Vestergaard is Not Messing About
Before the Man United stuff…
I heard the news today oh boy....
Carabao Cup third round draw, Number 20 Portsmouth will play number 17 Southampton. Fucking hell.... what a draw that is. There are several ways of looking at it. One is of course that we are a Premier League side and they are League 1 and we have a chance to go down there and put a few things right. There’s the two 4-1 defeats and there is a chance to make up for the last time we met which included David Norris’s last minute goal that he would never score again if he tried it 100 times. It will be a huge game and I bet there was a collective ‘fucks sake’ from the Hampshire police when that draw came out.
There’s also the fact that we have everything to lose of course. If we win then it is expected but if we lose then it’s fucking humiliating. All of the potential outcomes and the emotion around the fixture is what football is all about and the atmosphere at the game will be something else. Win and the feel good factor goes through the roof, lose and everyone gets angry and it’s tough to turn that around. Can’t fucking wait. Having lived in that neck of the woods from age 8 to 23, I have a lot of Pompey mates so it’s a nightmare for me…. unless we win of course.. and if that happens then I will be a dick about it.
The last time we played them was in the Championship and we should have won both games, leading both late on in, ut I true Southampton fashion we managed to draw them both. Even though we got promoted at the end of the season and they got relegated, there are many of a blue persuasion who think they had the better of things that season simply because they scored a last-minute equaliser. Strange lot.
If we play well and all the players are up for it and not intimidated by the atmosphere, then we should win of course. It never works out as simply as that though so I can see it being a really tight game and one goal either way will win it. Anyone who thinks we’re going to go down there and win 3-0 or 4-0 is sadly mistaken.
Carabao Cup third round draw, Number 20 Portsmouth will play number 17 Southampton. Fucking hell.... what a draw that is. There are several ways of looking at it. One is of course that we are a Premier League side and they are League 1 and we have a chance to go down there and put a few things right. There’s the two 4-1 defeats and there is a chance to make up for the last time we met which included David Norris’s last minute goal that he would never score again if he tried it 100 times. It will be a huge game and I bet there was a collective ‘fucks sake’ from the Hampshire police when that draw came out.
There’s also the fact that we have everything to lose of course. If we win then it is expected but if we lose then it’s fucking humiliating. All of the potential outcomes and the emotion around the fixture is what football is all about and the atmosphere at the game will be something else. Win and the feel good factor goes through the roof, lose and everyone gets angry and it’s tough to turn that around. Can’t fucking wait. Having lived in that neck of the woods from age 8 to 23, I have a lot of Pompey mates so it’s a nightmare for me…. unless we win of course.. and if that happens then I will be a dick about it.
The last time we played them was in the Championship and we should have won both games, leading both late on in, ut I true Southampton fashion we managed to draw them both. Even though we got promoted at the end of the season and they got relegated, there are many of a blue persuasion who think they had the better of things that season simply because they scored a last-minute equaliser. Strange lot.
If we play well and all the players are up for it and not intimidated by the atmosphere, then we should win of course. It never works out as simply as that though so I can see it being a really tight game and one goal either way will win it. Anyone who thinks we’re going to go down there and win 3-0 or 4-0 is sadly mistaken.
Tasty
Believe it or not, we actually have some games before the trip down the M27, starting with a small matter of Manchester United at home today. United fans are going through the same thing but Liverpool fans went through at the end of the 80s which is watching a decline and having to get used to not being the best team in the country anymore. One could argue that Liverpool fans have never really accepted that they were ever not the best team in the country.
The Manchester United story of the last few years has been interesting, not least because a couple of years back, JosĂ© Mourinho, one of the most successful managers ever in terms of winning trophies, said that coming second with the Manchester United squad that he had, ranked alongside his biggest ever achievements. At the time I put this down to Jose just throwing out a soundbite but what he said has proved to be 100% true. To be fair to the current manager, Ole Gunnar Solkjaer, he has at least made steps to try and rectify this with binning off some of the players who were clearly not of the required standard for a club that expects to be winning honours at European level. Hence, Lukaku, Sanchez and Smalling have all gone and the new signings of Wan-Bissaka and Maguire look decent. Daniel James joined for a relatively paltry £15million from Swansea and looks extremely promising and considerably better and some of the shit they still have remaining in the squad like Jesse Lingard. Whether this is down to Solskjaer making tough decisions or the money men at the top, or indeed the Ghost of Sir Alex, is open to debate but regardless of whether things are slowly progressing in the right direction or not, it’s hard to believe that Solskjaer should be in charge of a club of this magnitude.
