Gervinho and his Forehead speak enough English to sum up our defending.
On Saturday there was a cricket match played at Lords, in which Hampshire defeated Warwickshire off the last ball and won by dint of losing fewer wickets. It's about as close as you can get when winning a cricket match and so the mighty Hants, my county, won their second trophy of the season, adding the CB40 over competition to the T20 which they won a few weeks back. Well done to all the boys. That's the end of the sport for today. Goodnight.
Meanwhile, we rewind a week or so...
It's an international break and a deathly hush has descended upon
the season allowing us to draw breath and take stock of where we are... bottom
of the league with lots of plaudits but ultimately, zero points and as no
lesser authority than Bruce Forsyth said ‘what do points make?’. No one to my knowledge has handed out prizes
for being aesthetically pleasing but ultimately losing every bloody week.
The internationals in question did have some Saints interest
in them with Adam Lallana being called up late to the England squad,
as playing in three defeats in the Premier League has made him a better
footballer than he was in the Championship last season. Aside from Saints fans, most of the reaction
seemed to be that he hadn’t proven anything where it matters, in the Premier
League whereas the call up of Liverpool ’s 17
year old Raheem Stirling was greeted with enthusiasm. As we all know, games in the Championship and
League 1 don’t count so in the eyes of the uneducated many, Stirling
has more experience by 5 games to 3. It
is notable though that aside from Adam and the two sub goalkeepers Ruddy and
Butland, every other player in the squad came from a recognized ‘Big club’ or
their reserve sides at least... City, United, Chelsea ,
Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool , Everton.
Aside from Adam, it's all moved on a bit from when our only international was Jonno Pace playing for Barbados... Steven Davis captained Northern Ireland to defeat in Russia and a massive home draw with Luxembourg . Danny Fox dropped out of the Scotland squad due to injury which could make
him a doubt for us and our two new boys both made 2 appearances for their
respective countries with Gaston Ramirez playing for Uruguay
and Maya Yoshida for Japan . Interestingly, Japan
kept two clean sheets – something we could certainly do with in our defence....
ok, ok…they were playing Iraq
and Qatar
who are probably not quite Arsenal.
Talking of which...
Perhaps surprisingly, we had the same starting line up as we
had before substitute-gate against Man United.
There were however 3 changes on the bench with new boys Yoshida and
Ramirez on there as well as a welcome recall for Chappers. The players dropping out were Dan Seaborne,
Tadanari Lee and the newly convicted man who just doesn’t know the limit, Guly
do Prado. Arsenal had of course began
the season as they always do by selling some of their best players with Alex
Song (who I always thought was quite average) and Robin Van Persie (see Man
United report to confirm that he isn’t average) both leaving. The incoming replacements were Lukas Podolski
who has 100 caps and about 50 goals for Germany
and Santi Cazorla who can’t get in the Spain side so he must of course, be
shit.... ha ha ha.
For the first ten minutes it’s not too bad as we at least
have a bit of possession and Arsenal aren’t having it all their own way but it
all changes as Podolski and Morgan re-enact a scene from World War II where the
German advances and the French surrender.
Breaking with that theme, Northern Ireland surrenders as well
as Steve Davis joins Morgan in wet lettuce tackling, allowing Podolski to
stumble past the both of them. He feeds
Gibbs on the left who is totally Puncheon-free and he hammers in a
cross-cum-shot which Not-so-Superkelv allows to squirm under his body at the
near post presenting the desperately retreating Big Jos with the ball at his
feet right in front of the goal. A
clinical bobbled finish from the big Dutchman and it’s 1-0 to the Arsenal. Oh for the days when they used to settle for
that score....
Big Jos has had better days and he has to come off soon
after with a calf injury and is replaced by the new boy Maya Yoshida who
watches on as Not-so produces a big flap at a cross which is crossed back in to
Mertesacker whose header is saved in ‘one for the cameras’ style by the
keeper.
At this point, I had to leave the dulcet tones of
Merringtitus as I was about to go and view a car in (of all places) Hayling Island Portsmouth on the M27. We’d equalized but Big Dave didn’t sound very
happy. “That gives us something to build
on as it’s now 4-1”. I feel slightly
stupid at the realisation that I had been celebrating what was basically a
consolation goal.
Then ten minutes that I’d missed had brought the
following... Firstly, Coquelin had been
flattened by a ropey and untidy tackle from Steven Davis about 25 yards
out. Podolski took the free kick and
smashed it into the net with ruthless German (Polish) efficiency. It looked great from the side but when viewed
from behind the goal it was poor goalkeeping again as it was nearer the middle
of the goal than the corner and Not-so’s starting position was too far to one
side. A great hit (as Alan Hansen will
no doubt say later) but it never should have gone in. So, 2-0 and then we had a re-enactment of
Tevez’ first goal at Man City where this time, Arteta chipped it over the
defence and Gervinho and his Forehead had a run on goal and smashed it once
more inside the near post of the keeper who went down too early. Yoshida’s poor positioning allowing Gervinho
and his Forehead to run past him was a contributory factor for this goal as
well. 3-0 became “oh shit we’re getting
annihilated when Gibbs walked past a real powder-puff challenge from Puncheon
(think Audley Harrison) and fed Gervinho and his Forehead who smashed in a shot
from out side which hit Clyne and deflected past Not-so, who on his current
form, would probably have let it in even without the deflection.
