Jordy Laughs At Ben Foster's Time Wasting
There
comes a point in the season when you realise that you’re not going to get
relegated and also that you’re not going to qualify for Europe either. Manchester United’s win in the EFL Cup Final
(sniff!) means that European qualification will come down to 7th place and
there’s no way I can think of that means it’ll go any lower. This year we have the traditional top 6 and
Everton, having spent a fortune and got Honest Ron as a manager are nailed on
to finish no lower than 7th – they are however having their one good season
before their team gets dismantled by huge bids for Lukaku and Barkley… and no
one’s got the Barca job as yet… No
worries on that score though as Honest Ron always honours his contract.
Anyway,
West Brom are currently the team directly above us in 8th place, 7 points ahead
so some could and will call this the 8th place final. The excitement is huge. Excitement is not something you associate
often with West Brom as they have Tony Pulis in charge and are the definition
of workmanlike. It's all long ball and percentages and long throws and winning dodgy free kicks and time-wasting. The graphic below explains most of it (credit @WBA_BARACUS).
Pretty uninspiring but they’ve had a really good season and have progressed through the 40 point barrier with ease. Usually there are 4 centre backs playing as the back 4 and midfielders who don’t fuck about like Claudio Yacob and Darren Fletcher. If they have any inspiration it’s on the wings with Matt Phillips looking like a decent player again and either Chris Brunt (who has a great left foot) or James MacClean who let’s just say, is a character.
In
addition to the injury list we already have including Gabbiadini, Austin,
Virgil and Boufal – Steve Davis has done himself a mischief running into
Delaney of Palace last week and he’s out too, as is Oriol Romeu who has managed
to whack 10 players up in the air. These are just the ones that the referees have
spotted. In to the team come Hojbjerg
and Clasie to form the defensive midfield but some good news is that Ryan
Bertrand is back.
West
Brom are clearly going to play the only way they know which is as an away
side. I wonder how long it will be
before Ben Foster starts wasting time.
For now anyway, Bertrand and Redmond combine to release Tadic who
crosses it behind Shane Long who is not offside and it’s cleared by Nyom. When West Brom get forward it’s a similar
story as Phillips fires the ball over and it perfectly finds no one.
Saints
have started pretty well with Hojbjerg and Clasie showing no signs of rustiness
and controlling the midfield. We’re
playing decent stuff whereas our opponents are resorting to belting it up to
Rondon and the big fat lad does well to knock it down to Morrison, onto Chadli
and the ex-Spurs player puts it well over.
Chadli was one of those brought into Spurs to replace Gareth Bale –
needless to say, he didn’t.
Having
noted West Brom playing Pulis-ball, we have a go as Fraser whacks it long and
Shane Long manages to manoeuvre the much bigger McAuley out of the way and
bring it down perfectly. He breaks
forward and finds Tadic in the box but he has his back to goal and nowhere to
go so he plays a simple ball back to Clasie who absolutely creams it right
footed and it flies past Foster who doesn’t move and into the top corner. What a fucking strike that is. An almost exact replica of his goal at Arsenal
in the EFL Cup.
Having
done really well with the goal, Shane reverts to type a few minutes later and
it almost costs us. Tadic wins the ball
and plays a perfect ball through the defence and Shane is through but he cuts
across Evans and just falls over. I do
not know what the fuck has happened there.
Has he just got his feet in a mess and fallen over or has he anticipated
contact that didn’t come and gone down.
Either way, West Brom have the ball, break and a cross comes in from the
right and Rondon is up well to head back across but there is Fraser, sticking
out a big left mitt to slap it away.
Good save.
Shane
is now the pantomime villain with the Baggies fans but they should be grateful
when we fizz the ball around in their box, only for Shane to fuck it up with a
piss poor touch. There’s some more great
interplay before Redmond crosses for Shane to put wide. Half time and 1-0 to the good and looking
relatively comfortable but this game would be dead already if we had a striker.
Stephens
starts the second half looking comfortable in possession and ambling forward
with the ball which eventually falls for Tadic to put an ambitious volley
wide. Matt Phillips makes his first
contribution to the game by scything straight through Clasie which is a
challenge that would have got him sent off against a big club. Chris Brunt is on for them and we can’t
afford to give away too many free kicks in our half now as he’s got a great
delivery on him but we of course, use his introduction as a cue to give away
some free kicks. Pulisball dictates that
his side must be good at free kicks as they’re hardly going to score goals any
other fucking way and in it comes, headed out by Stephens and Livermore shoots
over.
