Saints 3 Sheffield United 2

By: Mike | May 4th, 2008

Stern John Being Tackled Phew! A rollercoaster game to end a rollercoaster season saw Saints survive by the skin of their teeth. Why an extra 10,000 people suddenly felt the club was worth supporting for one day I don’t know but Saints were glad they did at the atmosphere generated was the best since our relegation and roared Saints on for the entire game.

The game started evenly with both sides showing nerves as passes went astray. Saints were just starting to apply some pressure with Andrew Surman prominent when they got caught by a sucker punch. Hulse won the ball on the right and looped a cross over Jermaine Wright for Quinn to head home. United then had their best spell of the game with Richard Wright making a point-blank save to deny Sharp.

With half time approaching Saints knew they needed a goal to only leave themselves a one goal swing away from Leicester who were drawing at Stoke. The goal arrived after good work from Euell down the left and a deflection saw the ball loop over Kenny in the United goal and Saganowski dived in to score. At half-time Saints were down but playing well enough to raise the level of hope among the fans.

Saints started the second half well and were rewarded when Stern John chested a ball down to Saganowski who chipped the ball over the defence back to John who calmly steered the ball home. At 2-1 with Coventry losing and Leicester drawing Saints were safe and Saganowski should have secured the win when put through but he took too long at was tackled before pulling the trigger.

Sheffield substitute John Stead equalised when Jermaine Wright made a meal of a clearance and allowed Quinn to cross for Stead to steer home. The St. Mary’s crowd instantly tried to rally the team and it worked when John made a chance out of nothing on the edge of the area, turning his man and firing home.

Substitutes Lallana and Licka were doing well when John got him self stupidly sent off for a rash tackle following on from an earlier booking when he removed his shirt celebrating his first goal. With 10 minutes remaining it was a case of desperate defending but Richard Wright inspired confidence with some assured handling from the crosses being slung in and Lallana proved a willing runner to give the defence some breathing space.

Eventually (following some confusion) the whistle went and confirmation that Stoke and Charlton had done their parts ensured that Saints would remain in the championship. Today showed that with 32,000 in the stadium and a positive atmosphere every match we really could be pushing for promotion. However their is an EGM looming which will probably see yet more boardroom turmoil and quite possibly another managerial change to go with more turnover of players.