League 1 Minus 10

NPC Match 31 - West Ham 1 Southampton 1

2012-02-16T00:26:00.000Z

Before he was Fat Sam....

Off to play West Ham at the Boleyn Ground on a Tuesday night for possibly the last time. West Ham are now owned by the Gold and Sullivan Dildo Factory who are intent on moving the club to the Virtually Free Olympic Stadium in time for next season. Their fans don’t want that but when has what the fans want mattered. If they do move to the Olympic Stadium and if Fat Sam is still manager then the ball is only going to be in play for about 5 minutes of the 90 with all the time that will be spent getting it back when it’s bouncing down the athletics track after another hooooof forward. Better get permission to use the multi-ball system.

In other news since the weekend, The Skates have announced they are applying for administration, as if they weren’t in it already. If the courts accept, the Skates will be able to pay the leccy bill and pay Tal Ben Haim his £38k a week and all the other bills they’ve racked up since their last administration, all those years ago. I don’t see what difference this makes as they’re currently not paying the 20p in the £1 they agreed last time and after this administration will probably not be paying the 4p in the £1. The courts will just agree a new lower figure for them not to pay.

Nigel has obviously been reading his ‘Positive Management’ handbook again and not named a keeper on the bench which just gives me the shits. If you want to be positive then don’t put a defender on the bench – we can cover that as Corky, Deano and even Morgan can play in defence. Is Frazer any good in goal? The whole 16 is the same as were on duty against Burnley and I guess the only question was would Punch get a start in view of Guly’s fairly regular Away Day Disappearing Act.

So it’s 1st v 2nd and interesting to see who makes the faster start. Within 40 seconds we know the answer to that one as Foxy and Jos combine to get in each others way when trying to head clear thee first hoof forward of the evening and the ball falls to Vaz Te who hammers in a shot from the edge of the box and Superkelv has to be alert to make an excellent tip round the post. Now we’ve woken up and get a foothold but the next chance is also dressed in Claret and Blue as Faye heads down a corner and following a Superkelv spill and a bit of a scramble, Reid manages to scoop it over the bar when it looked easier to score.

There’s another let off as the ball appears to Hooiveld on the hand – in fact there’s no ‘appears’ about it, it’s a definite hand ball and we’ve got away with one there as the big man almost catches it one handed before hiding his hand behind his head with perfect comic timing. Despite our best efforts, we reach the 18 minute mark unscathed and then it all kicks off as Noble has a little dive in the box in the vicinity of Billy Sharp and the ref gives a penalty. Billy’s not impressed and voices a few opinions to Noble, causing narky ex-Skate Matt Taylor, all tats, stupidity and attitude to get involved when it’s nothing whatsoever to do with him. He has a push at Billy’s face and makes it easy for the ref as Billy goes down in a fashion which is a bit too Adam El-Abd for my liking. After it’s all sorted and the thick Skate has walked off, Mark Noble takes his ill gotten gains and converts the penalty as Superkelv goes the wrong way. So, on the debit side we are 1-0 down, on the credit side we have 70 minutes against 10 men.

Fat Sam takes off midfielder Collison and brings on a replacement left back and let’s just say it’s obvious we’re going to spend most of the next 70 minutes waiting for the ball to return to earth. Slowly but surely we begin to assert ourselves and really should have been level on 35 minutes as Green makes a bollocks of an Adam Lallana shot from the edge of the box and fumbles it out to Sharp who manages to hit it straight at the prostrate Green instead of at the big wide open thing with a net on it. Aside from the obvious benefit of equalizing, it would have been great to see the reaction if the villain of the piece had scored.

The remaining 10 minutes of the first half are one-way traffic towards Robert Green and if West Ham can’t hoof the ball then they hoof the player and from one of many free kicks in their half, Sir Rickie clears the wall and just about clears the post as well. Green showed up well when he pulled off a superb save to deny Sir Rickie after a Lallana shot had been blocked into his path. Why can’t Green play like he did for England in the World Cup when he was shite. The last action of the first half is a deserved booking for Lallana for having a Noble in the West Ham box when he’s obviously not as good at it. Half time and 1-0 down.

The second half starts with 10 minutes of nothing and Nigel has had enough and Guly is out of here to be replaced by Jason Puncheon who immediately makes a difference as Nigel tries to stretch West Ham out by trying the alien left footer on the left, right footer on the right ploy. Our next chance was set up by Adam Lallana but he made the mistake of passing to Jack Cork who has taken over from Morgan as the midfielder least likely to score. Needless to say – he didn’t score.

It’s all Saints as Punch has a shot deflected wide and Adam fires a shot just over. Fat Sam decides to freshen up his side with Nicky Maynard (who has already won two games against Saints this season) coming on in place of Carlton Cole as the striker in the 8-hoof-1 formation that West Ham are now playing. They re-establish their number of ex-Skates by bringing on Gary O’Neil in place of Vaz Te.

Saints are still threatening and in the 70th minute comes the moment we’ve been waiting for as Foxy slung in yet another free kick onto the head of Sir Rickie who headed it down to where the lurking Big Jos tooka touch before poking it under Green and into the net for 1-1.

Nigel pulls a strange one a few minutes later as our reserve keeper has to come off with what looks like a hamstring injury to be replaced by Connolly who goes into midfield with Corky dropping to right back.... hmmmmm, not sure about that one. Turns out that Nigel wasn’t sure either as five minutes later Deano came on for Sharp and we looked like a balanced side again.

To be honest, there weren’t many chances in the last ten minutes with Maynard fastening onto a Big Jos slip and forcing Superkelv to tip over and Saints winning a couple of corners but doing nothing with them aside from giving Rob Green catching practice. Final whistle – all over.

Though we played 70 minutes against 10 men, I’m happy with a point. In the same way that at the start of the season, I’d have snapped your arm off for 2nd place at this stage, I would have taken a point at the start of this game. Nigel is of a similar mind in his post match interview mentioning that the referee had an ‘interesting’ day and also mentioning West Ham’s record of having dodgy penalties awarded to them at home, mentioning the two against Forest a couple of weeks back. From memory – in their last 3 home games, West Ham have had 3 penalties – all dodgy and scored another goal when they assaulted the goalkeeper first. Still, everything goes against them, which is what you’d think if you listened to Fat Sam.

Fat Sam was his usual one eyed self, saying that the ref was wrong to send off Taylor for a mere shove in the chest and wrong not to give them a penalty for handball. Maybe so on the handball but Sam mysteriously left out that the ref was also wrong in West Ham’s favour when he didn’t give us a penalty in the second half and wrong big time when he fell for Noble’s dive to give the penalty which the Hammers scored from. Of course, in Fat Sam world, the sending off started with Billy’s reaction to the shove by the Skate. The chain of events of course started with Noble diving. If Noble doesn’t dive, the ref doesn’t give a pen, there is no fracas and Taylor probably doesn’t feel compelled to prove how hard he is by getting involved in something which has nothing to do with him. Also, Fat Sam’s teams don’t just hoof the ball forward.... stop laughing.... no they don’t and he gets really annoyed if you infer that they do. Hoooooof!

There is an incredible media bias towards West Ham in any reports you’ll read about this game (apart from this one) as the mainstream media all seem to be West Ham or Spurs fans.. Plucky 10 man West Ham and all that etc. Then you get that Moose idiot from talkSHITE who is demanding answers about “getting a fellow pro sent off” from Billy Sharp via Twitter. I’m sorry mate, Alan Brazil treats you like you’re an idiot on the radio and you obviously are. Why should anyone answer to you? Here’s some questions for you... Why does Matt Taylor get involved when it has nothing to do with him? Why does Mark Noble dive in the first place? I demand that you reply... only I don’t demand anything because I’m not a prick, not all the time anyway.

Hammers fans have obviously been brought up on decent football which they are never going to get under Fat Sam but will probably forgive it if they go up which they probably will and should do, given the Premiership squad they have. What then in the Prem? Constant hoof accompanied by lower mid table and relegation zone. Maybe we’ll be the same but at least we’ll be trying to pass the ball on the grass.

As we managed to get ourselves knocked out of the FA Cup, we have another league game on Saturday at home to Derby who are showing exceedingly average form at the moment making it an ideal opportunity for another 3 points in the quest for the Holy Grail.

Where did he push him Sam ?

NPC Match 30 - Southampton 2 Burnley 0

2012-02-13T22:27:00.000Z

1 Lambert, 1 Lallana, 0 Jay Rods

If we are going to finish in the top 2, it’s pretty obvious that our current form is not going to do it and at some point, things are going to have to change for the better. That point is now with the visit of Moaning ‘Bournemouth for Life’ Eddie and his Burnley side. They have some decent players, especially up front with Charlie Austin, who always scores against Saints and Jay Rodriguez who allegedly turned down a move to us in the summer in possibly the same way that Eddie Howe turned down the managerial post at St.Mary’s. I’m inclined to believe there was more truth in the Jay Rod story.

So, we didn’t sign Jay Rod from the frozen wastelands of the North but we did sign Billy Sharp and he’s making his first start today in what looks a very strong team. Everyone is available and I expect, like I did, that Nigel was scribbling line-ups on a piece of paper from Friday morning onwards. I had Joe Hart in goal but him aside as he didn’t join as an emergency loan, our line-ups would have been the same. Guly was on the right wing in place of the unlucky Punch who dropped to the bench and Big Jos was back to partner Jose Fonte. Frazer Richardson had obviously been practicing goalkeeping during the week as there was no Bart on the bench and there was also no room for Barney, Chappers, Ben Reeves or Yago Falque. Strength.

Before the game we had heard that West Ham’s game at Peterborough had been called off so it was a decent chance to close the gap to two points as well as hopefully put a bit of daylight between us and 3^rd place. 3pm and there’s a decent crowd in place, I have a pop at a few people who didn’t come to the Millwall game with me and freeze to death, the Chuckle Brothers are in the building and the season starts now. Lets go.

Straight away my eyes were on the new boy as Cork found him with a decent ball and Billy was robbed as he went to pull the trigger. Even in the first couple of minutes there was the feeling that we were not going to be fannying around today when it came to shooting. Frazer was getting down the wing well and working well with Guly but his first cross was overhit and landed in the Chapel.

Usually it’s me who does this but today it was the old man who said that “Frazer’s crossing has really gone to pot hasn’t it” which ensured that having taken on the full back and reached the by-line, the cross from Richardson was perfect for Adam Lallana to ghost in off the left wing and flick the header over Grant in the Burnley goal.   I’ve had a regular moan at the standard of Adam’s attempted headed efforts on goal but his was superb. Lovely goal and 1-0 and less than 10 minutes gone.

Eddie Howe must have been starting his post-match misery early as Fox wanted to win the ball more than Trippier down our left and having got to the line, rolled it back to Sir Rickie whose sidefoot blast was instinctively tipped wide by Grant. The resulting corner from Lallana was met by the big man again and his looping header was over Grant and on the way in before it was nodded away by a Burnley defender from under the bar.

Burnley decide that it’s time to try out the grass in our half of the pitch and Tracy fires in a volley from 25 yards which was well hit and Superkelv made it look very very easy as he plucked it out of the air. This was but a brief interlude in Saints attacking play and Sharp fastened onto another Cork pass and just failed to lift it over the keeper but on the half hour it was 2-0 as Sir Rickie picked up the ball on the left and floated a lovely ball over the centre back to Billy Sharp who tried to bring it down as Mee challenged him and somehow the ball ended up in the net. Billy didn’t celebrate like he’s just scored though he did try and tell the ref that he’s got a touch on the way back to the centre. The stadium announcer gave Billy the goal and I guess everyone was happy, especially those who had money on it.

For the rest of the half we were walking in a Sir Rickie Lambert wonderland as he led the rest of the lads in wave after wave of pressure on the Burnley goal. Tracy stopped a Frazer cross with his bollocks which is always amusing when an opposition player is bent double on the pitch and Grant was showing up well in goal though and was very positive in everything he did, even if he didn’t always take the ball cleanly. For all the pretty football and pressure though, we still went in just the two goals to the good.

Half time and the good days of the start of the season were back as we comfortably led and the opposition had all the problems. A great depression could be sensed coming from the Burnley dressing room but to be fair to laughing Eddie, he tried to be positive and brought on two subs to try and get a foothold in the game. The two subs were both ex-Bournemouth players with Marvin Bartley (last seen giving a penalty away here last season and throwing a big tantrum) and Josh McQuoid coming on. Tracy is one of those who has been subbed so maybe his bollocks injury was worse than we thought.

Bartley in particular started the second half well and got Burnley moving forward and giving Corky and Morgan something to think about in midfield. Burnley had a bit of decent possession for ten minutes and forced a few corners but didn’t look like scoring in the slightest as the imperious Jose Fonte and Jos Hooiveld kept Jay Rod and Austin in their respective pockets. The closest Burnley got to scoring was a scramble which McQuoid swung a boot at and missed, enabling Superkelv to drop on the ball.

With Bartley running the show, something had to change and it did when Morgan kicked him up in the air which succeeded in slowing him down and at least avoided a repeat of the Millwall game in the week when we just let their influential midfield stroll about in his own acre of grass. On the hour mark, Billy Sharp is replaced with David Connolly and he immediately looks a different player to how he’s been for the past few weeks. Put it down to competition for places I guess.

Burnley’s brief spell is over now and Sir Rickie is still having a worldy of a game and combines with Corky to set up Lallana whose shot is blocked by Grant who knows nothing about it at all. Sir Rickie then beats the left back and gets to the line, pulling it back to Connolly whose effort is scrambled away for a corner by a desperate defender. A couple of weeks ago I was moaning that no one would have a shot and thankfully that’s all over now. Even so, Guly could have chosen to do something other than whoosh it over the bar from miles out after a 20+ pass ‘take the piss’ move featuring every outfield player and a bit of Ole from the crowd.

The closest we get to scoring again is when Sir Rickie heads a Superkelv clearance past a defender before smashing the dropping ball goalwards from 25 yards. Grant paddles it away to where Connolly meets it and puts it into the net, setting off on a big celebration in front of the Northam – the kind of celebration that makes opposition fans go ‘Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’ when the lino’s got his flag up.

It’s time to run the game down and protect the clean sheet as Guly is replaced with Dean Hammond who comes on to shore up the midfield and to kick Marvin again. The last ten are played almost exclusively in the Burnley half and we have time for a ‘standing ovation’ substitution as Tadanari Lee comes on for Sir Rickie. In the couple of minutes that he’s on, the Man from Japan wins two headers against the much bigger centre backs and fires just over from a Connolly pass. It’s all good.

It doesn’t get much better than that to be quite honest – two early goals and a clean sheet with the opposition barely threatening. If you were being greedy about it then we should have won by 4 or 5 but this win will do very nicely both in the obvious acquisition of 3 points but also in the manner of the performance and the confidence it gives everyone.

There were some great performances out there today starting with Jose and Jos at the back who didn’t give Austin and Jay Rod a kick and by about the hour mark, the pair of them really didn’t look like they fancied it any more. I thought Guly was immense on the wing and did his defensive work as well as being a threat going forward.   Jack Cork had an impressive game showing a decent range of passing as well as his usual industry and Billy looks like a player who will add something to the forward line – I was impressed by his strength on the ball which is not bad for a fat lad from Sheffield (his words, not mine). Talking of Fatty, which is what opposition fans still call him.... how good was Sir Rickie today? Different class.

Nigel was back to normal in his post-match interview after his mini-tantrum during the week, stressing that no goalkeeper on the bench was born from a desire to be positive. I reckon that Bart has a knock and Frazer is a better goalkeeper than Tommy Dismal Forecast. Eddie Howe to be fair to the man, just came out said they were beaten by the better side. He couldn’t really say anything else but at least he’s not acting like everything is against him like he did when he was at Bournemouth.

Rumour has it that Stuart Pearce was at the game today. No one can be sure if he had his Olympic hat on or his England U21 hat or his Caretaker-for-Arry hat.   If it was the U21 hat then Jay Rod was shit so lets assume it was the Caretaker hat and he was scouting for the next England squad. We can therefore expect that Davis, Fox, Richardson, Lallana, Cork, Lambert and Sharp will all get picked. This will be their last chance before ‘Arry gets the job and fills the team with Rio, Frank, Joe Cole and all the other ex-Hammers.

On that subject, we have West Ham away on Tuesday night which in the context of massive games, is pretty large. Win that and we’ll be a point clear at the top and whilst we’d all love that to be the case, anyone who wouldn’t take a draw if offered it now, is mad. Same 11 I reckon with maybe Bart and Chappers on the bench in place of Lee and maybe Aaron Martin. I’m not sure I’d want to go into a game against an Allardyce side with no keeper on the bench. I’m not saying that they’d target Superkelv or anything....

One thing is for sure, Jos and Jose will finish the match with headaches having headed away countless punts forward in a big Sam football masterclass. Wouldn’t you just love us to give them a lesson in the art of the beautiful game? Actually, who cares, it’s about getting a result. If we hoof it up to Sir Rickie all game and win with a goal that Billy tries to claim even though it’s an own goal – who cares.

Come on You Reds!!!!

FA Cup 4th Round Replay - Southampton 2 Millwall 3

2012-02-08T18:01:00.020Z

The wheels on the bus go......

FA Cup reply time and a chance to play in the glorious weather that we get down South after playing in the frozen wastelands of Birmingham a couple of days ago. There must be about 6000 of our fans who’ve not made it back yet from St.Andrews judging by the sparsely populated ground I find myself in. Either that or it’s an indicator that £18 for an adult ticket is too much – how many would be here if the price was a tenner or even less? Oh yeah, I was joking about the glorious weather of the Beautiful South – it’s absolutely Baltic here.

Nigel has mixed and matched the side but it looks strong – Bart is in goal with the regular back 4 aside from Harding who was in for Foxy who was serving his ban for tackling people fairly. Steeeeve and Adam on the wings with Deano and the returning Chappers in the centre. Sir Rickie was on the bench though so up front we had Guly and Tadanari Lee.

Saints start quite well with de Ridder running directly at the defence before eventually shooting well over. There is appreciation in the ground for the fact that we have at least had a shot. As the game settles down there is a worrying pattern emerging in that we are not getting anywhere near them in midfield and Millwall are just popping the ball about without a care in the world. The play gets closer and close to our goal without us making a challenge or even putting pressure on before it gets laid back to Trotter who sidefoots a lovely finish past Bart from the edge of the box. From a Millwall point of view it’s a great goal – lots of passes and then a good finish. From our point of view it’s a shocker.

With it being a Cup tie and all that, of course I have different people around me n the Kingsland even though I have exactly the same seat. A bloke arrives and plonks himself next to me as the clock ticks over to 20 minutes. “Have I missed much?”, he says. In my head I’m saying “Look at the big fucking scoreboard thing” but I settle for “not from us mate” as Millwall break clean through on our right and the winger should score but he scuffs his shot across Bart and wide of the opposite post.

On the half hour it’s becomes apparent that we’ve changed our shape with Guly playing in the hole and de Ridder and Lee playing up front. Lee is being supplied with a barrage of hoofed rubbish which is difficult to control when it’s two metres over his head. The full backs are now charged with providing width but Frazer’s having a mare and basically just booming the ball randomly forward and Harding is just going sideways to the centre backs.

Out of nowhere, Lallana picks up a Richardson pass with a brilliant bit of control and twists himself free in the penalty area before firing in a shot which deflects past Forde at his near post. We haven’t really deserved it but we’ll take it and suddenly, the confidence is back. Firstly, de Ridder gets to the bye line and cuts the ball back just behind the Man from Japan. Steeeve is at it again straight afterwards as he flights a superb cross onto the head of Guly who thumps it towards the top corner only for Forde to take off and pull off a great save in tipping it away....bastard.

The last significant action of the half is Guly trying his hand at defending and proving that he can’t do it as he trashes a forward on the edge of our box and gets booked. The free kick is wasted, it’s still incredibly fucking cold and it’s half time.

I don’t usually bother leaving my seat at half time but I do today for a couple of reasons. One is because I’m a man and the cold weather means that 90 minutes without a pee is impossible. The other is that I fancy a Bovril but there are just two of the kiosks open for the whole of the Kingsland. The queue tells me that it isn’t going to happen this side of the second half so I give up. It’s a ridiculous underestimation of how many kiosks needed to be opened.

I assume Nigel’s teamtalk at halftime featured raised voices and this as proven after 5 minutes. He must have shouted that “The little Japanese Guy needs the ball passed on the ground” and the ref must have heard through the walls as he intercepted a Millwall pass and set Lee on his way to inside the penalty area before he shot just wide. I bet the ref was delighted that he missed or else he was getting an assist.

Lee is at the centre of most things just now and gets chopped over on the left hand edge of the box. Whilst the big men waited in the middle for a chip, Adam catches everybody out including Forde by smashing the free kick straight against the bar and away. Whilst Saints are now the better side, Millwall look very dangerous every time they come forward and Bart has to get down well to tip Henry’s low drive round the post. Bart then starts and finishes a move by taking a shite goal kick with ends up back with Millwall who work an opportunity for Trotter to fire goalwards on the volley and Bart makes a superb save to his left.

Guly is being a clumsy bastard and having already been booked it was unwise to clatter a Millwall player and it was even more unwise to clatter another one in a clumsy long-legged-can’t-tackle-for-shit kind of way. The order came from the bench for him not to go anywhere near the ball while a sub got warmed up and the next time it went out of play, Sir Rickie was on which left us looking a bit odd on the formation front as he went in the hole behind Lee and Steeeeeve.

Sir Rickie's intorduction sees us create more chances though as Lee can;t quite get hit foot round an opportunity that falls to him courtesy of a lucky bounce. Just after, the man himself fires just over having been set up by Lee and then Lallana forcing Forde into a sprawling save from distance. The 'fucking hit it' message from the weekend has clearly got through. Just to prove that they haven't settled for a draw, Kane brings another fine save out of the Bartman, this time getting a strong right hand to deflect it wide.

I was already of the opinion that the linesman on the Kingsland side was useless when he went and proved it by not flagging when the Millwall left back aimed a retaliatory kick at Chappers after Bald Psycho had steamed into a tackle. The ref was blindside so can be forgiven for missing it but the lino was directly in between me and Chappers so he must have seen it. If not then we have a problem but not as much as the bloke next to me who comes back from getting his half-time burger. I make it that so far, he’s missed 60% of the match, a bit like Jack Cork on Saturday.

Chappers has lasted an hour and been replaced by Ben Reeves who immediately makes me realise how far off the pace Chappers was as he sets about making a huge difference with his energy and passing range. The whole team seems lifted and de Ridder sparks to life again and sets up Lee who fires just over this time.

It now looks like it’s coming soon and Sir Rickie picks up the ball 20 yards out before advancing and smashing in a low drive which possibly took another deflection as it sped past the keeper to put us 2-1 in front.

Following the goal, Steve de Ridder appears to be struggling with his ever-present tight hamstring and sits on his bum giving the universally understood “I’ve had enough, take me off” hand signal. As we were in front and all that, I expected a midfielder to come on but instead of James Ward-Prowse, we surprisingly got Lee Barnard who went up front with Sir Rickie and Lee.

It’s turning into a great cup tie as Millwall flood forward but we have no defensive shape at all with the wings being completely open. When we get the ball in defence we fanny around with it and following some fannying by Fonte, the ball is worked out to our left where Aaron Martin completely over commits and gets done and just like the Leicester game when the same thing happened, the cross is right on the money and Dany N’Guessan rises to plant home the header, no chance for Bart, 2-2.

The prospect of sitting here freezing for another half hour of action is at the forefront of everyone’s mind but hang on, we’re in front again as Reeves drives forward, feeds Barney on the 1-2 and slots it in. Offside according to the useless lino who was making his first actual decision of the 85 minutes gone so far? What? Originally I wrote somethign along the lines of 'how the fuck is that offside' but having reviewed the TV replays, it's actually Barnard who is offside when Reeves plays him the ball. Reeves is onside throughout so the previously useless lino has got that one right.... well, that's how it looks to me anyway.

Neither side wants extra time and everyone is trying to get on with it but the ref is having none of it and makes us go back as Bart has taken a goal kick with a rolling ball. Oh the irony in the 92nd minute when Jose gets penalised for winning the ball fairly and Millwall take a rolling ball free kick before the centre back has chance to get back. That said, there is still a lot to do but Feeney cuts inside Richardson into the Fonte sized gap in the defence and smashes a superb shot into the far side of the net, once more giving Bart no chance at all. A minute later it was all over.

Gutted to be honest. Unlike the Birmingham game which was on Sky, this one which wasn’t was a great game for the neutral. Loads of chances, saves, mistakes and all that good stuff which makes you love the game. Ultimately though I don’t care because we lost and we really shouldn’t have. I was happy to sit through another half an hour plus penalties if needed but the referee obviously wasn’t (here I go again!!!). Letting them take a quick free kick off a moving ball having just stopped our keeper doing the same is the sort of inconsistency that drives everyone mad. Having said that however, Feeney had a lot to do and smashed in an unstoppable shot from miles out so fair play to him. It’s not he ref’s fault we lost though – we were shite with no urgency and no real pattern of play.

Nigel was as angry as I’ve ever heard him after the game, going to town on the defending in particular. There were poor mistakes by individual members of the back 4 but the defending as a team was non-existent today. We were playing the diamond midfield though which when you don’t have the ball, really encourages teams to fly down the unprotected wings and where did the last two goal come from – down the wings. In my opinion we should have gone 4-4-2 with Barnard dropping to the right wing, once we went 2-1 up.

Positives – well Chappers got an hour of football, Ben Reeves was excellent when he came on, Tadanari Lee looked dangerous when we actually got the ball to his feet and Steve de Ridder was direct and a handful when he got moving and all the chances we created in the first half came through him – it’s a worry that he seems to always pull up if he plays longer than an hour though. Overall though, I thought Bart was our man of the match, making a string of decent saves and looking comfortable under all the crosses etc. He had no chance at all with any of the goals. His kicking is incredibly hit of miss though which drives me nuts – what do you practice all week?

In the league tonight, we were (kind of) all Skate fans but they lost to an 86th minute goal at Birmingham, meaning the Brummies are now breathing right down our necks. We have Burnley at home on Saturday and we have to win - it’s as simple as that. Today (Wednesday) I’ve heard that Harry Redknapp has been found not guilty of tax evasion. I have just instructed by work to pay my salary into my Monaco account, Comebackyoubastard68.

NPC Match 29 - Birmingham 0 Southampton 0

2012-02-06T22:20:00.001Z

It was a bad day to be a Fox

A sense of optimism had crept over (most of) the fanbase of the Mighty Saints with the second half showing against Cardiff and the signing of Billy Sharp. All positive thoughts are going to be needed today for a game at Birmingham who are steaming up the league like the proverbial train. In addition to the 11 men in blue that we have in front of us – we also have the Sky cameras which up until now almost invariably means that we play in a shite manner. Knowing Nigel’s attention to detail we’ve probably been training this week with the Youth team dressed up as cameramen on the side of the pitch at Staplewood.

Sky also means that the game kicks off at 5.20 so everyone else has played... well nearly everyone. West Ham have managed to beat Millwall despite playing nearly the whole match with 10 men. Their winner featured a rugby tackle on the Millwall keeper which was straight out of the “Big Sam football at its best” coaching manual. Fatso said afterwards that it was his best ever win as a manager, not that he likes blowing his own trumpet or anything. Pompey were having their ‘Pack the Park’ match against Hull, only they weren’t as it was a bit cold so they called it off which is really piss poor when you consider what’s at stake there. I hope they re-arrange it before the court date for the sake of all the fans who have forked out.

I wasn’t expecting too many changes to the SFC starting XI aside from Billy Sharp starting instead of David Connolly and that’s what we got except Connolly kept his place and the new man was on the bench alongside the returning Guly do Prado. Nigel had obviously looked at the blizzard-like conditions and decided that a Brazilian would be ideally suited for this particular challenge.

We of course, duffed Birmingham 4-1 at the start of the season when we were surprising everyone and they were patching a team together following relegation from the Premiership last year. Liam Ridgewell won’t be playing for them as he’s been pushed out to West Brom who are in the Premier League – it really is beyond belief who a player that bad can be in a Premier League squad. They also had the situation facing that other lot in blue in that their owner had been arrested for alleged money laundering and had his assets frozen. Since we stuffed them though, they’ve had a creditable performance in the Europa League before rising up the league on the back of some very good recent results. They still have that accent though...

