Premier League Match 4 - Arsenal 2 Southampton 1

Decent Performance Ruined by Absolute Wanker

Arsenal at The Emirates and my fist actual chance to see the team in the flesh this season after the holiday dates fiasco which meant I’ve missed every game so far.  I was not confident of a result but you never know, it could be the day when Claude’s diamond sparkles and it all clicks.  As a side issue, it was my sons first away game so on the way up there, he was asking if it’s really any different being away from home.  My explanation was that Saints won’t have the ball as much as in home games, the atmosphere in the crowd would be a million times better and that as we were away to a big club, we would probably get some shite decisions off the referee…. And don’t repeat all the language you are about to hear and don’t tell your mother.

Train, tube, Emirates.  It’s impressive and it really is the stadium that Arsene built.  There’s a mural thing near the statue of Thierry Henry and it’s remarkable how many ex-players of theirs I can name.  My dad was right back to Ted Drake almost. Anyway, it looks like it’s Arsene’s last year as his contracts up and the team is somewhat stagnant and looks unlikely to seriously challenge for the title.  They got into this cycle of having a target of Champions League Qualification when they were building the stadium and I assume they were to kick ion with the increased revenue but so far, have not done so.  They also have a history of signing our young players and ruinung them so they don’t develop at all.  Walcott, Chamberlain, Chambers… none have become what they should have.

After watching City rip United a new arsehole on the TV in the concourse, in we go and our team has one minor surprise in that J-Rod is starting and one major surprise in that Hojbjerg is not, his place going to Jordy Clasie.  Arsenal have their two new signings, Mustafi and Lopez playing and two of the ex-Saints, Walcott and Chamberlain are both in the side.  Sanchez is on the bench – let’s hope he stays there.

There is a sub-plot to this game in that Claude Puel used to play for Wenger for Monaco so there was a Master vs Pupil angle.  I guess if Claude wins as many trophies for us as Arsene has for Arsenal then we’ll be happy.

We start amazingly well and dominate possession which just never ever happens here.  Everyone is buzzing around and we look really good.  Redmond picked up the ball and headed towards goal before being crudely carted up in the air by the sliding Monreal to earn the Gooner a booking.  It was pretty close to the edge of the box and central and I felt sure that Virgil was going to belt the shit out of it but Tadic off a one step run up, curled it over the wall and saw Cech tip it onto the bar but as ball and keeper fell to earth, it bounced off the back of the keeper and over the line.  There was a bit of a delay as no one up our end knew it had gone in and then it went mental.  We were ahead against Arsenal and deservedly so.

Arsenal were clearly rattled and Saints were playing with a swagger and it was all too much for Cazorla who got booked for mouthing off at the ref.  Romeu was storming the midfield, winning absolutely everything and Clasie and Davis were digging in strongly to protect the back four.

Our confidence is soaring now and Virgil decides to go on a roam and all looks good but Arsenal break on us and we end up conceding a corner.  Over it comes, half cleared, back in and Koscielny launches himself at it and executes a superb overhead kick into the bottom corner.  You could argue he virtually kicks Clasie’s head off as he scores but in my opinion, you can’t disallow goals like that.  Remember Graziano vs QPR and how pissed off we’d have been if that was disallowed.  What actually annoyed me about the goal is that it stemmed from Virgil getting caught out of position.  We’re 1-0 up at Arsenal…why does our centre back need to be playing left wing?

The rest of the first half is kind of a nothing zone.  We’re not doing much attacking and are content to sit deep and let Arsenal have the ball and pass it around in front of us.  There’s something missing with them as they’re not getting any sights of our goal despite having all the possession.  Their new striker Lucas Perez looks shite to be honest and is not spending any of his time in the penalty area.

Half time comes and goes and J-Rod has gone to be replaced by Shane Long.  The start of the second is much the same as the end of the first with Arsenal possession and Saints sitting off.  As soon as Arsenal make any inroads they run into Oriel Romeu who is having the game of his life, not only winning everything but using it well to set up attacks.  If he can play like this every week then he’ll ensure that Big Vic won’t be missed.

Clasie is struggling – his clearances aren’t going very far and he’s down with cramp and we’ve hardly reached the hour mark.  It does mean that Hojbjerg is on which is possibly just what we need.  Hojbjerg’s introduction does indeed get us back into it and we start creating again.  Tadic produces some magic and completely takes out two defenders with a backheel and Shane is through at an angle with just Cech to beat.  He has to score and he dinks it over Cech as he goes down and wide.  Miles wide. Fucking hell.

