Darius Henderson shows you how to play football
Today it's the turn of Millwall to turn up to SMS and get battered, in exactly the same way as the other three teams we've played so far... at least that's what you'd think if you paid any attention to the predictions from the 'experts' who on the whole, know jack shit. What it doesn’t take an expert to know is that apparently, we’ve never won the first four games of a season and if we win today, it would be our 11th consecutive home win.
I'm no expert but I reckon Millwall will be our toughest test yet but it's certainly a test that we can pass if we play anywhere near our best. With Millwall, you know what you're going to get, their fans include some hardened nutcases which always seems to translate to the way they play. I see that they haven't beaten us since the late 80's when a lot of their fans were in their heyday, as was a certain Terry Hurlock who totally ran the midfield. I think that the walking footballer Teddy Sheringham got the winner. As for Hurlock, he had some good games for us but the highlight of his Saints career was giving David Speedie a slap on a pre-season tour. I wish You Tube and camera phones had been around then.
Since the Ipswich game we've had Morgan Schneiderlin sign a new contract, joining Dan Harding and a load of others in extending their deals. Good management by Nigel and the Don to promote security amongst the players and in Morgan's case it's a good thing to get a player to sign when he's not in the first team at the moment which kind of shows how much everyone has bought into the 'squad' ethic. I guess all the ridiculous conspiracy theories about his actually being on loan from Arsenal will now stop. Back to today and we are unsurprisingly unchanged from the Ipswich game.
Saints piled into the attack from the first minute and won a corner which Lallana fed in to Harding on the edge of the box. We were hoping for a net bulging rasper but got a bit of a scuffer which was cleared back to Lallana who fizzed it across to where Connolly stuck out a boot and deflected it just wide.
Things were fairly even after that with first Sir Rickie and then Bouazza trying to knock the wall down with a free kick instead of going round or over it. Bouazza also broke on his own and flashed a shot across Superkelv and wide. Evenness became a thing of the past soon after as The Gulyman started a move when a bodyswerve sent about four Millwall defenders the wrong way before he picked out Sir Rickie who fed Jack Cork who played a though ball right into the Gulyman’s path and he never looked like missing, passing it first time past the keeper.
Not long after this and in a completely surprising development, the Millwall fans kicked off and stewards and cops had to actually earn the money they usually get for watching a game.
The rest of the first half was very competitive with the referee being lenient, particular with Henderson who, as we know from his Watford days, is a twat of the highest order. I admit that this opinion may have been shaped by the fact that he always scores against us. Sir Rickie had a long range effort which dropped wide and Millwall manager Kenny Jackett made what must have been a tactical substitution as the player being pulled looked really pissed off. Half time and 1-0 and all going to plan.
More subs at the start of the second half as we replaced Hammond (not at the races today) with Schneiderlin and Millwall brought on Josh McQuoid who of course, used to play for the Moaning Dorset Bastards. Siants had the first chance of the second hald after 10 minutes when Sir Rickie lined up a free kick from somewhere near the gasholders and instead of the smash that everyone was expecting, dinked it onto the head of Jose Fonte who headed down and just wide.
Millwall were in there fighting, literally in Henderson’s case but Dan Seaborne has the looks that means he wont care about a few digs in the face. He really is a dirty git though and eventually got booked for trashing Cork. In complete contracst to Henderson, Bouazza is a decent player and he again looked dangerous as he fired just wide from distance. Desperate Dan gave us one of those ‘new central defender now’ moments and was bailed out by Superkelv who was forced to claw the ball out for a corner when Dan’s clearance struck an onrushing Millwall forward.
On the hour mark, it looked for all the world that Millwall would equalize when our defensive speciality, the old ‘free header from a corner’ routine came back to haunt us and Superkelv made a great save before Frazer Richardson hacked the next shot off of the line. The increasing Millwall pressure saw Nigel haul the clearly knackered Adam Lallana off and replace him with Danny Fox, probably the most tattooed Saints player ever. This substitution and the one temn minutes later where Steve de Ridder replaced Connolly enabled Saints to regain control of the midfield and start causing some more problems of our own with de Ridder in particular forcing Millwall back with his pace in behind.
Sir Rickie ruffled a few feathers with a free kick from Six Dials which just cleared the bar with the keeper flapping and Millwall seemed to run out of ideas as Cork and Schneiderlin began to boss the show. Of course, you can never tell at 1-0 but the rest of the game passed with little threat from Millwall and that sinking feeling you often get when the opposition look like they’re in the ascendency never really occurred. Full time and 4 out of 4.
As 1-0’s go, this was a fairly comfortable win with great credit going to the manager for firstly, taking off the captain at half time and then taking off our most influential player on the hour mark. It showed a great trust in the squad as a whole and making the third sub when there’s still 25 minutes to go shows a manager who is totally confident in his convictions.
Our next 3 league games are away at Leicester and then home to Notts Forest and Birmingham. If we’re still on our winning run after that lot then we will be walking in a Nigel Adkins Wonderland. First up are Leicester with the knob that is Sven in charge – they threw a 2-0 lead today and had their keeper sent off so his replacement will be in goal against us and he looked dreadful on the equalizing goal. Bring it on.
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