Have the Championship !!!
Since the Palace match, Reading have been to Brighton and got battered but somehow, courtesy of a deflected free kick, got a 1-0 win to put them level with us on points but behind on goal difference. It’s annoying and it seems that we can’t rely on anyone else to make them go away so we’re going to have to do it ourselves. To be fair to Reading, I saw their list of fixtures a few games ago and thought the wheels might come off but in the last 4 games they’ve beaten Blackpool, Leeds, Fat Sam and Brighton. They’ve kept the run going despite losing one of their main players, Jem Karacan to a Michael Brown special against Leeds and if they come to SMS and win then you have to say that they deserve it. They’re managed by Brian McDermott who comes across as genuinely likeable which is refreshing in a division containing Fat Sam, Colin Wanker and Gus Poyet.
On the night that Reading beat Brighton, the Skates entertained Millwall, riding on a wave of optimism following their last minute moral win at SMS when they had 6 booked and got a pointless (cos they won’t pay it) fine from the Football League. They took all that momentum and fighting spirit and lost 1-0 and were, by all accounts, shite and lost with barely a whimper to leave them 9 points adrift with 4 games left. We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when...
Talking of accounts (sort of), the Pompey Administrator has published a list of creditors who are going to get shafted. All debts have been accrued since the last administration a couple of years back but the list is remarkable in its lack of morality. Schools are owed thousands (including the Southampton based one that owns their training pitch – lock the fucking gates for Christ’s sake) and St.Johns Ambulance are owed £6 grand (again). Other ‘good’ ones are a Dublin based schoolboys team (£5 grand) and another ambulance service (£6 grand). Anyway – fuck Pompey, they’re going down and probably out…
To more important matters and SMS again looks fantastic with a near to sell out crowd in place. Like the Skates match, the away end is all blue but it doesn’t look nearly as offensive. Our team is announced and as expected, we have the same starting line up as against Palace with Butters keeping his place ahead of Richardson who is on the bench. I know I bang on about this but what is the point of having Richardson, Harding and Martin as 3 of your 5 subs. The other two who can come on and maybe make a difference are Guly and Steeeeeve.
Saints tear into Reading from the start and take just three minutes to create the first chance as Billy plays in Sir Rickie on the right whose cross shot is fumbled by Federici and rolls across the goal and away. Reading have Jason Roberts up front whose arrival has coincided with their great run of form and has had the added bonus of meaning that he’s not being boring on TV as often. Good player though and he immediately shows what he’s about with some decent control and in the way he easily holds off José and keeps possession.
Reading are getting all bar Roberts behind the ball but we are playing some decent stuff and following a bout of passing on the edge of the Reading penalty area and some pinball within it, Lallana cuts in off the left wing and shoots, seeing Federici pull off a decent save following a deflection off of Gorkss. Back come Reading and Pearce should have done better with a header when barely challenged at a corner but his header was always going over the bar.
We’re beginning to turn the screw now and having worked the ball upfield via a long ball on the floor by Fox and a superb turn by Sir Rickie, Adam tries again by cutting in only this time he fires straight at the keeper who catches it easily above his head. Not so easy was his next save from a Butters-Sir Rickie signature move with when the big man met the deep right wing cross at the back stick, bringing a decent full stretch save from the keeper.
So, a goal is surely coming? You bet it is but not in a good way, as Foxy tries to drill along ball from left back to right wing and shanks it to McAnuff on the left wing. Reading work the ball inside and eventually it finds its way back out onto their right with Jimmy Kebe who gets a yard on Foxy before whipping over a delightful cross which is missed by José and not claimed by Superkelv, leaving Roberts to plant a header into the roof of the net from about 5 yards. Fuck it says I as the Reading fans go nuts with a massed ‘we are top of the league’ chant… bastards.
We seem initially to be unaffected by the goal and continue to pile forward, creating more chances with Adam finding himself in the box and conjuring up (possibly by mistake) a chip which Federici has to push over the bar. From the resulting corner, big Jos gets himself completely free and makes a bollocks of the header he is presented with. Sir Rickie is on fire and he puts in a great cross from the left wing in the direction of Billy who was eased off the ball by Gorkss as he went for the header. In my mind it was a penalty but not today.
Half time is approaching and it’s still all us but Bald Psycho slides into the keeper from miles away and picks up a deserved booking to go with his poor first half display. We have one final chance before half time as Foxy crosses once more and Sir Rickie gets underneath the header and sees it fly over the bar.
Half time and applause all round for us as we’d been the better side and I still expected us to win. Reading had scored from our mistake and the Reading defence looked dodgy to me with a distinct lack of pace all over it but especially at left back where, on the 100th anniversary of the unsinkable ship sinking, Ian Harte has the turning circle of the Titanic and the speed of an iceberg.
The opening action of the second half sees Superkelv steaming out of his goal to meet Noel Hunt, not getting anything but the man and the referee giving a goal kick. Did I see that correctly because no one complained? My mate the whiny Chuckle Brother is in full flow with his standard line of ‘why-deee-doooo-dahhhht’ which is beginning to grate on me in large fashion. If we do make it to the Premier League and lose a few matches then I may have to kill him.
Luckily for him I didn’t have too much time to think about that as Adam crosses from the left, Billy twists and chests it down and Sir Rickie smashes in a shot which flicks off of Gorkss and flies into the roof of the net past Federici. Get in…. here we go. Predictably, there is a massive ‘we are top of the league’ from the Saints fans and it’s not just the Northam. Many of the Kingsland have managed to cast away their zimmer frames and put their false teeth back in and are singing away. I’m singing too and then get carried away and ask the Chuckle Brother if he was still fucking moaning.
