Premier League Match 11 - Hull City 2 Southampton 1

Shall we Just Beat them or still give them a chance and make it Exciting?

A trip to Hull followed the glorious win against Inter and a good chance to go into the International break with a win.  A refreshed José, Ryan, Clasie, Davo & Charlie would be returning to the team so there’s no reason to assume that anyone would be too tired and we should have enough ability to take care of Hull who are making an early run for the bottom of the league.

Having only had about 4 players signed on at one point of the summer, they scraped together a squad and actually started with a couple of wins under caretaker boss Mike Phelan.  He then got the job permanently and they were so inspired by the appointment of Moon Face that they lost 6 games in a row.  We have to make it 7 and anything less will be disappointing.  Their ground is now called the KCom Stadium.  I have no idea what KCom is and have no desire to look it up.  Moon Face can call on David Marshall who is a decent goalkeeper and the Curtis Davies / Michael Dawson combination at centre back which is pretty solid.  They also have the perennially overrated Tom Huddlestone who has such quick feet that look like they’ve been set in concrete.

Saints make the predictable changes but I dunno… international break next week and surely Hojbjerg is worth a place over Clasie…. And JWP was so good against Inter… should we be making the most of that good form?  The one deviation from the usual plan is that Martina is on the bench with Maya Yoshida slotting in at right back.  I imagine he’ll have to get forward a lot more than he usually would but hopefully he won’t be as much of a liability at the back.  It would be hard to be as much of a liability to be fair.

As said, Hull have lost their last six games and there’s a reason for that – it’s because they’re shite and they’ve appointed a shocking manager and their club is run in a shambolic manner by an owner who doesn’t give a shit and doesn’t want to be there.  Anyway, he’s not playing but in the crowd dreaming of the team being called the Humber Tigers or whatever.  We start with José Fonte gifting Hull a decent situation with a shit backpass which doesn’t even get halfway there and puts Hernandez in.  Lucky he’s wide-ish and so Fonte gets back to get a toe to the cross and take it away from Keane.  Straight from that near calamity, we build through midfield with Clasie knocking a good ball out to Tadic on the right and he feeds it to our rampaging Japanese right back who bursts into the area and has Curtis Davies for company.  Davies is always mentioned when he’s left out of all of the England squads and I know the standard isn’t very high these days but tackling with your wrong foot and clumsily carting over a centre back playing at right back is not great play.  It’s so shit and such an obvious foul that no one moans in the slightest.  Mercifully Tadic is nowhere near it and Austin calmly sends Marshall the wrong way for 1-0, 6 minutes gone.

They are shit and they’re also unlucky as both strikers have to go off injured.  First Hernandez and then Keane to be replaced by Mbokani (last seen being shit for Norwich last season) and our old mate Robert Snodgrarse who combines being a half decent player with being a moaning twat for Leeds, Norwich again and now Hull.  It’s all us and Austin has a shot blocked.

It nearly all goes horribly wrong for us as a ball gets headed out and Tadic goes in with Mason and misses the ball and catches the Hull man very high on the thigh.  There could have been no complaints if that had been seen as a red card offence but the ref decides it’s a yellow and we got a bit of a break there.  I don’t think he meant it but it looked bad.  Put it this way, I think he got away with it because he has no reputation and he’s not a defender.  If a defender or Romeu had done it then off you go.

It’s still all us to a ridiculous degree but the tempo drops almost like we feel we don’t need to kill the game off.  We still create chances but there’s no intensity.  Redmond produces a great spin and through ball and Clasie is onto it but he doesn’t get enough on the shot and it barely brushes his studs and Marshall tips it wide.  From the corner, Hull sort of clear it and Clasie drills a 25 yarder straight at the keeper.

Just before half time there’s another good move with Redmond playing it in to Austin who should shoot first time but delays and allows Marshall to get in position to save it again.  Again, we’ve totally dominated but not put the game to bed – we’ve scored a penalty thanks to a horrific bit of defending which is our only reward for total domination of a far inferior opponent.

The first action of the second half is Bertrand winning a corner which he clearly kicked off the park himself.  It’s funny because it’s Snodgrarse who has a major moan up at the referee.  He was 100% correct to have a moan but he’s still a twat.  Please let us score from it to make it even funnier… Davis swings it over, Marshall flaps nowhere near it and Virgil’s header loops high over everyone and bounces over off of the top of the bar.  Bollocks.

