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It’s
always a bit of an occasion when you are 19th out of 20 in the league table and
you get to play the team that is in theory, worse than you are. Today we get
that scenario as we make the trip to Molineux to play Wolves, managed by ex-Skate
legend Gary O’Neil.
As there always is, there is a lot of talk in the football media about the sack
race, which is of course about who will be the first manager to lose his job. In the Premier League, that title was of course taken by Erik ten Hag
but today sees the meeting of two other managers who are pretty high on
everyone’s list to be next. Russell Martin has kicked the can down the road a
week, with our win against Everton but Gary O’Neil is still waiting for his
first three points of the season having had just three draws in Wolves opening ten
games. He also only had one win in the last ten games of last season as well so
on the one hand, it is quite amazing how he is still there.
O’Neil and Wolves would’ve been hoping for a win in their last game which was
at home to Crystal Palace where they were 2-1 up with five minutes to go, ended
up drawing 2-2 but in truth, were fortunate not to lose. The only crumb of
comfort they have is that their fixture list does seem to have been ridiculously
frontloaded with the best teams in the division with six of their seven defeats
coming against Manchester City, Liverpool, Villa, Newcastle, Arsenal and
Chelsea.
The main threat is provided by the excellent Matheus Cunha, who plays as an
attacking midfielder and Joao Gomes seems to be a decent player as well. They
also have of course, a player that we know well in Mario Lemina and to be
honest, it should’ve been a sacking offence for O’Neil to even consider making
Lemina the captain, given how flaky he is, but that’s what happened at the start
of the season. There have not been many players over the years that have made
me as angry as Lemina did in his time at Southampton where he clearly had the
ability and clearly did not give a shit. He was part of that famous triumvirate
of shit recruitment alongside Wesley Hoedt and Guido Carrillo. The last time Lemina played against us, he
got sent off at St Mary’s when Wolves were already 1-0 down. Despite having the
mercurial Nathan Jones as manager, we managed to lose that game because it’s
more difficult to play against 10 men when you are already 1-0 up. Twat.
For the past few years Wolves have always had this very suspect recruitment
model of getting their players almost exclusively from one agent. I always felt
that it was going to come crashing down at some point but was not particularly
expecting it to happen this season. It goes to show that anyone who is not one
of the big boys can plummet if they take their eye of the ball even slightly. However they recruit, they still have a squad
that should not be where it is in the table.
Russell Martin has to be sending out the team to go and win this game today.
Any away point is valuable but we’re not going to get a better chance than today,
this season to get three on the road. I suspect he is going to go down the same
route that he has done in the last few games and pick a team to keep it tight
in the first half and then look to the likes of Tyler Dibling to come off the
bench and make a difference. Not sure I
agree with that given the opposition today, who average three goals a game
conceded. Surely we want to get at them
and Tyler is our best attacker. Anyhow,
unchanged it is…. Only it isn’t as Flynn Downes has dropped out and Aribo
starts, giving us a midfield with no real legs in it.
Away we go and the first time we let Wolves have the ball, Dawson brings the
ball out to Toti, who tries to play it forward but it’s straight to KWP who
decides not to head it out but to try and cushion a diving header down to
THB. This high-risk effort instead just
presents it to Cunha. Cunha sets off on
a diagonal run from the left wing by the halfway line and gets to the edge of
the penalty area totally unhindered by any of our midfielders or defenders,
before sliding in an excellent straight ball to pick up the run of Sarabia who
is coming off the right and he takes one touch around Ramsdale and slots into
the net. Two minutes gone and fucking shit. Nice start lads.
We respond and win a corner and straight off the training ground we work it to
Adam Armstrong who is coming towards the ball on the edge of the box, but his
first time effort flies about a yard wide. Decent effort to be fair.
Another attack and Armstrong finds Aribo who finds KWP. His cross is flicked
away by Dawson as far as Manning at the back stick and he tries to tee up
Fernandes for a shot which is blocked, and over goes Fernandes as he tries to get
the rebound. Surely a penalty but no
worries as the ball goes back out to Manning who lashes it in the top corner to
notch his first Saints goal. Go on Rhino… There are a few token gestures from
Wolves defenders but we’re off to VAR anyhow.
Surely they’re not going to give us a penalty?
“Hi Tommy Bramall, this is Chris Kavanagh on VAR”
“Hi Chris – what’s the issue.”
“The blatant foul by Fernandes?”
“I saw that – coming together, no problem – that’s why I didn’t give it as I was looking straight at it”
“Listen you Maths teaching twat, I’m the senior referee here”
“But we’re not supposed to change decision unless it’s a howler.”
“Fuck all that high bar shit – clear foul”
“But it isn’t… six of one, half a dozen the other”
“Listen you prick. It’s bad enough you’re refereeing instead of teaching maths and I’m up here. I need to make my mark. Sending you to the screen. Making it look like it’s your idea.”
“But this is just wrong... Semedo is looking to go down, moves in front of him and collapses and it’s never a foul”
“Fuck off you little turd. Learn how all this works”
“OK Chris… don’t tell Howard I argued.”
