League 1 Match 30 - Southampton 4 Swindon 1

"Get out me way, I wanna smack the bastard"

Following the rather dull draw against Hartlepool, a general mood of gloom had appeared to descend over the Saints faithful. We are 5th in the league and if we win our games in hand then we are 2nd. We have taken more than 2 points a game in the last 10 matches so what’s the problem. Oh yeah… people are incredibly impatient and demand that we win every match. Have fans always been like this or has the mentality of the ‘hire and fire’ chairmen than infest the game, seeped down into the average supporter. Everyone who pays their money to watch a game has the right to expect whatever they want I guess but it makes me wonder if fans are ever happy with their team – however well they do. If we come 2nd and go up automatically at the end of the year, there will be people bitching because we should have come 1st. If we go up through the playoffs then people will bitch because we didn’t go up automatically. The net result in all of these scenarios will be the same – we will go up one division. If we fail to go up this season then the Samaritans hotline will be in meltdown.

To bring all the moaning bollocks into perspective, just before the game we learned that Dean Richards had died at the ridiculously young age of 36…. which is 6 years younger than me. He was a fantastic player for a couple of seasons for Saints, as the successor to Ken Monkou and the predecessor of Michael Svensson in partnering Our Claus, in the middle of defence. For once in my life I was in the know when he followed Hoddle to Spurs. My Mum and Dad were house hunting at the time and Dad was a bit taken aback when Dean Richards opened the door and showed him round. Dad’s first words were “so you’re off then?”. I was gutted when he left as he was so good which seems to be a sentiment echoed by the fans of all the clubs he played for – Bradford City, Wolves, us and Spurs. RIP Big Man.

To the teams and Nigel made a mistake and accidentally handed in last weeks teamsheet as were completely unchanged, first XI and bench. Swindon had David Prutton on the bench whose time at Saints was forever soured by him going all nutjob on a linesman after he’d been deservedly sent off. He looks like he’s been backpacking for a year or two and has not had a haircut or a decent meal. I bet he still claps the fans though.

The first real action of the game was a Swindon attack where Chamberlain showed how much of a team player he is by getting back into our own penalty area to make an important challenge just as the overweight scruffy bloke in their midfield was about to shoot. Chambo then displayed the more widely known part of his game by running at the left hand side of the Swindon defence, ignoring the calls from Sir Rickie and Chappers to square it, went alone and his shot pinged off of the base of the far post and bounced back into play and we all strangled our goal celebrations and sat back down.

We didn’t have long to wait for the first goal as five minutes later, Fonte brought the ball out of defence and played it to Sir Rickie’s feet. Showing the delicacy of touch of Dennis Bergkamp (I shit ye not) he knocked it past a defender who dived in like a tit and laid it off to the Gulyman. One pass later and Lallana was through on the keeper and he fired it under him for 1-0.

Swindon, looking nothing like the side who had beaten us on the previous 4 occasions, seemed to roll over and accept the inevitable as we tore them apart. Harding made a forceful run down the left but found it very easy to get to the line from where he hung up a cross which was headed down by Sir Rickie for the Gulyman to drive against the post.

A second goal before half time would have totally killed it but we took our foot off a bit for the last ten minutes and the only incident was Fonte having a bit of a dive in their penalty area. Half time and relatively happy.

The second half began positively again for Saints but the two chances we created fell to Guly who showed that his strikers instincts were not in the building but on a bus, speeding away from SMS. For all the decent things he does, there is a problem with the fact that he’s not clinical in front of goal. Following the two misses, Saints went to shit and allowed Swindon back into the game. Our strikers were not holding the ball up at all and Sir Rickie was having one of his ‘can’t jump, won’t jump’ games. Hammond was competing well in midfield but Chaplow was completely off the pace.

Swindon managed a quick break down our left and Ritchie ran into a space where one of Harding or Lallana should have been. He cut onto his left foot and hit it to the near post where once again, Kelvin just waved it by as it flew in. You can never say categorically that it’s the keepers fault on goals like this but it’s another one where there’s a question mark. It’s near post and he hasn’t even got a touch. Maybe it deflected but I don’t think it did. Poor goalkeeping, again…. And Bart is now injured. Ritchie is of course, one of the youth team that the Skates deemed to be not good enough so they could spend a load more money they didn’t have on Premiership player wages.

Nigel responded straight away, replacing Chaplow with Schneiderlin and soon after, replacing Guly with Barnard. Schneiderlin soon got in on the act playing a wonderful ball over the left back for Chamberlain to control and burst past him only to be cynically hauled back. The referee, who looked about 90, didn’t even book him but did show a yellow card to a random Swindon player for mouthing off. Justice was done from the resultant free kick as Harding’s delivery was powerfully headed in by Sir Rickie… and I had been calling for him to be taken off about 5 minutes earlier.

No sooner had we recovered from that, we had a corner on the left. Lallana rolled it to Chambo who skipped out away from the goal and from the corner of the box, delivered a cross right onto the head of Radhi Jaidi who couldn’t miss. His goalscoring celebration was as bad as it was funny.

Swindon’s answer to us going 3-1 up was to bring on David Prutton who got a decent round of applause, which he wouldn’t have got if he’d come on at 1-1. It was very nearly 4-1 a minute later as Butters took a quick free kick to put Hammond away down the right and his superb cross was met by Fonte who got too much of a contact on it and headed over when a flick header would have brought a goal.

The difference that our two subs made is quite remarkable with Barnard offering a much more mobile target up front and Morgan having the guile to pick out the pass. Morgan found himself breaking forward with Chamberlain and instead of shooting (which he probably should have done) he slid it though for Chambo to smash in the net, only for the flag to go up for a tight offside.

The game then became a case of Saints vs Lucas in the Swindon goal. Sir Rickie hit one of those piledrivers that only he can hit and Lucas managed to get himself in the way, a split second before it knocked him over. He saved his best save though for a superb volley by Oscar Gobern of all people as he co-ordinated all four of his giraffe legs and managed an excellent effort rather than falling over in an uncoordinated heap like he usually does.

