Premier League Match 13 - Southampton 2 Newcastle 0

Clean Sheets, Yesterday

In the past few weeks we’ve had people who used to be in the employ of Southampton FC, coming back to haunt us in Gareth Bale and Nathan Dyer.  Today it’s not a returning player but a returning manager in Alan Pardew who in contrast to Bale and Dyer, only caused us a problem by scoring when he was here, rather than after he’d left.... if you believe that sort of thing.   As a manager, Pards started us off on this journey with the JPT success and the signing of many of the players who got us through League 1 and the Championship.  Sir Rickie and Jose Fonte are the obvious two who are still in the 1^st team now but he also signed Punch though his contribution to our promotions was somewhat limited.   Newcastle have another ex-Saint in Mike Williamson who never played a game for us but Pompey paid £3million for him at one point before selling him for nothing before he’d played for them in one of those genius financial transactions that they are so good at.

The endless lack of interest I had in the medias ‘Sack Race’ was ended with Roberto di Matteo becoming the first manager to be removed from his post this season due to Chelsea being in the bottom three and out of every competition they entered... or maybe it was due to ridiculous decision making by a club owner treating his club like a team on Championship Manager.  I’m sure that if he could, Roman would pay someone to reset the season and start again.  After losing to us last week, QPR decided that it was so embarrassing getting outclassed by the Saints that they could take no more and fired Mark Hughes on Friday, after they had of course, established the availability of his replacement.  Both Chelsea and QPR have made headline appointments with Chelsea bringing in Rafa Benitez who is about as popular with Chelsea fans as John Terry is with Wayne Bridge.  QPR of course have brought in the Twitchy Satchel Faced Geezer which has given us all the chance to watch the media rewriting history and removing his relegation with Saints in 2005 and the fact that Pompey are nearly dead as a result of this miracle spell there from 2006-08.  The final post script is that di Matteo is now favourite for the Saints job as Nicola Cortese “likes the idea of having a Champions League winner at the helm”... according to reports.   But of course… di Matteo is of course an Italian manager, like Paolo di Canio who was also linked and Cortese is after all, an Italian Chairman who is Swiss but never mind about the small details.  What a load of shit....

To the teams and the Toon were missing 3 of their better players with main defender Coloccini, main midfielder Cabaye and playmaker Ben Arfa all sidelined.  The rest of the side looked handy though and was regular first choice.  I dunno if it’s the stripes playing tricks on the eyes but on first glance, Newcastle look like a physically huge team with Ba, Cisse, Tiote, Santon, Williamson and Taylor all looking about 6 foot 5 each.  Not that I am particular up on my reality TV but the front page of the trash newspapers tells me that right back Danny Simpson has been taking time off from plugging holes in the Toon defence and has been plugging holes in the back of that talentless make-up plastered chav from the X-Factor judging panel... and I don’t mean Louis Walsh.  No accounting for taste I suppose.  Saints only made the one change to the bench from last week with Foxy missing and being replaced by another player who is not very good at left back, Guly do Prado.

Away we go and the Toon Army are soon in full voice with a mighty ‘Alan Pardew, he shags who he wants’ which is amusing but the counter attack of ‘Nigel Adkins, he shags his own wife’ sees the contest awarded to The Northam on points.   With Gazza probably being nervous with his couple of mistakes in the last two games, a dodgy backpass probably wasn’t what he wanted but having controlled the ball from Yoshida, he took too long to clear it and his clearance struck Demba Ba before looping right up into the air.  To be fair, Gazza, claimed the ball well as it came down which was a good end to what was a real ‘brown trousers’ moment.

Newcastle, as you would expect given all the giants in their team were pretty direct in their approach and Yoshida in particular was all over the place, usually about 6 feet under the ball but luckily, Fonte and especially Shaw were bang on it to snuff out any potential danger.    There are always debates regarding young players as to whether they have (the almost mythical) ‘it’.  Whatever ‘it’ is then Luke Shaw has ‘it’ in abundance.

