Premier League Match 19 - Stoke 3 Southampton 3

Yoshida, Fonte and Hooiveld get ready for another Air Raid

A trip to The Potteries to take on Stoke City in a guaranteed nil pointer if ever there was one as lightweight Saints go like lambs to the slaughter to play against the might of Stoke City, with the meanest defence in the league and a bullying attack.  I pinched that last sentence off of some betting website which was previewing the game.  Well we might as well not bother turning up then.  A quick scan of Twitter and Saints web forums revealed that the prevailing mood amongst our own fans was just this, that we had no chance.

To be fair, it’s quite easy to understand why everyone seemed to think this way.  Under Tony Pulis, Stoke have turned into a formidable unit with pace and power and sheer physical size all over their team and they have some very good footballers like Peter Crouch, Robert Huth, Kenwyne Jones and Jonathan Walters who I always thought was severely average when he was at Ipswich but moving to Stoke has seen him turned into a really decent player.  They have some players who I have believed from afar to be really average like Andy Wilkinson and Glenn Whelan but as a unit they’re formidable and haven’t lost at home for 10 months.  Easy then.  As their team as announced, Crouch was on the bench alongside ex-footballer Michael Owen who has followed the Wayne Bridge career path and been content to sit on his arse not playing for about the last 5 years.  I wonder if Mrs Owen has met John Terry?

Nigel had decided to change a few players for this game with Gaston, Steven Davis and Nathaniel Clyne making way and being replaced with the beefier Guly, Jos Hooiveld and J-Rod.   A quick calculation revealed that Maya Yoshida would be at right back which I was not terribly happy about but other than that I was fine with the selection.  Whilst I would not necessarily ever advocate dropping your most creative player, today is the sort of game when Gaston would not have got on the ball much and may well have got roughed up and retaliated so I could see why he was left out.  It was with great joy that I saw the unmistakeable figure of Mark Twattenburg as referee for this one so standby for a load of stuff to be missed altogether and a general inconsistency in decision making.

As the game started, the camera (cheers Wiziwig) panned to Jos Hooiveld and even though I’m not the religious type, I prayed that Jos would not add to his tally of own goals for this season.  So, quietly and respectfully, everyone pray for Jos.  The game starts and we look ok but one immediate irritation is clear; Stoke have rightfully been getting praise for their football following their 3-1 battering of Liverpool last week and the commentators (dunno who they are) are creaming themselves over every long ball pumped up towards Walters and Jones.   Whilst the aforementioned Stoke players are a handful, there’s no goal threat there for now as the defence is coping well and mopping up all the 2^nd balls. 

For our part, we’re not fannying about in defence or midfield and are concentrating on turning Stoke around to get them defending.  It’s obviously a game plan Nigel and the coaching boys have come up with to deal with the more direct opposition (remember we got twatted 4-1 at West Ham).  And so it came to pass in the tenth minute that Punch fed J-Rod who played it wide left to Guly who made himself a yard and whipped it in right footed over left back Wilkinson and straight onto the foot of Sir Rickie who buried it past ex-Skate Begovic to make it 1-0.  The sound of thousands of punters ripping up betting slips was music to the ears of anyone of a Saints persuasion.  Now defend for a bit please lads.

Stoke’s next attack made it look like it was going to be a very short term lead as good play by Shotton down the right ended with a low cross which Nzonzi scuffed nowhere near the goal.  A bit like the Sessegnon effort last week, it turned into a perfect pass to Kenwyne Jones who went on strike and refused to play until he was allowed a transfer.  Actually, much funnier than that he got to the ball first as Superkelv rushed out and put an absolute sitter wide of the empty goal.

At this point my stream of the match died and I got it back just in time to see Shotton nutmeg Shaw down our left and cross in low to where Jones backheeled a lovely finish past Superkelv and in at the far post to become another member of the ever growing ‘Bastard Club’ of ex-players who have scored against us this season.

The commentators are now in full fawn mode as Walters gets the ball again but I’m in shock a moment later as a long throw is hurled into our box and Superkelv rises like a salmon and plucks it out of the air with an air of authority under a high ball which he never usually displays.  Superkelv rolls it out to Big Jos who bombs it up the pitch straight to the chest of Sir Rickie who brings it down and arrows in a cross towards J-Rod who is beaten to it by the boot of the outstretched Huth who lobs it onto his own cross bar and down for J-Rod to knock into an empty net.  Fuck me we’re 2-1 up and cue commentators lamenting the loss of two of Stoke’s regular defenders to suspension.

The fact is that we’re the better side by a mile and Punch brings a sharp save out of Begovic when he latches onto a Sir Rickie flick and runs at the defence.  Guly is having a superb game out on the left and the only worry is that we are not really winning headers cleanly at the back.  There’s no shame in this as Jones is a big lad and as we remember, he’s some athlete so he’s a handful…. but so are we as a corner is cleared out as far as Punch who returns it into the box to where Sir Rickie heads down and Wilkinson nips in front of J-Rod and Begovic to slice it into his own goal off his shin to make it 3-1, great finish lad.

It’s all a bit surreal but not surreal enough for Jack Cork’s 30 yarder to hit the net as Begovic saved well.  I was fully expecting Stoke to get one back before half time but the defence stood up well with all 4 players getting stuck in strongly and Big Jos not putting anything in his own goal.  Half time and 3-1 up… what the fuck is going on?  It is by no means job done as Stoke have some bench and we’ll no doubt see Crouch and ex-footballer Michael Owen before the end.

The second half starts with a predictable barrage of Stoke pressure but as before, we’re repelling it, if not comfortably and trying to turn Stoke around by playing accurate long balls upto the forwards.  J-Rod is under a ball and decides that rather than being in the middle of a Huth and Wilkinson sandwich, he’s not going to bother jumping and just let them smash into eachother with a sickening clash of heads which requires two of those bandage turbans, new shirts, new shorts and about four minutes of stoppages.

We’re still getting chances though and J-Rod nearly gets put through but a lovely ball from Cork but Sir Rickie does put him through with our next effort.  He has to do better than just poke it at the keeper and the rebound from Begovic’s foot flies straight to Guly who first time and with his weaker left foot, fires wide of a gaping goal.  Both should have done better and it’s a criticism of both of them that neither are clinical in front of goal.  So, it should have been 4-1 and you know what happens next, 3 bloody 2 as a corner is half cleared but it lands at the feet of Upson who shoots straight through Superkelv who again has a question mark over a goal he’s let in.  Shit!

The Stoke love-in has restarted in the commentary box and suddenly they are the unluckiest team in the world though to be fair they have a point as Walters cross to Jones is blatantly punched off his head by Jose who is grateful that Twattenburg didn’t see it.  There was nothing unlucky about what happened to Stoke next though as Cork won the ball off Nzonzi in midfield who got the red mist and chased after the Saints man and went to do him.  More by luck than judgement, his stamp didn’t make much contact with Cork’s leg but a red card came out anyway.  Yes, Corky made a bit of a meal of it but even if he hadn’t, Nzonzi still had to go.

Stoke responded to the red card by putting us under more and more pressure.  We of course should have responded by modifying our game plan and passing the ball about to make use of the extra man but we didn’t and were now struggling to get out of our half.  Meanwhile, Superkelv was flapping about like a budgie trying to get near throw-ins being bombed into our box.  Stoke used their bench with Crouch and Cameron Jerome coming on and basically played a 3-2-4 formation.

There’s been a lot of debate in football about diving recently and there was a classic example from Peter Crouch who lost the ball to Yoshida and decided to have a little dive.  It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that a six foot eight gangly streak of piss is always going to look like a complete wanker when he tries to dive.  Meanwhile, J-Rod picks up a booking for hoofing the ball at the goal after the whistle had blown which is insignificant now but not later.

It’s sub time with Fox coming on for Shaw as a straight swap and then Frazer appearing in place of Punch which is a bit too negative for my liking but at least it’s another big lad coming on.  It’s all Stoke now as we reach the last ten minutes with Superkelv still flapping and missing and Crouch flicking on a long ball to Jerome who is a) offside and b) has already been booked.  The whistle goes and he lobs it into the net which according to J-Rod’s incident of about 5 minutes ago, gets him a (2^nd) yellow card but not in the eyes of the Twatt who decides that this one doesn’t warrant it.

We are in the 90^th minute but there are 7 extra ones to go as the ball gets bombed up to Crouch who cushions it with a large suggestion of handball back to Jerome who absolutely mullers it into the top corner from 30 yards.  It’s an unbelievable strike to be fair, similar to that Tony Yeboah one that’s always up there in those ‘100 best goals ever’ features.  Fuck me, what a goal.

We have just the one scare in the seven minutes that remain as Crouch gets his head on a free kick and heads at Superkelv who for some reason, flaps it out into the middle of a crowded goal mouth and it’s pure luck that it falls to the Man from Japan who hacks it away.  Full time and 3-3.