So, as we moved into injury time, that looked to be that but Lallana picked out Barnard and as Swindon all stopped and appealed for offide, he dribbled round Lucas and squeezed a shot in from a near impossible angle, in exactly the same way as Guly wouldn’t have. Huzzah! Saints 4 Swindon 1 and Prutton clapped all four sides of the ground.

A very odd game this one with us being pretty good for the first third and the last third but that middle third…. Jesus, we were shocking. Swindon for their part, were shite. They just looked like they were going though the motions. Ferry in midfield was industrious but the forwards were non-existent and Douglas and Prutton looked like what they are – journeyman pros. They didn’t look like they really wanted to be there. To be fair, they’ve lost Charlie Austin and Pericard, who is a handful, was injured but even so, I’d be a more than a bit worried about their chances of staying up if I was one of their fans.

Nigel focussed on the positives in his post match interview and he has a decision to make now as the team was 100% better when Schneiderlin and Barnard came on. In a reversal of recent weeks, Brighton lost but bloody Bournemouth won away from home in the 91st minute. The real worrying one is Peterbrough winning 5-0 away at Oldham…. What sort of result is that Fergie Lite, you miserable wanker, we won 6-0 there.

Next up, a trip too the Black Country and Walsall on Tuesday night. My advice for anyone going is …. Ansells.

Dean Richards, Rest in Peace.

League 1 Match 29 - Hartlepool 0 Southampton 0

The game, this blog entry... everything really !!!

Well, we were supposed to be playing Rochdale away on Saturday but there were two games called off in the whole of England and ours was one of them which was to say the least, annoying. I’ve seen it suggested that there should be a ‘cricket style’ grading system of pitches whereby a substandard / waterlogged pitch is punishable by a points deduction. There is some merit in this idea as the threat would make teams sort out their drainage before they buy another player etc. Some would say that this is unfair but who gives a toss about fairness when fans have to turn round and go home having travelled – spending out lots of cash and not even seeing a game. The reason a system such as this won’t ever be implemented is because no independent assessor or referee is going to call off a game at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge when it’ll mean a points deduction. The decision to call the game off has caused problems for Southampton FC who, through no fault of their own, have to fit yet another game into an already packed schedule and it's caused problems for the aforementioned fans who have spent money and travelled and are now in possession of a ticket for and April Tuesday night in Rochdale. Yet another fans ‘issue’ that won’t ever be sorted out. Anyone for a debate on safe standing areas ? Peoples game my arse.

I appear to be ranting. So, the team stayed in the North and moved on to Hartlepool for a difficult looking game against a team with a decent home record and a history of hanging monkeys allegedly. In our squad we had James Shea, a teenage goalkeeper from Arsenal who was covering for the injured Bart. It’s shame that Tommy didn’t Forecast that one when he went on loan for a month at Eastbourne to play in West Sussex Division 7, where in his first game, they lost 6-0. Everyone was available and so we had our strongest side out with Lallana returning to the left wing, Chambo on the right with Deano and Chappers in the middle. As well as Shea, the list of subs included Barnard, N’Guessan, Martin, Schneiderlin and Richardson – players that Hartlepool would probably kill for and Oscar Gobern who they probably wouldn't kill for.

I’ll say this now – the match report isn’t going to be very long because in order to have a match report you have to have some incidents to talk about. Unless you are going to make a big incident out of long balls forward, bad first touches and keepers kicking it to eachother then you are going to struggle to write much about this game.... and Jaidi heads it away... again!

There were no more than half chances in a diabolical first half with the majority of them falling to us. We tried to recreate the ‘Peterborough’ corner routine but instead of Chambo’s corner rolling to Hammond who smashes it in the net, Chambo’s corner went to Hammond via Butterfield’s shin and Deano kicked the ground and the ball rolled to Flinders in the Hartlepool goal. The Gulyman gave Flinders some more practice at picking up the ball when after a mazy run, he hit a daisy cutter which, due to the lack of daisies and the presence of lots of boggy turf, just rolled through to the keeper. The best chance fell to the returning Lallana who was put through by Sir Rickie’s pass on the left but then angle was against him and Flinders beat away his effort.

It as one of those halves of football where rather than getting excited, you end up just taking the piss at the ineptitude of it all. You know it’s bad when even the radio commentators (Temple and Merrington) were really struggling to inject any enthusiasm into the commentary. Unlike previous weeks, when it’s been a decent game, the Saints Player feed was playing cruel games witht he listener and working fine.

Half arsed penalty shouts at the start of the second half when a Pools player fell in a heap under challenge from Fonte who then went up the other end and had a shot which was blocked somewhere near the guys arm. If we were Darren Ferguson (thank Christ we’re not) then ours was a definite pen and theirs was complete miserable bastard nonsense. The action was at least stepping up a notch with Chaplow going close (relative to this match) when he arrived and tried to dink a lob over Flinders, failing by about four feet. Lallana topped that by working himself a position and lashing one miles over.

The best chance of the game fell to Hartlepool when a cross from the right cleared everyone and fell to McSweeney who thankfully slipped as he tried to volley it. Good job he did as any sort of contact from there would have given Superkelv no chance. There were a couple of speculative long range strikes from Hartlepool, one of which brought the obligatory ‘one for the cameras’ save from Davis but the introduction of Barnard for Chamberlain failed to give Saints any spark and so it petered out into a pretty crappy 0-0 draw.

It’s been interesting reading the Hartlepool view on the game which was that it was a great game and they deserved to win, according to Mick Wadsworth, their manager who is well known at Saints, for being an arse. If that’s a great game then no wonder they get less than 3000 home fans to a game. It sounded complete shite to me but I guess they were expecting to get nothing from the game so it’s a decent point for them. Is it a decent point for us?.... well, Brighton won tonight but everyone else at the top drew, so if you look at it logically and calmly, then a point away at Hartlepool is probably a decent result but... we really should be winning games like this. I’m now fretting a bit about what we did in the transfer window. Yes – we secured Lallana, the Gulyman and Chaplow and in addition, Chamberlain didn’t leave – all excellent players but they were already in the squad which needed to be strengthened to maintain the push. Our two incoming players were N’Guessan and Forte, neither of whom will be nailing down a regular starting place any time soon. Still, we are where we are and the squad we have should be plenty good enough to win the race for 2nd place as Brighton disappear off into the sunset.

