Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Premier League Match 26 - Southampton 0 Liverpool 2


Brendan the Wanker Salutes Kevin the Wanker at the Final Whistle

I thought about writing a blog before the game about the return of Lambert, Lallana and Lovren but in the end I decided against it as it’s all been said and done.  In case you have been living under a rock for the past 8 months here’s a short summary.

Lambert left with dignity and respect and is a class act.  He’s been treated abysmally and disrespectfully at Liverpool by Brendan Rodgers and has hardly played and they tried to offload him in the transfer window to relegation fighting Aston Villa.  It’s a shame and he’ll no doubt be on his way in the summer.  His precious place in the England squad is almost certain to be gone in March when the next squad will doubtless feature some or all of Daniel Sturridge, Harry Kane, Charlie Austin and Saido Berahino.  Dream move? Careful what you wish for.  I’m sure he won’t regret having given it a go at the end of his career but it really isn’t working out from a football point of view.

Lallana let himself down by acting like a Billy Big Bollocks less than a year after signing a 5 year contract and disrespected the club and the fans.  Saying that you dreamt of playing for a different club whilst you were club captain was a bit of an own goal. All efforts he has made since to smooth things over have only made things worse.  His full page picture of himself in The Echo was a PR disaster and every interview has been more ammunition for those who will no doubt give him stick on Sunday.  His latest interview had a bit of an apology in it about certain aspects of his move but no specifics.  His take on why the club only gave him a 2 line send off on the website would have been interesting but I assumed that question wasn’t allowed.  The bottom line is he got in the England squad and from that moment on he wanted out.  He went to the World Cup and managed to get himself filmed signing a Liverpool shirt and saying that he ‘hoped to join them’ when he was still a Saints player and getting paid by the club (and by extension, you and me). Personally, though he undoubtedly acted like a complete helmet from that point, I give him more credit than Calum Chambers who fucked off as soon as he possibly could having given the first team a massive 20-odd games service.  Adam did much for the club over the years and in the main was a superb player for us.  It’ll die down over the years but he’ll be getting loads of stick and he shouldn’t be surprised.  He was our captain and he acted like a complete wanker.

Lovren disrespected the club and the fans and just proved what a mercenary he is.  Since he’s moved he’s proved that his form in the first half of last season at Saints was the exception, rather than the norm.  That good form got us a £12million profit on him and and he’s been shite for Liverpool.  All you can do is laugh at him really.  He’s turned out to be shit despite being bigged up by pundits such as Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher when he was with us.  He was to be the £20million lynchpin of their defence and he’s now been bombed out and is a perennial substitute.  Needless to say that once he was bombed out, Liverpool have improved immeasurably.  You’re shit and you know you are.  We should just laugh as we paid £8m for a turd that we polished and made it look like a diamond for 6 months.  When it started to revert into a turd again, no one at Anfield noticed and gave us £20m for it.

It may surprise you to hear this but the biggest wanker is not Lovren, nor Lallana but Brendan Rodgers.  Southampton have given up on their ambition.  Have we really?  We’ve been above you all season you smarmy tossser.  Everything about this bloke screams ‘tosser’.  Even his goal celebrations look fucking stupid as he puts one hand up and points at the sky.  What the fuck is that?  Sometimes he adds a windmill and point with his arm like ZZ Top used to do in their videos.  He’s a fucking arsehole.  Why sign Rickie Lambert when your whole style of play relies on pace?  He signed him to make it easier to get Lallana and Lovren as well.  It’s obvious he leaked that to the press as well as the first question any journo asked Lambert when he was the first to join was ‘how about the other two?’.  He walked out on Watford, walked out on Swansea and he’s a tosser.  He might be a semi-decent football manager but he’s a tosser.

It’s pissing down and the walk to the ground from Woolston is horrible.  The wind blowing left to right as we cross the Itchen Bridge just batters the rain into one side of your face and you end up with one wet leg on your jeans.  I’m quite proud of my son for working out that if he walked on my right hand side then fat Dad took all the buffeting and he stayed relatively dry.

The team news shows a surprise with Filip Djuricic starting and Sadio Mané on the bench.  Our bench looked very strong all over a sudden with Mané, Long, Gardos, Tadic, Reed and Schneiderlin all present.  The Liverpool selection was interesting as both Lalllana and most surprisingly Lovren were included from the start.  Sir Rickie was of course on the bench and the pre-match chanting left no one in any doubt who the hero was and who the villains were.  With Sturridge and Balotelli on the Liverpool bench as well, I’d say the chances of Lambert getting on are exactly zero.