Again I’m wondering where to start with this one.  We would have snapped their hand off for a point at the start of play but there is a feeling of ‘two points dropped’ which stems from the J-Rod and Guly misses at 3-1 which immediately went to 3-2 and the red card.  However, Stoke totally deserved their draw and we didn’t do enough in the second half to close the game out which puts us in the company of all the other teams in Stoke's unbeaten home run.  Against the ten men we should have tried to keep the ball a bit better but we didn’t and invited Stoke onto us at every opportunity.  Overall though, it’s a good point and you can see why they don’t lose at home.  The pressure they put you under is intense and our lads can be proud of the way they stood up to it.  The selection in defence was spot on and Guly had a fantastic game down the left hand side (miss aside).  This was predictably the tone taken from Nigel’s post match interview whereas Pulis predictably concentrated on Jack Cork’s role in Nzonzi’s sending off.  How dare he just lie there while your player tries to stamp on him.  I know he’s just trying to get him off on appeal but fucking hell, he lost his rag and went to do him and missed… oh yeah, let him off because he missed.  Also of course, anyone remember Huth stamping on Suarez' chest earlier in the season?  Regardless of whether the little shit deserved it or not, Pulis is probably trying to avoid Stoke getting a totally undeserved reputation for stamping on people.

Having said that Nigel got the team right, an area where I believe Nigel got it wrong was in goal.  We may as well have not had a keeper in the 2^nd half as he claimed nothing and saved nothing either.  Obviously he had no chance with the 3^rd goal but the second is dodgy but more than that, it’s the general flapping about.  Boruc was signed as the Number 1 keeper and it’s now time to get him in the side to see what he can do.  I don’t care what his faults are… all I know is that he is a better keeper than Davis and a better keeper than Gazza and needs to be playing – now!

Next up is a New Years Day fixture against Arsenal who have just torn Newcastle a new arsehole to the tune of 7-3 with Theo Walcott, already a member of the ‘Bastard Club’ scoring a hat-trick in his latest attempt to get Wenger to play him up front.  I guess the question is… ‘who will Luke Shaw be playing for?’.   I hope he’s in the side or the rumour mill will have a sodding field day.  Oh great, the transfer window is about to open to the internet should probably be avoided at all costs.

Results on Saturday meant we dropped back into the bottom 3 so we need to come out in the Arsenal match, forget the fact that we got dicked 6-1 at their place and that typically, as with the start of the season, we’re playing them when they’re flying but why not.  Bring it on.

Happy New Year Everyone (except Arsene Wenger)

Premier League Match 18 - Fulham 1 Southampton 1

Someone who thinks he should be playing for someone better than Fulham

The Boxing Day fixture this year is away at Fulham and was put in jeopardy by a very predictable strike by London Transport.  Fair play to Fulham for declaring that they would carry on regardless which is the same attitude they had when they got universal condemnation for wanting to put up a statue of Michael Jackson.  I know that I mentioned that in the report on the game at SMS but I make no apology for mentioning again, something that I really can’t believe.

It’s been an odd season for Fulham so far – thy lost some influential players int he summer in Dembele, Dempsey and Murphy but didn’t initially seem to be too affected by it and had some decent results.  A gradual slide down the league has happened though and they will be beginning to cast glances over their shoulder should they lose a couple more.... one of which would hopefully be today.  They still have some decent players left though in Schwarzer, Hangeland and of course, Dimitar Berbatov who also carries with him, the deserved reputation of being an arrogant twt.  Also in the ranks are non-footballer Steve Sidwell and ex-Saints Chris Baird who has been reinvented as a defensive midfielder since he left us, post Whisky George’s playoff losing promotion bid in 2007.  They also have Phillippe Senderos who is one of those strange anomalies you sometimes get in football.  I’ve seen better centre halves playing against us in League 1 than this clown but somehow, he’s forged a career playing in the Premier League and I don’t know how – he must have a really good agent or be on about £3.50 a week.

Nigel made just the one change to our starting line up with Steven Davis coming into the side in place of Mayuka which presumably means that Gaston will be stuck out on the wing again and you are immediately wondering who is going to get up to support Sir Rickie up front.  The Steeeeve bench experiment has been abandoned and so James Ward-Prowse is back, alongside the usual suspects such as Big Jos, Guly, J-Rod, Mayuka and Frazer.

We start off badly as Fulham burst down our left as Punch and Cork conspire to give the ball away and give Rodallega a run.  He  gets free of any Clyne shaped interference and slides it across the top of the penalty area to Sidwell who is confused by the need to kick the ball rather than an opponent and fires just wide when he really should have hit the target.

We survive another 5 minutes before Reither bombs down our left behind Shaw who has no cover from anyone as Gaston has just let the fullback run.  The cross is hard and low across the six yard line and somewhere in London, a lumberjack chops down a tree and shouts ‘TIMBERRRR’ which is Kelvin’s cue to fall over in instalments in the general direction of the ball.  The falling tree can only flap the ball straight to Berbatov who isn’t going to miss from there.  1-0 and the scorer whips off his shirt to display the slogan ‘Keep Calm and Pass Me the Ball’.  It was obviously more important for the arrogant twat to do this than to worry about playing 82 minutes on a yellow card.  Still, Superkelv will know not to pass him the ball now.

We are crap, no two ways about it and Kacinunpronounceablename gets away down the left and crosses to Berbatov who arrogantly heads wide when he really should have worked the goalkeeper.  Finally we do something up the other end but it needs a wayward pass from Mr.Arrogant to set Gaston away and he gets into the box before being crowded out (with the help of an oafish shove from Senderos) but the loose ball finds its way to Corky so you know he’s not going to score but he does at least force Schwarzer into a save.

The next action involves Punch who receives a ball out on the right wing and lays it off.  You’ve got time to go and fill a bath by repeatedly boiling a kettle by the time Berbatov arrogantly slides in and carts Punch up in the air.  It’s a yellow card tackle all day long and bye bye Berbatov, no one can pass you the ball because you’ve been sent off you arrogant prick.  Oh right, not even a word from the ref.   Back in the day when a player was on a yellow card, in the event of another foul by the same player, referees used to be able to weigh both incidents up and decide whether the two offences warranted a dismissal.  The booking rule was clarified however so that bookable offences should be considered in isolation but there’s obviously a caveat along the lines of “unless the first booking was for a celebration or it was given to a Billy Big Bollocks player”.  The arrogant twat should have walked, simple as that.

The last ten minutes see Saints putting Fulham under pressure without looking like scoring with Morgan dragging a shot wide and we had a spot of pinball in the Fulham box which was caused by Jack Cork burgling Riise who was trying to let a ball run out of play.  I can’t believe any Fulham player doesn’t watch his back with Michael Jackson in close proximity.    A couple of driving runs from Luke Shaw cause some consternation to the Fulham defence who are confused because he isn’t playing for Arsenal and as the rain came down, it was half time.

We started the second half in positive fashion and had the first shot as Punch came in off of the left wing and drilled just wide of the far post with Schwarzer not interested.  Punch and Gaston are swapping wings well and are getting space and Gaston’s chipped pass is just too far ahead of Sir Rickie who has totally lost the lumbering Senderos.  There is always the scope for calamity though and Luke Shaw makes what I think is his first ever mistake by allowing a harmless looking crossfield ball to go under his foot to Dejagar who with no composure whatsoever, cuts in and shoots and comes within two yards of giving away a throw in on the far side.

We simply do not look like scoring and Nigel simply does not look like making an attacking change to the team.  Punch gets carted up in the air by Riise which earns fatty a booking and we have a head in hands moment as Shaw gets down the wing and crosses, Jose flicks on and Sir Rickie smashes in a volley with his left foot which flies about a yard over the bar.  With 15 to go, finally a change as Steven Davis makes way for J-Rod.  The Rod goes to a kind of left wing position and Gaston is freed to go and play up front with Sir Rickie.

A chain of events are then kicked off by the fact that Senderos is complete shite.  First of all he balloons a free header up in the air when he uses the corner of his head instead of the front.  This kicks off a bit of pinball from which Punch wins a corner.  Gaston’s corner from the left is knocked away by a flailing arm belonging to Chris Baird and we are gifted a penalty.  Sir Rickie has hardly kicked a ball in the right direction in the previous 85 minutes but we need him to do so now... bang, Schwarzer gets something on it (and we all shit ourselves) and it ricochets up into the roof of the net for 1-1.

Personally I’ll take a point at this juncture but Saints are up for it and The Great Gaston is back as he turns past Riise and nutmegs Sidwell before hammering in a left blast from miles out which Schwarzer parries up in the air and manages to grab before it crosses the line.  There are no cameras angles available to conclusively prove whether it went in or not but I suspect that it didn’t. 

It wouldn’t be Saints though without allowing Fulham the chance to undo all our hard work as a routine ball up to Berbatov causes panic and falling over in our defence and the ball breaks to Sidwell how imagines it’s someone’s head and volleys a screamer just wide.  To be fair and much though I don’t like him, it’s a brilliant effort.  Then it’s the referee’s turn as Clyne breathes on Frei who flops to the ground allowing Fat Boy Riise to fire in a free kick which Hangeland meets and heads comfortably-ish wide.

