Another bad day for 'Arry Ballsack
Ah Mr Redknapp – we’ve been expecting you...
Mr Redknapp is a bit predictable. The last time he was in the Premier League with QPR he decided in time honoured
fashion to try and buy his way out of the relegation zone in the January
transfer window, spunking millions up the wall on past-it mercenaries and
giving them ridiculous length contracts on ridiculous money. They got emphatically relegated. Naturally, when a tactic has completely
failed and you’ve nearly bankrupted the club, it makes perfect sense to make
your first signing of the new season, a 35 year old Rio Ferdinand who was gone
as a top level player about 3 years ago but propped up by the last knockings of
Alex Ferguson’s reign at Old Trafford.
He was found out big time last year but ‘Arry still bought him…. Because
he could.
Another sortie into the transfer marked have seen Steven
Caulker arrive who got relegated with Cardiff
last season. He’s a decent centre half
when paired with a quicker one so the partnership of him and Rio
is always going to work out great. Loic
Remy has departed to Chelsea
and he was the man who scored the winner in the last meeting at SMS when QPR
came into the game as underdogs and left with the win. This had better not happen today.
‘Arry can’t understand it of course but we all hate
him. In a year when two of our players
were dreaming of Liverpool when they were still our players, it’s worth
remembering that ‘Arry’s ‘heart was never in it’ when he was manager of Southampton
and whilst he was still our manager, he got himself a job at Portsmouth .
Oh.... he made sure we got relegated first. No doubt the way he’d see it was that he set
in motion the chain of events that saw us rise to where we are now.
Since the Arsenal game we’ve been basking in the glow of
positive publicity and now we’ve got some more good news in that Toby
Alderweireld is back in training. The
questions today are Mané or Long, Toby or Florin
and which two out of Big Vic, Steve Davis or Corky. Come 2pm we had the answers that Gardos had a
knock and so Tony Autoharold started, Big Vic and Davo were in midfield with
Morgan and Long was benched again in favour of Mané. The bench saw Jason McCarthy for the first
time and Harrison Reed was there in place of the injured JWP. The 7th sub, as in the sub that
will be put on the pitch after Kelvin Davis has been given a run in midfield,
was Emmanuel Mayuka. QPR include
Ferdinand and Caulker but there was no place for Frank Lampard and Jermain
Defoe even though their triffic top top players and surprisingly, Jamie
Redknapp was left out as well. He was
probably at home playing the Wii with Rosie the Dog.
Aside from injury speculation, since the Arsenal game, the
only story that had emerged about Saints was that the players asked Ronald
Koeman to cancel their day off as the senior players (led by José Fonte)
decided they would be better for it. A
seriously good touch by the players.
Could you imagine some of the old school players like Mick Channon or
Jim Steele coming in voluntarily instead of having a day off?
Good old Twattenberg is refereeing us for the first time
since he was cleared of any blame for the ‘Lallana has changed’ incident at
Everton last year. Vindicated he may be
but he’s still a very dodgy ref. We make
a decent start and within 30 seconds, Tadic is playing Mané away on the left
and his cross is held by Green. A few
minutes later and Pellè and Clyne combine to sent Tadic away on the right but
his attempted lob is well smothered by the onrushing Green, who has started
confidently. We really need an England v USA
2010 performance from him.
The fast start that we’ve made is stopped dead as Sandro and
Mané compete in a competition to see who has the hardest head and Sadio wins.
Sandro is out cold and as it’s a head injury they can’t move him off the pitch
and so five minutes later, we’re still waiting as he is helped back to his feet
and goes off to be replaced by Karl Henry.
The game become bitty and fragmented and that was down the
Twattenberg and his bright shiny whistle which he wanted to make sure everyone
noticed. QPR were having some possession
in our half but nothing really dangerous.
Saints should really have taken the lead and wasted three good chances. Firstly Tadic got a shot away from the edge
of the box and was unlucky to see it bounced off of Caulker, beat Green and hit
the post and bounce away. Then Pellè got
played into the inside right channel and went near post instead of far and
smashed it wide in what has to be said, was a pretty poor effort. QPR were carved open again in the same
channel just before half time as a 1-2 between Morgan and Mané gave the
Frenchman a chance which he sidefooted just wide and so we arrived at half time
at 0-0. We’ve been the better side by a
mile and you can see why QPR are near the bottom but as it stands, they’re
hanging in there.
The second half starts I much the same way as the first half
ended with Saints on top. Mané tricks
his way through and scuffs a shot at Green. Ten minutes are gone and QPR are looking
comfortable until Rio Ferdinand chips a horrible, casual, aimless ball into the
midfield and it’s picked off by Morgan who feeds Tadic. His cross is overhit and behind Mané but the
new guy retrieves it, waits for Bertrand’s run and backheels it to him through
the defenders legs. Bertrand runs on and
smashes it low and hard, under Green and into the net and the deadlock is broken
and our other full back has scored, something that last years left back never
managed to do.
Hoilett is on for QPR but Saints are looking for a second
with Mané playing through Pellè on the left and his pull back is flashed at by Davis but the ball breaks
to Tadic who is too close to Green who deflects it over the bar as Tadic tries
to scoop it over him. We nearly scored
from the resulting corner through Graziano but out of nowhere, our profligacy in
front of goal comes back to bite us in the arse as Hoilett cuts in from the
left and feeds Vargas whose cross is brilliantly controlled by Austin who swivels
and buries the volley. Bollocks and is ‘Arry
going to do us again?
