To laugh or to cringe ?Along with Saints and Charlton, the other team to have a double relegation miserable recent history is Norwich City and they were our visitors on Saturday. Norwich had fine recent form and were in a playoff position, having recovered from the 7-1 drubbing handed out by Colchester on the opening day, a Colchester who were managed by Paul Lambert who is now manager of Norwich and captained by Dean Hammond who is now captain of Saints. The captaincy issue had been the main issue of the week really with Hammond being given the armband as Pards didn’t want the keeper to be the skipper, a decision I agreed with.
I was expecting changes in the team following the rubbish against Brighton but maybe because of an injury to Wotton or maybe because of a desire to make the same players sort it out, the team was unchanged which must have been particularly galling for Wayne Thomas who really bolstered the defence in the last game. There was a welcome return to the bench for Graeme Murty who in the warm up, didn’t look as ‘pied up’ as I thought he would.
The game kicked off in swirling rain and Norwich settled the quicker with some good possession football, interrupted only when the ball skewed off of some part of Trotman’s anatomy for a throw in or a corner. Saints were finding it hard to get anything going until the ball found its way to Schneiderlin who took a touch, looked up and hit a glorious crossfield ball, which went straight out of play about 40 yards in front of Antonio. The genius of the Frenchman was apparent though as he knew that Norwich were going to take the throw and lose the ball to Connolly who would slide in Lallana who would finish brilliantly with his right foot from the edge of the box. 1-0 and an assist for the mercurial French youngster.
Saints took over for the next 20 or so minutes and really should have added to the lead with Cap’n Hammond having a header tipped over and Schneiderlin’s powerful shot being deflected wide. Norwich gave us a reminder just before half time when Davis had to palm away a good effort from the lumbering Holt.
After this one real chance of the half for Norwich, Dumb (of Dumb and Dumber who sit behind me in the Kingland) is whining the following questions amongst others…”Why are they always better than us?”, “Why do they win all the headers?” and “Why do I bother coming to matches because all I do is moan like a bastard through every single minute of every one regardless of what the score is or how well we’re playing”. I may have made that last one up and I know all Season Ticket money is vital to the club but you don’t need people like this. I’d pay double if this guy could be banned.
1-0 to Saints at half time and just about deservedly so.
Half time was taken up with a presentation to Micky Channon who was receiving a Doctorate from Southampton University for services to football and horse racing, in the pissing rain. There was a quick run down of his stats as a football and as a trainer and then he gave a quick interview which was barely audible given the diabiolical PA system. Following that they showed a film on the scoreboard which was remarkable in that Mick Channon scored 225 goals for Saints, 21 for England and even 16 for Norwich and guess how many of these goals were on the film ? Yep, none.
No changes at half time except that Dumb could now whinge in the opposite direction. Norwich are on fire at the start of the second half and pin us back and our defence is creaking like something incredibly creaky indeed. We’re creaky on the right where Lloyd James is really struggling when put under any pressure, creaky on the left where Dan Harding is just about hanging on despite suddenly looking a bit slow and creaking in the middle where Trotters is getting to the ball but it’s going anywhere. The one saving grace is the big man Radhi Jaidi who is back to near his best after his mare last week.
It couldn’t last though as Martin burst down the Norwich left and was scythed to the ground by Lloyd James with one of the most stupid tackles ever for one of the clearest penalties ever. Hoolihan stepped up and Kelvin tipped it onto the post from where it pinged back to Hoolihan’s feet in front of an empty goal, the lucky bastard.
Or midfield was being completely outplayed at this point with Cap’n H having his worst ever game for us, Schneiderlin having his usual game for us in a tough match and Antonio offering nothing at all. It was no surprise when Antonio was replaced with Murty. This had two advantages in that it bolstered the midfield and it got Liability James the hell away from right back.
Seven minutes later we were back in front as Lallana fed Connolly on the left and he cut in before curling a wonderful effort over the keeper and in to the far top corner. Goal of the Season, competition closed. It was nearly game over ten minutes later as Lambert set up Lallana for a spin and shot which flew just wide. Boy did we pay for that miss when Martin let fly from 30 yards only for Davis, under no pressure and with a full view, to spill it out for Hughes to make it 2-2. “We’re going to lose this now” came a whinge from behind me. “WELL YOU’LL BE F*CKING HAPPY THEN WON’T YOU?”. I probably shouldn’t have said that.
Now it was all Norwich again and they had a goal disallowed for offside and looked the more likely winners but Saints came back again with Connolly narrowly wide. With five minutes to go, Pards replaced Lambert, who had again struggled to have much of an impact, with Papa Waigo who immediately got caught offside. Mellis came on for Lallana and in the 90th minute we had a break with Mellis striding forward purposefully with the ball with Waigo in support. He delayed and delayed the pass until Waigo had reached his usual position of 5 yards offside and then passed to him. Up went the flag, on went the Waigo, round the keeper and then underhit the shot which was cleared. Plonker, final whistle.
2-2 was probably a fair result for what was a very entertaining game. Though we were in front twice, our defending as a team never looked convincing and we are as far away from a clean sheet as ever. Hopefully Murty’s return from injury will mean Lloyd James nowhere near right back again and Connolly’s form and ever improving fitness is really going to be beneficial to us in the months ahead… starting with a trip to Hartlepool on Tuesday which promises to be a truly horrible trip but one which we should be looking to bring 3 points back from. We have now only two points out of the last nine but whilst the Brighton defeat was a bad result, I don’t feel that this one is as Norwich looked a class apart from a lot of the teams I’ve seen so far this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment