Woy Weleases Wickie to Wun Wiot on the Scottish Webels
Having spent two weeks on holiday in a place with no
internet connection, it’s been all quiet ont he blog front. It was like being back in the good old days
where I managed to finds out our pre-season results by flicking through an
English newspaper in a shop, hoping that I would not be asked to buy it for 4
euros or whatever . Anyway – now I’m
home and all caught up with things so what’s been happening.
Well, first of all there’s been the friendlies.
First decent opposition find us out – Schalke 2 Southampton 0
OK I’m over dramatising a bit here but we played a team who
were a bit better than the Spanish waiters we played last week and we were
quite comfortably beaten 2-0 with both of the gaols involving defensive
shambles from Jose Fonte and Kelvin Davis who between them went “after you, no,
after you, oh look it’s that Huntelaar bloke who’s half decent – I wonder what
happens if we give him the ball….”
Mayuka might be a footballer after all – Besiktas 1
Southampton 3
It was 0-0 after an even first half, the highlights of which
included regular sightings of the Polish Starjump Guy in goal as he repelled a
few one on ones in expert fashion. King
Artur was eventually beaten by a rocket 30 yarder into the top corner before we
hit back with Sir Rickie finishing from close range. There were two incidents regarding the Little
African Bloke which I mentioned in the heading.
The first came when he curled in a good right footed finish which was
wrongly ruled out for offside and the second came when a Sir Rickie ball in
front of him was allowed to bounce once before he lashed it into the top corner
with his left foot. There was a rumour
that you could have got 5000-1 on him scoring any goal in any match in his
Saints career before these two moments.
Joking aside, it was a quite brilliant goal which will hopefully give
him a lot of confidence. Steve Davis
then ran through from half way and showed deadly poise and finishing by
chipping onto the bar as he was challenged by a daisy on the pitch and several
yards of fresh air. No matter though as
we made it 3-1 as a Shaw cross was turned in by fellow teenager Isgrove to
finish a decent 3-1 win.
Penalty Shootouts aren’t our thing – Celta Vigo 0 Southampton 0 (Celta win 4-1 on penalties)
As the scoreline suggests, this was not the most exciting of
matches even though the Trofeo Memorial Quinocho was up for grabs for
the winner. 90 minutes of largely
tedious action was illuminated briefly by two bad misses by J-Rod before it was
brought to a close by a merciful referee and so we had a penalty shoot out
which we duly lost after 7 penalties which is only one more than the minimum
you can possibly lose a shoot out in.
With Celta Vigo going first it went Goal (1-0); Guly launches one into
orbit (1-0); Goal (2-0); JWP scuffs and saved (2-0); Goal (3-0); Steve Davis
scores (3-1); Goal (4-1)– game over with
two Saints players being denied the opportunity to make fools of
themselves. We had a chance of
silverware and we blew it prompting Martin Samuel to write a piece in the Daily
Bastard about Cortese kicking his cat. I
may have made up that last bit.
We’re gonna score one more than you – Southampton
4 Real Sociedad 3
The prices were more reasonable than usual but still not
cheap and so only 8,000 odd turned up to watch us play against the side who
finished 4th in La Liga which is in fact, the 2nd highest
position that anyone other than Barca or Real can finish in. Sir Rickie tried a 50 yarder before Boruc
made another excellent block and the entertainment continued as Adam Lallana
latched onto a Sir Rickie pass and smashed in the first from the edge of the
box. We had three great chances to make
it 2-0 but Vic the Impaler was too slow to get his shot away when put through
which was bookended by two J-Rod chances which he hit at the keeper (surprise!)
