FA Cup 4th Round - Millwall 1 Southampton 1

Cortese in Big Softy Shocker

Shock of the season so far this week as two days after having a right moan at the Don on Twitter, Jason Puncheon has been fined, forgiven and put back in the first team squad.  It's a bit of a result for Punch who I was expecting to find himself swimming with da fishes.  He's been given a squad number which would have been 666 but only two numbers are allowed so he’s gone with 42 which as readers of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy will know, is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything.  It would be ironic indeed if Punch did in fact provide the answers to get us winning consistently again.  He was on loan at Millwall last year and on hearing the news of his unlikely resurgence, their fans would have been saying “sods law, he’ll score”.  We’ll see.

So, Punch is available, Tadanari Lee is available, Sir Rickie is available and positive noises are being made about Chappers, Barney, Jose Fonte and Radhi the Train.  So – with our 7 new signings (and without Jonno Pace who has been farmed out on loan to Notts County where he will be very fast) we’re off to Millwall for the FA Cup 4^th Round.

Our Youth team got a bit of a wake-up call in the week, playing Notts Forest in the FA Youth Cup and getting belted 5-1.  Reading the reports, 5-1 was a bit flattering but they were clinical in front of goal and we weren’t and it proves that the Forest Youth team is too low down the chain to have been influenced by Steve Cotterill as yet.  Normally I’d be expecting James Ward-Prowse and maybe Luke Shaw to play today but it’ll be interesting to see what Nigel does.  We’ve got Cardiff in the league on Tuesday night which is massive but we have a load of senior players coming back from injury and needing a run out and in Lee and Falque we have 2 players who need to get used to English football.

In the end, predictably, Nigel went for mix and match with Bart in goal and Danny Fox pressed into appearing at centre back alongside Aaron Martin.  Ben Reeves was in the centre of midfield alongside Deano and Lee Barnard got his first start in about a year up front.  On the wings were the recovered Steve de Ridder and the resurrected Jason Puncheon.  Rumours that Saints had ensured Millwall had a reinforced substitutes bench were confirmed with the Return of the Jaidi alongside Tadanari Lee, Luke Shaw, James Ward-Prowse and Jack Stephens.  Nigel's pre-match interview had somethign wrong with it and it appeared to be on some sort of loop - either that or he said 'together as one' fifteen times in quick succession.

Millwall had their first choice team out and like the Coventry game in the last round, our unfamiliarity resulted in a ropey start in which we nearly went behind and Liam Feeney’s shot clattered the post and bounced out.  After 10 minutes we had another go at conceding as a corner was missed by all and Harry Kane managed to put it over the bar from practically in the goal.   Kane has been lent to Millwall by Harry Redknapp so he can make all his mistakes for someone else, a bit like Yago Falque in his loan to us).

A full 7 minutes go by before we try to concede again as Fox got beaten to a hoof forward by Darius Henderson, a player who blurs the line between footballer and all-in wrestler.  His subsequent chip looked to be sailing in until Bart took off and flipped it over the bar.  Surely Aaron Martin has to be picking up Henderson.

Of the returning players, Punch is easily the best, combining work ethic with some decent touches.  Steeeeeeve is struggling to get into it on the other wing and I wonder (as I often do) why we are playing the left footed Punch on the right and the right footed Steeeeeeve on the left.  We have a dose of severe Meringtitus as Barnard gets a chance but takes one touch too many before his effort is blocked.  “Just for the listeners... For me, he’s taken too long there”.  It’s a sign though that Saints are improving and Sir Rickie goes close with a free kick which whistles just wide and smacks the post behind the goal that holds the net up.

Nigel decides to swap the wingers onto their natural sides and within 30 seconds we take the lead as Reeves picks up a pass from Punch and then slides a ball in between the centre back and full back which Harding reaches and whips in a first time cross which Sir Rickie meets at the near post and almost places home with his head.  Not really deserved on the balance of play but we’ll take it thanks.

The final quarter of an hour of the first half saw Saints settle and begin to pass the ball around with Ben Reeves showing up well in midfield.  Big Bad Dave on the Mic was bigging up Aaron Martin’s contribution in handling the Henderson threat and all was looking fine.  Punch was getting booed by the crowd which worried me a bit but it turns out it was the Millwall massive who were giving him stick and not our lot.  Half time, 1-0 up, happy days.

