Premier League Match 1 - Southampton 0 Burnley 0

I Can't Bear Any More of This - 4-4-Fucking-2

First game of the season and as my first game was in April 1976, that makes it the 42nd opening day of the season that I have truly been invested in. One day, I will count up how many of those 42 games we have actually won. I would be surprised if it is more than 10. Anyway, the transfer window has closed, the talking is over and now it is time to deliver… Hopefully.

Burnley managed to finish seventh last year and in doing so, qualified for Europe through winning the best of the rest trophy. That shows how fucking dreadful the rest actually were last season. Burnley were pretty much as functional as you could possibly get in the Premier League. Rigid 4-4-2, work hard, keep it tight and with 20 minutes to go, throw on a big guy, to add to the other big guy and smash it long, win a flick on or a free kick and win 1-0. Sour grapes? yes, guilty.  What cannot be argued that though is that they were seriously effective and no one of a Claret and Blue persuasion will give a flying fuck how they got there and into the Europa league. From recent memory, we know that the Europa League qualifiers can present you with a few problems and Burnley played in Istanbul on Thursday night so will hopefully not be 100% at it on Sunday. It is therefore essential that we start the game very quickly and not sit back and try and feel our way into the game like we have done for the last two seasons.

Burnley have some Southampton connections in Jack Cork and Sam Vokes and the same applies the other way round with Charlie Austin and Danny Ings likely to play against their former club at some point this afternoon. Burnley also have that horrible bastard Ashley Barnes who has done ridiculously well to make a Premier League striker out of himself and fair play to him. He is still a horrible bastard though.  Hopefully, the tactics of smash it long at Barnes, Chris Wood and Vokes won’t succeed as easily as they did last year with the addition of the huge Vestergaard to our defence. I’m really looking forward to seeing our new players and the difference that Armstrong, Ings and Elyonoussi will make at the top end of the pitch.

Mark Hughes has shown a kind of quiet confidence and isn’t outwardly making too much fuss about defeats in friendlies. I can see him being a bit like Nigel Adkins in that he won’t get too high if we win and he won’t get too low if we lose. Not getting too low when we lose is a mantra that much of our fan base could do with adopting.  I can’t however, see Hughes reciting a poem after a game.

The roads around Southampton resemble a car park, to be more exact, a car park with temporary traffic lights and roadworks.  An hour and 20 from Hedge End – ridiculous.  Anyway, I missed the free ice cream and limp pyrotechnic display but caught up with the team news on the way.  I was surprised at Stephens being picked ahead of Bednarek and was not expecting Austin ahead of Gabbiadini – it seemed like two selections at odds with what had been going on in pre-season.  One good bit of news is that Shane Long is not there to put the crowd in danger in the warm-up shooting drill.  Danny Ings is on the bench which looks strong, also containing Elyounoussi, Hojbjerg, JWP, Bednarek, Gabbiadini and Gunn.

Having performed the ceremonial launching of my clacker into an empty seat, we are ready to go.  For the first ten minutes we get a chance to have a look at our formation as we don’t actually break from it all because we don’t have the ball. 5-4-1.  Redmond is on the left wing and Armstrong the right.  The full backs aren’t pushing up at all and we are just clearing it in the general direction of Austin who is wearing concrete boots.

Vestergaard is showing up well as Burnley put the ball in the box and is organising those around him.  He heads out a free kick which gets returned to Cork on the left, flag up and he scores with a composure he never showed when playing for us.  Looked a bit tight that one I have to say.  We don’t heed the warning and cause our own problems – we have so many defenders that there is no one really taking responsibility and Hoedt and Vestergaard don’t go for the same ball and Lennon is clean through but you can’t have Lennon without McCarthy and our man saves well.

The referee is penalising Lemina every time he goes near the ball and Gudmundsson is a pathetic rolling dickhead.  He stops and curls the free kick onto the roof of the net.  The small contingent of Burnley fans thought it was in…ahhhhhh!  We finally show a spark and it’s Redmond who runs at the right hand side of their defence, beats the last man and gets a cross in which is headed away.  It lifts the crowd and you can see Redmond grow in stature straight away.  It’s funny what happens when players are encouraged and feel appreciated. Redmond again sets up the next attack, finding Austin who for once has moved into a space – he finds Armstrong whose cross just eludes the lumbering drunk looking bearded heavily tattooed number 10.

There was one occasion when Lemina had the ball in midfield and was looking forward for a pass but eventually went sideways to Romeu and we played it back to Vestergaard.  Armstrong had made a run from right to left, Redmond was on the left wing and marked and Austin was just stood there offering nothing.  When the ball didn’t go to Armstrong the move was dead – this is the problem.

We look like we’ve got to half time at 0-0 but there’s always time for a scare isn’t there?  A free kick comes in and Mee thinks he’s Gareth Bale for a minute and tries an overhead head but he’s not Gareth Bale and it’s shit.  It does however, fool everyone and flies sideways to Hendrick at the back post and he really should score but almost tries too hard to place his header and McCarthy makes what in the end is a fairly routine block.  Half time and we made it.

