Nigel's Hologram Gives Another Interview
A full two weeks have passed since our last game and in that time, as far as SFC are concerned, it’s all been fairly quiet aside from the trial date for Lee Barnard being moved yet again. By the time this gets to court, he’ll have retired anyway and it won’t be Saints problem any more. Also, how reliable is the evidence of a load of blokes who were pissed at the time going to be about two years after the event?
In the great wide world of football, England have qualified for the European Championships after a glorious exhibition of football against Montenegro in which Rooney got sent off for taking a kick at someone. He of course, has been banned for the first three games and everyone is saying we should still take him…. Fuck off!!! There are loads of reason why not to take him but the obvious one for me is that he was useless in the last tournament and got sent off in the one before that so leave the twat behind. Talking of twats… Carlos Tevez. Breaking news as the Derby game approached was that Steve Cotterill has left the Skates and joined Forest. The Cotterill Comedy Corner has been a regular highlight of my Saturday afternoons for a while now and I’ll miss it. Forest certainly have the Midas touch with managerial appointments as they got Schteve McClaren last time. As for the Skates, lets hope they get some Russian no one has heard of or better still, appoint Stuart Gray who is their current caretaker.
To today and Nigel Adkins has a problem with Adam Lallana not being fit. With Lee Holmes being half decent in the last game, one might expect him to play but he’s not even made the bench and instead, Nigel has decided with need some Bald Psycho from the start this time out on the left with Morgan preferred to Deano in the middle. The rest of the team is as expected with Harding returning to the bench.
Bearing in mind that we have made ropey starts in the last few away games, it’s frustrating and annoying that after 3 minutes of this one, we are 1-0 down as Morgan and Corky combine to give the ball away on half way but the danger should really have been averted by Jose Fonte who instead of hoofing it into touch, tried to tackle the man and keep it in play. Unfortunately, the ball rebounded to a Derby player who cut in and this eventually led to a shot which Kelvin parried it out to Robinson who tapped into the empty net. TV replays confirmed later that Robinson was offside on the original shot so the goal shouldn’t have stood but the fact is that it was an easily defendable goal and we blew it again.
To Saints credit, this is more or less the last we hear of Derby as at attacking force for the rest of the first half as Saints set about passing them to death. We have a couple of half chances with both fall to Chappers and our first really decent chance falls to the Gulyman who, after a slick passing move (phrase borrowed from my ‘Daily Echo Football Reporting for Beginners Manual’), gets a cute pass from Chappers and curls one for the far corner which is well tipped round by Thingy, the England squad goalkeeper who no one has heard of.
Merringtitus is outraged when a Gulyman corner is met by Fonte whose header is blocked on the line by Steven Davies. Handball!!! Screams my radio but it really isn’t, unless he has an extra arm growing out of the middle of his chest. Derby are beginning to panic a bit with the defending and Roberts hoofs Connolly up in the air as he turns him to give us a free kick 25 yards out. Derby put about 14 players and a few ball boys in the wall and Sir Rickie scuffs it along the ground, into the wall from where it rebounds to Chappers who had obviously been watching too much Rugby World Cup as he leans back and fires over the bar from the edge of the box.
Half time and still 1-0 down despite having about 80% possession since Derby scored. A strong start to the second half was required and we were still passing it around in patient fashion and created a chance for Sir Rickie who shimmied (yes he did) his way into the penalty area and curled it too close to Thingy who made a comfortable save. In truth, he should have foregone the shimmy and just lashed it with his left foot.
On the hour mark Nigel decided to try and change the games, bringing on Steve de Ridder for Chappers who was in truth, a bit unlucky to be hooked. I’m not sure how much the substitution had to do with it but within a minute we were level as another passing move ended with a 1-2 between Sir Rickie and Connolly, a waltz past the last defender and Sir Rickie buried the shot past Thingy and into the far corner – great finish and totally deserved.
The Solent boys on the radio are reporting that Frazer Richardson has an arse injury but they are going out of their way to avoid saying ‘buttock’ as well as ‘arse’, ’bum’, ‘butt’, or ‘ringpiece’. Eventually they settle for ‘Glute’ as the full back flies past Frazer and his injured arse and fires in a cross which causes much diving about on the floor and flapping in our penalty area before Robinson’s shot hits Morgan and is cleared. Soon after, Deano is on in midfield and Corky goes to right back as his arse is in perfect working order.
We have got the goal after dominating for an hour and then, for some reason, Derby have come back into it again. It’s very end to end for a bit with no real clear cut chances but then there’s a longish break as Fonte goes up with Davies for a routine challenge and the Portuguese Man of War wins the header and Davies is left on the ground with a nasty looking dent in his forehead. Ouch…. No matter how many times I watched it afterwards, I really couldn’t see how it happened.
Dave is getting Merringtitus over Derby attacking down our left and Nigel is obviously on Dave’s wavelength and replaces the Gulyman and brings on Dan Harding on the left wing with de Ridder moving to the right. Derby have a half chance which will go down officially as ‘cleared off the line’ by the Gulyman when it fact, the header from Shackell just floated towards him and it would have hit him if he hadn’t headed it.
We have our obligatory last second chance as de Ridder, who is causing panic every time he gets the ball, digs out a great cross from the right which picks out Sir Rickie beyond the back post. His header back across is just behind Harding and just a bit too far in front of Deano and Derby smuggle it away. There then follows a clueless Radio Solent inquest into why Sir Rickie didn’t head at the goal which he’d never have scored in from where he was. He’d have had to have fucking curled it round the near post, off his head.
Final whistle and a hard earned point on the road. On the balance of play we deserved to win but overall, you’ve got to be happy with a point against a team just two places behind you. Positives today were the performances of Corky and Chappers in midfield and Steve de Ridder made a difference when he came on. Man of the match though was Sir Rickie, who was in superb form and the Derby defence really didn’t know what to do with him.
Nigel did his usual in the post match interview and ignored every question he was asked and talked about the club as a whole and how we try and play. I am developing a theory that Saints don’t send him out for post match interviews but instead send a hologram which is pre-programmed, allowing Nigel to take care of business. Unusually for us, we managed to pick up four bookings today with Fox, Fonte, Morgan and Sir Rickie all seeing yellow suggesting over-zealous refereeing in a game with little or no malice.
Up next we have a massive game against West Ham on Tuesday which doesn’t give much time for Adam Lallana’s foot and Frazer’s arse to make a recovery. Look at West Ham’s line up and it’s full of Premiership players and of course, they have Big Sam as manager. He’ll be hoping that Carew, Cole, Nolan, Noble, Collison and all that will fancy facing the full force of Saints at SMS on Tuesday… and they still have Robert Green in goal who I will never forgive for that goal he let in at the World Cup when I taught my kids some new swear words. First v Second, bring it on!!!
I wish I could make match reports as funny as you do!
ReplyDeleteBy the way watch out for the new interface Blogger will push on us soon, I find it much harder to work with.