"Hey Fellaini - I just Shat in your Hairdryer"
Después de haber pasado tres días
tratando de enseñar a mi papá de 68 año de edad y un hijo de 8 años cómo
pronunciar "Pochettino", fue con cierto alivio que finalmente llegó
el lunes por la noche y Everton se fueron de la ciudad. Mi hijo estaba
recibiendo harto conmigo tomando el psss como recibió el nuevo nombre del
Director mal y otra vez y en frustración, dijo "¿por qué que deshacerse de
Nigel Adkins?" Buena pregunta...
Que?
Roughly translates as…
Having spent three days trying to teach my 68 year old Dad
and 8 year old son how to pronounce “Pochettino”, it was with some relief that
Monday night finally arrived and Everton were in town. My son was getting fed up with me taking the
piss as he got the new manager’s name wrong time and again and in frustration
he said “Why did they get rid of Nigel Adkins?”
Good question...
Attitudes towards Don Nicola seemed to have cooled somewhat
after the initial shock of Friday. The
impression I got as the game approached was that people would sing their support
for Nigel Adkins but it wouldn’t spill over into negativity towards the team as
we are not Chelsea. People knew
Pochettino wasn’t to blame for the turn of events and they would back him. Of course, there were some well known
‘activists’ who managed to blag some column inches or time on TV and Radio who
were advocating a ‘white hankie’ protest.
Apparently, if we all waved them it would show our displeasure and send
a clear message to the Don that we were unhappy. The only message it would send was that we
were a bunch of bell-ends so I was hoping everyone treated that particular idea
with the contempt it deserved.
As I approached the ground with my swipe card season ticket
thingy, it did cross my mind that it may have been revoked due to a twitter rant
I had at mid-day on Friday but to me relief, I made it into the ground. I actually pondered buying a programme which
I never usually do but decided that it wasn’t going to reveal any details
regarding the sacking (this later turned out to be true) so I gave it a
swerve. All the fans I spoke to inside
the ground were in a bit of a state of shock over the sacking in view of our
improved form – even the guy who sits next to me who was never really a fan of
Nigel in the first place. Thankfully, no
one had a white hankie.
To the team news and it was evident that as he said in his
first interview Mauricio had been studying Saints for a while as the team was
what I would have expected Nigel to put out. 4-2-3-1 with Guly wide left and
Sir Rickie up front with J-Rod dropped to the bench. There was no place for Vegard Forren who was
deemed not fit enough (as the Norwegian season finished a couple of months ago)
so an injury at centre half would probably see either Frazer or Foxy deployed
against Fellaini and Jelavic – please no!
Any notion that we would be in some kind of sulk as quickly
dispelled as we start well and are all over Everton. Gaston feeds Captain Sir Rickie over on the
right who fires in a cross towards the onrushing Guly but Jagielka gets in first
and deflects the cross about a foot wide of the post which is probably closer
than Guly would have got if he’d got there first. It’s the first of many efforts as Punch cuts
onto his left foot and sees his shot deflected wide and then Gaston lets fly from
25 yards only for Tourette Tim to push it wide.
As it deflected off of a defender, I expect Tim went “shit, fuck, wank”
before he made sure and pushed it wide.
Phil Neville showed that after 46 years as a pro that he’s
not totally eradicated his tendency to give away stupid free kicks when he
clambered over Gaston about 35 yards out.
It really looked miles out but Sir Rickie got it up and over the wall
only for a combination of a post and a great save from Tourette Tim to keep it
at 0-0. Bastard!
Everton are of course blessed with having Marouane Fellaini
in their side and he’s a handful and a good player but he does himself no
favours with the general aggro he brings to the table. Big Jos slightly tugged him back and the ref
gave a free kick and rightly so. A good
few seconds went past before Fellaini brandished the imaginary yellow card and
the ref decided to take him up on it and Jos got booked. Firstly, Fellaini is a wanker for showing the
imaginary card and the ref is a total wanker for doing what he was asked. Surely it’s an obvious one – if someone
simulates the showing of a card then they get booked for unsportsmanlike
conduct and generally being a twat.
Guly and Gaston are working incredibly hard (for them) and
it’s all helping us to pin Everton back and continue to create chances. Gaston breaks again and Si Rickie cuts inside
a sliding defender and attempts a left footed curler into the far past but
Howard tips it away. Next up Gaston goes
alone and hits a decent right footed shot which Howard again turns away for a
corner. The Uruguayans’ corner is too
long and over everyone bar Yoshida who is clearly barged over for what should
have been a penalty but he increasingly annoying Mr Swarbrick isn’t interested.
We have two more chances as the half comes to an end and
they both fall to the right man but neither end up in the net. Firstly, Sir Rickie gets his head on another
corner and this time he beats Howard but not Jelavic on the line. The rebound is fired back in by Big Jos and
this time Tourette Tim keeps it out. He
really is a shit, fuck, bollocks, wanker good keeper but he can only watch on
as Shaw, Guly, Morgan and Punch keep possession on our left before Punch puts a
superb cross right on Sir Rickie’s head and he should have done better than
thump a header wide. The final action of
the half is for Morgan to pick up a booking and it’s another one requested by
an Everton player after the ref had (rightly) given the free kick. A decent half for us but would we regret not
scoring when we were on top? No way
would Everton be that bad again in the second half.
The second half starts and it immediately becomes apparent
that there must be a massive slope on the ground from the Chapel to the Northam
End as it’s Everton doing all the attacking.