Nigel was interviewed at Cliche o’clock after the game and spoke of his frustration that we created chances and didn’t win what was always going to be a difficult game. We didn't create many mate!!! When he went on about us ‘respecting the point’, I thought he sounded like something out of a Monty Python film… Life of Brian ‘respect his shoe’…. ‘respect his gourd’ etc. Unsurprisingly, the players were taking care of business but it’s shame they didn’t take care of Hartlepool as a win would have made our position much stronger. Central midfield is still an issue for me and when you look at the individual players in question, it’s hard to see a solution. There are deficiencies with whatever pair you decide to play as we have a forward runner in Chaplow, a strong tackler in Deano and a ball player in Morgan. Play Deano and Chappers and we don’t keep the ball well enough to dominate games, play Morgan and Deano and we sit too deep, play Morgan and Chappers and we’re too lightweight. What’s the answer... maybe play all three but then you have to leave out one of Guly or Chamberlain. Perhaps Nigel needs to take care of business himself and sort this one out.

Roll on the weekend, Swindon at home and time to avenge the four losses in a row we’ve suffered against them.

League 1 Match 28 - Southampton 1 Carlisle 0

Sniper on Gas Holders Takes Aim at Matty Robson.

Today we are at home to Carlisle who will forever be associated with our JPT Trophy win from last year. This year, Carlisle have managed to make the final again and are back at Wembley where as we spectacularly did nothing of the sort. They started the season brightly but in the League at least, have fallen away. Top scorer Gary Madine has been sold but none of this took place before they beat us up at their place. We owe them one.

Don Nicola broke his silence on a couple of issues. The first was the transfer window frenzy regarding Alex Chamberlain where he basically blasted a number of Premiership clubs for the way they tried to do business – saying they only seemed to care from a business point of view and not from a human point of view – no face to face negotiation, just a fax. The quote of ‘we care about the boy’ stood out in the middle of a cesspit of people only caring about their own self-interests. What this said to me was that our Chairman is a man of his word. What he says, is indeed what he means and in turn, it is what will happen. He said Alex wouldn’t be sold and he wasn’t, he in fact said no one would leave and they haven’t (Forecast, Wotton and Pulis don’t count here). What’s not to like here? We have a Chairman who does exactly what he says he’ll do and he flies directly in the face of the ‘we’re a big club and we will do what we want’ attitude and fights his and our corner. It’s so refreshing to find someone not prepared to accept the norm. Compare and contrast with our previous incumbent who in the main just bent over and took it, selling everyone at the first opportunity.

The other and more contentious issue is Cortese versus The Legends of SFC. There seems to be this expectation in football that you get handed everything on a plate. For example – a footballer signs a four year contract and then, no matter how badly he plays, cannot have this contract terminated without it being paid up in full - unless he does a Bosnich and starts sampling Columbian marching powder or whatever. Compare and contrast to the real world where you sign a 6 month contract with an employer and if you’re shite or if they just fancy getting rid of you for their own reasons, you’re history at a months notice at best. If ‘real world’ rules applied to footballers, do you think Anthony Pulis and Tommy Forecast would still be picking up a wage at SFC? I don’t see why current and former players should get things on a plate but at the same time, there should be some recognition and gratitude shown. I feel that the Legends aren’t doing themselves or anyone else any favours by digging at the club in the gutter press (that’s the Daily Mail) but I also don’t think it would do the club any harm to give events organized by the legends, their official support and stamp of approval. At the moment it’s like schoolboys having a pissing contest and all that happens in pissing contests is that no one wins and everyone gets covered in piss.


The defensive shambles at Peterborough saw the Axe of Adkins wielded with the blade descending on the neck of Dan Seaborne with Radhi Jaidi being restored to the side. When the team was first announced on the big screens, I thought we were playing some revolutionary new formation as we only had one centre back as they’d read out Ryan Dickson instead of Jaidi and put his picture up on the screen. Despite being on the front of the program, Bart was still on the bench and Recently-Not-so-Superkelv was still in the team. The midfield saw Dany N’Guessan restored to the left wing in place of Lee Barnard. One major bonus was that Adam Lallana was on the bench. Carlisle’s manager has said that they have the player to deal with Chamberlain in Gary Borrowdale... we’ll see.

Today was the day I decided to take my 6 year old son to his first proper game as my Dad couldn’t go, so I replaced one messy eater who doesn’t know what’s going on and can’t go 45 minutes without a pee, with another. He came to the Swindon JPT nightmare earlier on in the season and the Ajax friendly (70 minutes – fell asleep) but this was his first league game. We had played Saints v Carlisle on the Wii before we left and the result was Saints 2 Carlisle 3... whoops. David Connolly is usually fit on the Wii, Dean Hammond has red hair and Paul Wotton can do stepovers and beat people for pace ... bizarre. We watched TV in the concourse and saw some Granny Shagger score with a fantastic overhead kick v Man City... hopefully someone will do that for us today.

The first major action of the day was Chamberlain getting his first run at Borrowdale and entirely expectedly, he pushed the ball past him and Borrowdale made no attempt to get the ball and just blocked him off quite blatantly. It was a challenge that wouldn’t have looked out of place in ice hockey and totally warranted a yellow card.

After good work from Sir Rickie, Harding found himself taking on the full back on the left and whipping over a decent cross which went straight back to Sir Rickie, whose volley almost worked as a 1-2 as it was so bad, rocketing off the pitch just in front of Harding by the left corner flag.

Carlisle have a centre back called Michalik who looks like he’s been built by Dr Frankenstein. He makes Jaidi look small and caused a slight bit of consternation in our box by getting his oversized head on a corner but Superkelv made a comfortable save.

In direct contrast to Richard Chaplow, Dean Hammond was having a decent game and he sparked the best move of the match with a strong run forward before feeding The Gulyman on the right. The Brazilian master pulled it back into the path of N’Guessan who from 10 yards, shanked it over the bar with his right foot swinger. Bad miss, groan.

Chappers, as I hinted at earlier, was having a shocker and he showed the one flaw in his game by basically piling into a player when he should have just shepherded him away. It was a bad foul in truth and I reckon he could have been off if the ref had seen it from the side I was. Yellow was all he got though but the ref was soon to give his other card a trip out of his pocket.

