Fat Sam is sick of referees giving corners
Every time we play West Ham I start with a tirade against
Fat Sam and the way he sets up his teams to play. It’s unfair to call it the ‘West Ham’ style
as it’s Fat Sam’s style and it will be long after he’s departed the Hammers and
pissed off back up North. For now though
he’s still here and we’ve got to pay him again today. We’ve been in the same division as them for
the past 3 years and our record is not good.
A home win and a draw in the Championship has been followed by two home
draws and two away defeats in the Premier League. The away defeats have followed the same
pattern in that we’ve dominated possession without creating much and the fallen
foul of shite defending against the inevitable hoofball pressure and lost
convincingly in the end. It’s so bloody
annoying.
On the face of it, Fat Sam appears to have made some decent
signings this season but shock of shocks, Andy Carroll is injured which is a
relief, especially as Maya Yoshida always has a complete mare against a big
striker. Another bonus is that the
Premier League have allocated us a referee for this game as Kevin Nolan is
injured as well. Before anyone thinks
that the game would be lacking a hate figure in a claret and blue shirt – don’t
worry, Mark Noble is still playing.
With just a few days remaining of the transfer window, we
too were expecting incoming players but so far there has been none since Florin
Gardos arrived. Under Cortese, we kind
of knew that there would be no last minute business but I suspect it will be
different this time with empty boxes marked ‘winger’ and ‘centre back’ still
waiting to be ticked. We may have to
tick another box marked ‘goalkeeper’.
Something has kicked off behind the scenes with King Artur and it
appears he is training on his own and is on his way out. I acknowledge that Ronald Koeman has been
decisive with signing and playing Fraser Forster but I can’t help but feel it
could have been handled slightly better.
If the Holy Goalie is on his way then we are back in the same position
as last season with an excellent first choice and League 1 standard back-ups
a-plenty and to be brutally honest, I don’t want to see Superkelv or Gaz
Timebomb in goal for any league matches.
To the teams and to the surprise of everyone who thinks that
this game is going to be a complete battle, Big Vic is on the bench and the
midfield three is Morgan, Steve Davis Ginger Master of the Green Baize and
JWP. Shane Long starts on the right wing
and the rest of the team is as expected.
Fat Sam has gone all Championship on us with Carlton Cole and Vaz Te in
the starting line-up. Stewart Downing is also there and I’m thinking that we
really should be winning this one.
With the confidence of the win from last Tuesday’s visit to
East London, we start well with Tadic to the fore and force a succession of
corners which are all cleared with no danger to Adrian in the West Ham
goal. West Ham eventually get in our half
and win a free kick as Morgan trashes Zarate.
Via a couple of deflections, Noble’s free kick drops to Vaz Te 8 yards
out but his low shot is deflected away via the boot of the flying Forster. It’s a really good save but unfortunately we
don’t capitalize on it. Clyne takes a
throw in on the right to Pelle who cushions it back to Morgan. He gets dispossessed by Zarate who feeds
Noble who lets fly from 30 yards and sees it deflect of Yoshida and beat
Forster’s dive. I don’t think Fraser
will be particularly happy with this one and Maya’s attempted block had a
certain degree of ‘limp’ about it.
Unperturbed, we carry on with our football and try and get
Dusan Tadic into the game more. A decent
move sees the ball go from right to left and Tadic puts Bertrand away down the
left and his cross is met by Pelle but his header is blocked by a defender in
front of the keeper. The next move down
the left sees Tadic pull it back and Davis
demonstrate his customary finishing prowess by lashing it miles over the bar.
It looks like it’s going to be half time at 1-0 down but the
left side holds the key as Zarate unnecessarily clatters Bertrand. JWP’sfree kick finds its way across the box
to Morgan whose first shot is well blocked but the rebound falls to him and he steers
it in across the keeper left footed to make it 1-1. The puce faced rage being shown by Allardyce
is quite ridiculous, as is the penalty shout against Maya as the half
ends. As handball shouts go, it was
complete shit.
