Premier League Match 27 - West Ham 3 Southampton 1

Ok, Hands Up, I Admit it, I'm Shit!

Come on then!  Let’s have you, you fat bastard.  Yes, it’s West Ham away and the first game since the FA Cup disaster.  The rumour is that Saints had their end of season party last Sunday but the video of Mauricio and Katharina’s Karaoke duet has been embargoed until May.  Before that though we have 12 league games to negotiate starting with today’s Upton Park visit.  Last year, this was quite a pivotal game as we got handed a lesson in being clinical, playing lots of pretty football, producing nothing and letting in a goal every time West Ham attacked as we lost 4-1.

We play West Ham at the wrong time as they are on the back of a run of three consecutive wins.  Around the turn of the year they couldn’t buy a win and it was only the ridiculous amount it would cost to get rid of Fat Sam that was keeping him in a job.  A ‘backs to the wall’ point at Chelsea (which cost me a fortune on an accumulator) has turned it all the right way for them so instead of being in the bottom three, they are now relatively safe.  Andy Carroll had got himself fit and then got himself banned for waving his arm near that Chico Flores tosser and was serving the last of his 3 game ban today.  In theory, that should make our job slightly easier as we always struggle against him with Maya Yoshida in particular not having a clue how to play against the big man.

The ‘weakened team’ fall-out has happened and Mauricio was still talking about it in the pre-match press conference and still sticking to his guns regarding that selection which is not surprising.  Whilst an apology to the travelling fans might have been nice, it was never going to happen so we really need to draw the famous blue line under it and move on and decide next year whether you really want to attend FA Cup games, especially away ones.  The other news has been Jose Fonte’s video of Corky and J-Rod doing human curling in the changing room at Staplewood which has proved very popular in the wake of the Winter Olympics.  Basically it involved Corky sliding on a trolley into a wall whilst J-Rod swept the floor furiously in front of him.

To today and we’ve made zero changes from the last league game with King Artur, Chambo, Jose, Morgan, Corky and J-Rod all restored to the team but the bench is strong because it features the returning Dejan Lovren and Gaston Ramirez.  In the absence of Carroll, Fat Sam has picked Carlton Cole up front, a player that he got rid of in the summer.  He’s not as good as Carroll but still expect the ball to be boshed up to him.  It worries me slightly today that West Ham have two out and out wingers in Downing and Jarvis which may well restrict the only width we have which is the full backs. 

Away we go and Saints are passing it about nicely as you’d expect and Lallana floats a lovely ball over the defence to J-Rod whose first touch is unusually shite and allows Demel to get in and nick it off him.  West Ham react to this incursion into their box with a massive hooooooof up to Cole who wins it easily but we eventually work it back to King Artur.

On 8 minutes, Adam Lallana is upended by a needless Tomkins challenge which he did make a meal of and we get a free kick on the right.  Up steps Steven Davis to put the free kick straight on the forehead of the unmarked Maya Yoshida who rises to guide his header past Adrian and into the net for 1-0.  It’s the kind of goal that will have Fat Sam puce with rage and one step closer to having his inevitable heart attack – a free header from 6 yards – ha ha ha!!!

West Ham are doing what they do and working the ball into wide ares and whipping it in.  From one such delivery there is carnage as Chambers sticks a foot out and diverts the ball across our own 6 yard box but we get away with at as King Artur dives on it..

Saints are still playing well and we pick the ball up after a Tomkins hooooof towards Cole and pass it up the pitch until Lallana gets it and runs at the defenders before wellying it hopelessly high and wide.  Good move but a shite finish.

The relative comfort zone that Saints have been operating in is shattered on 20 minutes as Nolan chips a ball over the midfield and defence and Jarvis is surely offside... but no he isn’t as he pokes it under the advancing King Artur make it 1-1.  Later replays prove that the lino fucked up.  It isn’t miles offside but there’s also no way that you can give the benefit to the attacker.  Shaw steps up perfectly whilst looking along the line and he’s offside, end of story.

Maybe it’s the sense of injustice or maybe it’s just our usual dopey play straight after a goal but three minutes later it’s 2-1 to The Hammers.  A corner is swung over, Demel gets a decent header in which bounces back off the post to Yoshida who should clear it but he totally fails to do this and Cole nicks it off him and smashes it in the net.  Shit!

It looks like we’ve totally gone for a few minutes as West Ham win more corners and though we clear it, it’s soon back and flying across our penalty area from the wings.  We survive and begin to play again and nearly get back on terms as Corky hung up a cross and Sir Rickie beat Collins to the header, only to see it bounce off the post and away, eventually to J-Rod whose shot would have been bouncing down the street outside a smaller ground.  Half time arrived and call me a pessimist but there was a feeling that this was not going to be our day.

Regardless, we start the second half really well and pin West Ham back.  Twattenburg is beginning to get on everyone’s tits and the only surprise is that it’s taken him this long.  A Chambers cross is clearly handled by Downing with his hand at head height and he misses it.  The resulting corner sees Fonte competing with Collins and the ball hits Collins hand which is above his head – again not given.  Every time West Ham try and break it either comes straight back after a hooooof or when they try and play out then Corky wins it and sets us going again despite a crude swipe at him by Noble which Twattenburg again misses.  For all our dominance though, we manage a daisy cutter from Shaw which Adrian easily falls on.

