Capital One Cup 2nd Round - Barnsley 1 Southampton 5

Little African bloke levitates after shock goal !

Between the weekend and tonight there had been further acknowledgement that other people in the game are beginning to sit up and take notice of what's going on here on the South Coast: Sir Rickie got picked for England again with Luke Shaw and JWP getting picked for the England Under 21s, the latter for the first time though Shaw hasn' t actually played for them yet due to persistent injuries when called up.  Calum Chambers was as usual, in the Under 19s.  So, the future is bright but for now, we're going back to the past.

It’s like going back in time 2 years (or is it 200 years) as we visit Championship side Barnsley in the 2^nd Round of the Capital One Cup.  Every year we say the same things about how great it would be to have a cup run and every year it’s the same and we field a team of 14 year olds until we get knocked out.  Under Nigel Adkins, the cup competitions were a waste of time as he was always chasing league success which is fine, but it didn’t make it any easier to take when we got humiliated at Leeds last year in this competition and then followed that up by giving up at half time when we played Chelsea at home in the FA Cup. 

So, this was Mauricio Pochettino’s first Cap One Cup game and he followed suit with 9 changes to the starting team with only Jose and J-Rod remaining.  I thnk we can assume that Jose was only in because Big Jos had a cold and I have a suspicion that J-Rod was in because he was likely to be on the bench on Saturday.  The difference between now and last year though is that we have a much stronger squad with Yoshida, Clyne, Foxy, Corky, Steve Davis, Gaston and Superkelv being first choices for parts of last year. In addition we have Lloyd Isgrove making a first start and of course, the Little African Bloke will get the chance to answer the age old question: “Can he do it in a midweek game in Yorkshire”?.

Barnsley have a couple of familiar players with Chris O’Grady playing up front who I remember playing very well and scoring for Rochdale in their 2-0 win at St.Mary’s in League 1 which was the first part of the double they did over us that season.  That game was two and a half years ago and Rochdale are now in League 2 with the Skates and we are in the Premier League in another example of how quickly things can change in football.  They also have Jacob Mellis who was brought in on loan by Alan Pardew.  He was at Chelsea and got picked for England age group teams because he was at Chelsea – well it must have been that because it sure wasn’t because he was any good.  He’s filed alongside Nicholas Bignall and Jordan Robertson as loan players we had to were really really shtt.  They had Mike Pollitt in goal who is 41 and signed about half an hour before kick off.  The keeper he reaplced must be really bad.

Tonight, to add to the 2 years ago vibe,  I will be old-skool due to a lack of internet stream and be in the company of Merringtitus via Saints Player.  I think I can bear listening to this because Dejan Lovren is not playing so there is less chance of a Dave climax on the radio.  Barnsley are bottom of the Championship and have let in loads of goals in their games so far so it’s looking good as J-Rod puts Gaston through in the first minute only for the enigma to be put off by the approaching pensioner Pollitt between the sticks and roll it wide.  Should have been a goal says Dave and it’s hard to argue with him.

Following our early chance the game settles down into the expected pattern which means all our attacks break down with Gaston or the Little African Bloke losing the ball.  On the quarter hour Barnsley have their first sight on goal as O’Grady flicks on and Pedersen fires wide.  Our inital promise appears to have fizzled out and the Tykes are doing most of the attacking until just before the half hour mark when a decent move forwards involving Fox, Davis and Corky ends with Isgrove laying the ball back (sort of) to Steven Davis who buried it diagonally across Pollitt and into the far corner for 1-0.

It’s now all us and several chances to make it 2-0 are snuffed out with a careless final pass or something pointless like Corky having a shot which ended up in the side netting.  Then J-Rod shows his League form by taking aim from 30 yards and smashing one straight down the keepers throat.  The great question of whether the Little African Bloke was actually playing was answered by Big Dave who went into a lengthy dissection of why he wasn’t touching the ball and was to all intents and purposes, shit.  The gist was that he’s slow on the uptake and has no football brain or as it’s known amongst Saints fans, Bradley Wright-Phillips.  If Ali Dia was George Weah’s cousin then Mayuka must be George Weah’s cousins dog walking friends sisters third cousin twice removed, or as FourFourTwo magazine put him, the 85^th best player in the World.

