For 85 minutes this was a comfortable victory for Saints then all of a sudden it all went pear shaped and pandemonium ensued.

From the moment that Morgan Schneiderlin scored the opener after a well worked move on 5 minutes it seemed only a question of how many Saints would score and the game seemed to be going to plan when just before the hour Rickie Lambert capitalised on some poor defending to double the lead just after coming on as sub, Lambert turned provider for the third and with Norwich looking down and out and their fans chanting at their manager "You dont know what you're doing" a hammering seemed on the cards,

But then on 85 minutes it Saints shot themselves in the foot, they had at times been a bit casual at the back and Jose Fonte blotted his copy book with a misplaced pass that gifted the Canaries their opener, no one thought that it would mean anything, but then a minute later Guly misplaced a pass and the Canaries were chirping and suddenly looking to try and salvage an unlikely point.

With Dejan Lovren then injured and helped off Saints had to batten down the hatches as Norwich through everything at them and without one of their best headers of the ball on the pitch.

But there was to be no happy ending for Norwich, with one of their players slipping as he prepared to bang the ball back into our box and Steven Davis running the ball half the length of the pitch to slide it through for Sam Gallagher to get his first Premier League goal.

So all was well that ended well, but it was a shot across the bows for Saints who played well but throughout the game had had an air of complacency about them.

Big shock was the dropping of Rickie Lambert, I had suggested that this was on the cards in the preview, but it surprised me because of the changes we had to make in midfield, in truth it was just what Rickie needed, indeed perhaps this might be more of his role net season, but he looked a lot better for coming off the bench against tiring legs and the goal certainly brought the bounce back to his game.

For 85 minutes Saints were efficient if not completely firing on all cylinders in front of watching England manager Roy Hodgson, he will be pleased to see that Rickie Lambert is back to scoring ways, Lambert not starting will not effect his England chances if he can keep scoring, Jay Rodriguez did his chances no harm, he showed his versatility and ability to play in different ways, for the first goal he showed that he could operate as a target man, cushioning the ball for Gaston Ramirez to play Schneiderlin in on the keeper, , he showed he could work hard, at one stage chasing back 60 yards to win back the ball for Saints, he showed he could finish from close range for his goal, he showed that he could hit a ball from distance when he rattled the woodwork for a goal that Lambert would have been proud of if it had gone in. Luke Shaw was solid if not spectacular and Adam Lallana whilst not having one of his most creative games again showed why he was picked for England in the first place with his close control and ability to turn defence into attack quickly.

With Newcatle losing at Fulham Saints jumped back up to 8th and now must harbour hopes of holding that position, indeed with Man Utd collapsing at home to Liverpool it could get better still if we can keep winning games.

Photo: Action Images

schatfield added 01:06 - Mar 17 Great game and then those 2 minutes happened and thoughts of tranmere away in the FA cup all those years ago springs to mind......some of u will remember that day. Scary.
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SaintNick added 08:14 - Mar 17 The Tranmere game was mentioned after
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DJI added 08:57 - Mar 17 Complacency was a word mentioned by most pundits and media about this game, and they were right. On 37 minutes, I had to check the score board for the time because the atmosphere had died along with the tempo; it felt like the period of extra time at the end of the first half, but there was still 10 more minutes to play! It was clear to the crowd that Norwich were there for the taking but Saints then kept passing the ball backwards and eventually to Artur, which lost the crowds' interest as we wanted them to keep going forwards, especially as Clyne had been giving their left back a torrid time. By half time, I found myself considering leaving as I was bored! Maybe all this was a consequence of an opposition who weren't really trying? Or maybe we were just significantly better than them? Either way, Saints need to learn to take advantage of that and attack as much as possible. The second half saw us up the tempo but those final minutes were frightening! I thought Rickie looked somewhat back to his old self when he came on but I get why MPo chose to start with Gaston. I've also noticed that with Gaston, we tend to get more free kicks around the oppositions penalty area because of his quick feet, something our (other) strikers don't do so well in. I was disappointed to hear from the seats around me the mumblings when Guly made a poor pass (every time) but none said a thing about Jose's lousy back pass!? It seems our Brazilian friend is once again the scapegoat for some! Anyway, a good read Nick, thanks for your efforts each week.

