Premier League Match 8 - Chelsea 1 Southampton 3

Is it a Bird, Is it a Plane... No, It's a Twat.

Chelsea have had a stuttering start to the season to say the last and Jose Mourinho has been at his fractious worst.  He can be entertaining and he can be charming but he can also be a complete helmet and you’d never ever tire of punching him in the face.  Chelsea’s indifferent form on the pitch has sent him into a bit of a tailspin and it reminds me very much of the time when he left Chelsea before when Abramovich just got fed up with him… well that was the impression anyway but we can only guess as Abramovich never says anything. 

Off the pitch, unless you’ve been living on Mars or something, the main news has been the Eva Carneiro issue which unless I’ve missed something was... Hazard feigns injury to waste time so the referee calls on medical assistance.  The medics go on (as they have to do) and Jose kicks off because he was trying to waste time and they have to now take Hazard off to the side of the pitch and defend with 9 men as the medics have gone on (as they have to do).  They didn’t let in a goal so no damage done but Chelsea demoted the medics anyway, forcing Carneiro to leave the club.  If there is a clearer case for constructive dismissal ever then I’ve not heard of it.  If Carneiro had been a middle aged bloke like the other medic then it probably wouldn’t have made the news but she of course is not so it became a huge issue in the media who as a sideshow, dug her ex-boyfriend out of the woodwork for some dirt.  Overall, it gave more ammunition to everyone who is looking for reasons to hate Chelsea.  It’s not a hard thing to do as they are pretty unlikeable from the outside. 

It’s certainly a good time to be playing Chelsea.  Aside from a referee assisted win against Arsenal they really haven’t been that good.  That was funny as well.  Arsenal’s Gabriel gets sent off for some petty retaliation in a fight that was totally instigated by Diego Costa, Chelsea win the game as a result and then the FA retrospectively let Gabriel off and ban Costa for three games, starting today.  Mourinho of course bleated that ‘retaliation is now obviously allowed’ forgetting that they appealed a red card and ban against Matic last year when he reacted to an admittedly bad tackle on him by getting up and flattening the perpetrator.  They got the ban reduced by a game as a result and Mourinho was wanting the ban to get cancelled altogether, therefore allowing retaliation in his eyes.  The game Matic ‘got back’ meant he played against us last season so with Costa missing today, that’s kind of evened out.  Some say that the FA are setting a dangerous precedent with the way they handled the Costa affair but I think they’re just saying ‘Costa is a twat, Chelsea are twats, shut the fuck up and we’re not going to take it any more’.

Closer to home and on a more positive front, Ryan Bertrand has got straight back in the forthcoming England squad which is good news and deserved.  He must have a good chance of starting as well with Shaw injured and the only other left back being Keiren Gibbs who never plays for Arsenal.  It was thought that JWP might make the squad but he’s still in the under 21s.  Dele Alli got in on the back of 3 appearances for Spurs meaning that in the eyes of the senile old goat, 3 games for Spurs is better than 100 games for Saints,

Anyway, for today anyway, Romeu is in for JWP in a bit of an indication that we are being more defensively minded today.  Depends how we set up I guess.  The big news is on the other side and Captain, leader, legend, shagger, pikey, maggot John Terry is back in defence.  Two weeks ago he was shot at this level but now he’s back to cure all ills.  I like the fact that Matic is missing and that it looks like Fabregas is to be deployed as a defensive midfielder where he’s always been shite.  Falcao is in for Costa so they’re replacing a player who always wants a fight with one who won’t battle for anything.

The start of the game showed we were basically playing a 4-4-2 with Davis on the right and Mané up front against Cahill and Terry.  We’d made quite a positive start and things were looking decent and then Hazard got the ball and charged down the left until Romeu made an attempt to close him down and stop whilst accidentally on purpose bringing him down.  Mission accomplished as Hazard hit the deck but a free kick and Romeu in the book after 10 minutes.  Aside from the yellow card, it looks like a good tactical free kick to give away but William steps up and from left, curls it over all the defenders and over Stekelenburg, it hits the post about an inch below the cross bar and flies into the net.  Bloody hell.  Initial reaction is to think that Maarten messed up but even though he took a step forward, no one would be stopping that.  It’s absolutely perfect and you just have to hold your hands up to it. Willian does it too often for it just to be a ball into an area where the free kick taker got lucky.

Saints get their heads down and worked meaning Chelsea don’t scent blood and walk all over us and we have a humongous shout for a penalty on 25 minutes when Davis swings the ball in and Virgil hits the deck.  One day, the ref is going to blow his whistle and the offending player is actually going to have ripped the opposition shirt from the players back.  Ivanovic has grabbed his shirt and just stopped which means Virgil can’t actually run anywhere.  Madley is looking but gives nothing – wanker.  Ivanovic is a wanker as well – no wonder Suarez bit him.