Chambo then had his second run at Borrowdale and knocked the ball too far. However, Borrowdale still thought it was a good idea to grab his arm and pull him over even though the ball was heading out for a goal kick. The lino flagged and Borrowdale spat his dummy out before taking out all his toys and throwing them on the ground. Whether it was for the foul or the tantrum, the ref wasn’t happy and produced a second yellow and off you go – well done, you repaid your managers confidence in you really well.

From the resulting Harding free kick, Fonte planted a header straight at the keeper but from the next attack, a Gulyman cross from the left was competed for and won by Chamberlain (probably the smallest played on the pitch) and his resulting cross was headed past Collin the keeper by Sir Rickie for 1-0 and baby cradling celebrations – congratulations to Sir Rickie and his missus. I was delighted that we’d seen a goal and even more so that my boy saw it and celebrated like a loon - the Dad’s amongst you will appreciate this. Carlisle immediately brought a sub on with Robson coming on at left back. I remember him from Wembley, diving about when he realised he couldn’t get past Dan Harding.

We had arrived at half time and I had not sworn as yet. Even the Chuckle Brothers behind me had not provoked me with their continual stream of drivel. We hadn’t played particularly well and seemed to have less energy than a very limited Carlisle side. As a rite of passage, I took my lad to the refreshment stand, got him a pint and a pie told him he now had 5 minutes to finish it before barging past people coming out through the ‘In’ door and having a pee as you’ll never last til the end. Not really... we actually dissected the goal we’d just scored and how we managed to lose to Carlisle on the Wii when they weren’t very good. We were 1-0 up at half time in that game as well.

There was a major surprise at the start of the second half as Lallana came on for Chappers – I presume to avoid the ‘referee evening things up’ scenario. We lined up with Sir Rickie up front, N’Guessan wide left, Chambo wide right with Lallana and the Gulyman pushing on from midfield. It looked like a line up that would bury Carlisle but it didn’t quite work out that way as we reverted to hoofball and persisted despite getting nowhere with it as we only had one forward. Occasionally, football broke out on the pitch, again instigated by Hammond who fed a pass into the Gulyman, who stepped over it to give Sir Rickie some space to fire in a shot that was deflected straight to Collin.

The disjointed rubbish continued for much of the second half with there being far too much of a gap between Sir Rickie and the rest. Though in theory it looked an attacking line-up, N’Guessan was struggling to get past the full back and Guly and Lallana seemed reluctant to break forward. Carlisle for their part, continued the game plan they had when they had 11, which was to bang it forward for Jaidi to head away. The other part of Carlisle’s game plan was to kick lumps out of anyone who came near but the ref decided to referee the second half differently to how he reffed the first when he booked just about every tackle. He had to book a few though as some of the tackles were ridiculous. After one misplaced pass I uttered the word ‘crap’, which was seized upon and repeated the next time the same player repeated the mistake. He’s crap isn’t he Dad….. Ahem!

We had one more chance as Chamberlain played a neat 1-2 with Lallana and saw a decent shot well saved by Collin, diving to his left. Carlisle managed a header from Dr Frankenstein’s creation which brought a ‘one for the cameras’ save from Davis but as far as goalmouth chances goes – that was about it. Robson did his diving thing in the last 5 minutes when he was shot by an imaginary sniper from on top of the Gas holders. Mind you, Fonte did the same when he was given a hospital pass by Davis.

To summarise.... that was rubbish but we won. It was a really poor second half but you can’t demolish teams every week. In truth, the win was very comfortable as Carlisle never looked like scoring and only had two efforts on goal, both headers from their beast of a centre back which both resulted in comfortable saves for Davis. You have to laugh when a Carlisle ‘highlight’ on the telly, was a winger beating a man and the ball going out for a goal kick before he pulled it back to a Saints defender. On the other side of the coin, we scored our goal in the immediate aftermath of them going down to 10 men and before they’d made a sub to sort things out. I thought Dean Hammond was our best player today with Sir Rickie, Chambo and Jaidi being the pick of the rest. Chaplow had a shocker and he was joined in that by N’Guessan who had a ‘winger on an off day’ game. It can happen and it’ll happen again.

A lot has been made about the booing of N’Guessan in the same way that Puncheon got stick earlier in the season. The similarities are that if you waft an easy chance over the bar then the crowd are going to groan because there is the immediate emotion of disappointment involved. Personally, I think you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t groan at an easy looking chance being missed. Ironic cheering when a player gets substituted is something else though as it’s nothing short of moronic as it’s pre-meditated. Get a grip... he wears our shirt so support him. We’ve seen what he can do already in the Exeter game and like I said, there were a few out there having poor games today.

Nigel wasn’t happy with the performance and was downbeat afterwards with no talk of buses. I had a bus of my own to worry about and would I be able to get one to transport my son across the Itchen Bridge... no, we had to walk, well I did anyway... carrying a 6 year old who got progressively heavier as we went. He enjoyed the game, probably more than I did and he wittered on about Lambert, Jose Fonte and do Prado all the way home. Though the second half was boring, he enjoyed all the yellow cards being handed out.

“Lambert’s goal was better than Rooney’s wasn’t it Dad?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because Lambert’s goal was real and Rooney’s was on the TV”.
Quality.

League 1 Match 27 - Peterborough 4 Southampton 4

" One day my son, you'll be a miserable fucker as well"

Peterborough away in what should be a goal-fest. They score loads and they also let in loads, as displayed by their 5-3 win against Sheffield Wednesday in the week. We of course, travel in a bus and maybe we’ll park it and play out a 0-0 but somehow I doubt it. Peterborough are of course, managed by Darren Ferguson, son of Sir Alex whose last act as Preston manager before he got sacked for being shite, was to fall out with Richard Chaplow and sell him to us for next to nothing. Cheers. Maybe he’ll fall out with Craig Mackail-Smith and Joe Lewis and sell us those for £100,000 the pair.

