EFL Championship Match 3 - Plymouth Argyle 1 Southampton 2

 

Che - He Has Missed From Closer Before

Two teams in the top six of the infant championship league table take on each other at Home Park, Plymouth today with Saints making the long trip down to the west country. For travelling Saints fans, the Championship this year is a bit of a nightmare because most of the teams are based in the north and it’s a fair hike to travel anywhere like that from Southampton. The temptation is to think of Plymouth as one of the closer games because it’s on the south coast but it’s a fucking long way, virtually the same as travelling to Stoke or Nottingham. The Championship is of course,  much more about match-going fans than the Premier League is, but when Sky get involved, you get a 12.30 kick-off time on a Saturday morning, which is not great for the travelling away fan, assuming that they live in Southampton which most of them in our case, do.  Does anyone who matters give a shit? Of course they don’t.

Argyle got promoted as Champions of League One and have made a very good fist of the opening two games, winning at home to Huddersfield and then getting a very credible draw away at Watford. The home record over the past couple of years has been ridiculous with just three defeats in the last 70 odd games. We will hopefully be a major test of that record this afternoon.

In their opening day win against Huddersfield, notable features of the game were the Argyle attacking players - Ryan Hardie in the middle, Morgan Whittaker, who came in from the right hand side and the Bali Mumba on the left, who scored a brilliant goal.  The other two scored as well so we’re certainly going to have to be on our toes defensively and certainly better than we were against Norwich.   Apparently, Argyle don’t have a reputation for being particularly good at set pieces, which of course is balanced out by the fact that we are absolutely shit at defending them.

With JWP now officially gone, our midfield reinforcements have not yet arrived with Flynn Downes having had his medical put back a couple of days due to illness.  Other midfield news concerns Will Smallbone, who it appears is going to be out for a month or so with the ankle injury picked up against Norwich.

The Photoshop Boys Have Had a Mare

The Romeo Lavia transfer saga seems to be resolved now with him deciding to join Chelsea, which on the one hand is really funny because it makes Liverpool have fucked it royally by pissing about and very obviously letting Romeo know that he was their second choice. It's remarkable that he got that impression considering they were prepared to bid more than double to sign a different player. He and Moises Caceido can have a chat about that at training at Cobham next week. Putting aside the amusement at Liverpool missing out on both players for a second, I find it somewhat surprising that Romeo has decided to join Chelsea, where he at best will be part of the rotation of the squad. The reason he joined us from Manchester City was because he wanted to play and he’s going to do that considerably less at Chelsea than he would’ve done at Liverpool. Good luck to him though. A good player who is potentially a fantastic player and who always showed the right attitude when many around him did not. It would’ve been nice to have kept him for a few more years but as with JWP, the club in general getting things so wrong means that it was inevitable that he would leave. At the end of the day, if you look at it clinically, we have signed a player for not very much, we have given him the platform, he has done well and we have sold him on for a huge amount of money. In terms of finance and that particular aspect of the clubs model, it’s a perfect story - basically tripling your money in 12 months.

It also. looks like we may be getting some more money through the door as rumours linking Kamaldeen Sulemana with a move away have gathered pace. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it’s to Monaco, the same team that his fellow Ghanaian Mohammed Salisu has ended up at. In another spooky coincidence, Kamaldeen has an injury which is clearly bullshit as well.  The fact is that the player never wanted to join Saints in the first place and only did so for the money. He showed what he could do in that glorified friendly against Liverpool on the last day of last season but that was more or less it. To be honest, I didn’t even consider him to be a potential squad member for the season. If for whatever reason a move doesn’t happen then there would be the opportunity for him to get his head down and he would undoubtedly be an asset but I don’t think anyone should really hold their breath on that one as it’s another example of a player who joined, who doesn’t really give a shit.

Kamaldeen Injury Update

Back to Home Park in the team news comes through and Charly Alcaraz is nowhere to be found meaning that Adam Armstrong is dropping deeper into midfield and Che Adams starts up front. Sam Edozie has recovered from last week and keeps place in the team. Saints are of course captained by former Plymouth Argyle youth player Jack Stephens.  The expected dangerous Argyle front three of Whittaker, Hardie and Mumba are all in place for what should be very entertaining game.

Adam Armstrong‘s first involvement was to pick the ball up in his new midfield position and turn and head towards goal before he was unceremoniously carted up in the air by a horribly shit challenge by Argyle centre back Scarr.  Agricultural doesn’t do it justice.  The free-kick is in prime JWP territory just to the left of centre but of course, he’s not fucking here so Stuart Armstrong had a go and it’s a decent effort, beating the wall but straight down the goalkeepers throat

We have half a shout for a penalty as Adam Armstrong’s cross is laid-back but by Tella for KWP bursting into the box and there’s some contact but there’s not enough of a challenge there to give that.

