Lightning Strikes.... Twice!
All the pre-match posturing, bile and vitriol was now done and it was time for the real posturing, bile and vitriol to begin. The ground was filling up, the bubble was causing peace and tranquility everywhere and the South Coast Derby was at SMS once more. This, my Brighton and Bournemouth supporting friends, is a rivalry.
I think the bubble is a good idea but I do miss the journey to the ground, seeing opposition supporters and exchanging friendly one fingered acknowledgements. Whilst on the journey in, I heard an interview on the radio where the leader of one of the Pompey fan groups was on one of the bubble coaches basically saying that he didn’t like it cos he wanted to get shitfaced. I hope that Hampshire Police ask for his contribution to the debate should this ever happen again.
To the ground and it’s full and it looks great, even if there are 3000 Skates in there. To the team news and Sir Rickie is fit to partner Billy Sharp with Guly moving back onto the right wing in place of Chappers who has gone altogether from the squad. Deano is in the side in place of Corky and I can tell that I’m nervous as I go into full rant mode at anyone who’ll listen when I find out the subs. Barnard, de Ridder, Cork…. Ok fine with those three … Martin, ok…. and Harding. What!!! OK, I know Nigel wants to be positive and have 5 outfield subs but why be negative then and have 2 out and out defenders when Cork is there who can cover all of the defensive positions in an emergency. Harding and Martin can both only cover one position each so surely having Chappers or Punch on there would be more positive. Meanwhile, the Skates have replaced the injured Thorne and Tal Ben 38k a week with Jailbird Etuhu and Ricardo Rocha
The game starts with Lallana running at the Pompey defence and appealing for two free kicks, both of which were rightly ignored by the referee provided by the Premier League, Mr Swarbrick. The ref is interested a minute later though as Morgan gets robbed by Norris and then pulls him back by the arm for a free kick and a yellow card. It’s 1-1 on the card count a few minutes later as Maguire catches Fonte over on the left wing and we have a few handbags before the Derby forward is booked.
The early game clattering is complete after 6 minutes when Morgan flew in to tackle Varney who saw him coming and smashed his studs into Morgan’s knee and off he went in obvious pain to be replaced with Cork . For what it’s worth, I don’t think Varney went in to ‘do’ him but it was a forwards challenge to say the least. Nigel is not happy and the ref gets an earful, I assume it wasn’t anything to do with buses or together as one.
Pompey are certainly leaving their mark where they can and the officials are missing most of it, including Rocha throwing at elbow at Lallana as they compete for a ball near the touchline. Rocha is having a dodgy few minutes as he then needlessly trips Billy on the left wing. Big Jos launches himself at Adam’s free kick and gets in front of Ashdown who spills and recovers the ball. The first real effort on goal fell to Kelvin Etuhu who didn’t really get hold of his effort and Superkelv parried with a degree of comfort. When we get our passing going we look good and one such passage of play ends with a rising drive from Fox which Ashdown tips over the bar which according to Swarbrick rules, is a goal kick.
Jose is trying to get things moving for us by bringing the ball out of defence and he makes some decent ground and beats a couple of players before laying it off to Deano. Enough time then passes for you to nip off, run a hot bath and have a good soak before Scott Allan arrives and clatters him. Play goes on and we win a corner as Rocha puts it out and the Skate twat is on a mission and decides to welly the ball into the crowd from point blank range before responding to Adam’s probable assertion that he was a prick, by clipping him round the face. Following a ref-lino conversation, all of that added up to a yellow card for Rocha and nothing but a word for Allan whose tackle was so fucking late it’s unbelievable but not as unbelievable as Mr Swarbrick’s decision not to book him.
27 minutes have gone and from the corner conceded by the prick, Lallana’s delivery from the left is cleared high by Pearce to the edge of the box where Sir Rickie heads it back into a ruck of players to where Billy Sharp controls and manages to flick it up and poke it into the net past Ashdown and set off in celebration towards the stunned Skates fans, finger at the lips in the time honoured tradition. Adam is bit naughty running behind the goal to join in but we’re in front, poachers goal, get the fuck in. Needless to say, Mr Premiership Bollocks decides to book Billy who will one day score a goal without getting booked afterwards.
Five minutes later and Allan manages to kick Fonte up in the air again and this time it’s deemed worthy of a booking but it’s not nearly as bad as the last one. We’re on the up now and surge forward again with Billy producing a volley which is at a comfortable height for Ashdown to save. From everything being alright, it suddenly and out of nowhere went to shit. A chip down the left by Maguire was chased by Etuhu who eventually laid it back to Maguire who advanced to the corner of the penalty area and absolutely smashed it into the near top corner to make it 1-1. Where the fuck did that come from? How he had to confidence to even try a shot from there is a bit of a mystery but what a goal. At first I thought that Superkelv must have been at fault but to criticize him for that would be very harsh indeed. The comatose Skates fans couldn’t believe it, having probably settled for a chastening afternoon and there seemed to be a pause before they realised it was in.
