NewYorkSaint

Watching on NBC in the US, with 15 mins to go, the commentator was saying "Surely only one team can win this. It has to be Southampton. They have been utterly dominant... passing fluently... looking very dangerous." On any other day he'd have been right. PS... don't forget the clear penalty on Oswaldo. On the replays, it was crystal clear he was taken out with a clumsy tackle. Football!!!!@#$!

If you replayed that game 10 times, we would win the other 9. There were long spells where we were playing brilliantly. But the defensive frailty w/o Boruc (and with a game-starved Yoshida) is certainly alarming. Hard to account for wonder goals, though. City on Saturday will be huge.

Listen, people. We are by far... by FAR... the better team. Anyone can see that. We could easily be a goal or two up. And chances are we come back and win this one. But there's a huge luck/random/break-of-the-ball factor in every game. If we were 2-1 up on almost exact same performance, we'd be purring. So get behind the team, and look forward to an exciting second half! I thought Lallana, Lambert (except for a couple of miskicks), Clyne, Shaw, Lovren, Wanyama, all put in a fine shift. Some of Lallana's tricks breathtaking. If there's any justice, this one goes 3-1.

Dream scenario tonight: Man U/Everton... draw Liverpool/Norwich... draw or Norwich sneak a win Swansea/Newcastle... home win or draw Saints win by 3 or 4 goals. In that scenario we can edge out 4th place by end of eve. Unfortunately you could get good odds against that combo of results. I'd settle for any win and a move to 6th. I'm excited to see what this team can do. Yoshida's great. Glad to see him get another chance. Wd love love love to see Lallana/Lambert/JRod dazzle some creative goals....

I think Lallana might be feeling that groin injury... Expect he'll be withdrawn at around 60 mins. JRod looking really sharp. Would love, love, love to see an Osvaldo goal.

Amazing that a win takes us second. Didn't see that coming at start of w/e....

Was worried by reports of Lallana's groin injury. But here he is in tracksuit being interviewed ahead of the game...

Seeing Spurs 0-5 down at Man City adds a little context. Yowser.

Whatever else happens this season, it's worth savouring this moment. One third of the way through the season, we are playing to go top of the league. Just awesome.

Wow. Liverpool won't win now. We could go top. Please, Jos and Jose. Time for the game of your lives! I think Osvaldo scores in 80th min for historic win!

Agh... no Lovren. But v happy Lallana is playing.

Scary moment, that. Glad Adam seems OK.

Lallana had a fine half in my opinion. Jay Rod, a few nice touches, no bad mistakes, but not seeing much of the ball.

Oooops, Adam!

Nice touches by both of them. Adam doing his usual steal the ball thing... ...and now a goal to make up.

How to score against the second best defense in Europe? pray for FREAK WEATHER. There are no easy games in Premier League. Chelsea lose to Newcastle. The only game to beat us this year get hammered 7-0. Many people said Stoke were even better against Man U than we were. So after going down the freak goal to them, a point is OK. BUT what was crystal clear was that Saints much the better team. Even in those conditions, some of the quick passing play was sublime. Wanyama is incredible. It's not just the 50-50 balls that he wins, it's the 30-70 against balls. And JWP is becoming a fantastic game-changer. I don't recall a cross from him that wasn't dangerous. Really exciting to have these two coming good.

Wanyama, Lallana, JWP, Rickie my players of the half. Wanyama incredible again.

Football is such a crazy game. You put the team with second best defense in Europe against a team that can't score goals. What odds wd you get on a goal in 15 seconds by the latter? You have to just shrug and laugh. Really impressed with how Saints held their cool and fought back. That showed class. We'll win this.

Football is such a crazy game. You put the team with second best defense in Europe against a team that can't score goals. What odds wd you get on a goal in 15 seconds by the latter? You have to just shrug and laugh. Really impressed with how Saints held their cool and fought back. That showed class. We'll win this.

I rewatched last week's game, and was stunned all over again by Lallana's play. When you think of our pressing game, he is the number 1 instigator. Stole possession more times than I could count. And when he as the ball his swerves, shimmies and flicks are just unbelievable. Last season, the injury to Adam, right before the Sunderland game, led to a spell of disappointing form for us. If he can stay healthy, given how well the rest of the team are playing (as a team!), I think our magic run will only get better. Some day soon, there will be a bucketful of saints goals. C'mon Saints! I'm really up for this one....

Absolutely awesome. MoM for me was Lallana. But so many awesome performances. Wanyama, JRod, Rickie, Clyne... Oh my, oh my. This was epic. I was watching on NBC in New York and the commentators were so gushing over Saints it was almost embarrassing. A real belief that they might be seeing the rise of a significant new force in the premier league. After this game, we're going to see a lot... and I mean a LOT of attention.

What a half. Lallana has been truly unbelievable. And Wanyama! What a game. I didn't see a single loose pass. So exciting to see....

C'mon Saints! 3-0, pls...!

Another way of putting that: Exclude the Palace game which has no year on year comparison, and take the other 7 games we've played. Last year we got just 3 points from them, this year TWELVE. ...4 times as many. Continue that improvement rate over the season and we end up on, um, 164 points. Point being... you can't just put our current position down to an easy start. We've totally and utterly outperformed compared to last year.

Comparing this season's results with the equivalent results last year, looks like we're currently 9 points better off (and that ignores the Palace win, since we didn't play them last year.) We've done as well, or better, in every game except Norwich (0-1 loss vs 0-0). Even that disappointing draw with Sunderland to give them 100% of their season's points was better than last year's awful home loss. Last year we drew with Fulham home and away. Another fantastic opportunity to ratchet up the year-on-year comparison.