It’s all Saints as we approach the break with Gaston hooking a Fox cross just wide with an excellent improvised attempt on goal and then trying his luck from 30 yards with a shot that ended up in the Yorkshire Dales.  There is just time for Dave Merrington to assert for the 25^th time, that Gaston should have scored in the first minute.  Half time and 1-0 up and happy days.

The second half began with Saints looking to put the game to bed and J-Rod immediately turned past a defender and then fired wide in a change to hitting it straight at the keeper.  Much to my surprise, the next time he got it after a move involving Corky and Steven Davis, he curled a superb finish into the far corner of the net to make it 2-0 and, you would have thought, killed Barnsley off.  We’ve changed formation a bit with Jay going up front and the Little African Bloke coming over to the right so he could be poor in other areas of the pitch.  Jay was on fire now though and he controlled, turned and smacked a shot against the post which was a precursor to Dawson rumbling up the pitch, picking up an O’Grady knock down and with no-one closing him down, he took a decent pot shot from 25 yards which skidded off the turf and beat the dive of Superkelv.

We responded with working the ball to the Little African Bloke who showed us how they scuff a shot in Zambia before Gaston was hacked over on the edge of the box and his free kick was headed wide by the wall which in this part of the world, means a goal kick.  Barnsley threw on two subs and for 5 minutes they made a right game of it with a couple of near misses but it was one sub too many for them when another forward was thrown on in place of a midfielder so they went to a kind of 4-2-1-3 formation.  Whilst they were adapting, Gaston picked a pass out to the right and amazingly, the Little African Bloke took it in his stride, cut in via a lucky deflection off his heel and buried it past Pollitt before embarking on some impressive gymnastics which makes you wonder about his chosen sport.

With 20 to go it’s substitution time with Isgrove making way for Omar Rowe who Merringtitus immediately compares to Nathan Dyer in that he’s small, fast and nicks mobile phones out of handbags.  It’s a quiet period of the game and so Dave tries to say that Yoshida is decent because he just gets on with it with no fuss but instead he comes across all homo-erotic again and gets all whispery and panting over Maya’s “manliness”.    Soon it’s time for J-Rod to come off to be replaced with Harrison Reed who is a neat passing midfield player who of course is a “young Paul Scholes” though whether he’d have this tag if didn’t have ginger hair is open to debate.

It’s nearly a dream debut for Rowe as Davis passes up the chance to shoot to feed the youngster but his shot is blocked by Pollitt when he really shouldn’t have given him a prayer.  As we enter the 90^th minute it looks like the Little African Bloke is going to score a second after great play by Reed fed the Zambian who was unceremoniously turfed up in the air by McNulty to give us a penalty.  I was expecting Gaston to take it but up stepped Steve Davis to score via Pollitt’s glove to make it 4-1.  With Jake Sinclair coming on for the Little African Bloke, the scoreline was then given an even more flattering sheen a minute later as we won the ball back and quickly advanced to the right hand edge of the box where Gaston dropped the shoulder, rounded Pollitt before lifting a lovely finish into the net to make it five.  There was still time for a totally dispirited Barnsley to cough up another chance but again Rowe was denied by the keeper.

After the final whistle, the Saints players showed their appreciation to the travelling fans by throwing their shirts into the crowd.  I remember Francis Benali once trying to throw his to a team mate but it went off sideways and landed in the crowd.

So, a 5-1 away win against a Championship side, with 9 players rested and another four 18 year old Academy kids getting on the pitch, three English, one Welsh.  Out of the 14 players used tonight, 7 were English and there were 3 other British players, one each from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  It’s not bad is it.

The Don had decided not to pay the overtime for the Interpreter to travel up to Barnsley for an evening game so the post match duties were handled by Jesus Perez.  It appears that the Capital One Cup is really a night for the reserves to be brought out.  Other results in the Cup were largely uninteresting but spare a thought for Nigel Adkins who picked a stronger side for Reading than he ever did in the cup for Saints and they got buried 6-0 by Peterborough who are currently in League 1.  Something tells me that that margin of defeat is down to the players instead of the manager.

As I write we have just been drawn at home to Bristol City so expect a similar line-up in the next round but with the squad depth we have now, expect us to get through to the 4^th Round despite Bristol City being one of the sides who we never did terribly well against in the Championship.  Times are different now.  Next up is Norwich City away in the Premier.  I think we may see a few changes for that.

