Sunday, March 21, 2010

League 1 Match 36 - MK Dons 0 Southampton 3


Super Willy models the new MK Dons Keepers kit.

What can you say about MK Dons that hasn’t already been said? Not a lot only that our record against them this season reads Played 3 Won 3 Lost 0. Despite this stat, their Assistant Manager, Karl Robinson, feels that they have ‘sussed us’. The Fake Dons fans must be comforted to know that things are going to be different this time according to guru Karl. Rumour has it that whenever Arsene Wenger has a particularly difficult game coming up, he phones Karl for advice and Fabio Capello is entertaining the thought of taking Karl to the World Cup in case he can’t cope. On the other hand, rumour also has it that at the end of the season, I will be running a poll to identify the ‘Leagueoneminus10 Prick of the Year’ Winner and Karl may or may not feature.

When Pards joined us as manager, you could read the views of many a Charlton fan who slated him for his wacky team selections – right backs at left back and vice versa etc. Turns out it was mainly bollocks but today there is a strange one in that with Wayne Thomas injured, Dan Harding is moved to right back and Joseph Mills comes in on the left. The obvious choice would have been to put Lloyd James at right back but he was so abysmally bad when he came on as sub last week, I’d have thought Bart was the next choice. Also left out was Radhi Jaidi but he was replaced by the much more obvious choice of Dan Seaborne.

The first half was predominantly shit. We had an early chance with a Lallana shot being blocked on the line after two minutes but otherwise we were shit. The Fakes had one decent chance when Ginger bloke stole in on a cross and volleyed it back the way it came, straight out for a throw in.

The second half started with Davis sending a big boot downfield which was headed straight up in the air by the Fake Dons centre back, the goalkeeper, our old mate Willy Slice it Gueret came for a punch and was comprehensively outjumped by Sir Rickie who headed it into the recently vacated net. Willie should be referred to as Super Willie Gueret from now on – a) because he’s Super for us every time we play them and b) it sounds like a porn star.

Davis had to be at his best a few minutes later as Jermaine Easter managed to acrobatically hook it goalwards, only for Super Kelvin to take off and turn it away. This was a bit of a key moment as following a corner up the other end, Fonte ended up on the left wing and decided to have a run at the full back. He beat him on the outside and forged into the box where he was shot by a sniper. To be fair, I think it was a foul but he sure made a meal of it. Up stepped Sir Rickie and buried the penalty bottom left, despite Super Willie going the right way.

On 75 came the final nail in the Fake Dons coffin and made sure of the 4 wins out of 4 when Sir Rickie expertly controlled another Davis bomb and having chested it down, volleyed it over Super Willie (who was not having a good day) from 40 yards. The ball went miles up in the air before crashing down to earth and bouncing down behind the line for a quite stunning goal and what a strike to seal Sir Richard Lambert's first hat-trick for the mighty SFC. You really can’t attach any blame to Super Willie for the goal as no keeper on earth would have been back on his line at that point. I remember James Beattie scoring a similar goal for us at Sunderland a few years back and you couldn’t blame the keeper for that one either.

It was time to take off the forwards as we wouldn’t be needing them for the rest of the game with Waigo and Connolly taking the places of Lambert and Barnard. The rest of the game kind of played itself out with no real incident other than the Fake Dons backroom team getting all irate with the referee and the 14 year old girl who was running the line.

You know the game is won when Wotton is brought on and he replaced Schneiderlin at the last. To complete the comedy for the day – Luke Chadwick was announced as Man of the Match. I assume that can only be for home players then? Of the home players, I think the performance of Super Willie did more than most to influence the result.

Final score 3-0 and 10-2 on a four game aggregate. Jesus, just imagine what the aggregate score could have been if Karl hadn’t sussed us out. An additional thing to consider is that one of the Fake dons goals was scored by Jason Puncheon who is now of course, a Saint.

The first half was what has become a typical away performance for us – kind of listless and disinterested and needing a spark. Whether it was what Pards said at half time or just Sir Rickie sparking to life that made the difference – who knows ? What we do know though is that without being ever brilliant in the 2nd half, we were as efficient as you can be on a shite pitch and so what if 3-0 flattered us a bit. A bizarre stat from the game is that Kelvin Davis got two assists, twice providing the scoring pass. In the days that are to come, I look forward to hearing the words and wisdom of Karl – impart your wisdom on us oh wise one. I expect that the better side lost and we over celebrated.

There is no real point in talking about the playoff picture and our potential to be in it aside from saying that we have to win every game from now to the end of the season – simple. Next up is Hartlepool at home on Tuesday night and it’ll be interesting to see what the right back situation will bring us. Harding did a job at right back without being spectacular but I don’t think it’s the long term answer. I would expect Lloyd James to start on Tuesday as a bit of a JPT Final audition. I would also expect Dan Seaborne to keep his place on Tuesday as well to ensure Jaidi is completely right for the Final. On another matter, Tuesday night will be the last midweek home game that I’ll be missing for a while having finally been made redundant... my next game will be at that big place in London and Karl Robinson will be watching it on the telly.
All together... Rickie Lambert, Southampton Goal Machine...

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