93 and a half minutes on the clock and it’s now safe to bring Guly on and no sooner than Gaston departs then it’s full time and we got the rarest of things, an away point and to be honest, I’m quite happy with that and we deserved it.   Having said that, I thought we were pretty dire up until about 20 minutes to go when we went for it a bit more and put Fulham under pressure.  Good players make mistakes under pressure and so does Phillippe Senderos.   Our improvement more or less coincided with moving Gaston back into his best role just behind the striker.  The defence again stood up well to what was thrown at them with both centre backs outstanding and once more, Morgan and Corky did what needed to be done defensively in midfield.  Steven Davis was a bit of a mystery to me and didn’t seem to add much at all to the proceedings while up front, Sir Rickie had a shocker but was horribly isolated and Gaston and Punch flitted in and out until the last 20 when they really came to the fore.  Behind all this, the goalkeeping issue has risen it’s ugly head again and with Stoke away being our next game, I think it’s time for Artur Boruc to be given a run of games.  It wasn’t just the goal today (though that was diabolical), it was the general ‘nailed to the goal line’ approach.

Martin Jol gave one of his superb press interviews afterwards where his voice goes so deep that it drops out of range for most people.  Before he dropped out, he said something about being like a thunderstorm which I assume is some sort of reference about being loud and wet.    He was quite honest in his assessment of the game though and I can’t imagine Chris Baird is going to have a fun time in training the next time they are in.

We should be extremely grateful for the Hand of Baird as until that point, it was really looking like one of those games where we could still be playing now and not have scored.  The intention today was obviously to win the midfield battle and keep Fulham quiet but with Superkelv having his arthritis moment so early on, we really needed to be creating much more than we actually did, bearing in mind that Fulham were nothing special and there for the taking.

As mentioned earlier, next up we have Stoke away who are turning into a very good side, especially at home where they haven’t lost for nearly a year.  Our players will know that they have to be right on it for 100 minutes and tackle, head and block absolutely anything that comes near them.    Like I said, I see Boruc starting and also feel that Jos Hooiveld will come in but that would be more contentious given how well Jose and Maya are playing at the moment.  A point here would be a major result but you know what, for some strange reason I fancy us for all three.  Bring it on.

Premier League Match 17 - Southampton 0 Sunderland 1

... and the random shirt pulled from the kitbag is.....

We were coming into the Sunderland home game on the back of a mid-season break which we were given so Chelsea could bugger off to the other side of the world and lose another tournament.  So, since we last played, all our relegation rivals had played once and in the case of Reading and Sunderland, twice so it was with some surprise that we found ourselves at kick off time, not in the relegation zone.

Saints in the media for the past two weeks has mainly been about Adam Lallana and the extent of his injury and with the club predictably saying nothing, those ‘in the know’ (I use that phrase with complete scorn) have been saying anything from 3 weeks to a year out.  One thing for certain was that he was out today and we have had two weeks to come up with a cunning plan to deal with this.  The plan was obviously going to be either Gaston on the left wing and someone else up with Sir Rickie or a straight like for like swap on the left wing.  Also in the media in our break, has been that Luke Shaw is certain to join Arsenal in January, Jason Puncheon is off to West Ham with Sir Rickie as Fat Sam looks to replace Andy Carroll… oh and of course, Gaston is off to Fiorentina…. Never a dull day and never a grain of truth.  Feeding the frenzy as far as Punch is concerned is of course, The Daily Echo who told the world what it knew anyway, that Punch is approaching the last 6 months of his deal.

In the ground, 2000 travelling Mackems made for a full looking ground – it’s nice to be visited by a proper club with proper supporters as opposed to say, Reading.  I applaud that they bring down 2000 people three days before Christmas in shite weather which, when you think about it, is probably sun tan weather for them.  Talking of fans, there appear to be a number of Saints fans dressed in Santa suits… as my teenage daughter would say to me… “It’s just wrong!”

Bloody hell! say 29,000 Saints fans as the team is read out and Emmanuel Mayuka is in the team to replace Adam.  Bloody hell! Says everyone again as Steve de Ridder is on the bench.  Superkelv kept his place in goal for his 600^th League appearance and I’m sure that the Mackems would be delighted as he was with them in the Premier League about 6 years ago, when over a season, he let in nearly 600 goals.  Sunderland have had fitness issues over two of their better players but annoyingly, Steven Fletcher (who has scored nearly all their goals this season) and Adam Johnson (who was a player I hoped we’d sign) were both fit.  A player I don’t like is Sebastian Larsson who is a decent player but he’s one of those who spends more time moaning at the referee and pulling faces than he actually spends playing football.

Squad rotation means that Sir Alex Ferguson has allowed Howard Webb out on loan to someone else today and he’s the man in the middle.  Howard gets the game going and immediately, a ball forward from Danny Rose sees Sessegnon turn his marker with his first touch and hit a shot from miles out which Superkelv has to turn away for a corner.  We survive the corner and can then reflect that it wasn’t the greatest of starts.  We draw level on chances created soon afterwards as Shaw plays a great ball outside Gardiner to put Sir Rickie away on the left and he crosses low to the inrushing Punch who seems undecided as to which foot to use to hit a first time shot and eventually kind of opts for neither and it goes lamely wide for a goal kick.

It develops into a tough game with Saints trying to get Mayuka away behind the defence but our efforts fall down on a stream of overhit passes.  Sunderland competing well in midfield means that we are soon going long upto Sir Rickie and he’s not winning much against Cuellar and O’Shea who are the definition of ‘hard but fair’.  If he does win anything in the air then Mayuka is usually too far away from him but the man from Zambia does make a positive contribution on the quarter hour as Gaston plays the ball up to the Zambian who lays it off first time, just as Cuellar forgets ‘hard but fair’ for a minute and trashes him.  Sir Rickie eventually hits the free kick hard and low and it flicks off the heel of a defender and goes about a foot wide.

It’s a Uruguay – Zambia combination again next as Gaston plays a 1-2 with Mayuka before firing in a low shot which Mignolet gets 100% behind and pushes away.  The same combination is at it again a while later with this time, Gaston’s shot always going over the bar.

So, it’s all us really and it’s pissing down and to be honest, it has the look of a 0-0 draw about it.  As I was travelling to the game in the car, Dave Merrington had said that a draw would be better than a defeat which is remarkable insight and he’s a legend so I’m relatively happy as I can’t see Sunderland scoring which if course, they then do as Johnson tries the left wing and gets himself free for a pass from McClean, feeds inside to Sessegnon who scuffs his shot but it turns out to be a perfect pass to Fletcher who can’t really miss and he doesn’t.  Bollocks.  The goal has a large element of fortune about it but it’s decent in that Sunderland got both wingers out on the left which gave Johnson the room to get away from Clyne.

The only incident of note in what remains of the first half is Sir Rickie playing Mayuka through and he has the chance to lash it left footed but instead opts to look for the foul and goes down under a challenges from Cuellar which provokes all kinds of predictable ‘get up you diving bastard’ abuse from Gardiner.  On first viewing, I thought he was looking for it and that it was a dive and I had no problem with Webb not giving a penalty.  TV replays later prove that that he nudged the ball past Cuellar who then clumsily took him out so it would definitely have been a penalty at Old Trafford.  The rest of the half is only notable for Larsson getting the booking for dissent that he’d been working on since about the tenth minute.

It’s half time I’ve received a text message from a mate of mine over in Dublin who is asking me to get a programme for his son who has been in and out of hospital for the past three years.  Saints are of course now selling programmes from the food outlets so the only way for me to get one at this time is to get in the queue along with everyone else.  Fifteen minutes of watching blokes get served beer ends with me not getting served beer but getting a programme and getting a look from the guy behind the counter like I’m some special type of wanker.

Like in the first half, there is an exchange of chances at the start of the second with Shaw bursting forward and setting up Sir Rickie to fire over the bar from a long way out and then Gardiner getting forward down the right and hitting a low shot which flashed in front of the lunging Sessegnon who this time, didn’t manage to slice it to one of his own players with an open goal to aim at.

All in all though, it doesn’t even look like happening for us.  Gaston is fading badly and his head has gone down, Mayuka is having a shocker now and looks like he’s playing in concrete boots and Punch has not got past Danny Rose once and is playing like a man who knows he’s not going to do anything today.  We’re at the hour mark and it’s time for the first sub.  Everyone knows that Mayuka is going off and on comes Steeeeeve to replace him and move to the left wing, allowing Gaston to come inside.  From a tactical point of view it makes sense but is anyone expecting a player who hardly pulled up trees in the Championship to change the game?

De Ridder bursts past the full back a couple of times which looks promising but leads to nothing and so it’s time for another injection of something from the bench as it’s a straight swap with Steven Davis coming on for Morgan who has had a shithouse of a game and has been largely bypassed or outfought.  Guly comes on for Punch with Gaston now being moved to the right.  It’s interesting that Guly doesn’t get much stick when he comes on and me theory is that no one thinks he can actually make things worse.

