Season 2010/11 Preview

You take my picture, I have you killed

Due to a couple of things, the start of season 2010/11 has crept up on me somewhat. Firstly of course there was the World Cup and England being shit. Also, in my personal world there was the small fact of having three kids, a mortgage and no job. Thankfully the last situation has been resolved when I sold all the kids, so I can now, at one days notice, write of the pre-season just gone and the season ahead.

Pre-seasons and the success thereof, can never be judged by results in friendlies as you never get the full team playing and you never really know which players will be giving it everything, nor do you know how seriously the opposition are taking it. You can only really measure how good the pre-season was by your start to the league program. Using this marker, Saints pre-seasons have almost always been terrible. This year, we won a few and lost a few of the matches but I thought the most interesting thing was that the opposition was obviously picked by he management and not by the bean counters. No ‘glamour’ game against European opposition which I personally think is a good thing as chasing the ball around in the heat, without touching it for 90 minutes is not good preparation for Rochdale away in League 1.

So, aside from the friendlies, what have we had at SFC since the last season ended. In no particular order….

Off the pitch we have two new kits of course – The Sash 125th anniversary kit being the main talking point. I remember the early 90’s and the ‘Save Our Stripes’ campaign, in response to that bloody awful Pony kit with the tick on it. I can’t see there being a big protest this time as we all know it’s only for one year… it’s a decent shirt as well, though ‘Come on you Reds’ will have to be stifled.

Nicola Cortese has continued with ‘Operation Don’t-Give-a-Fuck’ with mixed results. I think the programme innovation of having it online for a subscription is a good one though I’m glad they’re keeping the traditional programme at the game as removing this would have messed with the fabric of the match day experience somewhat. The removal of the payment plan for Season Tickets and the short notice at which this was done, went down like a lead balloon with a lot of fans. I’ve heard though (I may be ITK here !!!) that the main problem was that many were getting the Season ticket and then not paying the instalments, which makes it easier to understand. It’s like being a kid at school when the teacher doesn’t know who hocked a greenie on his back – but he knows that someone did and so he punishes everyone. Maybe the club could send out the tickets for the next month once the instalment has been received in the future – anyway, that’s for another day. Next it will probably be the removal of concession tickets if Adults are buying Kids or Seniors tickets – I bet that happens a lot. As I write, I’m hearing that we’re not allowing opposition newspapers photographers in the ground and wanting them to buy our official licensed photographs. Can’t see this being a winner and if I was the editor of the Rochdale Daily Arse, I would be telling SFC to fuck off. We will not have any friends. Cortese will be able to get away with more or less whatever he likes as long as the team is improving on the pitch. If things start to go wrong though…. I expect Fat Oaf Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail (to give him his full title) is sharpening the pen already.

To the 11 men on the grass and we’ve signed two right backs in Frazer Richardson from Charlton and Danny Butterfield from Crystal Palace, both of whom were needed to replace the departed collection of ‘not fit for purpose’ right backs we had last year. Richardson managed to dislocate his shoulder in training – rumour has it that he slipped on a strategically placed pie, left by Graeme Murty – so he’ll be out for 3 months but with Butterfield there and Harding able to switch sides and play cack-handed at right back, we should be ok. Also joining was Ryan Dickson from Brentford who we had to pay a shoddy tribunal fee for. I was initially surprised we signed another left back as we already had Harding and Mills in the squad but both Dickson and Mills are capable of playing left wing so I guess there’s room, especially as Adam Lallana seems to have a niggling knee injury that needs managing.

As I write, we haven’t yet covered the central midfield wasteland that with appear if either Hammond gets injured or Schneiderlin boots someone up the arse in a pique of French petulance. Darren Carter arrived from Preston, played one game and promptly signed for Millwall so I think we can assume there will be a new arrival there. We also have not replaced the pace and unpredictability (genius followed by complete crap) that Michail Antonio and Papa Waigo provided, nor have we got the back up ‘big’ stiker to cover and absence from Sir Rickie though there is a growing school of thought that Barnard and Connolly can form a decent partnership and I think they can as long as the other 9 players realise that Rickie isn’t there and don’t hoof it up to the midget front pairing. Lloyd James having left the club will no doubt help this.

The player that I am expecting big things from this year…. Lee Barnard. Now he’s settled I think he will prove his worth. He scored a hatful for a poor Southend side and they fell from mid-table to relegation once he left and I reckon he’ll get more time on the pitch this year and only get better. A youngster to make an impression will be Aaron Martin who I can see playing quite a few games this year as Jaidi will struggle with the 3 games in 6 days nature of League 1 and he’s better than Seaborne already. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will also make a mark but being a winger, will be more in and out and remember that he’s only just turned 17.

The league will obviously be the main priority for the year and I hope that we prioritise the Cups as follows, JPT, FA, League… sacrilege I know to relegate the FA Cup but I think you all know my reasoning. I won’t be getting upset about getting knocked out of any Cup this year though, as long as the League program is going ok and as long as we’re not playing the fucking Skates. Having said that – I would put the full team out against Bournemouth in the League Cup next week – don’t want to lose that one.

My expectation for the season is that we should win the bloody thing. It’s very easy to err on the side of caution and say that we want a playoff spot but with the players we have and the ones we will doubtless recruit, we should win it. 2nd and automatic promotion will do but we should aim to win it. Teams will come to SMS in particular and park the bus but we should be good enough the overcome that more often than not and win the bloody league. This is our best chance since Div 3 South days to actually win a division and it’s one we should not pass up. The teams that I fear are Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth (who we play tomorrow) and Huddersfield. For a dark horse – Brighton but this season should be about us and it’s up to us to do it.

Bring it.