Same Shit, Different Day
With
the transfer window open, we’re had some news of sorts with a couple of loaned
out players returning to the club in the form of Jack Stephens and Sam
Gallagher who had both failed to get much football on loan to Championship
Clubs. Though the fact they didn’t do
well in the Championship is not too encouraging, I’d rather have these two on
the bench for the first team than the likes of Juanmi and Martina. There is also news that Florin Gardos is fit
again and will soon be joining Fraser Forster in the Under 21s. The big man was back during the week and got
90 minutes under his belt in the 1-0 win in the U21 Cup competition which we
won last year. The Chelsea kids we were
playing against must have found it quite dispiriting to be playing against an
England International 6 foot 7 monster keeper.
One reaction save with his foot was particularly impressive and with any
luck he’ll be back in the first team soon.
Anything that moves Kelvin Davis away from ever playing for the first
team again has got to be good.
It’s
been muscle flexing time at St Mary’s where Ronald has come out with typical
honesty and basically said that any player who thinks the causing problems will
get him a move, will be made to sit in the stands for the duration of his
contract. It’s an admirable stance and
it should be applauded but the reality is that we know that in the money driven
game that we have now, that won’t be allowed to happen indefinitely. I had hoped that the players wouldn’t be in
demand as they’re not actually good enough to play for a top 4 side. I don’t think Victor is good enough for a top
4 footballing side like Arsenal and I question whether Sadio has enough end
product for someone to pay the fee we will demand in the summer (£30m plus I
would imagine). I was however forgetting
one thing... Manchester United. Wanyama
and Schneiderlin in central midfield for United... makes you feel quite ill
doesn’t it... and they need strikers with pace so I can see them going for it.
Anyhow,
enough of that and we have Crystal Palace in the FA Cup today. It’s 2016 and 40 years since 1976 so it would
be nice, wouldn’t it? In that year we
beat Palace in the semi-final so there’s another omen. Sadly, omens mean little when you have a
recent history of finding a more shite way of going out of every cup
competition that passes. Already this
season we’ve had one of the worst performances ever in Midtjylland in the
Europa and then we bettered that with a 6-1 home defeat by Liverpool in the
Capital One. I wonder what shambles we
can dish up for going out of the FA Cup and will it be today? It should be a decent day with Palace
bringing 5000 fans and they are one of the best away supports in the
country. They of course knocked us out
last year in the 4th Round when we were pretty awful and we managed
to let Yaya Sanogo’o score.
Palace
have had a decent season so far with some eye catching wins but like with us,
injuries have decimated their front line recently and they’ve struggled to
score goals. Both Pardew and Koeman are
on record this season about the need to challenge for trophies so I imagine
that both teams will be pretty close to their usual line-ups. We know that Pellè and Rodriguez are still
out, Vic is suspended and we know that Cédric is available again.
The
team news is questionable as we appear to have 3 centre backs with Yoshida in
the team along with Fonte and van Dijk so it’s looking like the formation that
didn’t do us any good when we lost 1-0 at Selhurst a few weeks back. Martina and Targett are the two wing backs
which is who we started with at wing back in the horrific Midtjylland away game. There seems a lack of creativity in the front
5 as well with only Mané who might do something out of the oridinary. Oh well, let’s see… Palace have named a strong side. They’re without Bolasie who is injured and
are down to their 4th choice straiker in Frazier Campbell who is
Championship at best. Pardew is back at
St Mary’s though. He’s the manager that
started the resurgence for us and won the JPT so we should always be
grateful. A lot of water has flowed
under the bridge since then.
We start off like we have a point to prove and Targettt
plays a nice ball behind the defence for Long to run on to but it’s inches in
front of him and Hennessey collects.
More good play and Clasie plays a good ball to Davis who puts Long in
again. He gets there before Hennessey
but takes it wide and runs out of room.
Just for once I’d like Shane to take an instant first time shot like
Pellè does when he gets played in. You
never know what might happen
The full backs have obviously been told to get forward and
Martina in particular is trying to do this and he fires in a cross which is
just ahead of Davis and we’re looking good and then guess what happens. Yoshida is bringing the ball out of defence
and he plays a ball into Long’s feet who has come short and has a player up his
arse. Shane doesn’t tend to hold the
ball up in this situation and he knocks it straight back first time but not straight
to Yoshida who gets beaten to it by Puncheon who is away with Maya on his
arse. He runs unchallenged into the box
before playing a simple square ball which is smashed into the net by ex-Skate
Ward who has made it up from the back.
Stekelenburg gets a touch but as usual, he doesn’t save it and 1-0 to
Palace.
We react badly as usual and suddenly, Targett v Zaha is looking
scary. Targett isn’t bad but he’s not
quick and with Zaha having both pace and trickery, it looks like a disaster
waiting to happen for us. Predictably
the tide has completely turned and Palace win a corner which is floated over by
Puncheon and Dann has a free header from 5 yards out but mercifully he misses
the ball and it keeps going. Massive let
off. Yoshida, who was supposed to be marking
him was curled up in a ball on the floor, possibly praying for it all to be
over.
We are now unbelievably bad – Romeu is giving the ball away
every time he has it and when we do get the ball under control, Mané usually
runs into trouble. He’s trying hard
though which after last week is a decent result. Clasie is picking out passes well and you can
see what he brings to the side. He has
to get involved more though and drag us back into games instead of disappearing
for a10 minutes which he tends to do.
