Friday, March 31, 2023

10 Games to Go

 

Yep, Up the Table would be good...

Ten games to go to save our arses and not end up in the Championship next season.  To be honest, we deserve to be 10 points adrift for the way we’ve played for the vast majority of the season, but we still have a very good chance of getting out of it due in no small part, to the fact that we have picked a very good season to be this shit.  Whilst we’ve been bad, there are 8 other teams who haven’t been much better than us and the usual wisdom of ’40 points’ doesn’t really apply.  You might need 40 but if four teams out of the nine get adrift and you’re one of them, you might only need something embarrassing like 32 – unlikely though that may be.

Ruben Selles’ Saints are on 23 points after 28 games, 3 points from safety and only 4 points behind Crystal Palace who are 12th.  It’s a strange one alright.

Before I start looking into the games that we have left, I have to say that the feeling that I have had for quite a while (since Nottingham Forest at home under Nathan Jones) is that we are going down.   Too many 50/50 games have been lost and we are now looking to pick up points in more difficult games. 

I'm the Most Out-of_Depth Manager Ever

I know that our last relegation out of the Premier league was 18 years ago so it’s not relevant in one sense, but the similarities between 04/05 and 22/23 are striking.  Three managers in a season for starters and when we went down in 2005, our second manager of the season, the painfully out of his depth Steve Wigley had a run of favourable fixtures and failed to win any of them (aside from one against the Skates).  

Not beating any of Palace, West Brom, Birmingham, Man City (they were average then) and Newcastle (so were they) at home, was ultimately what killed us. That run, alongside a half-arsed contribution from Harry Redknapp was what left us needing to beat Manchester United at home on the last day to have any chance of staying up at all.  


Hold My Beer Steve

Compare and contrast Steve Wigley with our second manager of this season, Nathan Jones.  Painfully out of his depth - check, Shit results against average teams - check.  Defeats to Brighton, Forest, Villa and Wolves at home, as well as Liverpool, Fulham and Brentford away, managing just one win, away at Everton.
  In my opinion, the 3 points from those 8 games makes it more likely than not that we are going to have 46 games next season instead of 38.  All is not lost though as Ruben Selles seems a step up from Ballsack Redknapp.

What a Pair

So, we have 23 points and I reckon we need 38 to stand a decent chance of staying up.

  • West Ham away
  • Manchester City at home
  • Crystal Palace at home
  • Arsenal away
  • Bournemouth at home
  • Newcastle away
  • Nottingham Forest away
  • Fulham at home
  • Brighton away
  • Liverpool at home
So, 4 wins and 3 draws.  Where are we going to get that?
Of the 10 games remaining there are four against our relegation rivals, two against teams who we really should be looking to beat even though they doing well and four against the big boys up near the top of the league, where anything will quite frankly be a bonus.  So, split the fixtures into three groups.

The Relegation Rivals


Guess Who's Back

The 50/50 games against ropey teams is where we’ve fallen down this season but this has to change.
  We have two home games against the relegation rivals in Palace and Bournemouth. Our home form this season against this section of teams has been absolutely shite with only one win, against Leicester.  Damaging home defeats against Forest, Everton and Wolves are what has basically put us in the shit this season.  I don’t see Palace and Bournemouth at home as being negotiable - they are games that we have to win. Palace haven’t been that bad this season but it’s been bad enough for them to bin off Patrick Vieira and replacing with 75-year-old Roy Hodgson who was too old for them two years ago. Hoping for a new manager bounce off a manager who would probably end up in hospital if he tried to bounce anywhere, is mad and could go either way.  Palace have ten games left and a ridiculous eight of them are against the relegation threatened sides below them.

If we lose to fucking Bournemouth then I’m all in favour of pulling out of the remaining games because we'll deserve to get relegated.  That’ll be a game which will be won by whatever team doesn’t shit the bed.  Bournemouth have a habit of doing that against us and we have a habit of doing it whenever there’s a game that we are almost expected to get something out of.  
Away from home we have Forest and West Ham.  Oddly, away from home this season we’ve picked up wins at Everton, Leicester and Bournemouth so we have to be targeting points from these away games as well and we certainly need to win one of them. West Ham have been dodgy all season despite having a squad which should be comfortably in upper mid-table and they have Europa Conference League distractions. Their run in Europe has kept Moyes in a job in much the same way that a few cup wins kept Nathan Jones at Saints for about a month too long. We need to go to West Ham with no inferiority complex and go for the win because they are there for the taking.

Forest away will doubtlessly be an absolutely abysmal game but again, we need to target three points to make up for the shitshow at St Mary’s back in January, in a game that is in the conversation when we’re discussing worst ever Saints performance in the Premier League.  They are shite and we have to show up for this game.  No passive opening 20 minutes, fuckin’ get into them.

Win all four games against the teams in the relegation scrap and we will undoubtedly be safe. Target - 10 points
The Over-Achievers


This Might Actually Help Quite a Lot
We have a couple of games against this seasons’ over performing teams with a home game against Fulham and a trip to Brighton.  Both of these games are difficult but certainly they are winnable, especially Fulham at home as they are not going to have Mitrović playing for them in all likelihood as he’s due a long ban for shoving the ref, like Bruno Fernandes didn’t get.  I have no idea how Fulham are where they are and the 2-1 last-minute defeat we had at Craven Cottage was one of the more frustrating performances of the season.

Brighton, or Southampton 2016 to give them their full name, have been very much better than us this season, but we always do well at the Amex, so regardless of the fact that they are btter than us and drubbed us earlier in the season at St.Mary’s,, it’s a game that we can go into with a bit of confidence regardless.
Target - 3 points
The Super League Clubs (plus Sportswashers)

Then we have the big boys. The biggest write-off is probably Arsenal away because we never get a thing there and this season, with them flying at the top of the league, is unlikely to be any exception.  There is a slight chance I guess because they do have a tendency to go behind at home and maybe if we got the first goal, we could shithouse our way to a draw.  I doubt it though unless they are in full Premier League title choke mode. 

