"I've done the celebration, I practiced it for ages, then you disallow it, Big Vic not Impressed"
What’s not to like about Swansea ?
They play football on the floor, have a progressive outlook and a really
good manager. They’ve come up through
the leagues and reached the Premier League and made a really good job of it,
won the Capital One Cup and are now doing well in Europe . The only area they seem to fall down on is
that there appear at first glance to be hardly any Welsh or English players in
their regular XI and of course, as I’ve said before, my brother in law is a
Jack.
My one remaining chance of getting to the game lay with the
weather – if it pisses down then the kids game will be cancelled so I can
wrestle my ticket back off of my mum and thus negate the risk of the 3rd
Party who I have passed my ticket onto, punching an opposition supporter in a
drunk and disorderly rampage and getting ejected from the ground. Not a chance as the weather is decent so
I’ll be on tenterhooks hoping the old girl behaves herself.
All that’s happened since our last match is a spate of
international call-ups which were all expected, including the retaining of Sir
Rickie in the England
squad as cover for when Rooney and Sturridge pull out. If the unusual does happen and those two
don’t pull out then no doubt those two will start the game along with Welbeck
and Sir Rickie will be vying with Defoe for a place on the bench at best which
is skant reward for playing in the Ukraine away match when Rooney and Sturridge
couldn’t be arsed. It was probably for
the best though as they made miraculous recoveries to play for their clubs
three days later. England will qualify
on Friday night if we beat Macedonia and Ukraine fail to win in Poland so a
clean sheet for King Artur could send England through but if it’s still in the
balance come the last game on the following Tuesday then Artur will take on the
Tomaszewski role at Wembley. Look on You
Tube for “England Poland
1973”.
Oh yes, Dani Osvaldo took the slightly ill advised move of
making public his annoyance at his ex-girlfriend who has been making waves in
Argentina by complaining about him. It
was good to hear his side of the story but he’s opening himself right up for
being tabloid fodder. Sure enough, one of his soundbites of “I’d like to play
for Boca Juniors one day” was reported as him wanting to leave now and a
comment of “the Premier League is more physical” was taken as justification of
why he wanted to go.
Mauricio adds fuel to the Great Gaston debate by not even
naming him in the 18 for this match with Guly the preferred option. Steve Davis retains his place on the left and
it’s as you were…. Oh no it’s not, Luke Shaw is not available as his mum won’t
let him out until he’s finished his homework and so Danny Fox comes in at left
back. Swansea have a few different
players from last year with Wilfried Bony up front, a big ginger bloke called
Canas in central midfield and the centre backs are Amat who is new (to me
anyway) and the ridiculously named Chico Florres who from seeing him on Match
of the Day, seems like a good player, if a bit of a thug. Michu has come prepared for a tough match,
wearing one of those rugby scrum caps – he is playing against Dejan Lovren so I
can’t blame him. We also of course
welcome back one of our ex’s with handbag thief Nathan Dyer in the starting
line up. If he’d let Bollocks
Wright-Phillips do the robbery then all would have been fine as BWP would have
missed.
It’s October but the sun is out and so the old Sunday park
football rule comes out which is “win the toss, let the opposition keeper have
the sun in his eyes”. So, we are kicking
towards the Chapel in the first half so something has got to give. We haven’t scored in the first half all
season and we haven’t scored at the Northam end so if we’ve got nil at half
time then there could be trouble ahead.
Presumably there are no other Sunday football rules applied like “anyone
who throws up is a sub” and “last one here gets the smallest kit”.
Apparently, Saints have the most possession in home games in
the entire league but it’s possible today that that particular stat may take a
hammering as Swansea are (Arsenal aside) the best passing side in the League. However, some of their players aren’t so good
at possession football and one of those is Jonjo Shelvey who is the sort of
player who, as the opposition, you want to have the ball on the edge of his own
penalty area. When put under pressure he
has two goes at gifting us the ball and eventually scuffs clear to no one and
the ball breaks to Sir Rickie who puts Dani clean through. The Argentine-Italian Don Juan leaves Chico on his arse before
taking a touch too many and losing his angle before lashing wide of the near
post.
