Saints have released Rudi Skacel and Ryan Smith following the end of the season which has left the club looking at life in League One with a points deduction.

Skacel, who signed in a protracted £1.6m deal from Hearts three years ago, has ultimately failed to live up to the hype surrounding his transfer in 2006, and his release has come about after it was revealed that his contract was renegotiated upon his return from a loan spell with Hertha Berlin which shortened his contract by a year - he had originally signed a 4-year deal.

As one of the club’s highest earners, and following a reported show of dissent when he was substituted at Sheffield Wednesday three weeks ago, this end is hardly a surprise, and I suspect there won’t be many Saints fans who will be particularly sad to see him go. That said, there will be a lot of disappointment that he never really lived up to the top billing he was given when he signed for the club.

Ryan Smith was given a short-term contract after signing on a free transfer from Millwall - while showing occasional flashes of ability, he was never able to replicate it on a regular basis, and probably shows why he had failed to make the grade at other clubs earlier in his career.

Three senior players are also out of contract at the end of June, but it is hoped that they will remain with the club in League One, albeit on much reduced wages. Jason Euell, Bradley Wright-Phillips and player of the year Kelvin Davis will all become free agents soon, but all have made encouraging noises in recent times about their desire to stay, even if it involves taking a big pay cut.

A late collapse denied Saints a farewell victory as Forest came from behind to score three times in the last 17 minutes after Bradley Wright-Phillips had given the visitors a first-half lead.

Full report to follow…

A microcosm of the whole season was played out at St Mary’s this afternoon as spells of utter dominance weren’t capitalised upon allowing the opposition back into the game. Saints could have been 4 up in the first half but had to settle for a 2-2 draw with high-flying Burnley, a result which means we’ll definitely start next season with a 10-point deficit.

Full report to follow…

Saints’ survival hopes were dealt a hammer blow as they went down 3-2 to bottom-of-the-table Charlton Athletic.

Full report to follow…

Saints strikers Bradley Wright-Phillips and David McGoldrick are being investigated by Hampshire police after an incident in London Road in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The incident first came to public light on Saturday when a brief report was posted on a message board (later copied to the SaintsWeb forum), which read:

Young saints lad walking home on his own after a nightout bumps in to Mcgoldrick and Wright phillips . Starts chatting to them about saints says when you boys gonna do the buisness and get us away from the bottom.Then they turn on him telling him how much they earn and what have you ever done.then they start to throw there food at him and start to punch and kick him.The lads got a few bumps and bruises but hes alright.This happened up by the giddy bridge pub,hopefully its all on cctv.DIRTY NO GOOD ****S

The Echo have since reported that the police have received a complaint from the alleged victim and that they are investigating the incident. The 21-year-old man is expected to make a statement to police tomorrow, although it’s expected that any chance of developments in the case will hinge upon the quality of CCTV footage in the area.

Wright-Phillips is no stranger to the Hampshire Constabulary, having been charged with burglary from a Portsmouth bar last year, although the charges against him were eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence. Nathan Dyer - also charged in the same incident - pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service.

His “previous” will doubtlessly count against him in the eyes of the fans, and many members of the SaintsWeb Forum appear to have already made up their mind on this. However, it should be made clear that no arrests have been made and no charges brought at this stage. It’s also entirely possible that the alleged victim in this incident had a much larger part to play than has been suggested, and that will be up to the police to determine.

If, and it’s a big “if” at this stage, he is charged and convicted, I think that probably signals the end of his career here. He’s taken plenty of stick from fans in the past due to his perceived laziness, and he was booed by a large section of the St Mary’s crowd on his first appearance after the Bar Bluu incident made the front pages of the national press. If he has assaulted a supporter, whether it was provoked or not, that clearly won’t go down well with the crowd. I’d also expect the club to take a tough stance on it. He and Dyer were both suspended internally after their arrest last year, so I would expect at least the same treatment this time around, but as a repeat incident, it’s not inconceivable that the club may just decide they have grounds to cancel Wright-Phillips’ contract.

McGoldrick hasn’t been involved in anything like this before, and I hope it’s the last time we see him linked with this sort of behaviour. I certainly don’t begrudge players a night out, particularly on a weekend when their game has already been postponed, but as role models to young people in the city, they have an added duty to protect their status as a role model. Failure to do so should be looked on very dimly by the powers that be within Southampton Football Club.

A late Marcus Tudgay goal gave Sheffield Wednesday a share of the spoils at St Mary’s after Bradley Wright-Phillips’ first-half strike looked like it was going to be enough to give Saints only their second home league win of the season.