Mauricio decides to go for it and sends Gaston on for Corky.  As is usually the case when Corky comes off, there are others more deserving but we are certainly not going to die wondering.  We had a glorious chance on 65 minutes as Shaw fastened on to a J-Rod pass and found himself one on one with Collins down the wing which of course was a no contest.  As he cut in he really should have smashed it but tried to tee up Lallana but fired it too hard and just too far in front of him.

Gaston was beginning to make things happen and Saints were putting together some decent stuff.  A flowing move ended with Gaston brilliantly megging Collins in a Pahars v Stam re-enactment but sadly he couldn’t finished and lashed it over the bar when he really should have at least tested the keeper.

Not testing the keeper was becoming a theme as J-Rod’s persistence forced an error out of Demel and though the skipper had to take it quickly as the defenders closed, he really should have done better than to snatch at the chance and bobble it past the post with the keeper once again able to watch it go by…. And what do you fucking know, with their next attack, Dawning finds space on the left, whips over a great cross, Cole competes for it and it lands very nicely for that moaning bastard Nolan to acrobatically hook it into the net.  Good finish it has to be said but fuck off.

JWP is on Davis and Big Sam is on for Sir Rickie but you get a sense that the horse has well and truly bolted and nothing much is going to happen.  We are still trying though but we nearly manage to equal last years effort with 10 minutes to go as some class fannying about by Lallana and Gaston presents the ball to Diame who smashes one arcing over King Artur and off the top of the bar.  Diame attempts to reverse the roles and fannies about in his own penalty area, presenting the ball to Lallana who after a twist and a turn or three, hammers one at the near post which is going wide but Adrian pushes it behind for a corner anyhow.

There is one more chance for a consolation as J-Rod again fights for the ball but when it sits up nicely for him, he hits it well but it’s always going wide and Adrian is once again not called upon to do anything.  Twattenburg then brilliantly manages to blow the final whistle without giving a last minute penalty against us or not giving a blatant one to us.  Well done Mark, you’re my hero.

Can I say straight away that I come from a generation that started watching football before anyone knew possession stats from a game.  Then, as now, the only stat that matters is the final score which will usually tell you how effective your football has been and today, like it or not, ours has been exactly one third as effective as West Ham’s.  It’s bloody annoying that we’ve lost but it’s our fault and not theirs.  I refer to a comment that Gordon Strachan used to make about ‘propaganda football’.  I like our style of play and would rather watch it than anything an Allardyce side will ever produce but if you play like we do and don’t get ‘decent’ shots on target then it’s going to be a long day– yes, we had 25 shots but 20 were off target and how many of the other 5 actually worked the keeper.   In our defence, nothing really went our way today – the first Hammers goal was offside and it doesn’t matter if it’s an inch or ten yards as it’s the one job that the lino has to do and he fucked it up.  One of the perils of playing with a high line is that you are relying on the linesman to get it right and of course, occasionally they don’t.  You just hope that when they do that the game is already won or lost and it’s not at an important time.  So, a dodgy goal changed the game and suddenly we’re 2-1 down.  No one is making a big deal of it as no one can really after all the controversy but of course, a different referee other then Twattenburg might have given penalty for the Collins handball shouts when it was 2-1. He’s just a shit referee.

It can’t be denied though that we are soft without Dejan and Big Vic in the side.  To my mind we also should have lined up with a more rigid 4-5-1 formation with J-Rod and Adam more as conventional wingers as West Ham create nothing through the middle of midfield, it’s all from wide areas.  Maybe Mauricio thought we could pass them off the pitch and I guess he was right but without the cutting edge and with a soft underbelly, it all went a bit wrong.  It’s not a coincidence that we have failed to beat any of the more direct teams this season with two draws against Stoke, a draw and a defeat against West Ham and two draws and two defeats against Sunderland.  It is certainly something that needs to be addressed with a Plan B.  We did however, play really well at times until the final third but then went to shit when it came to the important part of kicking it at the thing with the net on it.

One big positive from today was Gaston’s appearance from the bench as he livened things up and on another day could have swung the game back in our favour.  There hasn’t been a regular start for him all season but maybe things need freshening up a bit now.  Having said that, this is our first defeat in the league since the start of January so there’s no need to chuck the baby out with the bath water.

Next week we have Liverpool at home which should be a great game.  They have emerged as contenders to actually win the league as all the other big boys are still in the Champions League.  Well, Arsenal and Man City are in it for one more game at least.  I’m sure they’ll looking to avenge their one home defeat of the season as well and one thing is for sure, they’ll pick Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho, Gerrard and Sterling so it’ll be an open, entertaining game, played on the floor. Mind you, the last time we played them Brendan Rodgers crapped himself at playing the might Saints and picked a very dodgy line-up so you never know, he may do so again.  Bring it on.