Away we go and we win the ball back and Pellè plays a superb diagonal ball out to the right win and Djuricic is in behind Emre Can.  He’s in the area and should shoot but goes down under Can’s challenge. Everyone in the Northam and the Itchen corner goes up as well as the players but the ref, Kevin Friend doesn’t give it.  If he does it’s a penalty and a red card after 30 seconds so he bottles it.  Later replays show Can’s hand on Djuricic’ shoulder and a slight tug.  He hits the deck too easily and appeals.  It’s soft but in this day and age it’s a fucking foul and should be given.  Put it this way – if it’s the first minute at Anfield and Sterling goes through and Fonte pulls him back – we’re playing with 10 players for 90 minutes

So, injustice is in the air as the game gets going and fuck me, what a goal.  Sadly it’s not ours as Markovic advances up the left ad plays it infield to Coutinho who has got away from Steve Davis and he smashes it over Forster and in off the bar.  I wondered for a second if Fraser should have saved it but he had no chance at all.  I’m not happy, they should have been 1-0 down and a man down but they’re 1-0 up.  I can’t see him but I bet Brendan Rodgers is being a twat.

The mood gets worse as Pellè gets up above Skrtel and flicks on a ball and Djuricic is through again.  Lovren covers round and Joe Allen dives in and trashes him from behind.  I’m the entire length of a pitch away and can see it’s a penalty as there’s no way Allen has got the ball but Kevin Friend who is considerably closer decides that it’s not.  Fuck off – what’s the fucking point?  Djuricic manages to get up off the floor and poke the ball to Elia who shoots but Mignolet gets down well to save.

We have the amusement of Lovren passing the ball straight out of play when there was no one near him and then Pellè again does well to set up JWP who does what he always does and shanks a dribbler well wide.  With Jack Cork you could play a game of guessing the row and the seat that he’d hit when he had a shot.  With JWP you could play a game of trying to guess which advert the hoarding to the side of the goal will be showing when the ball hits it.

Liverpool aren’t doing much going forward but the latest bright young thing Jordon Ibe has Targett on toast before failing to pick out Sterling with his cross.  Ibe does look like a decent player and no doubt as he plays for a big club he’ll be over-hyped.  Hopefully he’ll turn out to be decent and not another Macheda or Januzaj.

If Ibe is giving Targett problems, Clyne has too much for Markovic.   He bursts past him and gets deliberately trashed by the flailing defender.  Foul and a yellow card…. No, play on! Fuck off Kevin, again!.  On a rare Liverpool attack, Sterling breaks into the box on our right and José slides in like madman and takes the ball but wipes out Sterling in the process.  Great tackle I thought at the time but later on when I saw it again I realised that though he got the ball, it was a lot messier than I originally thought.  Not even Kevin the Wanker could give that after what he’d not given at the other end.

He finally gets a card out when arch-wanker Lovren trashes through JWP on the left wing but he’s back in full bottler mode again as we approach half time.  Clyney lifts a ball over the defence and Lovren is asleep.  Elia is through and gets to the ball first, only for Mignolet to come rushing out and block, outside the box with a combination of his chest and hand.  It’s a clear handball and it’s a free kick at least and then it should be a red card under today’s interpretation of the rules.  Not today though… play on… it really is fucking ridiculous.  I read a blog the other day which was written by a neutral who said that he thought that Saints would get referreed out of the top 4 as it wouldn’t be good for the brand if we qualified.  I generally dismiss this sort of thing as I do all conspiracy bollocks but performances like this one from Kevin the Wanker. Make you wonder.

As the half ticks down, JWP swings over a corner and via a couple of deflections, it hits our favourite asshole Lovren on the hand and he clears it.  It’s not even worth appealing.  Half time and it’s still cold and raining.

There’s a substitute each at the start of the second half as Markovic is off to be replaced with Moreno and Steve Davis who has been having a mare, is off to be replaced with Morgan Schneiderlin.  We start well and are knocking the ball about a lot more than we did in the first half and 10 or so passes later the ball lands with Pellè on the edge of the box but his shot is awful and scuffs tamely wide.

There really isn’t much going on in the first 15 minutes of the second half from either side.  The pattern is that we have possession but do nothing with it.  Liverpool try and break and get nowhere.  There are a few players who are barely involved – Sterling and Lallana for Liverpool, Djuricic and Elia for us.  On 56 minutes, Ronald has had enough and off comes JWP to be replaced with Sadio Mané.  This moves Djuricic into the midfield three so I think we’re definitely going for it.  We have to, to be fair. JWP hasn’t produced anything.  There is an immediate improvement as Mané looks way more dynamic than anything on show beforehand.

Aside from Lambert not getting on, the most predictable thing about Liverpool was that Adam Lallana would be hauled off after an hour and so it was, with Daniel Sturridge coming on.  There’s some booing as he goes off but not as much as I’m expecting.  Maybe I can’t hear much from the Chapel End.  There is nothing much to boo as he hasn’t done anything and has been completely anonymous – I have a feeling that the stick he was getting throughout from the Northam had affected him.  If he doesn’t understand how much he pissed everyone off now then he never will.

