Saints hit by Blues

After their best start to a season for 11 years, the pre-match talk among travelling fans was, incredibly, of the mathematical possibility that their side could go top if results went the right way.

Such a notion seemed faintly foolish at the end of another Merseyside mauling, most of which was self-inflicted.

On their last trip to the city in January Saints were hammered 7-1 by Liverpool, the same scoreline by which they were humiliated here three seasons ago.

And there were very real fears of another repeat as Dave Jones's men suf-fered a collapse of England batting pro-portions.

Last season it took Everton until February 17 to score four goals at Goodison Park. That was 13 league games; against Saints they managed it in just 18 minutes!

The rot began when Francis Benali needlessly conceded a corner with a lax back pass which Paul Jones's lunge could not keep in nine minutes before the break.

There was an air of trepidation as Nick Barmby went to take the kick. How many times have goals been scored from such silly situations

The ball in skimmed off the head of Richard Gough and was too easily retrieved at the far post by David Weir.

Kevin Davies got wrong side and the defender was able to cross into the danger zone where Gough came with a run to climb above Dean Richards and head his first goal for the club.

It was sloppy - but not irretrievable. Far more disappointing was the way Saints came out after the break.

They had the chance to regroup and establish a game plan to pressure the home side nearer their own penalty area. Instead they shot themselves in one foot, then the other and finally the head. Admittedly Kevin Campbell looked off-side as Mark Pembridge put him through but it made little odds as Claus Lundekvam did the job for him by lobbing an attempted clearance over Jones.

Cool heads were needed but not found. Within a minute Campbell had split the defence through the inside right channel for Francis Jeffers to whip in a fierce shot from a tight angle.

And the same ball caught Saints again on 54 minutes as Don Hutchison put Barmby in. Jones got enough on it to divert the shot onto the bar but Campbell reacted quickest and calmest to thread a shot through a crowd of bodies.

At that stage it really did look as though it might be seven with the defence now in total disarray. But Dave Jones hauled off Hassan Kachloul to try and shore up the problematic left flank where the Toffees were enjoying such sweet success.

With little threat from Saints down either wing there was scarce service for the front men and so the home full-backs were able to push on to keep up the pressure.

Trond Soltvedt and in particular Mark Hughes kept battling in the centre but they could not stem the tide. Everton came forward in blue waves and the Southampton defence parted like the Red Sea!

If Saints had resembled the England cricket team in the way they folded, then Everton declared at that stage, safe in the knowledge they had set an unreachable target.

They withdrew key midfielder Don Hutchison to protect him from the threat of a second card and, although they continued to make most of the running, there was no longer the same urgency.

Saints took advantage to pull one back on 72 minutes when Davies showed why Dave Jones wanted him back, using his strength to barge past David Unsworth.

His low cross was knocked in at the near post by Marian Pahars who just got there before Paul Gerrard. The little Latvian knew he would get hurt scoring but still went in for it - even though ultimately it was not going to affect the out-come.

The rest of the game petered out fairly tamely and routinely with the Saints fans strangely outsinging the home crowd with mock taunts of: "We're going to win 5-4" and "We can see you sneaking out!"

Having optimistically dreamed of going top of the Premiership for the first time, the away supporters were now more concerned with the fact that Everton had closed to within two points.

And, despite the one-sided scoreline, underneath it all was this aggravating feeling that if they had stayed controlled and disciplined then Southampton really should not have lost to a rather ordinary Everton side who were made to look good.

Carling Opta statistics showed that the Blues had managed just two shots inside the area in open play during their three previous games.

By the end of this one they had scored four in such circumstances and had a Barmby header nodded off the line by Richards.

The writing was on the wall from the second minute when Mark Pembridge nodded just wide and then Barmby put a free header over.

Infuriatingly Southampton looked to have weathered the early storm and began to threaten themselves with four half chances, any one of which might have brought them a vital goal.

Davies had a backheel and a header saved, Kachloul just failed to get on the end of a Stuart Ripley ball and Dean Richards was prevented from unleashing a clean shot by the intervention of Unsworth.

But, as so often in the past, they dozed off at the back just as they were getting on top. Even then, Soltvedt almost levelled in first-half injury-time but Weir cleared off the line.

Having come back from a goal down last week, Saints knew the game was still retrievable but, instead of blitzing the opposition early in the second half, they learned the hard way what it is like to be on the receiving end.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.