Tommy Forecast Has Left the Building

Our Worst Ever Keeper was signed by our Worst Ever Manager.

No sooner had the players reported back for pre-season then the Liebherr Cup was among us featuring Saints, Arsenal Under 11s, Anderlecht and the Olympic torch.  I’m sure it was lovely but as I mentioned earlier, it was £25 to get in so not for me.  Saints were up first against Anderlecht and got taught a bit of a lesson in possession football as the Belgians took the lead on 15 minutes through de Sutter and then passed it about whilst we chased around.    We nearly pinched an undeserved equalizer when Big Jos thumped a header against the bar but 1-0 it stayed and 3 points to Anderlecht.  All we got out of it was that I didn’t dislike the red kit as much as I thought I would and it may be growing on me.  Arsenal’s kids beat Anderlect 1-0 with a goal from the most senior player Lansbury and so we went into the last game against the Arse, needing a win.  Intriguingly, if we won 1-0 there would be a three way penalty shoot-out and I have no fucking idea how that would work.

For a while it looked a possibility as a J-Rod header from a lovely Fox cross made it 1-0 to Saints was Gervinho got down the left, did Jack Stephens and then did Dismal Forecast through his legs at the near post to make it 1-1.  The white kit is shit and so is Forecast who found a Gervinho a bit more difficult to deal with that a 42 year old Egil Ostenstad and a 18 stone Gordon Watson in his last SMS appearance.  Despite Arsenal having won the tournament, we had to have a penalty shootout to decide this game which Saints won 5-4 with penalties confidently despatched by Foxy, J-Rod, returning hero Seaborne, Chappers and Deano.  Arsenal’s last player missed as he was pissing himself laughing at Forecast trying to act like a goalkeeper and put it wide.  So, Arsenal won the cup and the internet was full of Arsenal jokes about them finally ending their trophy drought.  A more telling ‘so there’ to the soon to be departing Robin Van Persie (leaving because they never win anything) is hard to imagine.

Off to France for a training camp and with Radhi Jaidi now retired, there would be no obvious recipient of the ‘most inactive player’ award as refereed by GPS.  It was interesting that all of Ryan Dickson, Lee Barnard and Johnno Pace were left behind in a clear ‘not in the 25’ statement.  Having said that, I bet all three of them are better in goal than Dismal Forecast who is in the party.  Johnno Pace in particular has proven that he’s an expert at keeping the ball out of the net.

Since the Cortese revolution started, Saints have been pretty good at keeping all transfer deals out of the press until they happen but we’re a Premiership Club now and players have Twitter.  Though his name has been linked for weeks, it was on Twitter that the news broke, straight from the horses mouth that Nathaniel Clyne had signed from Crystal Palace and was on his way to France for the training camp.  One comment I read from a Palace fans (who were universally positive about the player) was that he ended Danny Butterfields’s Palace career and now he was about to end his Saints career too.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Butts ends up moving the other way but for now we have three right backs competing for the shirt.

A nip across the Swiss border saw us play Etoile Carouge in a friendly and dominate the first half with Punch hopelessly hoofing over two goals on top of each other when clean through with just the keeper to beat.  At the other end, Jos Hooiveld showed the value of clinical finishing by getting on the end of the left wing cross and thumping a header past Superkelv to make it 1-0 to the hosts.  Half time saw a new side come out and Luke Shaw, playing on the left wing, cut in after a Calum Chambers pass and curl a right footed shot around the keeper for 1-1.  From then on it was the Billy Sharp show as he guided home a JWP free kick from close range before fastening onto a Chappers through ball and taking his time before clipping a lovely finish over the advancing keeper.  The hat-trick was inevitable as Chambers’ lofted pass again put him though and Billy did what Billy does best and made it 4-1.

The second game of the tour was against Evian who despite not being a team that many people here will have heard of, managed to finished 9th in the top league in France least year, which means that they’re not bad.  Saints mixed and matched the side again but did it with the framework of a 4-3-3 formation and went ahead thanks to a goal from Jason Puncheon who gave his usual ‘hoof into the crowd’ finish a rest and drilled home from the edge of the box.  The first half was interesting for the fact that J-Rod played on the left of the attacking three and James Ward-Prowse again started and figured well.

Making his debut in the second half of the friendly against Evian Thonon-Gaillard was Paolo Gazzaniga who was signed from Gillingham in a transfer of such evil genius that a Bond villain would have been proud.  Not only did we get a highly promising goalkeeper for not very much money but we also managed to convince Gillingham to take Dismal Forecast on loan for the rest of the season which is also the end of his contract with us so the useless wanker is gone.  Let us reflect now that the last swap deal that Shitty Forecast was involved in was as a makeweight in the Gareth Bale deal.  Didn’t we do well out of that one!  I repeat what Spurs said to us about him to any Gillingham fan who may be reading – “He’s a highly promising future England international”.

No… can’t do it…. He’s a wanker and he’s fucking useless.

Anyway, back to the game and Gazza didn’t have much to do but we did create some more decent chances and sitters were missed by Billy Sharp who hit the keeper when clean through and Chappers who when he found himself in front of an empty net, waved his left foot at the ball and wellied it horribly wide.  You don’t get many supporters at these friendlies but those there were laughing at a fucking horrendous miss.  Nathaniel Clyne came on for his debut for the last 20 minutes on the right wing and the game petered out with us holding onto the 1-0 lead quite comfortably.

Meanwhile, we’ve avoided any fucking about with the Steven Davis transfer by coughing up a fee so Rangers are happy, walking in their Scottish Division 3 wonderland.  If that makes up the good guys then we have gone against this by not agreeing a fee with Palace for Nathaniel Clyne and we are “taking the fucking piss” with our offer.  That’s not a direct quote but I put it in quotes because that is what they’re thinking.  I should be a journalist for the Daily Echo….. or the Portsmouth Evening News but they’ve got plenty more than that prospect to be worried about.  August 10^th it is then….