Our best chance goes begging as Edozie breaks down the left and squares it across the top of the penalty area to Che Adams who passes on the chance for shot and tries to pass it one more on to Tella but he doesn’t get his feet right and ends up scuffing the ball to the goalkeeper. Bad miss to be honest.

After a keystone cops moment when one Argyle player tries a shot and drills it up the arse of another one, the ball goes out of the left where left back Kessler, picks it up and he lets fly from the edge of the box and narrowly over.  That’s the closest Argyle have come all half but we haven’t been much better.

To be honest, that was a shit half of football. Saints were probably the better side but Argyle had their moments and had a few situations which could’ve been better for them but they lacked the quality on the final ball. Hopefully that continues but we need to do better.

Something has obviously been said at half-time but we are playing with a lot more intensity straight away. The first chance falls when the ball is played out to Edozie on the left flank and he lines of the full-back before going past him on his right foot and he attempts the curler for the far post which goes about a foot wide. Great effort.

Forward we come again with Adam Armstrong carrying the ball to the left of the penalty area before attempting to square it across to Manning but it’s too far in front of him but no worries, as Tella appears between two dithering defenders and smashes it first time left footed past Hazard in the Argyle goal to make it 1-0.  Get in and no, this one didn’t deflect in off of the back of Arma’s head.

And Turf Moor Goes Wild

Having done the hard work and got in front, virtually straight from the kick-off the ball goes out to the dangerous Whittaker on the right-hand side and he’s made more dangerous by the fact that Ryan Manning slips on his arse. Whittaker gets to the edge of the penalty area before squaring it and Hardie has lost KWP and Bednarek and meets is 6 yards out and can’t miss. For fuck‘s sake.

It looks for a second like it’s all going to go wrong as a through ball gets played through towards Hardie on the right and he gets to it before Baz before crashing to the deck.  Something didn’t look quite right with that and sure enough, the referee David Webb hands out a yellow card to the striker. When you see the replay, it’s fucking horrendous as he knocks the ball past the keeper and then drags a leg into him whilst already being about 3 inches off the ground in the full dive position. Absolute wanker.

The mentality under Russell Martin is for the team to keep trying to play decent football, regardless of what’s happened and we now get back on it and some decent play on the left ends with Manning crossing the ball along the top of the penalty area to where Stuart Armstrong takes one touch to immaculately kill the ball, before an almost lazy swing of his right leg sends it goalwards and pinging off the bar and over. Fuck.  Another chance goes from a glorious break out of defence as Edozie brings it away before finding Adam Armstrong who accelerates to the left before squaring the ball along the 6 yard line but Edozie was not quite committed enough to bust a gut to get in there at the chance passes by.

With Joe Aribo and Sam Amo on for Stuart Armstrong and Edozie, we win a free kick right on the edge of the 'D' when a Plymouth defender overdoes it, loses the ball to Tella and promptly trashes him.  With Stuart Armstrong having left the pitch, it comes down to Adam Armstrong to smash the ball through a rather pathetic wall and for the keeper has pulls out a fucking worldie, getting one hand to it and managing to get the ball up and over the bar. Fucking hell.  Hazard the keeper then falls on the resulting corner which caused a bit of a scramble. Maybe it’s going to be one of those days.

All Argyle seem to have by way of threat is Whittaker on the right hand side and he takes advantage of some questionable one on one defending by Manning to cut in onto his favoured left foot before trying to beat Baz at his near post and seeing the ball ping off the outside of the post and away.

Deep into the nine minutes of additional time and Sam Amo is causing problems down the right flank and wins a corner.  In it comes from Ryan Manning, headed up in the air and everyone stands and watches as Adam Armstrong fully commits to the header and it’s going in but Hazard gets a big hand to it but can only push it onto the chest of Che Adams who simply lets the ball drop before knocking it into the net. Plymouth appeal for offside and were off to Stockley Park…. Oh no we’re fucking not because we’re in a proper game now, the lino hasn’t got his flag up so it’s a goal and we can all go mental.

Even after our celebrations and the players dodge the missiles thrown from the home end, it should be nearly done but the referee decides to keep it going, seemingly just for the hell of it.  Baz punches away one ball that comes into the penalty area and after half-arsed clearance by Aribo, Whittaker turns it back in and it looks like they’re through again for an equaliser but Adam Armstrong turns up to poke it behind for a corner. Baz punches that away but Plymouth are still allowed to play on and Baz has to punch it away yet again. It’s a throw on the left-hand side but the ref is still playing ‘next goal wins’ and into the box again but this time, it’s too long and Webb eventually blows the whistle as the ball goes out of play.