So because it’s Manchester United, of course it is on TV and we have been given the stupid kickoff time of 12:30. My dad was completely unaware of this until he got my 11 o’clock “where the fuck are you” phone call. So, we eventually arrived at the ground after I had dropped him off and I’d had to run across the Itchen Bridge, at 12:31. Having missed the Liverpool game due to being on holiday, it was my first home game of the season and it has some how reassuring that some things don’t change when about 30 seconds after sitting down, I first heard Manbaby that sits behind me whining “I could see that from here ref“ because of course, Manbaby has superman style vision where he can tell if something is offside or not when it is 80 yards away. Other things that don't change - The Northam are singing about a team two leagues below us when we're playing Man United
Once again it was a all a bit George Burley with no recognised
left back – Danso being shoved there again.
On the other side there was a recall for Tight-shirted Boyband Wannabe
Cedric and Sofiane Boufal came in on the left to replace the injured
Redmond. Other that that the team was as
it was against Brighton. Talking of left
backs, Luke Shaw’s body has creaked again under the weight so he’s out again
and Ashley Young is in the side. Carlton
Pogba is in midfield along with McTominay and an injury to Martial means that
Mata comes into the side to play behind Rashford. The referee today is Mike ‘All About Me’
Dean.
Whilst I was hoping for JWP at right back and Cedric on the
left – it was the 4-2-2-2 formation which we have never looked comfortable with
but we start well with Adams linking well with Boufal and he got a shot away
which skidded just wide. United don’t look
that great but then what do you know, they build down their right and the ball
is switch out to James on the left. With
Mata running on his outside totally untracked, Cedric has a decision to make
and gets it wrong as he follows Mata’s run and by the time anyone wakes up,
James is in the panlty area with no one closing him down and he rips a rising
drive into the net. Garbage. JWP was fucking nowhere and Cedric made a
horrific defensive decision. 10 fucking
minutes was all it took for him to at least be partly to blame for a goal.
They’re really not very good but we’re not either – working hard
but not doing much creatively. It
strikes me that we work so hard at winning the ball back high and probably
practice that all the time but when we’ve got the ball we look ponderous. JWP is playing against Ashley Young but he’s
never going to run at him and Boufal has a few darts at Wan-Bissaka but he’s
really good defensively. He’s not
usually great going forward but he gets in the box to meet a McTominay cross
but volleys well over.
Ladies and Gentlemen – Welcome to the Mike Dean Show. Danso is doing his best to get forward but
gets caught out of position a bit when an attack breaks down and pulls back
Perreira and gets a yellow card. No
issue with Mike on that one. Literally
five minutes later, McTominay pulls back Cedric on the right, free-kick and no
card. You couldn’t make it up really but
Mike Dean does, every fucking time. I bet Dean hates VAR with a passion as it’s
taken away a lot of his licence to be a complete prick on goal incidents. He’s now reduced to being a prick on yellow
cards and other less significant areas.
The first half comes to a close with James letting fly again
and Gunn parrying the ball away with a strong hand. Half time and it hasn’t been great. Still to be convinced by this formation. Cedric and JWP have crap, Romeu and Hojbjerg
have been outnumbered in the middle and Ings and Adams have not linked up at
all. Hmmm. It’s frustrating because United are shite. Rashford has done nothing and Pogba is being
Pogba.
Boufal tries to light the fuse at the start of the second
half, swapping passes with JWP before teeing up Adams but he looks like a man
low on confidence as he lashes at the ball and skews it wide. He really has to get that on target.
Just before the hour, Boufal’s next dart wins a corner on
the left. Over it comes from JWP and
Ings meets well and flicks goalwards only for de Gea to push it away. Danso picks it up on the far side and tosses it
back in and there’s the massive fucker with the headband to get above Lindelof
and plant a header into the net. At
last, Jannik Vestergaard has scored and he’s off to the corner, jumping higher
than he ever manages during a game. It’s
amazing what adrenaline can do. Well
played big man.
We now look the better side – Long is on for Adams and he
and Ings immediately link up and we’re looking good and United are still
average… and then Kevin Danso takes my brief moment of optimism and kicks it in
the bollocks. Actually, he takes out
McTominay somewhere near bollocks level and it’s the easiest red card Mike Dean
will ever give. Fuck it.
