" One day my son, you'll be a miserable fucker as well"Peterborough away in what should be a goal-fest. They score loads and they also let in loads, as displayed by their 5-3 win against Sheffield Wednesday in the week. We of course, travel in a bus and maybe we’ll park it and play out a 0-0 but somehow I doubt it. Peterborough are of course, managed by Darren Ferguson, son of Sir Alex whose last act as Preston manager before he got sacked for being shite, was to fall out with Richard Chaplow and sell him to us for next to nothing. Cheers. Maybe he’ll fall out with Craig Mackail-Smith and Joe Lewis and sell us those for £100,000 the pair.
To the teams and Saints have made a change with Seaborne coming in for Jaidi, one would hope to use his extra pace against the fast and direct Boyd and Mackail-Smith, the latter of which, Saints made an enquiry for in the transfer window. Back in the fold was Dean Hammond who replaced Schneiderlin who picked up a knock in training and despite being our best player against Exeter, Dany N’Guessan found himself on the bench with the Gulyman returning. The only other changes were on the bench where Jonathan Forte appeared for the first time. I am armed with Dave Merrington and a laptop with a very dodgy live stream of the Sky ‘Tuck this in for me Charlotte’ Sports feed.
Peterborough immediately set about showing why they score so many goals as Boyd fastened onto a ball in the inside left channel and bore down on goal. His shot was decent but Davis got down to parry it away with a strong arm. The tone of the game (you attack then we attack) was set when Saints burst forward and Chamberlain attempted to chip the keeper from a difficult angle and it dropped narrowly wide of the far post.
A temporary let off for Posh though as Sir Rickie nodded down a Davis clearance to Barnard on the edge of the box who was allowed by his marker to turn and shoot. Lewis pulled off a decent save and the ball dropped in between 4 Peterborough defenders who all kind of stood there as if waiting for something (a bus perhaps) and that something was Chaplow who nipped in a put the rebound in the net for 1-0 and how I expect Fergie Jnr enjoyed that.
Saints were flying now and nearly went 2-0 up straight away as Fonte put Sir Rickie through but the ball sat up a bit and Lewis threw up an arm to beat away his shot. However, it all took a turn for the better when Chamberlain picked up the ball on the left wing and set off. In seconds he was one v one against Little at full back and there was only one winner as Chambo sped past him and Little dived in, getting nowhere near the ball and clobbered him. Penalty and up steps Sir Rickie to fire low to Lewis’s right for 2-0.
Saints really needed to hold the lead until half time but that plan all went to shit when a ball over the top found Craig Mackail-Smith sprinting onto it and Seaborne misjudging the flight and then running through treacle… so much for the extra pace. From the left hand edge of the penalty area, CMS bobbled it left footed but in another appalling bit of goalkeeping, Davis managed to allow it to bounce under his arm and in at the near post. Shocking defending, shocking goalkeeping, shocking, shocking, shit and bollocks.
Worse was to follow a few minutes later as a straight forward cross from the left wing dropped in the box and Whelpdale came in off the right wing, nipped in front of the clearly dozing Harding and planted a free header into the net past Davis who at least, in my opinion, was not at fault for this one. I guess you could argue that he could have come and punched it but that’s a bit harsh. So, two nil and you fucked it up, as the song goes. Half time.
We make our traditional fast start to the second half by kicking off and working the ball back to Dan Seaborne who has the difficult job of hoofing it up the pitch which he makes a balls of and so, 15 seconds after we’ve kick off, CMS has smashed a shot narrowly over our cross bar. Good effort lads. All forgotten three minutes later as Sir Rickie sends Chaplow galloping clear and into the box. As he cuts inside Kennedy, the left back sticks his arm out and Chappers feels the contact and crashes to the ground. It’s either going to be a second yellow for having a dive or a penalty and luckily, dubiously, it’s the latter. Sir Rickie shows the watching world how to take a penalty by smashing seven bells out of it, giving Lewis not an earthly.
Five minutes later and we’re in dreamland again with our two goal lead back as Chamberlain catches Peterborough out by sliding in a corner along to ground to where Hammond has made a late run. Easy so far but Deano meets it and sidefoots a superb shot into the far top corner, over the top of the little shortarse defender on the line. As he runs behind the goal to celebrate, there’s a brief re-enactment of the Channon windmill celebration. Nice.
It’s immediately obvious that Peterborough are not going to lie down and back they come attacking the left edge of the penalty area where Langley jinks into the box and Desperate Dan Seaborne tries to pull out of the tackle but leaves a leg in there which Langley falls over. Clumsy donkey, penalty. Seaborne puts on a straw hat and brays at the referee with a loud “Eee-awwww” but no matter, McCann, bang 4-3... half an hour left still.