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Whatsforpud added 09:55 - Mar 17 Thought Schneiderlin was a terrier in the middle, as usual - and good to see him get into an advanced position for his goal. Can't think how Boruc was able to slice or hook as many as four kicks into touch in the first half. Kicking a ball should be the easiest part of his job.
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davepid added 10:32 - Mar 17 What's for pud, don't hole your breath. If it's the same goalkeeping coach that's failed to improve Davis over the last 9 yrs or so we can only expect Borucs kicking to get worse.
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SalisburySaint added 10:44 - Mar 17 When we let the goals in I was think more of Leeds at home rather than Tranmere, especially as Norwich had 3 ex-Leeds players in their team
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legod7 added 11:55 - Mar 17 We should have been at least 3-0 up at half time, but as someone else said we were content to hold on to the ball.When we made the substitutions that would have given us fresh impetus to get even more goals. Norwich were the worst side that I have seen at SMS this season even worse than Fulham.
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TimSaint added 12:06 - Mar 17 A strange performance from our boys today. We did more than enough to win the game, without having to break sweat, were perhaps too casual and over confident at 3-0 up and as everyone else has said - nearly shot ourseives in the foot :o) All part of being a Saints fan - or at least that's what I tell everyone. The thing is though, we don't really get many teams gifting us goals in the same manner - or at least I can't think of any at the moment. (I am excluding Puncheon last week, as his header was actually in his attacking half of the pitch !!) Not sure what Roy would have thought from the stands. Had our flair players showed a bit more positivity and urgency, we could have easily scored another few and put on a show for him. Adam was a little lacklustre, but seems to express himself more when Ricky is on the pitch. Jay was OK, but seemed more comfortable when he moved to a wider postion. Super shot that hit the bar though !! Great cameo from SRL with a goal and assist and well pleased for Sam G notching his hopefully first of many Saints Premiership goals. Luke did well as always. It was quite funny to read Snodgrass going on about not taking him to the world cup as he is too young. The trouble was, Snod himself didn't really give Luke much of a test. OK he scored, but all match,Snod was forced into a more defensive role, due to our possession and play. He did test the strength of Luke's shin pads a few times and perhaps could and should have been sent off a couple of times for fouls when he was already on a yellow. The only thing Luke did wrong was to let Snod out of his pocket, five or ten minutes too early :o) Re the letting in of late goals, everyone can probably think of too many examples of these - as we certainly have previous in this area !! :o) Others to those already mentioned could include Middlesbrough at SMS and also I think a 9 or 10 man Middlesbrough at the Dell ? Dare I also mention the catastrophic 6-2 Spurs FA Cup game ? I guess we can further avenge this defeat at the weekend !! Point of note for this game - Tim Sherwood, not a very nice man, stemming back from his blackburn playing days and also his involvement with the Blue Few, is an ARSENAL fan !! Fact !! Perhaps we can sing this to him on Sunday :o)

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Fordy added 12:21 - Mar 17 I think the main thing to take from this is that MP won't play Lallana, Lambert, JayRod and Gaston at the same time. I think we may see more resting of not just Lambert but maybe Lallana and JayRod in the next few weeks as MP tries to give Gaston some more game time.
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thegeneral added 12:53 - Mar 17 Unfortunately i didn't see much of the game, but it was a good insight into the way to most effectively use Lambert. One thing that i noticed from what i saw of the game was the lack of an 'out' ball for the defence. Both Jack Cork and Wanyama work hard to make themselves available as the link between defence and attack. This flatters our defence (especially Fonte) to some degree as an easy pass is often available, Lovren is a good defender and a good footballer, Fonte is a good defender but not such a good football player and without the reliable midfielder he got found out for the goal. Guly for me has never cut it in this league, should have scored, looks off the pace and i do now groan when he comes onto the pitch, but as i've said before the manager gives them the shirt and really Guly's should be left on the peg in the dressing room along with Hooivelds. Both will go in the summer and will get plenty of football in the championship if they choose to and it is a great league to earn a living in. Finally, ManU 0-3 Liverpool LMFAO!

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bjwg added 19:24 - Mar 17 I thought we were clueless when playing out from the back without Cork or to a lesser extent Big Vic. With Cork I think we would have smashed them to pieces, they were the worst team I've seen us play this season. Disagree about Shaw, thought his first touch was very good on Saturday even if he may have struggled to keep concentration - let's face it they all did. Boruc is a loose cannon when he's bored, wtf he was thinking for the majority of the match I have no idea!

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