To the teams and Saints have made a change with Seaborne coming in for Jaidi, one would hope to use his extra pace against the fast and direct Boyd and Mackail-Smith, the latter of which, Saints made an enquiry for in the transfer window. Back in the fold was Dean Hammond who replaced Schneiderlin who picked up a knock in training and despite being our best player against Exeter, Dany N’Guessan found himself on the bench with the Gulyman returning. The only other changes were on the bench where Jonathan Forte appeared for the first time. I am armed with Dave Merrington and a laptop with a very dodgy live stream of the Sky ‘Tuck this in for me Charlotte’ Sports feed.

Peterborough immediately set about showing why they score so many goals as Boyd fastened onto a ball in the inside left channel and bore down on goal. His shot was decent but Davis got down to parry it away with a strong arm. The tone of the game (you attack then we attack) was set when Saints burst forward and Chamberlain attempted to chip the keeper from a difficult angle and it dropped narrowly wide of the far post.

A temporary let off for Posh though as Sir Rickie nodded down a Davis clearance to Barnard on the edge of the box who was allowed by his marker to turn and shoot. Lewis pulled off a decent save and the ball dropped in between 4 Peterborough defenders who all kind of stood there as if waiting for something (a bus perhaps) and that something was Chaplow who nipped in a put the rebound in the net for 1-0 and how I expect Fergie Jnr enjoyed that.

Saints were flying now and nearly went 2-0 up straight away as Fonte put Sir Rickie through but the ball sat up a bit and Lewis threw up an arm to beat away his shot. However, it all took a turn for the better when Chamberlain picked up the ball on the left wing and set off. In seconds he was one v one against Little at full back and there was only one winner as Chambo sped past him and Little dived in, getting nowhere near the ball and clobbered him. Penalty and up steps Sir Rickie to fire low to Lewis’s right for 2-0.

Saints really needed to hold the lead until half time but that plan all went to shit when a ball over the top found Craig Mackail-Smith sprinting onto it and Seaborne misjudging the flight and then running through treacle… so much for the extra pace. From the left hand edge of the penalty area, CMS bobbled it left footed but in another appalling bit of goalkeeping, Davis managed to allow it to bounce under his arm and in at the near post. Shocking defending, shocking goalkeeping, shocking, shocking, shit and bollocks.

Worse was to follow a few minutes later as a straight forward cross from the left wing dropped in the box and Whelpdale came in off the right wing, nipped in front of the clearly dozing Harding and planted a free header into the net past Davis who at least, in my opinion, was not at fault for this one. I guess you could argue that he could have come and punched it but that’s a bit harsh. So, two nil and you fucked it up, as the song goes. Half time.

We make our traditional fast start to the second half by kicking off and working the ball back to Dan Seaborne who has the difficult job of hoofing it up the pitch which he makes a balls of and so, 15 seconds after we’ve kick off, CMS has smashed a shot narrowly over our cross bar. Good effort lads. All forgotten three minutes later as Sir Rickie sends Chaplow galloping clear and into the box. As he cuts inside Kennedy, the left back sticks his arm out and Chappers feels the contact and crashes to the ground. It’s either going to be a second yellow for having a dive or a penalty and luckily, dubiously, it’s the latter. Sir Rickie shows the watching world how to take a penalty by smashing seven bells out of it, giving Lewis not an earthly.

Five minutes later and we’re in dreamland again with our two goal lead back as Chamberlain catches Peterborough out by sliding in a corner along to ground to where Hammond has made a late run. Easy so far but Deano meets it and sidefoots a superb shot into the far top corner, over the top of the little shortarse defender on the line. As he runs behind the goal to celebrate, there’s a brief re-enactment of the Channon windmill celebration. Nice.

It’s immediately obvious that Peterborough are not going to lie down and back they come attacking the left edge of the penalty area where Langley jinks into the box and Desperate Dan Seaborne tries to pull out of the tackle but leaves a leg in there which Langley falls over. Clumsy donkey, penalty. Seaborne puts on a straw hat and brays at the referee with a loud “Eee-awwww” but no matter, McCann, bang 4-3... half an hour left still.

That half an hour was an edgy affair which Saints managed very badly by continually giving the ball away. We had a couple of efforts with Butterfield hammering a left foot shot just wide from 30 yards and Sir Rickie just running out of steam and failing to get the shot away when put through by Chaplow’s flick. In the main though it was all Peterborough with Boyd forcing Davis into a decent save after the winger had turned Harding inside out and McCann putting one free kick narrowly over. We brought on Richardson for the Gulyman and then Forte for Barnard but neither had any positive effect. Ryan Dickson was also brought on for Harding as Dan was trying his best to get himself sent off.

Under pressure and clinging on desperately in the 91st minute, Deano launched someone over on the left hand side and the resulting free kick caused chaos. It got half cleared about 3 times before someone hammered in a shot that was going wide and Chambo jumped, with his arm raised and blocked it. Many views of the replay are inconclusive as to whether it hit his arm or somewhere around the armpit but the ref of course, had to give it and we can’t really have any complaints. With McCann having been subbed, up stepped Tomlin to send Davis the wrong way to make it 4-4. The only surprise was that the remaining 2 minutes didn’t produce a winner.

The post match interviews were dominated by Darren Ferguson. If he were a bottle of Coke, he’d be called Fergie Lite but after his interview, we’ll call him Fergie Zero. Of the four penalties given he basically said that their two were nailed on and ours were ‘nonsense’. For starters – is there anyone in the world who thinks the foul on Chambo wasn’t a pen? He called Chaplow a diver over the 2nd penalty and I’ll agree with him to a degree in that Chappers felt the contact and fell over but then on their first one you could argue that Seaborne pulled out of the tackle and the guy fell over him. What’s the difference? Did their second pen hit Chambo on the arm or in the armpit? I can 100% see why the ref gave it but it’s not clear cut and saying they were unlucky not to win is just crap. Getting awarded a dodgyish pen in the 92nd minute to equalize in a game that you were never leading makes you a bit lucky really, you bell end.

