John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel verdict: A tactical triumph for our manager Paul Heckingbottom over Will Still
The visit to Southampton – the departure point of the ill-fated maiden voyage of ocean liner Titanic in 1912 – was far from a disaster for the vociferous travelling hordes of North End fans who enjoyed roaring their team on to a fine 2-0 victory.
“Oh When The Saints Go Marching In” is a popular football anthem adaptation of the old church hymn often used by Southampton fans. But after this game it was the delighted fans of ‘The Whites’ who were marching in “that number” as they left the St Mary's Stadium to make the long journey back up to Lancashire.
The hard-earned win made it a hat-trick of victories for North End against the three sides who were relegated last season from the Premiership. These notable wins have been a good yardstick for our fans to judge this season’s rejuvenation of our fortunes, which have also made some television pundits sit up and take notice of our improved form.
The win puts us back in a play-off spot in what this season seems to be an exceptionally tight Championship, with even finer margins of success and failure dividing its sides.
While I think that the Pearly Gates of my idea of a football heaven in the Premier League are not even half ajar at the moment, I share the growing belief of some of our fans that as this season progresses it might end up being a memorable one.
The result is even more remarkable considering we had players missing from the spine of our team down the centre of the pitch, with forward Daniel Jebbison becoming the latest casualty joining centre-half Lewis Gibson and midfielder Ali McCann in the sick bay.
Unlike the lyrics of rapper Stormzy it illustrates that this season the strength in depth of our squad shows that we have indeed got some ‘backbone’.
The first half was a competitive one which we I thought we just shaded and deserved our one-goal lead at the interval. In the second half we put up a good rearguard battle in holding our lead, rarely being seriously troubled, although keeper Daniel Iversen had to make a breathtaking save at full stretch to push a fierce drive onto the crossbar.
On our first ever visit to this stadium almost 18 years ago Lewis Neal scored in the last minute to give us a 1-0 win which until Saturday had been our only victory in our six previous games at this venue. It was a case of history repeating itself when we again scored at the death but this time Mads Frokjaer's goal just cemented the destination of the three points.
The game was a tactical triumph for our manager Paul Heckingbottom over his opposite number in the dugout. Saints manager Will Still had a Preston connection as his only other job in English football had been in his teenage years when he was an assistant manager with North End's U14 team while he was a student at Myerscough College.