Europa League Playoff Round 2nd Leg - Midtjylland 1 Southampton 0 (Agg 2-1)

"You See That Big Italian Bloke 70 Yards Away"

Victor Wanyama is ill. 

The Mighty Kenyan who can run through brick walls and survives on a diet of iron filings and rubble and opposition midfielders is ill – with a stomach bug.  It’s a conspiracy of course and he’s in hospital having a medical for Tottenham.  It’s the last few days of the transfer window and Daniel Levy thinks he’d better get going in the transfer market so all his favourite media outlets have been informed and Saido Berahino, Big Vic and some Korean bloke call Son are seeing their names in the papers and having their heads turned, whilst their respective clubs all say ‘not for sale’.   Spurs really are a scumbag of a club.

Anyway, we are in Denmark and Victor is not, so we will talk about Midtjylland and the 2nd leg of the Playoff Round for the Europa League.  I’m of the opinion that it will be a disaster and monumental waste if we fail to progress to the group stages so let’s make sure that we get through.  Ronald is speaking confidently in that we know how the opposition are going to play and we know that we have to score.  I’m of the opinion that we will be fine if we remain patient and I don’t just mean not panicking if it’s 0-0 at half time – I want us to be patient in the build-up and not just look to launch it to Graziano (and probably J-Rod).

Ronald has decieded to stick with the 3-5-2 formation from the Watford game which for those with short memories was a game we didn’t score in.  That formation depends on the full backs providing the width in attack and I’m a bit worried to se Martina and Targett on the wings as Martina is more of  a defender and I’m not sure Targett has the pace to play wing back.  I know we have a lack of options on the left but surely Cédric should be in on the right.  I’m also slightly alarmed to see both Davis and JWP in midfield with Romeo as that’s a pace free zone and pretty much a creativity free zone.  Mané is on the bench so he can write a transfer request and I’m bemused that Tadic is not playing given the aforementioned lack oof creativity and the need for a goal.  Ah well…. Nervous.  Midtjylland have made the one change with the ridiculously named Bak-Bach coming in at right back.  Ready to start and it’s pissing down.

We win a corner from our first long ball forward. JWP is corner is missed by everyone and José dives into it and heads goalwards only for it to be headed off the line. Midtjylland’s first spoling tactic becomes clear from the corner and it’s for the guy at the near post to dive on the ground though in fairness he did get a clip in the face from a flailing J-Rod arm.  It really wasn’t enough to poleaxe him though.

Pellè comes deep and picks up a ball on the right and floats a lovely cross into J-Rod on in the inside left channel. He should smash it left footed on the volley but instead cushions it back behind Davis and it drops to JWP whose shot hits a defender and ricochets away. On 20 minutes, Caulker slings in a ball from the right wing which again is chested down by Pellè to Davis who finds space and hammers in a shot that the parries away.

The game settles into a pattern of long ball rubbish from us and feigning injury from them.  Another corner, another  near post swandive and J-Rod gets a little bit over zealous in trying to pull the wanker to his feet and gets booked so the perfect outcome for the cheats.  They get a free kick, delay the game and the opposition have a player booked.  Well played ref.

J-Rod is getting frustrated after the booking and goes hunting the ball in the left back position.  He wins it and shields it and gets shoved over and usually that’s a free kick.  He’s straight back up and should just knock it out of play but he tries to play a ball to Targett and loses it.  Royer feeds a ball into Rasmussen who nips in front of Fonte and finds himself with a free shot across Stekelenburg which he puts into the far corner to put Midtjylland 1-0 up on the night.  Fucking hell.  It doesn’t in fact make a lot of difference in that we still need a one goal or we’re going out.  It’s bollocks from both Jay and José though and you have to question the positioning of Maya and Matt Targett as well.  Shit goal all round.

Martina, who has spent the game so far going backwards, actually gets a cross in which is cleared and eventually it’s work back to him and he crosses again to J-Rod who flicks a decent header down towards the bottom corner but the keeper saves it comfortably enough.

Hoof, nothing, hoof, nothing, hoof, free kick against Graziano for nothing, hoof, straight to Sparv who heads it away.  Half time and fucking hell this is bad.  Carry on like this and we’re going out.

