Charlie Ponders Getting Linked to Liverpool by the End of January
Playing against a Tony Pulis side usually means you’re in
for a boring game and so does playing against West Brom, whoever their manager
is. Now the two are I harmony I’m not
expecting too much in terms of free flowing football and entertainment. We never seen to play well against bus
parking teams.
The mood in the Saints camp is certainly much better than it
was before the Watford game and the mood of the supporters was lifted
considerably before this game with the announcement that we’d signed Charlie Austin
from QPR. I don’t know if I’m more
pleased or surprised at this. As he was
in the last 6 months of his contract, he appeared to be just biding his time in
the Championship with QPR before moving at the end of his contract, hence the
surprise. It appears we’ve paid £4
million to get him now. The wages are of
course a question but I think you can safely assume that the drain on resources
that is Gaston Ramirez will be gone in the next couple of weeks.
The most predictable thing is that this will make the media
assume that we’re selling one of the strikers now. Mané will be off to United,
Pellè to Italy and Shane Long to Liverpool.
What? Yes, you heard me… Shane
Long has been linked to Liverpool. This
is because he played well in midweek and scored a goal so naturally he’s linked
to Liverpool. Most amusingly, when
Liverpool needed a goal in midweek they threw Stephen Caulker on up front. Ronald is of course going to have issues with
keeping everyone happy as you would think they’ll only be room for two of
Austin, Pellè, Long, Rodriguez, Tadic and Manè in the starting line up…. Oh,
and Juanmi. How could I forget him. For what it’s worth, I think we’re future
proofing – I can’t see Mané or Pellè being here past the summer with big
beautiful Graziano probably heading home to Italy.
Back to today and I was hoping for the same side as the
Watford game which of course meant no Big Vic so as I watched the names come up
on the scoreboard, it was not a surprise to see Big Vic instead of Clasie but
bloody annoying that he was in the side and Oriol Romeu was not. Two of the ‘squad’ players who have been
playing superbly in the last few games are Romeu and Long. Long had kept Graziano on the bench but I
would imagine Romeu was very pissed off when he heard the teamsheet and found
he’d been benched as soon as the bloke who got brainlessly sent off at Norwich
and who hasn’t given a shit all season, was available again. Clasie was nowhere to be seen so I think we
can assume that playing 90 minutes has done for him and JWP got a start. The bench again included our 4th
choice keeper and Juanmi who obviously has some compromising pictures of Les
Reed somewhere.
West Brom of course have Sir Rickie Lambert but he’s of
course not playing with West Brom going for the wardrobe that is Anichebe up
front. He’s crap and I have no idea why
he’s preferred to Lambert, Rondon and Berahino who are all on the bench. As far as I can make out, West Brom have a
flat back 5 with 4 midfielders, two of which are not going to move more than 5
yards from the defenders. I wonder what
the 0-0 Gameplan is then Tony? It’s
interesting that the Baggies have a number of players who I just don’t like –
my impressions of some of them from afar are Dawson – Thug, Gardner – Whingy
diving twat, McClean – Arsehole.
Saints start in positive fashion against the massed ranks of
West Brom defenders. Targett feeds a
ball into Mané who gets to the ball before Dawson who leaves a predictable
‘kick him early’ marker on him and we get a free kick, 25 yards out, left of
centre. Dawson points at the ball which
is what he should have kicked. JWP
stands over it and goes for it near post and it absolutely flies in whilst
Myhill in goal just collapses on the ground.
At fucking last – he’s actually scored one. Glorious start, get in!!!
Within 5 minutes, Pulis has changed tactics as his game plan
is out the window and it’s 4-4-2 with Evans at left back and McClean being an
arsehole on the wing. He does however
get a good cross in for an arsehole and Gardner gets a head to it but well wide
and no alarms.
A good cross on the run from Cédric leads to us winning a
corner as Mané challenged one of the 4 centre backs still on the pitch. JWP’s
delivery is right on top of Myhill who is playing like he’s a quadriplegic at
the moment and he just collapses on the floor again and there’s some momentary
carnage before a Baggies boot connects with the ball.
There’s a heart-in-mouth moment when JWP is heading back
towards his own goal on the edge of the penalty area and he goes to hook away a
bouncing ball and Gardner gets a toe to it and JWP catches him and he goes
down. Gardner’s pulling his best wasp
face and Fletcher is not happy. It’s a
free kick at best as it looked outside the box to me but the ref’s having none
of it. Well played ref. However, I don’t think we could have been too
surprised if it had been given and it at least gave us a glimpse of Fletcher in
his full ‘United Squad Player’ pomp as he moaned like bitch and chased the ref.
West Brom look so limited that I’m suspecting that one more
goal will more or less do it. Targett
once more feeds into Long who takes his time before sliding a superb ball in to
Targett again and Dawson, not content with giving away the free kick for the
goal, gets caught out and bundles him over.