The closest we come to scoring is a Steeeeeve corner which is met by Jose about ten yards out but his header is shit and going wide anyway before it hits a defender and goes out for a corner.  As the play gets stretched, Sunderland break occasionally and win a free kick following a Steve Davis foul.  Gardiner takes about 10 minutes to take the free kick but when he does, it’s straight down Superkelv’s throat but he drops it between his legs and then sits on it.  How relieved must he have been not to arse it into the net in front of the Sunderland fans who used to ridicule him.

It’s all hoofball from here on in but it’s hoofball with no conviction and it really is saying that “this is all we’ve got left”.  It’s just heading practice for O’Shea and Cuellar though it does bring one last chance as Sir Rickie tees up Guly who scuffs it wide.  Shiiiiiite!!!

It was a bit of a relief when the final whistle went to be honest.  I felt a bit like a dementia patient who had been put of his misery, having spent the last 20 years soiling his trousers.  It was crap… everything about it was crap so where do we start.   This may come out as a rant.

Too many players had poor games today and in fact it’s easier to mention those who didn’t – Superkelv, Jose, Maya, Shaw and Cork.  So, six out of the eleven were under par and so was the manager.  Two weeks to come up with a solution to the Lallana problem and the answer is to play a player who has not started a game all season and move our most creative player away from where he does his best work.  Mayuka started ok but seemed to lose the plot when the penalty decision went against him and from that moment on he was woeful, summoning the spirit of Ali Dia with a first touch that couldn’t have been any heavier if it was made of lead.  Gaston featured in all our good work but in the second half he seemed to let his head go down and continually gave the ball away.  Nigel said that he plays on the left for Uruguay and that may be, but he doesn’t have the pace to play the role out wide in the Premier League and in a 4-4-2 which is what we played until the first sub, he has to do too much tracking back.  He kind of half does this so is not effective defensively and is then too deep to get involved in attacks.  It reminded me of when we occasionally used to try shoe-horning Matt le Tiss into a 4-4-2 formation on the wing.  It doesn’t work.  I know Gaston is more of an athlete than Tiss but then so was Douglas Bader.

One thing that screamed at me when you look at this game as a whole, was that we have a decent enough starting 11 which has done well the past 6 matches but delve into the squad and there really isn’t much there.  I think Steven Davis is a decent player but doesn’t really fit in to the way we want to play at present but other than that, we are struggling.  As a said before, Mayuka hasn’t played and de Ridder hasn’t even been amongst the 7 subs all season and yet today, he was the first sub used.  Neither have even been playing for the Under 21s as overage players so neither would have been sharp in the slightest.  Steeeeve hardly played in the Championship and though he has the requisite pace, as we all know, his final ball is shite even when he plays on the right… so how the fuck was he going to be any good playing on the left in a higher division.  To be fair to the bloke, he did look more likely to make something happen than anyone in the last 20 minutes when we were particularly clueless.

We scored a load of goals last year from set pieces and everyone knows how important they are.  OK, Danny Fox took them all and he’s not in the side but today we at various times, had corners and free kicks being crossed into the box by no fewer than 5 players… Punch, Gaston, Morgan, Steeeeve and Steve Davis and none of them were any bloody good.  If you’re looking for someone to play on the left wing, maybe Danny Fox is the man.

I felt a bit sorry for Sir Rickie, trying to play when getting shite service, no support and up against two hardened centre halves in Cuellar and O’Shea.  Usually he gets service from Gaston, Adam and Punch but one was injured and two were off colour today.  I’m sure that I saw Punch getting on the Sunderland bus in Danny Rose’s pocket because he didn’t beat him once.  Rose was too quick and Punch seemed to know that and so all he had was cutting inside onto his left foot which Sudnerland were very switched on to.

The season is shaping up horribly like our last season in the Prem in 2004/5 in that we are playing a lot of winnable home games in November and December and not winning enough of them.  Back then we had Steve Wigley as manager and were plumbing managerial ineptitude only ever beaten by Jan Poortvliet.  I am not of course suggesting Nigel Adkins is in their company but he had a bad one today, as did virtually everyone.  I was looking for a equalizer more in hope than expectation from about 55 minutes onwards and was not remotely surprised that we never looked like getting it.  Mignolet made one save, all match.  There’s no doubt that Sunderland nicked it with a bit of jammy goal and they worked Superkelv about as much as we worked Mignolet but once the goal went in they did a great job at defending it, got the points and fair enough.  The good news in all this (and there is some) is that we’re still winning our quest to be slightly less shit than three other clubs…. Long may Wigan, QPR and Reading continue to be more shit than Southampton.

We now have 3 games in a week, away at Fulham who are very good at home, away at Stoke who are very good at Rugby and Wrestling and at home to Arsenal who have hit a bit of form just in time to play us.  Guess what…. we need some points.

Footnote:  This report is dedicated to my friend Robert Saunders who is an exiled Mackem living in Southampton.  He will be so gobby as a result of this that I will have to wait about 6 months before I talk to him again.  Bastard.

Premier League Match 16 - Southampton 1 Reading 0

Brian McDermott had a great fall....

This weekend sees Reading return to the scene of quite possibly, the biggest robbery since the one with Ronnie Biggs and the train.  I am of course referring to the game at SMS last season when they came, parked the bus and mugged us big time and in effect, won the Championship.  I’m being a bit of an arre by describing it like that as in truth; they did a job on us and got what they came for.  When the dust had settled and both teams had got promoted though, I did ponder how Reading would win games playing that style of football.  So, here we are with both teams in the relegation zone.

Reading haven’t changed the team around too much since being promoted.  They have however, got a new Russian owner, Anton Zingarevich who looks about 25 and has a billionaire father so I expect it’s all his own money and it’s 100% legit by Premier League rules which states something along the lines of not being allowed to own a club on behalf of someone else.  If you look for it in the rulebook, it’ll be in the Pompey Appendix.  The big post-takeover signing was Pavel Pogrebnyak whose 10 years as a journeyman striker was overlooked when he scored a few goals for Fulham at the tail end of last year.  This out of character scoring spree prompted Readingski to throw stupid money per week at him.  He’s been a bit of a flop and other new buys such as ex-Saint Danny Guthrie, have hardly been picked in preference of players in the Championship side who I, even as a supporter of another club, know are not good enough for this league.

Saints had a couple of issues with The Great Gaston having flown to Uruguay and back during the week for a family bereavement and a shoulder injury to Paulo Gazzaniga which would see a recall for one of Superkelv or the Holy Goalie.  In the event, J-Rod was put up front with Sir Rickie and the winner of the prize to go in goal for this week was Superkelv.  For Reading, the Russian vanity buy was injured and the team had a lot of last years players with Jason Roberts (not good enough for Prem), Mikele Leigertwood (same) and Jobi McAnuff (same) still in the side.

The first notable action of the game saw some jostling for position at a throw in and Jason Roberts clock that it was 17 year old Luke Shaw behind him and deciding to be the ‘experienced pro’ and throwing an elbow in Shaw’s chest on the blind side of the ref but right in front of the Kingsland.  No reaction from the youngster and away went Luke to set up the first chance with a deep hanging cross which bobbled around before falling to J-Rod who hooked it wide when he really should have hit the target from about 10 yards.  Also missing the target was Sir Rickie who found himself free on the left hand corner of the penalty area before volleying well wide.

Saints were playing all the football at this point whereas Reading were content to hoof it up towards Roberts who backed into whatever defender was behind him and then threw himself forwards as if he’d been pushed.  Quite pathetic.  Alternatively, it was the ball over the top to le Fondre who obviously has never been taught the offside rule.  A flowing move by Saints which heavily involved Punch eventually found Clyne surging down the right and his cross hit the onrushing Morgan somewhere kind of knee / thigh-ish and bounced wide with Federici not getting near it.  From the angle I was at, it looked like a goal and I performed the ‘stand up – goaaaaal – sit down sheepishly – feel like a right wanker’ manoeuvre.   We were applauding again a few minutes later as Sir Rickie put Lallana in but his snap shot was comfortably held by the keeper.  All this and only 10 minutes gone.

The chances kept come as some neat interplay in involving Sir Rickie and Lallana saw a J-Rod effort blocked back to Sir Rickie who curled one for the top corner but it went in the middle of the goal and Federici pulled out one for the cameras, making a simple save look difficult..  Reading managed to fashion a chance for themselves when Roberts gave up trying to win free kicks for a second and laid a decent ball into Tabb who drove on from midfield whilst our defender ran alongside him, eventually shooting at Superkelv who should have done better than just palming it back to him.  The drama wasn’t over as Tabb went over with Corky in attendance but no penalty.  Fair play to the Reading man who didn’t appeal but there was the slightest of contact there.

There is a new chant that has found its way into the Northam End’s vocabulary this season.  It’s not a complicated little ditty and it goes “shit refs, we always get shit refs”.  As well as Mr Moss was doing in not falling for all of Jason Roberts acting, he had a shocker when Punch headed in a Lallana corner and he gave a push against Maya Yoshida.  It looked soft in real time but on the replay, you can see that Federici pushed Yoshida into a Reading defender who of course, then looked like he’d been pushed by the Saints man.