Jan Poortvliet made his first change to the starting lineup in 4 games with Morgan Schneiderlin still recovering from a knock he picked up against Charlton last week. Alex Pearce replaced him, with Jack Cork moving into midfield.

Sheffield Wednesday started with an attacking-looking lineup with Francis Jeffers, Leon Clarke and Marcus Tudgay all named in the 11. Of the three, it was Tudgay who would occupy the slightly deeper role for most of the game.

Saints were fastest out of the blocks with Adam Lallana and Wright-Phillips central to most of the good moves, and it was Lallana who set up Andrew Surman on the edge of the area but his shot flashed wide of goal. Surman was the provider on 14 minutes when Saints took the lead. His 50-yard unchallenged run on the counter-attack ended when he laid the ball off for Wright-Phillips who cut inside Frankie Simek and curled the ball into the far corner.

It was all one-way traffic with Wright-Phillips bringing a decent save out of Lee Grant as he looked to double his own tally for the day and David McGoldrick powered a header over from a Rudi Skacel free-kick when he really should have at least hit the target. For all the domination in the first half, the one-goal lead held at half-time was the bare minimum deserved and arguably the game should have already been put to bed as the visitors had shown very little either going forward or at the back to suggest that they could get anything out of the game.

The second half began in much the same fashion with Robertson firing the ball into the six-yard box from out wide and David McGoldrick couldn’t quite get to it ahead of Grant. Jordan Robertson was replaced by Matt Paterson just after the hour mark and he was involved straight away when his header from Lloyd James’ cross caused havoc in the Wednesday defence but they eventually scrambled it clear.

He was also in the thick of the action soon after as he interchanged quick passes with McGoldrick and shuffled past Simek. He could have gone down and looked for a penalty but instead tried his luck from a narrow angle but could only find the side netting.

Saints started to look tired and seemed to run out of ideas as to how they were going to make the game safe, and reverted to a more defensive approach, hoping to hold onto what they had. Unfortunately, this invited the visitors to send more bodies forward and with time running out, an equaliser that had looked unlikely for most of the game eventually came. Just three minutes from the end of normal time, in fact. Leon Clarke was allowed to hold the ball up on the edge of the area without much challenge and he then rolled the ball to the side for Marcus Tudgay to side-foot the ball into the far corner.

It could even have ended in disaster as Kelvin Davis was forced to make a smart stop from Bartosz Slusarski in injury time, which would have been one of the worst cases of daylight robbery since the Securitas depot in Kent was raided in 2006!

Saints will certainly see this as two points dropped having led for so long and having dominated the game for long periods, but on the plus-side, with the exception of the last five minutes we are now starting to look reasonably solid at the back and going forward we seemed to look much brighter in terms of creativity than in recent home games.

Next up at home is Nottingham Forest. While they’re in the bottom three, they’re also unbeaten in 5 away games, so it’ll be a real test of character to see if we can get that much-needed second home win of the season. In the meantime, we have two tough away games, the first of which comes on Monday night at Crystal Palace.

A Bradley Wright-Phillips brace gave Saints a memorable and thoroughly deserved victory at high-flying Reading.

Jan Poortvliet was forced into a number of changes from the side narrowly beaten by league leaders Wolves last week. Alex Pearce was unable to face his parent club and Olly Lancashire didn’t recover from the injury sustained last week, so Chris Perry and Lloyd James both earned recalls at the back with Jack Cork moving from right back into the centre of defence. Wright-Phillips’ decent second-half performance as a sub against Wolves also earned him a starting place in place of Oscar Gobern, while Jordan Robertson replaced the suspended Jason Euell. Robertson was the lone front-man with David McGoldrick playing in the hole just behind him. Romain Gasmi was named among the substitutes for his first taste of first-team action, and the team were backed by more than 3500 Saints fans behind the goal.

Reading had looked unbeatable at home in the Championship, having gone 30 league games at this level since their last home defeat, and they started the brighter. Irish brothers Noel and Stephen Hunt combined well and the latter looked odds-on to score but his goalbound effort was cleared off the line by Cork.

At this stage it looked as though we could be in for a long afternoon, but to the players’ credit, that was the last we saw of the Royals as an attacking threat in the first half. Saints felt they should have had a penalty soon afterwards, Robertson made a break towards goal and Reading’s American goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann came racing out. Robertson got a toe-end on the ball to knock it past Hahnemann who clattered into him, but the referee waved away the appeals.

Morgan Schneiderlin came close shortly after as his shot was deflected over by Ivar Ingimarsson, and Rudi Skacel blazed over from the resulting corner. Saints weren’t to be denied for much longer, though, as they took the lead on 14 minutes. Reading only half-cleared the ball as far as Lloyd James on the right wing and his curling far post cross was met by a prestigious leap by Wright-Phillips who headed the ball across Hahnemann into the far corner.

