Moose with his fans
Following a weekend of results which could only be described as horrific (aside from Spurs and ‘Arry getting dicked), the mighty SFC were away at Peterborough in one of those fixture that you want at this stage of the season if you are chasing something. They aren’t going down and they’re in poor form so it’s as good as it gets from that point of view. On the other side of the coin is the fact that they are a decent attacking side who never seem to know when they are beaten, especially at home and we all remember the 4-4 draw there last year. A lot of that was down to Craig Mackail-Smith who then made the curious decision to further his career at Brighton.
A sub-plot to today was of course the meeting of Posh manager Fergie-Lite and Bald Psycho (as long as he was in the team). Since Fergie-Lite flogged him to us for £50 grand, he’s played against him twice and scored twice and it’s all been a bit fractious. Could Fergie-Lite raise his team for a decent performance tonight or would they already be on the beach? We can’t ignore the other games going on tonight either with Reading at home to Forest (home win banker) and the Fat Sam Total Football Academy visiting 4th bottom Bristol City (likely away win).
There was some speculation before the game that Morgan Schneiderlin was fit again but Nigel made all the speculating about any changes completely pointless by going for the same team and the same bench. I think we should have had Jaidi and Seaborne on the bench as well as Richardson, Martin and Harding as you can’t be too careful and one of the things I’d like to see before I die is Radhi the Train playing up front. One Posh player I remember well from previous encounters is George Boyd who always seems to be at the heart of everything they do, along with Grant McCann who I’m pleased to see, is only a sub.
Me, Dave Merrington, can of lager, let’s go to work.
Saints come flying out of the traps, looking like a side that means business and a side that’s in the business of putting the Reading defeat behind them. After five minutes we win a corner on the right which means that it’s time for The Fox. Danny boy swings over the kick, Peterborough seem to have no one who fancies it until Jones the keeper decides he’d better make an effort. Too late though and in steams Big Jos who has totally lost his marker, to head it down and in for his 7th goal of the season and 1-0. I didn’t knock my can over but a fairly decent sized slop of lager came out of the top.
Immediately, Saints are back on the attack again and it takes another 3-ish minutes for things to get even better as Lallana goes down the left, doesn’t go down when he easily could have done and crosses, Chappers cushions it into the middle to where Billy Sharp control and fires into the corner of the net to make it 2-0 after a whole 10 minutes and I've got lager coming out of my nose. There is lots of shouting going on and the 3,500 Saints fans in the ground sound magnificent. It’s nearly 3-0 a minutes later as Adam gets in a shot which forces a decent save from Jones who must be wondering what the fuck is going on in front of him.
Posh begin to get a foothold of sorts and have their first period of pressure which ends in Barnett getting in a header that in all truth was a bit soft and it plopped off the turf to present Superkelv with an easy save. News comes filtering through that Fat Sam will be munching on a celebratory pie as West Ham are one up at Ashton Gate but before the news and the pie can be digested, it turns out that Bristol City have equalized. How does that one taste Sam, probably like a healthy salad.
In the main it’s all Saints and we have a couple of near things as Billy gets free and hits the post, not knowing that the flag was up already. Chappers then chased down Zakuani who fannied about with it and allowed Chappers to nick the ball and Zakuani clearly clipped his heel. Lets put it this way – it was more of a penalty than either of the recent Ashley Young efforts which were given for the Dad of one of today’s managers. The ref however, was not intimidated by the 3500 Saints fans out of 9500 in the ground and didn’t give it.
Peterborough then manage to be assertive and decisive for the first time as Rowe ducks into a header and Brisley tries to kick his head off of his shoulders by wellying him in the face. The stoppage while Rowe has his features put back together is the final incident of what had been an extremely good first half.
Half time of Bristol City are still drawing with Fat Sam and Reading are 0-0 with Forest and Forest are having the better of it. We all know that having the better of it against Reading means bugger all and they’ll still beat you. For some reason, that game only kicked off at 8pm so it’s not half time there yet. So far, so good. Dave says that Saints don’t want to let Peterborough back in it and we don’t want to give them any encouragement and we definitely don’t want to concede a goal. No shit. I bet his team talks were brilliant when he was the manager
The first 10 minutes of the second half are quite even with Posh making a decent fist of it without threatening and us being content to not over-commit. If it wasn’t over already then the game was finished on the hour mark as Sir Rickie found himself on the right of the penalty are and laid the ball into Adam on the penalty spot who flicked it off first time to Billy Sharp who did what Billy Sharp does and put it in the net. 3-0 and get the fuck in!!! This goal is all about the touch from Lallana though – superb technique and vision, a bit like Paul Wotton only better.