That half an hour was an edgy affair which Saints managed very badly by continually giving the ball away. We had a couple of efforts with Butterfield hammering a left foot shot just wide from 30 yards and Sir Rickie just running out of steam and failing to get the shot away when put through by Chaplow’s flick. In the main though it was all Peterborough with Boyd forcing Davis into a decent save after the winger had turned Harding inside out and McCann putting one free kick narrowly over. We brought on Richardson for the Gulyman and then Forte for Barnard but neither had any positive effect. Ryan Dickson was also brought on for Harding as Dan was trying his best to get himself sent off.
Under pressure and clinging on desperately in the 91st minute, Deano launched someone over on the left hand side and the resulting free kick caused chaos. It got half cleared about 3 times before someone hammered in a shot that was going wide and Chambo jumped, with his arm raised and blocked it. Many views of the replay are inconclusive as to whether it hit his arm or somewhere around the armpit but the ref of course, had to give it and we can’t really have any complaints. With McCann having been subbed, up stepped Tomlin to send Davis the wrong way to make it 4-4. The only surprise was that the remaining 2 minutes didn’t produce a winner.
The post match interviews were dominated by Darren Ferguson. If he were a bottle of Coke, he’d be called Fergie Lite but after his interview, we’ll call him Fergie Zero. Of the four penalties given he basically said that their two were nailed on and ours were ‘nonsense’. For starters – is there anyone in the world who thinks the foul on Chambo wasn’t a pen? He called Chaplow a diver over the 2nd penalty and I’ll agree with him to a degree in that Chappers felt the contact and fell over but then on their first one you could argue that Seaborne pulled out of the tackle and the guy fell over him. What’s the difference? Did their second pen hit Chambo on the arm or in the armpit? I can 100% see why the ref gave it but it’s not clear cut and saying they were unlucky not to win is just crap. Getting awarded a dodgyish pen in the 92nd minute to equalize in a game that you were never leading makes you a bit lucky really, you bell end.
I never really had an opinion of Fergie Zero before today but what a cock that bloke is. He’s in the game because of who his dad is, was never a decent player and time will tell if he’s any good as a manager. His team fly forward and try and outscore the opposition and it’s a great attitude and great to watch but a lot of this is down to the recently departed Gary Johnson, not Fergie Zero. Preston are the team he moulded this season and he got them in such a mess in the Championship that they had to fire him to give them a chance of staying up. This is similar to his last stint as Posh manager when they fired him when they were, you guessed it, bottom of the Championship. Also, he obviously let his dislike of Chaplow carry on into this game even though they are both with different clubs now. Idiot. For his part, Nigel eased up on the bus analogies and expressed his frustration at the result – no mention of dodgy penalties or calling opposition players cheats. One respectful manager and one miserable fucker.
It was a great game but Saints really missed a trick in the last half an hour or so. Unlike most teams, Peterborough were always going to keep flying forward and they have some real quality up there with CMS and Boyd so really, attack was our best form of defence. Bringing on Richardson was a mistake in hindsight and maybe N’Guessan or Forte could have been brought on in midfield to give us pace on both wings. The Richardson substitution just invited them onto us and gave us less of a goal threat. Having said that we could have done with a bit of ball retention in the centre of midfield and we had no real options there with Schneiderlin being injured. It’s disappointing coughing up a two goal lead twice but I’d have taken a draw beforehand. It’s annoying though.... of yeah and here’s hoping we go back and sign Craig Mackail-Smith in the summer. He’s an excellent player and gave Fonte his hardest game of the season.
For us, on the positive side, Alex Chamberlain looked lively for an hour and Sir Rickie has now scored 4 in the last 2 matches. On the negative- Danny Seaborne was a nightmare, an utter stinking nightmare. Totally done for pace and positioning on the first goal and a clumsy challenge to give Peterborough their first penalty. In addition to this he scuffed loads of clearances and looked petrified throughout every time Mackail-Smith in particular, came near him. I feel it’s high time to promote Aaron Martin above him in the pecking order. Also of course, playing a massive part in the first goal was Kelvin Davis who got his positioning all wrong and was beaten by a near post bobbler that a park goalkeeper would have been disappointed to let in. Sadly, his mistakes are getting more frequent though to his credit – he did pull off a few saves today.
In other results, Brighton and Huddersfield won and Bournemouth drew so not catastrophic. Looking ahead – we have 7 winnable fixtures in a row now before we take on the Moaning Dorset Bastards in deepest Dorestshire. These next 7 games need to give us at least 5 wins and then we’ll see where we are.... next up, Carlisle at home.
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