The home game against City is not going to be a repeat of the Carabao Cup game.  I can’t see Pep leaving the door open for us to get anything out of that game.  Put it this way, Kyle Walker won’t be at centre back and Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland won’t be resting on the bench.  Even with those superstars playing though, City have a had a few games this season where it just hasn’t happened but even so, you have to have absolutely everything go your way on the day so I can’t see it.

For the away trip to Newcastle though I might fancy us for a sneaky point at St James’s Park.  We owe them for the Carabao Cup semi-final as well and a proper 90 minute performance might see us get something.  

I am really hoping it doesn’t come down to playing Liverpool on the last game of the season and needing a win.  Losing to the Scousers and having our relegation confirmed would not be my idea of a fun afternoon.
  I’m sure that Virgil would be very upset if the club that he shat on got relegated.

Target - 2 points
Overall target - 38 points

I feel that 38 will almost certainly be enough to stay up regardless of what anyone else does and if we do that, then Ruben should be made a Freeman of the City or whatever.  I still feel that the odds are against us and those odds are going to rise sharply by 4.30 on Sunday if we fail to get anything out of West Ham.  Lose that and we aren’t getting 38 and we’ll be hoping the target comes down due to the ineptitude of others.

Can we do it?  Is it possible?  Absolutely it is. 

Will we do it?

I personally feel that we have left ourselves with too much to do and whilst Ruben Selles has overseen an improvement, I still don’t see enough to think we’ll get out of it.
  Our habit of shitting the bed in 50/50 games has not gone away and it absolutely has to, starting on Sunday.  My opinion that we are going down, will no doubt ebb and flow as the games get played.  As we stand right now I can’t see it but obviously, I hope I’m wrong.  For all I know we might find a goalscoring hero and win the next 5 games and have a nice quiet end to the season.  Yeah, right.

If you use the old adage of trying to find three worse teams than us then I’m looking at Bournemouth, Forest and Everton and if I could choose three to go then it’s West Ham, Leicester and Leeds.  Honestly, if Brendan Rodgers gets Leicester relegated, I will piss myself laughing.  However, at this moment in time, I see Saints, Bournemouth and Forest in the Championship next season.

Up the fuckin’ Saints

Monday, March 20, 2023

Premier League Match 28 - Southampton 3 Tottenham 3

 


Pick This One Out Mate

Back at St Mary‘s for today’s visit of Champions League chasing Tottenham Hotspur. If you believed the media, you would think that Spurs have more problems than we do which is quite remarkable achievement bearing in mind they are sat in fourth place. Spurs as we all know will never achieve what they probably should achieve bearing in mind the size of the club, size of the ground and the strikers that they have. Spurs will always manage to find a way to underachieve.  It’s called being Spursy.

The latest maanger to try and get them to the right level is Antonio Conte, a serial winner who like Jose Mourinho before him, has won just about everything in the game.  Conte hasn’t exactly torn up any trees so far.  For the past ten or so years, they’ve had the absolute godsend of Harry Kane, a striker who guarantees you 20+ goals every season and often more than that.  In addition, they’ve had Son Heung-Min, who will get you a similar amount of goals.  However, if you took those two out of this Spurs side and swapped them with any two of our strikers, I reckon we’d be higher in the table than them because it’s all about what your players at the top end of the pitch can do. The fact that I can make a statement like that and it will not be seen as completely outlandish tells you all you need to know about the averageness of the other players in Spurs line-up.

They have two of our ex’s of course with Pierre Emile Hojbjerg being a key player in the centre of midfield and Fraser Forster who is currently enjoying a run of games on the side with Hugo Lloris being injured. There are many among us, me included, who feel that Fraser should’ve been given a one year contract this season and been our first choice with Gavin Bazunu learning in the background, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. Fraser is of course capable of the sublime and capable of the ridiculous so let’s just hope he has one of his shocking, indecisive, ‘nailed to the goal line’ games today. Before the game though, I hope we give him a decent reception because he deserves it.

Elsewhere, Spurs defence can definitely be got at if you have the mind to and the full backs are not the best defensively. Spurs overall are the kind of side where if they are not at it, you can certainly come away with something but you have to have a go for it and that’s our problem of course.

So what does Ruben do about that today?  Well, he’s reverted to the 4-2-2-2 formation with Stuart Armstrong and Moi Elyouselessi on the wings.  KWP’s injury against Brentford was not bad enough to keep him out today.  Theo Walcott is deservedly given the nod up front with Che.  Conte has picked Richarlison, who is of course, a twat and a twat who hasn’t scored a goal this season so far.  Guess who he always scores against?

It’s very obvious from the first whistle this game is going to be pretty open and Saints create an early chance with Perraud getting down the left and linking up well with Elyounoussi, crossing out to the edge of the penalty area where Armstrong’s shot is blocked and JWP‘s follow-up is going wide and Adams touch doesn’t divert it on target. Good start though.

Now I don’t like laughing when a player gets injured but it’s hard not to smirk when Richarlison pulls up, with a strained dickhead.  He goes to walk off the pitch but he has his shirt over his face to increase the drama of his exit… oh just fuck off mate, no one likes you, even Conte hates you.  Kulusevski is on to make Spurs stronger.


Richarlison Off With a Strained Dickhead

Three minutes later though, ABK has clearly been injured by a bit of a cheap shot by Ben Davies as the ball was dead.  Davies apologises but no consolation to ABK who is off, holding his shoulder and Salisu is on.

Adams battles away on the left and Elyounoussi plays a ball through to put Walcott clean through on the goalkeeper. Forster gets down well to block Theo’s side footed effort but the flag is up anyway.

The Minge, previously known as Son Heung-Min, has been quiet so far and hasn’t scored any of the usual four goals he gets against us but he picks the ball up on the left-hand side and with everybody seemingly expecting him to pass it and keep the move going he lashes one across goal which goes narrowly wide.  I admit that behind that goal, I rolled my eyes and was totally convinced for a second that it was going in.

