NPC Match 19 - Southampton 2 Hull City 1

Here is a Public Service Announcement:

Since our last match, CSI, the Parent Company of Portsmouth Football Club has gone into administration.  When you are confronted with a Pompey fan bleating one of the following

a)      The Fit and Proper Person Test has failed us

b)      It’s the parent company, not the football club

c)       It’s not the same situation as the Scummers

Here is your response:

a)      How is the FAPPT going to vet a Lithuanian banker other than seeing if he has anything dodgy on his rap sheet in this country?  He was chosen as the best owner by Pompey’s administrator who was appointed by Pompey’s owner.  Surely your administrator, who was your hero when he managed to con £100million off the debt, thoroughly investigated his background.

b)      Tell them that us kind generous folk at SFC may have closed that loophole for them wuith our lame attempt to get out of it.

c)       Tell them that it‘s similar because Rupert Lowe wants to buy the club.

Just follow these guidelines and have fun with your Skate mates.

Tonight we take on Hull City, in a bid to put Saturday’s defeat to Bristol City behind us.  They were of course, managed by Nigel Pearson who left recently to return to Leicester, leaving the club under the control of Nicky Barmby who was a decent player but I mainly remember him for Francis Benali drop kicking him in the back of the head when he played for Tottenham.  If memory serves, we had just let in 4 goals in about 5 minutes and Franny decided that Barmby had it coming.  It was live in Sky and I remember this close up of Barmby’s head and then Franny’s boot appearing over his shoulder.  It’s the stuff of legend.

Hull somehow had a couple of years in the Premiership recently and it’ll be interesting to see if any of those players remain.  When they went down there were rumours of Pompey-like behaviour from the ex-Chairman who then ironically got linked with a possible takeover down the road.  As a team they’ve either been very good or very poor this season so which one would we get.

To the teams and Nigel has put Dan Harding in the side in place of Danny Fox who had a bit of a mare at Bristol.  The race to replace the injured Chappers was won by Morgan Schneiderlin who starts on the right – I’m not sure that this is going to work ok.  Lee Holmes has made it onto the bench along side the predictable four of Barney, Steeeeeeeeve, Bart and Aaron Martin.  Hull appear to have a decent front line with Aaron MacLean and Matty Fryatt who are both decent players and Robert Koren was a eye catching player for West Brom a couple of years back.

Before kick off we had a minute’s applause for the memory of Gary Speed whose death I can’t get my head round at all.  While what he was like as a player is not really important right now but for those who never saw him play in his pomp, take it from me that he was a bloody good one.  During the 90s, Saints had two sides they could never beat, Leeds and Everton.  Speed always seemed to score against Saints for Leeds and when he moved to Everton, one could be forgiven for thinking that he’d stop his one man persecution of us.... but instead they beat us 7-1 and guess who got a hat-trick.  Great player, extremely promising manager who seemed to have it all... Rest In Peace.

Hull have some decent possession from the start but Saints have the first effort as following a patient build-up, Sir Rickie plays Morgan in and he smashes in a first time shot which Gulash in the Hull goal, makes a meal out of, parrying behind him before picking it up.  I expect he momentarily shat himself.

And now we have end to end football.  Hull have a wildly optimistic effort from Koren which Superkelv saves before a decent move from Saints ends with Sir Rickie crossing, the Gulyman stepping over it, Lallana’s shot being blocked and Dan Harding smashing the rebound at the moon.  Back come Hull and Fryatt is clean through whilst Fonte appeals for offside instead of defending and his shot is just flipped round the post by Superkelv.  Back up the other end and Adam Lallana makes the most of a lucky break off a defender and lashes a volley just over the bar.

It’s reasonably exciting at this point but you can always throw in a bit more as the Gulyman does his best Bambi on Ice impression and falls on his arse and within a minute it’s a Hull player in a footrace for the ball with Superkelv who is never going to get there in a million years.  Predictably as you like, he gets there just after the Hull player and hoofs him up in the air.  A quick scan of the pitch reveals we have two defenders behind him so the red card shouldn’t come out and despite that momentary sphincter clenching moment when the card comes out, it’s yellow.

Hull are continuing to ask more questions than any team has at SMS for a while and its not erally a surprise when they take the lead.  We have a chance to clear and don’t before they work their way in down the left, the shot comes in and is deflected by Koren, Superkelv makes a blinding reaction stop but unfortunately it pops up for Koren to head into an empty net.  Oh shit, 1-0 down.

We have one chance to get back into it before half time as Cork is hoofed over.  It’s just left of centre, about 25 yards out but the referee lets Hull line up about 5 yards away and so Sir Rickie’s free kick smashes into the wall and is cleared.  The Chuckle Brothers are getting irritating.  Of course they are as we haven’t scored yet and they have the memory of a goldfish and a matching IQ.

