Premier League Match 28 - Bournemouth 2 Southampton 0

Not Fraser's Best Moment Ever

A trip down the road to the west to play Bournemouth at the Goldsands Vitality Dean Court Sandbanks Redknapp Superdrome.  Triffic.   I have to say that when we were playing them in League 1, I always found Eddie Howe annoying with the amount of moaning that he did and the amount of excuses he came up with but to be fair, he seems to have listened back to some of his old interviews and drawn the same conclusions himself.  He’s been a breath of fresh air this season and his Bournemouth side have tried to play decent football all the time with a spirit that has made up for a bit of a lack of quality at times.  When we beat them At St Mary’s, they were a team without a striker as Glenn Murray doesn’t count but in the transfer window they punted some cash on Benik Afobe who has done very well for them and filled the void left by Callum Wilson’s injury.  They really should stay up and I hope they do but they can do it without three points tonight.

We can’t have a build up to a Saints / Bournemouth game without as ‘is it a Derby’ debate.  I no longer care and will waste no time on it here aside from saying that if we lose, it will not kill me like a defeat to Pompey would, it won’t hurt any more than losing to any other team from the bottom six.

Ronald has decided to mix it up for this game and Maya is in, in place of Matt Targett with Ryan Bertrand moving out to wing back.  It’s disappointing that Clasie still can’t play three games in a week and so JWP comes in but the surprise is that Mané is included instead of Steve Davis which leaves us with three out and out attackers and not much in midfield.  Bournemouth look to be set up in a standard 4-4-2 with King and Afobe up front and threat from the wings in Gradel and Ritchie.  It’s a very attacking line up from both sides so I guess it’ll be won in midfield.  If we can win that battle we’ll get at Cook and Francis who are not the best.  Then it’s just King Artur to beat.  I still think he was a great keeper for us and a massive step up from what we had.

Bournemouth start with intensity and pretty soon, Ritchie is having a shot and Fraser blocks it out for a corner.  Good start for them and though we clear the corner, we need to get a foothold in the game.  There are tackles flying in (mainly from them) and Ritchie pulls out a bad one to clatter Bertrand but Mike Dean just gives a free kick.  We create a decent chance with some build up down the right and Cédric gets to the line and pulls it back for Austin who slams it wide of the near post when he really should have hit the target.

Bournemouth look good with the ball and are putting us under pressure and win a few more corners which we again deal with before Ritchie goes through Mané and once again escapes without being booked.  Mané recovers well enough to get on the end of a chance which sits right up before he smashes it over the bar.

Bournemouth are playing the ref well and Josh King gets to the edge of our box and collapses like a sack of shit under minimal contact and they get a free kick which Ritchie slams into the wall.  It’s clearly a tactic of the home side to fall over at every opportunity and Daniels tries it to halt a break up his side but miraculously, the ref waves play on and we eventually get a free kick which JWP swings in and it’s headed straight up in the air for Boruc to catch.

It seems to be fairly even in terms of territory but they look much more intense than we do.  A ball into the right corner should be cleared by Fonte but he tries to shield the ball out and gets burgled by King.  The Saints skipper then compounds the error by getting back goal side and then fouling King on the edge of the box when he was going nowhere.  Stupid foul though again, the Bournemouth player went down like a sack of shit.  We have a one man wall and so Ritchie hammers in the free kick on target and Fraser reacts late and punches the ball into the middle where Cook reacts and hooks it into the top corner from behind him to make it 1-0.  Deserved goal and a lot of work to do.

It goes another 5 minutes and Cédric getting skinned by Gradel before Ronald’s had enough and Yoshida is sacrificed to change the formation and Steve Davis is on which is a bit harsh as he’d done nothing wrong.  Davis will hopefully correct the issue we have of no control in midfield.  JWP had started ok but had faded away as Romeu was struggling to do it all on his own.

The period from here to half time consisted of us giving the ball away which was down to a lack of spark and technical ability but also down to the aggressive pressing from Bournemouth which wasn’t allowing anyone time on the ball.  Mike Dean appears to feel sorry for us when he doesn’t book Romeu for an agricultural assault on Smith.  José Fonte is having a mare and any attacking play we do string together falls down as soon as it gets to Sadio Mané who takes all the impetus out of any attack by having too many touches or he just gives it away.  Either way, it’s shite.

Half time comes in a strange fashion as the 4th official Kevin Friend (he of the infamous Liverpool home game last year) falls over in the dugout and knocks himself out causing all sorts of confusion.  Half time – rubbish.

We really need to come out firing in the second half and at least play with more intensity but instead of that we look second best to every ball and if we do build any pressure then Mané stupidly fouls someone to give the initiative back to Bournemouth.  They win corner after corner and the count is currently at 9-0 but we do eventually get on that particular scoresheet when Cédric wins one.  I feel like celebrating this small victory and it makes Cédric a candidate for our man of the match so far as he’s actually won a corner but then he gets pinged for a foul throw which means that the Saints Man of the Match award is up for grabs again.

Midtjylannd away, Sunderland away in the cup, Sheffield United away… this is on a par with any of them.  We are fucking shite.  The forwards and the quality of ball up to them has made it so easy for the centre backs and a change is forced on us as Austin pulls up and Pellè is on with 25 to go.  Immediately there is an improvement as the ball starts to stick with Graziano obviously having been told that his appearance against Chelsea was utter wank.  The big man expertly cushions a header over a defender to Long who tries to shoot first time but Cook gets there first and clears with Shane kicking the bottom of his foot and getting injured.