Almost immediately, Shane Long is on for Mané and his first involvement
is to cut inside and hit over a cross. Tadic heads it down and Graziano flicks
it up before it bounces and overhead scissor kicks it over Green and into the
far corner. It’s fair to say that we
went fucking mental. What a goal. Theirs was good, ours was better and you’re
not singing any more is repeated back at the QPR fans tenfold.
Corky is on for Big Vic who has been magnificent today and
Saints are hell bent on putting the game to bed. Long is a pest down the right and robs Traore.
His cross is half cleared to Davis to curls a
beautiful left footed shot past Green and smashing into the post. Back come QPR and Austin should have done
better with a free header but put it wide and it’s end to end as Davis slides
Long clean through cutting in from the left but his finish is piss poor when
1v1 with Green and is more like a back pass.
Bobby Zamora, another relic on a fortune per week is on and
QPR resort to hoofing it up to him and to be fair, it’s working. He’s giving Alderweireld and Fonte a hard
time and the ball is dropping down and in the absence of Big Vic, no one is
picking it up. It’s allowing Kranjcar to
get on the ball in the dangerous areas and he’s their best player by a
mile. Graziano goes back to help out and
does the opposite by bringing down the Croat who goes down like a sack of shit and
Twattenberg buys it. Up steps Kranjcar
and it’s over the wall and crashing down off the bar and we’re all mighty
relieved as Caulker gets to the rebound but can only loop it over the empty
goal.
Up the other end we go and Hoilett decides to shoulder barge
Tadic in the chest and give us a free kick in the same position as the one QPR
just had. Dusan is obviously told to
leave it by Davis
after an earlier piss poor effort and the Northern Irishman curls it over the wall
and inches wide of the near post at crossbar height. QPR are done now and leaving gaps all over the
place and Tadic breaks away on the left onto Corky’s return pass and smashes
his shot against the near post and away again before being replaced by Matt
Targett who is making his league debut. He
slots in on the left, we waste a bit of time and Twattenberg brings the game to
a close.
Tough game but another win to maintain our ridiculous 2nd
place in the league table. We made heavy
weather of beating a very average QPR side but it’s all about the end
result. On another day, with more
clinical finishing, it could easily have been 4 or 5-1 but 2-1 is more than
adequate. Goal of the month should be
interesting this month as our last three games have seen screamers from Big Vic
and Clyney and now Graziano tops the lot with today’s effort. It’s a fantastic effort and the guy just
seems to be getting better and better with a place in the next Italian squad
beckoning. As if being 6 foot 4, Italian
and beautiful with a model girlfriend isn’t enough... he can also score
overhead kicks to win a game in the Premier League. Hasn’t got much going for him has he?
The goal is going to take all the headlines but for me, the
stars of the show were Steven Davis, Big Vic and Sadio Mané. Vic and Davo were everywhere in midfield,
constantly winning the ball back and along with Morgan, forming an excellent
midfield unit. Steve Davis of course
didn’t score again but at least today it was down to a bit of misfortune rather
than crap finishing. We notably looked
more dodgy defensively when Vic went off as Corky wasn’t quite at the races
when QPR started going Route 1 up to Zamora . Sadio is going to frustrate at times but the
unpredictability he brings is going to create a lot of openings for us. He seems to have a brain as well as being
quick which is good because as we well know, just being quick like Mayuka or
Papa Waigo, really isn’t enough.
Ronald Koeman is finding this ‘managing in the Premier
League’ lark really easy and his post match interviews are all running to the same template. He talks about his surprise at our great
start and then talks about the latest worldy which has flown into the
opposition net. Hopefully the post-match
interviews will run to the same template for a quite a while yet.
I think part of the problem with QPR is them trying to score
in the specified minute of a game to make ‘Arry’s bets come up trumps. His post match interview was along the lines
of... “Charlie Facking Austin, don’t give me Charlie Facking Austin... I
facking had him to score in the 72nd minute, not the facking 71st....
‘ave a facking word saaaan. ... I mean Rio
(twitch), great professional, great lad... gave the ball away....as instructed
for their first goal but Pele, not bad for 72 with Viagra.... (twitch) nice
goal saan, triffic, gave ‘im ‘is break at West ‘Am in the 80s, top top player, like Trevor Brooking – he’s 60 but ‘ees a
triffic pro, fit as a fiddle and I’ve offered him ‘undred grand a week... ee
can still do a job. I’m off to Sandbanks
with Rosie the dog that I aven’t got and a text message from Steve G on the
phone I don’t know how to use... (twitch) just me, Sandra, Jamie and the Wii
and Louise made the tea saaan, triffic”.
Redknapp’s actual reaction was fair enough in that he talked
up the world class goal and then it was all ifs, buts and maybe’s about QPR’s
prospects. He seemed a bit down did
‘Arry. I’d feel a bit sorry for him if I
didn’t think he was a complete helmet.
Next up we have a rather tasty trip to White Hart Lane . Forgetting the dishonourable shitbag they
have as manager for a moment, we really owe Spurs one. 4 games in the Premier League since we got
back and we haven’t even got a point yet.
Two one-man-team-Bale defeats, a Gazzaniga / Hooiveld production and a
capitulation from 2-0 up. This is the
one where that changes. With Pochettino
in charge, we know exactly how Spurs are going to play and we will know how to
counteract it buy turning defence into attack quickly, either through the pace
of Sadio Mané or by going more direct up to Graziano Pellè. After an indifferent start to the season, a
defeat at the hands of Southampton at White Hart Lane
could see the notoriously fickle Spurs fans start to show some dissent at
Levy’s latest manager. We’ve put one
former manager in his place this week and next week I quite fancy us to do the
same again.
Mr Redknapp, you can leave now...
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