Saints were beginning to get it together as an attacking force and at the centre of it was Gaston Ramirez who had obviously heard my Dad’s wish for him to have a really good game.    The Great Gaston broke forward and it ended up with his shot being blocked by some part of Taylor’s anatomy which looked very arm-ish but referee Martin Atkinson was not interested.  Nor was he interested in a couple of assaults on Ramirez and Lallana but he was all over a tackle by José Fonte on Cisse which he didn’t give as a foul until Cisse lived up to his name and rolled about.  Yellow card for José and an Oscar for Cisse who managed to limp theatrically into the box for the subsequent free kick, which we cleared giving Lallana a run at Williamson who didn’t do a lot wrong with is tackle but Atkinson was in ‘two wrongs make a right’ mode and gave us a free kick to the right of centre.  Would it be Sir Rickie or The Great Gaston?  The latter curled it over the wall and Krul pulled of a decent save to his left.

Saints have taken over now with Newcastle reduced to booming it forward towards Ba and Cisse who are putting me in mind of Papa Waigo in that they are always offside for no readily apparent reason other than not being arsed to look along the line.   Either that or they have different rules in Senegal.   They watch on as Saints cut through the midfield with a lovely move involving all four attackers which ends with Sir Rickie teeing up Punch from the left but his first time shot hits Krul on the foot and bounces clear.  A similar passing move is then halted by Williamson who hoofs Gaston over rather than play the ball which earns him a yellow card.  Thre ref could have played on as Punch had the ball and was attacking the last defender but there you go.  From an identical position as last time, it’s Sir Rickie’s turn and he curls the free kick over the wall and watches it ping off the angle of post and bar and off for a goal kick as all the players and 30,000 punters and Tim Krul stand motionless.

We deserved a goal and finally got one on 35 minutes as Sir Rickie was allowed to turn in midfield and chip the ball over Santon to Punch who was beaten to the ball by Krul who hacked it clear.... badly.  Clyne fastened onto the clearance, chested it down and tried to score from 50 yards but his off target effort was half headed away by Williamson straight to Gaston who drew Krul before slipping it to Lallana who tapped home for 1-0.

The rest of the half was taken up with more Newcastle hoof and another decent move from us which resulted in Morgan getting forward and hammering in a shot which was heading for the bottom corner until Taylor slid in a made a good block.  Half time and I’m having soup and chatting to anyone who’ll listen about the half we’ve just witnessed.  I was surprised at the ineffective performance of Tiote in midfield in that he wasn’t getting near Gaston and was allowing him to do more or less what he wanted.  I’d have changed that if I was Pardew and I’d have possibly gone and shagged someone I shouldn’t have.  The extent of Pards changes in tactics though was to remove nondescript midfielder Ferguson and bring on Sammy Ameobi on the left wing.  Ameobi is about 6 foot 6 by the look of it but however tall he is, he’s towering over Nathaniel Clyne.  I wonder what technical masterpiece of tactical tinkering is coming here then....?

Like the first half, our defending was a bit iffy at the start of the half and it was heart-in-mouth time as Ba flicked a ball on to Anita who has a girls name but more relevantly, he was clean through with just Gazza to beat.  I call it the BWP (Bradley Wright-Phillips) test – when a player is clean though and he just never looks like he’s going to score and Anita had this about him and sure enough, Gazza came to the rescue and blocked it.  And now the weather – it’s absolutely battering it down.

Mr Atkinson is beginning to get on my tits now as he consistently misses stuff and it’s no surprise to me that nothing is given as Gaston goes over in the box, under a challenge from Tiote who clearly fouls him.  All that is forgotten a few minutes later as Morgan picks the ball up on the left, feeds it into Punch who plays a 1-2 with Lallana before firing in a low cross which Krul can only parry to where Gaston is standing.  He can’t miss and he doesn’t and it’s 2-0 on the hour mark.

The brief now is to concentrate and we fail to do this temporarily and after clearing Simpson’s first cross, it ends up back with the Tabloid Front Pager and his cross is met by Santon whose header is going in the bottom corner until Gazza gets across and pulls out a superb save.