With 20 minutes to go we have a great chance as Mané skips across the top of the penalty area before being felled by Skrtel.  With JWP and Tadic off the pitch, it falls to Morgan to take it.  Instead of shooting though he tries to slide a ball past the wall to Djuricic but over hits it so it goes straight out for a goal kick.  Fucking hell.  We even pass free kicks from the edge of the box now.

Having passed the free kick out of play, Morgan has another shocker a few minutes later by playing a loose crossfield ball which allowed Moreno to nick the ball.  He drives down the left and squares behind Sturridge but Targett slips as he tries to clear and just gives it straight to Sterling.  His shot flicks off of Fonte and finds its way into the net past Fraser’s powder puff effort to stop it.  Oh fuck off.

Tadic is on for Djuricic who has not done a lot since the 5th minute and the next time Mané gets chopped down on the edge of the box (this time by Moreno) at least Tadic has a shot but Mignolet pull off a solid save to keep the low effort out.  We’re never going to score and even Tosser Rodgers realises this and even knows it’s safe to put Glen Johnson on.  Elia has one chance at it and flies past him like he isn’t there but the cross is half cleared, Morgan tries an overhead kick but it’s easy for the keeper.

I hate coming away from games with the feeling that you can’t shake that you’ve been done.  I hate feeling that whatever we did would have ultimately made no difference.  I hate moaning about referees first and foremost but Kevin Friend was fucking useless from 30 seconds in until the final whistle.  We should definitely have had one penalty for the second foul on Djuricic and like I said earlier, the first one, with way the game is these days, should have been given as well.  Not even spotting that Mignonet handled outside the box is a fucking scandal as well.  Friend is either shite or bent.  He could of course have given one against José Fonte as well but having already denied us two shouts there would have been uproar if he’d given that.

Our performance pissed me off as well.  Too much fannying about and not enough taking responsibility to shoot or play a forward pass.  Graziano is having a mare at the moment and it seems no one else is interested in helping out regarding getting a decent cross in to him or heaven forbid, scoring a goal.  Three home games in a row without scoring against teams that don’t look great at the back.  Certain players are getting on my goat with a lack of positive play and a lack of incisive effective football.  If you play at the front of the midfield three and are just behind the striker then you should be scoring 5-8 goals per season at least and there is no goal threat at all from JWP or from Steve Davis when they play there.  With Big Vic and Morgan fit I really think we can afford to play Tadic in a midfield 3 and get Mané and Elia on the wings or up front with Graziano.  Maybe it’s time too give Shane Long a run in the side – at least he’ll fucking shoot.  As it’s only one game I’ll reserve judgement on Djuricic but I wonder straight away how much we needed that type of player.  We now have 4 attacking midfielders – Tadic, Mané, Elia and Djuricic – all left footed and most comfortable in the same position.

Ronald Koeman told us the reason for Sadio Mané not starting was that he was late to the stadium.   I think that’s absolute quality that he got dropped for that.  I’m sure that not many managers or clubs would do that but in my opinion it’s the correct thing to do – otherwise you’re sending out a message that you can do what you like and nothing will happen.  Fining doesn’t hurt a player but being on the bench will.  In my opinion, Ronald was overstating how well we played.  Yes, we had possession but as mentioned earlier, we didn’t do much constructive with it.  Not enough chances were taken to shoot or play a forward pass and two of the starting midfield had shocking games.  They weren’t alone either as Elia was quiet despite having Donkey Lovren on his side and after the first couple of minutes, Djuricic faded until substituted…. And then there was Pellè.  I was kind of hoping that after 10 days without a game and a good rest that he’d come back firing but he didn’t.  It’s worth mentioning that he created the two penalty shouts for Djuricic but there was no goal threat from him which is partly down to service and partly down to his own lethargic looking display.

Despite having won the game, Brendan Rodgers managed to be a complete cock again.  He felt the need to comment on our match day programme not having a feature on Lallana in it to which I say – what the fuck has it got to do with you how we talk of our ex-players.  Go and find out if you want the truth. So he had a go at the club and he had a go at the fans for booing Lallana and Lovren.   Apparently we lacked respect… what are you doing with Rickie Lambert’s career there Brendan?  He of course neglected to mention that no one booed Lambert or that fans were singing his songs from the last 5 years or clapping him off after the warm-up.  Oh yes… and he said that Kevin Friend had a great game – well he fucking would think that wouldn’t he.  I didn’t think he could go down in my estimation any more but he managed it. Utter Wanker.  As I write, Kevin Friend has just been banned from refereeing this weekend.  That doesn’t happen if he’s had a good game does it Brendan, you clueless bastard.  It’s also come to light that Brendan went nuts at him after a recent FA Cup game.

And breathe… we are still 5th, still above Liverpool and Spurs, just behind United and Arsenal.  There are 5 teams going for 2 Champions League spots and whilst this is a painful defeat, it’s not terminal.  Of course, we can’t go on playing like we are and we have to start scoring but we’re not out of anything as yet.  Next up is an away trip to West Brom who are there to be beaten.  Our away form is good so why not?




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