One day I'll play for SaintsToday’s effort starts on a sad note. This week we mourn the passing of a Saints legend with the loaning out of The Late Paul Wotton – he of the the ridiculous tackle when the ball is in another post code and he of the cultured overhead hoofed clearance. Oxford’s gain on a two month loan is our loss… a moments silence please.
OK, joking aside – he was brought in as an experienced player to help the kids in Rupert’s Dutch revolution and has had some good games for us, filling in at centre back on occasions and always giving 100%. He comes across as a decent lad with a sense of humour. Did anyone else the bit on Saints Player about the players doing the filming for the team announcements on the scoreboard? The first cut of this film (which I watched in the morning), had Wotton turning round, saying ‘Paul Wotton, midfield’ and then delightfully dribbling spit down his chin. By the afternoon, this little scene had been cut out as obviously someone thought it was a bit on the distasteful side. I hope he does well at Oxford and gets a contract for next season out of it as he’s out of contract in the summer.
In other news, the Under-21ish team beat the Moaning Dorset Bastards 5-1 and the Under-18s beat Thurrock to progress in the FA Youth Cup. Excellent work and so onto today against Carlisle who are just below us in the league and who I’m sure will see this game as their best chance for a bit of JPT revenge.. The Cumbrian media are trying to make a big deal of the fact they’ve won three games at home in a week and scored 11 goals, thus making Brunton Park a fortress. All sounds good until you analyse that they’ve beaten two League 2 sides and a non-league side which is hardly the same as playing the mighty SFC, even though we have no Wotton.
What we do have is some tactical tinkering by Nigel as we go 4-5-1 with Schneiderlin starting instead of a forward. Alarm bells are ringing for me on this one. For starters, Schneiderlin doesn’t deserve a starting place at the moment and Barnard does not deserve to be left out. That aside – Sir Rickie up front on his own in his current form? Hmmm. A bit of a surprise was to see Seaborne replaced with Jaidi – just as Seaborne had started to prove that he might not be a liability after all. My personal view is that our central midfield is not good enough to only have one striker in front of them, whether we have 2 players in there or 3. Also, Lallana, Chambo and the full backs have less to aim at if they want to put a cross in. Carlisle, for their part, no longer have Ian Harte and have replaced him with a player who can run and jump.
After an immaculately observed minutes silence for Wotton, Saints started well and were soon knocking it about. The best chance fell to Lallana who pulled out his signature move by attacking the left edge of the penalty area and cutting back onto his right foot. Unfortunately, the curled right foot finish into the far corner was straight at the keeper. Totally against the run of play, Carlisle took the lead when Madine held off Fonte with ease and helped the ball on to Marshall who was given far too much space by the dithering Harding. That said, it was a very good finish back across Superkelv which gave him absolutely no chance.
Stunned by conceding a goal, Saints went from being a side in control to a side who didn’t look like they actually knew eachother and so compounded the situation by going 2-0 down when a cross in from the left was looped over the Davis by Harding. It depends on how you look at this one as it was unlucky for the ball to deflect of Harding’s left foot and what looked like his right knee and flip over Davis but it really was crap of the highest order.
Obviously feeling good about himself, Harding then completed his entry for ‘worst half hour by anyone’ when he launched someone up in the air and got booked and Fonte quickly followed for the same. Lallana skidded a long range left footed shot wide but half time couldn’t come soon enough.
Of course, we had to start the 2nd half well and duly did as Lallana went on a run down the left and stood up a cross for Chamberlain to head past the flapping Collin to bring us back into it. Lallana continued to leave defenders in his wake and we were suddenly looking by far the better side once more. Of course, the next goal was going to define the game and then we failed to adhere to the golden rule of chasing a game – keep the fucking back door shut. It’s a familiar tale – we had to defend a corner which as you know, we’ve had a bit of trouble with of late. Over it comes and James Chester (on loan from Man Utd – another reason to hate them) rises totally unchallenged to head in from 12 yards. Later on in the evening I watched Audley Harrison just stand there and wait for bad things to happen and here, Morgan Schneiderlin did the same – f.all. At this moment in time I wished David Haye would hit him as well.
Nigel decides at this point that it’s time to put Harding out of his misery because at 3-1 down, we can’t afford any more defensive disasters and he’s replaced with Ryan Dickson and it’s all Saints with Hammond forcing Collin into a decent stop from long range and then Chaplow dragging wide a sitter when he really should have scored having been put through by Sir Rickie’s one contribution to the game.
We need a goal and so we don’t need Schneiderlin and on comes Lee Barnard, 72 minutes after he should have been on. We’re now back to 4-4-2 and within 8 minutes we’re back in it again as Hammond rumbles forward and smashes in a shot from 25 yards which either deflected or swerved but whatever happened, Collin made a balls of it and we were back to 3-2. Deano really should shoot more often as he’s got a decent dig on him.
With 10 minutes left to find and equalizer, all Saints could manage was a spin and shot from Barnard which flew just over and so we ultimately slipped to an unnecessary and self-inflicted defeat.
Going forward, we played reasonably well in patches compared to Carlisle (more shots, possession, corners etc) but it doesn’t matter how well you play going forward if you let in goals like we did. All three goals were gift-wrapped to varying degrees with Harding having a complete shocker on the first two and Schneiderlin on the third. Nige will take a bit of a pasting for changing the formation and changing a winning team and rightly so – however, the change in formation had nothing to do with the Morgan standing there like an Audley tree and letting his man have a free header, for example. I’d like to know why Connolly was left on the bench though when last week he came on and created two goals in a minute. Surely it would have been worth taking Jaidi or Richardson off and throwing him on for the last 5-10 minutes.
So, the first game of our 3 game mini-season ends in defeat but to be honest, I’m not that worried about this one other than it puts more pressure on the next two games. We played ok and you would have thought that the diabolical defending won’t happen again for a while. What is worrying though is our continual ability to allow free headers in the box from set pieces. Next up we have Peterborough who started the season well but seem to have had the wheels fall off in the last couple of weeks – today they lost 5-1 at home. Saints will be back to 4-4-2 and if they’re not then Nigel will have lost the plot. I fully expect Chaplow and Hammond to be in central midfield, Barnard and Seaborne back in the side and it’s time for Ryan Dickson to be given a go. If you don’t think so then watch the replays of the goals we let in today.
Maybe we need to recall Wotton before it’s too late.
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