Just after the hour mark one of our defenders is summoned from the bench as Aaron Martin comes on for Big Jos who took a bit of a knock when he scored and now fancies a rest. Having used one, it’s a bloody good job that we have two other defenders on the bench to provide the impact that we’ll need at 3-0 up.
Saints are still flying and looking for a fourth goal as Sir Rickie again shows what a good footballer he is by superbly timing a ball to Chappers, whose low shot was just about kept out by Jones though in truth here, Chappers should have not given Jones a prayer. Jones is in the firing line again 5 minutes later as Dean “he hasn’t scored since the first game of the season” Hammond has a dig from the edge of the box which flies just wide with the keeper motionless.
There are 10 minutes to go and Posh are having a go at getting a consolation and Superkelv is having none of it as he denies both Rowe and then Taylor with decent saves. After some great Posh passing. He’s powerless to prevent Rowe scoring with 5 minutes to go though as a corner comes in and his headed at goal by Zakuani, who has managed to lose Aaron Martin. Chappers kicks it off the line but Rowe bundles the rebound into the net for 3-1. A quick look at the watch makes me realise that I’m not that bothered. All that’s left is for Billy Sharp to feature in a standing ovation/time wasting substitution as he’s replaced with Guly who gets the ball and runs at them. He should pass it but he's only playing for five minutes in the pissing rain, having travelled all the way up there so who can blame him for having a shot... which goes wide.
Full time and what a result – all we need now is for Bristol City to hang on….. and they did – how do like Weightwatchers Fat Sam?.. Just the one point in today’s meal. At the point when the Fat Sam result was confirmed, Reading were still 0-0 with Forest with 10 minutes to go. Beautiful…. and so with two games to go we are five points ahead of West Ham with a five better goal difference which means that whatever happens, we will go into the final game of the season at home against (almost certainly relegated) Coventry, with an advantage.
It was too much to hope for that Reading would drop points and true to form, they did what they always do and found a way to win and banged in a late goal to win 1-0 and secure their promotion and maintain the 3 point lead over ourselves. Congratulations to them and especially to Brian McDermott – they deserve to go up and if they win the Championship, they deserve that too. They have new wealthy Russian owners waiting in the wings as well which on the face of it is great for them but I’m sure there will be an element of wariness amongst the fans. At the same time, I can’t believe that John Madejski would pass control of 20 years of his life to anyone dodgy and I wish them well.
After the game, Nigel legendarily called the Peterborough goal “spawny” which is a word I don’t think I’ve ever heard any manager use before and then spoke of still wanting to win the Championship which I guess is a device to stop the players worrying about being caught and to look up instead of down. If we get to the point that we have secured promotion, then I will worry about winning the league and not before – come the start of next season though, no one will give a toss if we won it or not as long as we go up and as I explained to a Skate fan on Twitter, no one will give a shite if they finish bottom, 2nd bottom or 3rd bottom.
At risk of sounding like another Saints blog, I will say “I told you so” as Nigel explained that Billy Sharp will get better as he gets fitter and gets used to the Southampton way of doing things which is roughly what I said last week which proves conclusively that Nigel Adkins definitely reads this blog (ha ha). Billy himself is a plain speaking blunt Northerner kind of chap and didn’t rate his own performance very highly aside from being delighted with his goals while the legend that is Merrington was waxing lyrical about this being his best Saints performance so far.
So, it’s all good, especially when you read the views of the bitter West Ham Press Association (a.k.a that Moose twat on talkSHITE), banging on about Peterborough rolling over without a hint of irony after Brighton lost 6-0 at their place three days ago. Three days ago I was worried that we were on course for a bit of an implosion and it becoming very difficult to get over the line but the world today is a much better place.
After the weekends matches we needed 7 points and now its….
2 games left, 2 points needed.
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