The chance sees a change in the dynamic of the game and
suddenly it’s all Saints and then that most miraculous of things, the first
half goal, happens. Adam Lallana has Ben
Davies on toast out on the right and gets a cross in which is half cleared out
to Steven Davis. He plays a simple but
superb ball into the path of the skipper who has continued his run before
smashing a rising shot past Vorm and into the top corner. It’s quite staggering to think about how many
goals Adam would have scored if he hit every shot like that.
Once behind, Swansea
really up things and we find ourselves chasing shadows. Our main tormentor is of course Nathan Dyer
who is up against Danny Fox who is nowhere near him. It’s not Dyer but Rangel who fires in a
lovely cross to the back post to where Michu thumps a header goalswards but the
King has got across to keep it out. After
a minute of Swansea
possession they work a chance for Shelvey who hits a decent low effort from 25
yards which the King gets down well to save.
Ex-Skate Routledge then falls over for no reason and we break and it’s
ended with Lallana being hoofed up in the air by Canas about 30 yards out. Sir Rickie looks much more likely to score
free kicks these days but though his effort is curling wickedly and on target,
Vorm saves comfortably enough.
We are breathing out of our collective arses soon after
though as Dyer seems to have half the pitch to himself as he cuts onto his left
foot and hits it. Time stands still as
it beats Artur’s dive, hits the inside of the post and flies across the goal
about 6 inches from the line. I’d say we
were a tad fortunate. “Robbed” as Dyer
no doubt said to himself.
Dyer is at it again just before half time as following a
superb build up from the Swans, he once again fires in a cross which is met
very well by Bony but the King flies across to his left to keep it out in quite
marvellous fashion. Like I said a few
weeks ago – The Best Keeper in the Premier League. Half time and 1-0 to the mighty red and white
machine.
There were no reports of anyone being ejected from the
ground for drunk and disorderly at half time so I assumed that Mum was behaving
herself. By the time the second half
starts I have made it home and have found a stream of the game on a channel I
have never heard of. There is a
co-commentator who from every utterance he makes, shows that he does not much
care for Southampton Football Club. I
can’t place the voice though…
The first notable action of the second half is a big lunging
effort at a tackle by Canas which trashes through Dani Osvaldo and leaves him
on the deck. A players reaction will
often tell you a lot about the bloke and as a result, standing there and
laughing as he got booked makes Canas a bit of a twat.
It’s still Swansea doing most of the pressing though and we
are resorting to long balls out of defence which almost without exception,
result in Swansea picking the ball up again.
There are half chances as Dyer fires well over the bar and Bony mistimes
his jump and heads another Dyer cross over the bar. When Dyer gets the ball, Danny Fox is never
wider than the edge of the penalty area and it makes me wonder if it’s a
tactic. If you close Dyer down then
he’ll skip round you and drive at the penalty area which is where he’s at his
most dangerous. However, his crossing is
a bit hit and miss so maybe we’ve decided to just let him cross it as usually
the cross will be shite… or maybe I’m talking bollocks and Fox is just having a
poor game. There are many in the crowd
who think Fox couldn’t be any more out of his depth if he was nailed to the
bottom of the English Channel . He doesn’t help himself by giving the ball
away cheaply a couple of time either.
It’s on the other wing that we have our next major problem
as Jose Fonte dallies on the ball and cocks up his back pass and gives it
straight to Bony who cuts in and Lovren cynically leaves a leg out and hacks
him down on the edge of the box. The
biased co-commentator says ‘that was a penalty’ when it clearly wasn’t and it’s
annoying me now, who the fuck is it? Meanwhile,
Lovren gets booked for the foul and Fonte gets booked for moaning about
something when there was nothing to moan about – you fucked up Jose, now just
hope they mess the free kick up. I’m
confident on that score as Shelvey steps up and it’s not even a surprise that
he curls it comfortably over the bar.
Dani Osvaldo is off for JWP which is less about his injury
and more about getting us an extra body in midfield so we can maybe have some
possession. Having removed one striker,
Mauricio then makes it a double and Sir Rickie comes off to be replaced by
J-Rod who I’ve never particularly rated as a one man strike force.