Another injury and Bednarek is holding his ribs and has to go off after trying to play on.  With no other centre back on the bench it’s Maitland-Niles coming on at centre-back and it’s not over there as Davies goes down for Spurs and his replacement again makes them stronger as Perisic comes on.

Aside from the injuries, a feature of the first half is the space that Porro keeps finding himself in.  He’s already skied two efforts so we let him have another go.  We get ourselves in a complete mess with The Minge picking up the ball on their left and all our defenders have gone over that side leaving Porro, the right back, completely unmarked. He takes a touch and has all the time in the world to drill it past Baz. Absolutely horrific defending. Perraud cannot go in field if no one is marking his man and this is a fucking disaster.

Half time and a general feeling of here we go again.  Spurs haven’t even been any good, yet we are losing.  I’m getting strong Brentford vibes… will we do anything in the second half or just meekly lose again?  No personnel changes at half time but unlike with the Brentford game there seems to be a bit more intensity.  Theo Walcott wins a free kick out the right hand side courtesy of a clumsy file by Dier and then he’s on the end of Lavia’s through ball once the free-kick is taken and the squares it for Che Adams to bundle it into the net and fuck me we’ve equalised.  The shitness of modern football take a hold as there is not much celebration while we wait for it to be declared offside… but it isn’t and we’ve actually scored.

It will be interesting to see what sort of response Spurs have got now and to be fair it’s not bad with PeriÅ¡ić firing over but we have a quick VAR for handball check because the shot before that and hit Maitland-Niles.  Nothing Given and Saints go again but the attack breaks down with Elyounoussi being too slow in possession and losing it.  Kane comes deep and runs with the ball and we almost back off encouraging him to shoot,  which of course he does and lashes it over the bar. Greedy to be quite honest, considering he had three players up with him.

Kulusevski then gets the ball on the right. Cuts back onto his left foot and delivers a superb cross and Kane has got in behind makeshift centre half Maitland-Niles to head comfortably into the top corner of the net. Bollocks.

Ruben rolls the dice with a triple substitution with Alcaraz and Sulemana coming on for Armstrong and Elyounoussi but the third surprise a few eyebrows as it’s one of the Chuckle Brothers, with Sekou Mara, coming on for Che Adams.

The effect is not what’s required as another Kulusevski‘s cross is headed out to the edge of the box for Perisic to smash down into the ground and speeding into the top of the net. 3-1, Game Over, fuck it.  Fire drills all over the place with 20 minutes to go.

The good news is that we are having a go.  Saints into life though with Sulemana and Mara combining well done on the left hand side before JWP plays the square to AMN, who smashes it but Fraser pulls out an excellent save out of the top corner.  The corner is cleared before we head back out to JWP on the right and his cross back into the mixer is headed down by Mara and there is Theo Walcott to knock into the net to send the Spurs fans into ecstasy as an Arsenal old boy gets us back into the game. 3-2.


Theo Writes Another Chapter in The Story of the Tottingham

Spurs are shitting it now and dropping off, passively allowing Sulemana to make a break down the middle which is excellent, taking him away from three players before feeding Mara on the left who shoots but Forster makes a good save down low once more.

We are in the 89th minute and it’s another corner, which JWP puts into the mixer.  Headed down by Salisu and Sarr goes to clear it and takes a big swing but manages to kick Maitland-Niles in the back and Simon Hooper points to the spot. Fucking hell that looks a bit generous.  Off to VAR.

In the shambles that follows Forster comes out and scuffs at the penalty spot and it looks like Mara is going to take it for a second but JWP is backing himself again repairs the damaged spot, puts it down before smashing it high into the opposite side that he normally goes and it rips into the net despite Fraser going the right way.

There’s a few more minutes to go and nothing much happens.  We don’t manage to mount another attack which is a shame but we get to the end.

Final whistle and loud celebrations as if we had won the game, which of course we didn’t. We have to use the last 15 minutes as a springboard to take forward after the impending international break and there is certainly some positives to take from the fight shown to get back into the game. As we all know, there have been plenty of games this season where it’s not really been there.

A point might be very important in the final reckoning but I’m left with an unavoidable feeling like I had after the Manchester United draw in that if this had happened at the start of the season, I would have unequivocally thought it was a great point but given the hole we are in and given the loss that we had against Brentford during the week, a point today leaves me with a bit of a feeling of what if.  Had we beaten Brentford I’d have been delighted with a  point but one point from two home games doesn’t really do it for me.

I honestly think that Spurs were there for the taking today but on a day when our attacking play was generally better, our defensive play went to shit. The first half had seen Spurs right back Pedro Porro arrive in the penalty area completely unmarked twice already and in a clear illustration of not learning from your mistakes, he arrived for third time completely unmarked and this time managed to smash the ball in off the underside of the bar. It was like we were expecting him to keep missing. The ball switched from Spurs left to right by The Minge, found Perraud tucked infield in the left centre back position and that would be fine if the left winger had covered back and tracked the full back. As this hasn’t happened, Perraud has to stay wider and pick his man up. Absolute Mickey Mouse basics.

The second one we let in was basically down to not stopping a cross and allowing Kane a free header which can be partially excused by the fact that we’ve lost both our centre backs to injury and had Ainsley Maitland-Niles playing out of position at centre back. In between those two Spurs goals we got back into it straight after half-time with some marvellous play by Romeo Lavia and Theo Walcott down the right wing and a decent finished by Che Adams, though how much he actually knew about it is slightly open to question. At 1-1 we look comfortable for a bit before dozing off and allowing Kane his free header and PeriÅ¡ić making it 3-1 just seemed the final seal on yet another depressing afternoon in our march down to the Championship.

Where there is life there is hope however and once more it was Theo Walcott who provided it, steering in Sekou Mara’s nod down.  I had to admit that when the three substitutions were made in the second half and one of them was Mara, I was not impressed but he put in probably his best 20 minutes in a Saints shirt bringing you energy to the attack and helping to spark the comeback.  He looked like he fancied the penalty as well after AMN had been fouled but eventually gave way to JWP who was under all sorts of pressure having missed his last two, this being the last minute of the game and his big mate Fraser Forster in goal.  No problem today.

