West Bromwich Albion will be counting there blessings this morning after a catalogue of poor decisions by the referee went in there favour. Of course most importantly there goal, former saint Kevin Phillips was clearly offside when he tapped the ball in the net from close range.
If the referee had any grounds for giving Phillips the benefit of the doubt there was not such excuse in the red card incidents which should have seen West Bromwich Albion reduced to 9 men. Firstly Baggies player Curtis Davies, In only the 6th minute of the game he cut down Saints forward Kenwyne Jones as he was bearing down on goal, Jones was clearly through for a goal scoring opportunity and Davies was clearly last man. But for some unknown reason the ref only saw fit to show Davies a yellow card and WBA were let of the hook big time. The fact is that in the rules of the game as they currently are it had to be a red card of Davies.
And then in the second half former Pompey man Dean Kiely should have seen the second red card but again the referee and his assistants bottled it and again the Baggies got lucky. Jones again got one on one with the goalkeeper this time Kiely came racing outside his area to make a block, as he dived away to his left he blatantly struck the ball with his left hand. The fact that ref didn`t make the red card decisions means the referee must be blind or just bottled it at the vital moments.
Poor refereeing decisions aside this was a good game of football between to good sides. Both teams had spells were they were in control but overall it has to be said that Southampton were probably just the better side.
This was always going to be a tough game for Saints facing off against a side which had won its last 8 games at home, but Southampton had to bounce back following last weeks 1-0 home defeat at the hands of Derby and there performance certainly did that.
The game started pretty even to be fair but it was saints that took the lead on 18 minutes when Jhon Viafara found space and slotted a great ball through to Gregorz Rasiak. Rasiak managed to tempt 3 West Brom defenders away from his strike partner Jones before getting to the by-line and crossing into the 6 yard box for Kenwyne to tap the ball in clinically from close range.
After Saints got there goal they controlled the game for much of what was left of the second half. Kenwyne Jones was a major threat upfront and Saints were attacking strong on the wings. Claus Lundekvam and Chris Baird were top notch in defence and wouldn`t allow the baggies attacking players the tiniest bit of space. And of course Gareth Bale was again on top form, big and strong in defence and quick and skilful in attack.
But despite all of the away side`s good work it was WBA who got the next goal to draw level seconds before half time. Kevin Phillips, who was in an offside position at the time made no mistake in putting the ball in the back of the net and continuing to some what unsporting over celebrate in front of the Southampton fans.
West Bromwich Albion came out to the second half obviously boosted by there lucky goal and went on to assert a spell of pressure on Southampton`s goal, on 47 minutes they nearly scored again when a ball across the box by Kevin Phillips just needed a touch by a West Brom toe to go in, but it rolled across the full length of the 6 yard area before being thumped clear by Kenwyne Jones.
But it didn`t take long for Southampton to re-assert themselves and they completely dominated the last 30 minutes or so of the game. Dean Kiely was forced into a fantastic double save when Rudi Skacel fired a screamer from the edge of the box only for the former Pompey man to parry the ball away, the rebound fell to Drew Surman but somehow Kiely got up in time to make a second save and put it out for a corner.
As the game drew to a close it was Saints who should have bagged all three points with Jones and substitute Sagonowski going close but it wasn`t to be and both sides shared the spoils.
Line Ups
West Bromwich Albion Starting
? 31 Dean Kiely
? 20 Paul McShane
? 5 Neil Clement
? 6 Curtis Davies
? 3 Paul Robinson
? 16 Robert Koren
? 12 Richard Chaplow
? 19 Jason Koumas
? 11 Zoltan Gera
? 21 Kevin Phillips
? 15 Diomansy Kamara
Subs
? 1 Pascal Zuberbuhler
? 14 Martin Albrechtsen
? 17 Darren Carter
? 9 Nathan Ellington
? 32 Sherjill MacDonald
Southampton Starting
? 1 Kelvin Davis
? 19 Chris Makin
? 5 Claus Lundekvam
? 21 Chris Baird
? 22 Gareth Bale
? 29 Andrew Surman
? 23 John Viafara
? 10 Jermaine Wright
? 7 Rudolf Skacel
? 15 Kenwyne Jones
? 9 Grzegorz Rasiak
Subs
? 28 Bartosz Bialkowski
? 2 Alexander Ostlund
? 12 Mario Licka
? 4 Marek Saganowski
? 8 Bradley Wright-Phillips
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