Buy this twat a stopwatch for Christmas
I was expecting today to be a severe test of the winning home run in view of Blackpool being a half decent side and us being a bit ropey of late. There would of course be issues if Sir Rickie wasn’t fit but thankfully he was. On the bench we have no keeper so lets hope nothing happens to the keeper... but we do have Ben Reeves, joining Holmes, de Ridder, Martin and Harding. Maybe Ben Reeves can go in goal, all 5 foot 3 of him.
I was hearing the Blackpool side being read out and was pleased that two players who I knew would score against us, Rat Boy Phillips and that ex-Skate git Lua Lua were on the bench. No Brett Ormerod though which was a shame. I’d missed the Saints team announcement and old Bill who sits next to me said “you’re quite happy with Bart in goal aren’t you?”. Oh.... hadn’t noticed the absence of Superkelv but I’ve always been happy that Bart is a decent enough keeper and had voiced that opinion on any occasion that Superkelv hadn’t been quite so super.
Saints lined up once more with Morgan on the right of midfield and made a decent start, settling well and zipping the ball about nicely. The first time Blackpool showed was when Matt Phillips got down the right and crossed from deep straight to Bart who juggled what should have been an easy take, wide of the near post for a corner whilst three quarters of the crowd momentarily shat themselves.
Encouraged by the nervous looking keeper, Blackpool tested him out again when Sylvestre fired in a shot from 30 yards plus and Bart saw it all the way and decided not to use his hands. The ball smashed into his chest and bounced out to where Deano hacked it clear as Gary Taylor-Fletcher lumbered in. If ever you are writing anything about Blackpool , try putting ‘Taylor-Fletcher’ in a sentence and not putting the word ‘lumbering’ – it’s impossible. A bit like ‘Morgan’ and ‘goal-machine’.
Saints miss a decent chance next as Sir Rickie heads down a Lallana cross to the goal-machine that is Morgan whose snapshot flies narrowly over the bar. Next came another decent chance as Deano came flying in to meet a Frazer cross but again, hit the crowd instead of the net. On the half hour though, the next chance falls to the real goal-machine as Lallana nicks the ball off of the dozy full back Eardley and feeds Cork
If we were ‘avin’ a laugh then, we were nearly pissing ourselves a minute later as the Gulyman played a great through ball to put Sir Rickie one on one against Gilks but this time, his left footed blast hit the keeper and the chance was gone. Before you could say “I wonder if we’ll regret that”, Blackpool got down the left and the cross was met by Basham from barely 6 yards out to make it 1-1, giving Bart no chance. This goal served as a lesson, the lesson being “it’s better to mark the player than stand there with your arm up hoping they’re offside”.... which, as TV replays later proved, he clearly wasn’t.
A foul on Cork
An interesting half of football and during half time I reflect on how we are playing much more direct compared to the start of the season. Is that down to a lack of confidence or the opposition having sussed us out? No such pondering for the Chuckle Brothers who have decided that we’re rubbish. I tune in for a moment and the Moronic one says he was late today so sat on the end of the row and talked to someone else. I bet they were delighted.
Nigel’s team talk obviously had an element of JUST HIT IT BUT KEEP IT IN THE BUILDING AND ON THE BUS about it as Morgan shoots and it deflects for a corner which comes to nothing except a break up the pitch by Blackpool and the ball is with McManaman on the left wing. He cuts in and from 25 yards, hits a right footed rocket which flies into the top corner. Sorry – thought I was writing for the Official Saints website for a moment. What actually happened was that he scuffed it and Bart let it go through both his hands and his legs and trickle over the line. Bart then compounded the ridiculousness of the situation by crawling into the goal like an 18 month old baby to get the ball. It’s a nightmare – right up there with the worst you’ve ever seen on one of those Football Nightmare DVD’s, one of which I noticed on the shelves in HMV, presented by Olly Murs, who is nothing to do with football and is a wanker.
There are still 40 minutes to go and Gilks in goal decides that it’s time to start wasting some of it, taking an age over a goal kick…. here we go. The referee really wasn’t doing us any favour at this point with seemingly every 50/50 going Blackpool ’s way and no cards being handed out for persistent time wasting. Joining the ref in being a twat were of course the Chuckle Brothers with the whiny one giving it the full “Why deee dooo daaaahhht?” and the moronic one checking out any funny anagrams he could make out of Bialkowski.