Working Man’s Club, TV on, Beer in hand, let’s go… oh look, the pitch is white and it’s snowing like a bastard. The referee, Phil Dowd, is on loan from the Premiership which invariably gives you some ‘interpretation’ issues....

The game starts and you can’t see the ball on the TV. It’s not orange like the traditional ‘snow ball’, it’s yellow which just looks like white from a distance. The players are playing upright – by that I mean that it’s like watch a game on an artificial pitch – no one is tackling and everyone is waddling around trying not to fall over. When I say no one is tackling of course, I mean no one except Morgan who demonstrates that he can give free kicks away in the snow as well on a normal pitch with a clumsy effort on the edge of our box. Murphy slams the free kick into Sir Rickie in the wall (bet that stung) and then hoofs the rebound out of the ground. Birmingham create another chance soon after as Spector crosses and the giant N’Daw rises above both Fonte and Martin and glances his header just wide.

Saints seem to get a handle on the conditions at this point and are passing the ball now. Lallana and Punch are showing up very well and combine from a short corner routine which ends in Adam firing in a cross which deflects off a Birmingham player and flies into the side netting.

The next incident involved Fox executing a perfect hard but fair tackle on Burke who squealed like a pig. Over strides Mr Premiership Fussy Bollocks and books him for winning the ball. I can imagine the report when it’s sent in to the FA. “Mr Fox slid in and won the ball – however, Mr Burke performed a triple somersault with pike and made a noise a like a pig being skewered so I therefore decided that I had to book Mr Fox forthwith. Mr Fox needs to master the art of detaching his right leg so it’s nowhere near the player when he tackles with his left foot”.

Nothing much happens in the rest of the first half – we probably have about 70% possession but do nothing in the final third at all and I mean nothing, not one shot on or off target. We’ve played the better football by a mile but Birmingham have had the better chances.

Birmingham start the second half well and nearly score straight away as Marlon King gets the ball from the full back and despite all the women in the club shouting ‘No’, Marlon shoots anyway and Superkelv flies across to superbly tip it past the post. As the club reverberates to a chorus of “She said no”, the corner is cleared.

It’s time for Billy Connolly or more accurately, Billy on for Connolly. Before the new boy has had chance to touch the ball, we clear a Birmingham attack and Fox wins a challenge with Mutch inside our box. Again the Birmingham player goes over in loud fashion, only this time Dowd gives us the free kick. Every Birmingham report I’ve read on the game thinks it was a penalty when you can see clear as day that Mutch swings his leg to shoot, Fox goes in and wins the ball, knocking it away and Mutch continues his kick and boots Danny’s foot. How the fuck can anyone think this is a penalty and in my opinion the referee has got this one spot on.

Billy Sharp’s first involvement with Saints is to fasten onto a Sir Rickie knock down and he should have hit it with his left but tried to cut onto his right and was closed down meaning the chance was lost. I reckon that one way or another, given a proper pitch instead of an ice rink, this would have been in the net.

On come the cavalry with Deano coming on for Corky and Punch, after another good game, being replaced with the man from Brazil, wearing gloves, a hat, tights, ski suit and a balaclava. It’s like Cool Runnings without the bobsleigh. The substitutions looked like an attempt to win the match to me but it all went to shit a minute later as Burke took on Fox for pace, knocked it too far and Fox ill-advisedly gave him a little push. Burke went to ground and slid in the snow on his bum. Whilst the stewards were despatched to look for the sniper, a free kick fair enough but a yellow card – you are having one there ref. Absolutely stupid decision. Foxy realises there’s no point in arguing and walks off.

What the fuck is the game coming to now? What do you know – we get a Premier League ref and we get one of the most ridiculous red cards I’ve ever seen. The first yellow wasn’t even a foul and the second one was a slight push when the winger had already overrun the ball. Yes, it was a foul but never worth a yellow card. With a regular championship referee, even with the idiot we had last week, Fox would still be on the pitch and we wouldn’t be about to play the last 10 minutes with Deano at right back and Frazer on the left.

Having witnessed that – the next action is Guly bearing down on goal and Caldwell cynically takes him out. There is no question and it is 100% deliberate. Yellow card only issued due to their being a covering defender. The point is that he gets a yellow card for an offence which was totally pre-meditated and more of a foul than either of the Fox challenges. Still, we have a free kick from 25 yards out so we can mete out our own justice. Up steps Sir Rickie and bang… no, hang on, it’s a wanky little chip to the back stick which gets headed away…. Aaaaargh!!!

We play out the remaining few minutes without alarm and without shooting, the final whistle goes and we’ve got a point which I’m well chuffed with. I can’t help but wonder though if we’d score more goals and maybe win more matches if someone actually had a fucking shot occasionally. I mean, I love Sir Rickie and all that and I’m sure all Saints fans do but what the fuck was that? A free kick, well in range, snow and slippery shit all over the pitch, we haven’t had a shot all game, last minute – fucking hit it!!!

In truth, no one deserved to win the game, despite what I’ve read on Birmingham slanted reports since the game finished. Nigel had it spot on when he said that we played some great stuff without any end product. There was only one team trying to play football out there but if you don’t shoot, you don’t win. The main performers for us were Superkelv, Fonte and Aaron Martin who all ensured that Brum had very few chances. Punch was the pick of the midfielders again and Lallana was superb in the first half – second half though, I only saw him at the end when he was shaking hands with someone. Billy Sharp had a quiet debut and ended up in midfield after Foxy got sent off. We’ll have to wait for Burnley at home on Saturday before we get the chance to see him and Sir Rickie start a game together.

To the neutral observer, todays game would have been a complete bag of shite which is kind of poetic justice as there is no way that game should have been played nor would have been played if it wasn’t on Sky. The ball wasn’t rolling properly in the snow and if the ball had been slowing up on a wet pitch then it would have been called off due to the pitch being waterlogged. Also, you could see that players were adjusting the way they played to avoid getting injured etc. So it shouldn’t have been played in my opinion though I’m ultimately glad it was. It’s ironic that if it had kicked off at 3pm instead of the latest stupid kick off time of 5.20pm, then all would have been fine as they snow didn’t really come on until 5pm.

Having gone a man down I was pleased to get a point but what is it with refs at the moment. We’ve had a few recently with D’Arsehole at Brighton, that twat last week against Cardiff and Dowd today. Can we have that guy who gave us that penalty against Brighton when Fonte was a yard outside the box – I liked him!!!. To be fair, Phil Dowd got most things right today but the two he got wrong both involved Danny Fox. I don’t care what anyone says – the first yellow card is not even a foul. He’s gone in hard, won the ball and the opponent made a loud noise. I read one report where it was stated that Burke complained to the ref that Fox was deliberately trying to injure him. If that report is true then Burke needs to have a word with himself the pathetic little shit.

Next up is the FA Cup replay against Millwall where I expect to see several chances with the likes of Bart, Harding, Jaidi, Chappers, Deano, de Ridder, Tadanari Lee and Barnard coming into the side. The reward is a home tie against Bolton in Round 5, it’s worth having so let’s get out there and fucking do it.

NPC Match 28 - Southampton 1 Cardiff 1

2012-02-01T22:04:00.000Z

Not a very inventive choice of picture, I grant you...

Monday was a good day. In fact, it was a brilliant day. We finally signed the striker we’d been looking for when Billy Sharp joined from Doncaster for a reported £1.8 million quid. I’m not sure how we managed that considering that we had an offer accepted for £3.25 million in the summer – maybe the media talk bollocks, you never know. Considering the rumoured silly money we’d have to have paid Celtic for Gary Hooper – this is an absolute bargain for a striker who virtually guarantees goals. For what it’s worth, I reckon Nigel wanted either of them and reckon he’d have been happy with either and neither player would have been preferred over the other. It’s an exciting signing and puts me in mind of when we signed Kevin Phillips to partner James Beattie. That partnership was good but not great but hopefully Billy and Sir Rickie won’t have any issues with muffins, drink driving and Vodafone salesmen.

So, for the last league game we had two available forwards in the Gulyman and David Connolly and the following week we have those two plus, Sir Rickie, Sharp, Barney and Tadanari Lee. Hang on a minute... turns out that Billy didn’t sign before the deadline and so won’t be available for the Cardiff game. If he’d signed on loan he could have played but as it was a permanent deal then he can’t. That’s not stupid at all, is it! Well it means that whoever partners Sir Rickie will be busting to have the game of his life or else he’s getting dropped next week. So, lots of options which can be a problem but you’d rather that than the other way round, which brings us onto ..... drumroll..... bu-bmp, tshhhh, Pompey.

News of the Billy Sharp signing hit the web at approximately the same time that it emerged that Pompey had missed pay day for their players and staff for January. It was also confirmed that their bank accounts are frozen and everyone’s favourite administrator Andrew Andronikou was ‘advising’ on transfers which is very strange when you consider that he’s not the administrator for Pompey and Pompey are not in administration. Andronikou’s involvement is expected to ramp up over the next few weeks and he’s down to partner Jamie Ashdown at centre back if they sell all their decent players.

As a closer on the transfer window - regular readers will know that I have a problem with the overly negative elements of our fan base who have been bellyaching since the close of the loan transfer window about us not strengthening and blah blah blah. It’s the same people who moaned that we were only 2 points clear at the top when it should have been 20 etc etc. Well, we’ve now got Tadanari Lee, Yago Falque and Billy Sharp – not to mention Punch and Jos Hooiveld out of this little period of transfer activity. Are you all happy yet?

To tonight and we have a huge game against Cardiff at home. Win and we will be four points clear of the team in 3^rd place, lose and we will be out of the automatic promotion places for the first time this season. It can be construed as negative to be happy with a draw but in truth, a draw would not be a bad result tonight. Our team looks decent with Adam Lallana and Jose Fonte returning from injury. David Connolly partners Sir Rickie up front and Punch keeps his place on the wing with Deano being left out of the central midfield. Getting on the bench is a tough job now and Steeeeeve doesn’t make the cut with Tadanari Lee and Falque being the attacking options. Radhi didn’t make the bench as he, at 46, had this morning become the oldest player ever to play for an Under-21 team. Cardiff meanwhile, were straight off the back of reaching the Carling Cup final and fair play to them for that.

Inside the ground it was the wrong side of ‘fucking cold’ as the game kicked off. My hands were freezing and hands were the order of the day after two minutes when, five yards in front of the linesperson (careful) and about the same from the ref, Whittingham quite clearly punched the ball and neither of them saw it which set the tone for what was to come.

There was an early exchange of chances as a Cardiff midfielder wasn’t tracked and got free in our box and flicked a header over the bar. At the other end, Adam Lallana twisted McNaughton inside and out several times before standing up a decent cross which Sir Rickie won but he could only direct his header over the bar.

McNaughton was not having a good time at the moment and it didn’t get better for him as Punch, in his eagerness to make an impression, rugby tackled him and landed on him as they fell causing all the air to leave his body in one go. The referee was infuriating me and the rest of the Saints fans by not giving us anything at all and managed to get an ovation for himself on 18 minutes when he gave us our first free-kick. Cheers, though ironic, turned to jeers five minutes later as Sir Rickie skinned left back Taylor and as he bore down on goal was clearly wrestled to the ground in everyone’s eyes except the linesman and the referee who was near the half way line, not keeping up with play in the slightest. If he gives a penalty then it’s probably a red card so in my view, he bottled it.

Kenny Miller is up front on his own for Cardiff and whilst he undoubtedly is a good player, he’s a moaning git getting pulled up for an obvious offside and spending two minutes holding the ball and arguing with the ref. Punch is like a man transformed, winning tackles and using the ball really intelligently and Sir Rickie is showing what an important player he is for us (as if we didn’t know) by being at the heart of all our good attacking moments. Again he got himself on the end of a cross from ??? this time but was crowded out by three Cardiff defenders and was forced to head over again.

Just when it looked like any threat from Cardiff had been kept at bay they got a corner which was swung in. It was no more than 4 yards out and Superkelv came at it unconvincingly and ran into the strategically placed Cowie who blocked his path quite deliberately. Superkelv hit the deck in a pile of bodies. The ball fell loose to Conway who couldn’t miss from 6 yards. Kelvin ran after the ref implying that he’d been fouled but either way, it was 1-0. One nil to the referee we sang, one nil to the sheep shaggers sang the sheep shaggers. Fair play.

We seemed to be rocked by the goal and Cardiff swarmed all over us with Morgan putting in the most cynical and obvious ‘give me a yellow’ tackle in midfield to stop one break. Then, following a piece of ball control from Frazer that will not find its way into any coaching DVD, Cardiff broke and Kenny Miller came up with one of the worst effort he can ever have come up with and spooned it over the bar. The ref helped us out straight after by stopping another Cardiff break by getting his fat arse in the way and giving us possession. Cardiff still managed to nearly make it 2-0 when Taylor rumbled forward and hit a swerving effort which Superkelv parried away in somewhat awkward fashion. It doesn’t matter if it looked awkward – if it’s not in the net, that’s good.

A number of our players seem scared to shoot at the moment and this was typified just before the break as Sir Rickie cut in onto his right foot and instead of leathering it, slid it sideways to Connolly who instead of leathering it, knocked it sideways to Punch’s right foot, so instead of leathering it, he cut it back to Connolly who instead of leathering it, got tackled by a Cardiff player who with all the pissing about had managed to get himself back into position. At this point, Nigel wrote ‘Fucking hit it’ on his half time team talk notes.

Half times from around the country... Ipswich 3 West Ham 1....hurray, says all the ground.

We start the second half well and pile forward. Corky and Morgan have obviously been given some advice about pulling their respective oars to get the boat moving as they are now running things and forcing McPhail to hurry up instead of just poncing about in front of the back 4 like he was doing all of the first half. Adam Lallana is also now playing like a man possessed and causing problems all over the place. One jinking run on our right gets him to right to the by-line in the area when he is dumped by a sliding Taylor. The referee blows and points, I and the whole of the Kingsland get up to acclaim the obvious penalty and the twat has only gone and given a goal kick. Unbefkinglievable.

There’s more magic from the ref as McNaughton slides in to stop a Schneiderlin pass reaching Connolly and the ball hits his flailing arm, allowing him to win possession. I may be making an arse of myself here but does handball have to be deliberate ? I thought not - in short, the ball hitting his hand has given him an advantage as he’s won possession using his hand. This means that either the law or the referee is a bollocks.

Five minutes later and McNaughton and handball are back on the agenda again as a Lallana cross hits his outstretched hand and this time the ref actually gives it because it’s impossible not to. Five minutes of pissing about later and Sir Rickie finally gets to take it, bang, 1-1, emphatic.

Tadanari Lee is ready to come on but instead of the predicted Connolly being removed, a clearly knackered Punch goes off to a good ovation from the crowd after running himself into the ground. Connolly drops back but it’s basically a 4-3-3 with Nigel acknowledging that Cardiff weren’t using the wings so why should we. Lee’s first involvement was to get knocked over and he ended up almost doing the splits but he sprang back up in the manner you’d expect from a gymnast or Radhi Jaidi. Lee buzzed around looking very bright until a Cardiff defender decided he’d had enough and took him out. After a couple of seconds to gather his senses he bounced back to his feet with a ‘Welcome to the Championship’ ringing in his ears. Luckily, he wouldn’t understand that anyway .

For the next 15 minutes it was Saints making all the running but the final ball wasn’t quite there, especially from Frazer who didn’t look 100% fit and firing. Adam Lallana was giving them kittens on the left and I swear I saw McNaughton checking to see that his boots were still on the right feet as he tried to keep step with the twisting and turning winger. Cardiff were breaking on us occasionally but when the perpetually offside Miller wasn’t offside, he was lashing his opportunities anywhere but near the goal.

There comes a point when you have to decide that a point is ok and that time appears to be the 87^th minute as Connolly is replaced with Deano. Into the 4 minutes added time and we produce a moment that would have brought the house down if Lee had managed to get more of a contact on a Sir Rickie knockdown which was eventually smothered by the keeper. We had one final near miss when Aaron Martin gets up well to knock down a ball which Lallana poked goalwards, forcing the keeper into a decent scrambling save. Amazingly, the referee then manages to blow the final whistle without fucking it up.

Hmmmm, how do I feel after that.... happy enough I think. The most important thing tonight was not to lose and we managed that. We were the only side really looking like we’d win in the second half as Cardiff were restricted to hoping Kenny Miller could kick the ball somewhere towards the goal. We do faff about too much though.... just hit it, for fucks sake. It was a really positive second half performance and I can’t help but feel that with the new signings and the returning players that the tide is turning. Having said that, next up is a trip to Birmingham who are now 4^th after hammering Leeds 4-1 tonight. Other results went for us with notably West Ham getting trounced 5-1 by a very poor Ipswich side. I bet Paul Jewell went and starred in his own video after that one.

Nigel made a point of mentioning the three penalty shouts that we had and that they should all have been given. Me, I just find it incredible that you can have a referee at this level who can’t keep up with play. If you can’t keep up then you are going to make poor decisions all game. So take a bow Mr M Haywood, Andy D’Arsehole has a serious rival for the worst ref in the Championship which I didn’t think was possible.

There were good individual performances from virtually everyone with Adam Lallana and Sir Rickie standing out for their overall contribution and showing how much we missed them when they were out. Man of the Match though and having the greatest come back since Lazarus was Jason Puncheon who was everywhere, didn’t waste a pass and always was available and wanting the ball. All this is a bit better than wondering if you’re going to find a horses head in your bed. As for the Man from Japan – he looked very lively and positive and I can see him being a cult hero with the fans. The chances are that most of his opportunities this season will be off the bench but he looks a very decent option. Maybe he’ll get a start in the FA Cup replay.

Like I said, off to Birmingham on Saturday and they are on a run at the moment where they are belting everybody. Billy Sharp will be making his debut and hopefully this will help our shot-shyness, which is probably not a word but you know what I mean. I have a feeling that we’ll get a result there... unless it’s on Sky of course as we’re always shit when we’re on Sky. Oh.

COYR

FA Cup 4th Round - Millwall 1 Southampton 1

2012-01-30T22:05:00.001Z

Cortese in Big Softy Shocker

Shock of the season so far this week as two days after having a right moan at the Don on Twitter, Jason Puncheon has been fined, forgiven and put back in the first team squad. It's a bit of a result for Punch who I was expecting to find himself swimming with da fishes. He's been given a squad number which would have been 666 but only two numbers are allowed so he’s gone with 42 which as readers of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy will know, is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything. It would be ironic indeed if Punch did in fact provide the answers to get us winning consistently again. He was on loan at Millwall last year and on hearing the news of his unlikely resurgence, their fans would have been saying “sods law, he’ll score”. We’ll see.

So, Punch is available, Tadanari Lee is available, Sir Rickie is available and positive noises are being made about Chappers, Barney, Jose Fonte and Radhi the Train. So – with our 7 new signings (and without Jonno Pace who has been farmed out on loan to Notts County where he will be very fast) we’re off to Millwall for the FA Cup 4^th Round.

Our Youth team got a bit of a wake-up call in the week, playing Notts Forest in the FA Youth Cup and getting belted 5-1. Reading the reports, 5-1 was a bit flattering but they were clinical in front of goal and we weren’t and it proves that the Forest Youth team is too low down the chain to have been influenced by Steve Cotterill as yet. Normally I’d be expecting James Ward-Prowse and maybe Luke Shaw to play today but it’ll be interesting to see what Nigel does. We’ve got Cardiff in the league on Tuesday night which is massive but we have a load of senior players coming back from injury and needing a run out and in Lee and Falque we have 2 players who need to get used to English football.

In the end, predictably, Nigel went for mix and match with Bart in goal and Danny Fox pressed into appearing at centre back alongside Aaron Martin. Ben Reeves was in the centre of midfield alongside Deano and Lee Barnard got his first start in about a year up front. On the wings were the recovered Steve de Ridder and the resurrected Jason Puncheon. Rumours that Saints had ensured Millwall had a reinforced substitutes bench were confirmed with the Return of the Jaidi alongside Tadanari Lee, Luke Shaw, James Ward-Prowse and Jack Stephens. Nigel's pre-match interview had somethign wrong with it and it appeared to be on some sort of loop - either that or he said 'together as one' fifteen times in quick succession.

Millwall had their first choice team out and like the Coventry game in the last round, our unfamiliarity resulted in a ropey start in which we nearly went behind and Liam Feeney’s shot clattered the post and bounced out. After 10 minutes we had another go at conceding as a corner was missed by all and Harry Kane managed to put it over the bar from practically in the goal. Kane has been lent to Millwall by Harry Redknapp so he can make all his mistakes for someone else, a bit like Yago Falque in his loan to us).

A full 7 minutes go by before we try to concede again as Fox got beaten to a hoof forward by Darius Henderson, a player who blurs the line between footballer and all-in wrestler. His subsequent chip looked to be sailing in until Bart took off and flipped it over the bar. Surely Aaron Martin has to be picking up Henderson.

Of the returning players, Punch is easily the best, combining work ethic with some decent touches. Steeeeeeve is struggling to get into it on the other wing and I wonder (as I often do) why we are playing the left footed Punch on the right and the right footed Steeeeeeve on the left. We have a dose of severe Meringtitus as Barnard gets a chance but takes one touch too many before his effort is blocked. “Just for the listeners... For me, he’s taken too long there”. It’s a sign though that Saints are improving and Sir Rickie goes close with a free kick which whistles just wide and smacks the post behind the goal that holds the net up.

Nigel decides to swap the wingers onto their natural sides and within 30 seconds we take the lead as Reeves picks up a pass from Punch and then slides a ball in between the centre back and full back which Harding reaches and whips in a first time cross which Sir Rickie meets at the near post and almost places home with his head. Not really deserved on the balance of play but we’ll take it thanks.

The final quarter of an hour of the first half saw Saints settle and begin to pass the ball around with Ben Reeves showing up well in midfield. Big Bad Dave on the Mic was bigging up Aaron Martin’s contribution in handling the Henderson threat and all was looking fine. Punch was getting booed by the crowd which worried me a bit but it turns out it was the Millwall massive who were giving him stick and not our lot. Half time, 1-0 up, happy days.

The second half starts and after 5 minutes I realise that only one Saints player has been mentioned by the commentators and it’s Aaron Martin. It seems that being the main man in the centre of defence has made the boy into a man as he attacks every ball, leaving Danny Fox to sweep in behind. The one man defensive unit does it’s job and Saints have a half hearted shout for a penalty when Sir Rickie is pushed, prompting a Merringtitus of ‘You know what….’ followed by a long pause which never sounds great on the radio.

On the hour mark, the largely ineffective de Ridder is replaced with Lee Holmes and two minutes later, Tadanari Lee is on in place of Lee Barnard. All is quiet as we await the Millwall stadium announcer making a complete bollocks of pronouncing his name but fair play, the bloke’s done his homework and nails it. A sub for Millwall and Kane is replaced with former Saint Dany N’Guessan – will we boo or cheer?.. neither, we don’t care aside from the nagging doubt that he’ll discover levels of footballing excellence that were completely beyond him when he played for us.

Millwall have gone into ‘launch it’ mode and lots of bombs are landing in our area, in the main dealt with by Aaron and Bart who does particular well to shovel one inswinging corner over the bar. Liam Trotter is having a decent match in midfield for them but often his decent build up play is not capitalised on by the forwards. To be honest, we look pretty comfortable out there.

In his first start for a year, Punch has lasted well but he’s blowing out of his arse by the 73^rd minute when he’s taken off to a decent ovation from the Saints fans and replaced with Luke Shaw, making his debut on the left wing – that’ll be another £3 million please Arsene or better still - fuck off!

Last week I repeated an opinion that Lee Holmes is great when the game is won but not so great when the pressure is on. More evidence for the prosecution as he ran though and saw his shot blocked when he really should have squared it for Sir Rickie. The ball was returned by Sir Rickie to give Holmes a free header from 5 yards which he put wide. It really was a sitter as the keeper was over the other side but his header was so wide it didn’t even hit the side netting.

There was an unavoidable feeling that this miss was going to cost us and so it proved as Millwall went straight up our end and a Feeney cross from the left was chested down by Henderson and he managed to hook it over his head, wrong-footing Bart in the process and the ball plopped into the net for 1-1. It’s hard to tell whether he actually meant it but he’s scored a few recently so you have to give him the benefit f the doubt. Matters not a shit in the long run whether he meant it or not.

Rats. It’s always a pain when you concede an equalizer with 5 minutes to go but to be fair, which I’m not often, overall it’s the right result. There are a lot of positives to be taken from today with Sir Rickie being back, Barney getting an hour, Punch getting rehabilitated, Luke Shaw getting on and Tadanari Lee finding out a bit about English football. Nigel didn’t seem too downbeat afterwards and he had at least got out of his ‘together as one’ obsession.

Sunday brought the draw for the 5^th Round and if we dispose with Millwall, we have another glamour tie with Bolton coming to SMS which will be live on TV in the Ukulele Channel in the Cook Islands. My initial reaction was ‘dull draw’ but when I thought about it - I think this is a decent draw as they’re a bottom-end Premiership side who have some decent players but we can do them. It’s a decent test but why not? The bottom line is that we’re two home wins from a place in the 6^th Round.

Cardiff at home on Tuesday in a massive game for the League campaign. Nigel has some selection dilemmas and I have a feeling that a couple more of our injured players will have a chance of featuring. One thing that will help though – I anticipate that Punch will start and if he misses a chance or misplaces a pass, I hope the ‘quick to judge’ element of the SMS crowd can think about the effect that having a pop might have before they do it. Likewise, think of the effect of a decent chorus of ‘one Jason Puncheon’ during the warm-up.

Finally – whoever decides on the playlists at SMS... you played it last week before the Leicester game and I cringed... so as it will be Tadanari Lee’s first appearance at SMS, please don’t play ‘Turning Japanese’ on Tuesday. It’s a song about wanking.

Pompey - Seriously (sort of)

2012-01-26T22:02:00.000Z

This is probably out of date by the time you read it.... I kept adding bits to it thought I'd better stop before it ended up as total disorganised rubbish (as opposed to partially disorganised rubbish). Also... it's impossible to summarize the whole story. So, having got all my excuses out the way....

At the start of the Leicester crap defeat blog, I was talking of floating unpleasant things floating in the Solent. Yes, it’s time to talk about Pompey again though unlike the detritus floating in the Solent, Pompey have always seemed to be the turd that will not flush, no matter how much paper, water or other turds you put on top of it.

This weeks’ news is that Pompey’s prospective new owner, Joseph Cala, the Sicilian Man from Atlantis with the Underwater Hotels which don’t exist, has pulled out of the purchase. This is a shame from one point of view because he sounded hilarious, wanting to buy it because it reminded him of Pompeii, the city that was buried by a volcano. Just as hilarious was an argument on Twitter between Cala and Brian Howe, another potential owner which was in full swing until the Twitter version of Cala turned out to be someone else entirely, thus not making Mr Howe look particularly bright, expending time and energy arguing with someone even less credible than the real Joseph Cala.

So, where are we? Well, as far as the football club is concerned; despite their last 6 months and a load of new players having been funded with probably laundered Lithuanian and Latvian money and despite them having no money to pay their players this month and despite their parent company being in administration with no income from anywhere else coming in.... they still haven’t been deducted points yet. The question on everyone's lips is of course....why the fuck not?

Apparently, the League are making up their mind as to whether CSI and Pompey are inextricably linked? My arse they’re not! Lets face it, the Skates have an administrator in effect as the parent company currently has nothing else besides good old PFC – despite what anyone of a Skate persuasion may say, it is EXACTLY the same situation as with Saints a few years back. They are being controlled by Admin Andy, the Greek God of Questionable Practice who found them their last saviour. There was some vague assertion put forward that the Football Club was being controlled by the Board but you’ve only got to listen to the gathering depression that is their Chief Exec Mr Lampitt to realise that this is bollocks. So come on Football League, get it done and get those points wiped off.... about 20 seems about right.

Pompey Chief Exec and former Head of Integrity (ha ha ha) at the FA Mr Lampitt, gave a remarkable interview on Saturday in which he attacked the Portsmouth Evening News for a story stating that Pompey owed £1.6m to the tax man before calming down and admitting that they did in fact owe £1.6m to the tax man. This is what’s known in the interview trade as ‘Doing a Cotterill’. He also stated that they were dependent on the parent company for money and they’d chosen to pay their players and not pay their tax bill for the past 2 months which sure is a guaranteed vote winner in these times of austerity. This also puts Lampitt in the same bracket as Peter Storrie who was Chief Exec the last time they decided to use HMRC as a bank.