The second half starts and after 5 minutes I realise that only one Saints player has been mentioned by the commentators and it’s Aaron Martin.  It seems that being the main man in the centre of defence has made the boy into a man as he attacks every ball, leaving Danny Fox to sweep in behind.  The one man defensive unit does it’s job and Saints have a half hearted shout for a penalty when Sir Rickie is pushed, prompting a Merringtitus of ‘You know what….’  followed by a long pause which never sounds great on the radio.

On the hour mark, the largely ineffective de Ridder is replaced with Lee Holmes and two minutes later, Tadanari Lee is on in place of Lee Barnard.  All is quiet as we await the Millwall stadium announcer making a complete bollocks of pronouncing his name but fair play, the bloke’s done his homework and nails it.  A sub for Millwall and Kane is replaced with former Saint Dany N’Guessan – will we boo or cheer?.. neither, we don’t care aside from the nagging doubt that he’ll discover levels of footballing excellence that were completely beyond him when he played for us.

Millwall have gone into ‘launch it’ mode and lots of bombs are landing in our area, in the main dealt with by Aaron and Bart who does particular well to shovel one inswinging corner over the bar.  Liam Trotter is having a decent match in midfield for them but often his decent build up play is not capitalised on by the forwards.  To be honest, we look pretty comfortable out there.

In his first start for a year, Punch has lasted well but he’s blowing out of his arse by the 73^rd minute when he’s taken off to a decent ovation from the Saints fans and replaced with Luke Shaw, making his debut on the left wing – that’ll be another £3 million please Arsene or better still - fuck off!

Last week I repeated an opinion that Lee Holmes is great when the game is won but not so great when the pressure is on.  More evidence for the prosecution as he ran though and saw his shot blocked when he really should have squared it for Sir Rickie.  The ball was returned by Sir Rickie to give Holmes a free header from 5 yards which he put wide.   It really was a sitter as the keeper was over the other side but his header was so wide it didn’t even hit the side netting. 

There was an unavoidable feeling that this miss was going to cost us and so it proved as Millwall went straight up our end and a Feeney cross from the left was chested down by Henderson and he managed to hook it over his head, wrong-footing Bart in the process and the ball plopped into the net for 1-1.  It’s hard to tell whether he actually meant it but he’s scored a few recently so you have to give him the benefit f the doubt.  Matters not a shit in the long run whether he meant it or not.

Rats.  It’s always a pain when you concede an equalizer with 5 minutes to go but to be fair, which I’m not often, overall it’s the right result.  There are a lot of positives to be taken from today with Sir Rickie being back, Barney getting an hour, Punch getting rehabilitated, Luke Shaw getting on and Tadanari Lee finding out a bit about English football.  Nigel didn’t seem too downbeat afterwards and he had at least got out of his ‘together as one’ obsession.

Sunday brought the draw for the 5^th Round and if we dispose with Millwall, we have another glamour tie with Bolton coming to SMS which will be live on TV in the Ukulele Channel in the Cook Islands.  My initial reaction was ‘dull draw’ but when I thought about it - I think this is a decent draw as they’re a bottom-end Premiership side who have some decent players but we can do them.  It’s a decent test but why not?  The bottom line is that we’re two home wins from a place in the 6^th Round.

Cardiff at home on Tuesday in a massive game for the League campaign.  Nigel has some selection dilemmas and I have a feeling that a couple more of our injured players will have a chance of featuring.  One thing that will help though – I anticipate that Punch will start and if he misses a chance or misplaces a pass, I hope the ‘quick to judge’ element of the SMS crowd can think about the effect that having a pop might have before they do it.  Likewise, think of the effect of a decent chorus of ‘one Jason Puncheon’ during the warm-up.

Finally – whoever decides on the playlists at SMS... you played it last week before the Leicester game and I cringed... so as it will be Tadanari Lee’s first appearance at SMS, please don’t play ‘Turning Japanese’ on Tuesday.  It’s a song about wanking.