I never really had an opinion of Fergie Zero before today but what a cock that bloke is. He’s in the game because of who his dad is, was never a decent player and time will tell if he’s any good as a manager. His team fly forward and try and outscore the opposition and it’s a great attitude and great to watch but a lot of this is down to the recently departed Gary Johnson, not Fergie Zero. Preston are the team he moulded this season and he got them in such a mess in the Championship that they had to fire him to give them a chance of staying up. This is similar to his last stint as Posh manager when they fired him when they were, you guessed it, bottom of the Championship. Also, he obviously let his dislike of Chaplow carry on into this game even though they are both with different clubs now. Idiot. For his part, Nigel eased up on the bus analogies and expressed his frustration at the result – no mention of dodgy penalties or calling opposition players cheats. One respectful manager and one miserable fucker.

It was a great game but Saints really missed a trick in the last half an hour or so. Unlike most teams, Peterborough were always going to keep flying forward and they have some real quality up there with CMS and Boyd so really, attack was our best form of defence. Bringing on Richardson was a mistake in hindsight and maybe N’Guessan or Forte could have been brought on in midfield to give us pace on both wings. The Richardson substitution just invited them onto us and gave us less of a goal threat. Having said that we could have done with a bit of ball retention in the centre of midfield and we had no real options there with Schneiderlin being injured. It’s disappointing coughing up a two goal lead twice but I’d have taken a draw beforehand. It’s annoying though.... of yeah and here’s hoping we go back and sign Craig Mackail-Smith in the summer. He’s an excellent player and gave Fonte his hardest game of the season.

For us, on the positive side, Alex Chamberlain looked lively for an hour and Sir Rickie has now scored 4 in the last 2 matches. On the negative- Danny Seaborne was a nightmare, an utter stinking nightmare. Totally done for pace and positioning on the first goal and a clumsy challenge to give Peterborough their first penalty. In addition to this he scuffed loads of clearances and looked petrified throughout every time Mackail-Smith in particular, came near him. I feel it’s high time to promote Aaron Martin above him in the pecking order. Also of course, playing a massive part in the first goal was Kelvin Davis who got his positioning all wrong and was beaten by a near post bobbler that a park goalkeeper would have been disappointed to let in. Sadly, his mistakes are getting more frequent though to his credit – he did pull off a few saves today.

In other results, Brighton and Huddersfield won and Bournemouth drew so not catastrophic. Looking ahead – we have 7 winnable fixtures in a row now before we take on the Moaning Dorset Bastards in deepest Dorestshire. These next 7 games need to give us at least 5 wins and then we’ll see where we are.... next up, Carlisle at home.

League 1 Match 26 - Exeter 1 Southampton 2

Exeter Travel Club waits to take fans home

Since the Man Utd game, the transfer window has slammed shut, smashed the window to bits and left shattered glass all over Michel Platini and his ideas of everyone being financially prudent. It’s insane... and we’re not part of it, with just an undisclosed outlay to bring Jonathan Forte in from Scunthorpe. Scunny fans don’t rate him but then the Preston fans didn’t rate Chaplow so I don’t particularly care what they think. I don’t particularly rate Puncheon and he’s out the door on loan to Blackpool in the Prem. Good luck to him and he’ll need it, playing in a struggling side in a higher standard. So – from one player going to a level too high, we come to another as ‘future England keeper’ Tommy Dismal Forecast goes on loan to Eastbourne. Oh yeah, one player went nowhere... Alex Chamberlain so can Don Nicola now sue all the websites that said he’d been sold? Horses head anyone...

Tonight sees a trip to Exeter and it’ll be interesting to see if Paul Tisdale dresses up like Oliver Twist as he did at SMS. Forte was unavailable for this game and so it was just 3 changes from the Man Utd game with Davis and Jaidi coming back in for Bart and Seaborne and Dany N’Guessan starting on the wing in place of The Gulyman who had a knock. Butters and Harding deservedly kept hold of the fullback spots. Talking of Butters – I think he was in the team today because of one incident at the end of the United game which I forgot to mention when Nani took time out from diving about and generally being a wanker and knocked the ball one side of Butters and tried to run round the other. Having none of it, Butters just ran straight at him and hoofed him up in the air. Genius and worth a booking any day.

It’s a lively opening and Saints have a glorious chance to take the lead on 7 minutes when Sir Rickie plays a lovely crossfield ball onto Barney’s head. Barney heds it into the path of the onrushing N’Guessan who really should have done better than to hit the bar with only the keeper to beat. It’s not over though as it rebounds to Barney who from a narrow-ish angle, manages to also hit the bar, which makes a change from him hitting someone, in a bar. Bugger – it’s that early goal thing again.

There are half chances and near misses for both sides as first O’Flynn gets through for Exeter as Jose dozed off and Kelv regains his Super prefix and smothers the shot before Harding hacked clear. Saints turn the screw for a bit and at the centre of it all is N’Guessan who fired a cross shot just wide of the far post before running through and feeding Sir Rickie who hit the side netting.

Just as Saints were establishing some sort of ascendancy, we went behind as a hoof from their keeper was picked up in midfield and lobbed over our defence in front of the clearly offside Sercombe. He took a pace towards the ball and therefore should have been flagged offside – however, Nardiello ran from an onside position and toe poked it past Davis who had come flying out like a tit with no hope of getting there first. As the ball was running towards the empty net, Nardiello diverted his run to run straight into Fonte who was trying to get back. Forget the fact that it’s rolling into the goal and think about the Butters/Nani incident I described earlier. One player diverts his run away from the ball and runs into another. It’s a foul but not today. It’s irrelevant whether Fonte would have got there or not.

For the rest of the first half, Saints are not good and are getting overrun in midfield as Exeter have three central midfielders playing against Chappers and Schneiderlin. It looked like the curse of the shit ground was going to strike again and Exeter’s ground is really shit, resembling the Veracity Ground with a few chairs round it.

Half time comes and goes and I am fully armed with my Saints Player subscription and the Solent commentary feed is coming through loud and clear. Barney is the first to have a dig in the second half, curling a shot just wide of the post with the keeper beaten, obstructed though he was by the ball having to travel round Jaidi before he could see it.

It’s a very open game with chances coming at both ends. Chamberlain nearly fired Arsenal, sorry, Man City, United, Fulham…. Saints!!!! Level but he managed to become the third Saint to hit the bar. Superkelv partially redeems himself for his flying tit moment by pushing an O’Flynn drive around the post before having to deny Sercombe as the ref decides that a full body assault on the admittedly dithering Jaidi, is not a foul.

