Natural Momentum makes Oscar twist in mid air and yell at the Ref.
Chelsea at home is not the nicest fixture with which to
welcome in the New Year but that’s what we’ve got. They were a bit flaky at the start of the
season but right now they seem to be clicking into gear nicely and looking very
strong and up to second in the league.
Not only do we have lovely opposition but we also have lovely weather as
it’s pissing down and the walk to the game across the Itchen Bridge was
wonderful as cross winds blew you sideways and then changed direction and gusts
actually stopped you making any progress.
My son was wearing a beanie hat of mine which was a bit too big and this
ended up getting blown off his head and over the other side of the road.
The car radio has already told me the team news in that Sir
Rickie is left out again which I assumed meant that The Pirate was fit. He wasn’t and Gaston Ramirez was in from the
start for the first time this season meaning I assume, that J-Rod would be up
front rather than wide. I can see the
logic on the face of it but J-Rod has never had a decent game for us as the
lone striker so why is he suddenly going to start now? Elsewhere, Morgan returns for JWP and things
are beginning to look a bit brighter on the injury front with Nathaniel Clyne
once again on the bench. Chelsea have a
few injuries and suspensions but it’s hardly an issue when you have a squad as
deep as theirs. There is certainly no
weak link though I’ve always thought Azpilicuteta at right back is a bit dodgy. Up front they have Fernando Torres who whilst
he’s not as good as he used to be, cost them £50million quid so it’s hard to
have too much sympathy.
Away we go and the first 5 minutes are horrible and how the
hell we emerge from it at 0-0 is remarkable.
First of all Torres breaks straight down the middle after the first of
what will doubtless be the many time Gaston gives the ball away and shoots wide
as Dejan and Jose slide about trying to stop him. Torres is then away down the left and luckily
for us, chooses the wrong option though in truth, firing the ball over everyone’s
head fifteen foot off the ground is never the right option. He’s then away again after we give the ball
away once more and wins a corner. Mata’s
kick is cleared as far as Schurrle on the edge of the box who really should do
better than drilling it wide. In the
aftermath of this, Dejan is down and I reckon he stayed down just to take the
sting out of things and give us a chance to regroup before we start again.
The next chance again falls to Chelsea as a cute ball from
Hazard put Ramires in but Superkelv comes flying out to slide tackle him on the
edge of the box and welly it clear.
Anyone thinking that Gazza should be in goal should be reminded that if
he was it would now be 1-0 to Chelsea as he’d have been sat on his arse on the
line as Ramires walked it in.
We finally have a chance and it’s a good one as J-Rod finds
himself on the left and finds Gaston who pokes the ball through to Adam
Lallana. His turn finds space but his
shot is well blocked by the sprawling Ashley Cole who is remarkably mobile for
a man with a mobile phone up his arse.
The ball ends back out with J-Rod whose fizzed cross is missed by
all. We could have done with a centre
forward to attack that really. Just
saying.
Torres is being a right handful but luckily for us he’s
still finding ways to miss. He picks the
ball up on the left and runs past 4 players, none of whom make a tackle and
lashes over the bar. We create another
great chance for ourselves as Gaston dinks a wonderful pass over the top to
J-Rod whose first touch is poor and enables the defenders to get back and stop
him getting a worthwhile shot away. It’s
a good example of why he should not be playing as the main striker.
It’s open and even now with chances for both sides. Chambo totally does Cole down the right and
gets forward, his eventually cross being cleared as far as Lallana who again
sees his shot blocked by another sprawling defender, this time
Azpilicueta. Ramires gets forward for
Chelsea and like Torres before him, runs through 4 non-tackles and shoots, only
to see Superkelv throw up his zimmer frame and tip it over the bar. Half time is upon us and after 4 minutes of
injury time for the Dejan tactical stoppage, it’s time for the players to get
out of the rain.
At half time at St,Mary’s you have the choice of watching
the kids relay race or you can play trivial pursuits and try and get a 3G signal
on your mobile phone. I decided to have
a go at the latter today and as usual, totally fail. “The Saints are coming” booms the voice of
Richard Jobson of The Skids out of the stadium PA and here we go.