It was a good day for Ruben today. Bearing in mind he had to burn two substitutions in the first half which restricted him somewhat, the triple substitution in the second half certainly worked with all three contributing.  Sulemana meant we had a running threat on the left-hand side which stopped whoever the Spurs right back was from getting forward and Charly Alcaraz again looked like a proper player.

The two centre backs both being injured could potentially be a bit of a problem but they have two weeks to recover.  ABK‘s injury looks like a recurrence of a shoulder problem in what I thought was a pretty cheap shot by Ben Davies. Bednarek’s injury looks more like ribs but it was nice to see him applauded off where is a few weeks ago he was getting booed on to the pitch.

To come back from two goals down with 15 minutes to go, of course shows all manner of fight but in general I don’t think fight is our issue.  It’s guile in the front third of the pitch that is the problem and it would be some story is Theo Walcott provides the spark to keep us up. He was brilliant today, totally deserved his goal and was at the centre of everything good about our attacking play. It was 100% the right decision to leave him on for the full 90 minutes.

So, What does 'Spursy' mean Antonio?

As I said, I think Spurs were there for the taking. They’ve undoubtedly got some good players but if I was a fan of theirs, I would not be impressed with throwing a two-goal lead against bottom of the league but also, the intensity didn’t seem to be there for large portions of the game. I’ll stand by what I said at the start of the game in there if they didn’t have Kane, they’d be very average indeed.  The Minge wasn’t really at it today and the midfield of Hojbjerg and Skipp is functional rather than outstanding. And then you have Antonio Conte who gave the most amazing press conference after the game, slagging Spurs record over the last 20 years and slagging the owner.  It was like someone asked him what the definition of ‘Spursy’ was.  If anyone wasn’t sure by now, they must be 100% sure that he wants to be sacked and he has no interest in being Tottenham manager. Absolutely fucking ridiculous behaviour for someone who has had a decent transfer budget to work with.  He may well be speaking the truth but unless Levy promised him £500 million budget and has gone back on it, he’s basically complaining that the job was exactly what it was when he joined. He is going to leave the Spurs job either now or at the end of the season and all that he’s added to his reputation is that he was better than Nuno Espírito Santo. I wouldn’t go near him if I was the owner of a football club but no doubt someone will and it will probably be someone at the highest level.  He got lucky today as well – the two enforced subs means he replaced Richarlison and Davies with Kulusevski and Perisic and got two assists and a goal out of it.

As for us, with the international break now upon us it will be interesting to see if Ruben can use it the same way Ralph used to and come up with something decent for our next game which is a huge one away at West Ham. It’s another one of those six pointers that this season we have never turned up for. We absolutely have to turn up for that one. At least after today we can go into it with a little bit more optimism. I would still say that the odds are against us regarding staying up but we demonstrated the spirit needed today and against West Ham, we have to show up

Up the fucking Saints.



Friday, March 17, 2023

Premier League Match 27 - Southampton 0 Brentford 2



We're Fucked Lads

Brentford at home in the game that was originally supposed to be played on the weekend that the Queen died. Due to the way the fixtures have fallen, it is a chance for us to get a win that would take us out of the bottom three for the first time in what feels like forever. Brentford have already provided one of many nadir days for the season because it was when we went to their place that we lost 3-0 and Nathan Jones had his incredible dickhead interview, statistically.

As I was pondering before the last time we played them which was only a couple of months ago, Ivan Toney still has not been banned for betting breaches and he’s even admitted some of them. Strange one. Brentford have carried on from where they were at that stage and have been around the eighth or ninth in the league and on a pretty long unbeaten run which came to an end at Everton at the weekend. As we know ourselves, there are always teams who are doing unexpectedly well and then the wheels fall off towards the end of the season, so we have to hope for the Everton defeat can be repeated today.

In the recent past, there have been a few occasions when Saints have had a chance to win one game and for example, push into the top half of the table and on virtually every occasion, we have proved that we are not good enough to do so. This is a game that we have to believe we can win and getting out of the bottom three, even for a few days, will be huge if we can manage it. We are getting to the stage of the season where the league table does start to play psychological games with everyone involved. The difference going into the Tottenham game on Saturday will be huge depending on whether we are 16th or flat last.

A lot will depend today on our new found defensive resilience. The aforementioned Toney and Bryan Mbeumo will provide a very stiff test for Janny B and ABK.  Recovery from the Manchester United game will be important as well so you wonder about Theo Walcott playing two games in four days but I do not expect any sort of rotation today because we are at the stage of the season and in the situation where you have to target the game that’s in front of you and not think about the one in three days time.

Talking of the Manchester United game, their fans, fucking hell.  A quick scan of Twitter give you the biggest collection of football illiterates you could ever come across in one place. The majority still don’t think Casemiro should’ve been sent off and also believe that United should’ve had three penalties and some even think KWP deserved the racist abuse he got and that the racism was Anthony Taylor’s or VAR’s fault.

Anyway, tonight, Itchen Bridge, raining.  Team news and meh!  Ruben has decided to rest both Romeo Lavia and Theo Walcott, two of our better performers recently and replace them with two players off of my shit list. Mt shitlist is a list of players who cannot be relied upon to play two decent Premier League games in a row. Elyounoussi and Diallo are starting.  It’s really hard not to be pessimistic but assuming we line-up with the same formation, our creativity is going to be provided by two wingers, Elyounoussi and Sulemana, with zero goals and zero assists this season.

Away we go and Brentford are predictably the more assured looking side from the off. We are defending solidly enough but predictably are not creating a thing. Brentford are course very good at set pieces and from the first of them, Ivan Toney find himself completely unmarked at the back post but someone gets a boot to it and we just about get away with it.

Hickey gets in across from our left which is flicked on and Mbeumo meets at the back post and Baz just throws himself at it making himself as big as possible and it hits his foot – great save and booted clear.

It’s a temporary reprieve though as Brentford win a corner on our left.   In it comes From Mbeumo, flicked on at the near post by Norgaard who makes a really simple movement and there is Ivan Toney at the back post to knock it into an empty net. Brilliantly simple and 1-0 to Brentford.


