FA
Cup 4th Round and Burnley at home, a team currently residing in the
automatic promotion places in the Championship and part of the same yo-yo group
of clubs that is rapidly forming beneath the ringfenced Premier League Seventeen.
The yo-yo teams include Leicester,
Ipswich, Saints, Burnley, Sheffield United, and probably Leeds… Too good for
the Championship, nowhere near good enough for the Premier League.
Last time around in the Championship, Burnley blitzed their way to the title
under the management of Vincent Kompany, by playing possession based football
and generally being very entertaining. When they got to the Premier League, they
tried to play the same way, with players who weren’t good enough to do it at
higher-level. Sound familiar? They too have changed their style completely and
now have the super pragmatic Scott Parker as their manager and are currently in
the process of trying to bore everyone to death, including their own fans, in
getting promoted. Ten 0-0 draws have blighted
their season and they must be testing the patience of every Burnley fan. You know how it goes, you can have shit
performances but get results and people will tolerate it but the moment you
stop getting results then there is absolutely nothing to keep the fans on your
side. I kind of feel that if you are one of the
yo-yo clubs, you do need to provide some entertainment in the Championship
because your fans have usually just endured a horribly shit season in the
Premier League and are looking for some respite. Burnley have had a shocking season last year
and this year at a lower level, it’s a bore-a-thon.
League form is largely irrelevant today. Burnley have only let nine goals all season
but you can expect precisely none of the regular goalkeeper and back four to be
playing today, because for Burnley it is all about promotion and rightly so. They had a midweek game a few days ago and
they’ve got one straight after today’s game as well, so this game would be a
low priority for every manager, let alone a risk-averse one like Scott Parker.
There are many connections between the two clubs in terms of players but when you
look at it, we’re unlikely to see anyone playing against their former team. It would be a shock if Nathan Redmond made a
rare appearance for Burnley after virtually two years of being injured and
unlikely that Jack Cork will take time off from coaching Burnley under-21s to
have a run out. Jay Rodriguez would have
played in this game, but he moved to be an extra in Deadpool 4 at Wrexham in January.
On our side of things, Charlie Taylor won’t be making an appearance for us I
wouldn’t have thought and nor obviously, will Maxwel Cornet, who has gone to be
shit somewhere else on loan? THB is
unlikely to play today after his ‘injury’ last week. Do we still talk about #FreeTella? Let’s not.
Ivan Juric seems to not give a single shit about resting players for the FA Cup
and you can expect Saints to be strong today, though having picked up a couple
of injuries in defence last week, it will be interesting to see who he brings
in. Bednarek and Bree are certain to
play in the back three and the other one probably should be the lesser spotted
ABK, though Nathan Wood is apparently fit. I hope that one of these options or
Ryan Manning is used ahead of Joe Aribo starting there. Kamaldeen Sulemana and Tyler Dibling will be
in contention in the attacking positions though I would expect them to be kept
back until the second half.
It's rare that a team is in a position where the league campaign doesn’t matter
much, and they can really go for it in the FA Cup but that’s where we find
ourselves with the league position being what it is. Having won last week though and with no game
until next Saturday, I expect Juric to treat this as if it was a Premier League
game and pick his best possible side to win it. Momentum is key, especially with this being the
first of three successive home matches and after beating both Bournemouth and
Brighton, we’ll be talking about the Greatest Escape, not.
Aha… completely wrong on the team with both Kamaldeen and Tyler starting. Tall Paul is on the bench which means no
actual striker. Manning has indeed been
brought in to the back three and once more, there’s no place for Flynn Downes
on the bench which is not good news. At
a quick count, Burnley have changed eight players so this is definitely there
to be won.
At kick off, it’s obvious that it’s not Manning who is the left central
defender but Welington, which seems like unnecessary dicking about. The new man is called into action straight
away as Burnley breakdown the right feed the ball across and with no one near
him, Benson drills it past McCarthy but Wellington gets back to clear it off
the line, straight back into the grateful arms of the goalkeeper.
