Richard, I'm Blaming You for Putting Shane Long on.
Now for one of the games that we never win, against West Ham. It doesn’t even matter what ground the game is played in as we always lose and we’re always shite and they always beat us the same way, home or away. What they have done over the past few years is play on our soft centre and have two big guys up front, one of whom is Michail Antonio who for two games a season turns into a cross between Usain Bolt, Mike Tyson and prime Brazilian Ronaldo and we go home with nothing. Jack Stephens in particular has had nightmares against Antonio in the past and he is certain to be starting today so hopefully, he can erase some of those nightmares.
West Ham are finally having the season that they should’ve had in each of the
last two seasons, with the money that they’ve spent finally being translated
into an acceptable level of performance on the pitch. They have good players
all over the pitch, the pick of them being Declan Rice who seems to be a
certain starter for England in Euro 2021. They have bought well in the last
year also with Jarrod Bowen proving to be a good signing from Hull and Thomas
Soucek becoming a bit of a goalscoring midfielder and forming a good
partnership with Rice. Coufal at right
back is decent and complimented by the always consistent Aaron Cresswell on the
left. Strong central defenders in Ogbonna and Balbuena and with the
aforementioned threat upfront, they are a handful. Antonio hasn’t been fit for
the last couple of months but you just know he’s going to be back… you just
know it. David Moyes has had a long managerial career and you can be fairly
sure that he is not going to change anything about the way the West Ham
normally play against us.
Saints will at least be boosted by the return of Oriol Romeu from suspension
and it will be interesting to see what happens regarding who partners Che Adams
upfront. Danny Ings has been seen in the
training photographs but you wouldn’t expect him to start so I really hope that
it is Theo Walcott and not the Irish Papa Waigo. An advantage that we have today is that we have
had an extra day to recover, three days as opposed to their two. That should of
course, work in our favour.
Kick off approaches and the teams are announced as so is the fact that Ralph is
at home with a Covid positive family member. I have a nightmare that it’ll be Kelvin Davis
in charge but a pre-match interview with Ralph, from his toilet by the look of
it, confirms that the main man pitchside today is Richard Kitzbichler. There are sure to be some interesting pronunciations
of that from the Amazon Prime commentary team.
As it turns out, Danny Ings starts, Romeu is back and Djenepo comes in
for Armstrong. Moyes has shuffled his
pack at West Ham, I assume because of the turnaround so it Fredericks and
Dawson coming into the defence and Antonio is on the bench where he will
hopefully stay. Sebastien Haller is up
and even he usually scores against us.
I feel that Saints need to start the game pretty well because with all their
changes, West Ham are going to be a little bit tentative to start with. We do
make a bright start with JWP playing a ball over Cresswell to where Adams is
looking suspiciously offside so there’s not much excitement as He chips the
ball to Ings, who produces a superb touch to nip in between Dawson and Ogbonna
before passing it into the net. I’m absolutely convinced that this is going to
get given us off side so there’s no point in getting excited despite the fact
it was a brilliant finish and sure enough they put a still on the TV and check -
Adams looks offside but then you look across the line to Fredericks at right
back and all of a sudden it looks fucking close as their feet are in line but
as is always the case, the forward is leaning towards the goal and so it’s one
of the good old armpit offsides.
Saints are pressing well and are the better side without creating much. Walcott is a threat but no one else aside from
KWP is really providing any sort of threat. 35 minutes gone and we build again down the
right hand side through KWP and he finds Walcott who puts in a good ball into
the middle, where Ings tries to flick into the net but it’s saved by Fabianski.
The replay proves that this would’ve been fucking offside as well.
West Ham begin to show as the half draws to a close and Yarmolenko gets down their
right, gets to the by-line and chips the ball across to where Fornals knocks it
back and Fredericks meets it but his header is somewhere between garbage and
pathetic and just plops straight down at McCarthy when he really should’ve
scored.
A West Ham corner provides a talking point a few minutes later as Adams
competes with Dawson in the air and when the ball drops, Dawson takes a swing
at it to try and smash it at goal but instead of kicking the ball, he manages
to kick Adams head. Che reacts by literally pulling a bit of a face and then
getting up, rubbing the back of his head and getting on with it. It’s just one
of those moments that makes you think what would happen if Bruno Fernandes,
Jack Grealish, Son Heung Min or Mo Salah had been on the receiving end of it. Air ambulances and priests reading the last
rights and all sorts.
There is a minor scare just before half-time as West Ham produce a decent bit
of football down the left hand side and when the cross comes over, JWP mis-controls
and Lanzini turns and shoots well over the bar. It’s the last action of a half
that has been pretty woeful from a footballing perspective. Not much spark from
either side and just flat. The worry is that you look at the players that West
Ham have got on the bench and you know that Bowen, Benrahma and Antonio are
going to come on at some point.
Saints have a decent piece of possession at the start of the second-half but
it’s all very slow and we work it from the left hand side over to the right and
Walcott puts in a couple of crosses before finding Romeu who takes a swing and
hits it and there's momentary heightening of the excitement
level until you realise that the ball is exiting the earths atmosphere.
Che Adams has not had a great game but can be grateful that his head is still
attached to his shoulders and he is the first one to be hauled off and there’s
obviously been some interference down the line from Ralph’s toilet flush or something because Kitzbichler
is bringing Shane Long on. "What’s the fucking point of that when you need a goal?" is the question that springs to mind.