As seems to be the pattern with Koeman, the second half sees
us come out and boss it. The passing is
quicker and the movement is better and the chances are coming. Clyne feeds a ball into Long who turns and
hits it but doesn’t get hold of it before Tadic and Clyne both flash crosses
across the box with no one connecting. Long
burst past a defender at pace before being tackled by another and the rebound
was smacked by Tadic but pushed wide. The
resulting corner finds Morgan who really should do better than loft it over the
bar.
There’s a Fat Sam classic as West Ham struggle to live with
us as Long goes for a return pass but Cresswell can’t be bothered to track the
run and instead just blocks him off. Yellow
Card. JWP swings over the free kick and
Pelle judges his run to perfection and steers it across Adrian and in. Disallowed wrongly for offside and
bollocks. There was no way Graziano was
offside as he was stood next to the West Ham right back who didn’t track him after
the kick was taken.
Fat Sam strengthens his team by removing Vaz Te and Zarate and
bringing on Diame and Ravel Morrison who is fresh from facing charges of threatening
to have his ex-girlfriend murdered amongst other deeply unpleasant stuff. Joey O’Brien is a somewhat limited footballer
and an arsehole to boot but he carries out his managers instructions to whack
Tadic whenever possible. He takes the
ball and then follows through, swinging his other leg to make sure he gets him.
It’s quite clever in a thuggish sort of
way but the ref doesn’t like it and another yellow card. Once he’s up again, Tadic superbly disguises
the free kick with a low pass to Long who miscontrols it which is his last
involvement as he’s replaced with Gaston Ramirez.
His first involvement is to try and get on the end of a
Tadic cross and it flies off him and the ref gives a corner when in truth it
looked more like a goal kick. West Ham
are all bitching at the ref but Tadic is given the nod, knocks it short to the
unmarked JWP who crosses to the near post where Morgan flicks it into the net
for 2-1. Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!
What have West Ham got left/
Well, not much, Diame takes a chunk out of Ramirez which was so late
that the ball was in another post code. Tadic takes the kick and finds Pelle whose
shot is blocked but he’s not to be denied just afterwards. Corky, on for JWP, threads a ball out to the
rampaging Clyne whose cross is clawed away by Adrian but straight to Graziano
who with a swing of his left boot, slams it into the top of the net for 3-1 for
his first league goal and now things are all going rather well. It would be nice to score more but our job is
done.
How do you fucking like that then – an away win having come
from behind. Didn’t get many of those
with Pochettino as manager – in fact, we didn’t get any. Fair play to Koeman who stuck his nect out by
leaving out Big Vic and got the result.
Post match, Ronald’s bluntness was there for all to see again as he
basically said that all West Ham do is welly it and compete for 2nd
balls. Fat Sam was predictably
marvellous – he did acknowledge that we were the better side and deserved to
win but crapped on endlessly about the corner that should have been a goal kick
with his jowls wobbling and bits of food being spat over the interviewer.
Sacked in the morning? I doubt it but he
won’t see the Olympic Stadium.
As you do after a good win, I tuned in to Match of the Day
in the evening. I already knew that we were about the 5th game on
but what I saw was a complete shambles of an edit to rival the draw we got at
Man United last year when every attack we had was edited out aside from the
goal and a game we dominated was made to look like a smash and grab. Today, they showed nothing of the first half
hour we dominated which also included the Fraser save, showed the Noble
deflected goal and the equalizer. Next up was the disallowed goal which was
incorrectly dismissed as “about three of them offside” and then 25 replays of
the Gaston challenge that resulted in the corner that should have been a goal
kick.
On top of all this, senile old duffer John Motson was
commentating by satellite link from his bed in the Rest Home for the Terminally
Bewildered and he was getting everything wrong.
