You two can fuck off back to Wochdale !
I find midweek games a pain in the arse..
Let me clarify that... I love midweek games once I’m in the
ground but hate the hassle of getting there.
I am one of the poor unfortunates who rely on Southern Rail to get them
to places on time and they are so bad that it is quite stressful wondering if
I’m going to see the kick off. The good
news is that I will probably miss the mascot dog doing Gangnam Style and the
annoying baldy bloke attempting to be funny.
Also stressful but in an amusing way, is getting all my gear ready and
heading to work (in Brighton) on the train in the morning. The scarf around my neck got me a
(relatively) good natured ‘Scummer!’ shout from a passing Skate this morning as
the train passed through bandit country near Havant. I used to live near Havant with the joke
being ‘Havant got a chippy, Havant got any decent pubs’ . You can’t say ‘Havant got a football club’
because they have and if Pompey lose their court case to be allowed to buy
Fratton Park, they may well have two.
We welcome Norwich to SMS this evening and irritatingly,
they’ve picked up of late so it’ll be a really tough game, tougher I’m sure
than QPR and Newcastle. The build up has
been all about the ex-Rochdale strike force of Holt and Lambert who have played
in every division and are now in the Premier League and scoring goals. Holt mouthed off earlier in the season about
players like the two of them never getting a chance for England and of course,
he was dead right. I’ve seen some Saints
fans reasoning that we should leave Sir Rickie out tonight as it’s 3 games in 7
days etc and blah blah blah, save him for Liverpool etc. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!! For starters, the most important game is the
next one and in this league, if you start winning as we just have, I don’t
think you change a winning side unless you absolutely have to. This is our best starting XI and if you are
going to prioritise the games, we have a better chance of winning this one than
Liverpool away at the weekend....and I have a feeling that the big man may want
to play in that one.
Usually of course, you don’t want to notice the referee but
tonight it’s inevitable as we have Mark Clattenburg, fresh from his
reinstatement following Chelsea’s slanderous racism accusation. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t we also
get the first game back for Sian Massey after the Andy Gray sexism thing. Chelsea
have refused to apologise for the blatantly wrong accusation and so it’s
rumbled on for much longer than it should have done – what a bunch of (insert
expletives here). I do not and have
never believed for one second that Clattenburg is a racist but I do believe
that he is a piss-poor referee and he was abysmal when we had him against
Fulham earlier in the season. Hopefully
he’ll be decent tonight.
Saints start relatively well and put Norwich under a bit of
pressure. When Norwich get the ball it
invariably breaks down on their right back Whitaker who in really shite
fashion, passes the ball straight out of play a couple of times, much to the
annoyance of his right winger Robert Snodgrarse who is a whingy bastard at the
best of times (see Leeds reports from past seasons). Norwich
and Snodgrarse have the first effort which requires a goalkeeper when he
blasts one straight at Gazza which he saves easily enough.
Saints are playing ok without looking too dangerous which
can be put down to Norwich defending deep and pretty well and Twattenburg being
very lenient with any tackling from the Norwich defenders, particular Turner
who seems to want to take Sir Rickie’s head home as a souvenir as he looks like
he’s trying to wrestle it off his shoulders at every collision. The big man escapes on 25 minutes and gets a
bit of space on our right before sending over a lovely cross to Lallana who has
to volley it first time and does so, about three foot over the bar.
Having previously turned down an opportunity to run at the
Norwich defence, Luke Shaw has a run at Snodgrarse who unsurprisingly just
brings him down. Surprisingly,
Twattenburg gives it to earn himself an extended round of applause and
unsurprisingly, Snodgrarse moans about it.
Lallana’s cross into the mixer deflects off of Holt and hits Sir Rickie
on the upper arm before hitting Holt again who has a Rochdale flashback and
knocks it down for Sir Rickie to poke into the net. It’s a scruffy goal but no-one in red is
complaining.
I am weighing up our ‘clean sheet’ potential at this point
and Norwich really aren’t offering much .
Holt is having a bit of a mare and they don;t appear to have too much else going on up front. The
main threat seems to be through Tettey in midfield who is producing the odd
surging run. For us, Yoshida is playing
like he has something in his eye combined with an inner ear infection as he's missing every header by a mile and Gazza is
not filling me with confidence as he fails to claim anything.
Saints are pushing for a second and following another round
of applause for Twattenburg, Gaston’s free kick from the right, skims right
across the goal with goalkeeper Bunn struggling. Half time is upon us and Luke Shaw showed a
bit of inexperience by showing Snodgrarse inside onto his only foot and then
missing the tackle. Clyne dived in and
took him out and the Twatt (correctly in my view) awarded the free kick, right
on the right hand corner of the area as Norwich were attacking. My view was directly behind it and you could
see that three men was not enough to have in the wall and the three were to far
to the right – it should have been 4 or even 5 players as Snodgrarse was only
ever going to shoot which he did – to the left of the three man wall and under
the flailing Gazza who really made a shite effort at getting to it. Fuck it… the bastard didn’t even hit it that
well.