In addition, they haven’t even started paying the 20p in the pound CVA they agreed last time (which wiped about £70 million off their debt in a kind of ‘tough shit, you’re not having it back’ kind of way), haven’t paid back the small creditors in full like they promised (including charities and schools) and it turns out that they knew (from the 3^rd January apparently) that there was a Winding Up Petition from HMRC on the way and (wait for it)...a week later they signed a new player, even if it was a cheap one who had just come out of prison. Their argument is that they released a high wage earner (Relegation Hreidarsson) and signed a player on a lot less but the fact is that Hreidarsson wasn’t playing so didn’t need ‘replacing’ as such. Also, even if they’re only paying the ex-con ten quid a week, it’s money the taxman could do with. ..... and they call us Scum?!?

Meanwhile, Milan Mandaric, Harry Redknapp and the Ghost of his late dog have gone to court having been charged with tax evasion regarding questionable financial irregularities that all happened when they were Chairman, Manager and Manager’s Dog at guess which club.... ?

a) Portsmouth,

b) Pompey,

c) The Skates.

Rosie (for that was the dog) apparently is dead now though it is unconfirmed whether she choked whilst trying to eat a tax return. So, it’s all happening at once – approximately 10 years of slightly dodgy shit all hitting the fan at the same time.

The way I see it is that Pompey have a Winding up Petition from HMRC. The only options they have regarding the WUP is pay it in full, be liquidated or go into administration yet again. I don’t reckon they’ve got £1.6 million behind the sofa (unless they borrow the sofa that Rosie 47 used to sit on). The sofa option is all they are left with as a WUP means that you can’t use your bank accounts, hence they’ve asked for cash-only payments for their next home game, blaming that on a system glitch (you couldn’t make it up – but they do). The cash only rule implies that their player may well be paid in brown paper bags at the end of January. At least doing it that way means the tax bill will be less I guess. Going into administration would be fraught with danger as HMRC would be the main creditor and they are not going to agree to a reduced payment so it would just delay the inevitable.

Usually of course, you would expect the parent company to pay the bills for them but they can’t because they’re in administration because assets are frozen as the owner is in jail for alleged money laundering. Failing that, you would expect the loan shark who is the main creditor of the parent company to put some money in to keep it going but he’s refusing for now to throw more good money after bad.

A WUP means the company (Pompey) can’t be sold... well actually it appears they can be but HMRC are in control in that they have final approval. (Act of insolvency.... points deduction... come on Football League..!!!). The other option of course, is to raise £1.6 million by selling players and playing the kids in the first team but even that has complications as you’re not supposed to trade whilst under a WUP and I also read somewhere that any money from player sales should go to the creditors who were shafted by the last CVA (I don’t know if that’s true or not)... Selling players and trying to raise £1.6million seems the best option they have at this moment in time so best get to selling players then Mr Lampitt and while you’re at it, try not to sign any more, even if they have just come out of prison.

I’m only really concerned about football to be honest and do not want them to go out of business. As I’ve said before, I have loads of mates who are of the blue persuasion and their kids all proudly wear their colours and that’s fine with me. I’d prefer the see those kids wearing Pompey shirts than Man Utd or Chelsea etc as it least it shows an affinity to a local team that their parents and grandparents probably supported – I like all that. I do however want the Football league to do what’s right though and hit them hard with a points penalty – one that actually has an effect unlike the last one. This has no effect at all on Saints as it won’t make any difference to us this year if Pompey get docked points or not, in fact, it would be better for us if they folded as the teams around us would lose more points than ourselves. My stance is solely to do with the integrity (that word again) of the competition though I admit that a bit of my motivation may be for giggles. If they get walloped with a meaningful points deduction (see Luton Town) then I’ll be happy that football justice has finally been done.

Sadly though (and I do genuinely mean that) I don’t think points deductions are going to be an issue for anyone however because this time, I really can see no way out for them. After last time, they have definitely picked the wrong enemy. You don’t fuck with the tax man once, let alone twice and especially when a) you fucked him over for about £40 million quid a couple of years back and b) it’s clearly stated that the taxman doesn’t like the special rules that seem to exist for football clubs. The stupidity of not paying tax and inviting the WUP is beyond belief really.

PS... since I wrote this, having gone away with abuse ringing in his ears from both Pompey and Admin Andy, the Man from Atlantis has come back on the scene and is making noises about buying them again. If by some miracle this happens, we’ll all be back here again in next to no time.

By the way - a sincere 'good luck' to the supporters groups who are trying to make a difference – you have taken on one mother of an uphill battle but fair play to you for trying.

NPC Match 27 - Southampton 0 Leicester 2

2012-01-24T22:12:00.000Z

.... we could be Pompey

Monday night, a rubbish night for football and we’re playing Leicester City at home who spent a fortune in the summer under managerial genius and blog-writers dream, Sven Goran Eriksson. Despite having a decent collection of players, they’ve been pretty poor and as a result, unsurprisingly, Sven isn’t there anymore which means I’m going to have to work a lot harder to find things to take the piss out of. Replacing Sven with Nigel Pearson meant that Leicester not only got a well-thought of ex-Saints manager but also, someone who has never shared his secretary with his boss.

Talking of ex-Saints managers (though not so well thought of), ‘Arry Redknapp has helped us out by signing winger Yago Falque from Juventus and then immediately loaning him to us for the rest of the season. Falque sounds like a decent prospect, who will hopefully enable Nigel to play proper wide men in all games, instead of shoe-horning in either Morgan or Corky to play on the wing whilst Chappers and de Ridder are recovering from injuries. The signing also gives the cynical amongst us the opportunity of trying to guess ‘Arry’s angle for helping us out. Another positive bit of Saints news was that Tadanari Lee’s red tape issues were all but resolved and he’s free to join us when the final i’s are dotted and t’s crossed which is likely to be in time for the FA Cup 4th Round next week. We’re away to Millwall who got through after hammering Dagenham 5-0 in their 3rd Round Replay.

We have also, in one of the most hilariously badly advised attacks in history, seen Jason Puncheon take to Twitter to attack Don Nicola Cortese, basically blaming the Don for him being banished from the first team squad and training with the kids. Tell me Jason – what happened to prompt this behaviour from the Don? I expect that he did it for nothing... rumour has it that it has something to do with being dropped in favour of the guy who was the best player on the pitch in the Arsenal v Man United game yesterday. Actually Punch, the answer to that doesn’t matter as I’m sure you’ll find that you don’t fuck with the Don.

In other news, ex-Saints and ex-useless thieving little git Nathan Dyer has been mentioned in terms of a possible England call up. I have been reminded that I said when he left that I would run naked into the sea at Weston Shore with my mouth open if this ever happened. My caveat was though it had to be Dyer AND Bradley Wright-Phillips in the England squad so I can’t see me doing that any time soon.

I wrote a paragraph here on the Skates latest predicament but have decided to remove it because it deserves an entry of its own and I don’t want to sully our match with talk of the Tax Dodging Insolvent Cheating Bastards.

Saints went into the weekend knowing that by the time we played, we were unlikely to be top for the first time in four months and this was a near certainty given that West Ham needed just a point from a match at home to Steve the Bumpkin and his Nottingham Forest all stars. Sure enough, a feast of flowing hoofball from Allardyce and Cotterill resulted in a 2-1 win for West Ham courtesy of two dodgy penalty decisions. Cardiff closed to within a point of us by beating the Skates (useless fuckers!!!) 3-2 in the last minute. I actually groaned when the Skates conceded, unlike my usual reaction of jumping up and down, shouting ‘GET IN THERE YA BASTARDS’ and scaring the cat and children.

Remarkably, my seat of the pants trip from work in Brighton had seen me actually arrive at SMS early. The Saints team announcement confirmed what I’d suspected in that Adam Lallana was out injured and Yago Falque was in. The rest of the team was as expected with a very makeshift looking right hand side of the team featuring Cork and Harding. The bench saw the return of Frazer Richardson which made me wonder why he wasn’t starting. Leicester have a team full of decent names with quite a few of them having played in the Premiership before. Up front they have David Nugent who was a flop at the Skates (aside from costing them a fortune) but was good enough once upon a time to earn an England cap. Jermaine Beckford was the other striker who stunk the place out when he played for Leeds here two years ago and Radhi spend the game treating him like a little bitch. Other notables were Matt Mills, an ex-Saint who Sven paid £5million for, Paul Konchesky who last year was playing for Liverpool and not so long ago England and Neil Danns who is a player I wish we’d bought when he left Palace.

The opening 10 seconds of this match gave an indication that this wasn’t going to be an easy game as Leicester moved forward as a unit and we really didn’t. The next five minutes saw them keeping the ball and us giving it away with Danns and Wellens running the midfield and us trying to get Falque on the ball and failing. Leicester are closing us down quickly and consequently the defenders are having to pump it long and none of the midfield are getting on the ball.

Falque eventually touches the ball after 10 minutes and sends over a decent cross which Connolly just failed to get on the end of beyond the back post. Any goal kick or drop kick from Kaspar Schmeichel is landing on the edge of our penalty area where Big Jos or Aaron Martin are winning it but it’s dropping down into the midfield where we are just not at the races as Danns picks up virtually every ball and constantly feeds Dyer who takes on Harding at every opportunity who suddenly looks very much what he is.... a left back who wishes he was anywhere other than at right back.

We’re creating nothing on our own but we don’t need to as Danns has a shocker and passes straight to David Connolly who is totally free about 20 yards out. Fear of the incoming Matt Mills sees him take the shot early and it’s rubbish – a back pass which Schmeichel just picks up.

Entirely expectedly, Leicester take the lead on 25 minutes as a player I can’t immediately identify, breaks into the vast open grasslands of our right back area, cuts inside and curls a superb shot into the far corner of the net. The horror then hits me – “that was fucking Nugent wasn’t it”. The resigned nod from my Dad confirmed the worst as Nugent pulled out the knee slide in front of the Itchen. Can’t criticize a player for that… class goal it has to be said…. Bastard it has to be said.

Stunned into action, we did nothing and following a corner, centre back St.Ledger skipped easily past Martin on our right before sending in a perfect cross to the totally unmarked Matt Mills who thumped his header past Superkelv for 2-0. At this precise moment I could see us losing about 5-0 as Leicester looked different class and we looked diabolical.

Big Jos and Aaron Martin began getting to grips with Nugent and Beckford and Deano steamed into a few tackles in midfield to at least remind Danns and Wellens that we had a midfield. Jos pulled out a wonderful tackle to deny Dyer who was clean through again before Deano should have pulled one back though as Fox delivered a free kick into the box, Schmeichel came and stopped leaving himself in no-mans-land and left Deano with half the goal to aim at with his header which he plopped wide.

As half time approached we had another great chance as Morgan cut in from the left, passed up the chance to shoot which he maybe should have taken and played it square to the onrushing Cork who kept up his record for today of not kicking the ball in the right direction once, by lashing it over the bar. It was pretty crap from both players as one should have had a shot and the other should have kept the bloody thing down.

Half time was upon us and in keeping with the entertainment dished out in the first half, the soup which my Dad had brought with him had the colour and consistency of vomit with shredded chicken, sweetcorn and diced carrots. It was warm though. Whilst drinking the vomit mixture I pondered that Leicester, for all their domination had had less goal chances than we’d had but as we know, missing chances gets you jack shit. It did make me think though that maybe we could get back in it with a fast start to the second half. Chuckle Brother wisdom was in short supply but I did notice that the Moronic one was wearing a deerstalker hat with a cap perched on top of it and two pairs of glasses… perhaps he thinks he’s both Chuckle Brothers and has to wear two of everything.

My anticipated introduction of Frazer didn’t happen and for that and many other reasons, my optimism went to shit as we started badly. Leicester looked completely in control and we responded to their closing us down by sending long punts up to Guly who unsurprisingly, was winning nothing. When we do pass the ball, it’s sideways and backwards and not being moved quick enough to pull Leicester out of position. Harding is having a mare on the right as Dyer has completely sussed that he can’t kick it with his right foot so every time he gets the ball it’s switched onto his left foot and then wellied.

We have a chance for a second when Connolly has a chance to lob the keeper but sadly, Kaspar is taller than 1 foot 6 so the shot was never going to go over him. We threaten from a Fox right wing free kick which is met by Deano who gets it on target this time but Kaspar flaps it out as the Chapel End half-heartedly appealed that it had crossed the line.

Another 15 minutes of nothing and it’s time for Nigel to make a substitution to get us back into the game and de Ridder comes on for the ineffective Falque who has quite frankly had a debut to forget. He hasn’t been crap but he’s just not done anything, never seeming to know where to run to receive the ball, I see this substitution as a positive move but bringing on Holmes for Hammond is a bad one as he had been playing better than both Cork and Schneiderlin who had both up until this point, been shocking. Deano usually gets taken off when we need to keep the ball a bit better but today’s problem was that we never had the ball in the first place.

It’s nearly 3-0 as the ref buys a Wellens dive and Konchesky curls a lovely free kick onto the inside of the post, which pings across the penalty area and away to safety. We finally get Frazer on the pitch with 20 minutes to go but it only happens at the expense of Big Jos pulling up with a hamstring injury. The resulting reshuffle sees Harding mercifully moved to left back, Frazer to the right and Danny Fox filling in at centre back.

In amongst the complete Leicester cakewalk to victory, we do create a couple of half chances as de Ridder is brought down and Richardson gets on the end of Fox’s free kick but volleys over at the back post. Lee Holmes has an effort to when he finally gives up on trying and failing to get past the full back and gets himself a yard on the edge of the box before curling his effort badly wide. We’re still trying to play from the back but it’s not working and all that happens is Superkelv continually putting the full backs in the shit by passing to them but only when they have a Leicester player up their arse.

It’s petering out and Leicester are now in cruise control as we huff and puff – well, most of us do and Guly’s mind is on a beach in Brazil somewhere. Mind you, who can blame him for getting pissed off with the quality of ball he’d been receiving all game. The crowd give Nugent some stick but what’s the point? If I was him, 2-0 up with a minute to go and I’d scored a great goal, I’d be loving it if the crowd were calling me a wanker. As the full time whistle went, I was irritated by the booing that rang around the ground. I’ve long given up though on our fans having a sense of perspective and an appreciation of where we’ve come from in the relatively recent past. As we walked down the steps, I was more or less alone in the Kingsland in clapping the players for their efforts, which doesn’t make me a better fan than anyone else but come on, the boys in red and white put in a shift and they tried but they just weren’t good enough.

Hmmmm – lots to talk about. I see the gate was officially over 21,000 but there was no way that many in the ground. A lot of Season ticket holders obviously didn’t bother today. If this had been a Saturday game I’d have expected 24,000. Monday night and Sky really didn’t do us any favours there.

When all is said and done it was a pretty abysmal performance. Plan A of passing the ball didn’t work because we didn’t fight hard enough to make it work and Plan B of sending it long was never an option because of the absence of Sir Rickie which brings us to our missing players. Sir Rickie, Fonte, Lallana, Chappers and a fit Frazer would all have started tonight which excuse or not, is definitely a factor when you have half your first choice team missing.

England were rubbish at he last World Cup, partly because they had players in the wrong positions. They got away with it in qualifying as they were playing against poor sides but against the good boys they got found out. It’s the same with Saints – we’ve got away with it against Forest and Coventry because they are both dire. Leicester, regardless of their league position, are different gravy entirely and Harding at right back was ruthlessly exposed. They gave us two warnings before scoring two goals from that wing and Nigel should have reacted quicker, either moving Corky to right back or bringing on Frazer earlier. Better still, start with Frazer and then take him off when he gets tired. I don’t blame Harding at all for this as he was doing his best in a position he is totally unsuited for.

Also, you aren’t going to win many matches with half your team individually having poor matches. To me, Morgan, Corky, Aaron Martin and Connolly were all very poor and Guly joined them in the 2nd half after doing ok in the first. Falque looked like a rabbit in the headlights not knowing where to run – if there had been lorries driving around then he’s have got run over. It immediately makes you question if a player totally new to English football should have been thrown in to the first team without so much as a reserve game or a cameo off the bench. I see his name is actually Yago Falque Silva... did we take him on after a phone call claiming to be from David Silva who said his cousin was a decent player…. Maybe evoking memories of Ali Dia is a bit harsh.

I thought Foxy, Jos and Deano were ok today and two of them ended up getting substituted for one reason or another. Of the subs, de Ridder didn’t look fit and it took us ages to get the ball out to him. As I’ve thought for four years, Lee Holmes just isn’t good enough – he’s great when he gets brought on and the game is already won (Watford 4-0, Forest 3-0) but he does nothing when it matters.

The league table no longer has us at the top with West Ham now 3 points clear and Cardiff, who are up next in the League at SMS, just a point behind us. Nigel Adkins interview suggested that some or all of Sir Rickie, José Fonte, Chappers and Tadanari Lee would be available for the next game which offsets Big Jos joining the casualty list. Of course it’s FA Cup 4th Round time and will we play kids or will we try and get a bit of fitness into the legs of the returning players. Personally, I expect Sir Rickie and Tadanari to play with possibly Radhi Jaidi replacing Big Jos at the back.

Perspective… look it up and after that, read the headlines about that lot 17 miles down the road.

Keep the faith.... COYR!!!

NPC Match 26 - Nottingham Forest 0 Southampton 3

2012-01-16T18:48:00.001Z

Cotterill speaks: 'oooof it farwaaard to Maaaaarlon

Forest away today but first, the news. Since our last game, Tadanari Lee has got the necessary work permit approval from the FA and now it’s down to the Department of Employment to rubber stamp it. Getting past the FA is allegedly the tricky one when it comes to work permits and it transpired that we were knocked back originally as he’d only played in 10 of Japan’s 20 competitive internationals in the last 2 years and not the 15 required. I guess the fact that he’s played in the last 10 was what swung it in the end. These rules only apply if you’re not a big club as Man United and Liverpool regularly sign American reserve goalkeepers who have played as many internationals as me.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon has confirmed that we put a bid in for Gary Hooper who played for Nigel Adkins at Scunthorpe. He’s very high profile now, scoring for fun in the SPL which should bring a note of caution due to the standard of the football. For example, his strike partner Anthony Stokes scores loads up there but did nothing for Sunderland and nothing on loan spells at Sheffield United and Palace. He’s only scored goals at Falkirk, Hibernian and Celtic – are you seeing a pattern here? Hooper looks decent though and it would be a bit of coup if we could get him in.

To today - those of us of a certain age will always associate Nottingham Forest with Brian Clough and Saints visiting the City Ground and invariably getting beat. It’s an amusing one for me looking back as I managed to get thrown out of the City Ground once for the crime of foul and abusive language at Russell Osman. To set the scene, it was an FA Cup game, it was pssing with rain and for some reason, the roof of the stand we were in was designed specifically to let all the rain in. We were 1-0 up in the 80th minute and thanks to a Stuart Pearce inspired Forest, managed to be losing 3-1 as we got into the last minute. We got a throw in and Russell came across to take it, right in front of me. Before he took it, he put his hands through his luxurious hair to make sure it was in place. I can’t remember what I said exactly but it had lots of nasty words in it. I do however remember the hand on the shoulder and being escorted out by two stewards, soaking wet, in the 92nd minute, when a lot of the Saints fans had left already. Those who were around me gave me a standing ovation as I left, which was a nice touch.

Anyway, maybe it’s a sign of how far Forest have fallen but in the seat that used to be occupied by the aforementioned legendary Clough, now sits Steve Cotterill who, as we know from following his career at The Skates, is not a great manager and gives very amusing ‘a West Country village somewhere is missing its idiot’ post-match interviews. It’s always been a mystery to me how so many managers fail everywhere they go and keep getting decent jobs? They’ve had it so tough at Forest recently that unbelievably, they pine for that horrible little shit Billy Davies who had them up the top end of this league but then, I’d pine for Billy Davies if I’d subsequently been subjected to Schteve McClaren and Cotterill as replacements. Cloughie would be turning in his grave. Cotterill’s line up included a new big centre forward in Marlon Harewood so we knew from the team sheet what was coming and it would be hoooooooof. Surely though, Cotterill would look at the fact that Hooiveld and Martin are 12ft 8 between them and come up with a plan B.

There was concern in my head about who we’d have playing with virtually all our strikers being injured or suspended. As it turned out, we were able to pair the wee Irishman with the big Brazilan. The midfield saw Corky on the right hand side with Deano, Morgan and Adam Lallana in their usual positions. The back 4 saw Dan Harding retained at right back following his decent performance in the FA Cup at Coventry with the aforementioned giants in the centre and Foxy on the left. Superkelv was back in goal.

Away we go and the game soon settles into a pattern with Saints attempting to pass and move and Forest getting the ball and hoooooof. The first two chances of the game are shared as Deano finds loads of space on the edge of the box and fires one in, forcing a save from Camp and then Tudgay attempts a lob from a Harewood pass which is comfortably caught by Superkelv.

It’s a kind of nondescript first half hour until Big Jos picks up a deserved booking for cynically fouling Tudgay who is on his way past him, having fastened onto an errant Schneiderlin cross field ball. The resulting free kick is smashed low and hard by McGugan and breaks to Harewood who has an open goal to aim at for a second but delays long enough to allow Big Jos to throw himself in the way of the shot. A minute later and we were in front as a ball out of defence is neatly and expertly flicked on by Forest captain Chambers to Cork who was in acres on the right. He cut in along the line and found the man who is always in space, David Connolly who surprised everyone by scuffing his shot into the keeper. The rebound fell to the Gulyman who smashed in into the net from about 10 yards. Get in!!!

Forest came to back in an attempt to find an equalizer before half time and won a corner following great defending by Deano. The kick was flicked on, Aaron Martin did some ball watching and Lynch climbed high at the back post and all the Forest fans went yeahhhhh... followed quickly by ohhhhhh as he headed the simple looking chance over the bar. One more alarm though before the sanctuary of the dressing room as McGugan fired in another long range free kick which Superkelv shovelled away.

It’s half time and time to fart around on the internet and yes, there’s a decent stream of the game which comes from Al Jazeera TV. Last time I saw anything from them, it was an ‘I’m still alive’ video from Osama bin Laden who interestingly, hasn’t been ruled out yet as a potential new owner for Pompey.

It all got controversial very quickly at the start of the second half as Big Jos returned another hoof forward and Chambers came steaming in on Connolly from miles away, leading with his arm, banging him in the side of the head. Deano who was the closest player to the incident, went nuts indicating an elbow and after the obligatory handbags and the accused doing the usual shrug of guilt, the ref showed the red card. I really don’t see how anyone can have any complaints about it. The question is not ‘was there intent?’, the question is ‘was it dangerous?’ and the answer is clearly yes. If you lead with your arm then you’re asking for trouble. For what it’s worth, my opinion is that Chambers is a moron and saw his opportunity to leave a marker on a forward so yeah, I reckon he meant it. Why the fuck does he need his arm up there to beat the colossus David Connolly in the air.... he's about 5 foot 3. On the line, the Bumpkin has completely lost it, jumping up and down and pointing and shouting at the Saints bench from the safety of being behind several people. Apparently he was having a go at Jim Stannard who is our keeper coach and is a big lad so it would have been a laugh if he’d got to him.

As is always the way with incidents like this, Connolly is of course, now being booed for getting smacked in the face by an idiot and he starts a move which continues with Lallana flying down the wing and crossing, Connolly stepping over it and Guly showing the killer instincts of vegetarian in an abattoir as he lashed it horribly over the bar.

The second goal will surely be only a matter of time and that time is now as we work it across from left to right before Harding switches onto his left foot and delivers in to the box which Morgan gets a bit of a lucky flick on and guess who’s found the right place to be? 2-0 and the Irishman should apply to be the next Sherriff of Nottingham, given his popularity at this precise moment.

The Gulyman is having a rest as the game goes on, kind of sat on his bum in the centre circle. It looks like a repeat of the bum injury suffered in the Brighton game and he’s off to be replaced by Lee Holmes. It makes no difference to our attacking play though as Lallana feeds Deano who rolls it into the path of Morgan. Whilst everyone behind the goal covers their faces and hopes the ball doesn’t hit them, Morgan takes aim and with my gag last week about paintballing raging through his mind, smashed it into the bottom corner from 30 yards. To be fair, the keeper should have stopped it but it’s a great strike.

The rest of the game is basically target practice with Saints against Lee Camp. Firstly, Lallana feeds Holmes who curls in a superb left footed shot which Camp claws away at full stretch. He then tips over a Deano piledriver from the edge of the box before saving again from a deflected Danny Fox shot. He doesn’t need to save the next one as Connolly’s flick header finds Aaron Martin at the back stick who plays a horrible air shot which as we’re 3-0 and the game is nearly over, is actually quite funny.

Final whistle and happy days are here again. Make no mistake; this was a quality result playing some quality football. I know Forest are in the bottom three but then so were Doncaster and Bristol City and we lost to both of them. I guess the difference was that both those two sides had spirit and a manager who was getting something out of the team. The much anticipated post-match Village Idiot interview didn’t disappoint as he said the interviewer was harsh for saying that Saints were the better side throughout, just before he admitted that Saints were the best team when Forest had 11 and the best team when Forest had 10. He had a moan at the ref for not giving them a free kick for nothing just before the red card and he had a moan about our bench getting the player sent off. Steve, I reckon it may have been your player leading with his arm and banging Connolly in the head that got him sent off. Nigel was a happy boy, pointing out that we’ve now played 2 games without Sir Rickie and won them both. I must say that Nigel appears to have the ability to learn from mistakes – playing Corky on the right is much better than playing Morgan there. Jack is more adaptable for starters and has played a lot at right back so is more comfortable in the wide areas.

The sending off was not the turning point in this game as we more or less dominated it from the off. The turning point came a couple of months back when Forest loaded the gun and then took aim at their own foot and pulled the trigger by appointing Cotterill. Joking aside, we won this easily and but for Lee Camp it could quite easily have been 6-0 at the end. Forest looked like a team that is heading down to League 1 which they should not be with the players they have. Draw your own conclusions on that one.

We stayed at the top of the league with Middlesbrough losing at home to Burnley and Cardiff drawing at Doncaster. West Ham managed to win 1-0 but the fact that it was against the Skates is a bit of a consolation. No doubt we will be dislodged from the top of the league next week for a couple of days as West Ham are at home to ..... wait for it ..... Nottingham Forest (come on Steve Cotterill, managerial genius) and we don’t play until Monday against Nigel Pearson’s Leicester City who have still not recovered from the Sven inspired random collecting of players. They have a lot of good players though so on their day, they could easily put it together so it’ll be a tough one. Sir Rickie will still be suspended but Nigel seemed confident of having players back. One interesting thing will be the Gulyman’s injury. If he’s not fit, the next available striker could be the man waiting for his Department of Employment papers to come through.

The bus is back on the road. Come on Your Reds!!!

Here We Go Again

2012-01-11T22:17:00.002Z

Déjà vu and here we go again, I feel that I have written this before. I don’t really know where I’m going with this one… Do I hate the media ? Do I hate the Powers that Be in the English game or do I hate Arsene ‘Fuck Off and Develop Your own Players’ Wenger. Yep, I hate all of them.

We have another academy player that all the big boys want. Like Theo, Gareth and Alex before him, Luke Shaw is a target for the big guns and what can we do aside from bend over and take the money on offer. I’m not too sure about the new EPP rules or whether they even apply yet – the report I read though, suggests that if the lad gets sold we won’t have to settle for the defined ‘development costs’ fee and that we’ll do alright out of the deal as there is more than one club wanting the lad (Man City reportedly being the other). I don’t know what his contract situation is – I believe he’s signed a professional contract but it only comes into force when he’s 17 – no doubt there’s a fucking Arsenal clause before he’s 17 that means we’re stuffed.

We got a year out of Bale and Chamberlain and half a year out of Walcott. Losing those players pissed me right off but if Shaw goes now, before he’s even played for the first team – that’ll be much harder to take. I don’t know anything about the kid other than what I’ve read and I’ve never seen him play. The fact is that I want to see him play and I want to see him play for my club, the club that found him and turned him into what he is today.

