Tune in for the latest
edition of the popular new game show “What’s the Fucking Point?“. There are
some people out there saying that Manchester City have had a poor season. Yeah,
interesting one that. It’s all relative I suppose to be fair, I haven’t seen
many Manchester City fans screaming and crying in social media videos so I
guess at the moment they are fairly calm about the fact that they haven’t actually
won the league this season, but instead they’ve had a bit of a transitional one
but even in their worst season, City are still favourites for a Champions
League spot.
The usual hope, when you play City at this time of the season is that they have
already won everything and have nothing to play for, but this year, everything
is sewn up for everyone apart from the chase for the European spots and City have
hit form at just the right time to try and ensure they qualify for the
Champions Big Money League next season. Put it this way - they will not be
taking it easy today.
Over the past few seasons when we’ve played them, Saints have quite often given
City a relatively tough game in that we have not completely rolled over and
died on many occasions, but died we have most of the time. Earlier this season
when Russell Martin was the manager, we went to the Etihad and played pretty
well despite going 1-0 down early on. It was one of those rare occasions where
we didn’t give away shit goal and kept possession pretty well for the whole
game and gave City a tough time, even though we of course eventually lost. Pep
Guardiola even said that he would learn things from Russell Martin and Saints,
which must have been the highlight of Russell’s life but unfortunately, the
main thing Pep learned was how to lose five games in a row which really
derailed their season as far as winning any trophies was concerned.
Pep Guardiola is a genius of course and when the book of football is written,
he will go down as one of the true innovators but there’s always a caveat and
the caveat is that he has always managed the best clubs with the most money and
the best players. His style of play is amazing if it works and in our own small
way, we prove that it worked last season, keeping the ball, keeping possession
and in the main Russell Martin was a pound shop Pep because our players were
better than the players that we were playing against in the Championship. Fast
forward a few months into the Premier League and we proved categorically that
you cannot be successful playing that way when the opposition players are
better than yours. Pep developed his
style at Barcelona with players like Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. With all due
respect, he didn’t try and do it with Smallbone, Aribo and Adam Armstrong. Having
spectacularly proved that you can’t do it with inferior pliers, we still
occasionally see those ways creeping into our play now in the way we work the
ball into crossing positions and then don’t cross it and slowly go and look for
a better option on the half way line.
Even Pep goes direct if Erling Haaland is fit. He is fit now typically, which
is great news for our prospects today (said with extreme sarcasm). They also go
long from the goalkeeper quite often and in Ederson they have a goalkeeper who
can ping the ball 80 yards to set up a goal and has done so on four occasions
this season which is more assists than any of our players have managed, let
alone our goalkeepers, though Joe Lumley and Alex McCarthy have provided a few
assists between them, just not at the right end.
Russ-ball is different to Rusk-ball in that we take a lot less chances in
defence but there is absolutely no danger of us giving City the amount of
problems that we gave them at the Etihad, barring a miracle. Now, like then
though, we seem to have no way of getting the ball into our forward players to
actually have shots on goal and if nothing else in the remaining three games of
the season, Simon Rusk needs to attempt to fix that. We need a bit of bravery
about ourselves and I can’t see going into today with the 3-4-3 formation or as
it always ends up, the 5-4-1 formation, is going to fix that lack of goal
threat.
Team news and KWP is out to be replaced by James Bree, which does not fill me
with masses of confidence. We don’t appear to have a striker on the pitch as
neither Ross Stewart or Tall Paul are involved so the front three appears to be
Fernandes, Dibling and Sulemana. I guess Sulemana could be the centre forward
or else we’re doing some sort of false nine bollocks, which of course, has
always been massively successful for us in the past.
City kick off and it’s hilarious. They knock it back to their central defenders
who then pass it back to the midfield players and we’ve all fucked off back to
our defensive third. If ever the opening
30 seconds of a game set the expectations for what was to come, then that was
it.
The same pattern continues as City dominate the ball of course but our massed
defence digs in well and City don’t seem to have that much urgency about them. We concede a free kick on the edge of the box
which De Bruyne (on his farewell tour of course, swings in and Downes gets
there before Bernardo to give a corner away, which we defend well.