The shock around the ground lasted for a good five minutes and we were certainly knocked out of our stride both by the goal and by the continuing strongarm tactics which were still not being noticed by any of the officials. They do notice Varney tripping Lallana though and the resultant free kick sees Sir Rickie line it up from the left corner of the penalty and Ashdown only put two men in the wall. The free kick nearly knocks him over but it’s central enough for him to parry up in the air and for the Skates to scramble away as far as Lallana whose volley clipped both Jose and the post on its way out of play. Very close.
There is just time for another pair of chances as Sir Rickie weights a perfect ball behind Rekik for Guly who smashes it at the near post which is covered by the sprawling Ashdown. Foxy’s corner is met by big Jos who kind of throws himself at it but the ball flies wide.
In our usual half time brains trust meeting I decreed that we would score again based on the logic that we were looking very dangerous at set pieces and that the Skates weren’t good enough defensively to not give us a load of free kicks and corners in the second half.
The second half starts and like the first, Pompey create the first chance as Varney does well down the left and feeds Maguire who shows the reason why Derby loaned him out by sidefooting horribly wide. We take 10 minutes to fashion our first chance of the half and again it’s another pair of chances. Firstly a ball comes back out of the Skates box and Lallana volleys it only to see Ashdown take off and pull of a brilliant save. From Adam’s corner, Jose meets it with a full blooded header from 8 yards and Ashdown takes off again and somehow shovels it over the bar – another brilliant save, bastard. I thought he was supposed to be dodgy.
Guly then moved quicker and with more purpose than he had done all match on the hour mark when he was substituted. I don’t think he even looked at the number of the player being replaced, just knew there was a sub being made and went, having put in his second complete shithouse of a performance against the Skates this season. On came Steeeve to hopefully give us something down the right where there had been nothing so far.
Nothing much happened for the next 20 minutes aside from a Maguire free kick which wasn’t exactly off the training ground as he hit the wall and then smashed the rebound at the sun. Steeeve is completely redundant on the right as we’re not getting the ball to him at all with Corky getting caught in possession and decent pressure from the Skates midfield meaning that we’re resorting to hoofing it forwards to Sir Rickie a bit too often. The Skates are playing what Gordon Strachan would call ‘propaganda football’ in that they were passing it about nicely but not doing anything with it with the final ball often being aimless.
Voldemort made his first substitution, replacing the ineffective Etuhu with Dave Kitson. What a strange player Kitson is – he can’t jump without doing this strange windmill thing with both his arms above his head. He then went up for a header with Frazer and lost it, while windmilling his arms about before bleating to the ref and holding up an imaginary yellow card when there wasn’t even the suggestion of a foul. You would think that silly windmill thing + imaginary card waving + shite footballer = Wanker. In fact it equals £20,000 a week.
As the game moves into the last five minutes it’s all us again with another near thing from a free kick, given away by the Ginger magician. Foxy’s freekick is headed back across by Sir Rickie to where Jose gets airborne and smashes it over the bar. Aaaargh!!! Next it’s Adam Lallana’s turn as he allows a Jose pass to run through, giving him a run at Ashdown. He should have taken it left footed but tried to go round Ashdown who flies out and clips him but Adam takes another couple of steps before running out of room and pulling out a horrible dive for which he should get booked but doesn’t.
And so we arrive in the last minute and it looks like the Skates have survived but they give us as chance as Rekik makes his one mistake of the match and slices it to Steeeeve who tries to pick someone out when he maybe should have shot and Rocha slices it over his own bar for another corner. Adam’s corner is flicked on and poked into the net by Billy Sharp but the lino’s flag is up straight away for offside. Fuck it. Deano has gone nuts at he ref and he’s going over to have a word with the lino, a quick conflab and fuck me…. he’s given the goal. After a quick “fuckinghaveityouskatebastarrrrrrrrrds” I don’t know what emotion I’m feeling most, relief, joy…? Actually, I just think it’s funny as the Skates all surround the ref. Turns out the the corner was flicked on by Varney and so Billy can’t be offside. Well played ref, genius.