When Canas can’t trash through people and he comes up
against someone who goes in as hard as he does, he’s not as effective and he
loses out to Steve Davis and the ball ends up being worked out to JWP on the
left. He then does a fabulous trick
which we’ve all done and swings his left at it to cross it and nudges the ball
with his standing foot and off for a goal kick.
Mike Dean has had a shocker though and given a corner, much to the
Chewy-Wasp faced annoyance of about 4 Swansea
players. JWP’s flag kick lands at the
back stick and Big Vic diverts it into the net and is off doing and somersault
in the corner but it’s been disallowed… for nothing. There is no foul, no one is holding, nothing
at all. It’s been disallowed because he
knows he was wrong to award the corner.
So, next time you want to deliver a “two wrongs don’t make a right” moral
lecture to your kids, remember that “two wrongs don’t make a right, they actually
make a shit referee”.
There are fifteen minutes to go and it’s time for a mismatch
as in a Heavyweight v Flyweight contest, Big Vic hoofs Dyer up in the air. You do not steal Big Vic’s mobile phone and
get away with it. Ten minutes later and
the disallowed goal becomes an irrelevance as King Artur launches one forwards
and the Swansea central defence do something I wouldn’t have been happy with in
the Under 10’s this morning. Firstly
Amat lets it bounce and then Florres tries to outmuscle J-Rod instead of just
clearing it, allowing J-Rod to swing his left boot at it and bounce it past
Vorm and into the net for 2-0. All the
pretty football that both these sides are noted for and the goal comes straight
out of the Book of Allardyce. There is a
Jaidi moment in the celebration when Big Vic jumps on the pile of celebrating
players and somehow, JWP gets a smack in the face.
Game over and you know it is when Guly is allowed on the
pitch for the last 4 minutes as a replacement for Steven Davis. As the game ends the commentator says “…. And
that’s all from me at St.Mary’s with my expert summariser, Efan Ekoku”. Hmmm, why does he not like us? Never played for Swansea ,
never played for Pompey… played for Bournemouth …
maybe that’s it, if so, small time wanker.
The official attendance was 28,570 which is of course, at
least one more than actually turned up as one of my three tickets was
unused. I hope what we got paid for the
stupid kick off time was worth the shortfall.
Anyhow, we’re up to 4th in the league which is quite
something really. We were expected to
drop to 5th with Spurs being at home to West Ham in the 4pm game but
they contrived to lose 3-0 to a team who haven’t scored an away goal since the
mid-nineties. I will not settle for
having to play a qualifier to get into the Champions League, I want automatic
qualification!
Mauricio picked out Captain Lallana and King Artur as the
main men today with the former putting forward a strong claim for England
recognition – if only he was as good as Milner, Cleverley or Young. As for Artur… Roy Hodgson had best hope England get the
job done before the Poles come to Wembley.
Michael Laudrup is a class act and his post match interview reflected
this as he basically said that it’s no good dominating possession if you can’t
score.
There were issues today in that I think we proved that you
struggle in midfield if you play two up front against good passing sides. There was a long period of the game from
Lallana’s goal to JWP coming on where we were distinctly second best. The JWP change also got some help on for Fox
who whilst he doesn’t help himself with his positioning sometimes, was repeated
left exposed against Dyer and Rangel down his wing. As for the people who were audibly giving him
stick… I expect you were the same guys giving King Artur stick a while back and
I expect you were the one’s giving Guly stick and I expect that you’re a
fucking moron. Danny Fox is a valuable
squad player and until Matt Targett proves worthy of being Shaw’s understudy
then he’ll be here. He was a valuable
member of our promotion winning side and never gives less than 100% and
deserves a bit of respect. Sharp,
Hammond and Chaplow – all in the same boat in that they’d struggle at Premier
League level but all afforded a level of respect. If all that’s a bit much to understand… do
you think booing a player really helps the team?
It’s international break time and Sir Rickie and others will
be trying to nail down a place at Brazil 2014.
Saints next match in the league is a piss easy trip to Old
Trafford. If we can come away from that
one only having conceded 2 goals this season then that’ll be quite something
but even if we lose, we’ll still be above them.
4th… bloody hell.
4th
No comments:
Post a Comment