Today our youth Team have an important FA Youth Cup tie at Bolton in which Luke Shaw will be playing. How nice of the media and whoever prompted them to bring this story out today so the lad’s got something on his mind tonight other than trying to help his team win. It’s all about the big clubs though isn’t it! The media have conjured up a figure of £4 million which I am 100% certain is a complete guess as I’m pretty sure neither Nigel Adkins or Don Cortese will have set a figure nor entered into any discussion whatsoever at this point. The London-friendly media really piss me off as well, making out that we’ll do business with Arsenal because we have some sort of cosy feeder-club style arrangement with them. Fuck off – just because they’ve lured away two of our best young players in the last 5 years, doesn’t mean we like them. I’d say it’s more likely to be the opposite. If we had a decent arrangement with Arsenal, you know, something that was beneficial in both directions, then surely we’d get some of their young players on loan when we need them.... no, I can’t think of any either. At risk of going a bit Monty Python, ‘What have Arsenal ever done for us ?’.... Perry Groves, Scott Marshall, Luis Boa Morte....cheers guys, they were all years ago and they were all shite.

Football authorities - You say you want to encourage clubs to develop their academies - then why not bring in a rule stating that a player can’t move until he’s 21 if he’s at a club with a Grade A Academy. If the player is at a Grade A Academy then by definition, another club won’t be any better for him. At 21, the selling club can then demand what they want. That’d stop teams like Arsenal just poaching every one else’s best kids for next to nothing and reward teams who get their Academies right. You never know, there may be a changing of the guard with teams who get it right challenging the big boys ... oh hang on, we wouldn’t want that would we? Another idea could be to say that the set fee for a Premiership club signing a player from another clubs academy before he’s 21 could be £15m for a 15 year old, £16m for a 16 year old, £17m for a 17 year old etc. Get some proper compensation for the smaller clubs and spread the wealth around. Surprise, surprise though – the new rules mean that in the majority of cases, the selling club will get less not more.

As for Luke Shaw and Saints – I have a feeling that we’ve been keeping him under wraps and assuming he’s still here, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this lad is in the first team squad from February 1^st onwards - maybe on the left wing with Adam Lallana moving elsewhere in the side. Maybe we’ll get half a season out of him then the media finger-in-the-air transfer fee will be about £10m. The bigger picture is that we have this stated aim to have half of our first team players having come through the academy. Of the current first team squad there is Adam Lallana and that’s it. Is there much chance of that changing if all our best kids get hoovered up by bloody Arsene Wenger? I say, if we get an offer this month – turn it down, whatever it is.

It does show you though that we need to get promoted to have a chance of keeping kids like Luke for longer. Hopefully the carrot of regular Premier League Football will outweigh playing for Arsenal Reserves at Barnet. Mind you, I believe I said that before Alex Chamberlain’s move and though he’s hardly featured in the Premiership, he’s played and scored in the Champions League and now he’s sharing a training ground with Thierry Henry. Bottom line is that if Luke Shaw wants to go then we’re stuffed.

I hate football sometimes.

PS – The Youth Team beat Bolton 2-1 and are now in the 5^th Round and playing at SMS in February. Hopefully, I’ll get to see Luke Shaw play.

Go take a shit, Arsene

FA Cup 3rd Round - Coventry 1 Southampton 2

2012-01-09T20:23:00.002Z

Coventry Spokesman in Defiant Mode!

FA Cup 3^rd Round day and a trip to Coventry and a real chance of progressing in the greatest Cup competition - you can stick your Champions League up your arse with its seeded draw and second chances and money money money. Both Saints and Coventry had the greatest moments in their histories in 1976 and 1987 respectively in the FA Cup Finals of those years so, would the magic be there today?

Well... Coventry made a bit of an effort by wearing a 1987 replica kit as it’s 25 years since their day in the sun at Wembley. I expect the idea was for them to sell thousands of these shirts to fans who would turn up in their numbers to watch the current Sky Blues and sing their painfully crap ‘Sky Blues, Shooting to win’ song. Unfortunately, the Coventry Board had reckoned without a fan boycott of the game in protest against SISU (http://www.leagueoneminus10.blogspot.com/2011/11/npc-match-16-coventry-2-southampton-4.html). The idea was for the Coventry fans to not go into the ground for the first 15 minutes.

We’ve had a bit of news since the Brighton game because of course, the transfer window has opened and all the speculation and lies that goes with it. However, there are some facts in that Ryan Dickson has gone out on loan to join up with Paul Wotton Football Genius at Yeovil. Dicko is a decent player who hasn’t been given a chance this season so I hope he comes back having got match fit. Back in the building but nowhere near the bus, is Jason Puncheon who has been sent back by QPR having made a contribution of 15 minutes playing time in 4 months. Nigel says we’re going to do an MOT on him to see where he is which means we’re going to check the emissions, decide that it’s too much effort and too much money to repair and then break him up and sell his parts for scrap.

Saints turned up on the back of some ropey results and were without an away win since the League visit to Coventry when we won 4-2. Not many of that team are here today and we line up with Bart in goal, hoping to rebuild confidence after his Blackpool tunnel-ball nightmare. In defence we have the current first choice pair of Fox and Big Jos, augmented with Aaron Martin and Dan Harding, pressed into service at right back where he will be running backwards, back-heeling the ball up the wing. The midfield consists of four central midfielders with Deano, Corky and Morgan being joined by James Ward-Prowse. Up front are Adam Lallana and Ryan Doble who gets the nod ahead of Jonno Pace. Rumour has it that Jonno is being saved for the Forest game next week so we can all shout ‘Run Forrest Run’ at him as he runs aimlessly into the advertising boards at the end of the ground. I can only assume that having played 90 minutes in the last league game, David Connolly is having a lie down somewhere. It’s been said that this is a ‘must draw’ game as a draw will means one game less on Sir Rickie’s league suspension.

Away we go and we’re a disaster waiting to happen as Coventry fly down the wings and our midfield stands in its non-sparkling diamond formation and watches them do it. Bart has to make a decent save from O’Donovan which must have done wonders for his confidence but it only takes 5 minutes for Coventry to score as Christie flies down the right and crosses, Big Jos heads it straight up into the air and from the resulting challenge between Aaron Martin and some bloke with a brush on his head, the ball somewhat luckily falls very nicely to McSheffrey to smash it past Bart for 1-0.

Saints are still asleep and are indebted to Bart again five minutes later as Deegan connects with a flicked on corner and it’s not looking good until Bart throws himself in the way. Excellent save.

The Coventry hoards stampeded into the ground at this point and swelled the crowd to at least 4000, just as we abandoned the narrow midfield and went 4-4-2 with Ward-Prowse pushed up alongside Doble and Lallana going to the left wing. The formation change saw us immediately begin to look better and Corky fired one narrowly wide from 30 yards. There’s a story going round that when the Saints squad went paintballing, they didn’t let Morgan have a gun as his shooting is so bad. Consequently, when he had a shot from outside the box on 35 minutes, no one was really shocked as it flew into the empty Sky Blue seats behind the goal. The last ten minutes of the first half are even and it’s dreadful as a spectacle as we are left with the hope that Nigel can sort it out at half time.

At this point I’ve settled down in front of the radio to get Merringtitus over the airwaves and pick up pearls of wisdom on what we don’t want to do. The second half is about to start when I’m informed that I am heading into town with my kids to buy shoes. Oh joy of joys so instead of uninterrupted Merringtitus, I get Whispering Dave in the car whilst sorting out vital arguments about who sits where and who is using whose DS.

Saints start the second half well with Doble challenging for a ball inside the box and it falls to James Ward-Prowse who, with the goal at his mercy, plays an air shot and the chance was gone. Ward-Prowse was involved again in the next incident as he knocked the ball past ex-Saint Martin Cranie (a player who could have had a decent career at Saints but for Whiskey George) who responded by trashing him and getting booked for his trouble.

Sam Hoskins comes on for Ryan Doble on the hour mark and immediately has an impact when he feeds Lallana who puts a beautiful cross along the ground, in between in the keeper and the defenders and straight into the path of James Ward-Prowse who buries it for 1-1. Sat at the lights at the bottom of Athelstan Road, I manage to scrape my knuckles as I punch the ceiling of the car. Saints are in command now and a lot is coming from Harding at right back who connects with a decent volley from 25 yards and watches the ball fizz just wide.

Ward-Prowse is replaced by Ben Reeves for the last 15 minutes and no one can be sure from that substitution if Nigel is happy with a draw or if he wants to win. It’s all us now though as another testing left footed cross is swung in from the right by Harding and just touched for a corner by a back-peddling defender. Foxy swings in the corner and Aaron Martin rises above a half-hearted challenge from his marker to thump in a header which the keeper makes a bit of a meal of before it rolls apologetically over the line. Aaron’s not bothered though and he’s off behind the goal, going nuts in front of the travelling Saints fans. Meanwhile, I’m in Clarks Shoes in the High Street, headphones in and momentarily not caring about the £100 plus that I’m about to spend on 3 pairs of school shoes.

There is just time for another kid to get on the pitch as Jack Stephens comes on at right back for Dan Harding for the last few minutes. Coventry have nothing left to offer as the clock winds down and all is well with the world when the ref blows his whistle to end the game.

And so the mighty SFC win to go into the hat for the 4^th Round draw. Nigel is buzzing and so he should be, a load of kids have played, two of them have scored and we won. I must admit that I’m going to get more than the usual satisfaction level when James Ward-Prowse scores as he comes from a family of Pompey supporters. Another one slipped through the net then boys.... Nigel’s post-match interview was about the possibilities for incoming players and re-affirming his desire to get into the Premier League, given the start we’ve had. That was all I wanted to hear to be honest, that the club realises that opportunities like this don’t happen every day. He also spoke of the potential outgoing of Jonno Pace and Lee Holmes as justification for them not coming on today. I’d say the justification is that we all know what they can do and it really isn’t much, so more would be gained by throwing on a 17 year old. When asked who we wanted in the next round, Nigel said ‘Chelsea so Corky can play at Stamford Bridge’. This was funny for two reasons, one as Corky was with Chelsea for 14 years without making a first team appearance and because it assumed that Chelsea would dispose of The Skates in the 3^rd Round.

As for Coventry – well I repeat what I said in the blog about the league game. I feel a bit sorry for them as they were financially in the mire and they got SISU as saviours and they’ve turned out to be worse. We could so easily be in the same boat at them and it’s important to remember that and have a certain amount of sympathy for any club with a dodgy board and financial difficulties.... expect the Cheating Skate Bastards of course who brought it all on themselves. Oddly, Coventry are obviously lying about the gate for some reason – saying there was 9000 in attendance when the real figure was probably half that. It’s all a bit Iraqi Information Minister – “the rebellion didn’t happen, there were 9000 people there, and everything is fine”. I can’t comment too much as I didn’t go but I got a text from a mate at full time which read ‘9000 my arse’.

The magic of the FA Cup has undoubtedly dimmed a little but try telling that to Aaron Martin and James Ward-Prowse who both went completely nuts when they scored. Try telling that to Sam Hoskins, Ryan Doble and Jack Stephens who all made contributions to the first team for the first time today. Whatever team we put out, the victory raises everyone’s spirits a bit before next week’s League trip to Nottingham Forest and Steve Cotterill who I predict, will get some stick. As long as we’re winning the match then that’s fine. We can’t afford another crap performance and result against a team near the bottom of the league.

Bring it on.

PS – The draw was made on Sunday for the 4^th Round and we didn’t get Chelsea who did dispose of The Skates 4-0. Instead, we got a blockbusting tie – Dagenham & Redbridge or Millwall away. That’s one to get the pulses racing and no one needs to get a ticket as it’s sure to be selected for live TV…. In Azerbaijan or somewhere like that.

NPC Match 25 - Brighton 3 Southampton 0

2012-01-03T23:59:00.001Z

Adam El-Abd's Car Spotted at the Amex

Welcome to 2012 and Saints have the relatively short trip along the coast to Brighton. I say “short trip” when I actually mean, short trip as the crow flies. If you drive or use the train then you get there in about the same amount of time as it takes to get to Scotland as the roads are crap and the trains are shite. Still, at least it’s not the Withdean... it’s the brand new £90 million Amex Community Stadium. I’ve had rants about corporate naming of grounds before but at least Amex is a decent name, unlike King Power or Western Homes Community or whatever Colchester’s ground was called.

With the transfer window being open and all that, we’ve had a bit of news in that a Japanese striker looks like he may be joining us from Hiroshima, only he’s not Japanese, he’s Korean, well one of his parents is but he plays for Japan. Depending on which paper you read, he’s called Tadanari Lee (his Japanese name) or Lee Chung-Sung (his Korean name) or Tadanari Oyama (his ‘alien living in Japan’ name). I wonder who out of Nigel Adkins, Andy Crosby or Dean Wilkins speaks Japanese. It’s looking like a done deal though with just work permit formalities to complete. It’s a bit of a left field signing if it comes off and of course, he could be rubbish or brilliant or anywhere in between.

I was expecting a more or less unchanged side with hopefully Fonte coming back in but as it turned out, we had other problems. The defence had Aaron Martin at centre back once more and Dan Harding came in for Danny Fox who dropped to the bench. Morgan had managed to reach 5 yellow cards so Deano came in which I think would have happened anyway and Guly was on the right as Steeeeeve had some sort of unpublicised groin injury as it turned out. Up front with Sir Rickie was David Connolly, making his first start for a while. It was the bench which sent shivers down the spine with the attacking option being Johnno Pace. Ben Reeves was also on there along with Lee Holmes and the aforementioned Foxy. Much had been made of the fact that Brighton were down to the bare bones but if you get 5 yellow cards every week and a red card every two matches then that tends to happen. I don’t usually mention the ref before the game but today it’s Andy D’Arsehole who is one of the worst refs in the business.

The first 20 minutes were largely forgettable but Brighton had the first incident when Adam El-Abd tried a little dive in our box. It really should have been 1-0 to us five minutes later as following a superb passing move, Cork created a wonderful chance for Guly but he got his legs all mixed up in Bambi-on-Ice stylee and somehow scooped over the bar from 6 yards. In the build up for this chance, D’Arsehole had managed to miss a blatant body check by Cook on Harding about a second after he’d passed the ball.

Lallana was adopting a shoot on sight policy with Brezovan looking dodgy in goal but we had our own dodgy going on with Harding having a mare at left back and he’d already carted a couple of players over when he got booked for what was a 100% hard and fair tackle on Mackail-Smith who of course, rolled around like a big fucking girl who’d been shot. Maybe the booking was for that one tackle or maybe it was for repeated fouls. Either way, the tackle that brought the booking wasn’t a foul but was bought by a cheat. Dan then brushed against another Brighton player who went to ground in spectacular fashion to earn a final warning lecture from D’Arsehole before he was substituted and replaced with Danny Fox.

Major controversy on 40 minutes as Connolly’s goalbound header was parried out by Brezovan for Lallana to return with interest. It was a good foot over the line before Cook pulled out a clearance but neither referee nor linesman saw it and play went on. We arrived at half time at 0-0 when in reality, we should have been 2-0 up.

The second half started with Sir Rickie going up for a header and being assaulted in typical Brighton fashion in the penalty area. It has to be a penalty, there can be no other outcome but there is as D’Arsehole decides that he’s seen nothing and waves play on like the useless twat that he is. Brighton take a long shot from the right wing and Kelvin flaps it back into play in unconvincing fashion.

On 51 minutes it all goes decidedly pear shaped as Brighton defender and well know wind-up merchant as well as a diving cheating fucker, Adam El-Abd, brings down Sir Rickie and then prevents him from getting up by holding onto him. At this point, Andy D’Arshole, as he was 5 yards away and looking at it, really should have given us a free kick. He didn’t of course and because of this and probably because he was still pissed about not getting a penalty, Sir Rickie gave El-Abd a little shove in the chin which of course resulted in the horrible little shit rolling around on the ground like he’d been punched. And so it came to pass that Sir Rickie was shown the first red card of his career by Andy D’Arshole who of course, had seen the retaliation clear as day. Adam El-Abd is an utter disgrace of a footballer – just a cheat, no other word for it. He carried on rolling round until Sir Rickie was off the pitch.

Initially we seemed to cope with the loss quite well, leaving Connolly up front on his own with Guly breaking forward whenever possible.   Superkelv redeemed his flappyness from earlier with a decent save from Forster-Caskey who found enough space to build a fucking house in on the edge of our box. Things went further wrong on the hour mark as Guly pulled up with a pain in the arse and with everyone screaming for Holmes to come on to make a solid 4-4-1 formation, we brought on Jonno Pace to run about aimlessly.

The goal that the game didn’t need finally came on 66 minutes and it’s another one for NotsoSuperkelv to want to forget. Lua Lua fired in a speculative pot shot and just like against Bristol City last week, Davis should have held it or parried it sideways but instead, parried it straight out of Forster-Caskey who wasn’t going to miss from there.

At one 1-0 down and your main goal threat having been sent off, what you don’t need is a mystifying substitution in which one of your other main goal threats is replaced with a kid who doesn’t have a preferred position and has never played in the league before. I know everyone has to start somewhere but Ben Reeves, your time should not have been now. Adam Lallana departed and bearing in mind that for one reason or another, Sir Rickie, Steeeeve and Guly weren’t on the pitch, Saints hopes of a moment of inspiration to get back into it went with him. The moment of inspiration was to arrive three minutes later but sadly, it was wearing a blue and white shirt as Sparrow smashed in a beauty from 25 yards – 2-0 and game over.

We have a decent chance to at least make the last 10 minutes interesting as Frazer did his thing down the wing and his cross fell perfectly for Reeves but he played an air shot. The ball carried onto Corky who wasn’t expecting it and he scooped it over the bar in crap fashion. To add further salt into the wounds, Sparrow popped up again with 5 minutes to go to slam in a loose ball via a deflection to make it 3-0.   Jesus...

And finally, a new definition of pointless. Brighton captain Germaine Greer who had spent the whole game chatting to D’Arsehole, trying to get players sent off and congratulating El-Abd when he managed it, decided to give Jonno Pace a bit of a slap off the ball. This was pointless and stupid because.....
      a)      Jonno isn’t worth hitting as it can’t make him play worse

b) Brighton have a terrible disciplinary record and are short of several players because of it

c) There was one minute to go and the game was won.

When we played Brighton at St.Mary’s earlier on in the season and won 3-0, we did so with the help of a dodgy penalty decision when Jose Fonte was so far outside the box when he was fouled, he nearly collided with a ball boy when he went down. The fact that we had two blatant pens not given that day and the other fact that we were already winning when it happened have been forgotten and ever since then I’ve had to listen to Brighton fans light-heartedly calling us ‘cheats’ but boy, with the aid of Andy D’Arsehole, his assistants, Craig Mackail-Smith and in particular Adam El-Abd, did Brighton get their own back today. Would it be going too far to suggest that Poyet would have encouraged El-Abd to try and get Sir Rickie sent off, given that we’re only as good as Dagenham and Redbridge without him ? Regardless, Rickie gave El-Abd the opportunity to act like he’d been punched and D’Arsehole did the rest. The other big decision in the game was of course Lallana’s “goal” which of course, was a decision that we ended up the wrong side of. I predict that goal line technology will be in place sometime in 2054 or sooner if Sepp Blatter dies.

Last year we came down to the Withdean and won and Nigel was a genius. Everything he tried worked that day but today was the complete opposite. Playing Harding from the start was wrong, bringing Forte on was wrong, bringing Reeves on was wrong. Gus Poyet was quite calm afterwards though he did acknowledge that the decisions had gone for them today. He’s in charge of one horrible team though – a decent side but I couldn’t stand watching the cheating every week.

The goal not being given and the sending off, changed the game and 3-0 is a ridiculous scoreline when you look at the balance of play over the 90 minutes. The facts remain though that we missed sitters, our keeper coughed up the important first goal and Sir Rickie invited the possibility of getting sent off. Also, we didn’t deal with being down to ten men as we should have due to the bench we had. and the way it was used. On that subject, I’ll give a shout out to Ryan Dickson who I think is a decent player and wonder why he wasn’t on the bench today as he’s better than all those that were on there aside from Danny Fox who was only on there himself to give Harding a game – didn’t that work out well !!. I get the feeling that Ben Reeves is on the bench because he came through the Academy, not because he’s better than Ryan Dickson – maybe that’s harsh and he may be a very good player in the future but right now he just isn’t. Taking that a step further though – haven’t we got an academy striker prospect who is better than Jonno Pace?

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong today and guess what, we’re still top of the league but now it’s on goal difference from West Ham with both Middlesbrough and Cardiff within striking distance. It’s no secret that we need a couple of signings to ensure that the superb start of the season is not wasted and turns into a promotion season. Today was not a great start to 2012 and we’ll have to work out a way to score goals without Sir Rickie as he’s going to be banned for 3 matches. The only silver lining is that one of those will be next weeks FA Cup game against Coventry. I wonder what odds you could get on Lukas Jutkiewicz making his Saints debut against the side he’s just left. I’m sure the Echo will run a story on that one.

NPC Match 24 - Southampton 0 Bristol City 1

2012-01-01T15:05:00.000Z

We're shit, we're always shit, who are we again ?

Bristol City are in town to try and prevent us going 6 points clear at the top of the league. This is course, is a bit of a misnomer as everyone else plays tomorrow but never the less, after tonight, the league table will hopefully look very nice indeed. We of course, lost at Ashton Gate about a month ago as we put in one of our stuttering away performances and they were on the top of “new manager” bounce. They’re now in the depths of “we’re down the bottom for a reason” and I don’t think they’ve won since.

The last time we played Bristol City at home, I didn't make the game as someone nicked my headlight from my car. Not too much of a problem one would think until you consider that they'd ripped the bumper off and broke the bonnet so it wouldn't shut - all to nick a headlight off a Ford Focus, the most common car in the world. I was in Portsmouth so I guess it serves me right and it may explain why they'd broken the mountings so it would be useless anyway.

I wonder what sort of reception David James will get – I think he’s still an excellent goalkeeper and a decent bloke but a Skate, is at the end of the day, a Skate. I predict tonight will be a rear guard action by the Wurzels so hopefully he’ll have a mare. Nicky Maynard is in the news for not signing a new contract and the City fans are giving him a hard time but if he plays then he’ll be a threat, as will Albert Adomah who tore Danny Fox a new one at Ashton Gate.

Nigel’s team selection headaches are interesting but I can basically see a similar pattern to the Palace game so I expect us to be unchanged. Maybe Nigel will prefer Dan Harding to Fox to combat the very quick Adomah but ... out of our 3 left backs, maybe the forgotten man.... thingy... Ryan Dickson is the quickest. Surely Morgan played too well against Palace to be dropped for this one meaning Deano can once again keep warm on the bench with his gay jumper.

As it turned out, Nigel kept faith with the Fox at left back and Morgan in midfield but there was one change with Jose Fonte succumbing to a toe injury and being replaced with Aaron Martin. Aaron’s spot on the bench was taken by Lee Holmes.

For the first 10 minutes we don’t touch the ball as Bristol City set out their stall and basically take the piss. They’re passing it about, running at us and looking dangerous. Every time we get it, we’ve lost it again within seconds as they snap into tackles and we don’t seem to have the pace about our game to impose ourselves. When we eventually do get hold of the ball them we look dangerous as de Ridder skins his full back and gets his head up and feeds Lallana in space but he fannies around with it and the chance is gone.

We look terrified of Adomah whenever he gets the ball and he flies past Frazer and Morgan before lashing over the bar. Whilst City look dangerous, they’re not working the keeper at all and we manage it when Morgan takes a pot shot from 30 yards which is flying in the top corner until James takes off and tips it over the bar. From the resulting corner, Sir Rickie beats his marker and heads over when he really should have done better.

It’s end to end stuff though as more pissing about and ‘after you’ in our defence sees Superkelv have to claw away another Adomah blast before we break again and de Ridder forces James into a block before just failing to pick out Guly with the rebound and his cross is eventually cleared by the committed City defenders or bastards as I was calling them at the time. In the build up to this, Sir Rickie had been totalled off the ball by Carey and in the one decision the ref got right all game, he went back and booked him.

We had a great chance to take the lead just before half time when Sir Rickie found himself on the right wing and ignoring the anti-Gas insults being thrown at him by the City fans, crossed. The cross was headed up in the air by a defender and fell to the wrong man to hit on the volley as Foxy screwed his big chance well wide.

Half time and the natives are restless in the crowd because we’re not winning. I have a discussion with a bloke who is incandescent with rage over us not signing anyone in the loan window in November. Hmmm, remember Dany N’Guessan and Dale Stephens…. If you don’t it’s because they were pretty shite.

I expected us to tighten up in the second half but we don’t – the opposite in fact as a long range shot is spilled by Superkelv and Maynard fires in the rebound. Fuck it… oh, hang on, offside, haaaaaaaaaa !. Fact is that we and Kelvin got lucky there but we attempt to rub it in by taking a quick free kick while five City players are celebrating in the corner but Guly lashes the eventual chance over the bar. Whilst it would have been a little unjust, it would have been amusing if that had gone in.

Aaron Martin is showing up well in defence for us and their defence is as uncompromising as ever with Carey getting away with absolute murder every time he challenges Sir Rickie in the air. On the one occasion the ref actually sees fit to give a free kick against him for using the forward as a step ladder, he chucks his toys around like a man who is begging to get sent off. Morgan has faded from the game horribly and he makes his one contribution to the second half by trashing Adomah and getting a deserved booking.

City create another chance and this time it’s Superkelv to the rescue as he gets enough on Person’s close range shot to allow Martin to clear and that bastard James is at it again as Cork’s fine run and cross, picks out Sir Rickie who takes it on his chest and smashes in a volley which has goal written all over it. James wipes ‘goal’ off of the ball and re-write ‘not today sunshine’ on it and pulls off a great save.

With Connolly about to come on, the money is on de Ridder coming off even though he’s been our best player but it’s Lallana who comes off with Guly going left. The impact craved though is arse backwards as Skuse fires in a shot from 40 yards, Notsosuperkelv makes a meal of it and flaps it into the path of Maynard again. As we wait for the net to bulge, Kelvin is up and parrying away the incoming shot but is powerless to prevent Pearson rolling it into an empty net. Shit… for real this time.

There are 10 minutes to go plus added time and I’m not optimistic today. We throw on Deano for Morgan which improves things and then mysteriously, we throw on Holmes (a left winger) at right back in place of Richardson (right back and our best crosser of the ball) and still leave Guly out on the left (where’s he’s crap). The only other personnel change that should happen is Carey getting sent off as he continues to kick the fuck out of Sir Rickie but the ref isn’t having any of it. A Guly shot which is always going wide is all we manage despite the five minutes of added time that come and go as rather irritatingly, people file out of the stadium.

Well bugger. Not because we didn’t go a calendar year without a home defeat as I couldn’t give a shit about that but just because we lost but to be fair, Bristol City played better than us on the night and deserved to win. To take that further, they looked dangerous with the ball and very organized when we had possession and I can’t find anything to have a go at them about. They looked better than any side we’ve played in this home run we’ve been on. The referee didn’t help us in the slightest today though and on another day with another ref, Carey would have picked up 4 yellow cards on his own. It’s not just the leniency in terms of cards though, it was the fact he let the centre backs climb all over Sir Rickie for the entire match. Mind you, we should have been good enough to play through them and not go long all the time.

This wasn’t a terrible performance by us and we did create some chances. If Joe Hart is England’s best goalkeeper, then even at 41, David James is the 2^nd best and he looked unbeatable tonight. Positves for us were Steve de Ridder who was superb all night I thought and our best attacking player by a mile. Aaron Martin also had a decent enough match to suggest we shouldn’t be worried when he’s called upon. One worry was that Adam Lallana was terrible and hasn’t really fired since his injury lay off. Morgan and Corky seemed to get tired in the second half and in my opinion, Deano should have been on at half time, even allowing for his gay jumper. Guly was another who looked like he needs a bit of a break.

I’m going to have a moan about moaning. Guly tries a flick and loses the ball and there’s loads of moaning. Lallana backheels a throw in out of play and everyone goes ‘unlucky’ - if Guly had done that he’d have got slaughtered. Also, 85 minutes tonight and they may as well have put ‘Ghost Town’ on the stadium PA as the home sections started emptying out. Usually it happens on 90 minutes and the only reason I can think of for this happening five minutes earlier than usual is because we are losing, which after the year we’ve had, I find a bit pathetic. Something made me laugh on the way out of the ground as well - Steve de Ridder shanked his last cross of the game out of play and on the way out I heard someone saying ‘that de Ridder is fucking shit’. Talk about the memory of a goldfish – anything that happened before 10 minutes ago doesn’t count.

It’s been a brilliant year and we’re top of the league. Yes we could be further ahead but we’re in a better position than 23 other teams. Do you want to swap because they all want to swap with us.