Time for an unlucky injury as J-Rod fouled Tabb who as he fell, landed on the side of Adam Lallana’s leg and obviously pinged something in his knee.  After lengthy treatment, it was no good so of he went with Gaston coming on to take his place on the left wing.

As half time approached, another Saints corner caused havoc as Yoshida stood far enough from Federici to not get shoved over and got his head to Punch’s corner and a combination of Cummings and Ramirez saw the ball loop up in the air before Sir Rickie lashed it horribly side on the volley.  Reading’s next corner very nearly got them what would have been a totally undeserved lead as Morrison headed it back across and the inventively named Hal Robson-Kanu headed against a post with no one on the Saints payroll moving a muscle.

It’s one of my favourite pastimes to wonder what the half time briefings are like.  I imagine that Nigel would have been quite pleased and “more of the same” and “together as one” and all that whereas whatever McDermott would have said, it would have been coming out of the mouth of someone who looks like an egg with glasses on.  Seriously though, what would he have said....”keep hitting Roberts with it early and he’ll moan at the ref and win us a free kick”.

It was all Saints again after the restart with Reading defending very deep and us camped on the edge of the box passing the ball about trying to find a shooting opening which eventually came and Punch’s shot was shovelled wide by Federici.  We’re knocking on the door again soon after as J-Rod spins onto a Sir Rickie knockdown and shoots just wide.

You hope it’s coming and I expect the Reading fans knew it was coming and just after the hour mark it did as Sir Rickie expertly sent Clyne away from Shorey down the right and his pass infield allowed Punch to take it in his stride and fire it right footed across Federici and in off the far post for a completely deserved 1-0 lead.

For the next five minutes we battered them, especially down the left with Shaw and Gaston but found no way through and Reading managed to fashion a couple of chances when a long ball from the right caught Clyne out a bit and his header dropped kindly for McAnuff to curl well wide.  Yoshida was having a good game but he still has a mistake in him and he made one when allowing Roberts to keep the ball out on the right and the eventual cross was met by le Fondre but headed well wide.

Our next substitution saw J-Rod being removed and Guly coming on to a mixed reception of cheers and boos.  No one will say so from the club so allow me – if you boo your own players then you’re a twat of the highest order and please stay away from St Mary’s on a match day.  Guly and Artur Boruc and whoever else you want to get your teeth into, play for our club and they want to contribute to us winning games.  If you think that booing them helps then it’s you that needs the help quite frankly.  Just fuck off.

Guly got himself involved and combined with Ramirez and Shaw before picking up the ball on the left hand corner of the box, spotting Federici off his line and curling a decent effort over the keeper and onto the roof of the net.

The Chuckle Brothers sit behind me and the whining and the ‘trying to be funny but failing miserably’ idiocy lands in my right ear.  Behind me and to the left is a Neanderthal Moron who I have mentioned before who yells things like ‘DAAAAAAAAVIS” at the top of his voice.  I’m thinking of recommending him to Pompey as Director of Football in a technical capacity.  Clive Woodward has nothing on this guy.  We have the ball and we are 1-0 up and we are inviting Reading to come and get it by keeping the ball and passing it – it’s good stuff and we’re keeping the ball quite comfortably but our technical guru yells “GERRITT FORWAAAAAARD!!!” before illustrating his point in simple terms with a “FORWAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!!!” before attempting to convince deaf people to hear again with a “GERRITT UP THERRRRE!!!”.  It’s the stuff of a technically brilliant mind it really is, so he must have been raging inside as we passed our way up the pitch with Corky at the centre of it before he put Guly through and his shot was straight at Federici and was eventually cleared.  I really wanted it to go in because:

a) we’d be 2-0 and the game would be over,

b) the Guly haters would look rather silly

c) I could have turned round and asked the Technical Guru what he thought

I realise that a technical answer along the lines of ‘UUUUGH’ would have come back.

Reading managed to win a couple of free kicks on the dying minutes due to crap refereeing in general but both were cleared with a degree of comfort and so daylight robbery was avoided.

Final whistle and three more points and we appear to have vaulted up the league to the heady heights of 15^th.  Due to the final score only being 1-0 and with our natural predilection for chucking goals in our own net, it was a bit nerve wracking but when you look at it in the cold light of day, we were miles better than Reading and it would have been an absolute scandal if they’d pinched a point.  There were very good performances all over the park but especially I thought, in the centre of midfield where Jack Cork continues to be the man who in an unsung way, is making our entire season.  Punch will get all the attention and the credit due to his goal and fair enough but everyone contributed.  Punch and Clyne down the right were superb as usual but a major eye opener for me was down the left with how well Shaw played and how much more he got forward with Ramirez in front of him instead of Lallana... food for thought for Nigel there.  At the back, Yoshida and Fonte restricted le Fondre and Roberts to next to nothing and today, they looked like a Rotherham striker and a Has-been (or a Never-Was-Any-Good-Anyway). 

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I was very pleased with how poor Jason Roberts was and how he just tried to con free kicks out of the ref all game.  As the ref ignored him he just moaned more but you can see why he plays like that when virtually all of Reading’s threat will come from set pieces as they have nothing else, either down the wings and there sure as hell isn’t going to be anything creative from the centre of midfield.  Though they won the league last year and fair play for that, they don’t appear to have improved at all but they do have a manager who looks like an egg with glasses on.  A word for the Reading fans who were very quiet all game, not even bothering to sing that fucking annoying 106 song which did make them sound like retards.  It’d be a bit like us chanting about winning the JPT three years ago.

For us, this was a game we had to win and we did.  It’s a good sign that we’ve had two “shit or bust” matches this season (QPR away being the other) and in both games we’ve been “the shit” and managed to win.  This season we are looking at finding three teams who are worse than us and in QPR and Reading, we’ve found two.  Our next match is at home to Sunderland when we will hopefully find a third.  We have to wait two weeks for this game though as next week we were due to be away at Stamford Bridge, trying to win a match whilst the opposition fans throw insults at their own manager.  Chelsea are however, in the World Club Cup so we have to wait so we may have dropped down the table a bit by the time that comes around but that doesn’t take away from the facts that we’re playing well and winning the games we have to win and that our manager doesn’t look like an egg with glasses on.

Premier League Match 15 - Liverpool 1 Southampton 0

Saints prepare for Anfield

The first Saints game I ever saw was in 1976 and at the end of that season we won the FA Cup and the second game I saw was at Wembley in the Charity Shield against Liverpool which of course meant that they’d won the league with a team containing great names such as Ray Clemence, Emlyn Hughes, Steve Heighway, Ray Kennedy, Kevin Keegan and John Toshack who scored the winning goal in said Charity Shield encounter.  All the kids I knew whose Dad didn’t enforce the ‘support your local team’ mantra, chose Liverpool and nothing much changed until the start of the 90s when Man United finally caught up and took over.   I used to think that I hated Liverpool but I realised that it was the ‘glory hunter’ supporters I hated and not the club itself.  Once the decline started in the 90’s the same supporters became very irritating with their excuses and refusal to accept that the glory days were over.

The Liverpool of today are managed by Brendan Rodgers who is trying to do things the right way and introduce a culture of passing football with youth team products such as Sterling and Wisdom mixing in with established players like Gerrard and big money buys like Suarez who is both a brilliant player and a horrible little shite.  Hopefully for them, the days of spending ridiculous money on average players is over though it still makes me chuckle that they spent a combined £75 million on Andy Carroll, Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing.

All the Saints build-up has been to do with the fact that Nigel Adkins was in the youth team at Liverpool in the early 80s and Sir Rickie is a massive Liverpool fan with the liver bird tattooed on his shoulder.  Also in the news has been the Gangnam Style dancing dog mascot which seems to be popular with everyone.  I’m led to believe that the dog is over 17 so Arsene Wenger won’t be signing him for Arsenal – just Luke Shaw who will also be moving to Chelsea and Man City.... Yawn!  Liverpool were of course the team who were going to sign Gaston Ramirez, prompting Mark Lawrenson’s classic “he’ll never sign for Southampton” insightful analysis.  Nigel dropped hints that Gazza would once again be in goal and was true to his hints as we were unchanged.  Liverpool were making a big song and dance about having Lucas Leiva fit again and it’s a classic case of a team struggling when a player is out injured and said player becomes a world beater in his absence when a couple of years ago, he was derided as one of the causes of Liverpool’s downfall.

We started pretty well and had the first shot on goal as Sir Rickie bulldozed Lucas off the ball and hammered in a shot from 25 yards which curled away comfortably wide.  We weren’t to know at the time but that was about as good as it got for the opening 45 minutes as we had a catalogue of Liverpool chances.  As much as I would like to say we repelled them with solid defending, the fact is that it was almost entirely down to luck and crap finishing that prevented Liverpool taking the lead.