Pierre has gone to left back, Armstrong is on for Boufal and
then Yoshida is on for Ings and he goes to left back as we settle on a 4-4-1
damage limitation formation. At the heart of this is Oriol Romeu who is playing
like a man possessed crossed with a lunatic. Pogba does not fancy it one bit.
There are hairy moments of course. Shane Long
long does Shane Long things coming back to help the defence, controlling the
ball and then passing it straight to Pogba, allowing Rashford to force a save
out of Gunn. United have sent on the
much hyped Mason Greenwood (see Macheda, Januzaj) and he falls over in the box but
even Mike Dean knows that VAR won’t give that one. Greenwood does bring one save out of Gunn and
then Ashley Young of all people, goes pretty close with a curling effort from
outside the box. He’s still shit though.
In the end it’s a point which feels like a win against
Manchester United and Mike Dean. Mike Dean was not the reason that we ended up
with 10 men as he had no choice with either booking but Mike Dean managed to go
the whole game without giving us a single decision that wasn’t 100% obvious. By
that, I mean that everything that was even 1% debatable was given in favour of
United. All that and 10 men and the fact that we were horribly disjointed at
times and we still got a point.
I’m not having this 4-2-2-2 thing with the players we had out the pitch today. Pre-ninja assault, Danso did his best to get forward from left back but that was only one of the problems. JWP and Cedric were chronically bad over the right hand side both from an attacking and defensive perspective. The United goal illustrated this perfectly as JWP provided no cover whatsoever for the overlapping player and Cedric followed the overlap instead of closing down James, who by the time he smashed into the net was only about 12 yards out. Terrible decision-making by Cedric and a lack of basic defensive nous and understanding of some of his position by JWP. In an attacking sense he was consistently too far infield she meant we had no outlet ball to the right hand side and if he did get wide, lack of pace meant Ashley Young, who is about 40, was never really tested. Meanwhile, though shining in patches, Boufal was struggling to get much change out of Wan-Bissaka on the left who fair enough, is an excellent defender – why not switch for a bit and have a run at Young? The first half also showed the zero level of understanding between Ings and Adams. Ings and Long linked up more in Shane’s first five minutes on the pitch than Ings and Adams did in the first hour. It looks to me that Ings and Adams are trying to be too clever and rotate positions. Maybe just play Adams as a 9 and Ings as a 10 and save the complicated stuff until Adams has settled in a bit more.
I’m not having this 4-2-2-2 thing with the players we had out the pitch today. Pre-ninja assault, Danso did his best to get forward from left back but that was only one of the problems. JWP and Cedric were chronically bad over the right hand side both from an attacking and defensive perspective. The United goal illustrated this perfectly as JWP provided no cover whatsoever for the overlapping player and Cedric followed the overlap instead of closing down James, who by the time he smashed into the net was only about 12 yards out. Terrible decision-making by Cedric and a lack of basic defensive nous and understanding of some of his position by JWP. In an attacking sense he was consistently too far infield she meant we had no outlet ball to the right hand side and if he did get wide, lack of pace meant Ashley Young, who is about 40, was never really tested. Meanwhile, though shining in patches, Boufal was struggling to get much change out of Wan-Bissaka on the left who fair enough, is an excellent defender – why not switch for a bit and have a run at Young? The first half also showed the zero level of understanding between Ings and Adams. Ings and Long linked up more in Shane’s first five minutes on the pitch than Ings and Adams did in the first hour. It looks to me that Ings and Adams are trying to be too clever and rotate positions. Maybe just play Adams as a 9 and Ings as a 10 and save the complicated stuff until Adams has settled in a bit more.
With the score level at 1-1, at that point I actually
thought we were going to win until Big Kev’s brain fart. Like I said, I have no
issue with the two yellow cards that Kev got except Mike Dean allowing McTominay
to do exactly the same thing without a yellow card. Whilst I did enjoy his over the top support
for Tranmere in the playoffs, he’s a fucking nightmare of a referee.
