Saints ease past the Chairboys

Wycombe Wanderers lost 1-0 to Southampton this evening at a cold, wet and windy St Mary's Stadium.


Manager Gary Waddock made two changes to the side that started against Brentford and the Chairboys lined up as follows:

Shearer

Hunt Duberry Oliver Woodman

Betsy Mousinho (64) Doherty Westlake (58)

Beavon (56)

Harrold

Subs: Young Green Phillips(58) Spence Davies(64) Pittman Akinde(56)



It was a disappointing performance from the Chairboys who never looked like making it three wins in a row, created virtually nothing going forward, and can consider themselves fortunate that the Saints didn't punish them even further.

The home side showed quality and pace going forward, carved Wycombe apart on numerous occasions and only failed to score more goals through some wayward shooting, a tendency to fall into the offside trap, and a few decent saves by Blues' keeper Scott Shearer.

All the Blues had to offer in the first half was a volley from Ian Westlake which went well wide, and blocked shots from Matt Harrold and Stuart Beavon.

The Saints on the other hand had a goal disallowed for offside, a header against the post, a header cleared off the line, several wild shots off-target and an unbelievable miss from Papa Waigo N'diaye, who somehow fired his shot over the crossbar from a few yards out with the goal at his mercy.

The Saints had been torturing Wycombe on the flanks and it felt like just a matter of time before they made it count, so it was no great surprise when a clever through-ball freed Papa Waigo N'Diaye on the right and his pinpoint cross was fired into the net by Ricky Lambert with the Wycombe defence chasing shadows.

It was more of the same in the second half, with Southampton's crisp passing and superior movement off the ball enabling them to open Wycombe up with alarming regularity.

Wycombe's best chance of the match came shortly after half time when John Mousinho fluffed a glorious opportunity to head Craig Woodman's corner kick past Saints' keeper Bartosz Bialkowski.

The introductions of Scott Davies, John Akinde and Matt Phillips for Stuart Beavon, Ian Westlake and John Mousinho, certainly improved Wycombe's attacking performance and gave the decent sized travelling support a glimmer of hope, but it still wasn't enough to get past a Saints' defence which rarely manages to keep a clean sheet.

The only three shots Wycombe had in the second-half all came from substitute Scott Davies. One long-range effort wasn't too far away, one forced the keeper to turn the ball round the post and one missed by a mile.

It wasn't just the result that was disappointing, it was the fact that a lot of the fighting spirit shown against Millwall and Brentford was missing tonight.

Without their on-loan players Wycombe don't look good and they couldn't afford to have two of them on the bench and one missing altogether tonight.

The defence looked ponderous against the athletic Saints, the midfield were slow and too easily brushed off the ball, while up-front the cutting edge was non-existent


Man of the Match

Scott Shearer

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