So.... it was now half time, we’re losing 4-1 and I’m in Hayling Island
We begin the second half with Ramirez on for Steven Davis
and we’re in a 4-4-1-1 formation with Punch and Adam on the wings and the new
boy in between the midfielders and Sir Rickie who up to now, has not had a kick
out of Vermaelen and Mertesacker, despite the latter having the turning circle
of the QE2. Gaston gets to work and we
look better and he immediately sees a curled effort easily grabbed by the
Scrabble High Score in the Arsenal goal.
He then attempts another shot from miles out but his scuffed effort
turns into a perfect through ball to Sir Rickie who gets there before the
keeper but sidefoots his effort wide of the far post. As they will say in post match interviews...
at 4-2, we may have... blah blah, trust me, we would have still got dicked.
Sure enough, it gets worse soon after as substitute Ramsay
tricks his way past Clyne on our right and shoots across Not-so and onto the
inside of the far post but the rebound falls into the path of Gervinho and his Forehead
about 6 inches out who kind of falls over it into the net for 5-1. The rest of the game is quite even in fact
but Arsenal are playing in first gear and allowing us to have some possession
and having the occasional pot-shot themselves like the one from Alex
Chamberlain which Not-so palmed aside.
J-Rod comes on for Sir Rickie and Theo Walcott comes on for
them and he has the final word as we have a chance to clear the ball but Morgan
fannies about again and it breaks to the aforementioned Walcott to smash it
past Not-so for 6-1 in the last minute.
There is no celebration from him which is a nice touch (I’m assuming it
was out of respect) and after the final whistle, it was nice that both Theo and
the Ox, came over to applaud the suffering Saints supporters.
Bloody hell… where do we start with that one. Well, lets start at Number 1 and our keeper,
Superkelv who in his Saints career has had spells of being decent, dodgy,
excellent, flappy, brilliant and right now he’s added ‘out of his depth’ to his
CV. None of the first three goals were
his fault alone but in my opinion, if he’s honest he’ll think he could have
done better with all three of them – straight through him, wrong starting
position and near post. These of course
are the ones that ended up in the net but there is also the piss poor
distribution, the lack of command of the box and the general flapping about,
all of which undermine any confidence the defenders in front of him may have
had. Unless we hit the free agent market
or unless we are prepared to throw and untried kid (Gazzaniga) into the team,
then we are stuck with him until January, by which time we will be virtually
down if he continues in his current vein of form. Don’t believe the Official Saints website
which says of the Podolski free kick, “...that Davis could do nothing about”. Technically it’s correct, Davis could do nothing about it but that was because
he was in the wrong fucking place to start with.
I find it hard to get too excited about the potentially
brilliant Gaston Ramirez who is going to have to be absolutely world class to
score and create more goal than we let in.
It’s not just the 4 defenders though, it’s the midfield as well, missing
tackles and generally not being a decent unit when we haven’t got the
ball. Morgan was back to his worst
today, dangling his foot into tackles and losing the ball to more committed
players. Punch gave up and didn’t give
Nathaniel Clyne any help at all today,
James Ward-Prowse was by-passed and Steven Davis had an absolute
mare. If we’d had Hammond and Chappers
in the side today – does anyone think we’d have done worse? We need a ‘dogs of war’ mentality in midfield
for games away at Arsenal – we’re not going to out-play them because we simply
aren’t good enough. Going back to Gaston
– maybe his arrival hints at a 4-4-1-1 formation which I think, would be a step
forward – get Chappers on the right, Adam back on the left and protect the
fullbacks. So, that’s my team for the
next match...
Sir Rickie
Gaston
Adam S.Davis
Morgan Chappers
Foxy Yoshida
Fonte Clyne
Not-so (or an
experienced proper keeper)
We do however, have to remember that we’ve had tough
opponents but all the defeats and goals conceded put massive pressure on the
next few games. Over the past three
years we’ve been up the top of leagues and if you lost 4 games in a row then
about 10 teams would overtake you and you’d be miles behind. At the bottom though, of course, no one can
overtake you as a defeat means that you’re still fucking last but one win moves
you up a few places as no one else is winning down there either.
Pick up a paper or read the internet and aside from Kate’s tits
and Harry’s arse, you have the manager sack race – in which Nigel is the clear
favourite. It would be madness in my
view, simply because I remember the last season we got relegated from the
Premier when we changed manager after 2 matches. An interesting point of view I read somewhere
though was that Nigel and the coaching staff decided that Billy Sharp and Dean
Hammond weren’t up to the Premier League before they’d had a chance to play in
it. Why shouldn’t the same rule apply to
managers? Also coming back out of the
woodwork are the people we haven’t heard from since we started winning in
League 1, the people who seem to revel in things going wrong and are happy when
it’s pissing down with rain or they’ve just seen an animal get run over. What’s up with you...? Crawl back under your stone.
Next up Aston Villa at home who have just won their first
game of the season. Is this a ‘must win’
game for us... probably…
Sod the football
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