NPC Match 36 - Southampton 2 Barnsley 0

Dad... what do those squiggles mean ?

You would think that a fixture against Barnsley at home for a promotion chasing club should be 3 points and no question about it.  However, having had a look at the league table, I see that they are only one point behind the Ipswich side who we drew with on Tuesday.  I make no apology for tipping them to finish last this season which they quite clearly, will not do as it doesn’t look like they’re even going to flirt with the relegation places so well done to Keith Hill who masterminded Rochdale doing a league double over us last season. They were forced to sell their top scorer in January as well as Ricardo Vaz Te decided he fancied the challenge to trying to control passes that came down with snow on them and joined Fat Sam at West Ham.

Fat Sam was at his ‘fat gobshite’ best after his teams midweek draw with Watford, proclaiming that he wanted some chips and a pie but also that they’d have won the league already if they had Rickie Lambert.  Not only does this dig at us as we have not already won the league with Rickie Lambert but it also says that he thinks Carlton Cole, Nicky Maynard, Ricardo Vaz Te, John Carew, Sam Baldock, Freddie Piquionne, Franck Nouble and Freddie Sears aren’t good enough which is amusing considering he signed 4 of those players (I think) for about £10 million quid.  He has decided to loan a couple of these strikers out and so ironically (or deliberately), Nouble lines up for Barnsley against us today.  Another clear indication of why you shouldn’t be allowed to loan to clubs in the same division.  I hope we loan out Lee Barnard to someone who West Ham have still got to play.

Nearly every game at SMS is a father and son experience for me.  Usually I’m the son but today I’m the father as my 7 year old is in the house today and he will no doubt be applying FIFA 12 tactics all the way through the game and singing the ‘Rickie Lambert Southampton Goal Machine’ song whilst the rest of the Kingsland sit there in virtual silence.  He’d already caused my first moment of hilarity for the day by pointing at the sign being held by the Japanese Saints fans outside the megastore and asking me what those funny squiggles were.   Our wander round the megastore has resulted it a 1-0 win for me as we have left without purchasing another bloody foam hand, our dog having destroyed the last one.

To the team news and I was expecting Billy Sharp, Jack Cork and Chappers to all be playing but they weren’t and the team was the same as the Ipswich game except for Danny Fox coming back in for Dan Harding.  Again there was no keeper on the bench and Steve de Ridder kept his place with Chappers again mysteriously missing out altogether.

Barnsley keeper Luke Steele had a shocker last week and chipped a pass straight to a Middlesbrough forward who promptly returned it straight over his head to score.  I imagine that his manager had been saying “don’t worry about it” and “safety first” and “don’t do it again you prick” and all that stuff so I bet the same manager was doing his nut as Steele took ages to clear and was closed down by Chung, causing the kick to be sliced straight to Sir Rickie.  Unfortunately, this caught the big man by surprise and the chance was lost as he failed to control.

Saints were finding a lot of space and Barnsley didn’t appear keen to close us down too much as Chung’s pace was a worry to them.  The Man from Japan worked the next opening and really should have pulled the trigger rather than trying to play in Guly and so the chance was gone as someone got a foot in.  It was heart in mouth time straight after that as we coughed up another free header from a corner as we are prone to do.  Barnsley’s Foster rose unchallenged in a majestic fashion.  In his mind he probably envisaged thumping a header into the top corner but the reality was that he produced one of the most shite headers imaginable that would have gone for a throw in on the opposite side.

It has all gone a bit scrappy and the main problems appear to be in our midfield.  Guly has obviously been instructed not to play wide so if Hammond or Schneiderlin have the ball they are looking right and no one is there so they come back inside, we play a few passes amongst ourselves before playing it back for Superkelv to hoof it.  It’s not great but naturally, this is all Guly’s fault, especially in the mind of the Old Moany Bollox who is sitting just behind my son.  “Oh, Guleeeeeeeeee”, he opines as Frazer plays him a hospital pass which as I explain to my son, is a pass when the receiver has two blokes up his arse and it’s not the fault of the person receiving the pass if he loses it.  Could someone else please explain this to Old Moany Bollox because I reckon a 7 year old would get it quicker than he would.