PS – On the Saturday after our game, West Ham managed to lose at Derby and Middlesbrough only managed a home draw with Peterborough so we managed to stay top by 2 points. If this doesn’t tell you that no one is going to run away with it then nothing will. Next up we have Brighton who have a load of injuries and suspensions and are falling down the league quicker than Pompey are spending money they haven’t got.

Happy New Year SFC fans.

NPC Match 23 - Southampton 2 Crystal Palace 0

2011-12-28T18:54:00.000Z

Palace Striker in Canary Surrealism Shocker

Having got over my annoyance at not beating the Skates, we arrive at Boxing Day and the start of 3 matches in 7 days that would set up the rest of the season or otherwise. We have course, not been great in December with the only consolation being that no one else has been particularly great either and we’re still top of the league. I read somewhere that the team that’s top at Christmas has gone on to get promoted in 5 of the last 6 seasons. It’s stats like that, that really mean fuck all when it comes down to it and are similar to superstition really… for example, today my brother-in-law is at the game and is sat with me, with my Dad moving to the row in front. Dad wants someone else to sample the Chuckle Brothers and their wisdom. Will this change of configuration have any bearing on the outcome….? It’s the sort of thing they fill a whole program with on talkSHITE. It’s all a load of bollocks.

On my last day at work in Brighton, the Albion supporting fraternity (one of whom is a bastard who got me some Albion pencils and dangly balls as my Secret Santa present) signed off with ‘beat the scum for us’. Their scum are of course Crystal Palace, who are in town today and they of course have already beaten us once this season in the Carling Cup when we put the kids and Johnno Pace in the team. Palace then went and beat Man Utd at Old Trafford in the next round and fair play to them. Today we of course, have a first choice team out with no Johnno Pace in it. We do, somewhat surprisingly, have Steve de Ridder in the team in place of Dean Hammond with Morgan Schneiderlin moving into the centre. I can only assume that Deano got dropped for wearing that gay base-layer long-sleeved white roll neck effort under his shirt at Fratton Park. Perhaps he misheard and thought Nigel said ‘South Pole’ when in fact he said ‘Shit Hole’. Making a welcome return to the bench is David Connolly who has completed his usual 6 weeks recovery from an injury. The expected appearance of Chappers on the bench didn’t happen as he slipped over again in training and did his knee again, so no Bald Psycho for a couple more weeks at least.

I expected Guly to play on the wing and Steeeeeeve to play up front the spirit of Christmas had obviously possessed Nigel Adkins as he went against his previously stated reservations about de Ridder playing on the wing which were basically that he didn’t track back enough and didn’t cross the ball well enough.

The first 10 minutes go by and Palace look a decent side who are very well organized defensively. They have the highly rated Nathaniel Clyne at right back who has been tracked by the big boys and Gardner, a big tall lump in the centre. Talking of big lumps, they have a bloke resembling a wardrobe in the centre of midfield. He’s probably all muscles but he looks like a bit of a fat lad. I’m pleased that Darren Ambrose is not playing as I feel that midfielders who get forward is a bit of an Achilles heel for us with the way we play. So, it’s two lines of four, come and break us down then! On ten minutes we nearly make the breakthrough as Steeeeeve feeds Morgan who whips in a perfect first time cross to the back stick to the on-steaming Sir Rickie whose goalbound header is well kept out by Speroni.

Morgan is making his presence felt in midfield by running the game with authority, pinging passes out to the wing to where Frazer and Steeeeve are giving the very dodgy looking Ramage a hard time on the Palace left. De Ridder is the focal point today and he provides both positive and negative. Bad news first as he finds space on the right but with Guly, Sir Rickie and Adam Lallana all in the middle, shins his cross behind the goal. Good news though when Frazer gets totally done by Scannell on the left wing and as the Palace forward starts to get up a head of steam down the wing, he gets caught and superbly tackled by de Ridder who has come from nowhere. Steeeeeeeeeeeeve!!!!

Wilfred Zaha is another Palace player with a bit of a reputation but if he’s not careful, he’ll get a reputation for being a knob. Danny Fox tries to dribble round him and kind of screws it up and just runs into him and gives the ball away before having a little tap at his ankles. Zaha gets the red mist, turns round and shoves him in the neck. To be fair to the ref, he’s obviously seen Foxy’s kick as he gets a yellow card for it and fair enough. He then however decides to ignore the rule about raising your hands to an opponent though and Zaha doesn’t even get spoken to. Palace obviously thought he was in trouble as their players walked him right up the pitch away from the incident.

The incident has got to Zaha though as he spends the rest of the first half throwing his arms around as a succession of decisions don’t go his way. His mood will doubtless be made worse by de Ridder giving Ramage the old go, stop, go before standing up a superb cross for Guly to head into the net for 1-0. Get in!!!

It’s all about Steeeeve now as he’s decided that Ramage is there for the taking and flies past him again, only to get hauled back for an obvious yellow card. There’s a comedy cameo moment as Big Jos bring the ball out of defence, feeds de Ridder and keeps galloping forward like a lunatic only for de Ridder’s cross not to reach him.

Half time and happy days. A word for the half time entertainment which is a kids relay race round the side of the pitch where they have to transport a ball right the way round and then the last player smashes it into the net. Hilarious as we had kids dropping the ball before the start, kids running off without the ball and making the previous kid run miles and to cap it all, both kids on the final leg missed the goal. Brilliant. I think we should do this with some of the fat ex-players with Paul Williams and Matt le Tiss on their last legs, literally.

Back to today and Palace have to come out and try and score now but they don’t seem to have much of a plan B. The wardrobe in midfield hasn’t got a clue when it comes to being creative and Zaha’s answer to the need for a goal is to put luminous yellow boots on. Yes mate, now everyone can see that you’re a twat, even in the dark. Saints fashion the first chance of the half as Cork wins possession and sets de Ridder away through the middle with a cute pass. Our famous Belgian should have had a shot really but ran into traffic before working it back to Lallana who smashed it wide before pulling the old trick of appealing for a corner.

Palace do come back into it and actually win a corner which we defend horrifically as McCarthy’s free header (which is heading well wide) hits Frazer in the chest (penalty appeals etc!!!) before Sir Rickie hooks it up in the air and Fonte climbs all over Gardner and heads clear (more penalty appeals!!!). Having seen the replays, first one definitely not, second one possibly though Gardner did just stand there and made no attempt to go for the ball – mind you, that may have been difficult with a large Portuguese man on his head. More Palace pressure as Zaha makes his one positive contribution with a cross and Glenn Murray hooks it straight to Superkelv who catches comfortably.

It’s all over bar the shouting in the 75^th minute though as we build down the left through Lallana and Sir Rickie before Morgan spreads play out to Frazer on the right who runs forward and curls another fantastic cross onto the head of Guly who cannot miss and doesn’t. It’s 2-0 and we are back.

You can always tells that the goalscorer was about to be substituted when a sub was ready to come on before the goal and then the fourth official desperately starts fucking about with the electronic board. Eventually, Guly stays on and Steve de Ridder comes off having had his best game so far for Saints. Personally I thought we should have taken Lallana off as he wasn’t quite at it today but the good news was that David Connolly was back on the pitch.

Adam nearly makes the most of his reprieve by pulling out a wonderful turn to leave the fat wardrobe in his wake before ruining the aesthetic beauty of the moment by lashing horribly over the bar. It’s time for a Man of the Match Standing Ovation substitution as Morgan makes way for Deano and his gay jumper. There is no excuse – not even if his wife bought it for him.

More comedy as the fat wardrobe lumbers into a threatening position and tries to curl an inviting cross into his forwards path. He succeeds only in sidefooting is straight to Superkelv in embarrassing back-pass fashion before going straight to McDonalds for a comfort burger.

I don’t usually remember the direct Chuckle Brothers quotes as I’m trying to ignore them but today, one stuck in my mind and gives a real indication of what we have to put up with. This classic comes from the Moronic one. As the 93^rd minute ticks down, the ball hits Scannell on the arm and the ref gives a free kick which Scannell doesn’t agree with...

“It was a handball.... own up.... be a man.... not a canary”.

Everyone is looking at everyone else with their very best ‘What the Fuck?’ face but no one says anything to him as it’s Christmas and we’re back to winning ways as the final whistle blows.

There were lots of general things I noticed today that don’t really fit into a ‘highlights’ match report. When we signed Jos Hooiveld a couple of weeks back, Nigel mentioned about the need to intercept passes these days, rather than tackle. Since that comment I’ve noticed how many times not only Big Jos but also Jose Fonte manage to do this. It’s like a throwback to Alan Hansen who is the 80’s was the only centre back who never got dirty. Jack Cork is also a master at running opponents off the ball and winning it back without giving the referee any opportunity to give a foul.

We kept possession very well today which involved a lot of passing across and backwards and waiting for the opening, drawing the opposition out. A lot of fans just do not get it and would rather we just hoofed it forward. Morgan was picked today, specifically for his ball retention and ability to pick a pass and spray it out to the wings against opposition who pack the centre of the park. Maybe that’s crap and it was solely because Deano wore that gay jumper at Fratton Park.

Finally we have the man who scored both goals today and won the match for us, Guly do Prado – yes he gives the ball away quite a lot and yes he looks disinterested sometimes but he makes things happen and there is an end product. Look at the goals he’s scored this year and last and I bet his assist count is pretty good too. We had another player a bit like that a few years back, in fact I mentioned him in the half time bit and it’s not Paul Williams. The criticism Guly gets is at best unhelpful and is really not doing anyone any good you know. I bet he’d get in every team in this years Championship if they had him as every team needs a bit of unpredictability about it and he’s it, along with Adam and Steeeeeve. Pompey’s unpredictability is whether the players will get paid or not.

We played very well today and won comfortably. Fonte and Hooiveld were class at the back and didn’t give Palace too much of a sniff and Corky and Morgan ruled the midfield. Oddly enough, the two players who are our two most celebrated, Sir Rickie and Adam Lallana were quiet today but others like Guly and Steeeeeeve stepped up. Palace showed signs of being a decent side but maybe weren’t allowed to be by their managers tactics. It’s interesting that the last two managers that have played us, both Voldemort (Skates) and Freedman (Palace) are young and in their first managerial jobs and are both adopting a safety first approach. Maybe it’s a fear of failure. Palace came for a draw and when they went 1-0 down had nothing else and didn’t even really try anything else.

So, a good Boxing day with West Ham only drawing and the Skates getting beat 1-0 to a goal by Dany N’Guessan who put a smile on the face of Saints fans today even if he never did when he played for us. Next up... Revenge Mission number 1, Bristol City at home, Friday night. Win that and we’re 6 points clear for a day at least as everyone else plays on Saturday including Brighton who we play on January 2nd. If we beat them, I predict Gus will have a rant about us arranging fixtures to suit ourselves, extra day to recover and all that stuff....yawn!

NPC Match 22 - Portsmouth 1 Southampton 1

2011-12-19T19:08:00.001Z

Needed another one!!!

The waiting is over and for the first time since 2005, we return to Fratton Park for a derby game in the League. As has been covered in the preview, the last time was completely abysmal. Not being one to be swayed by superstition, I have taken up residence in the same armchair, in the same house as I was in then. Last time around I more or less swore in front of my mum for the whole 90 minutes and taught her a whole load of new words. I will endeavour not to swear this time which will be nigh on impossible… and even if I manage it, my Dad will fail spectacularly. So here we are in front of the BBC who inform us that the game is referred to as El Classicoast - not in my house it isn't.

The build up to the game has been quite low key from both camps. The main Saints talking point has been whether Kelvin would make it and we’ll soon find out. I’m hoping Chappers had made a miraculous recovery but I can’t see it somehow. Pompey have declared that Liam Lawrence is fit which could work either way. On one hand he’s a decent player but on the other, he’s a walking red card. Both managers have said that they know what it means to the fans – hardly going to say anything else are they – but does Nigel know how hostile this is going to be and has he warned the players about the smell of rotten fish? It’ll be an extra motivation for The Skates to actually be playing in front of a crowd. I expect their players will wonder where the fuck all the extra people have come from and why they couldn’t give a shit every other week; you’ve only come to watch Southampton.

The Skates are of course, once more looking for a buyer and Andrew Andronikou, the bloke who is charged with finding them one, is the same crook who got in the last one, Mr Antonov of CSI. The preferred choice, whose £10 million investment saved the club, has now been arrested for money laundering so you could say that Mr Andronikou succeeded in his brief to find the perfect owner for Pompey. Surely if he gets found guilty then that injection into the club is illegal… well that’s for another day. Pompey message boards are full of people blaming the FA for declaring the latest crook to be Fit and Proper, rather than blaming the guy who chose him, who as I said, is back again like the bad smell of rotten fish. If the FA had stepped in and said CSI couldn’t take over then the club would have gone bust anyhow. How comforting it must be for the Skates to have Mr Andronikou as your knight in shining armour. An interesting Skate viewpoint is that today’s game would show the club in a good light for any potential investor as it will be a full ground, great atmosphere etc. If some dickhead with £100 million plus of real money to tip into a black hole comes along, will they be grateful to us as a result? The 12,000 they got last week wouldn’t have looked quite as impressive, would it?

To the dismay of all those of a Blue persuasion, Superkelv had recovered to consign Bart to the bench. The rest of the team is as you’d expect with Morgan again being asked to play down the right. The Skates had lost Varney to injury but brought back Liam Lawrence who had recovered from injury, much to the dismay of those of a Blue persuasion who wanted Huseklepp to start.

Away we go and it becomes a bit of a hoof-fest straight away with neither team wanting to give the opposition anything. Whenever football breaks out on the pitch it becomes obvious that Pompey are set up like an away side hoping for a point. Norris is supposed to be up supporting Kitson but he’s nowhere near him and any ball up to him is meat and drink to Big Jos.

There are no meaty challenges flying about much to my surprise but you can always rely on Deano and he smashed into Halford but the referee (or Premiership referee Mark Halsey to give him his full title) saw nothing untoward with it. When a booking did come it was for absolutely nothing as Cork breathed on Kitson who stood there waving his arms at the ref. I assumed it was for dissent but the TV replay more or less proved that Corky said nothing. The decision seemed particularly odd as within a minute, Mullins had hoofed both Corky and Deano up in the air with no card coming out.
Lallana is the one class act on the pitch and showed his intent with a slalom down the left which left Halford and Mullins on their respective backsides. The one opening of the first half though fell to the Skates when Big Jos failed to deal with a big punt forward from the Pompey keeper and the ball fell to Norris who bobbled a shot wide from the edge of the box. Oh look lads, we’ve had a crappy bobbly effort wide of the post… lets all sing Amarillo. Zzzzzz. And while we're at it, every time the Scummers get a throw in, chuck the ball away.

Both teams were awarded free kicks in threatening positions as the half drew to a close but Sir Rickie put his tamely straight at the keeper and Halford curled his wide. The commentators made a big deal of his effort even though it was well wide and always going wide, which kind of showed how poor the first half had been in terms of goalmouth incident.

Mind you, even if the game had been awesome, then the BBC would have made it look bad. Their insistence on showing close ups of players when the game was going on, their total failure to deal with the over-exposure caused by the strip of sun on our right wing and their insistence on showing replays when there were passages of play that people would prefer to be watching, all added to the general feeling of ‘crap game’. I hate to say it as Sky is the devil.... but Sky coverage is much better. Still, BBC is better than ITV, just because it doesn’t have Mr Potato Head, Adrian Wanker Chiles on it.
Saints have obviously responded better to the half time manager chats and start the second half very well. Sir Rickie sends in a cross-cum-shot which Morgan narrowly fails to make contact with before Henderson grabs it. We’re upping the possession and forcing the Skates back, resulting in Mattock earning a yellow card for flattening the Gulyman which was pointless as if he hadn’t tackled him, the Gulyman would have either fallen over or mis-controlled it anyway, he was having that kind of game. Foxy’s free kick was perfect and met by Lallana at the back stick but he cushioned his volley over the bar.

Just after the hour mark came the moment we’d been waiting for as Mullins pushed Deano in the air to give us another free kick from the right. Fox again went to take it and curled it in to where Sir Rickie beat Pearce in the air to glance it into the net for 1-0. Cue bruised shin on the coffee table. There is something truly different about scoring against the Skates.

Voldemort reached for the bench and brought on Huseklepp in place of Liam Lawrence who I had honestly forgotten was playing. The expected Pompey fightback didn’t materialise at all as Saints took over and gave a lesson in how to dominate a game... and not score. The Pompey fans, by now completely silent were forced to watch as Sir Rickie put Lallana through but he fannied about allowing Skate defenders to get back and cover instead of going straight for the goal.

A sub each as Harding came on for and unhappy looking Foxy and Voldemort obviously decided he was going to hoof it long by sending on Futacs for Mullins. The football lesson without the finishing lesson continued with the Gulyman shanking one wide across the goal and then being smothered by Henderson as he got on the end of a cute Sir Rickie pass. Adam Lallana put Morgan through and he, in entirely predictable fashion, missed the target and as we arrived at the last 5 minutes, Pompey hadn’t even seen our goal and didn’t look like scoring in the slightest. Corky and Deano were ruling the midfield with Cork in particular winning tackles all over the place. Ginger magician was still the only player up front as Futacs doesn’t qualify as a player and all the service up to him was 15 feet up in the air at least.

And so it came to pass in the season of goodwill that the bastards scored. Another big welly forward by Henderson was not dealt with and resulted in Harding giving a corner away that he really should have cleared for a throw. The incoming corner was won by Thorne at the back post and his knock across was met by Joel Ward who made no mistake, nodding it past the Gulyman on the post.
Saints poured forward again for the remaining five minutes but could only manage one half chance for Sir Rickie which he volleyed over the bar. Full time, 1-1 and the bastards had well and truly got out of jail. We, on the other hand, only have ourselves to blame. The game ended and he Skate fans celebrated like they’d won the league. All a bit surreal really.

Full time. Bollocks. Two points dropped. Yes I would have taken that at the start but Pompey were fucking shite and we should have beaten them. It’s especially annoying as in the 2nd half we totally bossed it but we left them in with a chance by not scoring a second goal. One needlessly conceded corner and it’s 1-1. Pompey really were dreadful and didn’t string 3 passes together for the whole match. They’ll win some games because they’re compact and well organized now but every one will be 1-0. Some decent players in Ward and Thorne and I have to admit, I think they have a decent manager who speaks well and seems to be alright which is a bit of shame as you want them to have a manager like Steve Cotterill who is a) a shit manager and b) a twat. Still, it’s not about them bastards, it’s about us.

I thought the defence played well today and the midfield got a real grip in the second half. Kelvin had nothing to do and defensively, we were very solid. Why on earth Nigel brought on Harding for Fox is beyond me. We’re keeping a clean sheet and they are not getting near our goal so why replace a defender? We are in desperate need to Chappers getting fit top give us balance on the right. Morgan does some decent stuff out there but we’re just not as good without some Bald Psycho. Up front, Sir Rickie did his thing and did it well but the Gulyman had a shithouse of a game – the harder he tried, the worse it got. He’s getting pilloried for the Pompey goal in the media and it was likewise on the BBC as well which I think is a bit harsh. Was he supposed to be on the post and if so, who was supposed to be marking Ward? His main problem was at the other end where he continually gave the ball away. Pompey’s defence is so slow that I think Steeeeeve would have been a good player to bring on with 10 to go to really stretch them.

Maybe I’m letting my frustration at not winning boil over but I found our post match interviews a little annoying. First up was Sir Rickie saying that we should have only need one goal to win a game and then Nigel saying he thought we had it won. OK, we should have only needed one goal to beat that shite but you can’t have the mindset that the game was won at 1-0 with 10 minutes to go. Sorry but bollocks is it. Any team can get a goal from hoofing it into the box or from a corner which is exactly what happened. You need a second goal… Pompey set out for a draw and defended deep – once we scored the game plan should have been to exploit the extra space and score a 2nd. The game isn’t won at 1-fucking-0. Pompey were never going to score with the way they were playing and to be fair, Appleton realised that and sent on Futacs who, despite being shite, is a big lump of shite who has to be marked and causes problems even without touching the ball. In hindsight we missed a trick, maybe stick Aaron Martin on as he’s 6 foot 4 and will head away the inevitable aerial bombardment.

On the plus side, we’re still top of the league going into Christmas but it’s now only by one point from West Ham who won on Saturday. It should have been three and more importantly, we’d have been able to at least partly banish the memories of getting dicked, down at that shit hole the last time we went and maybe that would be the last of the fucking morons singing Amarillo. More good news is that for the all the improvement under Appleton (to give Voldemort his full name), the Skates are still pretty shite. We are in our worst form of the season right now and they’re in their best run. Wow. Maybe the draw means that we’ll only get one point deducted when they get chucked out the league, instead of three. If that happens (probably won’t) then I hope it happens after the return at SMS when we will hopefully smash them out of sight.

Happy Christmas and overall it’s been a brilliant year for Saints so far – promoted into the Championship and at the top of the league. Could have been better though if we’d beaten the Skate Bastards. Still, as I said at the end of the last game against them – I wouldn’t swap their future for ours.

Hoof it up to the Ginger one !!!!

Skates Preview

2011-12-15T21:15:00.001Z

Normally I don’t do match previews but this next game kind of demands it. It’s ok that players and manager peddle the line that it’s “just another game” or whatever but for you and me, the average fan, it really isn’t – we have history you see. My history is this...

I was born in Southampton in 1968 and lived in Netley until the day that Elvis died in 1977. Before that, Dad started taking me to watch the mighty SFC... at Fratton Park... on the North Terrace... which was one of the home sections. Yep, my first ever game of football was at Fratton Park in 1976, just after the FA Cup Semi Final when Ossie, Steele and McCalliog were still drunk. All I can remember about the game is my Dad holding me up on a barrier for the whole match and asking Dad what ‘Channon is a wanker’ meant and ‘why are they saying that Dad?’. His reply was “because they haven’t got a player as good as him son”. We won 1-0 and Channon scored in the 89^th minute and Pompey were relegated as a result which was of course, completely lost on 7 year old me. My first game was our last win in the League at Fratton Park.

Not long afterwards, Dad got a job in Hilsea and so, as the M27 wasn’t finished, we moved to Waterlooville so I spent a lot of my early years in Pompey country. The hatred hadn’t really kicked off at that point and I could openly wear my colours at school in PE lessons etc but that changed a bit in 1984 when I was 15. We got them in the FA Cup 4^th Round, when once again it was the 89^th minute, Armstrong… MORAN, 1-0. We really should have lost that game but Alan Biley smashed one over the bar from about 5 yards a minute before we scored. Dad and I couldn’t get a ticket for the Saints cage at the Milton Road end, so I was in with the Pompey fans on the North Terrace once again and it was murder keeping quiet, especially in the 89^th minute. We were parked somewhere up the Eastern Road and we walked all the way to the car in silence, trying to look as miserable as all the Pompey fans. There was one nightmare moment when I saw someone from my school (who I didn’t get on with) but luckily, he didn’t see me. Getting ‘outed’ at that particular time would not have had a happy ending. The celebrations started when we got home and school on Monday was interesting, especially the football practice when I got kicked to bits.

Pompey v Saints, 1984, Part 1

Pompey v Saints, 1984, Part 2

In 1987 I was 19 and Pompey made it to Division 1 (for a season). It was an odd year because as well as being a season ticket holder at The Dell, I also saw about 10 Pompey home games that year with my mates. I used to snigger to myself when they lost (which they usually did) and it was amusing to see the false hope on their faces when they got something out of a game. I don’t think I actually saw them win so I considered myself a lucky charm. We played them at Fratton Park and drew 2-2 with two goals from Colin Clarke. We really should have won this one but bad defending allowed Pompey to score with virtually their only two shots. This was my last trip to Fratton Park to watch Saints as the carnage I saw before and at the end of that game made me realise that sometimes, it just isn’t worth it. The Police tactics of keeping us in at end and then buggering off when the Pompey fans got round the back of the away end, didn’t really do us any favours. A Saints fan next to me being felled by a half brick which had been thrown over didn’t really whet my appetite for more either. I was on my own for this one and thought that safety in numbers was the way to go so I ended up getting a train to Southampton, having a pint and then getting another train back to Cosham before a bus back to Waterlooville. I went to The Dell later on that season for my first Derby at home. We lost 2-0 and were crap, missing a succession of sitters and getting what we deserved. The defeat stuck in the throat a bit but the pain was eased a bit by Pompey getting relegated soon after.

Part 1 of the Fratton game, includes unforgiveable prediction from Channon

Our door was darkened again 9 years later. It was 1996 and the FA Cup again. I’m now 27 and living in an SO postcode. The Dell was by now down to 15,000 people and the Pompey fans seemed very quiet that day. Mind you, we dicked them 3-0 with two goals from Jim Magilton and one from Neil Shipperley so they didn’t have much to shout about. If memory serves they were managed by managerial genius Terry Fenwick with Dave Merrington being in our dug out. It wasn’t entirely straight forward and without alarm though as Pompey were denied what looked a clear penalty when Doddsy clipped Paul Walsh. I met Paul Walsh in a pub a few years back and accused him of diving 12 years previously. ‘Bollocks was it’ was his reply. As for the rivalry…. well, there was no need for me to ‘hate’ Pompey at that point as they were in a lower division to us and but for the luck of the FA Cup draw, not on our radar.

Fast forward 7 years and Pompey have made it once more into the Premier League and bizarrely, we get drawn against them in the League Cup at St Mary’s. This one matters as we’re now in the same league and their fans are giving it the large one after their runaway promotion. It was a bit of a fiery atmosphere with some interesting stuff at Woolston train station on the way to the game. It was quite an easy win by 2-0 with Marsden setting up Beattie for the first (cue the famous ‘ear cupping’ photo) and then Beattie slowing down just enough to make de Zeeuw run into him for a pen and a sending off. 2-0 and lovely.

Next up was the league game in December and I personally escorted two of my Skate mates to the ground. They weren’t expecting a result as we were flying at the time and so it proved as we really pissed this one by 3-0 with Doddsy scoring straight from a corner to open the scoring. Marian Pahars made his last decent contribution in a Saints shirt by scoring a brilliant second and then Beatts, every Pompey fans’ favourite Scummer, rounded it off in the last minute with a diving header. This win moved us into 4^th place and a Champions League qualifying spot which was as good as it ever got as soon after, Gordon Strachan left and our plummet began. Our plan of all going in the same car wasn’t very well thought out as the Skates obviously, weren’t allowed to go towards the Itchen Bridge where I’d parked, so I had to drive all the way round to Bitterne the long way, eventually meeting two very disgruntled mates outside the Station Pub by Bitterne station. “If you’d beaten us I would have made you fucking walk”, I said. Their replies are not printable. After the game, it transpired that The Cunt with the Bell (to give him his full title) had been pissing on the seats at St Mary’s. Quite how this didn’t result in a life ban for the twat is beyond me... can hardly be mistaken identity can it.

I was parked in front of a TV to watch us at Fratton when Pompey desperately needed a win to give them a chance of staying up and we’d achieved mid-table mediocrity under new manager Paul Sturrock. We were clearly intimidated by the hostile atmosphere and were rubbish, deservedly losing 1-0 to a Yakubu strike but the moment I remember is a late Kevin Phillips shot pinging off the inside of a post and back out – they may well have been relegated had that gone in. As it was, that win proved a springboard for them to stay up quite comfortably. If they’d gone down, it would have spared us the following season.

It wasn’t all bad though....we had another new manager for the next meeting in November 2004 – I use the term manager loosely. It turned out to be Steve Wigley’s one win in the 18 matches that set our relegation more or less in stone. Goals from a nice strike from Dexter Blackstock and a Kevin Phillips header and gave us a 2-1 win following Pompey taking the lead when Claus (I think) nodded one over Kasey Keller, just before Keller clattered into him. My Skate mates once again came to the game, only this time they didn’t fancy meeting a gloating Scummer afterwards and so they got the park and ride back from Bursledon. They got the gloating Scummer on the phone that evening.

