It Must Be The Winner.... No.
Our first away game and a trip to
Huddersfield where we haven't been since out League 1 days. Those with short
memories will remember nothing much but those with slightly longer memories
remember that Huddersfield was the team putting pressure on us at the end of
our League 1 promotion campaign, winning something like 10 games in a row and
generally not doing what they were supposed to and going away. We failed to
catch Brighton but as you know, we eventually got over the line and
Huddersfield fucked it up in the Play-offs. Last year they were in the
play-offs again and ended up playing the mega-money match to get promoted into
the Premier League in which they prevailed against Reading in one of the most
tedious matches I've ever sat through and believe me I've sat through a few.
They won on penalties and were most peoples tip to get fairly smashed in the
Premier League.
That they haven't so far it's down to the
good work of David Wagner, a German coach who has proved to be a breath of
fresh air. On the opening day they went to Crystal Palace and stuffed a shambolic
looking Palace by 3-0 before nicking a 1-0 result against Newcastle. The
manager was saying that we were a step up in class from those teams and will
therefore be Huddersfield’s biggest test yet. Let's hope he's right and we can
hand them the first defeat and a realisation that the Premier League isn't
always that fucking easy.
Of course, we are coming off the back of
a diabolical performance in the League Cup. Even three days later it is quite hard
to digest just how shit that was. It appears that Mauricio Pellegrino has
decided to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen as he's reverted back to
exactly the same team that started the West Ham home game. I can't say that I'm
not a little disappointed with this and I did groan audibly when I heard that
Tadic had yet again managed to convince the manager that he was worthy of a
start. Big New Wes made the bench and we persisted with Jack and Maya. During
the week came the news that Maya Yoshida had been awarded a three year contract
extension. Whilst I still remain to be convinced that I want him as a first
choice centre back, the news made me smile as whatever your opinion of him as a footballer, it cannot
be denied that he is a really decent bloke and it just would not ever behave in
the way a certain shithouse centre back at our club has behaved.
To the game and Huddersfield have the
better start, playing at 100mph. We
created the first chance however as the home right back is miles out of
position and Davis puts Redmond through on the left. He takes a superb touch inside and cuts in
towards goal and with the whole goal to aim at, passes it wide of the far
post. As the ball hits the advertising
board, you just know that we aren’t going to get many better chances than that.
Huddersfield are a physically imposing
side and the game plan is to put crosses into the box as soon as possible. They have the tactically impressive idea of
having a left footer on the left and and right footer on the right and this
enables early curling crosses away from the keeper. This might catch on. Van la Parra puts a great ball in from the
left and Mounié is met with a superb block by Maya. We don’t really clear it and in comes the
same ball again from the left and this time it’s Fraser who is down at the feet
of Mounié and this time we do clear it properly.
We’re our own worst enemy when we win a
corner through decent play between Redmond and Davis and then Berty’s corner is
caught by the keeper, one long throw and we’re in the shit again with
Huddersfield building on the right and van la Parra gets a shot in which is
blocked by Davo who has made it back 80 yards in no time.
The rest of the half is all Huddersfield
as we struggle to get a foothold and at times, struggle to clear the ball. Mounié scuffs wide when well placed and
Fraser has to make a decent low save from perennial ‘not as good as he thinks
he is’ Tom Ince who has latched onto a long ball over the top which Maya has
missed and Jack hasn’t covered for. If
Fraser looked good there, he looked bad a minute later when he made a complete
mess of another one of those curled crosses from the left and gets lucky as
Kachunga’s (sp.) shot hits him on the ground and goes wide.
The second half starts with a bit more
intent from Saints with Lemina suddenly making runs ahead of the ball. This gives Romeu an extra option to pass the
ball to and the new boy lays off his pass to Gabbiadini who gets a shot on
target but comfortable for the keeper.
We should try this ‘making forward runs’ thing more often. Gabbi would slap me for saying that as all he
does is make runs without anyone giving him the ball usually.
There’s not a lot going on in the second
half to be honest. We are struggling to
get anything going up front so the subs that eventually come are all at the top
end. Lemina has put in another promising
display but he’s first off for JWP which means Davo dropping deeper. To the disappointment of many, Gabbiadini is
next off for Long and to the disappointment of no-one, Tadic is off for McQueen
which leaves both Boufal and Austin sat on the bench. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not his biggest fan
but Austin is more likely to get a goal than those who have come on and Boufal
is probably more likely to create one.
Anyway, Huddersfield have blown
themselves out and there are still 15 minutes to go. An Ince shot that deflects straight to Fraser
is the best they’ve got as we take over.
The first bit of excitement is Long putting JWP in on goal on the
right. He cuts past the last defender
and just falls over. A half arsed appeal
for a penalty but no referee in the world is going to give that.
Long is again the architect as he gets
away on the right and intelligently gets his head up and picks out Redmond on
the edge of the box. He goes for
placement rather than power and places it perfectly straight at the
keeper. All those shooting drills from
the training ground that we see every week and we still hit the keeper. The intent is there from us now with Yoshida
breaking from defence and the ball gets worked to McQueen, a first time cross
(left footer on the left) and our favourite Japanese man throws himself at it
but the flag is already up against McQueen.
Again though, it showed that when the shackles are off a bit and you
commit bodies forward, things can happen.
