NPC Match 28 - Southampton 1 Cardiff 1

Not a very inventive choice of picture, I grant you...

Monday was a good day.  In fact, it was a brilliant day. We finally signed the striker we’d been looking for when Billy Sharp joined from Doncaster for a reported £1.8 million quid.  I’m not sure how we managed that considering that we had an offer accepted for £3.25 million in the summer – maybe the media talk bollocks, you never know. Considering the rumoured silly money we’d have to have paid Celtic for Gary Hooper – this is an absolute bargain for a striker who virtually guarantees goals.  For what it’s worth, I reckon Nigel wanted either of them and reckon he’d have been happy with either and neither player would have been preferred over the other.  It’s an exciting signing and puts me in mind of when we signed Kevin Phillips to partner James Beattie.  That partnership was good but not great but hopefully Billy and Sir Rickie won’t have any issues with muffins, drink driving and Vodafone salesmen.

So, for the last league game we had two available forwards in the Gulyman and David Connolly and the following week we have those two plus, Sir Rickie, Sharp, Barney and Tadanari Lee. Hang on a minute... turns out that Billy didn’t sign before the deadline and so won’t be available for the Cardiff game.  If he’d signed on loan he could have played but as it was a permanent deal then he can’t.  That’s not stupid at all, is it!  Well it means that whoever partners Sir Rickie will be busting to have the game of his life or else he’s getting dropped next week.   So, lots of options which can be a problem but you’d rather that than the other way round, which brings us onto ..... drumroll.....  bu-bmp, tshhhh, Pompey.

News of the Billy Sharp signing hit the web at approximately the same time that it emerged that Pompey had missed pay day for their players and staff for January.  It was also confirmed that their bank accounts are frozen and everyone’s favourite administrator Andrew Andronikou was ‘advising’ on transfers which is very strange when you consider that he’s not the administrator for Pompey and Pompey are not in administration.  Andronikou’s involvement is expected to ramp up over the next few weeks and he’s down to partner Jamie Ashdown at centre back if they sell all their decent players.

As a closer on the transfer window - regular readers will know that I have a problem with the overly negative elements of our fan base who have been bellyaching since the close of the loan transfer window about us not strengthening and blah blah blah.  It’s the same people who moaned that we were only 2 points clear at the top when it should have been 20 etc etc.  Well, we’ve now got Tadanari Lee, Yago Falque and Billy Sharp – not to mention Punch and Jos Hooiveld out of this little period of transfer activity.  Are you all happy yet?

To tonight and we have a huge game against Cardiff at home.  Win and we will be four points clear of the team in 3^rd place, lose and we will be out of the automatic promotion places for the first time this season.  It can be construed as negative to be happy with a draw but in truth, a draw would not be a bad result tonight.  Our team looks decent with Adam Lallana and Jose Fonte returning from injury.  David Connolly partners Sir Rickie up front and Punch keeps his place on the wing with Deano being left out of the central midfield.  Getting on the bench is a tough job now and Steeeeeve doesn’t make the cut with Tadanari Lee and Falque being the attacking options.  Radhi didn’t make the bench as he, at 46, had this morning become the oldest player ever to play for an Under-21 team.  Cardiff meanwhile, were straight off the back of reaching the Carling Cup final and fair play to them for that.

Inside the ground it was the wrong side of ‘fucking cold’ as the game kicked off.  My hands were freezing and hands were the order of the day after two minutes when, five yards in front of the linesperson (careful) and about the same from the ref, Whittingham quite clearly punched the ball and neither of them saw it which set the tone for what was to come.

There was an early exchange of chances as a Cardiff midfielder wasn’t tracked and got free in our box and flicked a header over the bar.   At the other end, Adam Lallana twisted McNaughton inside and out several times before standing up a decent cross which Sir Rickie won but he could only direct his header over the bar.

McNaughton was not having a good time at the moment and it didn’t get better for him as Punch, in his eagerness to make an impression, rugby tackled him and landed on him as they fell causing all the air to leave his body in one go.  The referee was infuriating me and the rest of the Saints fans by not giving us anything at all and managed to get an ovation for himself on 18 minutes when he gave us our first free-kick.   Cheers, though ironic, turned to jeers five minutes later as Sir Rickie skinned left back Taylor and as he bore down on goal was clearly wrestled to the ground in everyone’s eyes except the linesman and the referee who was near the half way line, not keeping up with play in the slightest.  If he gives a penalty then it’s probably a red card so in my view, he bottled it.

Kenny Miller is up front on his own for Cardiff and whilst he undoubtedly is a good player, he’s a moaning git getting pulled up for an obvious offside and spending two minutes holding the ball and arguing with the ref.  Punch is like a man transformed, winning tackles and using the ball really intelligently and Sir Rickie is showing what an important player he is for us (as if we didn’t know) by being at the heart of all our good attacking moments.  Again he got himself on the end of a cross from ??? this time but was crowded out by three Cardiff defenders and was forced to head over again.

Just when it looked like any threat from Cardiff had been kept at bay they got a corner which was swung in. It was no more than 4 yards out and Superkelv came at it unconvincingly and ran into the strategically placed Cowie who blocked his path quite deliberately.  Superkelv hit the deck in a pile of bodies.  The ball fell loose to Conway who couldn’t miss from 6 yards.  Kelvin ran after the ref implying that he’d been fouled but either way, it was 1-0.  One nil to the referee we sang, one nil to the sheep shaggers sang the sheep shaggers.  Fair play.