I Bet He Doesn't Miss From There

In the 15 minutes that follow before half time, we do absolutely fuck all aside from one always rising shot from Alcaraz, which comfortably clears the bar and surely there has to be changes at half-time. We are so fucking static in front of our midfield when we’ve got the ball and there is absolutely no one to pass to. We come for the second half with exactly the same 11.

We do actually start the second half well with JWP and Alcaraz combining for Charly to put a lovely ball inside the full back for KWP to run onto. He gets to the line and pulls it back to Adams who of course, doesn’t score.  He manages to not hit th e goalkeeper this time but manages to hit the one defender who has got back behind the keeper. Can’t blame Che for that one.

We win a freekick on the right hand side as KWP gets chopped down and JWP tries a swinging effort at the far post but it swings quite a long way wide than it actually looked at the time.

The substitutions eventually arrives and mercifully it’s not the Chuckle Brothers today but it’s Romeo Lavia and Theo Walcott replacing the two stand-ins who have both been incredibly average.

The referee is beginning to get on my tits because Brentford are now time wasting for England and he is doing nothing about it. Every single challenge sees a Brentford player stay on the deck and the time taken over throws and goal kicks is getting ever longer.

Tall Paul is on for Alcaraz and we actually get a ball into the mixer, with Paul challenging Raya and through the keeper takes the ball comfortably enough,he then decides he wants some afters and gets in to Paul’s face.  Paul just looks at him and laughs. The referee fusses over and does fuck all.

Ivan Bet365 then follows in a shot that Baz comfortably reclaims having palmed it out and clearly goes to leave something on the goalkeeper.  Bednarek gets in his face and the referee decides that that’s worth a booking. Toney is booked as well, thus bringing in the bet he had on Ivan Toney scoring and getting booked.

90 minutes are up and there are seven minutes of extras for all the time wasting but Brentford are really good at it now and the first six minutes of it sees about a minute and a half of actual football as the referee does fuck all.  In desperation, we throw everyone forward with one minute to go and Baz’ goal-kick is met by a Brentford player, then flicked on by Toney and Wissa has a free run at goal and draws Baz out before slotting it past him. 2-0. Mass exodus. There should of course be about another four minutes to play, not that it matters but of course, the whistle goes straight away.

Well, we just fucked aren’t we?  Today started as another day of hope, a day when we would win and be out of the bottom three for the first time in ages. However, as usual, when given a clear target to achieve, we absolutely shat the bed on with a typical performance.

The likelihood of this happening started of course with the team selection. It’s a home game against a team that you have a decent shout of beating. Ruben picked a line-up to protect a couple of players with Walcott and Lavia left out, basically to save them for the more difficult game against Tottenham at the weekend. I could kind of see the logic of leaving those two out following the Manchester United game but it cannot be denied that the replacements chosen were a massive downgrade. Diallo is half the player that Lavia is - quite literally. If Lavia was struggling with the after affects of the United game then he shouldn’t be on the bench but if he wasn’t then he has to be on the pitch for us, bearing in mind how a few games he’s got left in a Southampton shirt.

Whereas Lavia will always find space to get attacks moving, Diallo simply does not though the lack of movement in front of him didn’t help him much.  On that score, it was actually the loss of Walcott it was felt most keenly especially when we went behind. Theo, despite his age, has that one thing that none of our other wide players have and that is movement ahead of the ball.  He gets himself into spaces with darting runs away from players. He uses the ball well. I’m not for a second saying he is a wonderful player anymore, but we are dealing with a pretty low bar here when it comes to wide players.

I heard people all around me moaning when the ball gets passed sideways across midfield but you can only complain if there was a forward pass on and the option was not chosen. 99% of the time when the midfielders have the ball, there is absolutely no forward pass on because none of the forwards fucking move. We are so static when our central midfielders have the ball but literally the only pass available is out of the full backs or back to the centre backs. The best central midfielders in the world wouldn’t be able to find forward pass with these strikers.

Elyounoussi has many flaws in his game or one of the worst ones is his lack of movement and he needs to move because he’s not quick enough to beat a player with pace and he’s not skilful enough to beat a player using a trick or dribbling.  He is just there. On the other wing we have Sulemana, who cost us £22 million to basically sign the same player as Sam Edozie, one that works hard, does the occasional dazzling thing on the ball but one who has absolutely zero end product, none whatsoever. He basically can’t pick out anyone with a cross and if it gets anywhere near the goal has absolutely zero composure.  Like Edozie he has a load of potential but potential has to turn into excellence (I sound like a LinkedIn Twat) right now because of where we are.

Che Adams battled away but he was as guilty as anyone of being static and Pinnock and Mee will really have had an easier afternoon. I think we took them out of their comfort zone once at the start of the second half and that was it. The introduction of Tall Paul in the last 25 minutes did little to change things. Again, I think we gave him one cross to compete for but he does look painfully out of his depth.

There will be people looking at our January transfer dealings and saying “ I told you so -  Sulemana from a French teams reserves, Onuachu from the Belgian league, Bree from the Championship, Orsic from the Croatian league… What impact of any of them had? I think we all had reservations about all of them.  Charly Alcaraz has contributed well but we kind of needed more than 1 out of 5 to hit the ground running.

Brentford didn’t have to be any good to stop us scoring. Once they went ahead with the free-kick move, all they had to do was remain organised and we had absolutely nothing. We completely wasted the half hour following going behind and for a team that needs as much time as possible to get the ball in the opposition there, that’s not good enough. Yes we have tightened up the defence and we needed to do that but when we get relegated, it’s going to be because three managers this season have not come up with any plan for the attacking third of the pitch. Surely movement off the ball is a coachable thing?  Since the World Cup we have scored seven league goals, five from JWP, of which most are free kicks and two from Charly Alcaraz. You don’t stay up with the lack of contribution we are getting from everyone else. Ultimately the reason that we couldn’t beat 10 man Manchester United was because we couldn’t stick the ball in the net and the reason we didn’t get anything out of the game today was because we couldn’t create anything and stick the ball in the net and ultimately the reason we will get relegated is because… You know the rest.