We are led to believe that the FA Cup draw is an open draw and anyone can get anyone. There are no seedings and it’s all fair. The only time I have thought this not to be true was in 2005 when Harry Redknapp had just left Pompey to join Saints as manager and to say that he was a hate figure with the Skates is an understatement. Southampton v Portsmouth – what a surprise!!! To add more aggro to the situation, Ted Bates, the single most important figure in Southampton Football Club history, had just died and in the days before a minutes applause was the norm, the minutes silence was never going to be observed by that lot. If it was tense before some Pompey fans started chanting ‘Scummer, scummer’ then it was a positively evil atmosphere afterwards. Yes it was always going to happen but even so.... filth. So, against a backdrop of Judas chants and incredibly irate Saints fans, Matt Oakley gave us the lead with a 25 yard thunderbolt and 29,000 Saints fans yelled ‘fucking have that you bastards’. Pompey equalised soon after with a Yakubu penalty, awarded when the ref bought a horrible dive by Diomansy Kamara. Pompey had a complete clown in goal in Costas Chalkias and we had a Higginbotham goal ruled out for offside even though Pompey had a player on the line. Of course, the offside rule says there needs to be 2 players but one is usually the keeper. Costas was about 25 yards out at the time having come for a superman punch and totally missed it. We sneaked it in the last minute when Matt Taylor got harshly penalised for handball and Peter Crouch sent Chalkias the wrong way.

This is one of the best videos ever.... (Warning...explicit but very funny language)

In front of the TV again for the next League match in April when we were in real danger of going down and Pompey were doing ok. In possibly the biggest non-performance that I can remember from Saints, we got annihilated 4-1 which flattered us and the score could have been anything. We were 2-0 down in no time and Henri Camara got one back to make it 2-1. Far from it sparking us into life, we let in 2 more as Antii Niemi had his one and only mare for Saints to make it 4-1 with only half an hour gone. Pompey missed so many chances in the second half it was untrue. I have never been so angry about a performance in my life, a mood not helped by Harry Redknapp ‘accidentally’ heading towards the wrong dugout at the start to him giving the thumbs up to the Pompey directors at the end. Of course there was the famous rendition of ‘Amarillo’ which went on for the whole of the second half. We hated that and it added to the anger but you have to give credit where it’s due… we were supposed to hate it. It’s a shame our team of wankers obviously didn’t give a shit. About 8 months later of course, we’d been relegated and Harry wanted permission to talk to Pompey about their newly vacant manager’s position and a war of words erupted between Rupert Lowe and Milan Mandaric. It’s odd hearing an argument between two sides and you hate both of them. The scumbag went back to his ‘spiritual home’ and certain people in football, who may or not have been connected with Harry’s family, made a load of money betting on it (allegedly).

If you want to watch a video of this... go find it yourself.

Our double relegation put the boot totally on the other foot and we were not on their radar until 2010 and it was FA Cup time once more and I covered this match here....

http://leagueoneminus10.blogspot.com/2010/02/fa-cup-5th-round-southampton-1.html

The record books show that we lost 4-1 (again) and but like the game in 2003 when we went 4^th in the League, it was the winning teams high water mark and from then on, things went a bit wrong for the victors. In this case, Pompey’s financial cheating (yes, I think we can use that word) came home to roost and they were relegated and in administration at the end of the season, owing over £100 million in total including debts to charities, schools and local businesses. It still really rankles with me that we got our 10 points penalty for going into Administration at the start of the following season when it really had an effect and they got theirs when they were virtually relegated already and it had no effect whatsoever.

So, 2011 and here we go again in the Championship. So far this season, we’ve been outstanding in the main and are top of the league and have been since September. They have been a shambles and a disgrace to football and society whilst still not paying back the charities, schools and local businesses. It just so happens that as we approach this game, on the pitch, we’ve had a little wobble and they’ve won a couple under their new manager Michael Appleton. This game has attracted more attention from the national media than usual because of the ‘bubble’ which involves the Police insisting you travel on official coaches and only get given your match ticket on the coach. If I was 23 then I’d think this was a horrible idea but as I’m 43, I agree with it.

I’m still mentally scarred by the last two visits to Fratton Park and the non-performances we put in, especially in the 4-1 defeat….so first and foremost, I want us to play to our potential. Do that and we will win the game as we are the better side, which is why we’re 17 points clear of them. They may have won a couple of games but they haven’t played particularly well so we have nothing to be afraid of. Fans of football and fans of fairness and even playing fields, should want us to win this game. From our point of view though, we just want to put one over them because we own them one. As I’ve said, I have lots of friends who are Pompey fans and they’re all sound as you like (hi guys!!!) Their club though is, in my humble opinion, an utter disgrace and a bigger disgrace is that they’ve been allowed to get away with it.

We’re Coming For You. I hope that Kelvin, Frazer, Danny, Jose, Jos, Morgan, Deano, Corky, Adam, Guly, Sir Rickie, Bart, Dan, Lee, Aaron and Steeeeeeve are. Time for men to stand up and be counted and time for heroes.

I predict, Pompey 1 Saints 2.

COYR.

NPC Match 21 - Southampton 2 Blackpool 2

2011-12-12T22:11:00.001Z

Buy this twat a stopwatch for Christmas

Blackpool came to SMS trying to banish the memory of the FA Cup match last season when there were two divisions between the sides and our reserves stuffed their reserves while we were ‘avin’ a laugh. Ian Holloway didn’t like that. Good.

I was expecting today to be a severe test of the winning home run in view of Blackpool being a half decent side and us being a bit ropey of late. There would of course be issues if Sir Rickie wasn’t fit but thankfully he was. On the bench we have no keeper so lets hope nothing happens to the keeper... but we do have Ben Reeves, joining Holmes, de Ridder, Martin and Harding. Maybe Ben Reeves can go in goal, all 5 foot 3 of him.

I was hearing the Blackpool side being read out and was pleased that two players who I knew would score against us, Rat Boy Phillips and that ex-Skate git Lua Lua were on the bench. No Brett Ormerod though which was a shame. I’d missed the Saints team announcement and old Bill who sits next to me said “you’re quite happy with Bart in goal aren’t you?”. Oh.... hadn’t noticed the absence of Superkelv but I’ve always been happy that Bart is a decent enough keeper and had voiced that opinion on any occasion that Superkelv hadn’t been quite so super.

Saints lined up once more with Morgan on the right of midfield and made a decent start, settling well and zipping the ball about nicely. The first time Blackpool showed was when Matt Phillips got down the right and crossed from deep straight to Bart who juggled what should have been an easy take, wide of the near post for a corner whilst three quarters of the crowd momentarily shat themselves.

Encouraged by the nervous looking keeper, Blackpool tested him out again when Sylvestre fired in a shot from 30 yards plus and Bart saw it all the way and decided not to use his hands. The ball smashed into his chest and bounced out to where Deano hacked it clear as Gary Taylor-Fletcher lumbered in. If ever you are writing anything about Blackpool, try putting ‘Taylor-Fletcher’ in a sentence and not putting the word ‘lumbering’ – it’s impossible. A bit like ‘Morgan’ and ‘goal-machine’.

Saints miss a decent chance next as Sir Rickie heads down a Lallana cross to the goal-machine that is Morgan whose snapshot flies narrowly over the bar. Next came another decent chance as Deano came flying in to meet a Frazer cross but again, hit the crowd instead of the net. On the half hour though, the next chance falls to the real goal-machine as Lallana nicks the ball off of the dozy full back Eardley and feeds Cork who pushes it to Sir Rickie who cuts inside one defender before having a left footed lash which Cathcart obligingly deflects past Gilks and into the net. We’re ‘avin’ a laugh Ian.... 1-0.

If we were ‘avin’ a laugh then, we were nearly pissing ourselves a minute later as the Gulyman played a great through ball to put Sir Rickie one on one against Gilks but this time, his left footed blast hit the keeper and the chance was gone. Before you could say “I wonder if we’ll regret that”, Blackpool got down the left and the cross was met by Basham from barely 6 yards out to make it 1-1, giving Bart no chance. This goal served as a lesson, the lesson being “it’s better to mark the player than stand there with your arm up hoping they’re offside”.... which, as TV replays later proved, he clearly wasn’t.

A foul on Cork meant we got a free kick about 30 yards out, just left of centre. It looks like a surefire Sir Rickie blast but we over complicate things by chipping it up and making a mess of it. JUST FUCKING HIT IT!!! Corky and Morgan both find themselves with shooting chances as the half draws to a close but we’re trying to do an Arsenal and walk it into the net and in both cases, we mess it up. JUST FUCKING HIT IT!!!! Matt Phillips shows us the way in the last minute of the half and lashes one in which pings to safety off of the base of the post as Bart watches.

An interesting half of football and during half time I reflect on how we are playing much more direct compared to the start of the season. Is that down to a lack of confidence or the opposition having sussed us out? No such pondering for the Chuckle Brothers who have decided that we’re rubbish. I tune in for a moment and the Moronic one says he was late today so sat on the end of the row and talked to someone else. I bet they were delighted.

Nigel’s team talk obviously had an element of JUST HIT IT BUT KEEP IT IN THE BUILDING AND ON THE BUS about it as Morgan shoots and it deflects for a corner which comes to nothing except a break up the pitch by Blackpool and the ball is with McManaman on the left wing. He cuts in and from 25 yards, hits a right footed rocket which flies into the top corner. Sorry – thought I was writing for the Official Saints website for a moment. What actually happened was that he scuffed it and Bart let it go through both his hands and his legs and trickle over the line. Bart then compounded the ridiculousness of the situation by crawling into the goal like an 18 month old baby to get the ball. It’s a nightmare – right up there with the worst you’ve ever seen on one of those Football Nightmare DVD’s, one of which I noticed on the shelves in HMV, presented by Olly Murs, who is nothing to do with football and is a wanker.

There are still 40 minutes to go and Gilks in goal decides that it’s time to start wasting some of it, taking an age over a goal kick…. here we go. The referee really wasn’t doing us any favour at this point with seemingly every 50/50 going Blackpool’s way and no cards being handed out for persistent time wasting. Joining the ref in being a twat were of course the Chuckle Brothers with the whiny one giving it the full “Why deee dooo daaaahhht?” and the moronic one checking out any funny anagrams he could make out of Bialkowski.

Back to the serious business of trying to equalize and most of our decent play is coming through the Gulyman who looks dangerous every time he gets the ball, firing in a decent effort which Gilks didn’t take cleanly but unlike Bart, got enough behind it to grab it at the second attempt.. We also go very close on the hour mark as Deano gets into the box and curls one just wide of the far post. Tensions are rising thanks to the time wasting and the ref and Sir Rickie gets in a shoving match with Barry Ferguson who was, you guessed it, wasting time over getting the ball back to his own keeper. Both end up getting booked, Sir Rickie for pushing and Ferguson for being a whiny faced little git.

Saints defence are playing a game of ‘Thou shalt not pass.... back to our own keeper” as Jose Fonte embarks on a risky 40 yard dribble from our own goal line, rather than pass it to Bart. When a back pass does go to Bart it is met with entirely predictable ironic cheers from some of our fans. That helps doesn’t it lads? Well done. It’s substitution time with de Ridder and Harding coming on for Deano and Danny Fox and I for one am struggling to see the sense in swapping left backs but Harding quickly adds more energy down the wing. Soon after, Holloway brings on Rat Boy and Lua Lua in quick succession which at least gives our fans a couple of genuine hate figures instead of having a go at Bart. This is more like it though I do hope Rat Boy’s wife didn’t have the telly turned up too loud.

The Gulyman heads a Cork cross just over after a long and deliberate build up and we have a double penalty shout as Morgan gets barged over twice in quick succession – the second of which looked pretty blatant from where I was. The ref wasn’t interest and he also missed a blatant trip on Nigel Adkins by the water bottles, strategically placed behind him on the touchline.

Usually at home, we’re in front and we want the fourth official to put up 1 or 2 minutes but of course they never do. Today we were hoping for about 10 minutes but 5 would have to do. Blackpool backed off inviting pressure and in the 93^rd minute, Frazer swung over and inviting cross to the back stick and in steamed Sir Rickie to bury the header for 2-2. We even had a chance to win it when de Ridder did brilliantly to win the ball and steak towards goal but with both Lallana and Cork in support, he failed to get his head up and totally butchered it. 2-2 in the end and probably a fair result.

Fair that is, unless you’re Ian Holloway who didn’t say much after the game, aside from moaning at the ref for adding 5 minutes and wondering where he got it from. Let me spell it out for you Ian... concentrate. For starters, we scored within 3 minutes anyway but as you’re asking... 5 second half substitutions = 2.5 minutes, probably 3.5 with the amount of time your three took to get off the sodding pitch. The ref just added an additional 1.5 for all the Blackpool time wasting from the 50^th minute onwards... pissing about at every free kick and goal kick, turning your back on ball boy after they’d thrown it back etc.. I’d say there should have been 7 minutes, not 5. Muppet. Why not moan about the fact that you didn’t have a shot for the last 40 minutes of the game when it was obvious our keepers’ confidence was shot to shit.

So, the run of home wins came to an end as it was always going to eventually. Bizarrely, we moved a point further clear of West Ham as they had a shocker at Reading and got beat 3-0. I haven’t looked at the stats but I feel that we missed a lot of chances today, the main one being at 1-0 when Sir Rickie was through. That goes in and it’s 2-0 and probably a comfortable win. Five minutes later and it was 1-1. Of course, Bart’s performance and the second goal in particular, were horrific but we dug in and though the record has gone, we achieved the next best thing and got a draw... and we pssed the Bumpkin off again.

All things being even, we should still be top of the league when we go to the Beirut’s twin town, Portsmouth to play in the Mecca of Football Grounds, Fratton Park. They won for the second time in a row today so they’re on a bit of a roll and you never know, they may get more than 13,000 in the ground next week.

Nigel’s post match interview was mainly spent fielding questions on Bart and talking of next week’s match. He left me in no doubt that the players know the significance of the fixture. As for Bart, well he had a shocker of course but I felt a bit for him as it must be tough to be a reserve keeper. You don’t get a game aside from the Carling Cup and there aren’t enough Reserve or U21 matches to rotate all the keepers in the squad. Having said that – he shouldn’t have been that bad and one suspects that Jack Dovey or Stephen Mowthorpe would have performed batter. Maybe even Dismal Forecast. Hopefully Kelvin and maybe even Chappers will be back and we won’t freeze on the day and despite our iffy away form, we have to look forward to this ...

Bring it on.

PS – My son is 7 and plays in goal on a Sunday morning. This Sunday, at 0-0 and straight after half time, he took a drop kick and somehow managed to kick it vertically upwards. When it came down, with my lad not knowing where it had gone, a forward just stabbed it into the net. Meanwhile, another lad missed an open goal at the other end and it’s ‘unlucky’. Such is the lot of a keeper. Put Bart and Sir Rickie into this little story and you get roughly the same picture as what happened on Saturday at SMS. Luckily, my son didn’t have a collection of morons jeering him from the side, just me crapping it every time it went near him.

NPC Match 20 - Doncaster 1 Southampton 0

2011-12-05T23:40:00.000Z

The Loan System 1 Saints 0

Today we’re at Doncaster in a bottom versus top match. It still feels odd to me to be the team that’s expected to win but we are, indisputably expected to win and I said before we played Coventry recently, if we are serious about winning the league then these are the games you have to win. It’s not that clear cut against Doncaster though as they have done a deal with the devil, or more specifically, Harry Redknapp’s pet agent, Willy McKay, who I thought had been banned.

McKay has come up with this idea which from his point of view, is a decent idea. If one of his players is not getting a game, then he brokers a deal by which the parent club pays 90 – 95% of the wages and the player goes on loan, thus putting them in the shop window for a potential transfer in January or getting them match-fit for when they return. Nothing wrong with this so far until you realise that he’s obviously working for one club, Doncaster Rovers. Donny then of course, end up with a squad of players, far better than the club should reasonably expect to have turn out for them. My main problem with the Donny model of the loan system is that if everyone did it, the clubs with the strongest squads would be the ones who have the best ‘pet’ agent. Not really what football is all about is it.?

I have always had a bit of a problem with the loan system and this is more evidence for the prosecution as far as I’m concerned. I know we’ve benefited in the past from loaning players in and out but the amount of loans that go on distorts the competition in my view. If it was down to me it would be 2 players maximum loaned in at any one time with a maximum of 4 in a season. If you sign the player permanently in January then it doesn’t count in your quota for the season.

Talking of loans – we don’t have any now as Jos Hooiveld has signed on the dotted line to become a permanent Saint, a contract he thoroughly deserves for his performances this season. Big Jos lines up for us in an amended line up. The major news and big worry is that Sir Rickie has failed to recover from his knock from the Hull game and has been replaced with Steve de Ridder and The Fox returns in place of Dan Harding. Willy McKay Rovers are shorn of their highest profile star with Senegalese international and well known piece of shit El Hadj Diouf having a hamstring injury which he got when he overstretched when trying to spit at someone.. They still have Beye from Villa , Marc-Antoine Fortune from West Brom, Goulon from Blackburn, Ikeme from Wolves and Ilunga from West Ham in the side though. They also have Billy Sharp who was an alleged target for Saints in the summer. Hopefully we wouldn’t join Lukas Jutkiewicz and Nicky Maynard in scoring against us in our last couple of away matches. As well as all this lot, they have ex-Saints Simon Gillett who is just back from New Zealand having been tossed about by England Rugby players.

The 11 players we had on the pitch posed a few questions regarding the formation. Morgan on the right doesn’t work so is he giving that another go with De Ridder up front, or is he playing de Ridder on the right with someone else up front? Are we going with a narrow 3 in midfield with Adam in the hole? Nigel is not only thinking outside the box today, he’s thinking outside the box, outside the house, outside the bus and all the way to outside the funny farm. Morgan is up front with the Gulyman, bringing his prolific 2 goals in 4 years to the party. Well this will be interesting and I’m worried.

It all starts positively enough though and we boss possession without really doing anything with it. The first chances of the game both fall to McKay Rovers and two players who they actually own. First off it’s Simon Gillett running unopposed through our midfield and forces Superkelv into a sprawling save. Fortune got himself running at the Saints defence but Jose Fonte Baby come up with an immaculately time tackle to halt the charge. Then Brian Stock finds himself ont he end of a decent build up down our left and sees his shot shovelled against the outside of the post by Superkelv before it went out for a corner.

We create a clear chance on 20 minutes as the Gulyman a Morgan pull off an excellent 1-2 to sent Morgan through on goal but from a narrow angle he goes for the near post and the ball slams into Ikeme’s head and off for a corner. A more natural finisher would have gone across the keeper instead of smashing it near post which is exactly what he did in the Hull match last week.

The rest of the first half borders on the very very boring with Saints only creating one real chance of note as a ball sits up for the Gulyman to volley it goalwards, forcing Ikeme into another decent save.

Half time and not enough made of the possession that we had and a formation / personnel change needed. As the teams re-emerge , we get the former with de Ridder going up front, Morgan in the holding role behind Deano and Corky and kind of no one on the right.

As usual, Saints dominate possession and go forward more in hope than expectation. We’re the better side but neither team look like scoring and then one does... and it’s not us. Following an excellent run and cross from the gulyman which is cleared, a big hoof downfield catches Big Jos daydreaming and Jose covers but doesn’t stop Fortune getting the cross in. With both centre halves out of the game, Billy Sharp finds the ball at his feet about 10 yards out and he’s not going to miss from there. 1-0

A quick summation is all that’s needed for the last half an hour as it was complete shite. Barnard and Holmes came on for Cork and de Ridder which at least gave us a balanced team but overall, we did sd all and just surrendered the game. There were half-hearted headers from Barney and the Gulyman, which were not troubling the keeper at all and that was it. At the other end, we were lucky to get away with one when the lino gave offside when it clearly wasn’t, two seconds before Deano hoofed one of the Donny forwards over in the box. With about 15 to go, there was none of the belief that I usually have that we will score.

Full time, Doncaster (bottom) 1, Saints (top) 0. Rubbish.

Well what a garbage result that was and I can’t help but feel that Nigel got this one wrong. Too much pissing about with the formation I feel and expecting a player with two goals in four years to be a goal threat was wildly optimistic at best. Barnard or de Ridder should have started up front with the Gulyman or maybe Lallana even, with Harding coming in on the left. The half time changes actually made the team worse and we never looked like scoring in the second half. The only saving grace from today was that West Ham contrived to lose 2-1 at home to Burnley and so we stay two points clear at the top but the gap to 3^rd place is now only 5 points. Yes of course we would have taken that at the start of the season but it’s annoying none-the-less..

Can our away form now officially be described as ‘dodgy’? Personally I think it can as players and the manager are now talking about it in interviews. We have to be careful of it not becoming a complex and making ourselves believe that we can’t win away from home. Sir Rickie missing today was a massive problem as we all knew it would be but I feel a lot is down to Chappers not being fit. We were too open in away games before he got in the side and after the defeat at Cardiff, he started playing and we got better in away games. Chappers gets injured and we start losing on the road again. This needs to stop and it needs to stop pretty quickly as our next away game is of course, against the Skates.

Next up we have Ian Holloway with his Quite Funny / Complete Idiot mood swings as his Blackpool side visit SMS. Their main player recently has been another loanee, Jonjo Shelvey who has been recalled by Liverpool. Hopefully Sir Rickie will be fit so there is no need for us to be radical and try Danny Butterfield up front. It puts today’s team selection in context when you realise that Danny is a more prolific scorer than Morgan.

Keep the faith and no slitting the wrists.

NPC Match 19 - Southampton 2 Hull City 1

2011-11-30T22:08:00.000Z

Here is a Public Service Announcement:

Since our last match, CSI, the Parent Company of Portsmouth Football Club has gone into administration. When you are confronted with a Pompey fan bleating one of the following

a) The Fit and Proper Person Test has failed us

b) It’s the parent company, not the football club

c) It’s not the same situation as the Scummers

Here is your response:

a) How is the FAPPT going to vet a Lithuanian banker other than seeing if he has anything dodgy on his rap sheet in this country? He was chosen as the best owner by Pompey’s administrator who was appointed by Pompey’s owner. Surely your administrator, who was your hero when he managed to con £100million off the debt, thoroughly investigated his background.

b) Tell them that us kind generous folk at SFC may have closed that loophole for them wuith our lame attempt to get out of it.

c) Tell them that it‘s similar because Rupert Lowe wants to buy the club.

Just follow these guidelines and have fun with your Skate mates.

Tonight we take on Hull City, in a bid to put Saturday’s defeat to Bristol City behind us. They were of course, managed by Nigel Pearson who left recently to return to Leicester, leaving the club under the control of Nicky Barmby who was a decent player but I mainly remember him for Francis Benali drop kicking him in the back of the head when he played for Tottenham. If memory serves, we had just let in 4 goals in about 5 minutes and Franny decided that Barmby had it coming. It was live in Sky and I remember this close up of Barmby’s head and then Franny’s boot appearing over his shoulder. It’s the stuff of legend.

Hull somehow had a couple of years in the Premiership recently and it’ll be interesting to see if any of those players remain. When they went down there were rumours of Pompey-like behaviour from the ex-Chairman who then ironically got linked with a possible takeover down the road. As a team they’ve either been very good or very poor this season so which one would we get.

To the teams and Nigel has put Dan Harding in the side in place of Danny Fox who had a bit of a mare at Bristol. The race to replace the injured Chappers was won by Morgan Schneiderlin who starts on the right – I’m not sure that this is going to work ok. Lee Holmes has made it onto the bench along side the predictable four of Barney, Steeeeeeeeve, Bart and Aaron Martin. Hull appear to have a decent front line with Aaron MacLean and Matty Fryatt who are both decent players and Robert Koren was a eye catching player for West Brom a couple of years back.

Before kick off we had a minute’s applause for the memory of Gary Speed whose death I can’t get my head round at all. While what he was like as a player is not really important right now but for those who never saw him play in his pomp, take it from me that he was a bloody good one. During the 90s, Saints had two sides they could never beat, Leeds and Everton. Speed always seemed to score against Saints for Leeds and when he moved to Everton, one could be forgiven for thinking that he’d stop his one man persecution of us.... but instead they beat us 7-1 and guess who got a hat-trick. Great player, extremely promising manager who seemed to have it all... Rest In Peace.

Hull have some decent possession from the start but Saints have the first effort as following a patient build-up, Sir Rickie plays Morgan in and he smashes in a first time shot which Gulash in the Hull goal, makes a meal out of, parrying behind him before picking it up. I expect he momentarily shat himself.

And now we have end to end football. Hull have a wildly optimistic effort from Koren which Superkelv saves before a decent move from Saints ends with Sir Rickie crossing, the Gulyman stepping over it, Lallana’s shot being blocked and Dan Harding smashing the rebound at the moon. Back come Hull and Fryatt is clean through whilst Fonte appeals for offside instead of defending and his shot is just flipped round the post by Superkelv. Back up the other end and Adam Lallana makes the most of a lucky break off a defender and lashes a volley just over the bar.

It’s reasonably exciting at this point but you can always throw in a bit more as the Gulyman does his best Bambi on Ice impression and falls on his arse and within a minute it’s a Hull player in a footrace for the ball with Superkelv who is never going to get there in a million years. Predictably as you like, he gets there just after the Hull player and hoofs him up in the air. A quick scan of the pitch reveals we have two defenders behind him so the red card shouldn’t come out and despite that momentary sphincter clenching moment when the card comes out, it’s yellow.

Hull are continuing to ask more questions than any team has at SMS for a while and its not erally a surprise when they take the lead. We have a chance to clear and don’t before they work their way in down the left, the shot comes in and is deflected by Koren, Superkelv makes a blinding reaction stop but unfortunately it pops up for Koren to head into an empty net. Oh shit, 1-0 down.

We have one chance to get back into it before half time as Cork is hoofed over. It’s just left of centre, about 25 yards out but the referee lets Hull line up about 5 yards away and so Sir Rickie’s free kick smashes into the wall and is cleared. The Chuckle Brothers are getting irritating. Of course they are as we haven’t scored yet and they have the memory of a goldfish and a matching IQ.

Half time and I couldn’t believe it - there were people booing. You really need to have a word with yourself if you were doing this and you obviously need reminding that we’ve just got promoted, we’re top of the league above, we’ve won 20 home games in a row.... so we’re 1-0 down at home. Get real, it happens. The half time meeting of the Kingsland brains trust revolved around the need for Steve and who would come off. There were votes for Morgan, Deano and the Gulyman but none for Cork who was of course, the one who got hooked. On came de Ridder, who took up station on the right win with Morgan coming into the middle.

And then I did it again... following another misplaced pass, I loudly expressed the opinion that ‘Guly has been fucking useless today. Saints won the ball back and off went Frazer on a crossfield mazy. He reached the ‘what the hell do I do now’ point about 20 yards out and managed to poke the ball out to Lallana who went on the outside and stood up a superb left footed cross for Sir Rickie to head down and the Gulyman to smash a 1-2 off of Gulash’s hands before slamming it into the net at the second attempt. Same as the Hull goal in that the keeper made a great save from the first effort and cue much backslapping for me and people pointing at me and laughing.

Five minutes later and we’ve turned it around completely as Richardson, revelling in the space that is suddenly available to him as the defenders worry about de Ridder, gets to the bye line and crosses for Lallana to steal in at the near post and flick his header past the keeper. Adam’s heading ability is often criticized (usually because it’s the shte Johnno Pace, slide-it-off-the-face heading technique) but this is a decent flick and get in there you beauty.

We should have kicked on at this point and really gone for the throat but the game lulled back into a kind of mediocrity and we suddenly looked very lethargic which was well illustrated at throw-ins. Dan Harding went to take one on the half way line – in front of him were Sir Rickie, Adam and the Gulyman, all marked and all standing still. None of them even looked interested in making a run and neither of the central midfield players wanted it so in the end he had to turn round and throw it to Big Jos, across to Jose, back to Superkelv, sliced out for a Hull throw on the right. Crap.

Just after the hour mark it was substitution time and with Barnard ready to come on, everyone expected the Gulyman to be making way, only for Sir Rickie to trot off the pitch. Barnard immediately looked rusty as you like, getting battered by the centre halves and struggling to get hold of the ball and make it stick. I think the term is that he ‘kept the defenders honest’ though with his harrying and chasing and he did manage one optimistic snap shot which was from too far out to seriously bother Gulash in the Hull goal.

Hull are running out of time and in his enthusiasm, Sub Brady carts Harding up in the air over on the left touchline. It’s not a great tackle and it’s a little high but the ref is steaming over on a mission and it’s obvious it’s going to be a red card. Yes it was a bit rash but it really wasn’t that bad. Compare and contrast though with the way the Hull players accepted the decision and then remember the Brighton game.