I was beginning to get mildly irritated at us not scoring and so I left the room for a bit to say goodnight to my kids. Five minutes later I was back in and had managed to miss the equaliser. Dany N’Guessan beat the full back (ex-Skate Duffy) and crossed. The ball ended up with Harding whose shot was blocked back out onto the left wing. N’Guessan tracked back and retrieved the ball before skinning the Skate again and hanging up a superb cross for Sir Rickie to meet with an excellent powerful header at the back stick. In off the bar, 1-1. I love wing play like that, skin the bastard, cross it on the run, bang. Brilliant work from the winger who I was not expecting much from. As an aside, QPR took this moment to score against the Skates. Happy days.

N’Guessan reward is to have a rest and be replaced by Dean Hammond as Saints go a bit tighter in midfield. It seems to work immediately as we start dominating possession. Time ticks on with no real threat from us aside from Chappers forcing a save with a long range effort. Ex-Exeter player Danny Seaborne comes on for Jaidi to a cacophony or booing from two Exeter fans near the microphone.

The Saints Player radio feed commentary from Solent conks out and shows no sign of coming back for a few minutes so I switched to the Exeter commentary from Radio Devon which is brilliant. The commentator is fine but he co-commentator is brilliantly biased towards the home side and sound like he’s a random yokel they’ve just pulled in out of the stand. “Oh noooo”, “Git aht arr penalty area”.... “Git orf moy laaaaaand” ( I may have made the last one up, it’s called poetic licence).

Schneiderlin must be having a poor game as Nigel thinks that Gobern is a better option when we are chasing the win. Bambi comes on and I can hear heads hitting keyboards all over Southampton. “Gobern on, ‘ee be a tall laaaad”.

91 minutes and it all happens. It’s all Saints piling forward and yokel boy is having a heart attack...”no... no, git ahhhht, ‘ammond crosses it.... Nooooooooooo... Laaambert scores and the keeper ‘as to get thaaat”. Once I’ve deciphered that we’ve scored, I manage to punch the ceiling which is lower than I remembered it and it still hurts now. I’ll live. Lee Holmes would be out for a year with this injury but I will survive.

There are 4 minutes to go and I can’t listen to them as Radio Yokel has disappeared as well. I can’t get Solent back either but four minutes later I get I get Radio Yokel back just as the final whistle blows, “Unlucky laaaaads”.

The answer to any question regarding this game is “we won, so who cares” and it’s a good job we did with everyone else winning. I must admit that I was fearing the worst when we got to half time 1-0 down and could see a repeat of the Tranmere game. To win having been one down with 20 minutes to go is a really good effort, even if I did cut my hand when we scored. Dany N’Guessan showed what he’s all about for the 70 minutes he was on for and Sir Rickie did what he does best and stuck two away – now please go on a run and score in the remaining 20 games. It was a welcome return for Dean Hammond as well as he’s really needed in these away games where more often than not, Morgan really struggles to assert himself. Adam Lallana will soon be fit and oh yeah, we’ve still got Chambo.

As well as Radio Devon being a bit of a laugh, have a look at Exeter’s official website report of the game. It’s almost as if a yokel equivalent of me wrote it. They have marvelled at the bumper crowd of a massive 6,370 – no doubt due to the presence of over a thousand Saints fans who they then proceed to have a dig at. Quite amusing really. We won the game because we have a bus and they have an ‘orse and caaaart.

Anyhow, Nigel’s Magic Bus is up and running again…. All aboard, next stop Peterborough.

FA Cup 4th Round - Southampton 1 Manchester United 2

Never forgotten.

What was your reaction when we got drawn against Man United? I instinctively shouted ‘yes’ when it happened and it took all of a second to feel differently. Ah well, let’s have a go and see what happens. No doubt Sir Taggart would rest a load of players like he did last time when we were managed by the Dutch Genius that was Jan Poortvliet. If memory serves – that time they had Berbatov playing and he won the game on his own.

There have been a few titbits coming out of the SFC camp this week, starting with the signing of Dany N’Guessan on loan for the rest of the season from Leicester City. He’s been a star for Boston Utd and Lincoln City so excuse me if I don’t get too excited by this one. I guess it’s cover for the inevitable Puncheon exit which if the stories of big strops and refusal to travel are to be believed, can’t came soon enough. Alex Chamberlain... yep, still our player... The only high profile midfield departure was Paul Wotton leaving for Yeovil on a permanent basis. Best of luck to the bloke and have you noticed how their results have picked up since he went there on loan. Personally, would rather have him on the bench than Gobern, any day. If anyone would like to write a book on the Dutch Revolution we had at SMS, I reckon an interview with Wotton would be a good place to start...

It’s been a week where no other football news has been relevant aside from Andy Gray and Richard Keys being sacked / resigning from their role at Sky Sports for sexist comments about a female referee, amongst other ‘put yer hand down ‘ere love’ insightful comment and analysis. Best bit of all that was Charlie Brooker describing keys as an Orangu-twat on 10 O’Clock live. The only reason I’m mentioning this is because I hate Sky Sports and what it’s done to the game at the top level.

Talking of the top level... here are Man Utd...Reserves... hmmm. Keeper I’ve never heard of and a mixture kids (Fabio da Silva, Smalling), veterans (Scholes, Owen) and players who are never ever going to get a regular game in the Premiership (Obertan, Gibson). It was amusing to see that they had Berbatov, Giggs and Nani on the bench, as well as the guy on £200k a week who hasn’t had a decent game for 10 months but he has scored a hat-trick in that time with Ethel, Vera and Felicity Minx. Saints have rested a few with Bart in goal, Butterfield and Harding at full backs and Seaborne in for Jaidi. We’ve got Barnard, Guly and Sir Rickie all playing, so we appear to be going for it... nothing to lose I guess.

