"...zat Oscar Gobern, I teach him well, non ?.."
A half hour trip through the New Forest to sunny Bournemouth in what is a massive game for both sides – a win for them and they put a 6 point gap between us, a win for us and we overtake them and will still have 2 games in hand. It’s huge in terms of significance to the league table and then you add in the very secondary fact that we’re only 30 miles apart geographically. As I’ve said before, it is local but it’s not a huge rivalry - not much different to a potential Saints v Eastleigh match.
A lot has been written and I can understand them getting annoyed at our perceived arrogance – an image not helped by the “we’re everyones Cup Final” bullshit which comes out from our camp. Yes it’s a fact that we have a bigger ground, better infrastructure and a larger fanbase but last time I checked, you don’t get given league points for these things. I well remember sitting in SMS watching Man Utd roll us over and their fans chanting “you’ve only come to see United” over and over again like the complete arrogant bastards that they are. I find it quite distasteful that we can come across as a bit like that now. We’ve fallen down the leagues on footballing merit (or the opposite) and we are where we deserve to be.... and so are Bournemouth and so are Yeovil, Dagenham, Walsall etc. The only club not where they deserve to be are Portsmouth who deserve to be in the Zamaretto league but that’s another story.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Bournemouth since the time I went to Bournemouth to watch a Saints friendly game which was set up to provide funding for a financial crisis they were in, in the mid-90s. Considering they needed the cash, I saw the irony in getting pelted with coins by their muppet fans while stewards looked on and laughed. In incidents like that and with the bile you get on internet forums, you have to remember that it is a moronic minority. Sorry to disappoint you all but most Bournemouth fans don’t hate us, most Saints fans don’t hate them.
To the game and once all the hype has died away, we have to remember that we’ve played Bournemouth twice this season and won 2-0 with a degree of comfort both times, albeit with a couple of penalty decisions in one that weren’t what you’d call ‘nailed on’. Bournemouth weren’t great in either game and I found them to be quite a dirty team. It’s been to their credit (and my surprise) that they’ve been above us all season having lost their highly rated (but incredibly moany) manager, Eddie Howe, as well as their centre forward (Pitman) and the forward who replaced him (McQuoid). Their manager now is Lee Bradbury who may or may not be a Saints fan, despite having played for Pompey for much of his career. Their Chairman of course, is Eddie Mitchell who is a gobshite and a wind-up merchant. He greatly enhanced my personal build-up to the game with an interview on Radio Solent which left me reflecting on the fact that being a moron is obviously no impediment to making lots of money.
I thought for a while that I’d take a draw in this game but with the way Peterborough are winning games and the way that Brighton are steaming away with it, neither team can think like that. Saints named a totally unsurprising line-up with Jaidi returning in place of Martin. Bournemouth’s latest centre forward Michael Symes was out injured so they had two forwards with a combined height of 11 feet, Ings and Dalla Valle, a loan player from Fulham who has a silly name. With there being no Premiership games due to the FA Cup, Dean Court was blessed with the presence of Andre Marriner to referee this one, along with a lino who helped Howard Webb tot up all the yellow cards in the World Cup Final.
Bournemouth start the better and have the first sighter when Hollands fires just over. If that was a warning for Saints, they ignored it as on 6 minutes, Bournemouth took the lead, even though it had a slight air of luck and controversy about it. Fonte went to clear the ball and his clearance hit Butterfield on the back and rebounded to Dalla Valle who was clearly in an offside position. Up went the World Cup lino’s flag as Dalla Valle rather expertly swivelled and smashed it in the far top corner of the net – brilliant finish. Over went Marriner for a word before giving the goal. Years ago, the rule was that if the pass came from an opposition player then it isn’t offside. OK fine but then the law was changed. Apparently now it has been changed back so fair enough, good goal but what happens if a player tries a through ball and it nicks off a defender on its way to an offside forward ? Did it brush off his sock or not ? Bottom line is that the offside law is too complicated and no one really understands it.
Back come Saints with a Sir Rickie free kick which is deflected wide and from the following corner, up goes big Radhi and heads just over. On the quarter hour, Pearce – possibly surprised by Sir Rickie’s willingness to close him down - dicks about with the ball in the corner, waiting for it to go out. Sir Rickie nicks it off him, barges past and crosses left footed straight onto the head of Barnard who heads down where Jalal appears to have two hands on it before somehow allowing it to squirm over the line in a clear imitation of what my 6 year old son does when playing in goal in the garden. I though Shwans were graceful ... not this one. In their commentary, Solent give no clue as to whether it’s actually a goal or not and it takes a good three seconds to impart that we’ve actually scored. Terrible commentary it has to be said.
Bearing in mind that Jalal has just dropped a bollock, Sir Rickie tries to test his nerve with one of those booming long range half volleys which unfortunately, dipped too late. Saints are coming more and more into the game and bringing the wingers into play which is a tactic that Bournemouth have obviously decided they don’t like and so comes the first cynical foul of the day as Wiggins hacks down Chamberlain and gets booked. The prospect of Chambo having a hour running at a full back on a yellow card doesn’t last long as Wiggins soon pulls up lame and it replaced with Cummings.
Next into the book is Jaidi who gets a yellow for extreme clumsiness in the air when, despite being about a foot taller than Dalla Valle, he manages to take him out rather than heading the ball clear. Cooper completes the booking count in the first half by getting annoyed with Barnard and kicking the ball at him , a cunning plan that is always going to work out in your favour.