The second half is about to start and Luke Shaw has had
enough and been replaced with Nathaniel Clyne who takes up a position on the
left. The first action of the second
half sees Chambo again burn down the right being pursued by Schurrle who
obviously doesn’t fancy it. The low
cross is smashed off for a corner by Cahill.
Gaston’s flag kick sees Dejan get a header in and then Jose’s shot
blocked by a prone defender and there’s a second where time stands still, the
ball appears to be free and both our centre halves and J-Rod are in the
vicinity and looking at it rather than trying to smash it in the net.
The Special One is obviously not impressed by what he’s
seeing and is decisive in deciding to hook Mata and Schurrle and replace them
with Oscar and Willian who on the face of it, are not bad subs to bring
on. One of them in particular makes an
impact almost straight away.
Oscar, who is named after the trophy they hand out to the
best actors, then gets played clean through by an excellent Hazard pass after a
superb Chelsea move and knocks the ball wide of Superkelv and then goes
down. It looks like a penalty from the
other end and we’re looking at a red card and 1-0 down but the referee blows
and books the cheating little fucker.
Jose Mourinho is up and appealing but shows a sense of fun by waving to
the Northam in response to a loud ‘sit down Mourinho’ chant. The Special One probably knows that it’s
highly likely that the referee has got that one right.
The cheating bastard didn’t have long to wait for a goal
though as he got away down the left and crossed. The ball looped up off of Calum Chambers toe
and went over Superkelv, hit the inside of the post and bounced out
sympathetically for Torres to nod into the net from 4 yards. He did well to chase it in but the deflection
on the cross and the bounce off the post were certainly kind to him. I had an immediate feeling of ‘well that’s
this game gone then’ and this was only increased by the substitution we
immediately made of Sir Rickie coming on for Corky who was about the last
person in the midfield or attack who deserved to be substituted, again.
We almost immediately fashioned a decent move with Sir
Rickie superbly cushioning a ball to Lallana who in turn fed Clyne on the
left. His cross was allowed to bounce by
Terry and Cahill and Sir Rickie got in but couldn’t get enough on his header
and it went straight at Cech. Straight
afterwards it was all over as another fine Chelsea move culminated with the
diving bastard playing the final ball to Willian who took his time and drilled
it past Superkelv from the edge of the box.
Great finish and a great move and 2-0. ‘You’ve only come to see the Chelsea’ boomed
out from the arrogant bastards as a steady stream of Saints fans headed towards
the exit in pathetic, plastic, glory hunter fashion. Say what you like about the Chelsea fans but
at least they’re there supporting their team to the end.
I bet they’re glad they stayed to the end though cos if
they’d left they’d have missed Torres break away and feed Ramires who passed it
on to Hazard who showed great vision to chip over the top to the diving bastard
who took his time and drilled it past Superkelv at his near post with the aid
of a slight deflection off of Jose Fonte. 3-0 and the steady exodus became a
tidal wave of red and white clad people streaming for the exits.
The remaining time offered nothing except Chelsea taking the
piss, passing it about while we looked somewhat dispirited with no one in
midfield to make a tackle. Gaston lashed
a left footed shot just over the bar but that was it. Easy for Chelsea in the end and we were
thoroughly ass-whipped by a far superior team who look to me, far more likely
to win the league than Manchester City or Arsenal.
Well that’s half an hour of my life that I’m never going to
get back. It was painful to watch from
the hour mark onwards as we got completely stuffed by a very good and powerful
side. They had a couple of
underperforming players out there and so they replaced them with two players
who made the team immeasurably better.
In fact, you could measure it as they made three goals difference. To our credit we don’t trot out the injuries
excuse too often but if we did, citing the lack of Boruc, Big Vic and The
Pirate, Chelsea had Lampard, Ivanovic and Luiz all missing. In order to compete with Chelsea we’d need to
buy about 8 more players in the £15-£20 million bracket so expecting us to
compete with them as we stand is fanciful in the extreme. That said, after the first five minutes, we
did compete well until the first goal went in but then it all went to rat shit.