Hull bring on a big rugged lump of a man in Dele Adebola and we bring on Lee Holmes who is the only player in history to be brought onto the pitch on a stretcher. It's odd watching the stretcher bearers and physio doing warm up exercises for the entire duration of Holmes being on the pitch. For some reason today, the scoreboards at both ends of the ground weren’t working which was a pain from the point of view of not knowing how long there was to go. Back in the day you used to know that a 3pm kick off finished at 4.40pm and a 7.30pm kick off at 9.10pm. Now we have longer half times and stupid kick off times and different ways of working out injury time so I had no idea how long was left. I thought it would finish at half past but that came and went and still the 4^th official hadn’t put up the extra minutes board. Here it is, 4 to go.

So, 4 more minutes of huff and puff with no serious threat on our goal. We went forward at times and lost it and Hull whooshed it up there and Adebola did his best in a limited lower league centre forward kind of way. Final whistle, get in.

My God did we make hard work of that. Part of it was down to a very decent Hull side who kept the ball well and in the first half in particular, were as threatening to our goal as any team has been this season. Thought they kept up some nice football in the second half, they didn’t really threaten our goal too much so I felt quite comfortable as the game ticked down. Decent side though and I thought that Koren and particularly Aaron McLean had good games. We only really played well as an attacking force for 10 minutes but it was enough with Frazer being the catalyst for both goals. The introduction of Steeeeeeeve was a big thing in this game as it gave us balance and thrust on that side which was totally absent in the first half. Steve being out there gave more space to Frazer to do his Ivan Golac thing and set up both goals. Chappers has the energy to play on the wings and get up and down whereas Morgan is not that kind of player so lets get Steve in the side from the start on Saturday, assuming Chappers is out.

Nigel’s post match interview revealed a few minor niggles to Cork, Foxy and Sir Rickie but he was his usual relentless positive self, even turning their goal into a eulogy about Superkelv’s reaction save. By the way Nigel, you’re not fooling anyone with your “I just want to be in the top 10 at Christmas” line.

So, the home form is holding up and we’re two points ahead of West Ham and eight ahead of third place Cardiff City. Next up is Doncaster away who are bottom and six points from safety. We really should win that one and we need to as it’s our last away game before we play the Skates. Maybe they'll have a new owner by then.

NPC Match 18 - Bristol City 2 Southampton 0

2011-11-28T19:59:00.000Z

Bristol City fans celebrate on their bus home.

Today we have a trip to Ashton Gate to play Bristol City who after a nightmare start to the season, are languishing in the bottom 3. Their notable players are David James at 56 who is still a decent keeper and Nicky Maynard who we were linked with by the gutter rags in the summer. Bristol City are however, on the upside of ‘new manager bounce’ (in direct contract to The Skates) at the moment having picked up 3 wins since Derek McInnes replaced Keith Millen.

Talking of the Skates (which I haven’t done for a while) and we have the news of another dodgy owner (Antonov) arrested for alleged financial irregularities. He joins a long line of illustrious names like (deep breath)... Dodgy Manager arrested and charged for alleged tax evasion (Redknapp), Dodgy Chairman arrested and charged with the same (Mandaric), Dodgy CEO arrested and apparently done a deal (Storrie), Dodgy manager in a Brothel (Grant), Dodgy Non-Existent Owner who was invented to buy time and pass the Fit and Proper Persons Test (Al Mirage), Dodgy Gun Running Criminal owner with Assets Frozen by the Courts (Gaydemak Snr), Dodgy Gun Runners Son Fake Chairman and Car Park Owner who wasn’t owning it as a front for his Dad cos that would be against the rules (Gaydemak Jnr), Dodgy Loan Shark Ground Owner (Chanrai), Dodgy Potless Owner and Ice Cream Salesman and not a Doctor really (Al Fahim), Dodgy Administrator with a strange approach to financial ethics (Andronikou), Dodgy Convicted Fraudster running the club for a bit (Azougy), Dodgy nonsensical appointment of the FA’s head of integrity as CEO (Lampitt) and I’m sure I’ve missed some. So the new owner is at least a bit dodgy as well - Who’d have thought it? They did get a 9 point penalty that made absolutely no difference though and a transfer embargo that made no difference either.... and of course, they still have to pay a whopping 20% of their debts over a 5 year period, starting whenever they feel like it - so fair’s fair. One of the downsides of Colonel Gaddaffi’s family being killed / arrested is that they can’t be linked to being prospective new Pompey owners any more.

Since the Brighton game there hasn’t been any actual news coming out of SFC, just bullsht in the papers. There was some interesting fall-out with Brighton being charged with failing to control their players in the aftermath of the dodgy penalty decision. Interestingly it’s for the 2^nd one rather than the first so I’m guessing that this is about Ashley Barnes barging the referee, which he should have got sent off for. Also, one of their players, Marcos Painter, he of the rugby tackle / assault on Sir Rickie which went unpunished was bleating that the ref swore at him. Put your dummy back in you embarrassing Muppet.

Our Nigel names the same team as the Brighton match with Deano keeping Morgan out of the midfield and Barney keeping his place on the bench.

Both teams start in fairly positive fashion and David James gets come predictably stick from the Saints end. Sir Rickie is getting dogs abuse from the Wurzels who aren’t too fond of his Bristol Rovers background. There’s a big blow on 7 minutes as Chappers goes down with no one near him and it immediately looks bad. It’s obvious that he can’t carry on straight away and so Schneiderlin comes onto replace him, going to the right wing. To me, this is a bit of a negative substitution with de Ridder being on the bench but I can see why he’s done it.

Morgan adds a touch of quality though and Lallana played a nice 1-2 with the Frenchman before firing in a decent shot which James tipped round the post. It was a decent save and hopefully that former Skate Bastard wasn’t going to have as good a game as he had against us last time.

City are feeding their right winger, Albert Adomah at every opportunity and it’s easy to see why as he flies past Danny Fox and looks like he’s going to be a right handful. Hopefully he’s one of these quick wingers who can run and that’s it, has no end product. It’s fairly even for the first 25 minutes but City and Adomah fired a warning with a quick break, ending with an ambitious effort which flew just wide with Superkelv scrambling.

A growing sense of uncertainty is in the air which is not alleviated when a bread and butter cross comes in from the left and Luckykelv makes a complete bollocks of it and juggles it round the post for a corner. It’s all Bristol City now and the Wurzels are coming across loud and clear. They think they’re going to score soon and so do I – can we get to half time though?

We have a rare foray into the danger zone which ends with Lallana’s goal bound shot hitting the Gulyman, who‘s playing like he had a few pints at lunchtime. Normal service is resumed as Pearson fastens onto a Kilkenny pass and it through on the keeper but Superkelv forces him wide and he thankfully runs out of angle and squares it across to no one. I am unavoidably reminded on the Cardiff away game (the last one we lost) when it seemed like there was only one team on the pitch and we hadn’t turned up. Mercifully, half time was just around the corner so Nigel had a chance to hopefully sort it out.

Half time came and went and unless the team talk consisted of “let Adomah have the ball and let him run at us and shoot”, then I’m guessing that we messed up as it takes all of 2 minutes for City to take the lead. Adomah runs and shots and Superkelv parries it. We half clear it before once again, Adomah runs at Fox, cuts inside onto his left foot and hits a bit of a scuffer which flicks off of Foxy (I think) and flat-foots Superkelv who ends up on his knees as the ball rolls past him and into the net. It’s a scruffy, horrible, crappy goal but you can’t say they don’t deserve it.

Seemingly stung into action, Saints win a free kick when Lallana is carted over in none too subtle fashion by Pearson and Fox’s free kick presents Fonte with a free header at the back stick which he 50p heads wide of the other post. Fonte, empowered by his driving run forwards against Brighton which won that stonewall penalty, attacked the box before feeding Deano whose cross went back to Jose to tee up the Gulyman, who from 6 yards out, controlled it for the Bristol defender to clear. In a game of few opportunities for us, this was definitely one of them. Time for a substitution, Gulyman off, Steve de Ridder on.

Adomah is still causing us problems and his cross from the right is met on the volley by the left winger steaming in but Superkelv gets down well to block at his near post, prompting Merringtitus to spout his usual gem about what we don’t want to do, which according to Dave, is let in another goal. No shit.

We’re faring a bit better in attack as Foxy takes time out from being skinned by Adomah to feed a ball into de Ridder who jinks himself past a defender before lashing it into orbit. Barnard comes on for Deano for the last 10 but all we can manage for now is de Ridder going to ground in none-too-convincing fashion and for the second week running, we get a booking for diving.

With 5 to go, Saints push forward more in hope than expectation and lose the ball, giving Adomah yet another opportunity to run with it through the middle this time. As he overruns the ball, Jos slides in and hoofs him up in the air but not before he’s poked it through to Maynard who takes it on and shoots and then watches as it hits Fonte, deflects onto the ground and loops up, sailing over Superkelv who can only watch. 2-0, another deflection but you can’t say it’s not deserved.

Merringtitus predictably gives it the “I told you we didn’t want to do that” but to be fair to him, he sounds gutted. Usually he can find a positive, even in a poor performance but he’s struggling today, suggesting there really is nothing to see here.

Nigel was quite philosophical and honest afterwards, explaining that there was a lack of goal threat, no shots on target and he never felt like we were going to score. The question on his mind was whether we were bad or they were good. Bit of both I expect Nigel. For me, more damaging than the defeat itself will be the injury to Chappers who has in my opinion been player of the season so far. He provides and urgency and snap in our midfield which sounded alarmingly lacking when he went off, suggesting that a long term absence would be keenly felt. He didn’t sound too downbeat on his Twitter feed in the evening so hopefully it won’t be too long before he’s back. Everyone needs some Bald Psycho in the team. We lost today to two deflections so you could argue that on another day, we’d have got a 0-0. Let’s not get all Brighton about it and moan though – Bristol City deserved to win.

So, it was a bad day at the office, made worse by the fact that West Ham and Cardiff won. Fans of those clubs in particular will be waiting and expecting us to have a wobble now and fall into the pack and we have to ensure we don’t do that, starting with the visit of Hull City on Tuesday night. I think I’m correct in saying we haven’t lost two in a row under Nigel Adkins and I don’t see that coming now. I see us bouncing back as we invariably do and putting consecutive win number 21 on the board.

Keep the Faith etc

The Great Lukas Jutkiewicz Bullshit Edition

2011-11-25T20:57:00.003Z

Local Boy, Local Interest, Lovely!

WARNING: Some of this may be factually inaccurate, possibly, allegedly.

There has been no Saints news since the weekend victory over Brighton, there has however been bullshit. Picture the scene at the Daily Echo.

MONDAY

The ‘Brains Trust’ meet on the top floor.

Editor: OK lads, Today’s edition had the Brighton match report so we’ll flog a few copies. We need a Saints story to boost circulation for the rest of the week. Any ideas?

Hack1: Cortese leaving for Milan? That would destabilise things nicely.

Editor: No, not taking him on again, I’ve got a family

Hack2: It’s the end of the emergency loan transfer window on Thursday

Editor: Excellent, what can we do with that?

Hack2: How about re-hashing our made up bullshit from the last transfer window... you know about the local lad from Poland.

Editor: Oh yeah, that Jutkie..Jerko...Junkki...thingy. Polish lad from Southampton. Excellent, it’s got local interest with him being a local boy. The punters will love it.

Hack2: Connolly’s injured again so we’ll say that it’s an emergency loan with a view to a permanent move in January. How much shall we say for ? Coventry are skint so £1million ?

Editor: Naaaa, the readers like big numbers and it provokes discussion so let’s go £3 million

Office Junior: Are we allowed to run a story that has no factual basis whatsoever and is based on a four month story which was proved to be completely false.

Editor: Stupid boy... and anyway, what do you mean by false. He was born in Southampton and his sister teaches at Bitterne. Go and make me a cup of tea... two lumps.

TUESDAY

Story gets run in the early edition. Online edition tags ‘Coventry’ which sparks a chain of events which begins with the story getting reported on Coventry unofficial websites. Then, the Coventry local paper, The Sky Blue Bore gets hold of it and re-hashes it for the paper edition which causes....

Coventry fans go mad as he’s their best player, only goalscorer and they’re in the bottom 3

Coventry fans then finish the article and think £3m is a good deal.

Coventry fans then get angry again as they hate their owners and know the money won’t be spent on the team. ‘Sack the board’ they cry.

Coventry fans accept that it’s the players’ local club and at the top of the league etc and wish him well.

Saints unofficial websites report the story, adding a player exchange angle for no readily apparent reason, other than that Coventry needs some players. This exchange involves our ‘out of favour’ players... Dickson, Harding, Butterfield, Holmes... as well as Connolly who is out of favour due to being injured and Mick Channon who is out of favour due to being 60.

Coventry fans debate merits of said players – he’s good, he’s shite, I’d take him, why do we want their cast-offs etc.

Meanwhile, back in Daily Echo Towers...

Editor: This Juko, Juttervick...Jank... story is dieing on its arse, circulation only went up by 1 and that was some bloke in Netley who had dogshit on his shoe and needed something to wipe it off with. What can we do?

Hack 2: He was linked with Middlesbrough in the summer....

Editor: Who... Jurkovitch or the dogshit guy ? OK, good... re-hash the re-hash from before from the angle of Middlesbrough preparing a rival bid. Mention “bidding war” as that’s always good. Also, push the player exchange angle as we’ve been given that one on a plate.

WEDNESDAY

Story gets run with the web version tagging Middlebrough.

The Middlesbrough local paper, The Daily Smog gets hold of it.

Boro fans think he’s not worth £3million, doesn’t score enough goals, Everton fans thought he was shite etc, Saints are welcome to him, hometown club etc, why do they want him as they’ve got Lambert?.

Tony Mowbray quoted as ‘not interested in loan players’. Probably something he said in the summer.

Meanwhile, back in Coventry...

Andy Thorn is interviewed and the story comes up. He says he knows nothing and it’s out of his hands if his players get sold.

Lukas Jutkiewicz (who probably wants the move to be fair to him) is asked about the move and vows to remain professional and give 100% to Coventry.

Back in Echo Towers...

Editor: OK, I need more conflict, more interest, more bullshit. What have you got...

Hack 1: How about a late bid from a Polish Club or Pompey?

Hack 2: I’d go with Jakovich getting kidnapped by the Coventry Massive and being forced at gunpoint to have an affair with Sienna Miller, Steve Coogan and JK Rowling. It’s topical and more plausible than Pompey affording £3 million.

Editor: I like the way you’re thinking but ‘battle’ and ‘war’ always sells so we’ll have “Saints in Fight for Djokovic”.

THURSDAY

The story runs, Novak Djokovic ignores it and gets on with playing tennis, the day goes on and nothing happens.

Thursday at 5pm rolls round and then emergency loan window slams shut. If it was a door it would slam shut... if you slam a window it usually breaks.

Nigel Adkins gives an interview saying what he always says... we have a squad of players we trust and then adding..... I’ve heard about the story but I don’t read the Daily Echo.

Back in Echo Towers...

Editor: OK lads, damage limitation... lets go with Saints were looking for a striker and enquired but decided against it. Put a paragraph about maybe going back in January and if they do, we can say we were right all along, if they go for someone else we can say he’s second choice because the Jakkovitch deal fell through. Local angle, local boy etc. Lovely. Where’s my tea? What do you mean “he’s quit on principle”.

FRIDAY

The story runs – no one cares.

The bullshit has managed to get thousands of people interested and involved when there was never anything there. Three managers have made comment and three sets of supporters have got angry or excited or disappointed or shrugged their shoulders in indifference. In addition, lots of website editors have got busy and given the non-story legs and made it run. Ultimately it doesn’t matter – the only person who may be slightly pissed at it is Lukas Jutkiewicz... and me.

This chain reaction was brought to you by The Daily Echo. Call me naive but I thought the press were supposed to report the news and not create the news especially when it’s not in the public interest. It’s a good job that these day that you never hear about the Power of the Press being abused and Steve Coogan and Sienna Miller are signing for us in the summer. It’s probably just as likely as Lukas Jutkiewicz joining us.

NPC Match 17 - Dagenham 3 Brighton 0

2011-11-21T18:44:00.001Z

"You in my pocket now, You stupid bastardo"

In the two weeks since our last game we’ve had two 1-0 wins for England against Spain and Sweden, one achieved by defending for 90 minutes and scoring from a free kick and one achieved by being the marginally better of two poor sides. No doubt then that Nigel Adkins and Gus Poyet wouldn’t have approved. Ah Gus, he who made a complete bell end of himself after the game at the Withdean last year and who will ever forget his “Dagenham with Lambert and Barnard” comment.

To be fair, he’s been interviewed in the lead-up to this game and has been complimentary about us, pointing out that we’re top for a reason. He’s also said that Brighton were top last year – which of course is correct. Many Saints fans have somehow taken his comments to be another example of him having a pop but to be fair, he hasn’t and has left that to the Brighton fans who are still sore about Nigel’s comments last Christmas which, as I’ve previously said, were innocuous at best. So, both managers are being uncontroversial and both sets of fans are giving it the large one. Welcome back League football, we’ve missed you.

The main Saints news is that it appears we have (apparently) opened talks with Celtic over Jos Hooiveld joining permanently, which of course, is a good thing. Not many (including me) had heard of Jos when he signed but the big man has proved to be a very astute signing. He’s been pretty solid defensively, one horrible pass at Cardiff aside and seems to fit in well. News of his potential move has of course, not come from the corridors of power at SFC but via his agent who will, you’d have thought, now be on the Horse-Head-in-the-Bed Don Cortese Xmas Card List.

In the wider football world, worth a mention is AFC Totton winning 8-1 in the FA Cup 1st Round and setting up a live TV date with Sir Rickie’s old team Bristol Rovers, who were in the same league as Saints last year. Good luck to them as it’s nice to see a Southampton based non-league side pulling up a few trees. Oh yeah, and Carlos Tevez is still a twat, only this time he’s a stressed out twat and everyone’s a racist…. Luis Suarez, John Terry, Sepp Blatter and even dear old Gus has waded in with an ill-advised defence of Luis Suarez when there was really no need to comment.

To today and it’s one concession for another as I have the joy of taking my 7 year old son to the game as my Dad is on holiday. The last time I brought him was to a Carling Cup game when of course, none of his favourite players were playing. They are today though with Saints as you’d expect with Hammond instead of Schneiderlin in midfield. Deano of course, was playing against his former club and he’s about as popular as bad dose of the shits with their supporters. The bench saw the return of Lee Barnard for the first time this season in place of David Connolly who has a groin problem. Brighton name Craig Mackail-Smith up front who I wished we’d signed in the summer. They don’t have Wankergren in goal any more which is a shame but they have replaced him (not in goal, but in being a wanker) with Taricco who is their Assistant Manager and when he was playing for Ipswich and Spurs about 20 years ago, was always a Grade A cock. Being 47, I expect he’s mellowed now. They also have Greer playing who is their big hard man (allegedly) who missed the game at the Withdean at the tail end of last year.

If anyone had forgotten the story of that game, they were reminded by the video shown on the big screen before the match. Yes, it was a bit petty but it was the least the Brighton fans deserved after their Official Match Programme comments, banners and all that. Fuck ‘em.

To set the scene... today in my little section of the Kingsland, there is me (43 on Sunday), my lad (7), Bill (84), Bill’s two 50+ year old sons and a couple of 70+ year olds. Behind us there are the Chuckle Brothers (combined age 212, combined IQ 23). The 70+ year old who sits in front of us who had a pop before my lad had even kicked his seat once last time, has decided to keep quiet this time. My lad hasn’t kicked any seats yet, or fallen off his chair, or closed it on my leg or my hand. The big foam hand he brought to the last game is not present as it has been destroyed by our dog. I couldn’t believe how many times I had to hit the dog with it before he got pissed off and ripped it into pieces.

The game starts and Brighton fall into their default mode of everyone behind the ball. To be fair, they’re having a decent amount of possession which they keep going until the ball goes anywhere near Billy Paynter who looks like a centre half playing up front. When Paynter gives us the ball back, we are sluggish in possession and struggling to get any movement going.

The lack of incisive play in forward areas results in shooting from miles out. Firstly the Gulyman shoots from somewhere near West Quay and Harper just picks it up, before Craig Noone cuts infield from the right and evokes the memory of Jason Puncheon by lashing it into the top corner ... of the Chapel Stand.

The ref gets card happy on 20 minutes as the Gulyman slides in on Greer. Yes it’s a foul but not worth a booking and certainly not worth 5 Brighton players around the ref including Taricco, the Assistant Manager and Right Back who is waving his arms around and generally getting involved where he shouldn’t. You’re not the captain so shut up. I think I may have yelled out something along the lines of ‘oh Piss off and get on with it’ before remembering I had my 7 year old son sat on my knee. The ref is obviously irked with Taricco as he reverses a throw in decision when Taricco tries to pinch about 20 yards before taking it, going from one half to the other – as if he’s not going to notice, you fool.

It’s all a bit scrappy but Frazer goes all Ivan Golac and hammers forward down the wing before feeding Sir Rickie whose shot is blocked by Greer and it flicks off his hand but to give a penalty there would be harsh in the extreme. We have another shout for a penalty as Sir Rickie heads a ball back across despite Painter trying to rip his shirt off. Nigel changes the midfield to a diamond with Chappers going left and Corky right but there’s not enough time before half time for this to take proper effect.

Half time and Brighton have done pretty well in that they’ve stopped us playing with everyone working hard defensively. Mackail-Smith and Noone were covering the forward runs of Richardson and Fox but the problem was that this left Billy Paynter up front who has quite possibly been our best defender today. The Mighty Daggers can only play better in the second half and I have told my offspring that we’ve won 19 home games in a row and if we don’t win this one then it’s his fault.

All is well with the world within three minutes of the restart as Frazer flies down the wing again before cutting back onto his left foot and swinging over a cross to the far post where it’s Sir Rickie against Noone and Tarricco. And the winner with a big thumping header into the net is Sirrrrrr Rickie Lamberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt. Get in, 1-0 to the Dagenham.

Brighton have to open up a bit now and unsurprisingly, we find more space as Lallana puts Deano through, Harper comes out and Deano goes over. It’s either going to be a penalty or a booking for diving and it’s the latter. I have a bit of a problem with this as the keeper has caught him without touching the ball but he was looking for it (not a crime) and he didn’t have any interest in trying to score so I guess it’s fair enough. The Brighton fans are a forgiving lot and don’t give Deano any stick at all.

If the ref got that one right then he most definitely got the next one wrong as Fonte burst out from the back and found himself on the edge of the area. He lost it and then won it back again before Dunk grabbed his arm and threw him over. It’s a foul (a completely pointless one) and the lino gives it. The ref comes over, has a look and gives a penalty. It’s a bollocks decision even on first viewing as it’s about a yard outside the box and Brighton predictably go nuts. Taricco decides that having already pissed the ref off, it’s a good idea to get in his face and give him loads before going all bulgy eyed and incredulous as he gets sent off. He leaves the pitch tapping an imaginary back pocket? Is he talking about bribes here or what? It’s a good job he’s not in a position of responsibility, like being Assistant Manager or something like that. I mean, you wouldn’t want someone that hot headed and undisciplined in a position of authority would you? Still, it was nice of him to show my son what happens if you argue with referees. “Come on son, wave to the idiot as he goes off, bye-bye, cheerio, fuck off (maybe not).....”

After all that, the most predictable thing in the world, Sir Rickie, bang, bottom right, 2-0 and there’s a magnificent chant from the Northam of “2-0 to the Dagenham” at this point.

Brighton are in disarray now and a short kick out from Harper puts a defender right in the shit and he’s robbed by Deano who plays Sir Rickie through on the keeper. Harper comes out and Sir Rickie slips it past him and just wide of the far post. TV replays later prove that Harper made a great save but the ref missed it so the resulting goal kick just made it look like a bad miss.

Obviously a bit concerned with the prospect of the ref evening things up, Nigel removed the booked Deano and brought on Morgan, just in him for him to get carted high and late by Navarro who made his first meaningful contribution to the game by getting booked. Another penalty shout and another shocking decision as Sir Rickie rose to head the ball goalwards, only to be rugby tackled by Painter. Goal kick, of course.

Gus has decided that playing Dagenham with 9 men is pretty difficult so he replaces Billy Paynter with someone who can play football but it’s soon 3-0 to the Daggers as Tarricco’s replacement Calderon, clipped Sir Rickie’s heels as he was about to shoot. Penalty again. The ref once more covered himself with glory by blowing the whistle, bang 3-0. Oh hang on, the keeper had his back to it, take it again. Bang, top left, 3-0 to the Daggers and a hat-trick for Sir Rickie. Surely it’s the keepers’ problem if he’s not watching and also, what would have happened if the penalty had hit the post or something?

Brighton actually create a chance, or rather we create it for them as Richardson slices a clearance up in the air in our own penalty area, which Davis drops, forcing ‘body on the line’ defending from Corky and Chappers to get it clear. Brighton have given up now and so it’s ‘Ole’ time for a couple of minutes before Gulyman tries to curl one into the top corner and skies it.

More subs as the clock runs down with Lallana and the Gulyman making way for de Ridder and Barnard. Sir Rickie thumps a diving header straight at Harper from a Frazer cross before the subs both make a positive contribution with de Ridder beating a few players before optimistically trying to chip the keeper and just failing whilst Barney gets on the end of another Frazer cross and flicks a header just over.

Full time in what was ultimately an easy win. Brighton didn’t have a shot on target all game and the only action Kelvin had was our own doing as we hoofed a ball up in the air in our own area. On the TV Highlights on The Football League Show, Kelvin only featured in the tunnel before the game. Brighton and Gus will of course argue that the first penalty was the turning point but come on!!! It was already 1-0 and we were creating chances at will. If you argue about that you really are just arguing over the magnitude of the defeat. Like the Peterborough game earlier on this season, I reckon we’d have won by more against 11 men.

Gus was obviously upset in his post match interview and of course, mentioned the pen and asked what you can do when a decision is just so wrong. He’s right of course but as we all know, you have to get on with it. He didn’t mention his idiot assistant. Nigel concentrated on the positives but also vowed to look at why we were so poor in the first half whilst giving credit to Brighton for keeping it tight. Beneath the smile and the clichés for the cameras though, this must have been a sweet one.

The Taricco red card made it onto Twitter and the ‘pocket’ gesture was explained by Chappers and Lallana, saying that Taricco was saying he had them both in his pocket all game. We’ve got the away game at the Amex on January 2nd which is not far away so this particular pot should be simmering quite nicely by then.

I thought the Daggers were magnificent in the second half with Corky and Chappers really shining and Sir Rickie being unplayable at times. Brighton were awful, though a lot of it was tactical. I can’t understand how they can break their club record fee for a goalscorer (Mackail-Smith) and then make him chase Richardson up and down the wing for the entire match. CMS was never near enough to our goal to do what he’s good at (and he is good at it). As for Billy Paynter... Jesus..... if ever there was an argument against the loan system then this is it. Leeds loaned him out to a team in their own division because they thought he was shite, making a rival team weaker and them stronger... win, win. Also, why wasn’t Greer picking up Sir Rickie as well? Every time the ball went in the box it was Marcos Painter who was trying and mainly failing to stop him. Seems like the biggest defender and the captain, just didn’t fancy it.

On the way out of the ground, son and I are clapping the players off and when the last one has gone, as I carry him down the steps he starts talking to a random bloke. He explained the offside rule and how they calculate the amount on injury time before I managed to drag him away from a very confused looking Idiot Chuckle Brother.

Next up is Bristol City away in an away game we really should be looking to win. Bring it on...

NPC Match 16 - Coventry 2 Southampton 4

2011-11-07T20:11:00.001Z

Be Very Thankful....

Are we serious about this season? Are we serious about winning the league or automatic promotion? If we are then today is a ‘must win’ in a match, away at Coventry City. Since starting off the season with two consecutive away wins, we have played five other away matches and not won. You can make all the excuses you like about difficult fixtures and blah blah blah but the bottom line is that in order to finish in the top two, you have to win a decent proportion of your away matches and we haven’t…. so far.

I always enjoyed going to Highfield Road back in the day. By the time you left the ground there was always a good chance that the cost of your match ticket, travel to the game and a couple of pints would be reimbursed by kind Coventry fans throwing money at you. Strange lot – maybe their generosity is the root cause of them being skint, though more likely is that it’s due to a recent-ish connection between us and them. SISU, a hedge fund, tried to buy Saints and failed before eventually buying Coventry. I’m not entirely sure of the timeline but I think Ken Dulieu was involved with us at the time and now he’s Coventry chairman. A quick scour of the web forums suggest that Coventry fans think that he’s the devil incarnate. The SISU takeover has hardly delivered the success that Coventry were hoping for and they find themselves in the bottom three going into this game.

