"Shit Happens Brother"
Saints first away trip in Europe since 2003 should be a
formality with a 3-0 lead over Vitesse from the first leg. There is always the chance that it could go
horribly wrong but unlikely, given that they’re not that good. I guess it depends on what team Mourinho
picks for them. During the week, the
West London Employment Agency farmed Vitesse out another youngster as Dominic
Solanke joined. He’s a striker and I’ve
no idea if he’s any good or not. That
makes 5 players out on loan from Chelsea to Vitesse. I might have covertly expressed this opinion
before but I think it’s bollocks.
The Dutch, in keeping with their friendly image, have laid
out the flags for us with a fan park in Arnhem, decorated partly in Saints
colours which works in a number of ways – it gives ticketless fans somewhere to
watch the game, or somewhere to congregate to have a beer beforehand and it
also keeps fans in one place and it makes the job of the local Police that much
easier. The downside of it is that the
collecting of fans in one place makes it an easy target for any random group of
nutters who want to turn up so there ended up being a big ruck when the
Feyenoord crew turned up. Of course, the
initial reports only said that there had been a ruck and 53 had been
arrested. It turned out there were only
3 English arrests so I think we can safely assume that our fans behaviour was
pretty good.
There were always going to be some issues around this game
as the allocation of 1400 for Saints fans could have been sold many times over
and with a general sale going on for the home end, there was always going to be
Saints fans in the home end but in the ground at least, all seemed well. In keeping with our intent to take this
competition seriously, Ronald went with a strong team. The back 4 was messed about a bit with
Martina in for Cedric, Caulker in for Targett with Yoshida at left back. JWP came into the midfield in place of Clasie
and J-Rod made it onto the bench for the first time since his injury in place
of Shane Long who was ill and didn’t travel.
Vitesse left out the nutter Achenteh which was a bit of a shame as an
early penalty would make the evening that much easier. The one injury for us that was being reported
was one to the manager who had done his achilles tendon in training. There was a question mark over whether he’s
be on the touchline tonight but there he was with crutches and a protective
boot.
With no Achenteh on the pitch to give us an early chance by
hacking someone over, the responsibility fell to the aptly named Diks who
hauled down Tadic about 30 yards out on the left. JWP’s delivery was cleared back to him and he
in turn knocked it wide to Tadic. The
cross came over, JWP tried to control it and failed but Pellè took over, nipped
it round and defender and buried it left footed across the Room and into the
far corner. Game, Set, Match, 4 minutes
gone.
Vitesse had no choice anyway but now they have even less and
have to have a go. Caulker makes his
first contribution in a Saints shirt and blocks Rashica’s shot when he’s been
set up by Brown after some shandy defending by Davis. However, the new biy got lucky from the
resulting corner as he ballwatched and allowed Rashica to get himself free to
meet the corner on the volley but he bounced his shot into the ground and over
the bar.
With no Clasie in midfield, our defensive screen is not as
great as it could be and Vitesse keep on creating chances from the edge of the
box. It was giving us a chance to have a
good look at Caulker and he showed up well with a good block to deny Rashica
before he could shoot. Shots were coming
on from the edge of the box, mainly from Qazaishvili who was threatening
supporters in the crowd rather than the goal.
Centre back van der Werff did at least get on to go straight and Stekelenburg
easily flipped it over the bar.
Saints were doing very very little aside from getting
through the game without trying too hard.
We had one notabvle chance as Pellè did really well to tee up Mané who
should have scored from the edge of the box but Room got down well to keep it
to 1-0 on the night. As half time
approached, Big Vic had a little dive in the box which just looked silly and
Martina ent into the book for an untidy tackle when he trashed the forward with
both his feet and one arm.
I’m on holiday, watching the game on a dodgy internet stream
which is all pixellated and rubbish but as the camera pans round the crowd
before the 2nd half starts, I can quite clearly see Saints fans in
half and half scarves. It’s a bit of a
contradiction for e as with numerous ‘aways’ required to get a ticket for this
game, I expect the Saints end to contain the real hardcore, the kind who would
not be seen dead in a half and half scarf, which for me is the uniform of a day
tripper with an iPad filming the game.