Jonjo Shelvey really isn’t very good and maybe it was because of that that none of our midfielders tracked him as he regularly began to crop up in dangerous positions.  It was he who latched onto a poor defensive header from Yoshida but he showed the form that won him a ridiculously undeserved England call up and scuff his volley into the ground for an easy Gazza save.  In the next attack, Shelvey spread play out to the right to where Glen Johnson had enough space to build a small town and he fed the little shit who ghosted past a pathetic Yoshida tackle before finding Johnson again who couldn’t turn it goalwards.

It’s all Liverpool and around the twenty minute mark we are indebted to a Gerrard shot hitting Morgan in front of Gazza and then we were grateful for Shelvey being Shelvey as Gerrard put him through.  He should have scored but he had to chase his first touch before running out of angle.  Even though the shot was weak, Gazza still manage to parry it out in front of the goal, just to see if someone was running in.  Luckily there wasn’t.  Then it was the turn of Suarez to test Gazza from a tight angle when he did well to get a shot away considering he was towing a Japanese man who was holding his shirt.  No worries about Suarez being awarded a penalty for that though.  More abysmal defending later as neither Fonte nor Yoshida took charge of a hoof forward from Reina, allowing Suarez to knock it past Gazza but credit to Yoshida for getting back and smuggling it out of play.

Just for a change we got a free kick up the other end when Lallana actually touched the ball and got fouled but Sir Rickie’s free kick was never going to trouble anyone.  Following that brief interlude, normal service was resumed with constant Liverpool pressure and this time we got really lucky as Shelvey powered in a great strike from an angle and hit the inside of the far post before pinging back out.  There was no way that we were going to continue being this lucky though half time was approaching and you never know, somehow get in at 0-0 and we’ll be better in the second half.

We had a go at riding our luck again as Suarez hit a superb free kick which beat Gazza and came back off the bar.  The ball went out to Johnson on the right and we’d not marked up following the free kick and Agger met the cross with a really good header to give Liverpool a lead that they really didn’t deserve – my arse.  It has to be said though that Agger was stood in the middle of 4 of our defenders so it was some achievement to get a free header from there.

The half ended with some hope for the second 45 minutes as a Sir Rickie superbly brought down a Gazza goal kick and hammered in a right footed shot from 40 yards which but unfortunately Reina was watching and scrambled it wide.  Half time and the general concensus was that we were lucky to only be one down – no shit.  Dave Merrington said so and who am I to argue with him.  He also said we didn’t want to concede another goal before half time which is a quite brilliant piece of insight and analysis which is why he’s a legend.

Saints started the second half with Gaston playing a bit deeper and we did get a measure of control of the ball with Punch having a shot deflected wide and then Gaston optimistically trying his luck from somewhere near Everton’s ground and it flew over the bar.  Liverpool soon got to grips with things again and came pretty close to killing the game off when Enrique played a 1-2 with Suarez with more poor finishing, stabbed it wide when clean through.

Lucas was running the show – how bad is that? – but he was knackered and so Liverpool gave us a chance by bringing on Jordan Henderson who like Shelvey, has England caps.  He totally butchered one break away with a horrible first touch before the excellent Enrique brought a decent save out of Gazza with a driven shot at the near post.  Steven Davis came on for Cork in a more or less, like for like swap – calling it an attacking substitution is having a laugh to be honest.

J-Rod came on for the disappointing Punch but the next action was Suarez proving again, if proof were needed, that he’s a horrible cheating little shit as a fabulous Liverpool move ended with Gerrard firing in a cross which Suarez attempted to punch in the net.  Well spotted ref and a deserved booking which means he’s suspended for their trip to West Ham – I bet that Fat Sam is gutted.  He then missed a sitter which was presented to him by a crap Morgan pass across the back 4.  Final whistle – thank Christ that’s over.

I know we only lost 1-0 but we were shite, intimidated and beaten before we started.  Fuck knows why as Liverpool are hardly the 70s or 80s vintage – they are very very average as probably proven by the fact they only beat us 1-0 when we were shocking.  Maybe there was just a little too much fawning over Anfield which created a mindset that we didn’t really belong there like a bloody non-league club playing there in the FA Cup.  It is a wonderful ground and the best away ground I’ve ever been to but players aren’t supposed to be affected by thoughts like that, especially when you’re in the same division and only 4 points behind them (now 7).

Nigel as usual tried to focus on the positives which were basically, that we stayed in the game and didn’t get completely humped.  As positives go, that’s pretty lame.  It pales into insignificance though when compared to Brendan Rodgers assertion that horrible little shit Suarez was not cheating when he tried to punch the ball in the net.  I’d also question as to whether Liverpool were ‘magnificent’ as he claimed.

There has been some talk of our 3 games in a week being an issue but I  think it’s mental rather than physical tiredness.   Also, if we wanted to freshen it up – do we have the players on the bench who can come in without weakening the side?    I don’t think so aside from maybe Steven Davis, Big Jos and a keeper.  Again, this comes back to our summer recruitment and whilst I’m on that one, why did we sign Emmanuel Mayuka?  We were only really ever going to play with one up front this season and that was going to be Sir Rickie or maybe J-Rod so why sign Mayuka.  You could argue that you need an impact sub but having signed him and being 1-0 down with 10 minutes to go, why not play him to add some pace.  It worked a treat in the Villa home game and he’s not been seen since. Ok, he had a lamentable performance at Leeds in the Carling Cup but then, who didn’t?

I will repeat again that I think that the time to bring in Boruc (or even Superkelv) is now.  We have two home games coming up against Reading and Sunderland where we just simply cannot afford to throw points away.  As for today, well it was a shocker and we got what we deserved.  Losing at Anfield isn’t going to break our season but if we’re going to rock up at mid-table sides and not even give them a game because they were intimidating 20 years ago then we are going to have some fun when we visit Man United, Chelsea, Spurs etc.  That’s for later though, like I said, we have Reading up next at home and we have all sorts of reason for wanting to beat them, not least the mugging they gave us last year.

Premier League Match 14 - Southampton 1 Norwich 1

You two can fuck off back to Wochdale !

I find midweek games a pain in the arse..

Let me clarify that... I love midweek games once I’m in the ground but hate the hassle of getting there.  I am one of the poor unfortunates who rely on Southern Rail to get them to places on time and they are so bad that it is quite stressful wondering if I’m going to see the kick off.  The good news is that I will probably miss the mascot dog doing Gangnam Style and the annoying baldy bloke attempting to be funny.   Also stressful but in an amusing way, is getting all my gear ready and heading to work (in Brighton) on the train in the morning.  The scarf around my neck got me a (relatively) good natured ‘Scummer!’ shout from a passing Skate this morning as the train passed through bandit country near Havant.    I used to live near Havant with the joke being ‘Havant got a chippy, Havant got any decent pubs’ .  You can’t say ‘Havant got a football club’ because they have and if Pompey lose their court case to be allowed to buy Fratton Park, they may well have two.

We welcome Norwich to SMS this evening and irritatingly, they’ve picked up of late so it’ll be a really tough game, tougher I’m sure than QPR and Newcastle.  The build up has been all about the ex-Rochdale strike force of Holt and Lambert who have played in every division and are now in the Premier League and scoring goals.  Holt mouthed off earlier in the season about players like the two of them never getting a chance for England and of course, he was dead right.  I’ve seen some Saints fans reasoning that we should leave Sir Rickie out tonight as it’s 3 games in 7 days etc and blah blah blah, save him for Liverpool etc.  WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!!  For starters, the most important game is the next one and in this league, if you start winning as we just have, I don’t think you change a winning side unless you absolutely have to.  This is our best starting XI and if you are going to prioritise the games, we have a better chance of winning this one than Liverpool away at the weekend....and I have a feeling that the big man may want to play in that one.

Usually of course, you don’t want to notice the referee but tonight it’s inevitable as we have Mark Clattenburg, fresh from his reinstatement following Chelsea’s slanderous racism accusation.   Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t we also get the first game back for Sian Massey after the Andy Gray sexism thing. Chelsea have refused to apologise for the blatantly wrong accusation and so it’s rumbled on for much longer than it should have done – what a bunch of (insert expletives here).  I do not and have never believed for one second that Clattenburg is a racist but I do believe that he is a piss-poor referee and he was abysmal when we had him against Fulham earlier in the season.  Hopefully he’ll be decent tonight.

Saints start relatively well and put Norwich under a bit of pressure.  When Norwich get the ball it invariably breaks down on their right back Whitaker who in really shite fashion, passes the ball straight out of play a couple of times, much to the annoyance of his right winger Robert Snodgrarse who is a whingy bastard at the best of times (see Leeds reports from past seasons).  Norwich  and Snodgrarse have the first effort which requires a goalkeeper when he blasts one straight at Gazza which he saves easily enough.

Saints are playing ok without looking too dangerous which can be put down to Norwich defending deep and pretty well and Twattenburg being very lenient with any tackling from the Norwich defenders, particular Turner who seems to want to take Sir Rickie’s head home as a souvenir as he looks like he’s trying to wrestle it off his shoulders at every collision.  The big man escapes on 25 minutes and gets a bit of space on our right before sending over a lovely cross to Lallana who has to volley it first time and does so, about three foot over the bar.

