I think losing Shaw to injury was the key turning point in the game .
Despite having Pogba withdrawn and Bruno not at his sparkling best, he and Rashford kept S'oton on their toes, preventing them from moving forward as they would like, during a time in the game when we as a team, were looking tired otherwise deft of ideas. Their threat (Shaw + Rash) was crucial to not only hanging on for the three points, but always gave us real chance of getting in behind 'em and scoring a third. Once Luke was replaced with Williams however, we lost that threat ... and given Bassaka was not his usual self, the Saints not only looked noticeably stronger through the middle, they then started to have success down both flanks.
Frankly, I still thought we would hold on ... DeGea made one wonderful save and it looked like that was all they would get out of the game, and I personally think we still should've been able to hang on. But then losing Williams without a replacement was a real blow, giving them the extra confidence to push forward. Down a man and with poor, tired marking of the corner, resulted in the goal and disaster that the draw represented.
All that said, with three games to go, a place in the top four is still there for us to reach out and grab for ourselves. I assume Williams will be out due to concussion protocol so I really hope Shaw's ankle will recover with ice bath treatment and a good tape job because we are much better with him than without; failing that, Dalot will just "have to do" against Palace on Thursday. An otherwise unchanged and better motivated, cohesive team performance should be enough to beat what is a very mediocre London team.