The rest of the half tails off slightly with Radio Solent : "Commentary from a Southampton Perspective", bigs up Bournemouth at every opportunity and lays into Saints, particularly into Jaidi and Fonte who admittedly, have found things a bit tough against the two circus midgets. Half time is here, 1-1 and as we know, Saints always play better in the second half.
Saints and Lallana in particular, start the second half much better and following a Bournemouth attack, break 4 on 3 with Lallana leading the charge. It’s a great opportunity but for once, Adam chooses the wrong option and shoots left footed from 25 yards, just wide of the ungraceful Shwan’s near post. We’re nearly caught out though when a big punt over the top finds Ings behind Fonte and he went down like a sack of shit under the slightest of touches. He’d overrun the ball and wasn’t going to get a shot in but I’ve seen them given. Maybe the fact that he’s being flinging himself about all game counted against him but he ref didn’t help himself by giving a goal kick. I mean, it’s either a foul or a corner and if it’s a goal kick then he’s dived and should be booked. Personally, I thought it was clean enough and should have been a corner.
A limping Harding is replaced with Seaborne, a square peg who was moved in the round hole at left back. Saints carried on looking more and more dangerous and another piece of skill by Lallana was curtailed by an agricultural challenge by Hollands which made him see yellow. From Butters free kick delivery from the right, the ball missed everyone except Dean Hammond coming in at the back and he stuck out his left boot and steered it across Jalal and into the far corner. The celebrations were top notch with a big bundle of players and Radhi rolling around on top of it. The look on Lee Barnard’s face when he got up was a picture. If he’s got a good lawyer then hopefully it’s the last time he gets up having had a big smiling bloke rolling around on top of him.
Bournemouth threw on 47 year old Steve Fletcher for Ings and Saints replaced Barnard with Oscar Gobern in a clear ‘we hold what we have’ move from Nigel. Saints were still trying to play it on the ground and Chaplow fired over after a good passing move involving Deano, Lallana and Chambo. Bournemouth had gone more aerial with Ole’ father Fletch on the pitch but created a great chance with 6 minutes left when Robinson was fed in behind Chaplow and fired in a cross shot which Superkelv, in his first positive contribution for a number of weeks, tipped onto the bar and away.
Totally failing to learn their lesson from earlier, Pearce - another Bournemouth player without a booking - lined up Chamberlain and hacked him down becoming the 3rd Bournemouth player to be booked for hacking down one of our wingers. This one is about 25 yards out and level with the edge of the penalty area. Up steps Sir Rickie for an attempt at his 25th free kick miss of the season and bang – over the wall and into the top corner as Jalal slides along the goal line on his backside. At the time, I was told it had hit the side netting by the complete Goons on Solent... truly mind-blowingly awful radio commentary, totally ruining the moment. It’s funny, on a day when it appears that local radio may be under threat; they produce two of the worst bits of radio football commentary ever.
I’ve always had the opinion of Oscar Gobern that he is not in control of his limbs which, when mixed with an obvious balance issue means that he’s always falling over. As the game was winding down he surpassed himself by chasing a ball out of defence and when beaten to it by Cooper, launched a kind of king fu drop kick, the type of which not seen since the days of 70s cartoon Hong Kong Phooey or Eric Cantona in his seagulls and trawlers pomp. To be fair, Cooper got up straight away but there was only one possible outcome and off he went. The look on Gobern’s face kind of said that he had no idea what just happened. A couple of minutes later and the final whistle went – a slightly surreal end to a match that produced a superb result.
I think that maybe 3-1 flattered us a bit but the bottom line is that we went to team 3 places above us who were in the automatic promotion spots and we beat them without playing particularly well. I’m waiting for it to click like it did at Oldham but as long as we are winning then it really doesn’t matter. That’s 3 wins in a week to follow on from the Walsall disaster. Needless to say, bloody Peterborough, Huddersfield and of course Brighton, won again so we only went up one place. Peterborough are proving to be the new team to worry about with a 6-0 win over Carlisle – go away.
Nigel played down any local significance or edge in his post match interview, merely pointing out that we got 3 points and the fans went home happy. This is true and you don’t expect managers to be concerned with the fact that the Bournemouth fans would have been giving it the large one on internet forums if they’d won. It won’t stop them bellyaching though about referees and penalties they should have had and all that – which is exactly what they did after the last defeat to us. Get over it.
Nigel also made mentions of the need to go into the loan market for a midfielder following Hong Kong Phooey’s red card. There really is a potential problem there as for the next three games, Hong Kong and Schneiderlin are missing and Hammond and Chaplow are on 1 and 2 bookings respectively away from a ban. Out of the current first team squad you’d be looking at Butterfield or Dickson filling in with maybe Lallana. We also have a bit of an issue up front with Guly and Connolly being injured, the latter permanently and Barnard relying on his brief to keep him the right side of a prison cell.
Next up for us is next Saturday at home to Sheffield Wednesday, a team who were expected to be among the promotion favourites but who in fact, have been a bit shite. We should have too much for them but in the meantime, both Peterborough and Huddersfield have games on Tuesday so it’s time to change allegiances for a day and shout for Brentford and ironically, Sheffield Wednesday.
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
No comments:
Post a Comment