Southampton 1-1 Charlton

Seventy-two percent possession. Twenty-three shots. Zero corners — wait, zero corners? For either side? In ninety minutes of Championship football? I’ll come back to that particular statistical oddity in a moment, because first we need to talk about how we managed to dominate a game so thoroughly on paper and still walk away splitting the points with Charlton like it was the last slice of pizza neither of us really deserved.

The first half was the kind of performance that makes you feel quietly optimistic in the most dangerous way possible. We had the ball, we moved it nicely, we probed and prodded, and yet somehow we went in at the break with nothing to show for it. You know that dream where you’re running but not moving? St. Mary’s was living it. Charlton sat deep, compact, and roughly as interested in attacking as I am in doing my taxes. Fair play to them — it was organized, it was disciplined, and it was absolutely maddening.

Then the second half arrived and Ross Stewart decided he’d had enough of the polite knocking. Three minutes after the restart, the big man got on the end of something (finally) and stuck it away. 1-0. St. Mary’s erupted. Order was restored. The script was being followed. We were going to see this out comfortably, weren’t we? Weren’t we?

Reader, we were not.

Sonny Carey — and be honest, how many of you could have picked him out of a lineup before Saturday — popped up on 67 minutes with a finish that had no business being as good as it was, given Charlton had spent most of the afternoon watching us have the ball like spectators with better seats. Three shots on target all game, and one of them ends up in our net. Football, you beautiful, cruel, nonsensical sport.

From there, the game got tetchy. Harwood-Bellis picked up a yellow on 76 minutes, probably for looking frustrated, and then Downes and Charlton’s Conor Coady both went into the book on 84 minutes in what I can only assume was a buy-one-get-one-free deal from the referee. We huffed, we puffed, we threw everything at them — fifteen more shots than the opposition, for crying out loud — but the equalizer that would have been an equalizer to their equalizer never came.

Now, about those corners. Not a single one. In a match with twenty-nine combined shots. I genuinely don’t know how that’s physically possible. Were both defenses just vibing? Did every cross sail over the bar and out for a goal kick? Did the corner flags file a restraining order? It’s the kind of stat that keeps you up at night.

The truth is, we were the better side by a comfortable margin, but being the better side and being clinical are two very different postcodes, and right now we’re stuck on the bus between them. We need to start converting dominance into points, or we’ll be the most aesthetically pleasing mid-table team in the division.

Next week, same energy, sharper finishing. That’s all we ask. That, and maybe a corner. Just one. For the novelty.