The Great Dane is at it again a few minutes later as he works an opportunity and fires in a shot from the edge of the box.  It flicks off a defender and Cech gets down well to his right but can’t hold it.  It rebounds to Shane on his left foot and he barely kicks it back to Cech.  Fucking hell, again.

And so we reach the last minute and Shane Long has sprinted after the ball and got there first in the right hand corner of the Arsenal end of the pitch and Monreal closes him down and down goes Shane, play on.  A bit strange for him to just fall over in the corner like that?  Anyway, Arsenal break whilst Shane is on the ground and Cédric clears for a corner.  The corner is cleared and in the process, an Arsenal player hits the deck on the six yard line.  The ball is pinging around and the Saints defenders are clearly distracted by the poleaxed player.  In comes the ball again and Fonte challenges Giroud and clears.  Whistle blows, I assume to attend to the dead player on the ground (with blood pissing out of his head and a closed eye as it turns out) but no, it’s a penalty, fuck off.  What the fuck for?  I’m up the other end of the ground and no one has a fucking clue what it’s for.

So after about 5 minutes waiting for Koscielny to get up from his head injury which wasn’t deemed serious enough to stop the game, after Madley has stopped booking all the Saints players who are queueing up to call him a wanker, it’s Cazorla against Fraser.  Is he gonna score, of course he fucking is, straight down the middle and fuck off.  There’s barely any time left but we throw the sink (Virgil) up front and go for it and we create a chance with Cedric whipping over a ball to an unmarked Long and the header comes off his face and drops straight to Cech.  Fuck it.  Lucky fucking Arsenal.

94 minutes of resolute play to get fucking robbed in the last minute like that. Fuck off Bobby Madley you absolute cunt.  Let's get all Match of the Day... where do you want to fucking start? There was a foul on Shane Long right up the other end of the pitch which probably should've been Monreal's second yellow card and it was right in front of the useless twat of a linesman.  It wasn’t totally clear at the time but the lino is 3 yards from it.  So it should have been our free kick but instead, Arsenal get the ball and attack and we have 10 men.  They win a corner which gets cleared and knocked back in, Koscielny gets a whack in the face and is lying in the 6 yard box right in front of the goalkeeper with a head injury.   He’s out of it and all our players are distracted by him.  As the ball pings across from the right, he is in the goalkeeper’s eyeline, lying dead on the fucking ground so even if the keeper wants to come and get it, he has to try and do so without treading on the player.   So to me anyway, that’s offside – of course he doesn’t mean it because he has been smacked in the head but it's offside.  This is all not to mention the fact that you stop the game for a head injury straight away anyway so the ref should be done for not taking the safety of the player into account.  What if he’d swallowed his tongue? What if another player had whacked him whilst he was on the ground?

Then you have the actual decision itself. Madley didn't give us a penalty last year at Chelsea when Ivanović virtually ripped Virgil’s shirt off.  Now I understand they have a new directive this year but surely that was aimed at the Shawcross/Ivanović/Huth shirt pulling assault that was going on at every single corner.  Fonte had hold of Giroud’s shirt for a second but Giroud had his arm in Jose’s face.  If they’re both fouling then it’s benefit of the doubt to the defending team.  If you can't defend in the penalty area like Fonte did then the game has fucking gone as far as being a defender is concerned.  Tackling has virtually been outlawed and now we getting to the stage where blocking people off and are using your body to keep strikers away from the goal is going as well. Absolute fucking horse shit.  If you look at the challenge in isolation, which many will, you can see why people will say it’s a foul.  For me it’s incredibly debateable as Giroud is fouling Jose just as much as the other way round but Jose has hold of the shirt for a second and that’s what the new directive is about.  Having an arm across someone’s face has always been a foul but it’s not this years thing to stamp it out.  Looking in isolation at the tangle between Fonte and Giroud conveniently ignores all the other stuff, the offside, the head injury etc.

Jose took to Instagram afterwards to explain that Giroud was asking him who committed the foul, proving that he obviously didn’t think it was on him.  To add further insult to injury (literally), pictures of Koscielny emerged with blood all over his face and apparently his eye closed right up and he’ll more than likely miss the Champions League game they have on Wednesday.  Well spotted Bobby you fucking twat.

To add to all this, it's the usual decision that you get when you are away from home to one of the big boys. We've had two away games this year at Manchester United and at Arsenal and in both games we've had a penalty given against us that would never have been given at the other end in a million fucking years. I think that Leicester have totally done for the non-big clubs this year. No one in Premier League Towers will want the fucking brand affected by having champions who are not from the traditional powerhouse clubs.  They certainly won’t want that again oh no.

