Thank Fuck We Can Go Home
The game that no one wanted is upon us and Norwich in an FA
Cup 3rd Round replay. The
last time I saw St.Mary’s this empty was when I was playing in a 5 a side
tournament here as no one wanted to see a big fat bastard lumber about. I can’t think why. The Kingsland is shut, the Chapel is sparse,
the home bit of the Northam is full and I can’t see how full the Itchen is cos
I’m sat in it. Norwich have brought a
good crowd down and fair play to them for that.
We have Maya as captain today and it’s like a crèche day out
with 6 Academy player son show in Lewis, McQueen, Stephens, Reed, JWP and
Sims. The rest of the team is made up of
Shane and J-Rod, Clasie and Martina.
Norwich have rested players as well which I donl;t understand when
you’re a manager under pressure like Alex Neil is. If for example you get hammered then you’re
going to get slaughtered for playing a weakened side and it’ll be another nail
in your coffin. If you get beat playing
your best side then at least if you get sacked anyway you’ll be able to sleep
knowing you put your best side out.
Claude revealed before the game that José Fonte was
exploring opportunities (his favourite word) and it appears that these are
offers from West Brom and West Ham.
Hardly big clubs are they?
Trouble is that I’m sure that if José knew that none of the big boys
were interested, he’d have stayed at Saints happily but the bridges appear to
have been burnt now and the ego and the new agent and Saints themselves won’t
allow any way back. It’s a shame but playing
in the same team as Cristiano Ronaldo, doesn’t make you Cristiano Ronaldo… and
£300k a week at Real Madrid or wherever.
Anyway, FA Cup and away we go and it’s fucking freezing. The game starts and it’s crap. Norwich are playing a 12-5-1 formation so it’s
up to us to break them down and guess what – we don’t even look like we have
any idea how to go about it. We pass it
slowly across and back and the massed ranks of Norwich defenders just crab
across the pitch depending on where the ball is. We knock it into Long or Rodriguez who lose
it, it gets cleared, our defenders pick it up and we crab again. The sum total of action in the first half are
two openings, one for Sims and one for J-Rod and in both cases, the shots they
hit are so weak that McGovern just picks the ball up. It’s crap.
The bloke two to my left in the crowd drops his coffee on the floor
which is a highlight because it took my attention away from what was happening
on the pitch.
At half time in the kids relay around the pitch, both kids
shoot from five yards and both miss.
Says it all.
The shooting master class in continued after the break as
Sims tees up JWP who proves once again that he cannot kick a ball when it’s
moving as he passes it straight to the keeper.
We should have a penalty after that as Sims breaks into the box from the
right and Bassong grabs him round the shoulders before letting go. Nothing given and the Claude does a little
rage dance on the sideline.
Another backpass shot from Sims then Long actually gets us
interested by cutting in from the left and shooting narrowly wide of the far
post. J-Rod is having a shithouse of a
game but he does get on the end of a Martina cross which was aimed somewhere
else but he hooks it across goal and there’s no one there. The ‘Norwich in our half’ klaxon sounds as
Murphy (one of them) breaks away on the right and fires over a good cross which
is just in front of Lafferty and I remember that we have Harry Lewis in goal.
With 20 to go Claude removes Reed and J-Rod who have both
been diabolical and on comes Redmond and Romeu.
JWP gets the chance to kick a ball that’s not moving and it’s decent
free kick which curls into the side netting and everyone in the Itchen thought
it was in but alas no and the probability of extra time was looming large.
We pick the tempo up now but it still doesn’t stop the
backpass shooting and Clasie has a dribbler to the keeper as well. A bad proper backpass gets intercepted by
Long and he lays it back to Sims who chips over the keeper and over the bar by
quite a long way.
All game, martina has been his usual useless self when it
comes to getting good crosses in by suddenly he’s on fire, setting up Redmond
for a decent effort which is clawed away and then again picking out JWP who
adds ‘heading a moving ball’ to ‘kicking a moving ball’ to the list of things
he can’t do very well. McQueen who has
been our best player by a mile, has a decent dig from the left which is well
saved. (0 minutes up.