As if today couldn’t get any worse, there was another hamstring injury for KWP, one of our few genuine Premier League level players. With AMN being injured, the next cab off the rank was James Bree who seems to struggle regulating how hard he kicks the ball. He can ping a diagonal 60 yards from one flank to another but when it comes to getting any quality on a cross then it’s the knee-height dribbler that doesn’t reach.  Statistically though…

Thomas Frank, the manager who we should’ve gone all out to get when we appointed Nathan Jones, summed us up in one sentence and his post-match interview when he said that we were decent between the two penalty areas but the game is won in both boxes. Mic drop, the end.

In a week where consistency of refereeing has been questioned, we had a great one today involving the goalkeepers. David Raya threw his toys out of the pram because he got challenged by Tall Paul. It wasn’t a foul, it was just an aerial challenge. No one got booked. Ivan Toney takes a kick at Bazunu on the ground and Bednarek gets annoyed about it and Bednarek gets booked.   Also, there were seven minutes of injury time to be played and whilst ultimately Brentford scored again to make it irrelevant, the first six minutes out of the seven saw the ball in play for about a minute and a half as Brentford employed every Mickey Mouse time wasting trick in the book. There should’ve been another three or four minutes after Brentford scored the second goal, not that it would’ve made any difference.  If we had played until I had walked back over the Itchin Bridge in the rain and got back into my car, we still wouldn’t have scored.

Still, a win against Tottenham and we will have a little bit of optimism again but make no mistake, today was an absolutely major blow. We had an opportunity, and we blew it. We will not be getting many more opportunities and with a depressing manner of this defeat, I don’t blame anybody for preparing for the inevitable.


Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Premier League Match 26 - Manchester United 0 Southampton 0

 

KWP Waits for the Racism to Descend

As is always the case, the fixtures are now starting to get tough with a trip to Old Trafford, which is never the easiest place to go of course.  If United don’t get you, the referee and VAR often will. There is much to dislike about United but from my point of view, most of that comes from enduring their 20 years of success under Sir Alex Ferguson. The last 10 years has been amusing because the social media age provides a wonderful insight into the sense of entitlement of a large percentage of their supporters. They lost rather heavily last week and the carnage was amazing.

As we were basking in the glory of our win against Leicester, the following day saw Manchester United travel to Liverpool and it was with great amusement that we all saw them lose 7-0, in a style of capitulation manner that was only too familiar to us. They didn’t go full-Southampton in that they didn’t have anyone sent off and didn’t lose by nine. They of course should’ve had one or two sent off but you know, referees and United.  Put it this way, if a Southampton player shoves a linesman today, expect him to get sent off. Yep, that 7-0 defeat highlighted to the world what everyone knew already and that was that Bruno Fernandes is a massive Rat faced whiny bell-end and possibly the opposition player that fans of the other 19 Premier League clubs, hate more than any other.  Andy Robertson and Bruno Guimaraes might get a few votes but I think this particular Bruno wins.
It’s ironic that they got rid of Cristiano Ronaldo because of his bad attitude but they kept Bruno and made him captain, even though his attitude is demonstrably worse. Fernandes of course, because he’s a Manchester United player, gets away with absolute murder. Remember the game out there a couple of years ago when he took a swing At Oriol Romeu. Pathetic little wanker. A week before the 7-0 defeat, they had won the Carabao Cup against Newcastle, who of course progressed at our expense from the semi-final. Newcastle turned up at Wembley, lost 2-0, didn’t have a shot and went home. It’s hard to imagine that we would’ve done less than that if we had got to the final.  Today will be a chance to prove that I guess and whilst you could never rule out the chance of getting absolutely battered at Old Trafford, we have to go in there believing that United are not invincible and that we can cause them problems.
Erik Ten Hag is in his first full season as United manager and he didn’t get off to the best of starts with the most notable result being a 4-0 defeat at Brentford. That turned out to be Cristiano Ronaldo’s last game and since then, United have undeniably picked up, helped by about £200 million worth of new signings. One of those, Casemiro, filled the chasm that they have had for the last few seasons in the centre of midfield. He has been truly exceptional since he arrived though he did somewhat to go missing when they were getting smashed at Anfield last week. Other expensive signings like Antony, have not been so successful despite having undoubted ability. He was signed for about £90 million to play on the right wing. Last year they spent £80 million on Jadon Sancho to play on the right wing. Lisandro Martinez has been an interesting buy. The 5 foot 9 centre back has had his critics but let’s face it, he’d be better than Harry Maguire even if he's 4 foot 6. Everyone has been lauding Ten Hag’s work this season and whilst I admire him for making the decisions that had to be made regarding Ronaldo and Maguire, I do laugh when he’s painted some sort of managerial genius when he has one of the most expensive squads in history at his disposal and he’s just spent another 200 million on it. United’s resurgence has been built on the back of a home grown player who didn’t cost a transfer fee with Marcus Rashford being on an incredible run of goal scoring form since the World Cup. It’s too simple to say stop him and you stop United but put it this way, he is certainly going to be more of a threat than Wout Weghorst, which might literally translate to Big Carthorse (possibly).
The sub-plot with United is always about the owners, the infamous Glazer family who fired everyone up by announcing that they were considering selling a few months ago but needless to say, the club hasn’t been sold and needless to say, the narrative has somewhat changed and it looks like they may not sell after all. Those poor fans will just have to deal with having £200 million spent on the team every transfer window. When Ruben Selles won his first game against Chelsea, we then went up to Leeds and he picked exactly the same team as a reward, even though Leeds away is a completely different assignment. We beat Leicester at home last week and today is a completely different assignment, so I am really hoping that he doesn’t stick to the same team, particularly in defence. Let’s give it a go today. If we try and defend, we will get beat so let’s have a go, try and attack the full backs, neither of whom are particularly great defensively and put them under a bit of pressure. No one is expecting us to get a point today so let’s give it a go and let’s have Fernandes whining like a little bitch by the time the game is over. In the event, Ruben has gone with the same team that got the win against Leicester apart from Romain Perraud coming in left back with KWP moving over to the right hand side to replace the injured Maitland-Niles.  Ten Hag has left the door open a bit for us by picking Carthorst and a line behind him of Rashford, Sancho and Anthony. This means Bruno Fernandes is playing deeper alongside Casemiro. Definite opportunity there when we win the ball back. Saints comfortably get into the game and don’t look overawed at all but a break down our right-hand side sees Rashford bearing down on Baz who gets down low to make a good one-handed save in front of the lumbering Carthorst.
We are trying to attack, with Alcaraz being at the centre of most of it. He knocks the ball round Lisandro Martinez who in true Argentina fashion, just blocks him and takes the yellow card after only 10 minutes.  Next time, Alcaraz skips past a couple of players on the edge of the box before slipping as he tries to shoot. Wan-Bissaka has a chance to clear it but fucks it up and the ball finds its way to Perraud on the left-hand side and he clips in a superb cross along the 6 yard line and Theo Walcott comes flying into thump a header goalwards but unfortunately it’s straight at de Gea, who knocks it over the bar. A yard either side or downwards and it’s a certain goal.  Shit.

