Big Vic says "Get out of my way!"
With three meaningless games to go, we welcome Everton to St
Mary’s and they still have an outside chance of claiming the coveted 4th
Champions League spot where you get to play a few qualifying rounds in outposts
of European football like Kazakhstan, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Scotland. Win those and you qualify for the Champions
League proper. It’s what’s known as the
Arsenal Route. However, they ballsed up
a home game with Palace a week or so back and now have to win pretty much every
game to make it, including of course, this one.
Roberto Martinez has done a lot better than I expected him to since
taking over from David Moyes in the summer.
Talking of Moyes – whatever happened to him? Last I heard he was tieing up the loose ends
on the already agreed Luke Shaw transfer to Manchester United…. Or maybe that
was bullshit.
Martinez has got Everton playing better football and has
given young players like John Stones and Ross Barkley a chance and they’ve done
well. They have the excellent Baines and
Coleman at full backs and then there are the loan brigade which no matter how
many times I talk about it, still never fails to piss me off.
It’s been an interesting week at SFC with Les Reed releasing
a statement which must have been like a plastic undersheet for any bedwetters
out there. No clubs have enquired about
our players, no one has been given permission to speak to other clubs, everyone
is under contract, the media are all full of shit. He didn’t actually say the last bit but that
was the message loud and clear. As an
attempt to placate irritated fans it was a good one. Will it stop the media writing bullshit? Of
course it won’t. Will it make the first
question of any news conference any different – probably not but if it was me,
I’d just politely refer the interviewer to Les Reed’s statement, call him an
twat and then walk out.
To the teams and Saints have a couple of changes with Morgan
Schneiderlin picking up and injury and Corky coming in to play alongside Big
Vic for the first time. I’m interested
to see how this works out. We have also
named Sam Gallagher in the starting XI with JWP dropping to the bench where he
was joined by the usual suspects like Gazza, Big Jos, and Guly but also by
Harrison Reed and Matty Targett. Gaston
was once again out injured, presumed waiting to be a sub at the World Cup.
I was looking forward to seeing Ross Barkley play and told
my son to look out for him. The first
thing he did was get the ball straight from the kick off and give it away. The next Everton touch wasn’t long in coming
as Saints played keep ball and eventually worked it down the left to Sir Rickie
who crossed towards Big Sam and Alcaraz showed all the defensive instincts he
picked up under Martinez at Wigan and dived in to bullet a header past Howard
to make it 1-0 in less than a minute.
Everton attempt to tear into us from the restart, helped by
Barkley not giving the ball straight back to us this time. Deulofeu, their on-fucking loan winger from
Barcelona is given the ball and attempts to run past Nathaniel Clyne, once,
twice, three times and gets dispossessed every time. He’s too good for you son – give up!
Everton play some good stuff but Saints are better as a
prolonged passing move again finds Sir Rickie on the left and this time he weights
a beautiful ball along the ground and Steve Davis arrives and sidefoots wide
from the edge of the box. It’s a poor
end to a fantastic move and brings much holding of heads from the Saints
technical area.
It matters not a few minutes later though as Clyne gets a
run down the wing and takes on England’s Number 1 left back Leighton
Baines. He does him for pace on the
outside and fires over the cross, Stones and Alcaraz miss it and it hits
Coleman on the head, back across Howard and inside the post – textbook header,
great finish! 2-0. The immediate chant
of “We are Southampton, We Don’t Need to Score” was replaced with “Who Needs
Rodriguez, We’ve Got Your Back Four”.
Love it! Come On!!!
The final 15 minutes of the half sees Lovren thump a header
from a corner straight at Howard and Deulofeu works out that he’s not going to
beat Clyne and dropping deep on the Everton right. From there, on-fucking-loan-Deulofeu (to gove
him his full title) crosses and on-fucking-loan-Lukaku heads over the bar from
about 4 yards out.
On-fucking-loan-Gareth Barry then summons up the ghost of World Cup 2010
and gets dispossessed by Lallana and runs like he’s towing a caravan as he
hauls him down and gets booked. In amongst all this, Lallana twists and turns
in the box anf flips a cross over which hits Stones’ arm which is away from his
body but yet again, not given. It would
have been harsh but I’ve seen them given – just never for us. At least the ref is consistent few minutes
later as Naismith attempts to put in a cross which hits the similarly
outstretched arm of Lovren.
Half time comes and goes and one guy in the round the pitch
relay takes a pot shot from half way which hits Everton sub McGeady on the
head. We’re two nil up without scoring a
goal and it’s all very amusing but we have played well and we’ve certainly
played better than Everton. Big Sam has
certainly got something and after a ropey opening fifteen minutes he’s started
to be more confident and hold the ball up for others. It’s interesting to see Sir Rickie in a
designated deeper role as he’s getting on the ball more often than usual. Highlight for me so far has been the midfield
three and how can Gareth Barry be an England fringe player when Jack Cork
isn’t. The annoying woman with the radio
who sits behind me has actually said something useful in that Roy Hodgson is
here yet again. I wonder what he’s made
of Baines vs Shaw so far.
