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.
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