On the half hour it’s even worse as Mané twists into the box and Ramires sticks out a leg and brings him down.  Penalty all day long and the ref puts his whistle to his lips and then bottles it.  What the fuck?  Maybe Sadio made it look worse than it was but it’s a clear bottle job.  Play goes on and 30 seconds later, Sadio gets taken out by Ivanovic, outside the box this time but the ref decides to book him for diving.  It’s complete bollocks as he’s been taken out again.  Remember the name, Robbie Madley – shit referee.

Sadio shrugs it off and plays a great ball inbetween Cahill and Ivanovic to Bertrand but he lets it run across him a bit which gives Begovic time to spread himself and save it.  Another move sees Davis put away to the right of the penalty area but as Terry throws himself in front of the ball, Davis does a standard Davis finish and slices it off target and high, wide and shite.

Unperturbed, we go forward again and José Fonte puts in a diagonal ball from deep towards Pellè who easily muscles Cahill out of the way and chests is down to Steve Davis.  I had time to see that it was Davis so I had no expectation of anything so when he smashed it past Begovic to make it 1-1 I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  He gets it on target and he scores – whatever next.  It’s his first goal since Tony Blair was in power.  If Davis scores then we’re going to win and he’s probably going to get another goal.  Come on!!!

As the first half ends, the ref finally gets one right and Ramires’ 45 minutes of fouling people finally earns him a booking.  Half time and very promising – we’ve been the better side and their defence looks scared to death of Mané.  Hazard has been quiet and Fabregas hasn’t put in a decent ball all game so far.  We certainly have a chance if only we get a decent shake from the ref who has been absolutely woeful so far.

As we restart, the teams have replaced booked players with Mourinho sending on Matic for Ramires and Koeman replacing Romeu with JWP.

We start the second half remarkably well, defending resolutely and springing forward when we can... and we can with Bertand finding Graziano in the centre circle and he sent Tadic away on the left who puts Mané clean through.  He looks offside but shoots and the keeper saves well.  Ivanovic, who is playing like a Sunday afternoon player who has had about 8 pints at lunchtime, is clearly disorientated and though facing towards the wing manages to hook the clearance back towards the goal and straight back to Sadio whose shot is blocked out to Matic who does similar and treads on the ball allowing Tadic to pinch it and line up Serbian team mate Ivanovic one on one.  He toys with the drunk bloke and sends him back to the pub for another pint and a packet of peanuts before heading towards goal and finding Mané on the penalty spot... shoots, blocked... JWP... wide.... aaaargh! Shit! Shit! Shit!  Images of an imaginary betslip with Davis and JWP to score the first two goals at 7,000,000-1 are briefly in my mind but it’s still 1-1.  The turn by Tadic was brilliant, as was seeing Ivanovic crawling after him on all fours. Come on – we can beat this shit. 

Then a major surprise as Falcao actually shows some fight.  Fabregas threads a ball through between José and Cédric and Falcao is onto it.  Fonte gets back and tries to block him to allow the ball to run through to Stekelenburg but Falcao barges past, knocks the ball wide of the keeper and then goes down.  It looks for all the world like a penalty and the whistle goes... and a yellow card comes out for a dive.  Oh... well played referee – I always thought you were a good ref Robbie.  The ref has called it perfectly... Falcao has knocked it and then dived, dragging his feet into the keeper and initiating the contact himself.  Cheating fuck.  Mourinho is pulling all sorts of histrionics on the bench.  He looks like a spoilt brat who has dropped his ice cream and his mum won’t buy him another one.  Pathetic – we can beat this shit.

And we can.... a few minutes later, England international Gary Cahill has a routine clearance to make but he decides to try and play it out and presents the ball to Tadic.  The next tackle curiously comes from Pellè who takes the ball off him and feeds it into Sadio.  John Terry has dived in like he did when Wayne Bridge went out for a pint of milk but Sadio is round him and gone and slotting it under Begovic to make it 2-1.  Terry’s face afterwards is a thing of beauty.   His face has not been a thing of beauty since he slipped on his arse taking a penalty in the Champions League final.

Mourinho sends Pedro on for Willian in response which is curious as he’s been better than all of Falcao, Hazard, Fabregas and in particular Oscar but before he has chance to justify why they nicked him off Man United, Hazard gives the ball away to Pellè, who sends Mané galloping forward and the big beautiful Italian raced forward, took Sadio’s return pass and drilled it across Begovic and into the far corner.  What a fucking goal... believe!!!!

Mourinho pulls another classic substitution and Matic, who only came on 25 minutes ago, is hauled off and Loic Remy has come on.  I’d forgotten about Remy. On what planet is Remy worse than Falcao?  Back to the game and Davis puts a ball over the top towards Sadio. It’s an 80-20 ball in Cahill’s favour but Sadio wants the ball and Cahill doesn’t.  Mané knocks the much bigger Cahill off the ball and then leaves him for dead and pulls the ball back to Tadic on the edge of the box.  A short pass inside to Davis and it’s 4-1 but he pulls it back onto his left foot and shoots, allowing Terry to block it for a corner.  Balls.  It’s his last contribution as J-Rod is on in his place.