We manage one half opportunity before half time after a Mané
cross, a knock down from Davis and a shot from Romeu which is blocked by a
defender. Half time and it’s the same
old shit. We’ve played ok, not scored
when we were on top and then thrown a goal in the other end and gone to shit
straight afterwards.
Ronald has clearly decided to go for it in the second half
and on come Tadic and Juanmi (sigh!) for Davis and Yoshida so we’ve gone from
5-3-2 to 4-2-4 as you can be sure that Mané, Tadic and Juanmi won’t be doing
much defending. Well this could go one
of two ways really.
I’m not hopeful but amazingly, it works with Juanmi picking
the ball up deep and picking out Romeu.
He gets his head up and plays in Martina behind the defence. Whilst we’re all expecting another Roberto
Carlos effort, this time he just smashes it straight at Hennessey who blocks
but Romeu follows up to bundle it into the net.
Staright after the goal, Romeu and Mané combine to set up
Long whose shot is saved low down by Hennessey.
Palace then pick it up a bit and after about 3 minutes of being on top,
Puncheon picks up the ball on the left and cuts onto his right foot. Punch was famous at Saints for the right
footed shot that he shanked and it dribbled along the ground or the left footed
shot that hit row Z but this time he smashes it and Stekelenburg takes off and
actually makes a difficult looking save…. But parries it more or less straight
to Zaha who adjusts and volleys it into the net. From where I was sat at the other end it
really looked like Stekelenburg should have pushed it over the bar and later
replays suggest the same. Fuck it. The big surprise is that this goal wasn’t in
any way Yoshida’s fault.
We don’t pull the usual 20 minutes of sulking and Tadic sets
up Juanmi who tries to pass it into the corner but Hennessey gets down well to
push it around the post. It’s time for
the final sub to be made and as it’s a cup game, maybe Seager…. No, JWP for
Clasie. Predictable.
We carry on threatening though and Romeu tries a header from
the edge of the box which is going straight to Hennessey who makes a bollocks
of it and drops it. There are two played
in the vicinity, Dann and Juanmi. Guess
which one reacts and gets a foot to the ball and guess which one didn’t
anticipate.
JWP is at least right on the money with corners today. As we reach the 90th minute, one
lands on Fonte’s head but along with a touch from a defender it loops over the
bar. From the next one, Long meets it
and the near post and the header smacks off the angle of post and bar and
away. It’s all us now and Mané breaks
past Ledley and his caravan in midfield and the Welsh carthorse cynically takes
him out. Upo steps our free kick
specialist who never scores and it’s round the wall and heading for the bottom
corner but a combination of Hennessey and the post keeps it out. Fuck.
Out of the cup again.
Deja vu.
We’ve been on top most of the game and managed to miss chances and not make the
opposition work for their goals and we’ve managed to lose another game we
should have won. It’s like we’re playing Russian Roulette but all six
bullets are in the gun and we shoot ourselves every single time. We played
quite well at time today but the final ball or shot was usually rubbish and
then we have the defending. A lot will get said about Ronald’s formation
and rightly so – we had three centre backs to mark Frazier Campbell who is
Championship level at best. Not only that but it left Matt Targett who is
slow, marking Wilfried Zaha with no midfielder to help him out. The idea
with the three centre backs that the left most of the three gets out there at
helps but the left most was Yoshida who had a predictable mare. He kept
up his goal a game average in predictable fashion.
I’ve though up to
now that criticism of Stekelenburg was harsh as it’s true that he hasn’t really
let in a horrific goal where you could point a finger at him. His kicking is good as well but the fact
remains that he doesn’t actually save anything that isn’t straight at him. Nothing at all. With Big Fraser on his way back, it really is
a matter of time for the Dutchman.
I really would like
to see some of our youngsters given a bit of a go – if not from the start then
from the bench. Would Jack Stephens
really be worse than Yoshida at the moment?
Would Ryan Seager not give us a better chance of a goal than
Juanmi? I’ve regularly dug out Martina
and questioned why we didn’t play Jason McCarthy but to be fair, Martina was
decent today and got forward well. The
one youngster who did play was Targett and he struggled. His lack of pace is a real problem and in
that formation as a wing back he’s going to have a mare more often than
not. Maybe his future is as a left sided
centre back.
Positives today
were the performance of Clasie but yet again he didn’t finish the game. Romeu was good aside from his 10 minutes of
mare in the first half. I was keeping an
eye on Sadio Mané after last weeks fiasco and to be fair, he never stopped
running all game and was definitely trying his best throughout. He was on his knees at the end too when the
final whistle went and we lost. You
could be cynical and say that the last bit was orchestrated but the previous 90
minutes weren’t and that’s all we can ask, for a player to do his best for the
90 minutes.
The bottom line is
that this is a cup game and whilst is disappointing to be out, it doesn’t cause
the alarm that defeats in our next two league games will cause. It’s another game to add to our shit run of
results though. Watford and West Brom at
home has to bring points and the performances don’t matter as long as the end
result is good. Less than 3points and it’ll
be panic stations, 3 will be seen as acceptable I guess, 4 will be definitely
acceptable and 6 will all but banish the fear of relegation before it really
sets in. The season is fucked to be
honest and I’d settle for a final 10 games with no real danger of being sucked
into the battle at the bottom.
With transfer
window open you hope we can pull something out of the bag. A look along the coast sees Bournemouth
getting in three players already in Iturbe, Afobe and Grabban. Maybe they’ll do the business or maybe not. Maybe they’ve paid tooo much money for them but
maybe not. At least though, Bournemouth
are making an effort to ensure they have a decent season. If you stand still,
you go backwards…
No comments:
Post a Comment