As we started the dreaded count down to the final whistle
and another half an hour, Redmond picks it up on the left and drove
forwards. He overhit the straight pass
to pick up McQueen’s run but the Man of the Match just got there and knocked
over a great first time cross. Long
meets it from 5 yards and unbelievably heads it straight at McGovern, a couple
of players bundle in and it ends up apologising over the line. The replay on the big screen showed that as
he fell having missed his sitter, Shane had managed to swing a foot at it and
poke it into the net. It’s actually
funny that such a shite game can be decided with the shittiest of shitty goals. The cheer of relief when the ref decided
‘fuck this’ was most welcome.
Thank fuck that we scored.
Another half an hour in the freezing cold and drawing 0-0 on penalties
will thankfully not happen. What a shit
game. Bloody awful. First off let me say that if Alex Neil gets
sacked then he’ll deserve it – 7 defenders all game, no shots and hardly any
attacks. I know we’ve played like that
at time this season but that’s against Spurs, Chelsea or Liverpool. I actually felt sorry for Lafferty up front
for them – he could have just fucked off for a pint and no one would have
missed him. On the Ball City – er,
no. Does ‘On The Edge of Your Own
Penalty Area” fit in a terrace chant at all?
So, when confronted with a team playing for penalties from
the first minute, Saints of course went about it in a totally clueless
fashion. Quick passing is what it’s all
about but no, sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, up to the strikers,
nothing. Is there a striker or
midfielder anywhere in the Premier League with as little actual footballing
ability as Shane Long. We know he can be
good but when he’s bad and has to fall back on basic technique; he has
none. It bounces off his shins, off his
knee, off anything and the goal said it all – a totally free header from 5
yards and managing to hit the keeper and taking two efforts to get it over the
line from practically in the goal. Long
and J-Rod were fucking dreadful and Sims overall was average at best.
The midfield three of JWP, Clasie and Reed were quite
frankly, rubbish. Balls given away and
no ability on the ball at all. Why can’t
JWP shoot when the ball is moving? – he can’t kick it. Reed was worryingly bad and off the pace,
always arriving late and usually fouling whichever Norwich midfielder we’d
given the ball to. The win was earned
with the introduction of Romeu and Redmond for J-Rod and Reed in the last 20 as
we dominated and created chances from then on in.
The defence did what they had to do defensively which was
next to nothing. I thought Jack Stephens
did ok but on the rare occasion when Lafferty got near enough to put pressure
on, Stephens wasn’t dominant or imposing at all. The best player on the pitch was Sam McQueen
who was excellent in both attack and defence.
He deserved the assist for the goal and was a constant threat down the
left. We have to find him a place in the
league side, possibly playing in front of Ryan Bertrand on the left. At the moment I’d play him ahead of Tadic on
the left wing if he continues his post-broken nose form. On the other side you had Martina who despite
having loads of possession and crossing opportunities, delivered sod all of any
quality. He has no natural idea of when
to go into the gap or when to cross it.
Usually he cuts back onto his left foot and skims it in five feet high
to the first defender. In goal, Harry
Lewis had nothing to do and at 19, he’s already had the easiest clean sheet of
his life.
I usually sit in the Chapel in the family bit but today I
was in the Itchen, directly behind the Saints bench so I had a good view of
Claude and he was going nuts which was quite reassuring. He wasn’t happy, particularly in the first
half when bad passing kept slowing down attacks. He clearly wanted us to play with more tempo
but the players seems incapable of doing it.
He also did a little dance and was yelling at the 4th
official when the ref decided to let Bassong hold Sims back when he ran into
the penalty area. He’s definitely part
of the problem with his formation and lack of players in the box but some of
our players, especially in forward areas are just not good enough and he has to
make do.
It was dreadful but we won and that’ll do and now we have
Arsenal at home in the 4th Round.
Before that though we have Leicester in the league on Sunday and the
Liverpool semi final 2nd leg on Wednesday. I guess the result on Wednesday will dictate
the line-up we put out against the Gunners. By the end of next week we could be
in one final and well on our way to another or we could just been looking
nervously and hoping that Sunderland, Swansea, Palace and Hull continue to be
shite.
As I finish this, José Fonte has moved to West Ham for £8
million and no doubt a higher wage and an extra year on his contract. It’s shame it had to come to this but there’s
been an issue all season. I thought
there was an issue when we were three days from the start of the Premier League
season and he was still posting photos of Portuguese celebrations from the
Euro’s. Cedric was posting training
shots with the Saints boys. I’ll
possibly write this up fully after the Leicester game. For now I’ll just say – what a shame it had
to come to this.
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