We then had Lineker teeing up comments from clueless Danny Murphy and desperate
Phil Neville who were there to solely talk about Morgan being destined for
better things than Saints. Morgan’s interview
was then cut to solely talk about his possible move and Fat Sam was allowed
endless shitting on about the injustices of one refereeing decision in a 95
minute match in which they got completely battered. All in all it was a nasty, horrible, agenda
driven stitch-up that makes you wonder if Cortese’s bitch Ben Smith was in on
the act. In many ways, you could
understand the Man United edit from last year a bit more as it’s United but
this one just set out to be bitchy. We
all pay a licence fee for this shit… and we pay for Garth Crooks to come out
and say that we won this game against the run of play.
Transfer deadline day happened on Monday and we brought
intwo more players which on the face of it, seem very good additions. Toby Alderweireld, a regular witht eh Belgium national team arrived from Atletico Madrid on a years loan
with an option to buy of less than £7million.
Hang on – that’s Atletico Madrid who
lost in the Champions League Final and won the Spanish League ahead of Real
Madrid and Barcelona . He plays either at right back or centre back
which is excellent news. I would imagine
he’ll be first choice in the centre of defence but he’s obviously right footed
and the right centre back is where Captain Fonte is currently deployed. We shall see but with Alderweireld, Fonte,
Gardos and Yoshida – our centre back resources now are now better than last
season. Talking of centre backs – Jack
Stephens was allowed to join Jordan Turnbull out on loan at Swindon and Big Jos
Hooiveld was allowed to leave on loan to Norwich . With his contract up at the end of this
season, it’s safe to assume we’ve seen the last of him at SMS and he should be
remembered for the massive contribution he made in the Championship promotion
season and also for having a few decent games in the initial Premier League
season. He didn’t have the mobility for
a longer term career in the top league but when we signed him he was vitally
important or else we’d have had Dan Seaborne in defence and we would not have
got promoted out of the Championship as he was a shocking player. The club kept up its tradition of leaving
tributes to departed players that were in the manner of how the player
conducted himself so Jos got a decent write up and video tribute. I’m still looking for the Lallana and Lovren
one.
We have been crying out for a winger since Steve de
Ridder. Actually, we were crying out for
a winger when Steve de Ridder was here.
The closest we had was Punch and he took a shite and was moved on to
Palace. Sadio Mane has arrived from Red
Bull Salzburg and we will be hoping that unlike de Ridder, his You Tube
compilation will prove to be an accurate reflection of his ability. Obviously, the Austrian League is not the
highest of standards but then nor is the Scottish League or the Dutch League
but we’ve already signed players from the latter two that look decent so
hopefully Mane is more of the same. He’s
taken the Number 10 shirt which has been vacated by Gaston Ramirez who has moved
out on loan to Hull
City
My overall verdict regarding the transfer window is that we
are in a better shape now with a stronger squad than before... and we did it at
a profit. Of course it could have been
handled better and for a while it seemed worse than it was because the summer
was front loaded with departures. The
Board were challenged to make it right and despite a concerted media campaign
(MELTDOWN, FIRE SALE, DREAM WRECKER etc etc) have managed to do so. The role of our new manager cannot be
underestimated in all this. For example,
would we have been able to sign Toby Alderweireld without Koeman? – Not a
chance but with his signing we can genuinely think that overall, we have
upgraded. The ambition has remained,
regardless of what the ex-players might say.
None of them left because of a lack of ambition from Saints. Not one.
Anyway, sod Match of the Day and sod the BBC and sod the
media in general. It’s all about
Southampton FC today and this was a great win at a ground where we don’t
usually do very well. Next up is another
manager who needs to be making a good start to the season in Alan Pardew who
brings his Newcastle side to SMS.
Today’s win makes it a great chance to jump to 7 points out of 12 and
being in the top 6. Meltdown?
Always love reading your humorous write ups.
ReplyDeleteKeep them coming mate.
COYR