We have the momentum again and are piling forward looking for another goal and Chappers, who has started the second half well, forces Federici to save his angled blast at the near post. To be fair, it was going wide anyway but a decent save none the less. From the corner, again it’s Big Jos and this time it skims off the big forehead which takes it away from the goal and away from anyone else at the back post. The shot was Chappers last contribution as Nigel decided to take a potential red card out of the equation and replaced him with Steeeve who one would assume, would have the instructions to run at Harte. There’s immediately another chance as Billy and Sir Rickie combine and the latter slams his shot just wide.
Just after the hour mark, McDermott responds to our pressure by taking off Tabb in midfield and putting on Le Fondre up front and going 4-4-2 in a very positive move. Straight away Reading get a chance on the break but Roberts is superbly caught and tackled by Steeeeve who has hammered back after we lost the ball in the Reading penalty area. We have a glorious chance to take the lead when following a dart by Steeeeve, another deep Butters cross is not met by Sir Rickie but by Adam Lallana who got in front of the defender and then allowed it to slide off his head and wide.
There still only looks like being one winner but I did think that it may peter out in the last 10 minutes if both sides settled for a draw. It didn’t come to that though as Deano won the ball in midfield and rather than clearing it, decided to turn back towards his own goal and got burgled. Two passes later and Kebe had fed le Fondre who side-footed it into the roof of the net from the edge of the box. Fucking unbelievable – so now we’ve contributed massively to giving them two goals and yes, they are top of the league.
Guly comes on for Deano so I assume that Nigel is going for it but Guly appears to have taken up a deep position in a straight swap. A few minutes later and I realise that we’ve gone, the midfield has gone and we’re not creating anything. Steeeve is out on the wing but he’s not getting the ball through a combination of his lack of intelligent movement and the central midfield players not having control. He is however, our only spark and he bursts through before seeing his shot bounce off of Federici’s chest and away.
It must be nice for the morale of the players to be trying desperately to get back into the most important game of the season and seeing masses of their own fans streaming for the exits. Pathetic. No I won’t stand up to let you out, go the other fucking way while I sit in the way and ignore you. To round off a real shitkicker of an evening, we gift them another goal in the last minute as a poor header by Guly puts us in trouble which José has a chance to clear up but his back header is weak and Le Fondre nips in again, rounds Superkelv and scores with ease… ah, fuck off.
Full time and the fans that bothered to stay til the end clapped the players off as they’d put in a decent shift but it hadn’t been enough. Oh dear. As I left the ground, my mood is sponsored by the word ‘angry’. I felt that until the second Reading goal, we’d been the better side by a mile and deserved to win and there was a big sense of injustice there. There was anger that we hadn’t made them work for their goals – on all three, we had the ball, gave it away in our own half and before we got it back, they’d scored. On two of the goals we should have cleared it but screwed up horribly and it ended up in our net. You are not going to win games in any league if you continually give the ball away in your own half.
Having taken a few deep breaths, calming down a bit and trying to be objective… as far as Reading were concerned it was the perfect away performance in that they soaked up everything we had one way or another and then hit on the break when they had the opportunity. They didn’t have many opportunities but they took them all. It’s not as if we didn’t know it was coming as they’ve been doing that all season. We didn’t play badly and against most teams we would have been out of sight by the hour mark and the job would have been done.
McDermott seriously got one over on Nigel as well – McDermott brought on a forward for a midfielder and played him up front and he scored twice, Adkins brought on a forward for a midfielder and played him in midfield and he contributed to giving a goal away and did nothing up the correct end. Our ridiculous bench came home to roost as well – could have brought on Barnard or Punch or even Falque when we needed a goal at 2-1 down but we had three defenders left as game changing options. ‘Impact’ – my arse.
Some players had shockers today, staring with Superkelv who had one of his ‘nailed to the goal line games’. In my opinion he should have done better on the first goal and José Fonte will know he should have done better on the first and third. In generally play, Deano and Corky were ok in the first half but went missing in the second and we really missed Morgan for the control in that area that he usually gives us. So, having said last week that this was our best midfield, they totally proved me wrong. Chappers is proving to be a bit of a conundrum at the moment, veering between excellent and dreadful and not a lot in between. He has to stay in the team against Peterborough on Tuesday though as he always scores against them.
So, Friday night was a miserable one and then came Saturday with the other team in the Automatic Promotion Love Triangle, West Ham, playing at home against Brighton. Bearing in mind the Fat Sam has not masterminded a home win in his last 7 attempts; it was tempting to think that Brighton would be good for a point. By 10 past 3 they were 3-0 down however and by full time they had conceded another 3 and virtually trashed our goal difference advantage in the process. Well played Gus, you utter wanker.
It’s become popular to talk of things in the context of ‘If Carlsberg did etc etc etc’. Well, this weekend has been provided by a different lager, that Value stuff from Tesco. So… “If a Steaming Pint of 2% Pss Lager did Sporting Weekends, then it would be just like this one”. Hopefully Carlsberg will be back in action on Tuesday when we travel to Peterborough and Fergie-Lite, Reading entertain Forest who ar eplaying pretty well at the moment and Fat Sam goes to Bristol City which is an interesting one as City still have some work to do following the Skates miraculous and highly dubious win on Saturday.
Tuesday cannot come soon enough.
3 games left, 7 points needed.
Me, 94 minutes, Friday
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