Half time and 1-1 and oh shit, the dog is doing Gangnam
Style and I haven’t missed it.
The second half starts and we struggle to get out of first
gear. Emboldened by their somewhat fortuitous
equalizer, Norwich are pressing us back and looking like they actually have a
thought about winning the game. A poor
final ball often lets them down though and the closest they come in this period
is a Holt header from a corner which hits Gazza on the line and is
cleared. Considering Holt was only 5
yards out, the keeper really should be claiming that one.
Jason Punch is looking our most lively player and he comes
close on the hour mark as a lovely control and turn buys him a bit of space and
his left footed curler is heading for the bottom corner until Bunn gets down
and pulls off a decent save. Following a
nondescript 10 minutes or so, the Great Gaston injected some life into things
with a burst through from midfield which
was brought to a grass-eating conclusion when he was trashed by
Ryan Bennett whose tackle was about 10 yards from the ball. I know there was a covering defender and
Bennett knew it as well so it was never going to be a red card but fucking
hell, so cynical.
Norwich had stopped committing too many players to their
attacks from about the 70th minute and by the 80th, I
detected that we had settled for a point also.
No attacking subs had been brought on which was a surprise as many
seemed knackered which was never better illustrated when Punch got himself into
a decent position and delivered a superb cross into a great area… which had no
Saints players in it.
Luke Shaw went down with cramp on 85 and on came Ben Reeves
who no matter how many times I see him, looks like a mascot from a local
school. I was pleased that Holt had gone
off at this point as the thought of Norwich loading high balls into our left
back area for Holt to compete for against 5 foot nothing of Ben Reeves was a
frightening one. J-Rod was given 3 minutes
of normal time as a replacement for Punch with Gaston going to the right but
neither team looked like scoring to be honest and Twattenburg got something
right as he managed to blow the whistle for the end of the game.
This was a difficult game to analyse really... one point
gained or two dropped? It reminded me of
some of the games in the Championship and League 1 in that the away team came
for a draw and we tried to break them down.
Today we did that, got in front and I feel that if we’d got to half time
1-0 up then we’d have probably got another in the second half as Norwich came
out a bit and we’d have won 2-0 or something.
However – the goal we gifted them before half time fucked that right up. For the first 20 minuntes of the second half
I felt that Norwich thought they could win it before settling for a point
again. We didn’t have the necessary
energy or belief to break them down again and I think Nigel settled for a point
with 15 to go or else he’d have thrown on Mayuka for Lallana or something like
that. Overall, a fair result and both
teams will be happy enough.
I thought Corky and Sir Rickie looked shattered in the
second half and Adam disappeared altogether.
Gaston had his moments without being near the level of the Newcastle
match and I thought Punch was our best player going forward, despite what the
Row R morons think – they decided he was rubbish three years ago and are too
stupid to actually watch the game and re-evaluate for themselves.
Nigel seemed to be happy enough with a point whilst throwing
a few bombs at Twattenburg. When viewed
in slow motion, it could be argued that Clyne got the ball in the tackle
leading to the free kick for the Norwich goal but in real time I thought it was
a foul and it certainly looked like one.
The bottom line is that if Gazzaniga had had another man in the wall
and/or not made a complete bollocks of the free kick then no one would be
talking about the decision so I don’t think you can blame the ref for that one
but having said that.... he was absolutely dreadful anyway.
Nigel does have a decision to make in goal for the next game
and I’m pretty sure it will be one of Davis or Boruc in goal at Anfield. If it was down to me it
would be the Holy Goalie but I wouldn’t be surprised either way. Gazza has played a major part in giving the
opposition their goals in the last two home games that we’ve dropped points in
and I think that the fans will start getting on his back if he continues for
now which is no good for anyone but it’s especially not good for a
youngster. As everyone knows, one
mistake and it’s a goal when you’re in goal – even defenders get away with it
sometimes which was perfectly illustrated by the amount of times Yoshida missed
the ball today and was bailed out usually by Fonte or Shaw. Finally, I don’t usually argue with what
opposition manager’s have to say, especially when it’s a nice inoffensive
manager like Chris Hughton but his assertion that Norwich deserved to win is
utter bollocks. They didn't seem to have much ambition or quality up front so it's annoying that we threw them that goal.
As for the Rochdale reunion – well Sir Rickie scored from a
Grant Holt assist so all’s well with the world. Holt didn't have a great game and he was left in no doubt of that with the frequent chants of "you're just a shit Rickie Lambert" but it was obviously an off night for him and I for one wouldn't begrudge him the success he had last season or this and I'd rather see Holt play for England than some Billy Big Bollocks from Man United reserves. Next up for the boys in red could well be a debut for the shit white kit as Nigel and Sir Rickie go back to Anfield. We can get something there even if the
thought if our defence up against Suarez gives me the shits.
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