Half time and I couldn’t believe it - there were people booing.   You really need to have a word with yourself if you were doing this and you obviously need reminding that we’ve just got promoted, we’re top of the league above, we’ve won 20 home games in a row.... so we’re 1-0 down at home.  Get real, it happens.  The half time meeting of the Kingsland brains trust revolved around the need for Steve and who would come off.  There were votes for Morgan, Deano and the Gulyman but none for Cork who was of course, the one who got hooked.  On came de Ridder, who took up station on the right win with Morgan coming into the middle.

And then I did it again... following another misplaced pass, I loudly expressed the opinion that ‘Guly has been fucking useless today.  Saints won the ball back and off went Frazer on a crossfield mazy.  He reached the ‘what the hell do I do now’ point about 20 yards out and managed to poke the ball out to Lallana who went on the outside and stood up a superb left footed cross for Sir Rickie to head down and the Gulyman to smash a 1-2 off of Gulash’s hands before slamming it into the net at the second attempt.  Same as the Hull goal in that the keeper made a great save from the first effort and cue much backslapping for me and people pointing at me and laughing.

Five minutes later and we’ve turned it around completely as Richardson, revelling in the space that is suddenly available to him as the defenders worry about de Ridder, gets to the bye line and crosses for Lallana to steal in at the near post and flick his header past the keeper.  Adam’s heading ability is often criticized (usually because it’s the shte Johnno Pace, slide-it-off-the-face heading technique) but this is a decent flick and get in there you beauty.

We should have kicked on at this point and really gone for the throat but the game lulled back into a kind of mediocrity and we suddenly looked very lethargic which was well illustrated at throw-ins.  Dan Harding went to take one on the half way line – in front of him were Sir Rickie, Adam and the Gulyman, all marked and all standing still.   None of them even looked interested in making a run and neither of the central midfield players wanted it so in the end he had to turn round and throw it to Big Jos, across to Jose, back to Superkelv, sliced out for a Hull throw on the right.  Crap.

Just after the hour mark it was substitution time and with Barnard ready to come on, everyone expected the Gulyman to be making way, only for Sir Rickie to trot off the pitch.  Barnard immediately looked rusty as you like, getting battered by the centre halves and struggling to get hold of the ball and make it stick.  I think the term is that he ‘kept the defenders honest’ though with his harrying and chasing and he did manage one optimistic snap shot which was from too far out to seriously bother Gulash in the Hull goal.

Hull are running out of time and in his enthusiasm, Sub Brady carts Harding up in the air over on the left touchline.  It’s not a great tackle and it’s a little high but the ref is steaming over on a mission and it’s obvious it’s going to be a red card.  Yes it was a bit rash but it really wasn’t that bad.  Compare and contrast though with the way the Hull players accepted the decision and then remember the Brighton game.

Hull bring on a big rugged lump of a man in Dele Adebola and we bring on Lee Holmes who is the only player in history to be brought onto the pitch on a stretcher.  It's odd watching the stretcher bearers and physio doing warm up exercises for the entire duration of Holmes being on the pitch.  For some reason today, the scoreboards at both ends of the ground weren’t working which was a pain from the point of view of not knowing how long there was to go.  Back in the day you used to know that a 3pm kick off finished at 4.40pm and a 7.30pm kick off at 9.10pm.  Now we have longer half times and stupid kick off times and different ways of working out injury time so I had no idea how long was left.  I thought it would finish at half past but that came and went and still the 4^th official hadn’t put up the extra minutes board.  Here it is, 4 to go.

So, 4 more minutes of huff and puff with no serious threat on our goal.  We went forward at times and lost it and Hull whooshed it up there and Adebola did his best in a limited lower league centre forward kind of way.  Final whistle, get in.

My God did we make hard work of that.  Part of it was down to a very decent Hull side who kept the ball well and in the first half in particular, were as threatening to our goal as any team has been this season.  Thought they kept up some nice football in the second half, they didn’t really threaten our goal too much so I felt quite comfortable as the game ticked down.   Decent side though and I thought that Koren and particularly Aaron McLean had good games.  We only really played well as an attacking force for 10 minutes but it was enough with Frazer being the catalyst for both goals.  The introduction of Steeeeeeeve was a big thing in this game as it gave us balance and thrust on that side which was totally absent in the first half.  Steve being out there gave more space to Frazer to do his Ivan Golac thing and set up both goals.  Chappers has the energy to play on the wings and get up and down whereas Morgan is not that kind of player so lets get Steve in the side from the start on Saturday, assuming Chappers is out.

Nigel’s post match interview revealed a few minor niggles to Cork, Foxy and Sir Rickie but he was his usual relentless positive self, even turning their goal into a eulogy about Superkelv’s reaction save.  By the way Nigel, you’re not fooling anyone with your “I just want to be in the top 10 at Christmas” line.

So, the home form is holding up and we’re two points ahead of West Ham and eight ahead of third place Cardiff City.  Next up is Doncaster away who are bottom and six points from safety.  We really should win that one and we need to as it’s our last away game before we play the Skates.  Maybe they'll have a new owner by then.