Whilst Theo is not in the team for his heading ability, that’s all that Carthorst is in the United team for, so it’s with great amusement that Shaw slings over a cross and it hits Carthorst on the nosebag and plops down for Baz to pick up.

Alcaraz picks up a ball in midfield and spins past Martinez before playing a lovely ball inside Wan-Bissaka for Sulemana who is away and sees his shot blocked by Varane. It’s Alcaraz again, playing an attempted 1-2 with Walcott but when he gets to the return pass, Casimero comes launching in and clatters him. Anthony Taylor is right next to the incident and is clearly not impressed and a yellow card comes out. Oh, this is interesting, we are off to VAR and Andre Marriner. “Earth calling Anthony Taylor, Come in Anthony…”
“Hi Andre, what have you seen?, dealt with it, yellow”
“Yeah, about that, you see Alcaraz rolling on the ground? Where’s he holding his leg?”
“Err, just under his knee”
“Yeah, Casemiro comes flying in like a lunatic, off the ground, out of control… can you see where I’m going with this?”
“Yeah but he got the ball so surely it’s yellow”
“Hasn’t been in the rulebook since you had a full head of hair mate”
“Shit!  Send me to the monitor to have a look so I don’t look so bad”
“No worries mate”….
[Checks Monitor]
“Fucking hell Andre, he’s landed halfway up his leg”
“Sure does Anthony.  It’s so obviously a red that only a fucking idiot would be able to complain about that”
“Bruno Fernandes is spitting his dummy out”
“I rest my case”

And it’s a red. Off you go you dirty bastard, stop crying.


Casemiro Walks, Shaw Asks if the Referee has any Crisps
It would be beautiful if JWP stuck this free kick in the net. Just beautiful. It is right on the edge of his range though but he goes for it and it flicks off the wall and with de Gea  absolutely nowhere, it drops wide of the opposite post.
We get an early opportunity to see if there will be a levelling-up from the officials and the signs are good as KWP executes a superb tackle on Rat Faced Prick on the right of the penalty area and Fernandes embarrasses himself again with histrionics and gestures and begging.  Such a wanker.

Despite having 10, United are still dangerous, especially when they move the ball quickly and win a free kick on their right hand side when Sulemana hauls down Antony.  Rat Face whips in and Varane meets at the far post but Baz that gets down well to pull off a decent block.   Ten Hag has had a look for a few minutes and decided that he can do without Carthorst and so off he canters to be replaced by Scott McTominay – he of the triple handball incident at St Mary’s earlier on this season.

Talking of handball – Rat Face is in full begging mode again as ABK slips as a low cross comes in and it hits him full in the chest.  Taylor obviously sees nothing in it and nor does VAR but the babies are crying and Shaw thinks it’s therefore ok to kick Walcott up in the air, for which he should get booked but doesn’t.

Half time and lots of whining.  I see about 10 replays of the ABK incident and no angle proves that he handles it, not one.  One makes it look like it’s hits his knee before his chest, in which case, even if the chest was an arm, it’s not handball.  A replay of the Casemiro challenge shows it’s even worse than I originally thought.
Unlike the game against Wolves when we were faced with a team with 10 men, Saints start the second half really well, passing the ball and making United work. JWP feeds KWP who burns past Rashford and gets a cross over, which flicks off McTominay towards his own goal but Wan-Bissaka is stood behind de Gea and clears off the line.

It’s been coming because there hasn’t been one for 10 minutes or so but now it’s time for another classic Bruno Fernandes Rat Faced Prick moment as he gets robbed of possession on the edge of the box by Lavia and carts him over. There is no way any player on this earth can argue that he hasn’t committed a foul there but Rat Face is all arm waving and screwing up face at the referee. In short, he’s a little twat, like a toddler throwing a tantrum in a supermarket.  Everyone looks away because they feel sorry for the parents. Come on James…. stick this one in the net please.

Silence in Old Trafford (which is not unusual on the face of it) and up steps JWP and with his wand of a right foot it’s over the wall and dipping and it flicks off the bar and over.  Fuck.
Alcaraz is off, probably due to last weeks injury and Casemiro’s effort today and Stuart Armstrong on, signalling that we at least want to keep attacking.  Lavia puts Perraud on the left hand side his ball inside finds Sulemana and he dribbles into the box before getting blocked off by McTominay.  Good defending to be fair

It’s more or less the end of Sulemana as he and Adams come off and you guessed it, Chucklevision with Paul and Barry.  United have a corner on the left and it comes in from Shaw and is headed away but Man United win it back and Antony and Wan-Bissaka combine to give the ball away to ABK and he sends Walcott streaking through from half way with Lisandro Martinez the closest player. Martinez has already been booked so Walcott really has to come across the front of him onto his right foot but he doesn’t look confident enough to do that and stays on his left foot and when it comes to the shot, de Gea is equal to it easily enough.
Because of the players United have got on the pitch, they are still a danger every time they attack and Shaw and Rashford on their left-hand side work an opening for Bruno Fernandes to try side footed effort for 20 yards but Baz gets down to flick a hand out and tip it onto the post. Quite brilliant save. I would not have been happy if that fucking rat had scored On our next attack we’re win a corner on the right hand side and work it short to KWP on the corner of the penalty area and as United aren’t really closing him down, he moves across a couple of yards before hammering a shot left-footed which carves away from de Gea, smacks of the post and comes out.  Shit…

United haven’t tried the ‘Pressure the Ref’ trick for a while so Rashford has a go as he runs through on Bazunu, who pulls out of the challenge and Saint Marcus clicks his heels together and hits the deck.  It’s such a pathetic dive that it’s laughable.  How does he not get booked for that?