Back to the serious business of trying to equalize and most of our decent play is coming through the Gulyman who looks dangerous every time he gets the ball, firing in a decent effort which Gilks didn’t take cleanly but unlike Bart, got enough behind it to grab it at the second attempt.. We also go very close on the hour mark as Deano gets into the box and curls one just wide of the far post. Tensions are rising thanks to the time wasting and the ref and Sir Rickie gets in a shoving match with Barry Ferguson who was, you guessed it, wasting time over getting the ball back to his own keeper. Both end up getting booked, Sir Rickie for pushing and Ferguson
Saints defence are playing a game of ‘Thou shalt not pass.... back to our own keeper” as Jose Fonte embarks on a risky 40 yard dribble from our own goal line, rather than pass it to Bart. When a back pass does go to Bart it is met with entirely predictable ironic cheers from some of our fans. That helps doesn’t it lads? Well done. It’s substitution time with de Ridder and Harding coming on for Deano and Danny Fox and I for one am struggling to see the sense in swapping left backs but Harding quickly adds more energy down the wing. Soon after, Holloway brings on Rat Boy and Lua Lua in quick succession which at least gives our fans a couple of genuine hate figures instead of having a go at Bart. This is more like it though I do hope Rat Boy’s wife didn’t have the telly turned up too loud.
The Gulyman heads a Cork
Usually at home, we’re in front and we want the fourth official to put up 1 or 2 minutes but of course they never do. Today we were hoping for about 10 minutes but 5 would have to do. Blackpool backed off inviting pressure and in the 93rd minute, Frazer swung over and inviting cross to the back stick and in steamed Sir Rickie to bury the header for 2-2. We even had a chance to win it when de Ridder did brilliantly to win the ball and steak towards goal but with both Lallana and Cork
Fair that is, unless you’re Ian Holloway who didn’t say much after the game, aside from moaning at the ref for adding 5 minutes and wondering where he got it from. Let me spell it out for you Ian... concentrate. For starters, we scored within 3 minutes anyway but as you’re asking... 5 second half substitutions = 2.5 minutes, probably 3.5 with the amount of time your three took to get off the sodding pitch. The ref just added an additional 1.5 for all the Blackpool time wasting from the 50th minute onwards... pissing about at every free kick and goal kick, turning your back on ball boy after they’d thrown it back etc.. I’d say there should have been 7 minutes, not 5. Muppet. Why not moan about the fact that you didn’t have a shot for the last 40 minutes of the game when it was obvious our keepers’ confidence was shot to shit.
So, the run of home wins came to an end as it was always going to eventually. Bizarrely, we moved a point further clear of West Ham as they had a shocker at Reading
All things being even, we should still be top of the league when we go to the Beirut ’s twin town, Portsmouth to play in the Mecca of Football Grounds, Fratton Park
Nigel’s post match interview was mainly spent fielding questions on Bart and talking of next week’s match. He left me in no doubt that the players know the significance of the fixture. As for Bart, well he had a shocker of course but I felt a bit for him as it must be tough to be a reserve keeper. You don’t get a game aside from the Carling Cup and there aren’t enough Reserve or U21 matches to rotate all the keepers in the squad. Having said that – he shouldn’t have been that bad and one suspects that Jack Dovey or Stephen Mowthorpe would have performed batter. Maybe even Dismal Forecast. Hopefully Kelvin and maybe even Chappers will be back and we won’t freeze on the day and despite our iffy away form, we have to look forward to this ...
Bring it on.
PS – My son is 7 and plays in goal on a Sunday morning. This Sunday, at 0-0 and straight after half time, he took a drop kick and somehow managed to kick it vertically upwards. When it came down, with my lad not knowing where it had gone, a forward just stabbed it into the net. Meanwhile, another lad missed an open goal at the other end and it’s ‘unlucky’. Such is the lot of a keeper. Put Bart and Sir Rickie into this little story and you get roughly the same picture as what happened on Saturday at SMS. Luckily, my son didn’t have a collection of morons jeering him from the side, just me crapping it every time it went near him.
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