We started the second half with as much pace as Ronald had
shown when disappearing down the tunnel on his crutches. More shots from the edge of the box and more
rubbish that was nowhere near the goal from Qazaishvili. I wonder if modern coaching is that
sophisticated that the players know that it’s not worth bother closing down Qazaishvili
as he hits the target from outside the box 0.002% of the time and the last time
was in a school game in Georgia when he was 12.
The game was tediously boring to say the least until even
Ronald got bored and hooked Tadic for Juanmi and then Pellè for J-Rod, making
his first competitive appearance for 16 months.
Almost his first act was to pick up the ball 30 yards out, take a touch
and lash it fractionally over the bar.
Another sub as Harry Reed came on for Davis and Mourinho replaced one
Chelsea player with another as Pantic came on for Baker. There was another Chelsea for Chelsea
substitution as well which just adds to distate over the loan arrangement with
Brown being hooke and replace with Nathan... which is pronounced
‘Narrtan’. The internet feed is good
enough to pick up Ronald who, in response to the referee ignoring a clear foul
on Big Vic, let rip with some great expletives which the commentator had to
apologise for.
Nathan is well on his way to being a true Chelsea player
when he has a dive and wins a free kick which we clear easily enough. The ball ends up back with the Vitesse
defenders who get grief fromt he crowd
when they knock it back to the keeper.
The keeper gives it back to the defender who of course, is not going to
play it back this time and a Chelsea defender called Pantic got possessed by
the spirit of Ronald Koeman and started strolling out of defence before
discovering he was more Neal Trotman than Koeman as he passed the ball straight
to Sadio Mané who accelerated away and slotted it past Room from the edge of
the box. It was a truly abysmal piece of
defending which could only have been funnier if Dejan Lovren had done it.
It looks like we might get
another as Mané raced away on the left before running into Diks who pulled out
a rugby tackle and then pulled an innocent face when a free kick was given
against him. JWP delivered well and a
combination of J-Rod and Big Vic thumped a header goalwards but Room, the
generally pretty good Vitesse keeper, clawed it away well. Final whistle, job well and truly done.
When we got drawn against Vitesse I had an uneasy feeling
that this was going to be difficult so to dispatch them 5-0 on aggregate is a
pretty good effort and it really was as simple as it looks and done in a
textbook fashion. 3-0 at home and no
away goal conceded and score early in the return game to leave them needing 5. Vitesse played with spirit but they simply
weren’t good enough. Job done and Koeman
would have been delighted as he limped off.
It was good to have a game with no tension in it. There wasn’t very much anxiety before the
game and Graziano’s goal made it very straightforward. Caulker had a solid enough debut despite some
obvious rustiness and Martina was decent enough down the right. I do like the look of Stekelenburg in goal as
well – his kicking looks very good and he’s the solid, unfussy type of keeper
in the same mould as Fraser Forster. Up
front we looked good with Pellè and Mané and hopefully we can see Sadio played
up the middle more this season. Dave
Merrington would be very happy with this… I haven’t heard Big Dave’s opinion
today but I’m guessing that he’s banging on in the same way that he always
does. The negatives in the performance
were that Tadic and JWP were invisible and I think I saw Maya in the Vitesse
half once all game which is always going to be a problem when he plays in the
full back position.
The draw for the playoff round which is the last round
before the group stages, was conducted in a similar way to the previous draw in
that there was a pre-draw of a group of 6 unseeded teams who we could play
against. One of them was Asrta from
Romania who knocked out West Ham who decided to field a team of kids in the 2nd
leg and consequently, deservedly got beaten.
To be fair, none of the unseeded teams look particularly difficult
opposition and we ended up with the Champions of Denmark, FC Midtjylland. I wanted to play Norway’s Odd Ballsklub but
they’ll have to wait. All in all it a
real chance to get into the group stages with my two favourite clubs, Spurs and
Liverpool.
Thoughts now turn to Sunday and the Premier League against
Newcastle and the first game for Steve McClaren who always was and always will
be, an arse. Personally, I think this is
a tough game to have first and if you offered me a draw now, I’d take it. Hopefully Clasie will be fit, Long will have
recovered and the only injury we have to contend with is the one to the manager. When asked about his brothers injury
afterwards, Erwin Koeman’s comment was ‘shit happens’. Brilliant.
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