Long is back on after a while and there is a definite change occurring without us looking much like scoring.  The Bournemouth threat is definitely subsiding and an hour late, we’re finally getting into it.  Arter has to go off injured to be replaced by Gosling and Tadic gets his first run out for a while as Long can’t go on.  King has run his race as well to be replaced by Grabban who refused to sign a new deal for Bournemouth a while ago, fucked off to Norwich where he hardly played and then came back with his tail between his legs.  All he did at Norwich was grow a shite beard by the look of it.

It’s small beer but at least we’re at the right end of the pitch.  Tadic gets a cross in which causes a bit of panic and Pellé almost catches Boruc out with an opportunist effort from 25 yards which bounces just wide.  Mané is still shite but you never know, we might just nick a draw here.  Then the ball gets played up the right to Afobe who is breathed on by van Dijk and the six foot 3 musclebound striker hits the deck like he’s been hit by a fucking train and Mike Dean buys it again.  Fuck off.  In it comes from Ritchie and Fraser does fuck all until it’s too late and whilst he comes lurching out to flatten van Dijk, Afobe gets his head to it and nods it in.  Bullshit. What is Fraser doing?  He doesn’t even have his arms up like he’s expecting the ball to just drop into his midriff.  Horrible misjudgement.

It’s dead now it really is. Bournemouth have done fuck all attacking wise this half but they’ve still found a way to score and now their energy and pressing will see them home comfortably.  We do nothing except huff and puff for the rest of the game with Mané going closest when he tries to lift a ball over Boruc but he’s a better keeper than Courtois and spreads himself well to block.  Mike Dean continues to be a cock right to the end with no judgement as to what is actually a foul and what is just a player throwing himself over and it peters out into the easiest win that Bournemouth will have all season.

Well that was fucking useless.  We have a few things to point at as reasons why it didn’t go our way but the facts are that Bournemouth wanted it more than us, Bournemouth were better than us and Bournemouth deserved to win.  However, they weren’t going to score from open play any more than we were but two free kicks and two goalkeeping errors did for us.  The first free kick was fair enough I thought. Fonte dicked around in the corner and did what I tell my Under 12 team not to do….”Do not attempts to shield the ball over the line if you have a forward putting you under pressure”.  Having made the mistake he then wrestles the striker to the ground when he was going nowhere and the ref had to give it.  The free kick for the second goal is bullshit though.  Afobe just collapses which was a theme from Bournemouth whenever there was any pressure from a Saints player and on all bar one occasion in the first half, Mike Dean bought it and gave them a free kick.  It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t however because we were shite and would have done nothing with any further possession we had except kick it away.  I also believe that if you are the team on the front foot and putting more effort in, most of the decisions will go your way so by extension of that, we didn’t deserve anything off the referee.

We did look like we were getting into the game and had had a slightly less than shit 10 minutes once Graziano came on but the second goal killed it.  What the fuck was Fraser doing?  I can kind of forgive him the first goal as it was smashed at him and he saw it late but the second one is terrible as he takes far too long to make up his mind to go for it and by the time he moves, it’s already a goal as Afobe is up and Virgil is (I assume) responding to a call and not going for it.

Mike Dean was shite throughout, staring off with not booking Ritchie in the first 10 minutes for two pretty ropey challenges and the Kevin Friend incident made it a bad day all round for the officials.  Again though, it sounds like excuses and though it didn’t help, they were better than us and deserved to win.  Arter and Surman won the midfield with Romeu working hard throughout but JWP flitted in and out and Davis was very ineffective when he came on.  He wasn’t alone.  The forwards got next to no service and when they did they just ran up blind alleys and achieved nothing.  He’s out for a month or so now but I was expecting Austin to put a high percentage of his chances away but aside from the Man United goal he’s not hit the target – I’m thinking West Ham at home at the end and the early chance tonight in particular.  Austin and Long were however, light years ahead of Sadio Mané who was complete shite.  If he wants a move to Manchester then he’d better hope Salford have got some cash as that’s the level he’s been playing at since October.  Our best period of the game coincided with Graziano and Tadic being on the pitch. I’m not a massive Yoshida fan but I felt sorry for him being sacrificed when it wasn’t him who just royally fucked up and put us 1-0 down.  Aside from that incident, José had a mare and it was really only Virgil, Ryan Bertrand, Romeu and Pellè who came out of that game with any credit at all.

Ronald said that he made the substitution early to cope with Daniels on the Bournemouth left.  Has he never seen him play before then?  He was able to cause havoc because we weren’t closing down and when we had the ball we gave it away so quickly we couldn’t force him back.  Cédric was busy marking Gradel so why not move Mané over to the right wing to force Daniels back?  Mind you, Mané would have just stood there and watched Daniels fly past him.  Ronald’s right about one thing – it’s not tactics that lost the game, it just the lack of basic desire to do the ugly things that win you a game of football.  Bournemouth were happy to do that and we weren’t, hence the result and good luck to them.

The performance and the whole game reminded me massively of the away game in Midtjylland.  Small tight ground, evening kick off, other team is mad for it, we can’t be arsed, no inspiration, not going to score if we play all fucking night.  Garbage.  Next up we have Sunderland at home and another performance like this one will completely kill any European ambition we have.

By the way, if you want to show your mum how much you care, then I’m sure a celebratory DVD entitled ‘Smashing the Scummers’ will be available from the Bournemouth club shop in time for Mothers Day.