NPC Match 38 - Hull 0 Southampton 2

The Tigers Preparing the Pitch at the KC

Hull is a place I have never been to in my life but I’m sure it’s very nice.  Lets hope it’s nice and accommodating for us tonight and we go away with 3 points from what looks a pretty difficult game.  Hull are in the group of 6 or so teams who are hovering around the playoff positions which is something you wouldn’t have put money on when Nigel Pearson left to drop down the league to Leicester and Nick Barmby took over.  Barmby has achieved this by making Hull very difficult to score against and they have the most clean sheets to date in the division.  This however has been at the expense of scoring goals at the other end.  Consequently, with their strengths being in defence and ours in attack, I’m expecting a close game and if I’m honest, I’d take a draw. 

Oh yeah, the KC stadium is another sodding rugby ground which means that the pitch is shite like the one at Vicarage Road which (I repeat) should not be allowed.  As Hull is Rugby League and Saracens are Rugby Union, I wonder if that difference in code means that any one pitch is more or less shite than the other.  No scrums in League but you do have lots of players looking like they’re humping the turf when trying to get to their feet.

Since the Millwall match, the most significant thing I read about Saints came from Twitter with Academy boys Joe Curtis, Matt Young and Bevis Mugabi getting their first professional contracts at Saints.  Fantastic news for the lads in question and I hope they work incredibly hard to get the most out of themselves to make a living in the game and hopefully they make it all the way through to the first team.  They obviously all have talent and are at a great club to enable them to reach their potential – just don’t fuck up the chance you have boys.  Take it from someone who was never good enough and has spent the last 25 years working in an office... I would love to have played the game rather than writing bollocks about it.

Onto the bollocks…

Nigel has shuffled the pack a bit with Chappers dropping out altogether and Punch going straight back into the team on the right of midfield with the other change seeing Corky return in place of Deano who drops to the bench.  Robert Koren and Aaron McLean were Hull’s two standout performers at SMS earlier in the season when we scraped a 2-1 win in the middle of our dodgy December so I’m quite pleased to see McLean on the bench.

Saints start well and surprisingly it’s a very open game with Hull not getting to grips with us at all.  We get our first real sight of goal on 8 minutes as Guly drifts right and flights in a lovely cross for Sir Rickie to thump in a header which is saved by Mannone, the Hull keeper who they’ve borrowed from Arsenal.  Foxy is at it again a minute later following lovely build up play by Punch and Corky.  He crosses along the ground for Lallana to hammer in a shot which Mannone again deals with in rather unconvincing fashion.

We’re missing these chances (or rather the Arsenal keeper is saving them) and news comes through that Reading are winning 1-0 at Peterborough but then, at the third time of asking we take the lead.  Yet again, it was Foxy down the wing who set it up when he fastened onto Lallana’s cute reverse pass and crossed it on the ground in front of Mannone, to the lurking Sir Rickie.  Rather than let the big man have his 25^th league goal of the season, Hobbs decides to save him the bother and slides in to poke it into his own net.

We have a golden chance to make it 2-0 as Cork produces a superb ball and sends Lallana away and he’s clean through on Mannone who he goes round, leaving himself with an open goal – which he manages to miss as the ball bobbles off a rut in the bloody rugby pitch.  Rut or otherwise though, it’s a bad miss and Dave is sure that he didn’t want to do that.

Hull’s main threat is through right winger Josh King who is on loan from Manchester United and it’s he who comes closest when he hammers a shot onto the bar which Superkelv obviously knew wasn’t going in as he kind of waved it goodbye.  A small subplot develops as Danny Fox seems to decide that he doesn’t like King very much and there is a small threat of handbags coming out which comes to nothing.

