Premier League Match 16 - Southampton 1 Reading 0

Brian McDermott had a great fall....

This weekend sees Reading return to the scene of quite possibly, the biggest robbery since the one with Ronnie Biggs and the train.  I am of course referring to the game at SMS last season when they came, parked the bus and mugged us big time and in effect, won the Championship.  I’m being a bit of an arre by describing it like that as in truth; they did a job on us and got what they came for.  When the dust had settled and both teams had got promoted though, I did ponder how Reading would win games playing that style of football.  So, here we are with both teams in the relegation zone.

Reading haven’t changed the team around too much since being promoted.  They have however, got a new Russian owner, Anton Zingarevich who looks about 25 and has a billionaire father so I expect it’s all his own money and it’s 100% legit by Premier League rules which states something along the lines of not being allowed to own a club on behalf of someone else.  If you look for it in the rulebook, it’ll be in the Pompey Appendix.  The big post-takeover signing was Pavel Pogrebnyak whose 10 years as a journeyman striker was overlooked when he scored a few goals for Fulham at the tail end of last year.  This out of character scoring spree prompted Readingski to throw stupid money per week at him.  He’s been a bit of a flop and other new buys such as ex-Saint Danny Guthrie, have hardly been picked in preference of players in the Championship side who I, even as a supporter of another club, know are not good enough for this league.

Saints had a couple of issues with The Great Gaston having flown to Uruguay and back during the week for a family bereavement and a shoulder injury to Paulo Gazzaniga which would see a recall for one of Superkelv or the Holy Goalie.  In the event, J-Rod was put up front with Sir Rickie and the winner of the prize to go in goal for this week was Superkelv.  For Reading, the Russian vanity buy was injured and the team had a lot of last years players with Jason Roberts (not good enough for Prem), Mikele Leigertwood (same) and Jobi McAnuff (same) still in the side.

The first notable action of the game saw some jostling for position at a throw in and Jason Roberts clock that it was 17 year old Luke Shaw behind him and deciding to be the ‘experienced pro’ and throwing an elbow in Shaw’s chest on the blind side of the ref but right in front of the Kingsland.  No reaction from the youngster and away went Luke to set up the first chance with a deep hanging cross which bobbled around before falling to J-Rod who hooked it wide when he really should have hit the target from about 10 yards.  Also missing the target was Sir Rickie who found himself free on the left hand corner of the penalty area before volleying well wide.

Saints were playing all the football at this point whereas Reading were content to hoof it up towards Roberts who backed into whatever defender was behind him and then threw himself forwards as if he’d been pushed.  Quite pathetic.  Alternatively, it was the ball over the top to le Fondre who obviously has never been taught the offside rule.  A flowing move by Saints which heavily involved Punch eventually found Clyne surging down the right and his cross hit the onrushing Morgan somewhere kind of knee / thigh-ish and bounced wide with Federici not getting near it.  From the angle I was at, it looked like a goal and I performed the ‘stand up – goaaaaal – sit down sheepishly – feel like a right wanker’ manoeuvre.   We were applauding again a few minutes later as Sir Rickie put Lallana in but his snap shot was comfortably held by the keeper.  All this and only 10 minutes gone.

The chances kept come as some neat interplay in involving Sir Rickie and Lallana saw a J-Rod effort blocked back to Sir Rickie who curled one for the top corner but it went in the middle of the goal and Federici pulled out one for the cameras, making a simple save look difficult..  Reading managed to fashion a chance for themselves when Roberts gave up trying to win free kicks for a second and laid a decent ball into Tabb who drove on from midfield whilst our defender ran alongside him, eventually shooting at Superkelv who should have done better than just palming it back to him.  The drama wasn’t over as Tabb went over with Corky in attendance but no penalty.  Fair play to the Reading man who didn’t appeal but there was the slightest of contact there.

There is a new chant that has found its way into the Northam End’s vocabulary this season.  It’s not a complicated little ditty and it goes “shit refs, we always get shit refs”.  As well as Mr Moss was doing in not falling for all of Jason Roberts acting, he had a shocker when Punch headed in a Lallana corner and he gave a push against Maya Yoshida.  It looked soft in real time but on the replay, you can see that Federici pushed Yoshida into a Reading defender who of course, then looked like he’d been pushed by the Saints man.

Time for an unlucky injury as J-Rod fouled Tabb who as he fell, landed on the side of Adam Lallana’s leg and obviously pinged something in his knee.  After lengthy treatment, it was no good so of he went with Gaston coming on to take his place on the left wing.

As half time approached, another Saints corner caused havoc as Yoshida stood far enough from Federici to not get shoved over and got his head to Punch’s corner and a combination of Cummings and Ramirez saw the ball loop up in the air before Sir Rickie lashed it horribly side on the volley.  Reading’s next corner very nearly got them what would have been a totally undeserved lead as Morrison headed it back across and the inventively named Hal Robson-Kanu headed against a post with no one on the Saints payroll moving a muscle.

It’s one of my favourite pastimes to wonder what the half time briefings are like.  I imagine that Nigel would have been quite pleased and “more of the same” and “together as one” and all that whereas whatever McDermott would have said, it would have been coming out of the mouth of someone who looks like an egg with glasses on.  Seriously though, what would he have said....”keep hitting Roberts with it early and he’ll moan at the ref and win us a free kick”.