The positives today were a superb performance by Angus Gunn who didn’t have to produce any absolutely breathtaking saves but he did what he had to do very well and is growing in stature by the game at the moment. The two central defenders were excellent in the face of the pace of Rashford. Jan Bednarek was absolutely everywhere, winning every header and tackle and I was delighted for Jannik Vestergaard to get his long overdue first goal from the club and to put in a really solid defensive performance. He also managed to drill the ball right up Mike Dean’s arse as well which was probably the highlight of the first half. Oriol Romeu, not usually selected in most Saints Fan Twitter Experts Starting XI… was a monster throughout. As a team, we showed a lot of tenacity today, as we did last week against Brighton and overall it was a deent today bearing in mind we had Redmond, Djenepo and Bertrand all missing and Valery only fit enough for the bench. Though they are not what they were and probably never will be with Ole at the wheel, we got a good point at home against a team who will probably finish in the top six at the end of the season, especially if Mike Dean referees them every week.
Not that I wish to take anything away from Saints getting a point today but if I followed United I’ll be very disappointed with that showing. They showed absolutely no urgency whatsoever until we went down to 10 men and after that I showed a bit of urgency without showing any cutting edge whatsoever. You might as well just let Ashley Young cross the ball because he is fucking hopeless and he’s never gonna pick out one of his own players. Rashford was kept very quiet by our central defenders and James did next to nothing after his goal. The enigma which is wrapped inside a conundrum which is Carlton Pogba again showed some great touches but again just seem to be out for a stroll a lot of the game, getting caught in possession frequently and looking like he’s almost rather be anywhere else. I’d expect more from my £90 million World Cup winning player. Gone are the days when United used to be able to bring on world-class players from the bench. Now, it’s overhyped youngsters like Greenwood and Instagrammers like Jesse Lingard who is arse. Still, who fucking cares about them?
We need an answer to the Ryan Bertrand question before our next game which is after a well timed International Break. Danso will be suspended and we don’t want to play Hojbjerg there and it appears that Vokins has been declared to be not ready for first-team action. Ralph also has to get to grips with our growing tendency of having dreadful first half’s of games. After the break it’s Sheffield United away, which is another game where we should be looking to pick up some points as is Bournemouth at home just after. Four or six points from those two games and we set ourselves up quite nicely for that cup game which everyone seems quite keen on winning.
The positives today were a superb performance by Angus Gunn who didn’t have to produce any absolutely breathtaking saves but he did what he had to do very well and is growing in stature by the game at the moment. The two central defenders were excellent in the face of the pace of Rashford. Jan Bednarek was absolutely everywhere, winning every header and tackle and I was delighted for Jannik Vestergaard to get his long overdue first goal from the club and to put in a really solid defensive performance. He also managed to drill the ball right up Mike Dean’s arse as well which was probably the highlight of the first half. Oriol Romeu, not usually selected in most Saints Fan Twitter Experts Starting XI… was a monster throughout. As a team, we showed a lot of tenacity today, as we did last week against Brighton and overall it was a deent today bearing in mind we had Redmond, Djenepo and Bertrand all missing and Valery only fit enough for the bench. Though they are not what they were and probably never will be with Ole at the wheel, we got a good point at home against a team who will probably finish in the top six at the end of the season, especially if Mike Dean referees them every week.
Not that I wish to take anything away from Saints getting a point today but if I followed United I’ll be very disappointed with that showing. They showed absolutely no urgency whatsoever until we went down to 10 men and after that I showed a bit of urgency without showing any cutting edge whatsoever. You might as well just let Ashley Young cross the ball because he is fucking hopeless and he’s never gonna pick out one of his own players. Rashford was kept very quiet by our central defenders and James did next to nothing after his goal. The enigma which is wrapped inside a conundrum which is Carlton Pogba again showed some great touches but again just seem to be out for a stroll a lot of the game, getting caught in possession frequently and looking like he’s almost rather be anywhere else. I’d expect more from my £90 million World Cup winning player. Gone are the days when United used to be able to bring on world-class players from the bench. Now, it’s overhyped youngsters like Greenwood and Instagrammers like Jesse Lingard who is arse. Still, who fucking cares about them?
We need an answer to the Ryan Bertrand question before our next game which is after a well timed International Break. Danso will be suspended and we don’t want to play Hojbjerg there and it appears that Vokins has been declared to be not ready for first-team action. Ralph also has to get to grips with our growing tendency of having dreadful first half’s of games. After the break it’s Sheffield United away, which is another game where we should be looking to pick up some points as is Bournemouth at home just after. Four or six points from those two games and we set ourselves up quite nicely for that cup game which everyone seems quite keen on winning.
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