This unlucky defeat leaves Saints deep in the relegation mire, but they can blame some bad luck and a mind-blowingly inept display of refereeing for this afternoon's reverse. If Wolverhampton Wanderers really are the best team in this division and if
Line-ups
Kelvin Davis retained the skipper's armband, behind a back four of Skacel, Lancashire, Pearce and
Tommy Forecast, Chris Perry, Paul Wotton, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Jordan Robertson warmed the bench.
First-half: Early promise, collapse and recovery
Saints opened well in the first few minutes, taking the game to their opponents. Euell may lack the flair and imagination of Lallana as the hole player, but is more natural and comfortable as a support striker.
After a promising few skirmishes into Wolves' territory, Saints observed the time-honoured tradition of imploding in defence through lack of concentration. The visitors' first meaningful period of attacking play lead to a corner on seven minutes. Yet another half-hearted clearance was clipped back into the box for Iwelumo to convert with a simple header. Uncertain whether to mark up or push out, Saints managed to do neither and paid the price.
Confidence drained from the home side and Wolves could and should have killed off the game within minutes. Surman misplaced a pass across his own backline. Then Kightly missed an absolute sitter from eight yards. Confusion continued to reign in Saints' penalty area as Lancashire panicked and knocked out an easy ball for a corner rather than letting it fall into the arms of the nearby
Wolves - while lacking any real flair or guile - were increasingly able to cut through the Saints defence at will, and the home side were forced to rue McGoldrick missing a relatively straight forward one-on-one after quarter of an hour after some neat build-up play. Two minutes later, it was 2-0 as Jones was able to finish an incisive, but all too easy, Wolves move by drilling the ball beyond the keeper into the bottom corner.
With heads dropping, Euell was visibly and vocally encouraging his younger colleagues to refuse to bow to the inevitable at such an early stage of the game. But Saints were falling to make progress down either flank. Gobern seemed to be persistently too far ahead of Skacel and Lallana was largely uninvolved in the game and is not a natural winger. But just as the boo boys in the Northam End were starting to chant for Rupert Lowe's head,
An open and exciting game of attacking football began to ensue, with chances at both ends, but Saints again unable to really test the visiting goalkeeper. The balance of play was even, but
The turning point came two minutes before half-time when a strong challenge from Jason Euell for a 50-50 deep inside Wolves' territory brought about - insanely - a straight red card. In days of yore, it is doubtful whether even a free kick would have been given.
It was the first clear sign - with many to follow - that Lee Mason of
For a further hour, Rupert Lowe was downgraded to Public Enemy No.2.
Second-half: Blood, guts and thunder to no avail
Bradley Wright-Phillips replaced the hapless Oscar Gobern at the start of the second half. He may yet turn out to be another superb academy product, but a glance at the talent on the Saints' bench does call in to question whether Poortvielt's youth policy is being taken a bit too far.
Gobern is a very, very long way from being the finished article and a decent fifteen minutes away at Preston a fortnight ago should not be sufficient to nail down a starting XI berth. One can only assume that young Oscar's performances in training at Staplewood exude a quality and promise that he has yet to replicate on the turf of St. Mary's.
Saints kicked off the second period in a sort of 4-2-2-1 formation, with Adam Lallana tasked to tuck more in to the centre. This had the pleasing effect of opening up the right flank to more marauding runs from the impressive Jack Cork. BW-P, playing out of position on the left-wing, seems to be developing a first touch and drive that should really be used from the starting whistle.
Bradley nearly proved to be
As the half wore on, Wolves looked neither like the league leaders nor like a team with a man advantage. They managed a couple of semi-dangerous counter-attacks, but
The workrate of the Saints side was staggering - with particular credit going to Lallana, Schneiderlin and
But the problem of carving out enough gift-wrapped opportunities remained. The frustrated Skacel started trying to score directly from free kicks from 35 yards out. Hardly playing the odds, but surely an understandable reaction from the Czech international. The stats will show he managed as many shots on goal as any other Saints player. When you can say that about your left-back, you know you have a problem.
For the neutral, the real entertainment must have been observing Lee Mason's comedy refereeing. By the hour mark, he had practically given up all pretence of being in control of the match and started to look like a random bloke who had won the right to officiate in a raffle. And was starting to regret it.
Both Rudi Skacel and Drew Surman were booked for dissent - which in both cases seemed to amount to little more than querying a decision with a shrug of the shoulders.
McGoldrick had a half chance after 73 minutes and Surman blasted over five minutes later. Throwing on Robertson for Schneiderlin with ten minutes to go was probably the right tactical move, but bore no fruit.
Conclusion: Recalibrate the attack
Despite our parlous league position, it still isn't time to panic. The limit of our ambition this season must be to avoid relegation, but we should have enough skill in the team to do so.
However, a change of tack is needed.
The club's commitment to youth is admirable, but must not become doctrinaire. In the sort of situation we are now in, Chris Perry surely has to be preferred to Ollie Lancashire at centre-back.
There also needs to be a question over whether to retain Kelvin Davis as captain. He has had a good season between the sticks, but if we need more leadership on the pitch, it is unclear why you should give the armband to the goalkeeper.
More pressingly, we need to re-design our attacking diamond. David McGoldrick is a good journeyman striker, but he is not capable of scoring 20+ goals a year at Championship level. In the system we play, the lone centre forward needs to be notching up those sort of figures.
We need some older and wiser heads in the front four. There is a strong case for Euell, Skacel and Wright-Phillips to comprise three of these four slots. And when you consider BW-P is now a mature player within our terms, you realise how exposed we are in terms of experience.
So, yet again Saints lost all the points to a supposedly superior team despite playing the technically better football. And the real frustration is not that
Man of the match: Morgan Schneiderlin