Southampton 2 Derby County 0

A match that sees Southampton win only their third game in 16 attempts at home in their new stadium, also sees Derby's hopes of survival in the Premiership take a nose dive.
Since Derby's win away to Bolton, the Rams have now had 5 defeats in 6 matches.

The match was only 8 minutes old when Derby had their first warning of the game a shot from Pahars being kicked off the Rams goal line.

Matt Oakley opens the Saints scoring

In the 25th minute a bad clash of heads that included Rams Chris Riggott looked very nasty. However both players involved where able to continue after treatment.

Southampton take the lead in the 31st minute. A superb cross shot left Andy Oakes clutching fresh air as the ball nestled in the corner of his net. The scorer Matthew Oakley.

Hopes of a revival before the break rose as Chris Riggott hit the bar with a shot and Malcolm Christie was inches over the bar with the rebound.

At half time John Gregory replaced Zavagno with Adam Bolder. The Rams had a good opening to the second half and showed signes of pulling the game round. However it was Southampton that settled the match in the 55th minute. A throw in was taken whilst the Rams defence slept by ex ram Rory Delap. The 30 yard

Marian Pahars scores the second Saints goal that left no road back for the Rams

throw found Marian Pahars in space and he slotted the ball past Oakes.

The Rams now looked a defeated side and could offer little in attack. With time runnig out Southampton came close to making the score 3-0 as substitute Ormerod hit the Derby post and Beattie blsed ove rthe bar from the rebound.

It's looking bad for Derby and with 4 games left a miricle is requied to safeguard their Premiership status.