We have a half chance as a Fox corner is headed over by Jose (who has scored as many goal as Jack Cork this season) and we have a bit of a scare as ex-Skate Cotterill (not the thick yokel ex-manager) cuts in off the left wing and curls a decent effort just wide of the far post.

35 minutes had gone and we were not looking threatening at all so it was a bit of a surprise (a pleasant one) when we took the lead out of nowhere as Frazer chipped in a dead straight ball from the centre circle, which Sir Rickie headed back to Lallana who took a touch before ramming the ball into the net for 1-0.  It is like a weight has been lifted and the remainder of the first half is dictated by us as we stroke the ball around – in control without ever looking entirely convincing.

Half time arrives with us 1-0 up and news starts filtering around the ground that West Ham and Reading are both winning and that Notts County are winning 4-0 at runaway League 1 leaders Charlton.  Why is this relevant?  Well, none other than Jonno Pace has scored a hat-trick for Notts County.  It’s one of those pieces of news that makes you think for a second and then you remember what he’s usually like.  Lee Holmes has also been doing well whilst on loan at League 2 Oxford which means bugger all in the context of being at the top of the Championship.

We start the second half and are looking a lot more composed and threatening and nearly go 2-0 up when Morgan decides to have a pop from 30 yards and forces a decent save out of Steele.  It doesn’t take long for us to break through again however as Chung beats one defender to the ball before setting off on a run down the left wing, skinning another defender in the process.  When he reaches the by-line, instead of panicking and lashing it anywhere, he waits and eventually rolls it back to present Lallana with an open goal which he doesn’t miss.  As Adam celebrates in front of the Northam, you can pick out the Japanese Saints who are going nuts and waving their banners about.  Excellent work.

From being a scratchy performance, it’s suddenly looking like we may win by 4 or 5 as we flood forward and win a free kick as Barnsley panic and decide they would be safer if Chung was on his face eating the grass, rather than running at them.  Just to the left of centre in perfect Sir Rickie territory but after the excitement builds he drills it straight into the wall.  It’s his last action of the day as he is replaced with Jack Cork.  On the one hand we’ve replaced our biggest goal threat with Corky Nogoals but on the other hand, he’s my sons favourite player so he will hopefully stop asking me when Jack is coming on.

The passing football is now in full flow and following some great work from us and shadow chasing from Barnsley, Adam was played in but scuffed his hat-trick chance for Steele to save comfortably.  Foxy then bursts down the left wing before firing over a peach of a cross towards Chung and as the Japanese Saints had a collective heart attack, he lunged and didn’t quite get a touch.  It’s his last contribution as he takes a standing ovation from the whole ground as he leaves to be replaced with David Connolly.

OK, own up – who bought a ticket in the Jack Cork lottery this week?  To be fair, Corky had made a massive difference when he came on, simply by passing the ball well and quickly and keeping things moving.  The unthinkable then happened when he got within 30 yards of the opponents goal and the little voice in his head said “have a shot”.  It’s like the little voice I get that says “have another beer” when I know that having a beer is what I want to do but I also deep down, know that it’s going to end badly.  Corky took aim and fired and the momentary excitement for those who had him to score at 250-1 was immediately dispelled as the ball flew nearer the corner flag then the goal.  Maybe next week.

As if to remind us that Barnsley were still here, Danny Rose climbed to plant a header onto the base of the post following a left wing free kick which was awarded when Jose needlessly trashed a forward who had the temerity to threaten our goal.  Back up the other end, Adam Lallana had two potential opportunities for his hat-trick, the first of which when he was hauled over in the area but the ref wasn’t interested.  Following that he saw a drive blocked and deflected for a corner and the ref didn’t see this one as a handball (which it looked like).  Nigel decided it wasn’t going to be a hat-trick day and replaced him with Billy Sharp.

As the game closes down, Big Jos has a rumble out of defence and when he gets to 40 yards out, just lashes it left footed, like a missile and on target.  Steele manages to parry out to Connolly who should have taken it first time but in attempting to dink it over Steele, allows him to get a block in and the chance had gone.  It would have put a gloss on the scoreline but no matter, 2-0 will do and the final whistle blows.  All the people that weren’t clapping after the Ipswich game are now all clapping and whilst I find this mildly annoying, I’m not letting it spoil the moment and another win is chalked off.