Saints first effort comes from Sulemana picking up the ball and doing what he
does, turning and running at the defence. He’s clearly fouled as he beats the
second player but the ref doesn’t give it and the goalkeeper produces a shit
clearance out to Manning, about 15 yards out but unfortunately it’s on his
right foot and the keeper blocks is effort which loops up in the air falls down
to Dibling his volley is a bit of a shin-roller and is going wide anyway before
it was cleared.
In the centre of midfield Burnley have Hannibal Mejri, who used to play for Manchester
United and he’s obviously got that United favouritism going on with the referee
as he fouls at will and gets away with it. However annoying he might be though, his
energy in midfield is stopping us doing anything much.
We are not bossing the game at any point though and long ball up towards the
lumbering Ashley Barnes, who hooks it over the top the defence and Sarmiento
and Bree are competing for the ball until Bree predictively does fuck all and
Sarmiento goes through and drills the shot straight at McCarthy who makes a
decent save.
Half time and that was a shit half of football. We really don’t look like we have much idea of
how to break them down and to be honest, Burnley have been the better side. At
the moment, this is just looking like one long old afternoon.
We start the second half of a little bit more energy. A quick throw by Jimmy
Champo finds KWP down the right his low cross squirts along the line to Dibling,
who lays it back to Manning but it’s on his right foot again and he drills it
straight at the keeper.
The period between 47 minutes and 75 minutes passes with nothing happening.
Burnley seem happy to play for extra time and we seem absolutely incapable of
winning it. Aribo is trying to make
things happen by dropping deep but when he does that, there’s no one to pass
too further forward, and we are just going sideways and backwards and not going
anywhere.
Tall Paul comes on for the lifeless Tyler Dibling but nothing much happens. We
don’t change our style of play in keeping with the fact that we’ve brought on a
giant striker to replace a winger. This is really looking increasingly clueless. Someone
like Lallana could be useful, but of course, he can’t come on because the game
might go to extra time and he can only play five minutes.
Burnley attack down the left with Sarmiento. His shot is blocked up in the air
by Bednarek,. Hannibal is the only player to react and he lays it across the
goal for Edwards to take a touch three yards out and smash it into the net.
Fucking embarrassing but not surprising.
With 13 minutes plus extra time to go, there is zero prospect of an equaliser
unless something changes. Nothing does
for the first ten and then it’s Smallbone on for Ugochukwu. Another five minutes of nothing and with a
whole four minutes to go, Fernandes and Sulemana, probably our best two
attacking players, are off for Gronbaek and Archer and Burnley bring on Nathan Redmond for a few minutes. We do nothing to try and get a goal - no crosses into Tall Paul and
no urgency. At one stage we have six
players on the left and we plod about before passing back to Bednarek, then
back out to the left and then back again.
Slow, passive, shit. The four
minutes extra are soon up and we cross it into the box and out for a goal kick.
The keeper smashes it up the middle and
that’s the end of that. Dreadful
Well, what a load of absolute shit that was. Absolutely fucking clueless from start to finish. A deserved defeat against Burnley reserves and all done in the most clueless way possible. Burnley scored with fifteen minutes to go and in that remaining fifteen minutes we put two balls into the box that were both shit and that was it. No urgency, no plan no substitutions that made any difference, no changes in tactics.
Oh yes, the tactics. three at the back against teams that we should be beating at home is 100% not the way to go and the worrying thing is that Juric would want to play this way in the Championship. Fuck right off. In our history, Saints have successfully played three at the back once I think, in 1994 under Alan Ball. It’s actually okay if you are looking to be defensive if you are looking to attack then forget it.
