Rovers commentators confirming (implicitly) on the stream that everyone thinks Russell Martin is a dickhead.

Encouraging for him, but never a good sign if your keeper’s your best player and you’re still losing 2-0. Brittain’s Brain Fart still the deciding factor. He’s earned his 1/10 rating.

A penalty to match the hairstyle. Flash and shit.

I hope the referee left his lights on and his car is entirely flat of a battery. I hope he gets home extremely late and his power is fully cut for the weekend. I hope the contents of his fridge go entirely off.

Got to get Christmas off somehow.

Excellent to hear. Suspect that might be his time as a player up, though. Two collapses in under a year is a warning. Life’s a lot longer than a football career.

Ref’s taken the coward’s way out. No VAR to rely on, so he bottles it to the better-fancied, home team. Spineless.

Just read that. Devastating for him, hope his recovery is swift.

Maybe it’s a really elaborate joke and we’re just not clued in. Or maybe he’s really thick.

Szmodics losing his head as well. Soft goal from a corner and petulant decision from the right back has undermined the game plan. There was merit in it (FWIW, I think it was the right call to start out with), it hasn’t paid off. Southampton away doesn’t define the season.

How come you’ve got the Southampton commentators? By the by, he’s probably par for the population down there

Emotions are high, but remember Cantona at Selhurst Park, Zidane’s headbutt, Roy Keane on Alfie Haaland. Even Beckham with Simeone.

He’s not getting any sympathy from me today

4-4-1 out of possession which is about as negative as we can be. We might get one or two chances here, late in the game, but we need to be 8/10 across the pitch for 30 minutes and 10/10 in the box to get anything. Cannot get over the Brittain red card. It’s petulant, it’s deeply childish and I hope he gets the silent treatment the long bus journey home. Stew in it.

The arrogance of kicking the ball away on a yellow, is maddening. Utterly insane. I’d double his fine.

Brittain sent off for kicking the ball away. Madness. Drop him til the new year.

Is he wrong, though?

Ref is embarrassing himself. His bosses must already be writing the apology letter. Can we trade them for points at the end of the season?

3-4-3 for the second half, maybe. Wouldn’t change anyone just yet (what are the options?) but at a push, Ennis for Moran and a narrower focus up top. Play a bit more direct than usually and run off Ennis to try and break through a high line.

Big chance missed after Szmodics’ free kick radically shifts the game. Cheap goal, lapse of concentration from A Wharton and Wahlstedt. Don’t think Southampton have done anything close to enough to be going in 1-0 up. Possession football is tedious, most passes are between their CBs. Would have been happy to continue with this game plan, but we’ll need to alter the approach second half now. Hill, Tronstad and Moran have looked off their games today. Brittain experiment not yielding results. We’re going to get opportunities from our left, as Adam, Siggy and Szmodics all naturally drift out there, so I expect to see that second half. Not over, Russell Martin teams have mistakes in them.

Tronstad with a suicide back pass for Wahlstedt. Very close to giving a goal away to a team who don’t need the help.

Should’ve squared it, all it needed was a touch across to Sigurdsson and it’s a tap-in.

Home ground, “promotion contender” advantage. Like the watered-down Old Trafford rule. Rife among the refs with premier league experience, as Graham Scott has.

Southampton don’t have an effective press at all, none of their forward line seem to fancy it. Restricting space and concentration can keep Edozie quiet. There’s opportunity on the break and Southampton are already looking frustrated.

I don’t disagree with the complexion, but we’ve got to let them cycle through their attacking routines and drills, run out of ideas/get frustrated and exploit that, when they start veering from the routines and they lose shape. We can try and exploit counter attack opportunities in the meantime, but we can’t create space for them, they’ve got to earn it.