Absolutely fucking ridiculous. The next 20 minutes pass me by to be quite honest because I’m wondering what the fucking point is. If they are going to get involved and decide that that is definitely a wrong decision by the referee when it’s clearly a 50-50 challenge which is open to interpretation. What’s the fucking point?
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of pretty football about thirty yards out and we do create one opportunity as some intricate play between Manning and Lallana tees up Fernandes to take a swing from the edge of the box but it hits Dawson and goes for a corner. Fernandes corner is in the right area but THB, off-balance, can only head it wide of the post.
Half time and putting VAR aside, we’ve created very little but Wolves are unquestionably there for the taking. They are shite but as usual, we’ve not created enough issues for their piss poor defence. Russell’s answer is to take off Manning for Dibling as he realises that we might actually need a player on the pitch who can go past people. As the half wore on, it became apparent how fucking useless Adam Armstrong and Cam Archer have been against a deep defence but they get given another opportunity and Manning, who has been one of our better players, goes off. Do we really still need three central defenders on the pitch?
We start the second half by pissing around with the ball in our own penalty area and a THB pass gets blocked and picked up by Lemina, who sets up Gomes on the edge of the box and his low, drilled effort is comfortably saved by Ramsdale. More passing around the back but more controlled this time and Ramsdale tries to pass the ball into Fernandes feet in midfield but he shoved off it by Wolves player and the ref ignores it and the ball has gone to Archer who gets manhandled off the ball by Dawson but once again, the maths teacher doesn’t think that’s a foul either. Dawson knocks it into Lemina, who passes it to Cunha 30 yards out and he takes a touch into space before lashing a brilliant shot over the top of Ramsdale and into the top corner. 2-0, game over but surely this will be disallowed for either one of the two fouls?
“Hi Tommy”
“What’s up Chris?”
“Well I see that you’ve given fuck all again”
“Yes but you’ll help me right?”
“Why would I do that. I’ve had Howard on the phone tell me that he’s going to have to apologise to fucking Southampton over the first goal, so now he wants us to go light touch.”
“So, no foul by Dawson then?”
“Well, he’s grabbed the collar of Archer’s shirt and chucked him on the deck but I’m sticking to the brief and not re-reffing it.”
“So, Southampton get fucked again?”
“Yep… no worries, I’ve got them between 5 and 10 points for the season on a spread bet.”
Goal.
Well what do you fucking know? Might as well blow the final whistle now ref and go home and study some algebraic because this game is done. What’s the fucking point? Yes we are shit but we are playing against VAR as well. Utter waste of fucking time. Thank you, Chris Kavanagh and Thomas Bramall.
In keeping with this game being a complete waste of time, we decide to be bring on Ben Brereton Dustbin along with Yuki Sugawara and off goes Jack Stephens who should’ve gone off at half-time, and Joe Aribo who has really been off the pace. Within a few minutes there’s two more with Lallana, who has got gradually more ineffective as the game has gone on and Cameron Archer who has done nothing, and they are replaced by the big lads, Les and Paul.
The only chance we create between this point and the end of the game is Ramsdale passing the ball straight to Wolves player Bellegard on the halfway line he tries a shot first time which goes closer to the corner flag than the goal. There’s another chance coming down the Wolves left as Gueddes fires a ball across the box and the sliding Bellegarde misses it.
Well just fuck off. That was an absolutely pitifully, painfully bad performance, especially when you consider the magnitude of the game. Yes, we got fucked by the officials both on the pitch and at Stockley Park, but from the moment Manning’s goal was disallowed until the final whistle, we created nothing. No shots on target, no saves for the goalkeeper.
The start of the game was atrociously bad with Wolves breaking through a Flynn Downes sized hole behind our midfield and Sarabia opened the scoring. The chance came from a ridiculous decision by KWP to not head the ball off the pitch and try to someone cushion a header down for us to win possession. We then settled into the game and equalised, or so we thought before we picked up one of those VAR decisions that just makes you think the whole game is completely bent or that all of these officials are completely incompetent. I lost my concentration for most of the rest of the first half in a “what’s the fucking point” mood, that I was thrown into by the goal being disallowed. In the second half, despite the introduction of our best and only decent attacking decent player in Tyler Dibling, we created fuck all, with just the Wolves second goal to get angry about, because there were two fouls in the build-up that were both worse than the alleged foul that Fernandes committed to get our goal disallowed.
Speculation is going to be huge again regarding the future of Russell Martin and it’s hard to make an argument for him. That was pathetic today. We have no idea of how to turn possession into shots on goal and that has not improved all season. He recognizes it but does nothing about it. Once again here today, he picked an extra defender for the first half which enables us to dominate possession but does nothing for attacking play. When we changed things in the second half, you then realise quite how bad the options are. Cameron Archer has shown promise in some games that he was absolutely woeful today, giving up possession every time it went near him. Adam Armstrong was an absolute void today – no idea what to do when the ball comes to him unless it’s a simple lay-off. Zero creativity and can’t beat a player at all. I can’t even be bothered to say anything about Ben Brereton Diaz, other than he’s just shite and once again, we bring on Tall Paul and don’t give him any crosses to attack.