Dive of the Season

Ten Hag has removed £180 million of averageness with Sancho and Antony being replaced with Garnacho and Pellestri and the former tries to take on KWP and it’s another superb tackle which leaves Garnacho in a heap.

90, 91 – I think we’ll take a point now. The final action of the game is Mara breaking down the right hand side and Fat Boy Shaw sure can’t even be bothered to try and make a tackle so just hacks him down.  He then boots the ball away but Anthony Taylor is clearly had enough of winding up United folk today.
I guess we’re going to have to start with a discussion on whether that was a point gained or two dropped. Personally, I feel that is both. At the start of the season I would’ve certainly thought more with this being a point gained because our need was not desperate. Because of the situation that we have got ourselves into, it probably is two points dropped but then, a point at Old Trafford is never really a bad result. Unlike the game against Wolves a few weeks ago when we were playing against 10 men for an hour, we did at least maintain some kind of attacking threat and there was an intent to go forward even though Ruben pulled that mad Double Chuckle Brothers substitution again. The fact that we didn’t score today was down to a lack of quality on the ball in from the wide areas and the chances falling to players who have no confidence in front of goal, with Theo Walcott being the obvious example of this. It will get lost in the narrative over the sending off but Saints did create some good chances before the red card but as with all the attempts after, including two free kicks, we never worked the goalkeeper enough with de Gea only really been extended once, from Walcott’s header. As I said, a lot of the attacking play floundered on the final ball into the box and Charly Alcaraz didn’t look fully fit, especially after the Casemiro assault. I thought the first substitution, with Stuart Armstrong replacing Alcaraz, was good but as referred to earlier, the Chuckle Brothers substitution added nothing. We didn’t need legs at the top of the pitch in this particular game, we needed more of a goal threat. Mind you, I don’t recall Tall Paul even getting a touch of the ball when he came on for the last six minutes. When he is on the pitch we really do have to get balls into the box and we clearly have no idea how to do that, otherwise it’s a complete waste of any assets he might have. I have to say that I was impressed in the main with Anthony Taylor today. Though you could say the red card was slightly harsh because he got the ball, it was clearly dangerous and his foot connected high up on Alcaraz shin. Though he probably had to give that as a red card, I was impressed that he didn’t even things up or buy any of the Bruno Fernandes remonstration bullshit after perfectly fair tackles. He also didn’t buy the amazing dive by Marcus Rashford though I have to say, I find it absolutely ridiculous that that sort of shit doesn’t even earn you a booking. Fernandes was as predicted, a complete fucking rat, probably brought on today by Ten Hag’s team selection which meant he had to play slightly deeper than the little princess would’ve wanted, which of course became a necessity once Casimero got sent off. I do live for the day when someone just absolutely wipes the little fucker out or a referee just sends him off after 15 minutes or something.


Anthony Taylor Ponders Calling Out Pest Control
It was a good day for the back four and goalkeeper, especially for Baz, whose tip onto the post from Bruno‘s shot from the edge of the box was probably the main thing that earned us a point today. It’s another clean sheet and Bednarek managed to break his shite-decent-shite-decent run of performances. We looked pretty comfortable defensively even when United had 11 because before they made the substitution to bring on McTominay to stiffen the midfield, they had Wout Weghorst up front, who is absolute bollocks. At the end of his career it will list Manchester United as one of his former clubs and everyone will wonder how the fuck that happened. KWP did an excellent job at right back keeping the in-form Rashford very quiet both before and after the red card and Rashford in the end was restricted to one horrible fucking dive to try and win a penalty. As said earlier, I have a bit of a dislike for United, which is mainly down to the entitlement of their fans, players and now, even the new manager.  Erik ten Hag‘s interview after the game was absolutely embarrassing. He was trying to question why Casemiro never got sent off in all the time he was playing for Real Madrid but he’s somehow been sent off twice for Manchester United.  If you don’t know why Erik, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. He has grabbed a player round the throat (against Palace) and connected with a tackle halfway up the shin today. He has totally deserved the two red cards that he has got. Maybe he was running around flying into tackles today because you picked Bruno Fernandes to play next to him so he was flying around covering all the gaps. And as for moaning about United not getting a penalty. You know the rules you fucking idiot. 10 replays couldn’t prove that that ball had hit Bella-Kotchap’s arm so how is it controversial not to give it? Piss off.
United fans are also bitching about two perfectly fair tackles that KWP put in, one on the Rat and one on Garnacho.  This of course leads to the usual United thing whereby if you happen to have any black players in your team, their social media accounts will be bombarded with monkey emojis and other racist abuse. KWP seemed to be the main victim of that but ABK got it as well.  Maybe United could actually come out and say something and condemn this shit but I bet they don’t, like they didn’t two years ago when Alex Jankewitz got it – and of course they won that game 9-0!

Next up is Brentford, followed by Spurs at home which are two games that we are going to have to take four points from to keep in touch. We are looking better now and it’s the first time for a while we’ve strung two half decent performances in a row together and now the challenge is to extend that run to 5 or 6 games to give us a chance. In the short term, a win against Brentford or Wednesday will actually lift us out of the bottom three so that has to be the aim.  If that  happens, it will be interesting to see how other teams react to scoreboard pressure of actually being below the line.