and then hit the bar from 6 yards. The
good work so far was undone as a cross bobbled across from our right and Morgan
and Shaw seemed to leave it to eachother and Sociedad had an embarrassingly
easy equalizer. We were straight back in
front though as Vic picked out Morgan who lifted it past the keeper with his
right before cushioning the dropping ball into the empty net with his left to
make it 2-1 and this bit of good work was immediately undone as Chambers
allowed his winger to have a free shot across King Artur to make it 2-2. It was the Spaniards turn to defend like 8
year olds as Adam bounced a free kick in from out right and no-one picked up
the 6 foot 4 Dutchman who just ran into the ball and headed it in to make it
3-2 at half time. It was all square
again soon after half time as we allowed on time Arsenal forward Carlos Vela to
run through our entire team and feed a winger who obviously knew that if Kelvin
Davis is in goal then you can bobble at the near post and have a 99% chance of
scoring. 90 minutes were gone when Punch
had a shot blocked and Isgrove’s mis-hit fortuitously fell back to Punch who
poked it into the net to give us a satisfying result at the end of a game which
was encouraging from an attacking point of view but completely terrifying from
a defensive one. In addition, Luke Shaw
got injured.
There was also some transfer activity but it was of the
outgoing variety with Ryan Dickson finding a home at Colchester, Ben Reevs
joining the Fake Dons, Chappers joining Millwall, Frazer Richardson joining
Middlesbrough and us terminating the contract of Steve de Ridder who
disappeared back to Holland where he found that Utrecht didn’t know that he’s
been rubbish for two years. We still
have Dean Hammond and Billy Sharp on the books and I would assume both will be
off before the transfer window is done.
Billy has been linked with a few Championship clubs and Celtic whereas
Deano has dropped off the face of the earth.
With all the friendlies now complete we can second guess
Mauricio’s thinking as to the starting line up for the West
Brom game. If everyone was
fit then it looks like it will be:
Boruc; Clyne, Lovren, Hooiveld, Shaw; Wanyama, Schneiderlin;
Guly, Lallana, Rodriguez; Lambert
However... both full backs are doubts so Chambers and Cork
come into contention at right back and Fox at left back so we could end up with
a back four of Cork (previously useless at right back) or Chambers (untried kid
making debut), Fox (clearly not good enough), Lovren (debut in English
football) and Big Jos (still not sure about him at this level). It’s a bit of a worry to be honest.
Victor and Morgan will be the defensive midfield as they
seem to have seen off the challenge of Corky but I’d find a place for him in
the midfield anyway, in place of one of Guly, Lallana or J-Rod to give us a bit
more defensive stability. With Punch again
showing decent form, it seems strange that Guly appears to be in front of him
but maybe his higher work ethic and of course his hat-trick against the Spanish
waiters has swung it for him. Gaston
appears to be well down the list with the continuation of the end of last
seasons lethargy. There’s a lack of
goals in the three attacking midfielders with Adam’s well documented finishing
issues still no doubt present, J-Rod using pre-season to hone his skill of
hitting the goalkeeper from just about anywhere and Guly not having score a
goal against anyone who wasn’t a waiter since 2004.
Up front will of course be England ’s Number 9. What! Yes, Roy Hodgson has finally done something
right and being the fickle chap that I am, gone up several notches in my
estimation by calling up Sir Rickie for a friendly against Scotland . He did of course qualify this by saying that
if Andy Carroll and Danny Sturridge had been fit then they would have been in
front of him in the queue but he’s one of four strikers in the squad, two of
which (Defoe and Rooney) have injury doubts over them. So – he’s going to play at least 45 minutes
I’d have thought. The media coverage has
on the whole been positive, highlighting the journey through the league his
career has taken and of course, mentioning the beetroot factory. The
only negatives appear to be coming from big club armchair supporting a**hole
fans and let’s face they, they matter about as much as Tommy Forecast. So, England will have one player at
least on Wednesday who the game will matter to and one who will have great
pride in wearing the shirt. He’s looked
sharp in pre-season so I would bet on him doing himself justice and it’s a
massive opportunity. Much has been made
of his age but the next tournament is in 12 months so what’s the issue? Oh yeah, two weeks ago we were going to sell
him to Reading !
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