With no Tall Paul in the lineup today we needed to pass the ball through the thirds and get the ball into the feet of the attacking players or into the channels. That was made more difficult by some weird tactical shit going on meaning Joe Aribo dropping into the back three and no one taking his place in midfield which meant that Big Les was the only person you could possibly be passed on the ground if you wanted to go forward. If you’re only playing with a two in midfield then they both have to fucking be there. So, if Les was marked, then we were left with playing Russ-ball, passing it along the back six as was. When Aribo did drop into that position, Wellington went wide and Ryan Manning might as well have gone for a piss, because he never got the ball and was never involved. Fucking shambles. Maybe stick to the basics?
Even when we were slightly brighter in the first half, Burnley still looked the more likely to score. This is Burnley by the way, who bore everyone to death on a weekly basis. They forced more saves out of McCarthy than we did out of their keeper. If Burnley had been more inclined to pull the trigger from the edge of the box then the margin of victory probably would’ve been more. It was just so shit.
Tyler Dibling was very quiet today and Sulemana was bright in some passages of play but there was no end product as per usual. Matty Fernandes spent most of the game in front of the ball and not being given it, as marginalising your most creative player with your tactics is always a good move. Fernandes still managed to be one of our best players along with Welington. Big Les was ok, as was Bednarek, but it’s slim pickings.
The starting lineup was weird. I could’ve understood if he played Manning as the left side is central defender but putting Wellington there seemed completely unnecessary. On top of that of course, the ’no centre forward’ thing does my head in.
Substitutions were once again done on rotation with no thought about changing the game and either trying to force openings while it was still 0-0 or getting back into it when we went behind. We didn’t try two up front at any point and didn’t do anything. I get annoyed with people leaving early on a regular basis but once the goal went in we all could’ve fucked off because the game was done we had nothing that was going to open up a well organised defence.
So, in conclusion, that was a majorly bad day for Ivan Juric and if you made me decide right now, I would not have want him to be our manager in the Championship next season. As we discussed a couple of years ago, in the Championship, you have to go out to win 25 games and you’re not gonna win 25 games playing three or five at the back and not having the faintest fucking idea how to attack.
I guess one positive is that the pricing that was put in place for this game meant it was only 17,000 empty seats this time round instead of the 20,000 we had in the last round, so that’s a win. Slow handclap everybody. I cannot blame anybody who didn’t go. The 17,000 who didn’t occupy the empty seats were the lucky ones today.
There was a chance today to build some momentum and get a second win in a row before two successive home games against Bournemouth and Brighton but momentum is for other teams, certainly not us. We are like the coyote in the roadrunner cartoons. Just when he thinks he's winning and in danger of actually doing well, he falls off a fucking cliff.
In his press conference after the game, Ivan actually said that he thought we played well and he had no problem with the way we played. Fuck off mate. That was absolutely fucking shit if you’re still there with a turd in your hand and everyone can see that it’s a turd in your hand, don’t try and gaslight everyone into thinking it’s something else. It’s a fucking turd mate, If you think that’s a good performance then you can fuck off.
After he had come out with that little gem, he then got asked about Flynn Downs continuing absence from the squad and basically said that he had had a shitty attitude and we had turned down an escape from the club in January, presumably to Ipswich. There are lots of angles to this of course, but basically Flynn has been a massive disappointment this season. I wanted him to be our Roy Keane midfield general who is going to drive the standards of all the other players in the team but he’s been pretty poor, not helped admittedly by Russell Martin trying to make him lead the press in midfield and also be the deepest midfielder protecting the defence at the same time. His performances under Ivan Juric have so far been absolutely shit. He was part of the capitulation late against Manchester United and he had that first half against Nottingham Forest where it looked for all the world that he was trying to get himself sent off. I wonder if that game was straight after the tantrum. It looks like Flynn is being a dick but regardless, I really don’t see the benefit of going public with this from the managers point of view.
So, our stalled momentum takes us into next weeks league game is against Champions League chasing Bournemouth. What a fucking sentence that is.
Up the fucking Saints
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