Penalty. Fletcher runs to the
referee in typical Man United pose and points to the other end of the pitch,
presumably for the Gardner incident. Yes
mate, the ref’s really going to change his mind on that one you dick head. You’re not at United now and that shit won’t
work. Up steps JWP, Myhill virtually
runs to the right and collapses and JWP rolls it in to the left for 2-0.
It’s nearly 3-0 straight after that with Long and Davis
working hard to tee up Mané. His shot is
blocked but Targett hammers the rebound goalwards only for Arsehole McClean to
pull out a superb goal line clearance by backheeling the ball away as he
hurtled back into his own goal. Myhill
was collapsed on the ground so he probably was unaware of one of the best goal
line clearances I’ve ever seen. McClean
though is still an arsehole.
Half time and you know that with all those strikers on the
bench that Pulis will do something. Not
enough we hope and I think there’s part of all of us that would like to see Sir
Rickie come on but he’s gone for the twin wardrobe approach with Rondon coming
on one of the centre backs and joining Anichebe. Chris Brunt in on as well for Fletcher which
is a shame as I was looking forward to him moaning his way all through the second
half.
The Baggies attack a bit at the start of the second half but
we don’t look concerned at all. I have
to say that Big Vic is having a superb game but all the back 5 look good. A break up the left win with Mané and Davis
ends with a hooked cross from Mané, a nod down from Long and Cédric has somehow
got himself up the park but can’t get over it and ends up putting it into Jack
Cork territory high and wide.
Steve Davis is amazing. No words can describe how good he is
all over the park and how he sets the tempo for everything. We struggle to clear a ball into our box and
Davo picks it up on the edge of the box and he just runs it out of defence and
gets us moving before pinging a ball over the full backs for Long to run
onto. His first time low cross finds
Mané but unfortunately sends him a bit wide and he drags his shot across and
wide of the far post. Like on Wednesday
against Watford, a miss is his last contribution and on comes Tadic to replace
him.
Berahino is on for West Brom meaning Sir Rickie isn’t coming
on and he’s involved with setting up a chance which falls to Anichebe who turns
and gets a shot off but well wide.
Wardrobe. Romeu is coming on for
Saints to a great reception from the crowd who know a ‘hard done by’ player
when they see one. Meanwhile though,
Long holds off a defender and flicks a great ball through to Relentless Davis
who runs at the defence and plays in Tadic on the left and he pulls out a
brilliant shot across the keeper and in at the far post. 3-0, game over. Steve Davis’ work is done and he’s the one
coming off for Romeu with Martina, another who is possibly hard done by, coming
on for Cédric.
The rest of the game ticks by with no incident and no alarm
for us. There are songs for Sir Rickie
which must have made him smile inside and that was that. Two wins, two clean
sheets and we’ve signed Charlie Austin.
A perception changing four days.
The two wins, achieved with the minimum of fuss were against opposition
who either didn’t fancy it or just played badly. Ok media world – nothing to do with us
then? We played very well and totally
deserved to win both games.
Pulis acknowledged that we were the better side but he also
went for the ‘deflection’ route so favoured by managers when they’ve fucked up
and blamed the fact they’d had two away games in four days. I doubt they even went back to the Midlands
after playing Chelsea on Wednesday so why are they tired. That’s why you have squads Tony and that’s
why we rested Clasie and Romeu today. How about that you put all your eggs in
the ‘draw 0-0’ basket and left all your forwards on the bench.
Ronald was predictably pleased and was happy to wax lyrical
about the signing of Austin and his goalscoring record. It remains to be seen where he fits in but I
can’t see us changing formation for a while as this 3-5-2 has worked superbly
in the last two games. We are of course
away from home in our next two games against Man United and Arsenal so who
knows. We’ve looked so solid in the last
two games though with Forster back and Bertrand on the left of the three
instead of Yoshida. The revelation has
been Matty Targett at left wing back.
He’s been excellent and maybe with Bertrand at left centre back, would
be ok against a quick winger.
I repeat that I don’t think Big Vic should have played today
but he was superb and JWP also admirably stepped into Clasie’s position and the
two goals were a bonus. His all round
game needs days like this for the confidence it brings to him. His set pieces are great for us so he needs
to do more from open play to get him on the pitch more often. The main man though was Steven Davis who has
been amazing in both games. Up front,
Long was as tireless as on Wednesday night and Mané just needs a goal. Mind you, Tadic will be pushing for that spot
if he keeps making the impact off the bench.
I’m guessing that Mané will start against Man United. It’s an audition after all for him.
I know they’ve started winning again but United really
aren’t that good and we have every chance of repeating last years win. We have
nothing to fear there at all.
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