We are in a living and breathing Ref and Lino nightmare where once again, Gaston is fouled as he breaks into the box but because he doesn’t go down straight away (which didn’t work last time anyway) and Atkinson unsurprisingly doesn’t give it.  The Lino on the Kingsland side seems to have temporarily forgotten the rules which state... if a player smashes it off the side of the pitch without it touching anyone else then it’s a throw in to the OTHER team, not the team that has just smashed it out of play.  Twice, Simpson clears, twice it goes straight out, two throw-ins to Newcastle.

When we’re not expecting any help from the referee we’re still looking dangerous and we hit the woodwork for a second time as Punch is well set up by Adam and Gaston before beating Krul with a first time snap-shot, only to see it ping off the near post and away.  As we approach the last 10 minutes, it’s sub time with first Sir Rickie being replaced with J-Rod and then it’s standing ovation time as Gaston makes way for Steven Davis.

A while ago I commented that the Chuckle Brothers and the other Row R idiots have been pretty quiet this season despite us getting beaten regularly, having been annoying as you like while we were winning over the last 3 seasons.  We’re winning today so of course, they start moaning if we give a ball away or dare to keep possession with a sideways pass.  They really are clueless fucktards and I wish they’d go away.  “I’ve never rated that Puncheon, he always gives it away” is one classic.  I despair, I really do.

Meanwhile, on the pitch the entertainment is being provided by Lallana who really should do better when clean through than drilling the ball straight at Krul and by Gazza who retrieves a Toon hoof forward which sails out of play and pulls the much loved Argentinean laces trick which of course involves removing left glove, right glove, undoing a lace (probably) and tieing it up again.  Gazza then applies the coup de grace having put his gloves back on, by stuttering in his run up for the goal kick.  If I was an opposition fan – I’d hate him.

In the last few minutes we have three decent attempts on goal as Davis fastens on to a Punch pass and Krul flies out of goal to make the block.  From the resulting corner, Jose is up highest and sends an angled header over the top of Krul and it bounces to safety off the bar and away.  The final word is with the officials unsurprisingly as Lallana puts J-Rod through and he passes the BWP test and smashes it past Krul, only to be pulled back by a lino flag which is just completely wrong but in the lino’s defence, the action was 10 yards away with a totally unimpeded view.

93, 94 done.  Get in there and a clean sheet.  You don’t get many clean sheets in Southampton, especially when Alan Pardew is in town.  If you were a moaning negative bastard like the clowns who sit in Row R in the Kingsland, then you left St Mary’s moaning about how many chances we missed and how we should have won by more.  You’d be right of course but at the end of the day, just enjoy the fact that we were pretty amazing today and easily beat the side that came 5^th last year.

The headlines will go to The Great Gaston but like last week at QPR, you can’t pick out individual players as you’d have to mention all of them.  The front 4 were outstanding all game going forward and for all the talk of missing chances, there were probably only 2 chances where we maybe should have done better (Punch in first half, Adam in the second) .  The other near misses were down to the width of the woodwork and some outstanding goalkeeping.  When we were in the Championship, I always felt that Morgan and Corky together in the centre was solid but didn’t offer us enough going forward.  In the Premier League though, against better sides that come forward more, they are developing into a superb combination that allows cover for the defence and allows the forwards to go and play.  The back 4 stuck to the task well with the full backs being superb all game.  Clyne has a bit of a problem ballwatching a crossed ball but in the main he coped well with having to play against a 7 foot winger in the 2^nd half.  I thought the centre backs looked ropey for the first 10 minutes of both halves but coped reasonably with the limited threat from Newcastle and then there was Gazza who pulled out a brilliant save down low to prevent Newcastle getting any ideas about maybe stealing a point.

Up next we have a midweek home game which is a bit of a rarity in the Prem with the visit of Norwich City.  We moved out of the bottom three with this win today so if we can follow that up with a win on Wednesday, we may actually put a bit of a gap between us and the teams below the line which would be nice.  Get yourself along to SMS on Wednesday night.