards each other squeezing out Rickie. Time after time, game after game this tactic is employed. At best it's obstruction, at worst sometimes it's violent conduct, but if the whistle blows it's always for the defending side.

Saints scored on 34 minutes - ironically as I was berating the ref for not giving a foul on Rickie Lambert. The ball squirted free to Puncheon who passed sideways to Antonio who dribbled around two players and rifled home his shot. A good goal, well taken.

Charlton caused Saints lots of headaches in the second half, but the defence stayed firm and Kelvin Davis made some excellent saves when it was breached. Charlton would have felt they deserved more from the game, but that's the second time we've beaten them this season and our march upwards continues.

Tuesday night sees a very difficult game against high flying Bristol Rovers - another must win game.

COYR

Roger Waters 2010 The Wall Tour

Apparently, the tour dates for his tour will be announced tomorrow at 2 pm EST on his new website.

There will no doubt to a huge demand for these and they will be costly I'm sure.

I remember buying The Wall 30 years ago and being underwhelmed. As each year has passed, the profound nature of Water's lyrics and the transcendent quality of the music has grown and now it occupies a place very much at the centre of Pink Floyd's canon of creativity.

Saints 2 Leyton Orient 1

It seems that Saints are falling into a pattern of not waking up until about 15 minutes into the game! Again we succumbed to a sucker punch with Orient scoring in the second minute which was possibly their only serious attack of the first half. Today Southampton had 11 players on the pitch - nothing strange in that, except today they were 11 individuals and they did not play as a team. They made extremely hard work of playing a game of football against opposition that didn't look a threat and who struggled to challenge for victory.

Lee Barnard was excellent with his energy, running and willingness to defend from the front. Rickie Lambert looked a bit off colour - but not as off colour as Jon Otsemobor and Morgan Schneiderlin! These two repeatedly gave the ball away to the opposition when they were in possession. Jaidi went off injured in the fourth minute and Seaborne his replacement seemed to unsettle the usually solid Jose Fonte, his partner.

Saints first goal came towards the end of the second half and it was a piece of individual skill from Adam Lallana who ran the ball across the edge of the penalty area from left to right and then shaped his body to curl a shot into the top right-hand corner. Class. His second goal came mid-way through the second half and I'm not sure what happened - too far away in a penalty area filled with bodies, I think it was a header. Orient lost Jonathan Téhoué as he was stretchered off with a hamstring injury.

We are now closing on the pack above. If we our game in hand, we are only 5 points off the play-offs!

COYR

New pictures on flickr

One of the photo magazines I subscribe to had an article sent in by a reader of photos he took at this location. As it's only 5 miles down the road, I decided to check it out this morning. This and some others are on my Flickr photostream - follow the link to the right.

Brighton & Hove Albion 2 Saints 2

It depends on which account of the game you read as to how well Saints played. I guess it's all too easy to lose concentration after the grandeur of Wembley and a Cup Final, but those privileges are only earned if you are able to keep focussed on the day job. The Brighton pitch is not the best and this may have again contributed to a poor Saints performance. Brighton have always a bogey team and it was good that we did not lose.

One point is better than no points, but three would have been ideal - even necessary if we are going to maintain a serious attempt to get into the play-off places. On Monday we entertain Leyton Orient - every game is now a must win game. with more home than away games, it is a tantalising possibility.

COYR