The second half starts in much the same fashion with Burnley on top.  A cross comes in from the right and Vestergaard and Stephens combine to block Gudmundsson in none too convincing fashion.  Another chance as Stephens’ weakness in the air surfaces again and it drops for Ward to shoot low and McCarthy is equal to it again.

I’ve had enough, Hughes has had enough, fuck this.  Off goes Cedric and the limping Armstrong and on comes Elyonoussi and Ings, the latter of which getting a heroes local boy special welcome.  Four-four-fucking-two.  Two massive unit centre halves, two strikers and two proper wingers playing on the correct sides.  Love it.

The effect is instant.  We are further up the pitch and in their faces.  Eloynoussi plays it into Redmond who sees a shot deflected over the bar.  Eloynoussi on the corner and in the melee in the middle, it flies of Mee’s head and is headed off the line by Westwood.  The ref checks his ‘goalline technology’ watch but sadly, no beep.  Ings has certainly added a spark with quick darting movement, highlighted by the lumbering presence of Austin along side him.  Austin is getting stuck in though and gets away with a clear foul on the left before feeding Ings who lashes narrowly over.  Ings is at the heart of everything and puts a superb cross just over Austin and Stephens meets it at the back stick but can’t force it past Hart in goal.  Another Moi corner, another decent flat trajectory one and Hart comfortably catches Lemina’s header

Finally Hughes decides to stop playing with 10 and Gabbiadini is on for Austin meaning we now have two strikers that move. Burnley meanwhile bring on Barnes and Vokes to give them two striker who batter people.  Vokes first contribution is to elbow Vestergaard in the head.  It’s a temporary repite for Burnley though as Redmond, attacking with intent from his natural side, wins a corner which comes in from Moi and Ings heads over.

This curious phenomenon of having forward runners has got Burnley all confused.  Ings plays Moi through and he runs at the defenders, cuts back to make space for a shot and the excellent Tarkowski dives in to block.  Another Moi corner and yet again we get to it and this time it’s Ings that heads over.  As the time runs out we have half a should for a penalty as Mee and Ings tangle and I didn’t think anything of it at the time even with it being right in front of me.  There is just time for Stephens to scuff a cross into the box and Ings to smash an effort at Hart which he parried away.  The ref had given a foul though because Ashley Barnes had fallen over.

Vestergaard Gets Ready for Sam Vokes

And so the game ended in a draw. If I had been offered a 0-0 draw at the start the game then I wouldn’t have been particularly impressed with it but as it happens, it was actually quite good and a quite enjoyable game – well an enjoyable 2^nd half anyway.  I have a feeling that Hughes went for the 5-4-1 formation because there is no way, having not trained at all, that Cedric was going to be able to bomb up and down the right wing. What it meant however was that Bertrand couldn’t get forward on the left hand side because Redmond was directly in front of him so we ended up not doing much at all in the first half. When the midfielders got the ball there was a complete lack of movement up front with Redmond being tied to the left wing and only Armstrong making any decent runs in front of the ball. Charlie Austin was fucking terrible and barely moved. I would say that Hughes got the selection of Austin wrong because with both Cedric and Austin in the starting 11, that is two of your substitutions predetermined as neither were going to last 90 minutes. After 10 minutes of the second-half, Hughes decided to be proactive and go for it and both Elyounoussi and Ings were superb when they came on. It was even better when Austin was finally removed and Gabbiadini came on and then we had four players making runs and making it difficult for Burnley defenders.

Burnley are hard to break down and remember, last year we lost this game 1-0 because Pellegrino fail to react when Dyche made his changes. This season, Hughes got in first and change the game and then Dyche had to respond, not that Dyche was ever going to do anything different than throw on two big lumps upfront in the second half.  It’s interesting that there’s no VAR this season – if it had been available for this game then I’m guessing that Cork’s goal would have stood, Ings would have had a penalty and Vokes would probably have been sent off.

All of the new players played well with Armstrong being pretty much the only positive attacking player in the first half, Ings showing a purpose and a movement which if combined with Gabbiadini, looks very promising indeed. Elyounoussi looked on that showing to be tailor-made for the Premier League as he has the skills but he also has a bit of physicality about him. Vestergaard at the back had an excellent debut, won more than his fair share of headers and put in a few vital blocks. He made sure that Burnley’s physical strikers knew that he was around and you can tell straight away that he will be a very good player for us.  He missed a few in the air but understandable as the Burnley forwards are all very good in the air because they have to be and they get so much practice.

Elsewhere, McCarthy kept up his good form from last season and it was pleasing to see Wesley Hoedt but in a good performance though a flat back four with Hoedt and Vestergaard as the two central defenders is probably something that you are not going to get away with against quicker opposition. Nathan Redmond again proved that he is much better when playing on the right wing and Mario Lemina went some way to winning back some of my goodwill which he lost with his half-arsed efforts last season.

More positives than negatives I'd say and I've come away feeling relatively happy with a 0-0 draw because of the second half once the chnages had been made.  Negatives... a lot are moaning about hte red carpet thing  To be honest, I didn’t really notice it during the game.  I did however notice the fucking drumming mascot dog.  I acknowledge that I may be being a bit of a drama queen here but I hate that forced atmosphere shit.  I bet it was Ralph’s idea.

A promising start overall and now a trip to the official Southampton football club graveyard, Goodison Park.