It was all Saints again after the restart with Reading defending very deep and us camped on the edge of the box passing the ball about trying to find a shooting opening which eventually came and Punch’s shot was shovelled wide by Federici.  We’re knocking on the door again soon after as J-Rod spins onto a Sir Rickie knockdown and shoots just wide.

You hope it’s coming and I expect the Reading fans knew it was coming and just after the hour mark it did as Sir Rickie expertly sent Clyne away from Shorey down the right and his pass infield allowed Punch to take it in his stride and fire it right footed across Federici and in off the far post for a completely deserved 1-0 lead.

For the next five minutes we battered them, especially down the left with Shaw and Gaston but found no way through and Reading managed to fashion a couple of chances when a long ball from the right caught Clyne out a bit and his header dropped kindly for McAnuff to curl well wide.  Yoshida was having a good game but he still has a mistake in him and he made one when allowing Roberts to keep the ball out on the right and the eventual cross was met by le Fondre but headed well wide.

Our next substitution saw J-Rod being removed and Guly coming on to a mixed reception of cheers and boos.  No one will say so from the club so allow me – if you boo your own players then you’re a twat of the highest order and please stay away from St Mary’s on a match day.  Guly and Artur Boruc and whoever else you want to get your teeth into, play for our club and they want to contribute to us winning games.  If you think that booing them helps then it’s you that needs the help quite frankly.  Just fuck off.

Guly got himself involved and combined with Ramirez and Shaw before picking up the ball on the left hand corner of the box, spotting Federici off his line and curling a decent effort over the keeper and onto the roof of the net.

The Chuckle Brothers sit behind me and the whining and the ‘trying to be funny but failing miserably’ idiocy lands in my right ear.  Behind me and to the left is a Neanderthal Moron who I have mentioned before who yells things like ‘DAAAAAAAAVIS” at the top of his voice.  I’m thinking of recommending him to Pompey as Director of Football in a technical capacity.  Clive Woodward has nothing on this guy.  We have the ball and we are 1-0 up and we are inviting Reading to come and get it by keeping the ball and passing it – it’s good stuff and we’re keeping the ball quite comfortably but our technical guru yells “GERRITT FORWAAAAAARD!!!” before illustrating his point in simple terms with a “FORWAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!!!” before attempting to convince deaf people to hear again with a “GERRITT UP THERRRRE!!!”.  It’s the stuff of a technically brilliant mind it really is, so he must have been raging inside as we passed our way up the pitch with Corky at the centre of it before he put Guly through and his shot was straight at Federici and was eventually cleared.  I really wanted it to go in because:

a) we’d be 2-0 and the game would be over,

b) the Guly haters would look rather silly

c) I could have turned round and asked the Technical Guru what he thought

I realise that a technical answer along the lines of ‘UUUUGH’ would have come back.

Reading managed to win a couple of free kicks on the dying minutes due to crap refereeing in general but both were cleared with a degree of comfort and so daylight robbery was avoided.

Final whistle and three more points and we appear to have vaulted up the league to the heady heights of 15^th.  Due to the final score only being 1-0 and with our natural predilection for chucking goals in our own net, it was a bit nerve wracking but when you look at it in the cold light of day, we were miles better than Reading and it would have been an absolute scandal if they’d pinched a point.  There were very good performances all over the park but especially I thought, in the centre of midfield where Jack Cork continues to be the man who in an unsung way, is making our entire season.  Punch will get all the attention and the credit due to his goal and fair enough but everyone contributed.  Punch and Clyne down the right were superb as usual but a major eye opener for me was down the left with how well Shaw played and how much more he got forward with Ramirez in front of him instead of Lallana... food for thought for Nigel there.  At the back, Yoshida and Fonte restricted le Fondre and Roberts to next to nothing and today, they looked like a Rotherham striker and a Has-been (or a Never-Was-Any-Good-Anyway). 

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I was very pleased with how poor Jason Roberts was and how he just tried to con free kicks out of the ref all game.  As the ref ignored him he just moaned more but you can see why he plays like that when virtually all of Reading’s threat will come from set pieces as they have nothing else, either down the wings and there sure as hell isn’t going to be anything creative from the centre of midfield.  Though they won the league last year and fair play for that, they don’t appear to have improved at all but they do have a manager who looks like an egg with glasses on.  A word for the Reading fans who were very quiet all game, not even bothering to sing that fucking annoying 106 song which did make them sound like retards.  It’d be a bit like us chanting about winning the JPT three years ago.

For us, this was a game we had to win and we did.  It’s a good sign that we’ve had two “shit or bust” matches this season (QPR away being the other) and in both games we’ve been “the shit” and managed to win.  This season we are looking at finding three teams who are worse than us and in QPR and Reading, we’ve found two.  Our next match is at home to Sunderland when we will hopefully find a third.  We have to wait two weeks for this game though as next week we were due to be away at Stamford Bridge, trying to win a match whilst the opposition fans throw insults at their own manager.  Chelsea are however, in the World Club Cup so we have to wait so we may have dropped down the table a bit by the time that comes around but that doesn’t take away from the facts that we’re playing well and winning the games we have to win and that our manager doesn’t look like an egg with glasses on.