There are still 15 minutes to go and the biggest indictment of Chelsea is that it’s easy and hardly stressful aside from one free kick from Falcao which hits the wall and over.  Sure we sit back a bit but they haven’t got anything.  Oscar lobs in hopeless cross after hopeless cross and the Remy-Falcao combination hardly gets a touch of the ball.  If a ball in is heading into the danger area then up goes Virgil or José to head it away.  There’s still the temptation to say ‘1 minute to go and 2 goals up – we might get a draw’ but that comes with the territory of being a Saints fan.  Final whistle – brilliant.

Well that was absolutely fucking glorious. Not only did we beat them, we thrashed them, we made them look second rate, Jose Mourinho had a complete meltdown and John Terry fucked up for one of the goals. Perfect. We also overcame one of the worst refereeing displays I've ever seen in the first half though in truth, he refereed the second-half really well. In Mourinho's post match interview he started off sounding like he was going to be quite contrite and give us credit but then he just went into one about the referee and the penalty he feels they should've had for Falcao's dive. He can't have seen the reply so why on earth are you stating something as a fact when you can't possibly know. It just makes you look like a twat and boy, did Jose look like a twat. As I said at the start, I actually quite like Jose Mourinho but when he is in this mood he's just a petulant spoilt little twat.  He seems to think that the deflection tactics of ranting about referees and not letting the reporter ask any questions is going to mask the fact that his team was shite yet again and was out played in this case and deserved to lose. Anyone with half a brain doesn't fall for that shit.  He didn't want to comment about the two penalties we should've had in the first half and the unfair booking that Mané got.  True to form and as with the retaliation issue mentioned at the start, he only sees it one way and expects everyone to believe his one eyed version of events. Fuck off Jose.  I find it amusing in the extreme that Ryan Bertrand and Oriol Romeu are playing for us at Stamford Bridge and winning.  Both would have made Chelsea better today instead of Fabregas and Ivanovic but then, neither would have been picked.

But enough of Mourinho and Chelsea. The media will go to town on it so much over the next few days that you'll actually wonder who it was they were playing. Saints were absolutely brilliant today, almost from (almost) the first whistle to the last. Once we got into our stride and recovered from the early free kick, we were absolutely superb all over the pitch. At the back, Jose Fonte and Virgil van Dijk look like a partnership made in heaven. Every ball that Chelsea hopefully tossed into the box in the last 20 minutes, up went Virgil or José to head it away.  Ryan Bertrand makes a huge difference to the side and Cedric was strong again defensively.   Behind them, Maarten Stekelenburg looked completely untroubled.

Tadic had some frustrating moments, not least when he should have passed the ball to Davis to make it 4-1 but I’ll forgive him anything for the bit of play that left Ivanovic crawling. Steven Davis marked his recent improvement and it's remarkable that if you occasionally get a shot on target you will actually occasionally score. It was a goal from an unexpected source but today was that kind of day. Big Vic must also smile at the fact that Ramíres had to go off and then Matic only lasted 25 minutes before he was replaced as well.  In addition to that, Fabregas did nothing so if that's not a victory for the big man then I don't know what is. JWP made a difference when he came on, passing the ball well and contributing to the momentum that we had in the opening half an hour of the second half. Romeu did a good job but had to come off after his early booking as at the time, the referee looked like he was looking for any excuse to book Saints players. The jewels in the crown today though were the forwards with Sadio Mané, after not touching the ball for the first 20 minutes, being absolutely unplayable and making Gary Cahill and John Terry look incredibly ponderous and slow and let's face it, shit.  Last but not least there was Graziano with two assists and a fantastic finish.  If Mané had Cahill on toast with his pace then Graziano just smashed him all over the place with his physical presence and desire to win the ball, hold it up and keep us moving. When he is on this form, he is an absolutely wonderful footballer.

What a great day for Ronald Koeman and from a tactical point of view. Switching to 4-4-2 worked like a dream. I wonder if he changed to that formation when he discovered before kick-off that the slower Terry was playing instead of Kurt Zouma, thus allowing Sadio to play through the middle as opposed to on the right wing.  I think today will be the death of Terry and Cahill as a partnership – no wonder they wanted to sign John Stones.  Ronald used his post match press conference to knock Mourinho’s assertions about referees out of the park, saying that if he wants to talk about penalties then maybe the score is 5-2 to us.

Onward into the international break before we return with a home game against Leicester and an away game at Liverpool and another chance to record an overdue win against that smug disrespectful tosser Brendan Rodgers... oh wait... he’s been fired.  I guess that quarter of a billion spent and the team being no better than when he started was always going to catch up with him in the end.  Bye Brendan – you deserve all you get.  I was really hoping that we’d win at Anfield and he’d get sacked straight afterwards but this will do, even though we’ll be playing against a new manager and they’ll be better because of that.  This may seem petty but Rodgers sacking made an amazing weekend even better.  I feel sorry for whatever team ends up with him next.

So in summary, Saints win at Chelsea, Terry fucks up, Mourinho has a meltdown, & Rodgers gets sacked.  Not many weekends will be as good as this one. Enjoy!