Fellaini has two efforts in a few minutes as he connects with right wing
cross with a low volley that King Artur saves with his legs. From the resulting corner, Fellaini manages
to get a free header in front of Big Jos but it’s straight at the Pole in Goal
and so we breathe again. We’re
struggling to get anything going now and Everton come close again when Osman’s
drive from the edge of the box flicks off a Japanese head and goes for a
corner. Everton change tactics with
Anichebe coming on and they now have a forward who might actually threaten
unlike Jelavic who is thankfully on the end of Anichebe’s pull back, instead of
a player who might score.
J-Rod comes on for Guly in Mauricio’s first substitution as
Saints manager and seems to initially slot in wide on the left where he’s
previously proven to not be very good.
It still one way traffic towards our goal though and Anichebe finds
himself one on one with King Artur and his shot is superbly turned aside by our
resident nutter.
Gaston is down with what looks like cramp and has to be
replaced with Steven Davis and Punch then broke the record for the fastest exit
from the pitch when not being substituted.
I’m writing this with hindsight but at the time, I had no idea that he’d
gone off for a shite and I still have no idea how the Northam knew but on his
return he was greeted with a Sloop John B variation with the lyrics “Jason
Puncheon – he went for a shit” before it was modified to “Jason Puncheon, he shits where he
wants”. Punch seemed to find it all
amusing and I hope he went in the away dressing room, preferably in Fellaini’s
hand bag.
Don’t get me wrong, Fellaini is a good player. Since Anichebe came on he’s dropped into
midfield and he’s running the show, knocking simple balls and generally enjoying
the run of the park as we seem scared of him.
No one wants to go near him and you can see why when Morgan eventually
does and comes away with a black eye for his pains. I guess when you know that the referee is as
useless as Mr Swarbrick that you’re not going to get any protection at
all. Like I said, good player but a very
dirty one.
We’re back on the front foot as the game draws to a close
with J-Rod winning a corner. Even though
it’s a long way from the toilet, Punch is happy to take it and his corner is
met by Sir Rickie at the back stick but his header just clears the bar and
lands on the roof of the net. Mauricio
makes his final substitution with Steeeeeve getting his obligatory 5 minutes to
try and not give the ball away as he comes on for Punch who is touching cloth
as he disappears straight down the tunnel.
Both teams have settled for a point as the injury time ticks down and so
it transpires as Mr Swarbrick makes a decisive decision and blows the final
whistle in expert fashion.
Mauricio Pochettino’s interviews after the game were
conducted via an interpreter and followed the pattern where the reporter would
ask a standard question along the lines of “How did you find your first game?”,
then the interpreter would translate to Spanish before Mauricio answered for a
good three minutes before the interpreter gave a much shorter version which
definitely missed out a lot of the detail.
This process did produce a decent answer to a question about Punch’s
toilet break when Pochettino figured that “players get nervous when there’s a
new manager”.
Overall., I’d say that the first game for the new manager
was a success. He didn’t try to do too
much too soon in that the formation was the same as usual and the players used
were as expected. One change was that we
seemed to press higher up the pitch and more aggressively which worked really
well in the first half until Everton stepped up a gear in the second. Individually, the main differences were in
Gaston Ramirez and Guly do Prado who played with a lot more intent and took
their defending a lot more seriously than they usually do. It’s interesting that we’re talking about
communication and the managers’ lack of English. Maybe the all-English coaching staff we had
before couldn’t get their message across properly to the Spanish/Portuguese
speaking players who don’t have the best of English. For example, I can’t imagine Andy Crosby
being able to get into the mind of a 22 year old Uruguayan international.
Other positives on the playing side... well Artur Boruc
looked like the quality keeper that I knew we’d signed back in September and
will surely be first choice from now to the end of the season and we’ll be all
the better for it. It’s worth remembering
that his contract only runs to the end of the year and along with Punch, it’s
one I’d be looking to renew sharpish.
Morgan and Corky again demonstrated their value to us with superb all
round midfield displays and Punch demonstrated a turn of pace we didn’t know he
had by making the toilet before he shat himself... well, we can but hope he
made it in time anyway.
I thought the behaviour of our fans was first class. I’ve been disappointed with certain things
this season like the booing of Guly and the Boruc incident but today there was
no booing, no one being a dick and nothing but support for the team. I noticed the ‘one Nigel Adkins’ chants once
in each half, both times during a break in play. There were no white hankies or anything else
to make us look stupid and even though the media will spin it whichever way
they like, there was no revolt and no protest and there wasn’t “90 minutes of
pro-Adkins chanting in a cauldron of hate” as I read somewhere. Sadly, the Club saw fit to play into the
media’s hands by not even mentioning Nigel Adkins in the programme. Would it really have killed them to have a
two page tribute outlining his achievements at the club and maybe an
explanation from the Don along the lines of “It’s my decision as I feel this
will take the club forward etc
etc”. It really wouldn’t have
killed anyone and wouldn’t have made any situation worse. Instead, it’s all a
bit North Korea or some Sci-Fi film where a person is “erased”. You don’t exist, in fact you never existed.
Due to our decision to retire gracefully from the FA Cup
this year, we have a blank weekend and so Mauricio Pochettino’s first away game
is a nice easy one at Old Trafford on Wednesday week. In many ways it’s a free hit as nothing is
expected but then, nothing was expected at Chelsea either. United will give us chances to score so you
never know.
As they possibly say in Spain through a translator –
Permite ir y pegar uno por esos cabrones arrogantes. Tal vez
tengamos que soportar 10 minutos de tiempo de Fergie pero podemos conseguir
algo, incluso con van Persie y el Shagger Granny montar de nuevo. Tienen un
portero de mierda en de Gea y Rio Ferdinand tiene un error en él en todo
momento. Cara de remolacha sin duda estará pendiente del soporte Taggart como
él obtendrá una línea prohibición para su última diatriba en un funcionario...
sí, claro.
Bring it on.
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