City 1 Southampton 2
With the last half an hour of the Cardiff game offering more promise of battling performances at home and with Southampton missing several defenders, I went to the game with a good deal of optimism.
The City team showed 3 changes, Cort (stepping out of the treatment room, for the suspended Fryatt), King (after a bright cameo against Cardiff, for the unfit Wesolowski) and Haynes (replacing Mattock to have a naturally more attacking minded player out wide).
For the first ten minutes the signs looked good, the Saints defence looked shaky with the best chance created by Hume who got a shot on the keeper despite being fouled and Newton really should have scored with the re-bound but put it over the bar. It was one of those “I bet we will pay for that miss” moments.
Other than Hayes firing over a couple of crosses, for the rest of the half City seemed to lose their way, not helped by the normally reliable McAuley & Kisnorbo both not being on their game, so it was no surprise when having already had a goal disallowed for offside, Saints took the lead when a cross came over, Stearman put an ineffective challenge on Dyer who nodded the ball back across goal for Stern John to score…..
The referee was generally having a good game and not one to rashly hand out yellow cards, however when the 4th official held up a single minute of added time the crowd was astonished as Ifil must have rolled around, looking for an Oscar following a strong Hayes challenge, for at least 3 minutes in his own right. However I was thinking it wasn’t a bad thing to get the players off for Ollie to inspire a better second half performance.
Then out of nowhere, Andy King picked up the ball 35 yards out and smashed a terrific shot into the far corner of the net to equalise. It may only have been the first day of the month, but it’s going to take something special to wrestle a watch off his wrist courtesy of Lumbers for this effort.
As the whistle went directly after the goal, the expectation was the City would come out with renewed drive for the second half and maybe Saints would be dejected. That proved not to be the case, as more sloppy City defending, led to Clemence needing to clear our lines.
Now from my half way line seat, so maybe not the best angle, I thought he wasn’t in the penalty area, but the ball shot up onto this arm and the ref pointed to the spot. Even if in the box, it seemed a very harsh decision, particularly as no Saints players appealed, which is often the sign of a wrong decision. Surman converted and we were 2-1 down.
For me, now it was the turn of the crowd to put in a below par performance. The referee got little pressure from our fans for making that decision. If the referee had some doubts in his mind, he may have looked for an opportunity to even things up, therefore the Kop in particular should have been howling for a penalty every time the ball got into the box, our players may have then reacted and looked for the opportunity.
Instead, sections of the crowd decided to vent their feelings against the obviously unfit Cort when he was substituted just after the hour. Hopefully those responsible will listen to Ollie’s post match interview and focus on offering full support to every player in a City shirt in future.
For the rest of the game, City huffed and puffed, the substitutions bringing Ashley Chambers & Sappleton on had little impact, and throwing Kisnorbo up front at the end just demonstrated the lack of chances being created, particularly as Kisnorbo should have done better with a free header midway through the second half.
Southampton were no great side, in fact I felt Cardiff were better on Monday, let’s hope City can raise their game when we visit them for the FA Cup in a few weeks time.
Not many positives from this game, other than Ollie learning more about his squad and the work that is required to make them a promotion force.
Leicester: Fulop, Sheehan, McAuley, Kisnorbo, Stearman, Newton (Ashley Chambers 60), Clemence, King, Hayes (N'Gotty 87), Hume, Cort (Sappleton 66).
Subs Not Used: Kenton, Maybury.
Goals: King 45.
Southampton: Davis, Wright-Phillips, Davies, Bennett, Ifil, Safri, Wright, Surman, Dyer (Hammill 85), John, Euell. Subs Not Used: Bialkowski, Saganowski, Rasiak, Mettomo.
Goals: John 32, Surman 56 pen.
Att: 20,070 Ref: Richard Beeby (Northamptonshire).