Having previously turned down an opportunity to run at the Norwich defence, Luke Shaw has a run at Snodgrarse who unsurprisingly just brings him down.  Surprisingly, Twattenburg gives it to earn himself an extended round of applause and unsurprisingly, Snodgrarse moans about it.  Lallana’s cross into the mixer deflects off of Holt and hits Sir Rickie on the upper arm before hitting Holt again who has a Rochdale flashback and knocks it down for Sir Rickie to poke into the net.  It’s a scruffy goal but no-one in red is complaining.

I am weighing up our ‘clean sheet’ potential at this point and Norwich really aren’t offering much .  Holt is having a bit of a mare and they don;t appear to have too much else going on up front.  The main threat seems to be through Tettey in midfield who is producing the odd surging run.  For us, Yoshida is playing like he has something in his eye combined with an inner ear infection as he's missing every header by a mile and Gazza is not filling me with confidence as he fails to claim anything.

Saints are pushing for a second and following another round of applause for Twattenburg, Gaston’s free kick from the right, skims right across the goal with goalkeeper Bunn struggling.  Half time is upon us and Luke Shaw showed a bit of inexperience by showing Snodgrarse inside onto his only foot and then missing the tackle.  Clyne dived in and took him out and the Twatt (correctly in my view) awarded the free kick, right on the right hand corner of the area as Norwich were attacking.  My view was directly behind it and you could see that three men was not enough to have in the wall and the three were to far to the right – it should have been 4 or even 5 players as Snodgrarse was only ever going to shoot which he did – to the left of the three man wall and under the flailing Gazza who really made a shite effort at getting to it.  Fuck it… the bastard didn’t even hit it that well.

Half time and 1-1 and oh shit, the dog is doing Gangnam Style and I haven’t missed it.

The second half starts and we struggle to get out of first gear.  Emboldened by their somewhat fortuitous equalizer, Norwich are pressing us back and looking like they actually have a thought about winning the game.  A poor final ball often lets them down though and the closest they come in this period is a Holt header from a corner which hits Gazza on the line and is cleared.  Considering Holt was only 5 yards out, the keeper really should be claiming that one.

Jason Punch is looking our most lively player and he comes close on the hour mark as a lovely control and turn buys him a bit of space and his left footed curler is heading for the bottom corner until Bunn gets down and pulls off a decent save.  Following a nondescript 10 minutes or so, the Great Gaston injected some life into things with a burst through from midfield  which was brought to a grass-eating conclusion when he was trashed by Ryan Bennett whose tackle was about 10 yards from the ball.  I know there was a covering defender and Bennett knew it as well so it was never going to be a red card but fucking hell, so cynical.

Norwich had stopped committing too many players to their attacks from about the 70^th minute and by the 80^th, I detected that we had settled for a point also.  No attacking subs had been brought on which was a surprise as many seemed knackered which was never better illustrated when Punch got himself into a decent position and delivered a superb cross into a great area… which had no Saints players in it.

Luke Shaw went down with cramp on 85 and on came Ben Reeves who no matter how many times I see him, looks like a mascot from a local school.  I was pleased that Holt had gone off at this point as the thought of Norwich loading high balls into our left back area for Holt to compete for against 5 foot nothing of Ben Reeves was a frightening one.  J-Rod was given 3 minutes of normal time as a replacement for Punch with Gaston going to the right but neither team looked like scoring to be honest and Twattenburg got something right as he managed to blow the whistle for the end of the game.

This was a difficult game to analyse really... one point gained or two dropped?  It reminded me of some of the games in the Championship and League 1 in that the away team came for a draw and we tried to break them down.  Today we did that, got in front and I feel that if we’d got to half time 1-0 up then we’d have probably got another in the second half as Norwich came out a bit and we’d have won 2-0 or something.  However – the goal we gifted them before half time fucked that right up.  For the first 20 minuntes of the second half I felt that Norwich thought they could win it before settling for a point again.  We didn’t have the necessary energy or belief to break them down again and I think Nigel settled for a point with 15 to go or else he’d have thrown on Mayuka for Lallana or something like that.  Overall, a fair result and both teams will be happy enough.

I thought Corky and Sir Rickie looked shattered in the second half and Adam disappeared altogether.  Gaston had his moments without being near the level of the Newcastle match and I thought Punch was our best player going forward, despite what the Row R morons think – they decided he was rubbish three years ago and are too stupid to actually watch the game and re-evaluate for themselves.

Nigel seemed to be happy enough with a point whilst throwing a few bombs at Twattenburg.   When viewed in slow motion, it could be argued that Clyne got the ball in the tackle leading to the free kick for the Norwich goal but in real time I thought it was a foul and it certainly looked like one.  The bottom line is that if Gazzaniga had had another man in the wall and/or not made a complete bollocks of the free kick then no one would be talking about the decision so I don’t think you can blame the ref for that one but having said that.... he was absolutely dreadful anyway. 

Nigel does have a decision to make in goal for the next game and I’m pretty sure it will be one of Davis or Boruc in goal at Anfield.  If it was down to me it would be the Holy Goalie but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.  Gazza has played a major part in giving the opposition their goals in the last two home games that we’ve dropped points in and I think that the fans will start getting on his back if he continues for now which is no good for anyone but it’s especially not good for a youngster.   As everyone knows, one mistake and it’s a goal when you’re in goal – even defenders get away with it sometimes which was perfectly illustrated by the amount of times Yoshida missed the ball today and was bailed out usually by Fonte or Shaw.  Finally, I don’t usually argue with what opposition manager’s have to say, especially when it’s a nice inoffensive manager like Chris Hughton but his assertion that Norwich deserved to win is utter bollocks.  They didn't seem to have much ambition or quality up front so it's annoying that we threw them that goal.

As for the Rochdale reunion – well Sir Rickie scored from a Grant Holt assist so all’s well with the world.  Holt didn't have a great game and he was left in no doubt of that with the frequent chants of "you're just a shit Rickie Lambert" but it was obviously an off night for him and I for one wouldn't begrudge him the success he had last season or this and I'd rather see Holt play for England than some Billy Big Bollocks from Man United reserves.  Next up for the boys in red could well be a debut for the shit white kit as Nigel and Sir Rickie go back to Anfield.  We can get something there even if the thought if our defence up against Suarez gives me the shits.

Premier League Match 13 - Southampton 2 Newcastle 0

Clean Sheets, Yesterday

In the past few weeks we’ve had people who used to be in the employ of Southampton FC, coming back to haunt us in Gareth Bale and Nathan Dyer.  Today it’s not a returning player but a returning manager in Alan Pardew who in contrast to Bale and Dyer, only caused us a problem by scoring when he was here, rather than after he’d left.... if you believe that sort of thing.   As a manager, Pards started us off on this journey with the JPT success and the signing of many of the players who got us through League 1 and the Championship.  Sir Rickie and Jose Fonte are the obvious two who are still in the 1^st team now but he also signed Punch though his contribution to our promotions was somewhat limited.   Newcastle have another ex-Saint in Mike Williamson who never played a game for us but Pompey paid £3million for him at one point before selling him for nothing before he’d played for them in one of those genius financial transactions that they are so good at.

The endless lack of interest I had in the medias ‘Sack Race’ was ended with Roberto di Matteo becoming the first manager to be removed from his post this season due to Chelsea being in the bottom three and out of every competition they entered... or maybe it was due to ridiculous decision making by a club owner treating his club like a team on Championship Manager.  I’m sure that if he could, Roman would pay someone to reset the season and start again.  After losing to us last week, QPR decided that it was so embarrassing getting outclassed by the Saints that they could take no more and fired Mark Hughes on Friday, after they had of course, established the availability of his replacement.  Both Chelsea and QPR have made headline appointments with Chelsea bringing in Rafa Benitez who is about as popular with Chelsea fans as John Terry is with Wayne Bridge.  QPR of course have brought in the Twitchy Satchel Faced Geezer which has given us all the chance to watch the media rewriting history and removing his relegation with Saints in 2005 and the fact that Pompey are nearly dead as a result of this miracle spell there from 2006-08.  The final post script is that di Matteo is now favourite for the Saints job as Nicola Cortese “likes the idea of having a Champions League winner at the helm”... according to reports.   But of course… di Matteo is of course an Italian manager, like Paolo di Canio who was also linked and Cortese is after all, an Italian Chairman who is Swiss but never mind about the small details.  What a load of shit....

To the teams and the Toon were missing 3 of their better players with main defender Coloccini, main midfielder Cabaye and playmaker Ben Arfa all sidelined.  The rest of the side looked handy though and was regular first choice.  I dunno if it’s the stripes playing tricks on the eyes but on first glance, Newcastle look like a physically huge team with Ba, Cisse, Tiote, Santon, Williamson and Taylor all looking about 6 foot 5 each.  Not that I am particular up on my reality TV but the front page of the trash newspapers tells me that right back Danny Simpson has been taking time off from plugging holes in the Toon defence and has been plugging holes in the back of that talentless make-up plastered chav from the X-Factor judging panel... and I don’t mean Louis Walsh.  No accounting for taste I suppose.  Saints only made the one change to the bench from last week with Foxy missing and being replaced by another player who is not very good at left back, Guly do Prado.