Pulis
takes off Phillips and it’s a like for like swap in that it’s a winger for a
winger. It’s not a like a like for like
swap in that as far as I know, Matt Phillips is not an ‘character’ but he’s
been replaced with James McClean.
We
need a second goal to kill this off as West Brom are looking more
dangerous. The match winner from the
return game at St.Mary’s, Hal Robson-Kanu is on. This news reminds me that we all need to
celebrate and make videos of ourselves doing it if Wales fail to get to the
World Cup finals. We are dangerous
ourselves with some great play by Cedric, linking with Tadic and JWP up the
right before putting the cross over and Redmond meets it on the volley but
Foster saves well at the near post.
Both
teams then have a go at gifting chances to the opposition as a Cedric mistake
presents it to Morrison, onto Character McClean and eventually Chadli who takes
aim and hits it straight at the big bloke in our goal. No danger but there’s plenty as Foster proves
that he’s not a great when it comes to playing football and shanks a kick
straight to Tadic on the right who advances, cuts in and then curls a shot just
over the bar. A foot lower and Foster didn’t
have a prayer.
Claude
rolls the dice with 20 minutes to go and us on top. He has faith in the youngsters to see it out
and McQueen and Sims are on for Redmond and JWP which is no negative slant on
either player as they’d both had decent games.
The rest of normal time passes without incident but you just know that
they’re going to be launching everything into the box and here it comes. The Character crosses and Fraser makes his
first mistake of the day, flapping the cross out to Hal Sheep-Shagger and he
launches it over the bar, because he’s shit.
Another
free kick to defend on 92 minutes and in it comes from Brunt, half cleared and
Chipped back in and there is Dawson, onside and fifteen yards out. He volleys and Fraser takes off to his left
to parry it away and then watches as Nyom, lashes over the bar. 93 and surely we’re not going to give them
another chance – of course we are.
Another free kick which comes in from Brunt and headed away for a
corner. That wanker Ben Foster is up but
it’s flicked on by someone else and Johnny Evans has a free shot from 8 yards
which he kind of falls over and Fraser paws it away again. Just blow the fucking whistle. Thank you.
Get
the fuck in there. A win in the 8th
place final which at least gives us something to aim for. It was great to see a strong performance from
Fraser and once more, everyone contributed.
The two lads brought into the midfield did an excellent job and Tadic
and Redmond again continued their good form.
Whisper it quietly but the Stephens and Yoshida partnership is beginning
to look decent at last though I still think that Virgil will come back into the
team when fit …. And what a goal from Clasie! – fucking pick that out. I’ll never forget Ben Foster time wasting
from the 3rd minute onwards at St.Mary’s a couple of years ago so it’s always
nice to see that particular weapon taken out of his armoury when the first goal
flies past him and we take the lead. It
would have been a lot less nerve wracking to have notched a second goal but
that’s where we are whilst Gabbiadini is injured. Shane Long is always going to miss loads,
fall over when clean through, dive when he should shoot etc. Having said that, it was a great touch to
bring down the ball from Fraser’s bomb forward and feed Tadic who teed up
Clasie for the goal.
Fraser
does need an extra mention as in the main this year, he’s been
Stekelenburg-esque in his ability to not let in goals that are obviously his
fault but save absolutely nothing. The
saves from Rondon’s header that was going back across him and from Dawson’s
volley in the 92nd minute really were top class. Maybe The Great Wall is back.
So
well done Claude, 40 points and a Cup Final from a season disrupted by lots of
injuries to key players, shite fixture planning, Jose Fonte being a cock and
the board not reacting until after the transfer window had closed. We are staying up and we still look motivated
and hungry, despite having on the face of it, not a lot to play for. However, we’ve won the 8th place Cup Final so
now we have a chance to finish… 8th
Next
up is a small matter of Manchester City at home who can look absolutely
brilliant going forward but are a shambles defensively so it’s definitely one
we have a chance in. Hopefully they’ve
have Claudio Bravo in goal so we know that any shot on target is a goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment