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League round-up: Saints still reeling after Pardew exit

Saul Brookfield
Monday 06 September 2010 00:00 BST
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Southampton continued to suffer from the fallout of Alan Pardew's controversial sacking last week when they lost 2-0 at home to newly promoted Rochdale on Saturday.

The Saints were the pre-season favourites to win League One but slumped to their third consecutive defeat at St Mary's as goals from Chris O'Grady and Gary Jones gave Rochdale their second League win of the season.

Dean Wilkins, Southampton's caretaker manager following Pardew's dismissal last Monday, said that the players were upset as their poor start to the season continued. "I think they are angry because of the result and that is understandable," he said. "What you have to do when the chips are down is look at yourself and that's me included and all the players, and assess your performance," Wilkins added.

Huddersfield missed the chance to go level on points with the League One leaders Sheffield Wednesday when they were held to a 2-2 draw by Bournemouth at the Galpharm Stadium, Marc Pugh getting the visitors equaliser with 11 minutes to go.

Lee Clark, the Huddersfield manager, admitted it was two points dropped and said his side had to be ready to see games out

"We gave Bournemouth the initiative and they started pushing us back. We have to learn from what's happening in and around us," he said. "We are playing in spasms at the moment – we have a good 15 minutes here and 10 minutes there. We need to be consistently doing the right things at the right times."

Charlton also failed to close the gap on the top teams when they went down 1-0 at Exeter City, Ryan Harley's penalty in second-half stoppage time giving Paul Tisdale's side their first League win of the season. "I'm not happy, as you can tell," said the Charlton manager, Phil Parkinson, about the penalty decision that saw Miguel Llera adjudged to have fouled Jamie Cureton in the penalty area. "It hurts when you lose any game but to lose after a contentious decision like that is difficult to take."

In League Two, Shrewsbury took over from Torquay at the top, Lionel Ainsworth's fifth-minute goal and a number of excellent saves from keeper Chris Neal seeing off Rotherham. Bury recorded their first home win of the season in some style, beating Gillingham 5-4 at Gigg Lane.

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