Hahnemann was in the thick of the action again soon after as he denied McGoldrick, Wright-Phillips and Adam Lallana in quick succession, and the Royals were indebted to their keeper and captain for keeping them in touching distance in the first half.

Given Reading’s home record in recent years, you would have thought they couldn’t play as badly again in the second half, so Saints would have been braced for a bit of an onslaught. However, it soon transpired that if it was going to come, it would be from a two-goal deficit rather than a single goal disadvantage. Andrew Surman intercepted from James Harper and burst forward, feeding the ball left to Wright-Phillips, who cut inside Liam Rosenior and unleashed a fierce drive from 20 yards into the bottom corner.

Reading boss Steve Coppell responded by replacing Kalilou Cisse with Marek Matejowski, and they got a route back into the game shortly afterwards. Kevin Doyle worked a bit of space on the left for a shot which was parried by Kelvin Davis, but only into the path of Mali international Jimmy Kebe who slotted the ball in through the legs of the covering Rudi Skacel.

The hosts were starting to get a bit of momentum and they had the ball in the net for a second time but James Harper’s header was ruled out for offside. While the Royals were pressing for an equaliser, there was always the chance of a Saints counter-attack, and Cork released McGoldrick in the right-hand channel and his shot was well saved again by Hahnemann. Reading’s top scorer Kevin Doyle, who had been kept pretty quiet all afternoon, then had a glorious chance to equalise when he had a free header 8 yards out but he could only put the ball over the bar to great relief behind the goal.

4 minutes of injury time were found from nowhere and in the final minute of it, Reading were awarded a soft free-kick on the left flank (which the referee allowed them to take about 10 yards further forward than where the “foul” actually occurred), and Davis appeared to have trouble dealing with it, opting to punch, but the referee then came to his rescue with the award of a free-kick. The next kick was to be the final one as the whistle blew to end Reading’s long unbeaten home run in the Championship and to give Saints a fourth away win in the league (the same amount we won away from home in the whole of last season) and most importantly a vital three points.

Saints face a tough trip to the Madejski to play free-scoring Reading tomorrow afternoon. The Royals have only dropped two points at home so far this season (a goalless draw against QPR recently) and are averaging 3 goals per game. Not a statistic you really want to be seeing, but one that we’re going to have to overcome if we’re to get anything out of the game.

Saints have only played one competitive game at the Madejski Stadium since it opened in 1998, which was a 2-0 defeat that came as part of Reading’s incredible 33-match unbeaten run to earn them promotion to the top flight for the first time in their history in 2006. We’ve also played a number of pre-season friendlies there, and Saints maintain an unbeaten record in those, but it’s competitive games that count, and we’ve lost on the last three trips to Berkshire - that match in 2006 and two cup upsets in the mid-90s. Overall, our record at Reading isn’t too shabby at all. From 19 league and cup games, we’ve won 6, drawn 5 and lost 8, although with the exception of the 2006 meeting, the two teams haven’t met in the league since 1960.

Reading boast the Championship’s leading scorer in Kevin Doyle. The Irishman has scored 14 goals, 11 of which have come on home soil. The Royals recently paid his former club Cork City an undisclosed sum in settlement of a sell-on clause in his contract in order to save themselves a bit of money in the long-term on the assumption that he will command a hefty transfer fee should they choose or be forced to sell him. Fellow Irishmen Stephen and Noel Hunt have been their other key contributors, weighing in with 5 and 6 goals respectively.

Reading manager Steve Coppell is expected to name an unchanged line-up from the 2-0 win at Sheffield United last week. Centre-back Andre Bikey is expected to have recovered from a knock which prevented him from playing for Cameroon this week.

Alex Pearce, who has already scored two goals for the Saints from centre-back, is ineligible to play against his parent club. Chris Perry will probably replace him. Olly Lancashire is also a doubt after being forced off against Wolves last week, with Paul Wotton his likely replacement if he’s ruled out. Michael Svensson is probably out of contention after being struck down with illness, as has Oscar Gobern.

Jason Euell is also definitely out as he begins a three-match ban after his appeal against the red card given to him last week was rejected. Jordan Robertson and Romain Gasmi are in contention to feature, and Bradley Wright-Phillips will probably get a chance after impressing as a substitute last week.

Saints will be backed by more than 3000 fans after Reading agreed to give us an extra allocation of tickets. The last chance for Saints fans to buy tickets at the normal rate of £23 for adults is at 3pm this afternoon. Any unsold tickets will be available from the Reading ticket office, but with a £4 increase on that price.