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.
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