Well,we made heavy weather of it but we got the win that we deserved over the one hundred minutes that were played. Che Adams once again proved that he is the Big Dog in this league and we really need to do everything that we can to keep him.  If not then he needs to be replaced with a similarly sized dog.  The post-match narrative was all about the piss-take offer that we had heard from Everton and I found myself thinking that if i was a striker with one year left on my deal, why the fuck would I go to Everton, who play shit football under a dinosaur manager and are probably more likely to be playing in the Championship next year than Saints are? If I was Che, I think I would be seeing out my contract and hoping that I have a better selection of clubs to pick from in the summer.  If he stays and rattles in 30 goals this season, I don’t see how he won’t have better options than Everton for the sake of waiting a few months.

When Saints lined up for the opening game of the season at Sheffield Wednesday, we had what looked like a Premier League level line-up. In between Sheffield Wednesday and Norwich, we had lost JWP and in between Norwich and Plymouth, for different reasons we had lost Smallbone and Alcaraz. It is a major positive in that we have managed to pick up two wins and a draw for our first three games.  It is beyond any reasonable doubt however that we do need to strengthen. We were forced to play our top goalscorer in midfield today which is not something that you want. One injury or suspension at centre back and we have Lyanco in the team and with the way cards are being handed out in this league, that’s a real possibility.  New skipper Jack Stephens, not exactly known for being a hard man, has been booked three times in three games so far.

Today we got the job done despite a pretty nondescript first half and I love the fact that in his post-match interview, Russell Martin picked up on the fact that we had very little intensity either with or without the ball in the first half.  I actually thought it was more noticeable with the ball, where we didn’t seem to have much idea how to create a chance with our centre forward barely touching the ball in the first half an hour. Tweaks to the attacking play will come but we certainly need to get the ball fed into the striker more often. We came flying out in the second half and deservedly took the lead from a lovely finish by Burnley’s Nathan Tella, which was quite out of keeping with the rest of his performance which was largely frustrating.

How many times you heard it’s said that a team is never more vulnerable when when it’s just scored and so it proved, with us taking about a minute and a half to concede from what was I think Argyle’s only effort on target. It all came from Ryan Manning slipping over on the halfway line but once he had done that, the marking in the penalty area was non-existent. We had a couple of half scares when Whitaker cut in and hit the post but to be honest, that was never going to go in and we had the horrific dive by Hardie, for which he was rightly booked. I love it how strikers protest when they have been caught red-handed. He might have scored but he was too interested in trying to drag his feet into the goalkeeper. Wanker.

As we wrapped up the pressure in the last 15 minutes, we nearly scored from Adam Armstrong‘s free kick and would’ve done but for a ridiculous save by Hazard in the argyle goal. Fair enough, that’s what he’s there for. Was an absolutely brilliant save but he couldn't stop the winning goal, which was another beautiful example as to why football is better without VAR as the Big Dog knocked it in. I honestly don’t think it was offside anyway but had we had VAR, we would have had to endure a good five minutes of extra bullshit before any decision was reached.

I Could Get Used to This

It was an interesting day on that score because the referee David Webb was consistent in his inconsistency. We had a shout for a penalty at the end of the first half, and absolutely fucking ridiculous incident where Shea Charles went up for a header, had his shirt pulled, which forced Shay’s arms upwards, the ball hit his arm and the referee booked him. That may well have been a penalty with VAR but it’s no justification to say that you want VAR because at the end of the day this is just an incident of where you want the referee to be better. David Webb also didn’t seem to know that the ball doesn’t have to be out of play before he blows the final whistle when after twelve minutes of the nine in injury time, he allowed Argyle to keep throwing crosses into our box.

Our best player by quite a long way was Shea Charles who dominated the midfield area, apparently with 109 touches of the ball and only giving the ball away five times. Carry on like that and he is going to be some player. He is not as dynamic around the park as Romeo Lavia but he is a bigger physical presence and playing that position it’s all about doing the right things consistently.  Adam Armstrong also had a great game into a slightly deeper position with his work ethic making up for any shortcomings he may have as a midfielder.

Plymouth Argyle were decent and if they sort out their squad depth then they will be comfortably mid-table or higher this season. They are clearly playing for the manager but it definitely seemed like Stephen Schumacher made a few too many substitutions in the second half because some of the players who came on, didn’t really seem to get near the pace of the game. There is no disgrace in that however because believe it or not, our players will be some of the best that these guys have ever played against. Of the three attacking players who were expected to be the biggest dangers, really only Morgan Whittaker stood out. Ryan Hardie scored but had his ridiculous dive and Bali Mumba had a bit of a shocker to be honest, comprehensively losing his battle against KWP who, in mitigation, will probably be the best full-back he’s ever played against.

So, seven points out of nine and at the time the game finished, we were top of the league. Next up is a home game against QPR which is certainly one that should see our home form up and running. Hopefully we will have some more reinforcements by then and Che Adams will have realised that he is onto a good thing here this season.