We come out after half time and almost straight away we’re bombing it forward again.  1-0 defeat coming up then.  They look more likely to score than we do as they’re decent on set plays.  A free kick comes on from the right and Rasmussen, who is always the main target for their free kicks, finds himself free and heads wide.

We are not going to score with these 11 in this formation if we play all fucking night and Tadic is the first to be charged with bailing us out of the shit we’re in. Caulker is the man coming off which immediately strikes me as wrong as we’re losing his threat from corners and he’s played better than Yoshida.  Tadic takes his place on the left of a lopsided looking formation with J-Rod kind of on the right and Tadic gets involved straight away, dancing past a couple of players before hitting a right footed effort a yard wide.  I assume the change is to get some quality in the crosses coming in from the wings.  We still have Martina impersonating a full back on the other side though, mainly getting the ball with space in front of him and turning and going backwards.  But he’s a Curacao international… they must be shit.

J-Rod is at least trying to get something going and he picks up the ball and drives at the defence until he’s cynically taken out by Sparv which earns him a deserved booking.  The free kick is in prime position for a right footed player so I’m hopeful that this is the day that JWP actually scores.  This time it’s heading over the wall and a Midtjylland arm comes up in the wall and deflects the ball.  It’s a penalty all day long but the ref gives a corner.  What the fuck?  Does he think a player’s grown two feet and headed it over.  We have a little complaint but nothing much when we really should have kicked off to try and get a future decision and then we make a complete fuck of the corner, fail to get it into the box, J-Rod loses it, they break and Targett has to take one for the team and scythes down the breaking forward. Luckily, Martina had got behind him to prevent the red card.  Christ we’re shit.

Long is on for J-Rod and Midtjylland produce the best bit of football of the match as Royer plays a nice 1-2 in the box and then sidefoots a decent chance over the bar.  We have produced nothing as inventive as that in the preceding shambles.

The hilariously bad Martina, when under no pressure, then tried to control a high ball in his own penalty area and succeeded in just shinning it back to Stekelenburg.  The crowd and Rasmussen appealed for a back pass but luckily the referee had been watching Martina for the whole game so he knew that there was no way that he meant it.  The final throw is to put Juanmi on.  He’s our 6^th choice forward at the moment and at 5 foot 6, it would take a miracle for him to get on the end of anything bombed forward.  He does fuck all and 90 minutes are up, hoof, hoof, shit, 94, out.  The Danes celebrate like they’ve won the World Cup and fair enough.  Good luck to them.  They had a plan and we were too limited to combat it.  Utter shit.

As a fan, I think of myself as being realistic.  I remember the shocking times and I accept that we have it good now.  I also like to think I call it as I see it and this is how I saw the 90 minutes put in front of me last night.  As an experiment, I ‘spoke’ the next part into my phone straight after the game…

Message starts

That was an absolutely disgusting performance from first to last. We didn't create a single fucking thing from about the 10th minute to the 94th minute.  Just banging the ball long from the centre backs to the strikers and most of the time we weren’t even getting as far as the half way line and delivering from any sort of angle, just hopeful lowest common denominator, League 1 football which was absolutely shit.  Just a waft in the general direction of Graziano and hope for the best.  I know it was a plan to be more direct but when do the management of the players on the pitch realise that it’s not working?

So many of the players were absolutely shit. I'll go through the whole team. Stekelenburg didn't have a chance with a goal and did nothing wrong. Martina was a fucking joke. We needed a goal and all this twat did was turn and go backwards the whole fucking game when he was a wingback who was supposed to get fucking crosses in. Did he take anyone on all game?  He had a centre back playing behind him and he showed no adventure whatsoever.  Useless. I remember saying when he signed that this guy had better be significantly better than Jason McCarthy or Jack Stephens or any of our other kids who can play at right back… and guess what, he fucking isn't. Targett tried his best on the left but he's a boy in a man's world at the moment and looks out of his depth. The booking he got was one he took for the team after some absolutely shit play from us from our own corner which we didn't even get in the fucking box.  He was actually one of our better players tonight.  Yoshida and Caulker were both launching the ball in the vague direction of Pelle and Rodriguez from about 70 fucking yards away and that tactic obviously wasn't working but still they persisted with it. Jose Fonte has been pretty crap this season and today was no exception as he looked indecisive throughout. Davis and JWP are basically the same player, neat and tidy on the ball but neither can defend for shit and neither are going to score and are unlikely to create a goal. Davis is a slightly better defender and JWP has his free kicks which never go in and corners but they should never both be playing as they are too similar. Most of the time we were smashing the ball over their heads anyway so they didn't get much chance to do anything aside from try and get near Pellè for a knock down. Speaking of Pellè, I thought he did okay considering the absolute dog shit service he was given. Rodriguez fucked up on the goal which ultimately didn’t matter but otherwise he was living off of scraps.

