Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Premier League Match 6 - Southampton 0 Manchester United 1


Get Off the Pitch You Dickhead

Here comes the first difficult game. Well, they are all difficult but compare to what we had already, this is a whole new level.  Having had a few issues with drawing a load of games that they should of won last year, Manchester United had a rather spectacularly successful transfer window with Nemanja Matic sorting out the defensive midfield area which allows the creative players to go and create. Sure, they lost Zlatan to injury but have replaced him with Romelu Lukaku who so far, is absolutely ripping it up.   Just don’t sing songs about what he’s packing in his shorts though.  He doesn't quite have the presence of Zlatan but he has more pace which makes them an altogether scarier proposition.   Having spent £130 million on those two, they also paid £30 million for a centre back, Lindelof but he has not gotten the team as yet but Phil Jones has been fit so he has not been needed.  In my opinion, Jones has always been a better centre back than Smalling.  Even before you think about wages, these transfer fees show you the completely different level they are operating on compared to us.  

They still have Luke Shaw who appears to still be beating his thick-as-mince head against the wall in thinking that he can carve himself out and Manchester United career.  The manager thinks you’re shite mate – give it up.  Shaw just about beats Calum Chambers and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the ‘Players who left Saints too early’ stakes. He simply wasn't ready either mentally, or as a player.  The manager who Shaw will never impress is of course, Jose Mourinho who apparently has a record of always winning the title in his second season. Well he's certainly made a good start this time around with 4 wins and a draw from 5 games.

I had the bizarre experience of having to write a semi serious piece for a Manchester United website and you can read it here. Unfortunately, The style of the piece meant that I couldn't get into talking about how United are self-entitled wankers and that it's only the travelling away fans who are in any way decent. To be honest, I'd rather beat Liverpool more than United but a win against United is never a bad thing and especially at St Mary's, it doesn't happen that often. In fact, it's only happened once. The Dell days and 3-1 and 6-3 and Matt Le Tissier chipping Schmeichel and Ostenstad’s hat-trick and grey shirts is a long long time ago.

Not so long ago, a week ago in fact, came more proof of the fucking ridiculous politically correct times that we living with the Lukaku song being deemed offensive and this generated a ridiculous amount of inches, that's column inches, as in newspaper column.  The world is gone fucking soft. Away from men's football, the FA have again proved themselves not fit for purpose following the sacking of the England women's manager, Mark Sampson. Having already  investigated and cleared the bloke twice of racism and bullying accusations, rightly or wrongly, they found something that he'd done about five years ago that they were fully aware of and decided to fire him for that.   The FA’s defence was that they were not fully aware of it because no one had read the report which they had, properly until last week.  Pathetic.  Whatever the rights and wrong is of how he's behaved, that is absolute bullshit. It's ironic that the woman who is accused him of racism and bullying is a lawyer. I wonder if she's an employment lawyer.  You really couldn't make it up but the FA clearly do at every turn.

Also, back in media fantasyland, there are still outlets that are trying to push Van Dijk to Liverpool. It's quite staggering really. They are talking about January when he absolutely will not go anywhere and they are also talking about the end of the season when he absolutely will not go to Liverpool. What's changed in the relationship between Saints and Liverpool? The only thing that might change by the end of the season is Jurgen Klopp’s position. We are beginning to get the first people noticing that he hasn't remotely improve the defence in two years in charge. Very amusing and watch this space. In some ways I hope these Liverpool stories keep coming up because Liverpool are playing well but none of the stories would be happening.

Moving onto today and the question is would Mauricio change the team from last week and introduce Virgil or would it be same again. I have a feeling, as I said on the United website link above, that Pellegrino is building us playing three at the back so I would not be at all surprised if Virgil is playing instead of Tadic or Redmond.  As it turns out it’s exactly the same team as we put out against Palace with the only changes coming on the bench.  It’s remarkable that we have a bench with so much ability on it… Virgil, Gabbi, JWP, Hojbjerg, Austin, Pied and McCarthy.  United meanwhile have not picked that horrible little shitbag Herrera and have nstead gone with the pair of elbows with a wig on top that is Fellaini.  A front four of Mkhitaryan, Rashford, Mata and Lukaku is not bad though is it?