On the hour mark we have a scare as Mbokani wins a free kick by backing into Fonte and Snodgrarse’s free kick is met by McGuire at the far post and he’s gloriously unmarked but he gets the direction all wrong and squirts it across the goal and we clear it out for a throw on the other side.  From the throw, Hull easily work it round Clasie and Yoshida and a low cross is met by the completely unmarked Snodgrarse on the penalty spot, bang, 1-1, fucking hell!  Every fucking team we play against needs one chance to score whereas we need about 15.

Another ball forward and this time Bertrand goes mountaineering and it’s another free kick.  Snodgrarse puts it in exactly the right place and Dawson evades all our defenders, despite us having three centre backs on the pitch and simply flicks it into the net for 2-1.  It’s fucking ridiculous and we only have ourselves to blame.  Bollocks.  The only good news is that there’s still the best part of half an hour to go.

Mbokani is a twat.  He’s going for the big belly flop or the drop to his knees every time a defender goes near him now.  Stand up you prick.  With 20 to do Claude decides to bring on Boufal for Tadic and the new man nearly produces straight away, jinking inside and playing in Austin who shoots low and well saved by Marshall.  He should possibly have fed it on to Davis but we all know what Davo’s shooting in pressure situations is like.

Redmond and Clasie are off for JWP and J-Rod but Boufal is still our most likely route to goal, drawing a foul out of Snodgrarse.  It’s wide left of the penalty area and JWP takes the wrong decision to shoot and it flies harmlessly wide of the near post.  We’re playing with the urgency that we should have been playing with for the last hour and JWP feeds in Austin who tries a sidefooted effort from the edge of the box but Marshall again gets across well to save and it’s Austin again with another opening a few minutes later which is blocked because he took an extra touch and gave Marshall a chance to get close.  Oh yes, Hull are throwing everything in the way now they’ve got something to hang on to.

Of course, they’re gonna have their chances on the break and Snodgrarse tries to win goal of the season but hits the crowd and that’s merely and interval as we pile forward, this time with Boufal producing a great cross to the back stick where Yoshida arrives but Marshall is once again in the right place on the post to push it wide.  93, 94, another corner comes in and a combination of bodies puts the ball goalwards and Clucas whacks it off the line and it hits J-Rod and flies over the bar.  Lucky fuckers.  All over.  What a fucking gift wrapped three points for Hull that was.

I am pissed off.  We fucked that right up and it worries me slightly that even shite like Hull are more clinical with taking chances than we are.  I guess we were due a duff result after a Europa League game but it really shouldn’t have been this one.  Beat Inter Milan, lose to Hull – only Southampton.  I don’t really give a shit about game stats as only the score matters but suffice to say, Hull scored 2 from 2 on target shots and we scored a penalty from fucking loads.  Not good enough.  Every other stat was a landslide in our favour – yet we still managed to lose.

Hull are still going down, big time.  I’d put money on them finishing bottom.  That’s not sour grapes as I have nothing against them, it’s just an opinion based on what they have on the pitch and the shambles off of it but the lesson from today is that if Saints don’t play with 100% intensity all game then we can lose to anyone.

Much to my irritation, Liverpool have been pasting the shit out of everyone in the League and they’re next at St Mary’s but before that we have an International break to endure with England playing Scotland.  Fraser and Ryan will be watching at best.  The same old shit has happened again with the squad in that the strikers picked for the squad by the mercurial Southgate are Vardy (0 goals all season), Sturridge (0 goals all season), Rooney (a sub and shit) and Kane (injured).  Austin with his 8 goals in 11 games or whatever it is, hasn’t got a look in but still – we’re picking players on reputation and not form again.  Despite years of doing that and years of being shit, we are still doing that.  We’ll no doubt beat Scotland cos they are after all, a pub side and that, with depressing inevitability will secure Southgate the job and another World Cup with the same old shit as before.

Probably the best result for all concerned would be a 0-0 draw as that would depress everyone still further and maybe people will stop turning up at Wembley which is the only thing that will make the twats at the FA think about things.  Apparently we’ve surrendered some of our home advantage by giving thousands more tickets than was needed to the Scots because it wasn’t going to sell out.  This is both unbelievable and depressing.

Back to Saints and there’s no argument that today’s result was a bit of a downer.  Like I say, we were due a flat one after a Europa game but it shouldn’t have been today against that lot.  Our ability to dominate a game and not put it to bed is a recurring theme this season and others aside from Charlie Austin need to step up and start sticking the ball in the net occasionally.