Saints are coming off a draw on the road vs. Derby for their first home match at St. Mary's. Hopefully 3 points will be had by us at the end of the match. With that said, here is the Saints starting line-up: Davis Ostlund-Baird-Pele-Bale Balmadi-Wright-Viafara-Skacel BWP-Rasiak Subs: Jones, Dyer, Surman, Cranie, Poke (GK)
15th minute and it is stil 0-0. Coventry just hit the post and ended up with their fourth corner of the match. Adebola is certainly causing us problems so far.
30 minutes have passed and it is still 0-0. Saints are looking rather disorganized and not playing well. Coventry has definitely had the run of play so far in this match.
Finally about 33 minutes in and the Saints have their first corner after just missing on a cracking shot. Viafara with a real sizzler of a shot that beat the keeper but just went wide on the resulting corner.
Birchall is also all over the place for Coventry. Hopefully he and Adebola will run out of steam later on in the next half.
Viafara with another terrific shot from a corner kick. This time his header just misses the net. 0-0 at about the 40' minute
Since our first corner the Saints have really put the Sky Blues under a lot of pressure. Four shots have just missed the net in that time, but it is still 0-0.
Viafara brought down by Stern John in the box, but no call given. Saints with another corner and Coventry's manager Micky Adams is interfering with the distribution of the balls from the sidelines. Burley is giving him a real earfull.
Saints 0 Coventry 0 HT Saints start this match terribly again, but the final 10-12 minutes have been much better with the Saints really putting pressure on the Sky Blues. Hopefully there will be three points for us at the end of the match.
Three side notes to tonight's match. 1. Blackstock has transferred to QPR for an undisclosed fee. According to Sky it is around GBP500,000. 2. Walcott is in the director's box tonight. Probably just catching the match, but you never know. It's not like he is getting any game since he left us. 3. Klaus is out for about two months due to ligment damage in his ankle.
Well the Saints have started the first 5-10 minutes of this match very well. They have just hit the post and Coventy cleared the line. Still 0-0, however.
McSheffrey takes down Wright, but escapes without a card. GGGGGOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!! Bale scores off another freekick in the 61' minute!!! Saints 1 Coventry 0
Rasiak gets pulled down in the box by his shirt. PK for Saints. Hutchinson gets a yellow for Coventry for arguing with the ref. GGGGGOOOOOAAAALLLLLL!!!!! Raskiak coverts the PK on the 85' minute. Saints 2 Coventry 0 Sky Blues are arguing that it was an acidental collision, but I guess it makes up for the Saints being pulled down in the box and not getting the call in the 1st half.
Surman comes on for Skacel on the 87' minute. Jones on for BWP on the 82' minute. Coventry announcers are still peeved about that PK.
Davis with a tremendous one-on-one save on Stern John after a terrible back pass from Saints. 3 minutes of extra time.
Full time. Saints 2 Coventry 0 Saints started off poorly, but from the 31st minute onwards they really dominated the match. Great goal from Bale and a coolly taken PK from Resiak give the Saints all three points. Great support tonight from just over 21,000 fans at St. Mary's. Hopefully Saturday's match will give us the same result against WBA. Now up to 5th.
It's way too early in the season to be talking about the standings. Bale's suprised me the most during the first 2 games. I knew he had talent but I thought he'd look more out of place than he has since he's still a kid.