Chairman Gao is introduced to the fans before the game –  careful Jinsheng, you’ll get a reputation for only turning up for the big games.  Away we go and it annoys me that we’re not smashing into them at every opportunity.  We seem content to just hold them at arms length and defend in numbers.  Fellaini is even looking like a decent player as they just knock it about.  We have intent when we get the ball though and Tadic finds himself running at the defence and getting towards the penalty area but he’s blocked off robustly and you are never getting that decision against United.

We’re holding our own but not really forcing things and on 20 minutes United take the lead when they build down the left and the totally right footed Young picks up the ball.  He faces up Tadic and it’s as obvious as you like that he’s going to cross it right footed.  Tadic does the same with his left foot from the right side in every game but he doesn’t close down the right footed cross and over it comes, Lukaku shoves Hoedt and meets it, great block by Fraser but it falls to Lukaku to simply knock it in the net.  Fuck.  To be honest, if he’d beaten Stephens like that I’d have been saying that he was bullied and Hoedt really should have been stronger but that really looks like a foul.

We need to recover and with our lack of goal threat, it’s already obvious that if we let in another then we are fucked, so Maya trashing through the back of Mata on the edge of the box is not what anyone wanted.  Up steps Rashford and it whistles about a foot wide of the near post and Fraser wasn’t getting it.

The United fans have spent about 10 minutes droning their version of ‘Feeling Good’ which is tedious in the extreme and then decide to sing about big cocks for a bit.  It suits them better I think.  There’s not a lot going on for the rest of the half aside from Shane Long catching Fellaini late and getting a yellow card.  Valencia is trying his best to get Craig Pawson to send him of but luckily it’s yellow.  Fellaini deserved it anyway.

The second half is a different kettle of fish altogether.  Romeu and Lemina have truly come to the party and we are suddenly dominating the game – higher up the pitch and looking more of a threat.  We win an early corner which Tadic puts over and it drops on the six yard line and it looks like Romeu must score but somehow he hooks it wide, understandable given that about four United players threw themselves at the ball.  Eric Bailly clearly hasn’t played against anyone quite like Shane Long before as he thinks he’d got time to saunter over to a loose ball.  No mate you haven’t.

Having been invisible in the first half, Nathan Redmond has woken up, drilling a hot at the near post which de Gea saves comfortably.  United as an attacking force are really not doing much and for the first time in months, there is actually a bit of excitement and expectation when we go forward.  Redmond again is on the run and swerves past both Matic and Valencia and whips over a first time left footed cross which is just a little bit too high for Long and he heads over.  We of course have a few dodgy moments when United break and Lukaku gets free on the right and drills in a shot which Fraser blocks well.

Lemina is running the show.  If we were winning you would say that he was show boating but there’s a real purpose in what he’d doing.  Winning the ball back and then pulling out all the tricks to make space for himself and set up another attack, making Matic and Fellaini look very average.  Mourinho is worried and on comes that little shit Herrera and Chris Smalling in place of Mata and Mkhitaryan to bolster the United rear guard effort.  Their fans are not singing about big cocks any more and are very quiet.  Daley Blind on for Rashford and a 6-2-1-1 formation.

Another corner, a Romeu header and the elbows with a wig heads it away from in front of the goal.  Mauricio rolls the dice and Steve Davis is off and Gabbiadini comes on.  Striker for midfielder – tick.  We had our first genuine ‘GOAAAAAAfuckittt’ moment for a while as Romeu ran at the Untied defence, playing passes with Gabbiadini and Tadic before screwing his effort across the goal and just in front of Long.

As the clock ticks down, two more subs with Cedric and the knackered Long replaced with Austin and JWP who goes to right back.  Running out of time here and Another Lemina run and we win another corner.  93 minutes are up but we have to delay because Mourinho is being a twat so the ref has to send him to the stand.  That diffuses the head of steam nicely doesn’t it for fucks sake.  United survive the corner despite Fraser being right up there in the mixer and another goalless home defeat is chalked up.