We seemed to be rocked by the goal and Cardiff swarmed all over us with Morgan putting in the most cynical and obvious ‘give me a yellow’ tackle in midfield to stop one break.  Then, following a piece of ball control from Frazer that will not find its way into any coaching DVD, Cardiff broke and Kenny Miller came up with one of the worst effort he can ever have come up with and spooned it over the bar.  The ref helped us out straight after by stopping another Cardiff break by getting his fat arse in the way and giving us possession.  Cardiff still managed to nearly make it 2-0 when Taylor rumbled forward and hit a swerving effort which Superkelv parried away in somewhat awkward fashion.  It doesn’t matter if it looked awkward – if it’s not in the net, that’s good.

A number of our players seem scared to shoot at the moment and this was typified just before the break as Sir Rickie cut in onto his right foot and instead of leathering it, slid it sideways to Connolly who instead of leathering it, knocked it sideways to Punch’s right foot, so instead of leathering it, he cut it back to Connolly who instead of leathering it, got tackled by a Cardiff player who with all the pissing about had managed to get himself back into position.  At this point, Nigel wrote ‘Fucking hit it’ on his half time team talk notes.

Half times from around the country... Ipswich 3 West Ham 1....hurray, says all the ground.

We start the second half well and pile forward.  Corky and Morgan have obviously been given some advice about pulling their respective oars to get the boat moving as they are now running things and forcing McPhail to hurry up instead of just poncing about in front of the back 4 like he was doing all of the first half.  Adam Lallana is also now playing like a man possessed and causing problems all over the place.  One jinking run on our right gets him to right to the by-line in the area when he is dumped by a sliding Taylor.  The referee blows and points, I and the whole of the Kingsland get up to acclaim the obvious penalty and the twat has only gone and given a goal kick.  Unbefkinglievable.

There’s more magic from the ref as McNaughton slides in to stop a Schneiderlin pass reaching Connolly and the ball hits his flailing arm, allowing him to win possession.  I may be making an arse of myself here but does handball have to be deliberate ?  I thought not - in short, the ball hitting his hand has given him an advantage as he’s won possession using his hand.  This means that either the law or the referee is a bollocks.

Five minutes later and McNaughton and handball are back on the agenda again as a Lallana cross hits his outstretched hand and this time the ref actually gives it because it’s impossible not to.  Five minutes of pissing about later and Sir Rickie finally gets to take it, bang, 1-1, emphatic.

Tadanari Lee is ready to come on but instead of the predicted Connolly being removed, a clearly knackered Punch goes off to a good ovation from the crowd after running himself into the ground.  Connolly drops back but it’s basically a 4-3-3 with Nigel acknowledging that Cardiff weren’t using the wings so why should we.  Lee’s first involvement was to get knocked over and he ended up almost doing the splits but he sprang back up in the manner you’d expect from a gymnast or Radhi Jaidi.  Lee buzzed around looking very bright until a Cardiff defender decided he’d had enough and took him out.  After a couple of seconds to gather his senses he bounced back to his feet with a ‘Welcome to the Championship’ ringing in his ears.  Luckily, he wouldn’t understand that anyway .

For the next 15 minutes it was Saints making all the running but the final ball wasn’t quite there, especially from Frazer who didn’t look 100% fit and firing.  Adam Lallana was giving them kittens on the left and I swear I saw McNaughton checking to see that his boots were still on the right feet as he tried to keep step with the twisting and turning winger. Cardiff were breaking on us occasionally but when the perpetually offside Miller wasn’t offside, he was lashing his opportunities anywhere but near the goal.  

There comes a point when you have to decide that a point is ok and that time appears to be the 87^th minute as Connolly is replaced with Deano.  Into the 4 minutes added time and we produce a moment that  would have brought the house down if Lee had managed to get more of a contact on a Sir Rickie knockdown which was eventually smothered by the keeper.  We had one final near miss when Aaron Martin gets up well to knock down a ball which Lallana poked goalwards, forcing the keeper into a decent scrambling save.  Amazingly, the referee then manages to blow the final whistle without fucking it up.

Hmmmm, how do I feel after that.... happy enough I think.  The most important thing tonight was not to lose and we managed that.  We were the only side really looking like we’d win in the second half as Cardiff were restricted to hoping Kenny Miller could kick the ball somewhere towards the goal.  We do faff about too much though.... just hit it, for fucks sake.  It was a really positive second half performance and I can’t help but feel that with the new signings and the returning players that the tide is turning.  Having said that, next up is a trip to Birmingham who are now 4^th after hammering Leeds 4-1 tonight.  Other results went for us with notably West Ham getting trounced 5-1 by a very poor Ipswich side.  I bet Paul Jewell went and starred in his own video after that one.

Nigel made a point of mentioning the three penalty shouts that we had and that they should all have been given.  Me, I just find it incredible that you can have a referee at this level who can’t keep up with play.  If you can’t keep up then you are going to make poor decisions all game.   So take a bow Mr M Haywood, Andy D’Arsehole has a serious rival for the worst ref in the Championship which I didn’t think was possible.

There were good individual performances from virtually everyone with Adam Lallana and Sir Rickie standing out for their overall contribution and showing how much we missed them when they were out.  Man of the Match though and having the greatest come back since Lazarus was Jason Puncheon who was everywhere, didn’t waste a pass and always was available and wanting the ball.  All this is a bit better than wondering if you’re going to find a horses head in your bed.  As for the Man from Japan – he looked very lively and positive and I can see him being a cult hero with the fans.  The chances are that most of his opportunities this season will be off the bench but he looks a very decent option.  Maybe he’ll get a start in the FA Cup replay.

Like I said, off to Birmingham on Saturday and they are on a run at the moment where they are belting everybody.  Billy Sharp will be making his debut and hopefully this will help our shot-shyness, which is probably not a word but you know what I mean.  I have a feeling that we’ll get a result there...  unless it’s on Sky of course as we’re always shit when we’re on Sky.  Oh.

COYR