We were functional today and got the job done.  There were some decent performances but nothing outstanding but I did notice the positive effect that the return of Danny Fox had.  Not only do you get the set piece delivery but you also get a much more solid defence.  Deano was solid today but for me it was really noticeable how we improved when Jack Cork came on.  For me, the midfield has to be Adam, Jack, Morgan and Chappers but then I’d have Lucy Pinder up the front so what do I know.  Barnsley rolled up with a Plan A to try and pay and keep it tight but they had no Plan B when they went behind and the second half was as comfortable as you like for us.  At least they did try and play football but how many saved did Superkelv have to make ?  None.

Nigel gave one of his more baffling interviews after the game quoting literature on big players being more susceptible to injuries when it’s a hot day when asked why Sir Rickie had come off.  It’s pure Adkins gold and the kind of thing that seriously annoys supporters of other teams.  He refused to be drawn on points targets and again quoted literature on the perils of one getting ahead of oneself.  There was nice reaction from Barnsley as well with their assistant manager giving gushing praise about our pass and move football which was nice to hear particularly as we weren’t great today…

The flaw in West Ham’s plan to help out other teams who have to play us is of course that the player they lent out is about the 7^th choice of all the strikers that Fat Sam thinks aren’t good enough.  Fat Sam has this one right though as Nouble was complete shite.  Talking of our immediate promotion rivals – well Reading stuffed Leicester 3-1 and Fat Sam’s Total Football Academy could only manage a draw at home to Doncaster.  Meanwhile, West Ham… they’ve loaned in Stephen Henderson from the Skates until the end of the season, paying ‘a significant fee’ for the privilege.  Only the truly cynical would think that they’ve only done this to safeguard the 6 points they won off of the useless fuckers. 

As for Henderson, well – he gave it the large one about Saints fans at Fratton Park and also about being part of the ridiculous Pompey Wolfpack as they called themselves – so loyal.  Hmmmm, my arse – and talking of arses, he’s off to get splinters in his from the West Ham bench and not play any football for the rest of the season which will surely damage the decent chance he had to go to Euro 2012 with Ireland.  Anyone remember Kelvin Davis turning down a move to Premiership West Ham to stay with Saints in League 1 because he wanted to play?  To be fair to Henderson though, he probably had no choice whatsoever.

The Football League Award happened on Sunday night where both Sir Rickie and Adam Lallana were up for the Championship Player of the Year Award along with Peter Whittingham of Cardiff.  Much to my surprise, one of our boys won it with Sir Rickie carrying away the award which is totally deserved as he’s had a blinder of a season so far.  The comedy story of the evening though was in the ‘Family Care in the Community of the Year Award’ section and this was won by the Skates.   I anticipate crowds of 250,000 on Southsea common to celebrate a Family award to the club that probably forced some families to have to sell their houses and cars by not paying the small business that the family worked for.  If the club cared about families and their community – maybe they’d have been run in a fashion to ensure that there was a club for these people to support.

So, all in all a bloody good weekend, three points, clean sheet, Fat Sam drops two points and Sir Rickie gets a gong.  We have two away games up next with the first being a trip to Millwall on Saturday when we will hopefully avenge the FA Cup defeat at our place.  There are 10 games to go and lots of people are pondering how many points we’ll need to go up.  There are two possible answers to this question; ‘Thirty more points’ and ‘one more than Reading or West Ham’.

10 games to go, 30 points needed.

COYR

Sir Rickie: Best Player in the Championship (Official)

Skates: Care in the Community Award

NPC Match 2 - Barnsley 0 Southampton 1

It's just like watching.... this lot!

Barnsley away and a test of our credentials following the emphatic start against Dirty Leeds. We were always going to be strong at home this season but though our away record was good last season, a number of the wins came on top of not playing too well so it would be interesting to see how we got on against better opposition.

I was going to struggle to keep tabs on this game, seeing as I was in France and having the usual family holiday fun of swimming and sorting out arguments… arguments that would only intensify if the man of the house nips indoors to listen to Saints Player on the web every couple of minutes.

