Carling Cup 2nd Round - Swindon 1 Southampton 3

Paolo Spots His Mum in the Crowd

About a year ago, we played Swindon at SMS and I took all 3 of my kids along, one for each goal we let in.  It was abysmal and Vincent Pericard scored which makes it a bit of a low of epic proportions.  Since then, we’ve had Nigel Adkins in charge for a year and as you know, we are 2nd in the Championship whilst Swindon have just made the laughable appointment of Paolo Mussolini Nutjob di Canio as their manager and currently sit about third bottom in League 2.  When they appointed him, their main sponsor, a Trade Union, decided that their left wing tendencies didn't sit well with their club being managed by a confirmed right wing fascist.  Funny that.

The 3-0 reverse I mentioned was in the JPT and this is the slightly bigger and better Carling Cup, with a home tie against Charlton or Preston for the winner.  The build up for this match was enlightened by an interview with Matt Ritchie who seemed keen to remind everyone that he was a Pompey fan, playing for Swindon.  He obviously didn’t want to be ignored.  Let’s remind ourselves that he is an ex-Pompey player who was deemed not good enough for them when they only had 12 players.

Nigel’s team selection was interesting with a few changes but not as many as expected. Bart, Aaron Martin, Lee Holmes, Morgan Schneiderlin and Johnno Pace came in but surprisingly, Ryan Dickson and Danny Butterfield did not.  Chappers was ban free but injured and neither Lee Barnard or big Radhi were fit enough.  Most disappointing was the absence of Steve de Ridder who’d picked up a knock in training.   The 7 subs rule meant appearances on the bench for Sam Hoskins, Harlee Dean and Ben Reeves and Adam Lallana was the man wearing the armband, therefore doubling his weight.

The game kicked off with the Swindon manager saluting the Swindon Ultras (OK – I may have made that bit up).  Salute or no salute, Saints dominate from off and have their first chance on 5 minutes as a cross from Johnno Pace is met by the skipper who drilled wide due to being off balance thanks to the extra weight on one arm.  It didn’t take long for the Ultras to fall silent as Schneiderlin worked the ball out to Holmes on t he right who, remembering that he’s left footed, cut onto it and delivered a superb cross for the Gulyman to nod in from close range for 1-0.  Easy.

Morgan Schneiderlin showed his liking for boats by catching a Ferry (tumbleweed moment) and getting himself booked, possibly in 6 month old retaliation as Ferry was a right niggly little twat who got sent off in the league game at SMS.   All is forgotten though as the Gulyman threads one through for Johnno Pace to run onto and drill through the keeper who made a right bollocks of it, for 2-0.

In a typical measured response to going 2-0 down, Mussolini makes a tactical sub with a bewildered looking forward who hadn’t received a pass all night, coming off.  There were a couple more Saints chances before Mussolini’s tactical magic could pay off when Cork scuffed at a Richardson cross and saw his effort pushed wide and then Johnno Pace did his usual when presented with a heading opportunity and slid it wide off of his face.  Half time and a very good performance so far.

The second half seemed to almost be being played at walking pace as Saints settled for what they had and Swindon didn’t have the ability to make anything happen.  Occasionally some football broke out with Richardson firing in a long range left footed shot which the keeper held easily enough.  Radio Solent was playing loud and clear through the much maligned Saints Player and it was time for Merringtitus with “what we don’t want to do is let in a goal”.

With Dave being the Nostradamus that he is, we immediately let in a goal out of nowhere as Richardson challenged Kerrouche who went down like he’d been hit by a lorry, rather than by a large Northerner.  The cheating bstrd then rubbed salt in the wounds by curling an excellent free kick over the wall and past Bart before he could move.  They say cheats never prosper but they clearly do.  Didn’t di Canio once spurn a goalscoring chance so an opposition player could get treated?  I wonder what he made of that.

No matter as it was now 2-1 and suddenly from out of nowhere, Swindon had a chance of equalizing and forcing extra time which would have quite frankly been ridiculous given the flow of the game.

My Merringtitus returned with “what we don’t want.... is extra time” but we nearly had it when Clarke met a cross at the near post and slammed it wide when it looked easier to score.

Sensing that Swindon may be building up a head of steam, Nigel summoned some big players from the bench with Sir Rickie and Deano replacing Johnno Pace and Lee Holmes, the latter of which had enjoyed a really good game.  In no time it was all over as Sir Rickie found himself shrugging off the last defender and being one on one with the keeper, a quick sidestep and a roll into the empty net for 3-1, job done, time to go home.  Sam Hoskins came on for his full debut for 30 seconds and managed to get a touch before the end of the game.

Overall, this was a really comfortable win, setting up a game at home against League 1 opposition for a place in the last 16.  We really outplayed Swindon in all aspects and it was nice to read that Swindon fans as whole agreed with that.  I have a Swindon supporting mate called Ryan who was giving it the large one this time last year – haven’t heard from him since.

All the fallout from the game has centred on an incident involving Paolo the Nutter which happened straight after the final whistle.  To be fair to him, it looked like he was trying to play peacemaker and take the issue off the pitch and into the tunnel but the TV coverage focussed on him pulling his players shirt and basically making a mountain out of a molehill. The trouble is that the media are there just waiting for him to fuck up and even if it’s not his fault, that’s the way it will be spun.

It promises to be an interesting day today with the closing of the transfer window with Saints very much in the market for players.  Reading between the lines, we’re in for a centre back and a striker and we could get both or we could get none.  There have been many stories in the press of supposed deals that have fallen through for whatever reason and Neil Warnock has been his usual bell-end self and slagging us off because we didn’t sign his makeweight defender who he wanted to use to buy Jason Puncheon. So, we’ve been painted as being difficult to deal with.   The press have agendas, player agents have agendas and (surprisingly for such a shy and retiring fella) so does Neil Warnock and for a club that’s so difficult to deal with, we’ve certainly signed a lot of players over the past two and a bit seasons.

So... transfer window frenzy to come, second the league and in the third round of the cup – not bad is it? We have an international break so we can enjoy England being shite and then a return to SMS for Nottingham Forest at home.  Bring a brolly, the secretary you’re sleeping with and your best fake Dutch accent.