Shane Long has been superb since he came
on and in the last minute he pulls out a superb cross (right footer on the
right) and it’s right on the incoming Bertrand’s head. He has a choice to either put his forehead
through it or place it past the keeper and he goes for the latter and gets it
past the keeper but there’s not enough on it to beat the defender on the
line. Fuck.
Another bloody 0-0 and another missed opportunity. 5 points out of 9 isn’t bad but it should
have been 9. Huddersfield blew
themselves out after 70 minutes and 20 minutes should have been long enough to
find a goal but no. I can’t help but
feel that with a bit more conviction and belief in the opening 70 minutes we
could have won that game. Missing
sitters like the one Redmond missed in the first half doesn’t help either.
The positives today were Fraser Forster looking decent
and confident and also Mario Lemina showing signs of growing into the Premier
League. I liked when he was prepared to
break ahead of the ball and look for it further up rather than just sit in
front of the centre backs. He’s only
going to get better.
One of the main problems with Saints is the three players
behind the striker. In my opinion,
Gabbiadini is a superb stiriker and with the right supply, he’d be scoring 20 a
season. However, he’s neither getting
the ball often enough, nor getting enough support from players. Of the three behind who started today,
Redmond looks dangerous in patches but his finishing and final ball is often
all over the place. Davis links well with the defensive midfielders but
provides very little in terms of supply for the striker and also, can’t shoot
for shit. Tadic is just dreadful at the
moment, providing the odd glimpse of his undoubted talent in an area of the
pitch where it doesn’t matter and then disappearing for 30, 40, 50
minutes. He’s turning in Fabrice
Fernandes where you sometimes think that his only function is to slow
everything down.
Today, I wondered what the hell the manager was doing
when we ended up with Redmond, Shane Long, JWP and Sam McQueen as the front
four. On the other hand, at least he was
trying something and not just sleepwalking through to the end of the game and
it has to be said that whether this was down to Huddersfield being tired or
not, we were better in the last 15 minutes.
To me – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – Shane Long seemed to make
the biggest difference, picking up the ball in wide areas and stretching the
defence. He also got over some really
decent crosses which should have led to a winning goal from Bertrand. There simply has to be better options than
Tadic and I’d say that Shane deserves a start on the right in the next game
with Redmond on the left - at least that
gives us pace on both sides and the ability to turn the opponents around. Other options could of course include Boufal,
JWP or even someone out of the Under 23’s like Tyreke Johnson. Tadic needs to be dropped to see if it kicks
him up the arse – is it a coincidence that Fraser has just had his best match
for a while having been dropped from the England squad?
As we enter the last week of the transfer window, I feel
that we have to either replace Mané or replace Pellé. Either sign a pacy creative player or sign a
target man centre forward. Doing nothing
and doing neither will achieve nothing and the Board will be expecting
Pellegrino to make a silk purse out of sows ear regarding our forward options. Hopefully, with all the attention being
focussed on whether or not a certain shithouse will leave, we can sneak one in
under the radar….
Transfer Deadline Day…
So Thursday is here and the transfer window has closed
and guess what, Virgil van Dijk is still a Saints player as the club received
precisely zero bids from anybody.
Liverpool had exhausted their supply of ex-players of any consequence
and were even calling up their complete nobodies to say their bit like David
Thompson who I vaguely remember playing about 10 games in the 90s. Now it’s over we can all say ‘fuck off
Liverpool’.
To recap and summarise, they illegally met the player,
promised him the world to get him interested, agreed personal terms which
promised him the world, released this to the media because they wanted to show
off, had to apologise and then left the player to it and never made a single
bid. All that happened was that
ex-Liverpool players in the media and the ‘Big Club’ media in general kept the
story in the news when there was in fact, no story. We’d said he wasn’t for sale and that was
that. Basically, Liverpool have treated
Virgil like shit and I’m sure that once the dust settles and he gets his head
round it all, he’ll realise this and he won’t be signing for them any time
soon.
Someone was a bit Premature
So, if indeed it was the case that Liverpool’s interested
ended with their grovelling apology, why is Virgil not back playing yet? Either Liverpool were still in his ear giving
him the pillow talk or he decided that it was ok for him to sit it out until
now. Both are probably true. Hopefully, when we say in January that he’s
not for sale, the media might believe it.
Then again, I might manage to pull Miss World or Donald Trump might stop
being an arsehole. There’s a chance,
albeit too small to even register on the most sophisticated of machinery.
The key moving forward will probably be the promise that
Virgil can leave this time next year. A
good season for us and a decent World Cup for Holland (if they qualify) and
with the transfer market being as it is now, we’ll be selling a player with 4 years
left on his contract for about £100 million.
To give this season the best chance of being decent, the fans need to
support the players that we have – all of them – even the one’s who’ve acted
like twats. Giving grief to a player in
a red and white shirt on a match day is never going to be productive – ever.
Now, get your head right son and get out on the pitch in
a Saints shirt.
Disappointingly, we didn’t get any attackers in so
Mauricio is left with trying to get goals out of what we’ve got. I’m hoping that the potentially much stronger
Dutch centre back combo will enable us to play more expansively in front of
them and this makes something click farther up the field. We can but hope. On paper though, a back 4 of Cedric,
Bertrand, Virgil and Wesley, screened by Oriol and Mario looks mustard. It’s the three behind Gabbi who need to step
up and if they do we’ll have a good season.
Once again, Fuck off Liverpool #FOL J
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