There are three minutes of the additional four minutes remaining and the next time the ball goes out, off goes Billy to be replaced by Dan Harding who goes to the left of midfield with Lallana floating around in the centre. A ball lumped forwards beats everyone and goes through to Superkelv and I thought that that was going to be it. But fucking no…. they get the ball back, aided and abetted by the fact that we only have one up front now and an aimless straight ball is tossed forward by Rocha and headed out by Jose. It drops to Norris who is completely free in enough space to build a new Tesco and unhindered by any of our midfielders, catches it superbly and smashes it into the net for another superb goal.
There is still a minute to go and we manage one more attack with Lallana getting a head to a Frazer cross but the ball, rather fittingly ends up with Ashdown who saves comfortably.
The End. Fuck. FUCK. ING. HELL. Final whistle and like the first game at Fratton Park
When I first thought about it I decided that it was a fair result as they’d played better football than us in the second half in particular but hang on a minute, they’ve had 4 world class moments from players that are not usually capable of that with Maguire, Norris and Ashdown twice, producing moments that are almost certainly up there with anything they have ever or ever will produce. Ashdown wouldn’t have even been playing if they hadn’t had to offload Henderson to Fat Sam. I remember Kelvin making a comfortable save from Etuhu in the first half but other than that, no Pompey efforts on target whereas we peppered them but it was almost all from set pieces. Having seen the highlights, in which pretty passing going nowhere is not featured, we battered them pretty much. Like the game at Fratton, we should have won but Pompey managed to drag something out of the bag to snatch a point both times showing that they can do it when they want to. We can’t be too harsh on ourselves though – their keeper had the game of his life and look at their goals. I guess that over ten matches a team attempts 20 twenty-five-yarders and maybe one flies in and the rest are blocked or shit and fly into the crowd. The Skates had two fly into the corners of the net in one match.
It could not be said that we played well though and the midfield was absent completely in the second half. I thought the back four did ok defensively but Foxy in particular was guilty of some poor crossing. Deano huffed about in midfield and did some good things but Corky kept getting caught in possession. On the wings, Adam flattered to deceive a bit, as did Steeeeeve but Guly was worse than that, he was abysmal. I don’t go for the Guly-bashing by default as lots seem to do but he was bloody dreadful today – no crosses, no tackles, no urgency, no decent balls and he’s been pretty poor since Christmas and the time has surely come now to take him out of the side for a bit. Up front, Sir Rickie was quite well shackled by a combination of Pearce, Rocha and the referee giving him fuck all and I’ve almost come to expect that Billy Sharp will not appear to do too much but he will score goals. It seems that whenever there is a bundle of players and the ball ends up in the net, it’s Billy that’s put it there. His all round game is improving though with each game and I think that with a bit of patience and a full pre-season, he’ll be improving for a while.
For the Skates, well Ashdown looked world class and if you ask any Skate fan, he usually isn’t. I was very impressed with Rekik at left back who just looked like a quality footballer and they’ve pulled a right stroke in getting him on loan, likewise Scott Allan who played well once the referee allowed him to get away with some very dubious tackling. Halford did his ‘destroyer’ job in midfield pretty well without ever looking entirely comfortable there and the forwards were a nuisance without looking particularly threatening – two world class goals aside…. Sounds daft doesn’t it?
Nigel was attempting to be positive afterwards but his ‘one point gained’ line was not fooling anybody. I was waiting for the interviewer to say “fuck off Nigel, it’s two points dropped isn’t it?”. If I’d been the interviewer I’d have written my own P45 by pointing out that like the game at Fratton Park
I can’t usually be arsed to talk about referees but today we have to as we needed a strong referee today to take hold of the inevitable ‘kick them off the park’ tactics that were coming our way and we got Mr Swarbrick who was shit. How on earth can Scott Allan not get booked for his ridiculous late hack on Jose? How did Rocha stay on the pitch? He didn’t even give a foul for Varney crippling Morgan, then booked Billy Sharp for celebrating a goal, then failed to book Adam Lallana for a horrible dive. OK, he did well on our second goal but fucking hell.
I guess that if the game had petered out at 1-1 then we wouldn’t all be as pissed off but having been in front with 2 minutes to go, it’s a complete pisser to have only got one point instead of three. I also guess that if we’d won 2-1 then Mr Swarbrick would be our hero and not the person we’re all pointing at. The Fat Sam Total Football Academy and Reading must be delighted with us dropping points today but we still went back to the top of the league, ahead of the Royals on goal difference and four points and goal difference ahead of Fat Sam.
So, no bragging rights for us which is a shame but there you go – ultimately that doesn’t matter. Still, no time to dwell on it and barely enough time to draw the fabled blue line underneath this game and move on as we have 48 hours-ish before we kick off against mid-table Palace at Selhurst Park.
5 games left, 11 points needed.
From deepest, darkest Peru I now have a full and unbiased (of course) view of the game - cheers again - another pearler!
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