The team reverted to the one that played against Leeds except that Dan Seaborne picked ahead of Aaron Martin. He had somehow won the shirt back after a shit house of a performance against a League 2 side on Tuesday night but in Nigel we trust.…Aaron must have been shite in training this week. We have signed another left back to go with the two we already have but Danny Fox wasn’t considered for this game and so Dan Harding kept his place.

Despite being the newly promoted side in our first away game, Saints tore into Barnsley from the off with the Barnsley players being reluctant to pass to eachother, either picking out a player in a Brazil kit, or often a touchline. We really should have taken the lead on 10 minutes as Frazer Richardson got forward and swung over a peach of a cross to Sir Rickie at the back stick who rose above the defender and thumped a header over the bar.

It was all Saints still though and though the breakthrough was deserved, when it came it had a touch of farce about it. Cork fed Lallana who cut back and crossed into the box where a Barnsley defender headed away weakly with the keeper flapping around like a budgie. Another defender headed it up in the air, Sir Rickie piled in and headed it back across to where David Connolly met it at the back post with a header and managed to squeeze it in at the near post, straight through the flapper and a defender on the line. How the fuck did that go in and who cares.

Another goal and Barnsley would have folded but the closest we got before half time was an ambitious 40 yarder from Connolly which was comfortably saved by Flapper in the Barnsley goal. Half time and a slightly surprising comfort about the proceeding which surely wouldn’t last.

Barnsley started the second half ok but it was still all Saints as far as chances were concerned with Lallana feeding Connolly who croseed for the Gulyman to rise and head onto the ground and see it bounce over the bar. All the training manuals say ‘head it into the ground’ but that’s twice in two weeks that we’ve seen a bouncing header go over the bar.

It all goes a bit Brazil as Guly gets the ball, resplendent in his Brazil kit and curls one just over the bar from the left hand edge of the box. Barnsley need something to change and so they sent on Ricardo Vaz Te who has a stupid name but I remember him from his Bolton days when we were in the Prem and this boy can play.

Connolly has done his bit and is replaced by Steve de Ridder and he immediately twisted himself into a space and freed Lallana with a delightful reverse pass only for Adam to produce a Sunday League wrong foot finish and shank a left footed effort wide of the post when any decent contact would have brought a second goal.

Chaplow had come on for the Gulyman in a predictable effort to shut the game down but he inadvertently opened it up by clearing a ball and coming down on a Barnsley player with his follow through. The referee looked very eager to pull out the red card but when you look again, it’s easy to see why. Chappers clears it and whilst in the air, seems to straighten his leg and go for the oncoming player. When it looks like that and the fouled player ends up with a set of 6 in his bollocks then there’s only one likely outcome.

Schneiderlin comes on for Lallana in a further effort to shut things down and we still have a great chance to put the game to bed with Hammond having a shot saved by the keeper. The inevitable pressure came our way as Barnsley mustered their first shot which Davis managed to tip past the near post. Every time he saves one of those – we should be grateful.

The aforementioned crazily named Vaz Te had a great chance to equalize with the last kick as there was an almighty bundle in our box with the ball pinging about and first Seaborne and then Richardson denying Barnsley what would have been a totally undeserved equalizer. Superkelv managed to get himself a kick in the head as well but we held on to record our first away win of the season.

Personally I think this is a huge win. It proves that we can go away from home and put on a performance and win a game relatively comfortably. The only grumble is that we should really have put his to bed with a second goal, way before the final whistle. It was nice for David Connolly to get another goal and nice to read all the Barnsley fans bigging us up whilst blasting their own teams inability to get at us. Love it!!!

It’s only important at this stage because it’s us but on Saturday night we were top of the league on goal difference with Derby and Brighton also having two wins from two. Brighton won at Fratton Park with the Skates missing a last minute penalty – oh how we laughed. As it was not possible for both teams to lose, that’ll do. By Sunday night we had dropped to second with Cardiff going above us on alphabetical order. To my mind, we should be above them because at least we’re English.

Next up is a Tuesday night visit to the King of Porn at Ipswich Town. It’s great that Paul Jewell has got a job now as we don’t have to suffer him being a pundit. As pundits go, he makes Dave Merrington look like a genius. For the team it’s a big test against a side who have signed some decent experienced players in the summer including that nice man Lee Bowyer. I’d take a point now but lets go out there and try and keep the winning run going.