Fill this out please Malky
Our visit to Cardiff City on Boxing Day was expected to be
against a team without a manager as it seemed that Malky MacKay was a dead man
walking. The owner Vincent Tan had told
him to quit or be fired which basically told MacKay that he was gone, probably
when the next defeat came along. They
got beaten at Liverpool a few days ago and most assumed that would be that but
he’s still here for one more game at least.
From the outside and not being party to all the details, it
looks to me that you could argue it both ways – MacKay had got them promoted
and as it stands today, Cardiff are out of the relegation zone but they spent a
fair amount of money on players who don’t appear to be much good in the summer
so I expect Tan wanted more for his money than 17th place and he
wanted a better style of football than the stodgy 4-5-1 keep it tight football
they appear to play. However, Tan changed
the clubs colours from Blue to Red as it would be more marketable in Asia. Being a bit of traditionalist, I believe that
you can modify things slightly but riding roughshod over a teams identity is
bollocks. I’m not an expert in marketing
but I doubt that there has been a flood of money coming into the club as a
result of the colour change, in much the same was as there probably won’t be a
rush of money into the soon-to-be rebranded Hull Tigers. Christ, there were enough complaints because
we’re not playing in stripes any more.
Can you imagine the stink if we changed to blue?
We’ve managed to get in the media in the past few days with
Adam Lallana getting married on the quiet as it had already been made public
that his wedding was initially supposed to be on the day England were are
playing their first game at the World Cup.
I would imagine that his missus will be demanding the biggest of
enormous wedding parties in June if he doesn’t make the World Cup squad. So, that was nice and congratulations to Adam
and his wife. The next day he was off to
Man United on the back pages and Luke Shaw was off to Chelsea and so normal
service had been resumed.
Anyhow, MacKay is still in place and we need a win and
something is going to give. There are
some positives and some negatives in our team selection today with Big Jos and
Foxy being replaced with Jose Fonte and Luke Shaw. The bad news is that Dejan Lovren has gone
down with a virus and his place goes to Maya Yoshida which reunites the
partnership that looked the most solid for us last season. Kelvin Davis is back on the bench because
Cody Cropper is injured which suggests that Davis himself is still injured
though not as badly as Cropper as surely if Superkelv was fit, he’d be in the
team instead of Gaz Timebomb who keeps his place. Cardiff have the team out I expected aside
from Chilean international Gary Medel being missing which is a bonus as he’s
their best player.
The game kicks off and I’m watching a stream from Al Jazeera
which has a foreign language commentary which is hilarious due to the
pronunciations of the players names. We
have Rod-ray-gezz, Lom-berr, Shom-berrs, Show and Shnee-dar-lang.
Cardiff appear to be right up for it and carve out a great
chance after about five minutes as Frazier Campbell gets away down the right
and plays it back to Noone whose cross is perfect and right on the foot of
Peter Whittingham who is about five yards out.
Thankfully he’s about as useful as the Skate Whittingham was this season
and spoons it high, wide and shite. A
bit of a let off the say the least.
When we get into it though and get the ball down, we are
passing it around very crisply and giving Cardiff the run around and early
warning was served as Adam Lallana, Sir Rickie and Morgan combine to send J-Rod
away but he was unlucky to run it out of play.
The warning was not heeded though and Cardiff tried to push up and press
but weren’t quick enough to stop Morgan finding Adam Lallana in acres behind
the left back and his cross left J-Rod with a bit to do but he’s on it today
and steered it past Marshall with his left foot with a big ROD-RAY-GEZZZZ from
the commentators.
Usually you get a bit of a response from the home side if
you take the lead but there was a real feeling that their heads had gone down
as we pushed on. This time it was master
of the green baize Steve Davis and Lallana who set up Sir Rickie who pinged a
beautifully weighted ball over the defence to where ROD-RAY-GEZZZZ met it on
the volley to despatch it under Marshall for 2-0 and dreamland. Get the fuck in there. It’s symptomatic that as a Saints fan I was
immediately thinking that we’d fuck it up now.
Whilst we are all trying to digest being 2-0 up within 20
minutes, it gets even more surreal on 25 minutes as some excellent work by
Chambers on the right wins us a corner.
Instead of firing it over, Lallana lays it back to Chambers who puts the
cross in from deeper, J-Rod gets up and nods it down and even if he’s a bit out
of form, you don’t allow Sir Rickie time to control it with no bugger around
him in the box as the ball will end up in your net which is duly does for 3-0….
LOM-BERRRRRR. Cue the obligatory shots
of home supporters heading for the exits, a very unamused looking Vincent Tan
and a suicidal looking Malky MacKay who was writing notes (or a CV) on a bit of
paper.
Cardiff respond after a fashion and Gazza has to make his
first save as Taylor’s shot is going sideways but it hits Jose and deflects
towards the goal, forcing Gazza into a sprawling save. There is another dodgy moment as Odemwingie
gets played in but he seems to get confused like he does in a transfer window
and in the time it takes him to think about it, Yoshida catches him up and
clears well.