De Bruyne is at the centre of things and hits the deck not long after and it’s Big
Les who has committed the foul in the D of the penalty area and somehow gets
gets away with it before De Bruyne curls the free kick narrowly over the bar
and I lament the bygone days of “you’re shit, ahhhhhhhhhhh”
Kovacic gets away in the middle as we
allow them a rare bit of space, and this time, Lesley is definitely getting
booked for the tactical foul. Once again,
City line up the freekick and once again De Bruyne takes it and once again it’s
shit and straight into the wall. In it
comes in again, but it’s all pretty unscientific from City and we defend it
well. As half time approaches and with
Lesley having already been booked, it probably isn’t the best idea for him to
walk in front of a free kick that City were attempting to take quickly but the
referee let’s us get away with it thankfully.
Half time and an appreciative round of applause from the St Mary’s faithful who
are not used to seeing their team play with this much application. Simon Rusk
clearly feels that the biggest threat to us is Lesley getting sent off so he
doesn’t emerge for the second half and on comes Joe Aribo who in my head, is
the better option than Will Smallbone for this assignment. City have brought on Doku instead of McAtee
who has done very little
Foden‘s mishit shot gets the second half on the way and it finds Bernardo in
the middle but once again Saints get loads of players around the ball to
smother the opportunity. If he did us a
favour in the first half by not sending off Lesley, then the referee has
absolutely fucking done us at the start of the second half as Fernandes wins
the ball off of Foden and he takes a good few seconds before giving city the
free kick on the edge of the box. Foden eventually curls it in with his left
foot and the previously anonymous Haaland throws himself at it at back post but
it goes off for a goal kick. Rambo takes
to opportunity to have a shoulder injury, which no one is particularly worried about.
He Could Have Been Killed
Doku is causing problems out on the left but Bree is sticking to his task well. It’s inevitable though that Doku will get past him occasionally and on this occasion, he squirts the ball back to Bernardo who knocks it past Ramsdale but Stephens gets back to aim a wild slice at the ball and somehow manages to get it over the bar. That really could’ve been an own goal and the time-honoured puffing out of the cheeks tells you all you need to know, basically “fuck me, that was close”.
Dibling has had a half decent game but he is replaced with Cameron Archer. This prompts a rare Saints attack as Bree slings in a cross, Fernandes heads it down to Archer, it bobbles back to him and his shot is blocked. The problem with venturing that far up the pitch of course, is that you leave yourself short when you lose it, which we do and City break with Doku played in behind THB but Ramsdale anticipates superbly to come flying out of the goal to grab the ball before Haaland gets to it.
I’ve been watching the game, as I always do against the Super League clubs, and thinking about the ten minute markers. We’ve now reached 70 minutes and the fact we are still at 0-0 is a good feeling. However, we were here against Aston Villa and managed to lose 3-0 so let’s not get too excited just yet.
A corner from Foden and header from Akanji, and Ramsdale has to make his first save in the afternoon, comfortably pushing it away. City are beginning to create more chances now and Haaland gets through on the inside left channel. Bednarek manages to stay with him but Haaland pokes the ball across and City subs O’Reilly and Silvinho can’t add the finishing touch as they pile in with Welington. The City tactic of crossing deep to the back post has seen many balls go straight out of play but De Bruyne gets one right and Haaland keeps it in at the back post and Silvenho brings a save out of Ramsdale, but in truth, it was probably going wide anyway.
Another 10 minute marker goes by (80), and another (90) and the fucker with the board holds it up and it’s got a big red 7 displayed on it. On first viewing that looks harsh but there has been a lot of substitutions and we’ve been wasting time like bastards since half-time. We’ve all got used to the pattern by which we make substitutions and make the team weaker and at this stage there seems very little need to make any more changes but we do with Sulemana coming off for Stewart and Welington being replaced by Manning. De Bruyne tries to slide a ball through to Silvinho but it gets cut out by Fernandes who then seems to cramp up and collapse and the ball drops to city substitute Marmoush, who hits an instinctive snapshot towards the back post and it crashes off the bar and away. Fuck me that was close.