Nigel Adkins has had a little mini-shuffle of the pack for this game with Danny Fox and Jack Cork (two ex-Coventry players) coming back into the side at the expense of Dean Hammond and Dan Harding who drop to the bench and the seats behind the dugout in the stand, respectively. A lot of the build-up to the game has focussed on Lukas Jutkiewicz, the Coventry striker who is a Saints fan and doesn’t care who knows it. Respect for that Lukas but I hope you’re shit today.

I myself am ill and it’s nothing to do with alcohol. I’m lying on my bed with Dave Merrington whispering sweet nothings in my ear, telling me what I don’t want to do.

Away we go and it’s all Saints with Coventry struggling to get a touch of the ball, let along creating anything remotely dangerous. We’re passing it like a dream right from the start and Morgan hits our first chance wide on the volley having played a superb 1-2 with Sir Rickie. More passing moves with virtually the whole team involved before Sir Rickie heads down and Chappers shanked an effort wide from an offside position. He obviously knew he was offside, hence the lame finish.

We’re reached the half hour mark without really looking threatening so it’s now time to change that. But first, another near miss as Lallana’s cross picks out Sir Rickie at the back post and his header back across it me by the Gulyman who nods it down and fractionally wide of the post. It’s coming....

.... now. Three minutes later and Danny Fox wins a throw and Crozzer on the line quickly gives him the ball back. Fox throws and feeds the Gulyman on the left who juggles it past the bamboozled defender and crosses along the ground into the danger area. Chappers slides in with a defender and the ball gets stuck under them by Chappers is up quickest to fire left footed under the keeper and into the far corner for 1-0.

Coventry’s response seems to be to let their heads go down and it could have been 2-0 a minute later as following another dazzling move and a Fox cross, Lallana’s header does what all Lallana headers do and drop harmlessly straight to the keeper. No matter though as a Sir Rickie pass frees Lallana down the left who feeds the Gulyman to ride a challenge and get to the line before taking his time and rolling a simple pass back to Lallana for an easy finish for 2-0. It’s nearly 3-0 as Fox blasts past a namby pamby tackle in the penalty area but he tries to take The Gulyman’s head off with the cross and it bounces wide and the Gulyman has a headache. We reach half time as comfortably as you like, still leading 2-0 and the only question is how many will we get?

The second half starts and Coventry are of course going to give it a go with Northern Irish International and Star Trek villain, Klingon having a speculative free kick from miles out which Superkelv flaps round the post for a rather needless corner. This shouldn’t have been catastrophic but it was as Big Jos lost Jutkewicz who stole in amongst 8 Saints players in the box to side foot home from 5 yards.

Coventry are fired up now, with the goal we presented them with and Starship Captain Klingon has his phasers set to stun as he fires wide this time. Back come Saints with a couple of chances falling to Big Jos but he heads a Fox corner over, followed by another header over following Fonte heading a cross back across the goal.

In our journey around League 1, we came across Clive Platt who is coming on as a sub for Coventry. He’s a big donkey with no discernable ability as a footballer and as such, I knew he was going to score. A bobbling ball forward causes a bit of panic and ends up behind Fonte who gets his foot on it to clear it out to the wing. Unfortunately, it hits Frazer Richardson on the side of the head and instead of flying off for a corner or anywhere else harmless, it rebounds back into the centre of the penalty area to Platt who manages to get his big donkey feet in the right position to stab it in for 2-2 and his first goal since he was giving kids rides for a quid along the beach.

In a move which didn’t immediately scream “attacking intent”, Deano came on for Chappers which meant Morgan moving to the right. All is right with the world again five minutes later as a cross from the right ends up on the left with Danny Fox who got himself a yard of space before curling in a brilliant cross for the unmarked Gulyman to rise and with a flick header into the far corner, we’re back in the lead again.

The Official Saints website has described this goal as being just like the one he scored against Middlesbrough. Apart from the fact that it was a cross from the left and not the right and a flicked header and not a power header – they are completely correct.

A half chance for another goal passes by on 79 minutes as Lallana fires just wide before being replaced with Steve de Ridder. Our famous Belgian takes all of 5 minutes to fasten onto Sir Rickie’s cross into the area to make it 4-2 as the defender and the goalkeeper waited for eachother to take change. Schteeeeeeeeeeeeve!!! Game over.

There is time for a ‘Man of the match’ substitution as the Gulyman is replaced with David Connolly for the last couple of minutes, allowing him to take in the applause of the Saints travelling army and the 25 or so Coventry fans left in the ground. Those left hear the final whistle and the confirmation of a really important win for the mighty red and white machine.

Well have some of that then. Like I said at the start, we had something to prove today and we did it. It’s official, we can put the weaker sides to the sword in away matches – love it. Nigel’s interview was very upbeat as you’d expect, revealing that he’d asked for 9 points from the last 3 matches and got them. Is it just me but I’d have thought most managers would have been asking for 6, maybe 7. OK Nigel, give me 21 from the next 7 games please including a 4-0 away win at Fratton Park.

Coventry manager Andy Thorn came up with the usual stuff that a lot of beaten managers have spouted after playing us which was that their side “gifted us the goals”. Yeah, your side dozed off at a corner and gave the centre forward a free shot from 5 yards didn’t they. Oh, hang on a minute, that was us... you got beat by a better team, just deal with it. I wouldn’t tell him that to his face though.... big, hard looking bastard.

The next two away games are ones we should be looking to win as well at Bristol City and Doncaster. Before those though we have an international break and a home game against those lovely boys from Brighton who have two weeks to work out how to avoid becoming consecutive home league scalp number 18. This will be a tough one for us as we’ve lost and drawn in the last two home games against the Seagulls and I guess Gus will still be spitting feathers over something very minor. Can you keep up?

Enjoy the abysmal England national team getting taught a lesson by

Spain

and see you in two weeks.

COYR.

NPC Match 15 - Southampton 2 Peterborough 1

2011-11-02T21:55:00.000Z

They're Back... the Twats!

Fergie Lite is in town tonight with his Peterborough side who arrive at SMS, just a few places off of the playoff positions, having had a decent start to the season. They had an excellent attacking side last year but one of the players who was a pain for us was Craig Mackail-Smith who has moved on to Brighton. Little fat Lee Tomlin who converted the last minute penalty against us in the 4-4 draw last year is missing through suspension, leaving only George Boyd from last year’s strike force. Peterborough are the sort of side I would usually want to do well but then there’s their manager who talked such complete bollocks after the 4-4 game that it’s hard to look past that.

One thing for sure is that he doesn’t like Chappers who I reckon is due a goal tonight. Saints have been taking plaudits since the Middlesbrough demolition but there is no point in beating Middlesbrough and West Ham and the like if you’re not going to produce in the games you really should win, like this one.

Nigel made three changes from Saturday with Fox, Cork and Butters rested with Dan Harding, Morgan Schneiderlin and Frazer Richardson coming in. We had a shambolic minutes silence for All Saints Day as when the ref blew the whistle to start it, a lot of people thought it was the end and started to applaud, so it became a minutes applause which tests your clapping stamina and gives you Repetitive Strain Injury.

We and Chappers started where we left off against Middlesbrough as Bald Psycho won a corner following a determined run and from Harding’s delivery, Jose Fonte headed wide. Peterborough looked right at it for the first 10 minutes with Boyd in midfield pulling the strings. We on the other hand looked a bit disjointed but it all turned round on the quarter hour as Frazer fed a ball into the Gulyman from the right wing and the Brazilian maestro laid it off first time for the onrushing Chappers to sidefoot past Paul Jones (not that Paul Jones) from 6 yards whilst everyone wondered if it was offside. Chappers celebrated in fine fashion and it could only have been better if he’d done it right in front of the Peterborough dug out.

The fog was immediately lifted and Saints went for the throat and tightened the grip two minutes later after a foul on the Gulyman. Sir Rickie once more shaped to hammer it before playing it into Lallana who turned it first time to the Gulyman who scuffed it across goal to where big Jos was waiting. Always deadly from 3 yards with an open goal, he duly converted to make it 2-0 and floodgates, please.

Peterborough responded through Frecklington aiming a two footed tackle at the Gulyman which earned him a yellow card when on another day with another ref, could have been a straight red. Saints were pummelling them now with Sir Rickie nearly making it 3-0 with a right footed blast from the left which Jones shoved round the far post.

One definition of madness is to do the same thing over again and to expect a different result. Well, Frecklington tested that theory with a two footed tackle on Schneiderlin which wasn’t quite as bad as the first one but a yellow card was inevitable and off he went, idiot.

Possibly rattled by sending someone off, there was then some very strange refereeing when Morgan got fouled and the free kick was clearly given to Peterborough as indicated by the ref pointing in their direction. Whilst I was moaning at the crap decision, Deano took the free kick quickly and then the ref indicated ‘play on’. I can only assume that he meant to give the decision to us in the first place and just pointed the wrong way.

Peterborough retreated in a effort to get to half time without conceding again and sadly, our passing was not great and not quick enough. We were doing a lot of sideways and backwards and for the first time in a while, there was some aimless punting forwards, especially from the full backs where Harding and Richardson were competing for the ‘dodgy performance’ award. Dan seemed reluctant to move into the space in front of him and Frazer seemed to be playing a game whereby he got to where the ball was a second ago. Morgan was trying to hit Hollywood balls from just in front of the defenders and Lallana and Chappers watched a few balls fly harmlessly over their heads and out for throw-ins. Adam’s efforts to have an impact on the match were being impeded by wearing roller skates instead of football boots and each twisting and turning manoeuvre was usually ended by him falling over.

Half time and it’s time for some more child torture as irritating bald bloke tries to get a 9 year old to hit the cross bar from 20 yards when he can only actually kick the ball about half of that. Confounding my scepticism, some kid managed to do it though he does look a little bit older. As we line up for the start of the second half, Steve de Ridder is on for the Gulyman and we’ve gone 4-5-1 with Chappers infield and de Ridder and Lallana on the wings.

There seems to be a bit of an assumption that the game is done at this point as Saints pass it amongst themselves and Peterborough employ the 4-5-0 formation and no matter how hard we try, they are not coming to get the ball. The Northam amuse themselves by chanting “Steeeeeeeeeeve” every time the ball goes near de Ridder and this is quickly extended to other players. It’s funny for a bit but in the end it adds to the “taking the piss” atmosphere that has descended onto the proceedings.

We manage to get the ball in the net as Sir Rickie bundles in a Lallana cross but there is a foul on the keeper. Again, the ref didn’t really signal it clearly and I thought for a bit, that he was pointing to the centre spot having given the goal. Both full backs were pushing into the spaces now and we were pressurising well when we didn’t have the ball resulting in de Ridder nicking the ball off of their left back and eventually setting up Sir Rickie with a sitter. He hit it and we waited for the net to bulge but it hit the foot of the keeper who had dived the wrong way and pinged off to safety.

And then it started....”Why deeee do daaaaaaaat ?”, “Dere winning everyfiiiiiiing”. Oh yes, the Chuckle Brothers were back. Half an hour without a goal and they’re back. I imagine it’s what it’s like when you are told by a doctor that the horrible disease that you had has returned. You know, you had the disease and you got rid of it, all the open running sores had gone and you’d just got to the stage when you thought it had gone forever and you had the odd moment when it didn’t even cross your mind anymore. Another sub with Connolly on for Lallana and the moronic totally unfunny one pipes up with “It’s David Noccolly, Noccally is coming on”. I have one of those woolly hats on and I’ve pulled it over my ears and eyes and am counting to 10. I’m in my quiet place where it is calm. It works which is just as well as the alternative is to turn round and SHUT THE FUCK UP.

We have another chance when de Ridder sends a volley flying just wide and then Peterborough got into our half with their one forward taking on Big Jos for pace. He may be a big unit but he looks quite quick when he gets going and the perfectly timed man-and-ball sliding tackle at the end completed the job nicely. Big Jos does his job again with quarter of an hour to go and heads the ball clear only to find our midfielders absent and Boyd picks it up and has time to weight a decent pass through for Sinclair to run onto and score easily. Ooh, bugger, 2-1.

Chappers tees up de Ridder for a well shit volley which flies just wide before Jack Cork is summoned from the bench to replace Chappers who is taken off so Fergie Lite can give him a standing ovation. Corky starts well on the left, calmly keeping hold of the ball and manages to break forward to get on the end of a de Ridder pass and smash in a fierce goalbound shot which hits a defender and flies over the bar. All is calm as we mess about in the corner for a bit and play out the 4 additional minutes with no real alarm.

Though we struggled a bit to get over the line in this game, it’s ended up being a brilliant evening as West Ham drew 0-0 at home with Bristol City, meaning that we’re 5 points clear again. At a guess, Britol City had a centre back that headed away all the hoofs upfield. No matter how poorly we played, I bet West Ham would have taken a scrappy 2-1 win. We had a few too many poorish individual performances tonight but I think the sending off changed the game in a negative way for us in that we’d have won by more if they’d had 11. With 11 men and 2-0 down they’d have come forward to try and get back in it and left a load of space – as it was they played 4-5-0 and we couldn’t play through them. It reminded me of those shocking matches we played at home in League 1 when Pardew was manager where teams would come for a 0-0 and we would cluelessly fail to break them down. Anyhow, can’t be greedy...

Peterborough for their part did well after the idiot got sent off and I think that Fergie Lite’s approach was the right one as it would have done no one any good to have got humped 6-0 or something. They didn’t really deserve their goal but when it came, it made it more interesting and it did open my ears to the savage amount of moaning, just itching to be let out by my fellow Kingslanders. Fergie Lite praised us for being top of the league and then ruined it by saying that we tried to get his player sent off. Listen pal, you wanna be mad with someone, try Frecklington who could have got a straight red for the first tackle then managed to do the same again having been booked. He deserved to go, end of. Shut up you knob.

We have one more game before the international break and it’s a decent opportunity to show that we can win away from home when we take on Coventry at the Ricoh Arena. It’s the start of a run of 4 away games against teams in the bottom 6 with Bristol City, Doncaster and of course, our friendly rivals The Skates (where I know that the form book could potentially go right out the window). For the Cov match I expect to see Corky and Danny Fox restored to starting duties and hopefully Adam Lallana will have the right studs in his boots. As my Dad used to say to me 30 years ago... you can’t play football when you’re on your arse.

NPC Match 14 - Southampton 3 Middlesbrough 0

2011-10-31T21:55:00.000Z

I Wanna Look Like Chappers

Middlesbrough at home in another tough home game and another severe test to our 18 games winning run or whatever it is. They've only lost one game all season and the only reason they're not higher than their current 3^rd place is because of the number of draws, specifically 0-0 draws that they've had. They don’t score many and they don't let in many either. Boro legend Tony Mowbray is a manager who seems like a really decent bloke who wants his teams to get it down and pass it so we should see some decent football today, unlike the West Ham hoof-fest.

As I said in the start of season preview, think of Boro and I think of Gareth Southgate who is so dull, he makes Alan Shearer seem interesting. Pre-Gareth I think of Schteve McLaren of course who got the England job based on a couple of freak results in Europe and before that, Bryan Robson and the time they legendarily decided not to play a game as they had a few injuries... three points docked and relegated. I also remember a game at The Dell when we were 3-1 up with a minute to go and they had 9 men... and we managed to get a draw.

We had a right to moan that day and unbelievably, moaning has been back on the agenda this week. I’ve read moans about the Carling Cup exit with a weakened team and moaning about how we haven’t won an away game for a while. Best of all, I heard some bloke on talkSHITE moaning about everything to the incredulity of the presenters who quite reasonably, expected Saints fans to be happy right now. Personally, I’m delighted with where we are and anyone who expects it to all be perfect is at best deluded. Yeah, we all have the right to moan but if you do, don’t be surprised if not many people are listening to you right now. Can’t wait for the first time we drop a point at home... Mick McCarthy has had a go at some Wolves supporters with short memories this week and he is spot on.... every club has them. Every SFC moaner should be forced to watch the Season review of the Poortvliet / Woote season, which they can’t do because we didn’t produce one as we were that shit.

We have a few changes from our last league match with Danny Butterfield replacing Frazer Golac at right back and Adam Lallana returning to the left wing, meaning Chappers moved to the right and the Gulyman went up front meaning David Connolly dropping to the bench. Jose Fonte had recovered from the ‘about to get sent off’ injury that he had last week. There was no place on the bench yet for Lee Barnard and so Connolly was joined by Steve de Ridder and Morgan along with the bench ever-presents, Aaron Martin and Bart.

Middlesbrough had ex-Saint Scott MacDonald up front who I remember mainly from a program about our youth players from that era and he came across as a complete Billy Big Bollocks. He’s done alright for himself though and would be a threat today, as would their top scorer, Marvin Emnes. Boro lined up n a 3-5-2 formation which I expected to cause us a few issues in midfield.

First to show was Jack Cork who embarked on a twisting run past a couple of players before he was unceremoniously halted on the edge of the box. Sir Rickie looked like he was going to thrash it goalwards but instead, stood up a chip to the totally unmarked Fonte who was apparently offside. The fact that he was unmarked was the interesting thing. Attack followed attack and we won a corner which Lallana floated in, Big Jos headed down and Jose span and smashed it narrowly over the bar. There were encouraging signs that the much vaunted Boro defence really weren’t all that good at all.

Final proof of that fact was delivered on 15 minutes when Deano swept a ball out to Butters on the right wing and he pinged in a cross from miles out, over Sir Rickie but straight onto the head of the unmarked Gulyman who planted his header into the top corner as the keeper watched for 1-0.

Boro looked a little shellshocked to be fair and weren’t winning the midfield battle at all despite having an extra player in there. On 25, Sir Rickie tried to slide in Chappers who’d made a superb run forwards but he got tackled and the ball came out to Lallana on the left. His cross to the back stick was met by the unmarked Sir Rickie who headed across for the Gulyman to head his second goal from about 3 yards out and about a foot off the ground. 2-0 up and we’re having a laugh.

Marvin Emnes is a tricky little player and he warned us against complacency with a neat little run and was denied by a well timed rush from his line by Superkelv who took the ball cleanly. There is always a player on the opposition who gets a special award and so today’s Opposition Bell-End of the Week is Barry Robson who got tackled by Danny Fox and then spent a bit of time moaning at the linesman and pointing to his heel. When he got nothing he carried on moaning at the lino and a few team mates and then, having being told to wait for the whistle, took a free kick too quickly and got himself booked.

It was all Saints though and Butters fired in another deep cross which Sir Rickie met well and headed it just the wrong side of the post. The Gulyman should really have claimed the match ball a minute later as Lallana slipped him in and his scuffed, bobbly effort beat the keeper, hit the inside of the post and stayed out.

Boro had a couple of chances before half time as McMahon hammered a free kick just wide after Big Jos had fouled McDonald who had a chance himself, right on the whistle as he rounded Superkelv but ran out of pitch and angle before hitting the side netting. ‘Do, do-da-do, fucking useless’ sang the Northam which was a bit harsh but funny nonetheless.

We had reached half time and looked in no bother at all, Deano and Corky were ruling the midfield and Sir Rickie and the Gulyman were terrifying them up front. At the back we looked in no trouble at all and the wide players were all doing sterling jobs in both defence and attack. In short, we were fucking great. The half time piss always feels better when you are half way through it and you find out that the Skates are 3-0 down. There’s a certain symmetry with the Skates getting stuffed and watching piss flow down the drain.

We’re straight back at it after half time with Sir Rickie heading a ball on and Chappers heading down and in from an offside position though there is a slight concern that the Gulyman is limping a bit and after 10 minutes he makes way for David Connolly. Connolly’s first real action is to catch one of their defenders daydreaming before he clears it and feed Corky who advances and hits a screamer towards the top corner which Steele does well to tip wide for a corner.

Middlesbrough finally get a bit of possession around our box and win a couple of corners but all this does is leave them open to the counter attack and we have a one man counter attacking machine in Bald Psycho who runs fully 80 yards with the ball, loses it in the Boro penalty area, before winning it back again and crossing. Jose Fonte has somehow made it up from the back and thrown himself in front of a defender to knock it goalwards with his knee but the keeper is becoming increasingly irritating and saves it again. Sub time and Chappers looks absolutely knackered but it’s not him coming off as Adam Lallana is replaced with Morgan Schneiderlin.

The game drifted on with Saints being the better side by a mile and Middlesbrough not really threatening. Mowbray made a couple of subs to little effect and Morgan broke up a Boro attack on the edge of our box. Virtually all the outfield players got a touch over the next 23 passes before Chappers put Sir Rickie away on the left with pass 24 and he beat the defender, got to the goal line and waited for someone to make themselves available. Predictably, that player was Connolly, pass 25, bang, 3-0, game over, fantastic goal.

Boro had a couple of half chances in the last 10 minutes and Superkelv had to be alert to keep out a header from one of their subs but his best bit of play was to come out to the edge of his box and head a through ball straight to Fox on the left, whilst all the Saints fans in the crowd, shut their eyes and prayed.

There was still time for Steve de Ridder to come on in place of Deano and fire in a cross which Sir Rickie met superbly on the volley. It flew like a missile, heading for the top corner until the bastard goalkeeper Steele took off and tipped it round the post again. Annoying fucker – he was complete crap in the first half and looked completely lost and in the second half he’s Gordon Banks (the pre-car crash Gordon Banks). Full time.

A stunningly good performance really and I really hope that moaning bastard is on talkSHITE again this week. Maybe he can moan about his pie being too hot or the dispensers in the toilets running out of paper towels. You sure can’t moan about the football as it was superb. We played more long balls today than usual but this was clearly tactical as a weakness in the air at the back had clearly been identified, hence playing the tall Brazilian instead of the small Leprechaun up front. Having said that, the long balls weren’t aimless hoofs upfield a la Allardyce and there was still a lot of play through midfield. A 26 pass goal kind of illustrates that this team can do both. I laughed when I saw that some Boro fans were complaining that the tackle that won the ball before the 26 passes, should have been their free kick. Fuck me lads, you only had about 5 minutes to win the ball back before we scored. How about blaming the defender who let Sir Rickie waltz round him.

Nigel was buzzing afterwards, especially over the performance of Chappers. Aside from the Barnsley game where he got sent off in an act of Bald Psycho red mist, Chappers has been quality this season either when starting or coming on from the bench. He’s played all the midfield positions as well and has set a really high standard. The midfield was superb today with the return of Adam Lallana a major plus. OK, he tackled himself a few times and looked a bit rusty but the panic in the opposition when he’s on the ball is what it’s all about and despite it being his first game for a while, he provided an assist for the 2^nd goal and played the pass for the Gulyman to hit the post. … and he makes Messi look shite, oh yes!. The first time I heard that chant I thought it was about him messing with shite and I wondered how the Northam all knew about it. Mention must go to Jose Fonte as well who I thought had his best game of the season.

As Chappers was man of the match, he got interviewed afterwards and all the internet articles have taken his quotes… and twisted them horribly. He didn’t say anything controversial about Darren Ferguson, didn’t say anything about him being a knob or a twat or a man who is impossible to like or anything like that… but Tuesday’s match v Peterborough has meant that some quotes, probably from 2 years ago have been stuck into some articles. Regardless of this, Fergie Lite will hopefully get a complete battering on Tuesday night.

I expect there will be a few changes with Tuesday with probably Frazer and Morgan getting in somewhere. Go on you moaning bastard, get yourself back on the radio.

Carling Cup 4th Round - Crystal Palace 2 Southampton 0

2011-10-27T22:35:00.000+01:00

Carling Cup, The Reserves Cup, The Fringe Cup. Whatever you want to call it, we’re in the last 16 and three rounds away from a Wembley Final. Birmingham had a great day out and won the Final last year... and then got relegated.... oops.

Nigel has made the unusual step of naming James Ward-Prowse in the side, two days before the game.. He’s still 16 so it’s a massive day for him. I’m in two minds about this as slotting him into an otherwise unchanged midfield would be ok, playing him in a team of reserves is something else... no doubt Arsenal will have a scout watching.... just piss off. I think these games really highlight the bare areas in our squad, centre defence and up front. As far as I can see we have two fit centre halves unless Nigel is going to throw Harlee Dean in there instead of Big Jos and in the last round, the ‘partnership’ of Johnno Pace and Ben Reeves up front was not great.

If it was down to me I’d play one of Sir Rickie and the Gulyman up front with Johnno and have Aaron Martin and Big Jos at the back. Also, one of the experienced central midfielders (Chappers, Morgan, Corky) in there with Ward-Prowse. Nigel on the other hand, went with an iffy forward line of Ben Reeves and Johnno Pace with Jack Cork drafted into play centre back alongside Aaron Martin. Harding and Butters were the full backs with Holmes and de Ridder on the wings. The experience in midfield was provided by 21 year old Schneiderlin. On the bench we had some experience with Sir Rickie, the Gulyman and the welcome sight of Lee Barnard back from injury and also, untried youngsters Harlee Dean, Corby Moore and keeper Jack Dovey as Dismal Forecast has been loaned out to Shitterton in the Bevois Valley Sunday Division 7.

Saints had the first decent chance of the match with a corner being headed goalwards by Corky who beat the keeper but not the defender stationed on the line. Ben Reeves then went close, making a chance for himself with his own tenacity and firing in a low shot which the Palace keeper held well. Reeves was showing up well up front and put in a dangerous cross which eluded everyone before being muscled out of things in the area and unsuccessfully appealing for a penalty. I don’t really think it was but some ref’s might have given it. The fact that Reeves weighs about 6 stone may have contributed to him being knocked over.

We had a great chance on 25 minutes as former Skates season ticket holder James Ward-Prowse, played Johnno Pace through and after doing the difficult bit and making space for himself, fired it straight at the keeper. It was mainly Saints for the rest of the first half but we carried little or no goal threat and his name was Johnno.

Jermaine Easter came into the game for Palace at the start of the second half, having a couple of snap shots which flew over the bar but nothing much happened until the hour mark when a fine Harding cross went onto the head of Johnno Pace and you can guess the rest – needless to say, the onion bag wasn’t involved.

On 70 minutes, Nigel had seen enough and Johnno was put out of his misery and replaced with lee Barnard for his first action of the season. Not that it was Barney’s fault but impact sub worked in the negative and it took all of 3 minutes for us to fall behind as Corky’s attempted clearance sliced its way to Williams on the right wing and his cross was swept in by Darren Ambrose from close range. The goal brought more action on the bench and Sir Rickie and the Gulyman came on for the tiring Reeves and the ineffective Holmes who as ‘ineffective’ implies, hadn’t achieved very much all game.

Again, our substitutions coincided with a Palace goal as Williams, who was going away from goal on the left hand side of the penalty area, was needlessly and clumsily tripped by Harding for the easiest decision this ref will ever have to make. Bart dived right and Easter put the ball to his left to make it 2-0 and game over.

Sir Rickie had a go from a free kick which was held by the keeper and a Gulyman snap shot was shoved over by a combination of keeper and the cross bar. Too little too late and out we went.

It’s hard not to be disappointed a bit at going out of a competition but we as supporters have to accept that the club has different priorities this year, however, I feel that just by having either the Gulyman or Sir Rickie up front instead of Johnno would have won us the game. I guess our job is to support whatever team and players are representing SFC and over 2,500 did that on a crappy night in South London which is a fantastic effort. As you can doubtless tell from this crappy blog entry, I wasn’t one of them and as I was skanking away at a Specials gig with thousands of other 40+ year olds, I didn’t have the insight of Merrington to fall back on.

Nigel’s interview said a lot as he was a bit negative which stands out because he very rarely is. He said that some players didn’t do themselves any favour today and I think we can assume he’s talking about Johnno Pace, Lee Holmes and Steve de Ridder as he criticised our lack of goal threat whilst exonerating Ben Reeves who was the only other player in an advanced position. James Ward-Prowse was picked out for praise and it does seem to have been a very confident debut for the lad. The Skates were annoyed when Alex Chamberlain slipped through their net so it’s nice to have another one do the same.

Middlesbrough at home on Saturday and I think we may see just a few changes. If Jose Fonte is not fit then expect Aaron Martin to play as we have no one else and maybe Lee Barnard will make the bench which may have the effect of sparking David Connolly back into goalscoring form. Morgan or Deano in midfield is another question and I expect the Frenchman to get the nod after a decent performance tonight. A win on Saturday and resting a load of players tonight will be justified, anything less and we may be looking at the game Crystal Palace get in the Quarter Finals of the Carling Cup and wondering what might have been.

Draw a blue line under it and move on.