King is being a pain though and it should be 1-1 on 35 minutes as he gets in a superb cross from the right and it’s perfect for the incoming Brady but he rivals Adam for miss of the match by ballooning it over the bar from 8 yards with hopefully the shite pitch causing it.  If the rugby posts had still be there from the weekend, it would have gone over those as well.  It’s just as well he missed because Merringtitus says we didn’t want to let one in before half time.  No shit Sherlock.

We reach half time without doing what we don’t want to do and it’s all going rather well as we’re winning, West Ham are 0-0 with the Smoggies and Reading have managed to turn a 1-0 lead into a 2-1 deficit, away to The Posh.  Good old Fergie Lite, always liked him.

Barmby brings Aaron McLean on at half time but the good news for us is that it’s Koren who goes off.  Within 5 minutes of the restart, Nigel brings on Steeeeeeve in place of Guly.  Maybe it was reacting to their substitution, maybe they couldn’t get the electronic board to work or maybe he just forgot to do it at half time.  Dave Merrington is confused.  He’s also unsure about the substitution as Guly has been playing well.  In Nigel we Trust Davie Boy.  However, de Ridder immediately justifies his manager’s faith in him by trashing the Hull left winger, giving a dangerous free kick away and getting booked.

Saints were back in the ascendency and looking like scoring again and duly did on the hour mark as a Punch free kick was headed away as far a Corky who headed it back over the full back to where Jose Fonte was playing at being a winger as he superbly cushioned the ball forward before sliding the ball across to where big Jos steamed in and smashed it into the net for 2-0.

Hull had a problem now as it meant that they had to score more than once to get anything out of the game and they don’t often do that.  Nigel decided that he was going to give them as little opportunity as possible by bringing Deano on for Punch and going for a wide 5 in midfield to help nullify the only threat Hull had, which was down the wings.

As Saints seemed content to soak it up, Hull crept forward as we reached the last 10 minutes and a big cross from the left found its way to King who smashed it at the near post with Superkelv being equal to it.   From the resulting corner, we clear it and Cairney fires in a rocket from 25 yards but that man Superkelv is in ‘they shalt not pass’ mode and tips it over.

Word comes down the wire that The Fat Sam Total Football Academy have gone 1-0 up (boooo) but Reading have gone 3-1 down (hooraaaaaay).  The game peters out and the KC Stadium empties out in the final few minutes as the stewards get ready to put the fucking rugby posts back up.

Dave Merrington surpassed himself as the game drew to a close with some quality Merringtitus when Big Jos buggered about with the ball instead of clearing it and got away with it when a forward got caught offside.  According to Dave, Jos was doing a ‘diddly-dee’ on the ball which predictably, was what we didn’t want.  I’ve seen the incident so I know that this particular entry in the Big Dave Lexicon of Bollockspeak means ‘to try a wanky little turn and generally piss about with the ball and lose possession’.

Full time and get in there - and it just gets better and better as the Smoggies have pinched a late equalizer at the Fat Sam Total Football Academy and Reading have been beaten for the first time in ages.  We are now 5 clear of Reading and 7 clear of West Ham who admittedly, have a game in hand.  I swear that if you type in “Porn” on Google tonight, it will come up with a picture of the top of the Championship.

Nigel was gushing in praise of our defence and keeping another clean sheet and he didn’t want to mention the pitch but he did say that the pitch was shite, or he may have said “lively”.  Nick Barmby just acknowledged that we were the best side in the league and fair play to him for that – no excuses and no bollocks.

For me, this is the result of the season and when you factor in the other results as well, it’s fantastic.  On paper, we had the most difficult game of the three and we’re the only ones to win. Individual players are stepping up and the squad rotation is working a treat with Corky being sharp today after his two games rest.  Talking of sharp… with the extra motivation for playing against his former club – Billy Sharp should start on Saturday.  A word of warning though in that on Saturday, we have (on paper) the easiest game of the three when Donny come to town whilst Fat Sam waddles up to Burnley and Reading entertain Blackpool. 

8 games left, 19 points needed, diddly-fucking-dee.

Diddly-fucking-dee