And bollocks. We played well though and have not got what we deserved. The fact that Mourinho was throwing on defenders and defensive midfielders in place and attacking players as the second-half wore on, tells you all you need to know about who was on top and looking the better side. Our fans appreciated it too and even though we scored zero goals at home yet again there is an appreciative ovation for the players at the end of the game. That's really cool actually because it shows that the home fans, or the majority of them anyway know something about football, appreciate the efforts and can see further than the fact that we lost.  As for the fucking 83 minute brigade… The majority of you are a fucking embarrassment.

Another game against United comes and goes where we got less than we deserved. I swear it's fucking psychological. For the first 30-40 minutes we gave them too mush respect and allowed players as limited as Fellaini to dictate the game. When we got into it and realise that they actually aren't that great, we looked decent but by then unfortunately the damage was done with the goal. The cross should never ever have been allowed to come over from Young as he is completely right footed playing on the left and he’s never put over a left footed cross in his left.  He even dummied crossing it with his right foot before he eventually did.  Tadic really should've blocked that but once it came over, that's where luck plays a major part. Lukaku clearly barged Hoedt over but the referee didn't see it and Fraser makes a great save from the initial header but Lukaku suddenly sees the ball presented to him right in front of an empty net.  Lemina and Romeu completely dominated the midfield from that point and all United had in the second half was all the cunty tricks in the book to waste time with Fellani being shown up to be as limited a footballer that he is.

Our two midfield boys were magnificent but there's only so much that they can do. The sad truth is that despite Shane Long having a really really good game, he didn't threaten the goal once. The three players that we have the furthest forward are not the same standard as the rest of the team. It's like having a knife where the handle is absolutely magnificent but the blade is fucking useless. It looks absolutely great until it comes to practical use. Don't get me wrong, I love Steve Davis as a footballer but I thought the first substitution today was quite telling when he was removed to bring on Gabbiadini. We have needed Davis to knit everything together but maybe now, with Lemina and Romeu in midfield, I wonder if we need a Davis style player at number 10.  We could go with someone who is more of a goal threat. It's not about individual players but about what makes the best team.

I thought that Pellegrino did all that he could today and his substitutions were spot-on. We had JWP on for the last 10 minutes playing at right back but on the pitch to deliver the set pieces and we chucked on the extra striker with Austin coming out. I would however have argued that it would've been better to throw Virgil on and stick him up front.

We are not far away. It is just a matter of time before it clicks into place.

Unlike last home game against Watford, there are a number of players that we can talk about as having had really good games. The most eye-catching display was from Mario Lemina again and he truly bossed the game in the second half. Whilst less eye-catching, Oriol Romeu was fantastic.. The two of them were really trying to find a forward pass through the defence to one of the wingers of the fullbacks and were playing higher up the pitch which is what we hoped would happen when the back four got sorted. Talking of which, Wesley Hoedt is looking like a brilliant signing and one thing that really encourage me is that the one weakness that he was supposed to have, a lack of pace, didn't seem to be a problem when he was in a foot race with the allegedly quick Lukaku. Maya Yoshida also did a good job and was much more safety first than usual which is no bad thing. He knows that his place is under threat from van Dijk on the bench and he stepped up to the mark today. It would be incredibly harsh on him to be left out and that those of the decisions that the manager gets paid to make.

Shane Long put in a real shift today and the only time he annoyed me was when that big high ball went over the United defence and he was looking for the slightest contact before crumbling to the ground, rather than going after the fucking ball and trying to stick it in the net.  The ref knew it and was never going to give a penalty.  I was up that end of the ground and didn’t even get excited about it.

Post match I saw a tweet by Luke Shaw congratulating the proper players at his club on their win. See You Next Tuesday in the Under 23's you fat twat.

So – we’ve proved that we can get up for it and play a high tempo against Manchester United.  Now we have to do it at the National City of Inbreeding – Stoke.



 See You Later You Wiggy Twat

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