Jack Stephens is playing well at the back, doing his best to step into
Vestergaard’s Size 28 shoes with regards to passing the ball. There are a
couple of pings over the top of the full-back to KWP which worked and then he
feeds one along the ground and finds Walcott about 40 yards out and he turns and
advances a bit before drilling a shot that Fabianski has to save. Theo has been
our one bright spark up front this game is getting better all the time. To
illustrate this, Walcott picks up the ball from Romeu, runs at the defenders,
gets tackled by Rice and KWP ends up hitting a left foot shot which is
comfortably saved.
Having sent on Benrahma and Bowen, we are treated to the sight of Antonio
warming up. Fucking sit back down. In the meantime, Saints bring on Armstrong
for Djenepo who has in truth contributed very very little but there’s been a
change in the general direction of play now and West Ham are looking by far the
most likely team to score. Soucek looks like he’s going to get a shot away but
while he was waiting for the ball to come down, Bertrand nips in to produce a
very good clearance.
There in five minutes to go when Antonio starts the move and sends Bowen away
down the left and his cross into the box causes chaos and Jack Stephens heads
the ball straight up in the air and when it comes down, Benrahma and he manages
to work enough space to blast in a shot from 6 yards but luckily, Alex McCarthy
has thrown the big star shaped thing and it hits him and we managed to clear
it. Jack certainly owes Macca a pint for that one.
The final action of the game kind of sums it up with West Ham getting a free
kick about 35 yards out on the right wing and instead of putting it into the
box where they have been creating opportunities because we don’t seem to know
how to defend free kicks in wide areas, they play it backwards and then by the
time the cross comes into the box, the final whistle has gone to end a very
average tired looking game.
Christ that was tough to watch. In truth, we shot our bolt in the first 20
minutes and when we didn’t score it was always gonna be difficult from that
point on. Unlike the Fulham game a few days ago, I am happy to get out of that
with a point. I thought David Moyes managed his resources very well, picking a
team to contain us in the first half and then throwing on Bowen, Benrahma and
Antonio to try and win it in the second half and to be honest, they probably
should’ve done. The fact that they didn’t win it was down to a superb save from
Alex McCarthy.
Saints were blowing out their arses for the second half with some players
looking in desperate need of a break. Che Adams was playing like he didn’t know
what day it was, even before he got an accidental boot in the head accidentally
from Craig Dawson. Ryan Bertrand looked like he was running through treacle the
whole game and was tackling like a tired player with no composure. Overall, the
defence was pretty solid apart from the one mistake near the end and deserved
another clean sheet. Whenever we give away free kicks in our half though we do
look like a complete accident waiting to happen. We never clear the ball, it’s
either offside or it’s a very good chance of scoring for the opposition. We are getting away with it but it seems to
be more by luck than judgment.
Our best players were both playing down the right hand side with KWP and
Walcott being the only ones who really caused West Ham any problems from a
defensive point of view. Walcott in particular seem to be carrying the
attacking threat on his own for large periods of the games with Adams out of
sorts and Djenepo basically just existing over on the left wing without
actually contributing very much. It was undoubtedly a massive bonus to have
Danny Ings on the pitch and for him to complete the 90 minutes but he is not up
to full speed yet, though he did show an absolutely filthy touch to take out
the two West Ham central defenders before scoring the goal that was disallowed
for offside against Adams, and offside which was a hell of a lot closer than I
initially thought it was. In an ideal world, Danny would’ve been saved and
brought on as a sub but you can see why he started. Shane Long was our first
substitute off the bench and it was quite frankly embarrassing. The concept of bringing him on to add fresh legs
was a complete waste of time because he didn’t add any impetus whatsoever. There
was one incident where we’d been under pressure for a period of time in our own half and
we actually managed to turn West Ham round and Fredericks was in his own corner
and facing the wrong way and all Shane had to do was not foul him and we
would’ve won a throw right next to the corner flag but oh no, he just
cluelessly ran through the back of him. Maybe a youngster would do that with over
enthusiasm but an experienced pro? Really?
I was absolutely swearing my fucking head off and I reckon I can pretty much
guarantee that Ralph was doing the same at home in his toilet.
I imagine that for the neutral this was a pretty desperate game but it’s too
many games being played into short space of time and in Saints case in
particular, our squad is not big enough to cover it. It’s no coincidence that
we have started to look tired with a combination of our style of play, our
small squad and playing two games a week for the first time this season. We need another left back in the January
window even if it’s just to try to give Bertrand a break from time to time and in my
opinion we also need an alternative to Ings and Adams for the same reason, if
none of Tella, and N’Lundulu and Obafemi are thought to be up to the task. The lack of form being shown by Armstrong,
Redmond and Djenepo must also be a slight cause for concern.
Another thing that occurred to me today that Mohammed Salisu has not played
football for ten months. He hasn’t played for the B team and he hasn’t make it
onto the pitch in any of our last five matches. We could have a scenario where
one of the central defenders gets injured in between now and the Liverpool game
and he has to make his debut marking Mo Salah. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
As mentioned, Liverpool at home is our first game of 2021 and it definitely is
one where anything we get is a bonus. Overall, 2020 has been a good year for
Southampton Football Club in terms of progress on the pitch and they shouldn’t
be forgotten even though the last couple of results have been slightly
disappointing. We will get back to winning ways soon (but maybe not next week)
and a quick look at the league table sees us 3 points off 3rd place
so it’s pretty good really.
Happy New Year. Up the Fucking Saints!
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