Away we go and the Toon Army are soon in full voice with a mighty ‘Alan Pardew, he shags who he wants’ which is amusing but the counter attack of ‘Nigel Adkins, he shags his own wife’ sees the contest awarded to The Northam on points.   With Gazza probably being nervous with his couple of mistakes in the last two games, a dodgy backpass probably wasn’t what he wanted but having controlled the ball from Yoshida, he took too long to clear it and his clearance struck Demba Ba before looping right up into the air.  To be fair, Gazza, claimed the ball well as it came down which was a good end to what was a real ‘brown trousers’ moment.

Newcastle, as you would expect given all the giants in their team were pretty direct in their approach and Yoshida in particular was all over the place, usually about 6 feet under the ball but luckily, Fonte and especially Shaw were bang on it to snuff out any potential danger.    There are always debates regarding young players as to whether they have (the almost mythical) ‘it’.  Whatever ‘it’ is then Luke Shaw has ‘it’ in abundance.

Saints were beginning to get it together as an attacking force and at the centre of it was Gaston Ramirez who had obviously heard my Dad’s wish for him to have a really good game.    The Great Gaston broke forward and it ended up with his shot being blocked by some part of Taylor’s anatomy which looked very arm-ish but referee Martin Atkinson was not interested.  Nor was he interested in a couple of assaults on Ramirez and Lallana but he was all over a tackle by José Fonte on Cisse which he didn’t give as a foul until Cisse lived up to his name and rolled about.  Yellow card for José and an Oscar for Cisse who managed to limp theatrically into the box for the subsequent free kick, which we cleared giving Lallana a run at Williamson who didn’t do a lot wrong with is tackle but Atkinson was in ‘two wrongs make a right’ mode and gave us a free kick to the right of centre.  Would it be Sir Rickie or The Great Gaston?  The latter curled it over the wall and Krul pulled of a decent save to his left.

Saints have taken over now with Newcastle reduced to booming it forward towards Ba and Cisse who are putting me in mind of Papa Waigo in that they are always offside for no readily apparent reason other than not being arsed to look along the line.   Either that or they have different rules in Senegal.   They watch on as Saints cut through the midfield with a lovely move involving all four attackers which ends with Sir Rickie teeing up Punch from the left but his first time shot hits Krul on the foot and bounces clear.  A similar passing move is then halted by Williamson who hoofs Gaston over rather than play the ball which earns him a yellow card.  Thre ref could have played on as Punch had the ball and was attacking the last defender but there you go.  From an identical position as last time, it’s Sir Rickie’s turn and he curls the free kick over the wall and watches it ping off the angle of post and bar and off for a goal kick as all the players and 30,000 punters and Tim Krul stand motionless.

We deserved a goal and finally got one on 35 minutes as Sir Rickie was allowed to turn in midfield and chip the ball over Santon to Punch who was beaten to the ball by Krul who hacked it clear.... badly.  Clyne fastened onto the clearance, chested it down and tried to score from 50 yards but his off target effort was half headed away by Williamson straight to Gaston who drew Krul before slipping it to Lallana who tapped home for 1-0.

The rest of the half was taken up with more Newcastle hoof and another decent move from us which resulted in Morgan getting forward and hammering in a shot which was heading for the bottom corner until Taylor slid in a made a good block.  Half time and I’m having soup and chatting to anyone who’ll listen about the half we’ve just witnessed.  I was surprised at the ineffective performance of Tiote in midfield in that he wasn’t getting near Gaston and was allowing him to do more or less what he wanted.  I’d have changed that if I was Pardew and I’d have possibly gone and shagged someone I shouldn’t have.  The extent of Pards changes in tactics though was to remove nondescript midfielder Ferguson and bring on Sammy Ameobi on the left wing.  Ameobi is about 6 foot 6 by the look of it but however tall he is, he’s towering over Nathaniel Clyne.  I wonder what technical masterpiece of tactical tinkering is coming here then....?

Like the first half, our defending was a bit iffy at the start of the half and it was heart-in-mouth time as Ba flicked a ball on to Anita who has a girls name but more relevantly, he was clean through with just Gazza to beat.  I call it the BWP (Bradley Wright-Phillips) test – when a player is clean though and he just never looks like he’s going to score and Anita had this about him and sure enough, Gazza came to the rescue and blocked it.  And now the weather – it’s absolutely battering it down.

Mr Atkinson is beginning to get on my tits now as he consistently misses stuff and it’s no surprise to me that nothing is given as Gaston goes over in the box, under a challenge from Tiote who clearly fouls him.  All that is forgotten a few minutes later as Morgan picks the ball up on the left, feeds it into Punch who plays a 1-2 with Lallana before firing in a low cross which Krul can only parry to where Gaston is standing.  He can’t miss and he doesn’t and it’s 2-0 on the hour mark.

The brief now is to concentrate and we fail to do this temporarily and after clearing Simpson’s first cross, it ends up back with the Tabloid Front Pager and his cross is met by Santon whose header is going in the bottom corner until Gazza gets across and pulls out a superb save.

We are in a living and breathing Ref and Lino nightmare where once again, Gaston is fouled as he breaks into the box but because he doesn’t go down straight away (which didn’t work last time anyway) and Atkinson unsurprisingly doesn’t give it.  The Lino on the Kingsland side seems to have temporarily forgotten the rules which state... if a player smashes it off the side of the pitch without it touching anyone else then it’s a throw in to the OTHER team, not the team that has just smashed it out of play.  Twice, Simpson clears, twice it goes straight out, two throw-ins to Newcastle.

When we’re not expecting any help from the referee we’re still looking dangerous and we hit the woodwork for a second time as Punch is well set up by Adam and Gaston before beating Krul with a first time snap-shot, only to see it ping off the near post and away.  As we approach the last 10 minutes, it’s sub time with first Sir Rickie being replaced with J-Rod and then it’s standing ovation time as Gaston makes way for Steven Davis.

A while ago I commented that the Chuckle Brothers and the other Row R idiots have been pretty quiet this season despite us getting beaten regularly, having been annoying as you like while we were winning over the last 3 seasons.  We’re winning today so of course, they start moaning if we give a ball away or dare to keep possession with a sideways pass.  They really are clueless fucktards and I wish they’d go away.  “I’ve never rated that Puncheon, he always gives it away” is one classic.  I despair, I really do.

Meanwhile, on the pitch the entertainment is being provided by Lallana who really should do better when clean through than drilling the ball straight at Krul and by Gazza who retrieves a Toon hoof forward which sails out of play and pulls the much loved Argentinean laces trick which of course involves removing left glove, right glove, undoing a lace (probably) and tieing it up again.  Gazza then applies the coup de grace having put his gloves back on, by stuttering in his run up for the goal kick.  If I was an opposition fan – I’d hate him.

In the last few minutes we have three decent attempts on goal as Davis fastens on to a Punch pass and Krul flies out of goal to make the block.  From the resulting corner, Jose is up highest and sends an angled header over the top of Krul and it bounces to safety off the bar and away.  The final word is with the officials unsurprisingly as Lallana puts J-Rod through and he passes the BWP test and smashes it past Krul, only to be pulled back by a lino flag which is just completely wrong but in the lino’s defence, the action was 10 yards away with a totally unimpeded view.

93, 94 done.  Get in there and a clean sheet.  You don’t get many clean sheets in Southampton, especially when Alan Pardew is in town.  If you were a moaning negative bastard like the clowns who sit in Row R in the Kingsland, then you left St Mary’s moaning about how many chances we missed and how we should have won by more.  You’d be right of course but at the end of the day, just enjoy the fact that we were pretty amazing today and easily beat the side that came 5^th last year.

The headlines will go to The Great Gaston but like last week at QPR, you can’t pick out individual players as you’d have to mention all of them.  The front 4 were outstanding all game going forward and for all the talk of missing chances, there were probably only 2 chances where we maybe should have done better (Punch in first half, Adam in the second) .  The other near misses were down to the width of the woodwork and some outstanding goalkeeping.  When we were in the Championship, I always felt that Morgan and Corky together in the centre was solid but didn’t offer us enough going forward.  In the Premier League though, against better sides that come forward more, they are developing into a superb combination that allows cover for the defence and allows the forwards to go and play.  The back 4 stuck to the task well with the full backs being superb all game.  Clyne has a bit of a problem ballwatching a crossed ball but in the main he coped well with having to play against a 7 foot winger in the 2^nd half.  I thought the centre backs looked ropey for the first 10 minutes of both halves but coped reasonably with the limited threat from Newcastle and then there was Gazza who pulled out a brilliant save down low to prevent Newcastle getting any ideas about maybe stealing a point.

Up next we have a midweek home game which is a bit of a rarity in the Prem with the visit of Norwich City.  We moved out of the bottom three with this win today so if we can follow that up with a win on Wednesday, we may actually put a bit of a gap between us and the teams below the line which would be nice.  Get yourself along to SMS on Wednesday night.