Fernandes has cramp and has to go off and Smallbone comes on for the final couple of minutes. His first involvement is to win the ball out on the right hand side and knock it forward to send Archer scampering into the penalty area and as we dream of the last minute, total shithouse undeserved winner, Archer can only shoot tamely at Ederson, who pushes it wide. Just when we get excited about potentially having a corner, of course it’s offside.
The seven is up but the wanker won’t blow and he’s going to let City have one more attack. De Bruyne has the ball in the centre circle and knocks it forward and Ramsdale grabs it. That should be enough. Rambo launches it and still we go on but one more challenge and that’s the end. Fuck me, we got a point. The release of tension from the crowd is huge and in the context of this absolutely appalling shite season, this result is massive.
Ruben... I'd Have Had More Chances Wearing This Shirt
And relax. Brilliant. Finally, the team played with pride for the badge and worked hard for 97 minutes and got what they deserved in the end. Brilliant stuff. That’s all I’ve wanted all season really, for the team to play from the first whistle to the last and not given an inch. Yes, we offered absolutely fuck all in the way of attacking threat and more on that later, but when you’ve only got 11 points and you’re playing against Manchester City, then it’s not really about your attacking threat. It would be nice to have some, but unless you have that hard work and that diligence and that willingness to defend, then you’re going to have a fucking bad day. No one would’ve predicted that Saints could’ve stuck to a game plan and got to the end, especially with having to empty the bench.
Not What We Wanted to See: Doku vs Bree 1v1
Simon Rusk got the early substitution of Lesley Ugochukwu completely right because he was cruising for a red card and giving Joe Aribo half a game is much better than giving Joe Aribo fifteen minutes at the end when he never gets up to the pace of the game. Flynn Downes was again combative and exactly what we needed in the centre of midfield and Fernandes and Dibling both worked hard with very limited possession and very little scope to dp anything with the ball. Sulemana was there as well. To be charitable, he was not great as a central striker. As a winger, he doesn’t have to make that many decisions but he still, always makes the wrong one. In the middle of the pitch however, you have too many options and too many decisions to make and it just showed him up as someone who really has no football intelligence whatsoever. Once in the first half, he got isolated against Kovacic, City’s slowest player but instead of taking him on he turned backwards and shied away from the dream scenario. We looked so much better when Ross Stewart came on, when a couple of things connected up front and City actually had to worry about us, if only for a bit. Rambo in goal didn’t have much to do to be perfectly honest until the last 10 minutes when he made a couple of routine saves and also showed really good anticipation to see off a couple of situations, with City bearing down on goal.
Bye-bye Ruben
The headlines after the game were made by Ruben Diaz who basically made a complete prick of himself by complaining that Saints didn’t try and play and wasted time and all that shit, like we were supposed to compete with our Championship level players against their billion pound squad with 115 charges and play an open expansive game get absolutely fucked over. Go fuck yourself Ruben. This is from a guy who plays for a team that practically invented the break-stopping tactical foul, and he also plays for Portugal, who are right up there in international football terms when it comes to diving about and basically cheating. This was also from a guy who praised us earlier in the season after we got beat at the Etihad. They respect you if they beat you. There has been a pretty universal outpouring of ridicule for Mr. Diaz since his comments were made. Basically anyone who is not in the Manchester City fan Bass thinks he’s a twat and those City fans who remember getting relegated to League 1 in the 90s will also think he’s a twat. I even think there will be members of his own family who think he’s a twat.
So, having secured the POINT OF DESTINY, we now have 12 points - onwards and upwards. Yes it’s fine to make sure that Robbie Savage keeps his record but with us being relegated for ages, it is all about moments and individual matches and we pulled it out of the bag today. Fair play to the players and manager for getting something out of this game and giving us as supporters something to be proud of. Yes, some sections will criticise us celebrating getting a 0-0 draw and only being on 12 points but it’s not about that, it’s about the team giving us something tangible and a bit of pride back, after a shitshow of a season.
Everton away up next and there is a parade to be rained on.
Up the fucking Saints.
Spot on as ever.
ReplyDeleteWould have been interested in your view on the ridiculous foul given against Dibling when he beat a couple of the City players