As it is probably Malky MacKay’s last half time team talk as
Cardiff manager, I’m expecting Cardiff to come out firing for the second half
but either by accident or design, we diffuse this by waiting until the last
possible minute to re-emerge for the second half. Even so, we cause our own problems by giving
free kicks away near our box. Firstly
Corky gets away with one as Whittingham fires his cross over everyone but then
Morgan bins someone and picks up a booking that will rule him out of the
Everton game on Sunday. From the free
kick Whittingham gets it right and picks out Campbell who heads over as Gaz
Timebomb comes flying out and gets nowhere near it. I love the way that Campbell went chasing the
referee wanting another corner when it came off the centre of his forehead and
flew straight off the pitch.
I’m not his biggest fan (understantement of the year) but
Gaz Timebomb is at least making his presence felt today. Yet another free kick is hoisted into our box
and this time he comes and punches it straight up in the air. Fortunately, it goes high enough to allow him
to get back up and punch it off for a corner.
He has a massive smile on his face which, if I was one of the defenders,
would stop me punching him in the mouth as he looks like he’s enjoying himself.
When we stop giving free kicks away there is only one
dangerous looking team on the pitch as a great move down the left ends with
Shaw finding himself confronted by the keeper on the left hand edge of the box
and the keeper smuggles it away for a corner.
The corner eventually finds itself to the edge of the box where Corky
attempts to score his first goal since he was 8. It’s on target but straight at Marshall who
gathers easily.
The Timebomb nearly goes off a couple of times in quick
succession as he takes a swipe at a fizzed Yoshida backpass and slices it to
Jose rather than a Cardiff forward. He then takes his eye off a simple back
pass from Jose which is rolled along the ground and it runs about a yard behind
him after it’s rolled under his foot. It
has to be said that Yoshida is having a decent game. He wins many tackles when one v one and
though his distribution is a bit ropey, is happy most of the time to play
safety first football which when you’re in defence is never the worst thing to
do.
Whilst hunting for his hat-trick, J-Rod lashes one wide of
the near post on the hour mark and at the other end Campbell smashes on into
orbit as he fastens onto a route 1 hoof forward which bounces to him off an
aerial challenge between Jose and Cornrlius.
Cornelius is the Danish centre forward who Cardiff paid millions for in
the summer and he’s been injured virtually ever since and this will probably be
one of the sticks that Tan uses to beat MacKay out of the managers position.
You can see that Saints are playing within themselves but we
are still creating chances and come close when Sir Rickie plays another lovely
pass to Morgan on the right wing and his volleyed cross is over the keeper and
headed away by the right back with the very long double barred name as J-Rod
closed in.
We are in the substitution zone as the last ten minutes
ticked down on Malky MacKay’s career as Cardiff manager. JWP is on for Lallana and Gaston and his
Alice band is on for J-Rod. With five
minutes to go we embark on a major bout of keep ball which is great but if an
opposition side did it to us I’d think they were bastards. It is good though – three short passes then a
booming long one to the other side of the pitch, a nod down and then the
process starts again. It really is
taking the piss somewhat.
Big Sam is on on 92 minutes as Sir Rickie gets a deserved 30
seconds off to save him for the Everton game on Sunday and the game ends with
the Timebomb nearly going off again as Gazza drops another cross but gets away
with it. You can only beat what’s in
front of you and we have and Malky’s P45 is no doubt being printed up as we
speak. Great performance by ourselves
though.
Thanks fuck for that, our first win in six and totally
deserved. Whilst they didn’t lay down
and die, Cardiff certainly weren’t very good and proved to be perfect
opposition for us. The central defence
of Jose and Maya certainly looked more secure than Dejan and Big Jos did
against Spurs but there were enough ropey moments to suggest that better
opposition could certainly have troubled us.
And then there was Gazza who of course came away with a clean
sheet. Anyone who tells you this was a
flawless display from him has had a severe overdose of Christmas Goodwill to
all men. He got lucky on several
occasions, usually with crosses into the box which he was usually nowhere near
but to be fair to him, he just gets on with it, plays with a smile on his face
and in the main did well. He did catch a
few though so fair play to him – let’s just hope the percentages of those he
deals with and those he flaps at keeps moving in the right direction. At the end of the day, Cardiff didn’t get a
single shot on target with only a deflected by Jose causing Gazza to make a
save.
There were some excellent performances out there again with
J-Rod and Sir Rickie recovering from their shockers against Spurs to have
excellent games today. Adam Lallana was
once again Man of the Match and everything went through him though the platform
was provided by Corky, the always industrious Steve Davis and Morgan who will
be a big miss against Everton. The full
backs were also superb today with Shaw being a complete pain for Cardiff down
the left and Chambers defending solidly and getting forward well on the
right. We are lucky to have them and
long may that continue and Chelsea and Mourinho can just fuck off. Who’d be a young player at Chelsea… remember
Josh McEachran? No, neither does anyone
else.
So, the games just keep on coming with Everton away on
Sunday, then Chelsea at home on New Years Day (Wednesday) and then Burnley in
the FA Cup on the Saturday. As far as
I’m concerned, Everton away is a bonus game which I am not expecting anything
from. Mind you, they’ve just lost at
home to Sunderland and that arse Poyet so you never know. I would imagine that JWP will come in for
Morgan and that Dejan Lovren will be back in the side somewhere. Our win today has given us a bit of license
to go for it so lets have it!
In a shock announcement on Sunday, Malky MacKay was
sacked. No one saw that coming.
Gazz Timebomb haha
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