The penalty will gloss over the fact that if we are being brutally honest, we should have won that game.  Arsenal did absolutely fuck all to threaten our goal and it seems that Shane Long has reverted back to his form from before last season.  He should definitely have scored when he tried to dink it over the keeper and the effort after Cech parried Hojbjerg’s shot was fucking awful.

It was good to see Jose Fonte back to somewhere near his best and the rest of the back four all stood up well. Ryan Bertrand was obviously knackered at the end and that you had a couple of sloppy moments from Virgil but overall we defended really well.  In midfield, Oriel Romeu was absolutely immense and it was ridiculous that he ended up on the losing side in that game. Jordy Clasie did well in the first half but let's not kid ourselves that there isn’t a serious fucking problem with his fitness as from about 10 minutes into the second half he didn't seem to have the strength to actually clear the ball any great distance. I've got 12-year-olds in my kids team who can kick it further than that when they are making a clearance. Down he goes on the hour mark, yet again with cramp.  On 85 minutes it's kind of acceptable but not on 60.  He’s had a pre-season this season and a year playing in the Premier League and there really is no excuse.  It was no coincidence that Hojbjerg’s arrival meant we got a grip of the game again after being second best since half time.  Upfront we looked bright for the first 20 minutes and then faded. I didn't think J-Rod looked too bad in the first half but Long definitely improved things. Tadic was excellent in the first half also that began to fade on about 70 minute mark but he did what he had to do, scored the free kick and created chances (which Long missed). The biggest let down for me was Redmond who looked like a player who had been thrown up front and didn't really know what to do. For a quick player, his lack of darting runs and general off the ball running in trying to stretch the defence was quite alarming. He was static and easy to mark only really showing an interest when he had the ball.

Claude seemed to be tinkering tactically throughout this game. We seemed to start with the usual diamond and then Clasie dropped in next to Romeu with Redmond and Tadic playing wide left and right respectively. There were times in the first half when the width just wasn't there and we couldn't get out because the full-back had no one in front of them and just had to punt possession away. I would say that overall it was encouraging but until someone sticks a hand up and start sticking the fucking ball in the net, we are going to struggle. 

So, we didn’t win because we can’t finish a fucking dinner and we didn’t get a draw because of the referee.  So, 4 league games and we’ve scored 3 goals, which were a keeper fumble off a corner against Watford, a keeper diving over a shot against Sunderland and a keeper knocking it into his own net with his arse today.  Who’s going to put their hand up?  Time to try Austin and Long in partnership I feel.

Arsenal… well they are going to be exactly the same as last season and it's just a question of whether they miss the top four or not. On first viewing I can't see their new striker making much of a difference.  I know it was his first game but he looked like the sort who is going to play loads as a sub, do nothing and then be loaned back to a Spanish club in the summer.  As for our old boys, Walcott and Chamberlain produced the combined total of fuck all. It will be exactly the same for them this season, bit part players who will under achieve and won't feature very much. If Sanchez have been fully fit then one of them wouldn't have started today for example. There is still hope for Chamberlain if he can get away and he wants to get away but Walcott has had it now and is never going to fulfil the potential that he once had. Arsenal… the career graveyard for the young English players.  Where was Calum Chambers? He was off being an unused sub for Middlesbrough.  Fucking graveyard.

Off we go to queue up at Highbury & Islington Tube in the rain and that pleasure of listening to Arsenal fans dissecting the game.  The general consensus was that they felt that they were lucky to win  and that no one could tell what the penalty was for so at least that’s something and then I heard some bloke saying ‘The Saints fans look really pissed off don’t they?’.  No shit you fucking moron. 

  

We were robbed. Does anyone outside of Southampton care.  Nope.  Will it be a consolation if Madley gets banned for the shit decision or the fact he let a head injury just lie there with the game going on around him? – a bit but only if it means we don’t get the useless twat for a while.

I got home and watched the real Match of the Day - no one really thought it was a penalty.  They showed the Long foul but didn't comment on it and they ignored the head injury / offside debate.  City were playing United so no time for trivial games I guess.  They showed a picture of bobby Madley but didn;t mention his name on the analysis.  We know who you are you wanker.  My boy watched MOTD - he just said 'ridiculous' when he saw the penalty.  He enjoyed his first away game despite this, learned lots of new swear words and revelled in the atmosphere which was a bit different to the Family stand at St Mary's.

Despite the fact that no one should really expect us to beat Arsenal at the Emirates, it's another game without a win and Swansea at home next Sunday is now huge.  Before that though we have the first Europa League match against Sparta Prague at home which is an ideal chance to get the season up and running.  I have a feeling that's the way we are playing, slightly more patiently than last season, is going to suit European football better so bring it on. Luckily, Bobby Madley can't referee English teams in Europe, the fucking useless twat.