As the teams emerge it’s apparent that Martinez has replaced
Barkley with Leon Osman which is odd when you think about it. If you need to make a tactical switch to get
back into the game, the answer is never ‘bring on Leon Osman’. It just can’t be.
The second half starts and I was fearing a fast Everton
start but our midfield holds firm and is magnificent. Big Vic looks like he’s lost weight to me but
he’s just awesome – smashing through people and using the ball
intelligently. It’s interesting to see
Gareth Barry shit himself as well and bottle out of a tackle against the big
man. In addition, Corky and Steve Davis
are just everywhere with Corky playing with more freedom knowing that Big Vic
has his back. From one forward run, he’s
chopped down by the lumbering Barry to give us a free kick 25 yards out. Up steps Sir Rickie, round the wall and it
pings off the outside of the post with Tourette Tim shouting ‘fuck bollocks
wanker’ as it flies past him.
Everton are playing a bit better this half though and Dejan
has a bit of a rush of blood and launches a slide tackle at Osman from miles
away. Over he goes and it looks a
penalty from where I am up the other end but the ref has a yellow card out and
books him for diving. Later replays show
that he did in fact dive and was on his way down before Dejan got there and if
he hadn’t started his fall early then he probably would have been given
it.. If Dejan had done that in an away
game it would have been a penalty which just goes to highlight the
inconsistency of referees. But for now
anyway, Osman is a diving prick.
McGeady does get away down the left and fires in a cross which
on-fucking-loan-Lukaku heads straight at King Artur who saves confidently. To stem a bit of Everton pressure Mauricio
brings on JWP for Big Sam with Sir Rickie moving up top. Saints get back on top straight away and
Lallana gets free on the right and tries to flick the ball over Stones who pats
it down with a raised arm and clears it. The lino is looking right at it from 5
yards away and gives nothing. It’s not
even worth getting angry about any more but I do anyway and vent loud spleen at
the lino which loses effect as I’m trying not to swear as I’m in the family
centre.
Harrison Reed in on for Lallana as we need to add some
Scholes to the proceedings and Guly is on for Steve Davis as we’ve exceeded the
maximum number of gingers on the pitch at any one time which hopefully won’t
lead to a points deduction. There’s time
for one more shot as JWP tried again to score his first league goal with a
blast at Howard which he beats away in exaggerated fashion and the whistle goes
and we’ve won… and comfortably… and Arsenal are in the Champions League again
in all probability.
It was an odd second half in that I never felt that Everton
we’re going to score and the reason for that is the fact that like last week we
had a first choice back 4 and keeper and Big Vic. Add to that the tenacious performances by
Corky and Steve Davis and Everton didn’t really have a sniff which considering
the quality they have is quite a pat on the back for our lads. It’ll get spun as an Everton off day in the
media but there you go.
I read an Everton blog before the game which informed me
that Baines would prove that he was miles better than Shaw and that Coleman
would tear Shaw a new one down the wing.
Also of course it predicted an Everton win. How did that little lot work out for you
lads? Let me tell you, Shaw defensively
was excellent and shat all over Baines who got left for dead by Clyney for the
second goal and ended up getting injured and going off. Then you have Coleman who scored a very deft
header in the wrong net and didn’t beat Shaw once. Oh yeah… and you lost.
Roy Hodgson would have seen all that and I think you could
make a case for Shaw to be first choice now – not just vying with Ashley Cole
for the last seat on the plane. Whilst
we’re at it – is there a better English right back than Nathaniel Clyne or a
more in-form central midfielder than Jack Cork?
My question to Roy Hodgson is – have you got the balls to pick them
ahead of the ‘big’ club boys.
I loved our midfield three today – just awesome. If Davis and Corky could stick the odd ball
in the net then it would be perfect. Big
Vic was huge today, even winning one header above two men when he was sat on
his arse. I still maintain that if he’d
been fit all season we’d have been top 6.
The PFA Player of the Year dinner happened on Sunday night
and whilst predictably, Luis Suarez and Eden Hazard won the player and young
player awards, both Adam Lallana and Luke Shaw got named in the Team of the
Year which is pretty cool and means of course that the headline writers will
disrespect Southampton even more. Luke
even got asked what it was like to be linked to big clubs. Going back to the Hazard award, it seems a
bit odd to me that a player can br bought from abroad for £30 million quid or
whatever and win the Young player of the year award. To me, that should go to
Luke Shaw or Ross Barkley who are still playing for the clubs they made their
professional debut for.
Anyway – next up we have the trip to Swansea who are now
safe from the drop. We are guaranteed to finish in 8th place in the
league now so there’s absolutely no pressure on anyone so it should be a
cracking game with a good atmosphere, especially as our travelling fans have
only paid a fiver to get in.
Bring it on.
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