Soton avoided relegation last season on the penultimate day of the season. They have spent £45M on 4 players this summer. If they play like they did today, they might not be so lucky this season.

Derby? Avoided the individual mistakes that plagued us at Mansfield and we pressed Soton even harder than we were pressed by the Stags in the last 30 minutes on Wednesday.

If we play like this all season we will certainly be top 6 and ought to have a go at the auto places.

Carson (Roos, 72’) Carson had a good game. He did do a "Roos" at one point but got away with it. Roos showed enough to show that Wednesday's aberration isn't something he will be repeating on a regular basis

Wisdom (Bogle, 72’) Two mistakes from Wisdom but he solved one himself and the other led to nothing. Bogle again looked the business in his cameo.

Keogh (Hanson, 77’) Keogh looked far more settled than he was against the Stags. Hanson was steady when he came on and faultless

Davies (Pearce, 72’) Good. 2 hiccoughs that he got away with. Pearce is decent enough cover

Lowe (Bird, 69’) Man of the match performance, Tackled like a demon. Intercepted balls. Ran all over the place and he and Lawro worked brilliantly together down the left

Mount (Butterfield, 77’) Looked useful. One error early doors. Put through the middle by a Lowe pass we had 3 on 2 with Nuge left and Wilson right. Wilson should have been given an early pass. Mount ran and ran and was stopped by one of their centre halves. He looked good the rest of the time.

Ledley (Huddlestone, 63’) Sat in the middle and swept everything up as he does. Hudds did the same job but, IMO, better when he came on

Bryson (Johnson, 72’) Bryson is Bryson again for which I am grateful. Johnson to be a benchwarmer this season
Wilson (Jozefzoon, 63’) Looked good. Both he and Mount will be even better once they have had time to used to their new colleagues and gaffer and system.

Nugent (Bennett, 72’) Nuge had a good game. Bennett came on and scored. Both will be in the matchday XVIII

Lawrence (Thomas, 72’) Lawrence had a great game, worked wonderfully well together with Lowe. Scored twice. Definite starter IMO. Thomas won't start but should be on the bench.

Basic thoughts are that the high intensity pressing game is great to watch. We press the opposition. We run and help each other, We tackle. We pass. It's mainly one and two touch football and Soton couldn't handle it.

We don't as yet know how the other 23 teams in the League are shaping up but DCFC are looking good.

I don't see us getting taken apart like we did in the last half hour by Mansfield. We won't have the same players on the park together. We will have learned from that and won't let the situation arise again. Pre season appears to be doing its job admirably.

This Ram is a happy one at the moment.