It’s easy to be gracious when you’ve won 3-0 and Mourinho
was and criticized Oscar for his dive and praised the referee. Will he fine or drop him though? I doubt it. It would have been interesting if it was 0-0
in the last minute when it happened – would the Special One have agreed with
the referee then? When you see the
replays it’s horrible. He leans forward,
drags his foot into Superkelv and takes off.
He’s even turning and appealing to the referee before he hits the ground,
the cynical little shit. In his mind
he’s weighing up a penalty, a goal and a red card to the keeper against maybe
getting a yellow card and the potential rewards far outweigh the risks. There is an additional thing in that the twat
would have scored if he’d stayed on his feet but he scored anyway later on so I
doubt he cares about the yellow card at all.
It’s boring to repeat what myself and countless others have been saying
for about 20 years but an obvious dive like this should be punished by giving a
3 match ban based on TV evidence. The FA
always give it some bollocks about not wanting to undermine referees but giving
Oscar a 3 match ban now would not undermine Martin Atkinson in any way. He got it right and it would help him in the
future as some players might not actually do what Oscar did. There is a school of thought now that
Atkinson should have sent him off. It’s
interesting when you think that he tried to get a fellow pro sent off and then
he stayed on the pitch to set up two goals and score the other one.
Anyway, sod Chelsea and cheats and the FA. Saints looked really tired for the first time
this season and too many players had poor games. Adam Lallana had his worst game for a while
in front of the watching Roy Hodgson and J-Rod did his England cause no good at
all with his third poor performance in the last four games. I’ve seen calls on many Saints fans websites
to play J-Rod as the central striker, a role which in my opinion he is totally
unsuited to it as he’s not strong enough to hold the ball up and today in
particular he barely got a kick and didn’t occupy Cahill and Terry in any
way. Most of the time they just walked
in front of him and cleared it unchallenged.
He needs the bit of space that playing wider gives him so he can use his
strengths which is to run at people at pace.
Gaston…. Oh Gaston…. well at least got involved and had a couple of
shots and played a couple of great ball into forwards which hardly anyone else
did but how many times does he give the ball away by either dwelling in
possession or by aimlessly running into players. Chambo was good coming forward today as was
Clyne when he came on as they had a bit of space but whenever we ventured
infield we got no change at all out of Ramires and Mikel who ran the show. We really missed Big Vic today who would have
at least made it competitive in there.
Mauricio did his usual and took Corky off again and we
predictably went to shit afterwards as Steve Davis and then JWP failed to stamp
any sort of authority in defensive midfield.
Surely the idea at 1-0 down against the Big Boys is to stay in the game
as long as possible and just need the one goal to get something. Being 3-0 down ten minutes later was I’m
afraid, a bit predictable and of course, the game is completely gone by then. Also, leaving Sir Rickie out when The Pirate
wasn’t available was just wrong.
We had more possession yet again but I’m getting tired of
that stat being trolled out. How much
possession did we have in their half? If
knocking it about in your own half wasn’t and only ‘forward going’ possession
was included in the stats then Chelsea would have just shaded it by about 80%
to 20%. They had purpose in possession
and we in the main did not. Propaganda
football was what Gordon Strachan used to call it. I’m not for a second advocating banging it
forward as that would make me Fat Sam but there’s no point in aimlessly passing
it across the back 4 if you’re going to lose it and have the opposition break
on you the moment you try and pass it forwards.
Next up we have the FA Cup against Burnley at home and
players have obviously been instructed in their interviews to mention it and
mention the fact that we’re taking it seriously, probably due to shite ticket
sales for Saturday which I am at least partly responsible for. Again, repeating what I’ve said for years,
early round cup games should be a tenner and no more and at double that, on top
of Christmas and having three kids and being skint, I won’t be going. Let’s face it – we will field an
understrength side as well. If I was to
guess I’d say that Sam Gallagher will start as well as possibly Matt
Targett.
It doesn’t feel like it much after the gubbing we got off of
Chelsea but Happy New Year!
Look at out league positions the last five New Years
(courtesy of www.statto.com)
2014 – 9th in Premier League
2013 – 17th in Premier League
2012 – 1st in Championship
2011 – 2nd in League 1
2010 – 13th in League 1
Perspective. All of
you who buggered off between Chelsea’s second goal and the end and need to get
some.
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