- Gary O'Neil's shot and Kamara not quite getting to the rebound due to Maik Taylor's intervention.
- Berger's long shot which was never in danger of going in
- Er...
- That's it.
Compared to last week's action packed victory over Charlton this was at the complete opposite end of the scale. And yet, in a funny way, both results are just as decent as each other. Last weekend we needed a morale boosting win and crucially the three points to push us up the league. This weekend we were travelling away from home where we're notoriously bad, not to mention a patched up squad against a side in form. Attractive football was never on the agenda - spoiling the game, frustrating the home players and fan and making it ugly very much was.
Perhaps the funniest thing about this match is that in the build up the talk was all about the defensive problems. De Zeeuw and Primus both looking shakey of late; Stefanovic and Taylor out injured and as a result no left-back; a very unfit Andy Griffin being forced to start. Sounds like a recipe for disaster! So of course we got our first clean sheet in the league this year. Credit must go to the aforementioned Griffin first; despite his lack of games he had a stormer and was probably man of the match. Cissé also deserves a word for a good performance against his former club, strong in the tackle and used the ball well.
Elsewhere nothing really happened. Kamara's long awaited chance to shine up front came to nothing in the end with no service and two teams seemingly interested in playing out 0-0. I'm a bit disappointed the game was so unbearably crap but at this stage of the season it's all about results and, although three points tends to help teams near the bottom, teams in our current position (he said, jinxing it) can afford to crawl over the line.
Perrin says four points from the remaining five will seal safety and who's to say we can't get them this week - we're Liverpool's bogey team and Southampton need to employ David Blunkett with advice on how to hold a lead (ba boom tsch). An ugly boring point away from home, but a point all the same, and importantly we remain unbeaten and the gap to the drop zone is increased to eight points.