We have no idea of how to create chances and that is down to Russell Martin. Even when we’ve got the 6 foot 8 guy on the pitch, we have no idea how to get the ball to him to make him a goal threat and let’s face it, it’s not exactly rocket science. You get it down the wings and you get crosses in. If you use him as a target man, you get other players around him. It’s not difficult. Do we even train to learn how to play with Paul on the pitch or do we just do fucking rondos endlessly?
As we know, Russell Martin prioritises possession above chances and therefore we pick an extra defender or an extra midfielder and leave out the only guy who can take on a player and we do nothing. Make no mistake though, all of the strikers are average to shit and anyone would struggle to keep this team out of the relegation zone with that selection of forwards. Today we played against a Wolves team that concede an average of three goals a game and our forwards made them look like prime Baresi and Maldini at AC Milan. This is why I can’t get my head around Tyler Dibling not starting. This was a vital game and as our best attacking player, he really does have to start, especially when you consider that the alternatives are a complete shit show. I know that he can’t play every game, so he really should be missing the games where it’s incredibly unlikely that we are going to get anything from, like Manchester City away. All home games and away games against the bottom half, should see him on the pitch for as close to 90 minutes as possible.
Our squad is going to be a massive issue if we do pull the trigger because what a manager of any pedigree is going to look at the selection of strikers that we’ve got available and think he can get this team out of the relegation zone. Absolutely no chance. We have recruited in line with Russell’s philosophy, which is why we don’t have any physicality in the team, why we don’t have much pace in the team, why we don’t have anyone else who can take on a player. Russell Martin has gone into this season thinking we can pick a team of nice footballers and that would do it. Naïve in the extreme, thinking that this approach would work in the Premier League.
At Premier League level, it’s not enough to dominate position forty yards out and try and pass the opposition to death. Defences don’t lose their concentration like they do in the Championship. In the Championship, you could pass the ball around and have possession of 80% and eventually, the centre backs would doze off, or you’d cross the ball into the box and someone would slice of clearance because they were tired, and the ball would hit Adam Armstrong on the arse and go in the net. A lot of Championship sides aren't used to playing against possession based teams. It doesn’t work like that at Premier League level because teams in the Premier League have got used to playing against the likes of Manchester City over the years so they know how to sit tight defensively and make it difficult for a team like City to score. Yes, they aren’t always successful because City have brilliant players but guess what? We do not and our style of football, with the players we have, is remarkably easy to defend against, even for teams like Wolves who have been shipping an average of three goals a game.
Wee Man the Last Time He Took a Player On
Russell Martin seems to acknowledge a lot of the issues but then does he really? He says we lack physicality, but he won’t pick Big Les or Tall Paul. I know they’re not very good but don’t complain about a lack of something in your team if you have the option to pick someone who provides it. Yes we'd lose something from the possession if we played these two but it's about balance isn't it? He says we lack players who can take people on, yet he leaves out Dibling for a 19th vs 20th game and then says that we miss Wee Man in this regard. Wee Man hardly ever takes on a player, let alone beats them and get a cross over.
The VAR calls will take a lot of the headlines today and that's all the national media will be talking about, but even if you take them away, we still did fuck all. Yes, goals change games and if our equaliser had been allowed, then it may have been a different outcome. If Wolves second had been disallowed as it surely should have been, we still would have lost 1-0. I was appealing for a penalty for a foul on Fernandes before Manning lashed into the net and if Manning hadn’t scored, it probably would’ve been reviewed to see if it was a penalty or not. As it is, Manning scores and somehow, VAR thinks the referee has made a clear and obvious error and then the referee has gone to the monitor and decided that he did make a clear and obvious error, which is absolute bullshit because that challenge could’ve been given either way. Semedo doesn’t try and play the ball and makes contact with Fernandes, so that’s a penalty but then you could argue that Fernandes runs into Semedo, so that’s a foul the other way. If you can argue both those points of view then it’s not a clear and obvious error and therefore, they were looking for a reason to disallow it rather than referee it objectively. This was compounded of course by the Wolves second goal which had two fouls in it, both clearer than the alleged foul by Fernandes.
We now have another international break and Saints go into it bottom of the league with just four points from 11 games. Do Sport Republic have the finances and the will to make a change? Are they at the point where they think this is never going to improve enough to even give us a chance of staying up? Do they give Russell Martin the transfer window and the funds to bring in some decent forward players and give us a more physical presence? Would he even pick them if we had them or would he still obsess over possession and ‘nice’ footballers? At the moment (and this changes all the time) I feel that they either have to make the change now to give us the best chance of getting a decent replacement, or we have to stay with it until the end of the season but at the moment, that looks odds to end with being relegated horribly and finishing with about 15 points.
Up the fucking depressing Saints.