Ronald Koeman has had an absolute shocker for about the fourth game in a row. The formation in itself wasn't the problem but the personnel was. Why the fuck wasn't Cedric playing when he can at least get a cross in? Why the fuck didn't he come on as a sub. Why was Sadio on the bench if not to be used in the last 10 minutes? Why send Juanmi on when a) the bloke has not shown anything yet in his admittedly limited chances and b) it was supply we needed. Another striker really is not going to do anything without a decent ball into the box. All you can say about Juanmi at the moment is that he’s not Mayuka.  Also, why take Caulker off when we need a goal? He gets his head on virtually every corner we get and might at least score a goal. Yoshida is never going to score so why take Caulker off?  Yoshida was terrible at the back as well – how many times are you going to get free kicks given against you for jumping with your hands on the opponents head before you realise that the referee has got your number and he’s going too give it every time? Tadic made a difference when he came on but assuming he is not injured, he really should have played from the start instead of one of JWP and Davis.

It was fucking dog shit. I just feel sorry for the fans who invested a lot of money to get out there and support the team in the pissing rain. To reward them, we put in a performance like that. Utter, utter shit. To go out like that against a team as limited as Midtjylland are is nothing short of a disgrace when you've worked all 38 games of last season to achieve the chance of qualifying for the group stages of the Europa league and maybe achieving something quite decent.  If we’d got to the group and got knocked out after winning a couple of games then I could have dealt with that and said it was a decent European campaign.  As it is it was barely worth it.

All is not lost in that Cedric, Bertrand, Clasie, Big Vic , Tadic, Mané and a new centre back will all make this team unrecognisable from the absolute shit house team that disgraced the Southampton badge on their shirts tonight.  Ronald’s comments were worrying too.  Sorry Ron – we weren’t the better side and even if we were, that’s not saying much as we were playing against a team from Denmark who would struggle in the Championship.  We didn’t do enough to win over the two games as our attacking play was so brainless and limited.  You could argue that Midtjylland scored with virtually their only chances over the two games but once they’d scored at St Mary’s, they didn’t need to attack.  Fair play to them and I hope they do well in the group stages.  Hopefully they can beat Spurs or Liverpool. You can also say that we didn’t get the best of the refereeing.  It was clearly a tactic on every corner we had for a Midtjylland defender at the near post to hit the deck and stay there.  Even if he doesn’t get given a free kick (like with Caulker’s header at St.Mary’s) the game is going to be stopped for the trainer to come on because the ref is never going to be sure that he’s taken a dive.  That’s what the extra refs behind the goal was supposed to eliminate I guess but they never influenced the game and they seem to have disappeared. The handball of JWP’s free kick was a poor mistake from the ref but that’s not the reason we’re out – it’s because we couldn’t score from open play in two games and we were generally terrible.

Message ends.

If I hear one more twat talk about concentrating on the league, I swear I will rip their fucking head off. This was a golden chance, as I said, to do something decent and we fucked it right up. The league is next though and we have newly promoted Norwich City as our next appointment on Sunday... at least we won't have too many Sunday games now. The pressure to win that one against Norwich will be quite intense.  This is the first real blip of Koeman’s time in charge of Saints and he needs to turn it around.  Pretty obvious statement, that.

The bigger picture is that you cannot keep selling class players and replacing them and expect the replacements to all measure up straight away.  The players who have been brought in to hopefully be first team regulars are Cédric (not quite up to speed yet), Clasie (injured) and the centre back we haven’t signed yet.  Add that to Ryan Bertrand, Sadio and Big Vic not being there and last night is what you get.  It was the style of football that as most concerning though as it was dreadful.   Personally, I don’t think the bigger picture looks too bad with injured players to come back and whatever is incoming in the rest of the transfer window but please don’t pretend that what we all witnessed last night was anything other than complete shite.