Unusually for a game against opposition of this calibre, SMS isn’t full which some patches of empty seats visible in the top corners of the Chapel End. This is a bit disappointing but there are many reasons why – live on terrestrial TV, increased price of tickets, the need to buy a ticket for the glamour Carlisle fixture... and the fact that it’s fucking freezing cold. We boosted the crowd by having three inflatable men at each end and we missed a trick by not having an inflatable woman in front of Rooney who would have probably tried to give it some money before mounting it. Before the players came out we did our bit for inter-fan relations by showing 1976 on the big screen as well as a few highlights of the 3-1 Grey Shirts game and the 6-3 win. Any United fan hoping to see video of the many trouncing they have given us in the past few years, was disappointed.

Away we go and Saints are being positive and going forward – Morgan is spraying the ball about and we look good. Seven minutes in and we had the ball in the net as Chaplow crossed for Harding who was lost upfield and he stuck it away. To be fair, there was no time to get excited as the flag was up well before it got to him. TV replays say correct decision but it was close and of course, if United had scored that at Old Trafford, it would have been ruled offside as well.

We win a couple of free kicks in dangerous areas and Sir Rickie fires them both narrowly over the bar. Having argued and won the case with Guly in order to take them, I feel he should let Guly have a go next time as the 'well hit free-kick that flies over' routine is getting a little tiresome. The free kicks are awarded against Darron Gibson who really should have got booked for the retaliatory hack against Schneiderlin.

The player who used to be Michael Owen is running around in midfield, like a dog chasing a bit of paper being taken on the wind. When Owen gets the ball his touch is heavy and usually Schneiderlin takes it off him. He has the odd good touch or pass but he looks like a little boy lost... bet he scores later. One bloke just along from me asks who the no.7 is for United, which is funny as it’s a bloke who has scored 40 goals for England. He nearly gets another one here as he shinned a cross over from the right wing which dropped over Bart and bounced back off the far post.

After a ten minute spell when United looked like they were taking over, the ball found itself out with Butterfield on the right and he whips in a perfect cross onto the head of the arriving Gulyman who seems to time his jump all wrong and heads over from about 8 yards. It’s a bad miss and on a day when we aren’t going to get that many chances, it’s especially not good.

I was still rueing the chance gone begging when Chaplow burst into the box on the right, past the half hearted challenge of Evans and fairly lashed it into the roof of the net giving Lindegaard no chance at all. Bloody hell, we’re winning! Of course, we had no idea how long we’d hold the lead for but it was going to be at least 15 minutes as the ref blew for half time and off we went. I repeat, bloody hell, we’re winning.

Following a half time windmill from Micky Channon, we of course expected Sir Taggart to utilise his bench at half time as in all honesty, United had been pretty poor and surely, the attacking threat of Berbatov, Nani, Giggs and Shagger would be unleashed. It was with some delight that we were informed that Wes Brown was coming on.

The first chance of the second half fell to Dan Harding who, playing like he was possessed by the ghost of Chris Marsden, in a ‘Phoenix from the Flames’ moment, cut in from the left wing and just kept going, past about four players, two of which totally bought Dan’s stumble over the ball. All of a sudden he was through on goal and like Chris Marsden, he scuffed it and there the similarity ends as the keeper just picked it up.

Five minutes later and Sir Taggart had seen nothing to suggest that United were going to get back into it and so he took off the anonymous Gibson and Anderson and replaced them with some proper players with Giggs and Nani taking their places. Whether it was tiredness or fear I don’t know but our midfield immediately took a step backwards and Giggs started to run the match. It took all of seven minutes for Obertan to go past Harding and hit in a cross which deflected off of Seaborne’s arm, straight onto the head of the player who used to be Michael Owen who had a flashback and nodded it in. Here we go...

To my surprise, Saints got back on the front foot and it was nice to see that they do practice stuff on the training ground as a corner routine between Harding and Chamberlain, ended with Harding’s cross just going wide of the far post as no one threw themselves at it. Straight after this we replaced Barnard with Dickson as we looked to be more solid in the middle of the park. As Dicko went on, Nigel clearly instructed him not to give the ball to Giggs 20 yards out but this is what he did and one pass later, Hernandez rolled it past Bart for 2-1.

The rest of the game passed by with very little incident as the ref decided that enough was enough and that he was going to give every single decision United’s way. He’d been ok up to that point but he reffed like he was Taggart’s insurance policy against Saints having a go at getting back into it. For the benefit of Keys and Gray – the ref was male and he was shte. Saints for their part gave up and replaced Chaplow, who had been our best player, with Gobern who practiced his Charlie Chaplin slapstick repertoire and promptly fell over. Dany N’Guessan came on for the Gulyman for the last 10, went up front and I think, touched the ball once.

Final whistle and all over in the FA Cup for another year. I was pleased that we at least gave them a game this time and that we didn’t get completely rolled over. In order to win a game like this you have to take your chances when you are in the ascendancy and in the first half we needed to create more than we ultimately did. Two nil at half time would have been interesting. For us, there were some very good performances with Butterfield and Harding doing well at full back, helped no doubt by a lack of width from United. Schneiderlin was predictably good against the better opposition and I thought The Gulyman gave them countless problems, until it came to delivering the final ball. Man of the match for me was Chaplow who is looking like the buy of this or any other season at £50k. It was a matter of time before our philosophy of passing the ball wherever came and bit us on the bum and Ryan Dickson was the unfortunate one who gave the ball to Giggs. In the League, the player may have miscontrolled it or overhit the pass and the forward may well have missed but this is Ryan Giggs we’re talking about and Javier Hernandez who seems to score every time he has a shot.

The post match coverage of the game has been predictably sycophantic towards Michael Owen. Yes he scored but for the first half he was terrible and looked like a little boy lost in his advanced midfielder position. He did start the second half a lot a better and got more into it as the Saints midfield tired. When he went up front though it took him all of five minutes to do what he’s done for 14 years. I felt that Saints could really have done with having Hammond on the bench to come on with half an hour to go and start rattling some cages in there... again Gobern looked really weak when he came on and his inner ear infection which means he has the balance of a giraffe on roller skates and spends the whole game on his arse. I bet he never has to put his shirt in the wash after a game, just his shorts where he’s been sat down on the grass.

The quest for league points begins again on Tuesday night with a trip to Devon and the other St. James’ Park. Exeter are very difficult to beat at home but I’m backing us after today, not to have another ‘Tranmere’ and come home with the bacon. 18 games to go.... many wins required.