"Taggart looks grumpy, better take off my 3 best players"
The build up to the home game against Manchester United
almost got lost in amongst the closing of the transfer window. After the signing of Emmanuel Mayuka on
Tuesday, we knew that Saints would be active and so it proved. Firstly, Maya Yoshida, a Japanese defender who
played for Venlo in Holland arrived despite Nigel previously ruling him out and
then finally, totally under the radar and with no one having any inkling that
it was happening, we finally signed Gaston Ramirez from Bologna, smashing our
transfer record in the process and signing a player who appears to be coveted
by Liverpool and Spurs amongst others.
The reaction of fans of those clubs has been as patronising as it’s been
hilarious and Mark Lawrenson to be fair, apologised for his previous assertion
that he’d never sign for Southampton . Gaston could potentially be our best player
since Matt Le Tiss so I can’t wait..... but I have to because he’s not
available today.
We also had a couple of transfer window casualties and it
was a shame because it was two players who both played major parts in us being
where we are today. Firstly, Billy Sharp
went out on a season long loan to Nottingham
Forest Brighton , his home town club. It’s an interesting one because in true
football fan style, the Brighton fans all seem to hate him due mainly to how he
left the club the first time and him celebrating a goal he scored at the
Withdean for us in our League 1 days by giving it the large one and telling the
whole stand down one side to fuck off. Brighton do seem to over-react to the slightest thing
(see reaction to Nigel Adkins innocuous comments) but needless to say, all will
be forgiven when he smashes into his first tackle or scores his first
goal. The players themselves seem happy
enough with their moves and best of luck to them and if they end up playing
against us at SMS at any point in the future, they should get good receptions. From our point of view, it makes good sense
as well to loan them out as if things go wrong this season, we may well want
them back for next year.
So, to today and it’s Man United at home in Taggart’s 1000th
league match in charge and any build up I’ve seen this week has been grey
shirts and 6-3 and in general, the games that we’ve won. Fact is that United have won the last 4 times
they’ve played at SMS so it of course, aint going to be easy. Our team showed a couple of changes from the
Wigan match with Ward-Prowse and Punch coming in for J-Rod and Guly, presumably
dropped for the alcohol content when he blew in the Policeman’s bag. On the bench we had the usual suspects plus
Tadanari Lee, much to the delight of the Saints Ninja’s Japanese fan club. Man United, in the true spirit of the
Paralympics, recalled Rio Ferdinand to partner Vidic in defence and up front of
course, there was no Rooney and the Squirrel on his head, only Robin Van Persie
and Shinji Kagawa so nothing to worry about there, nor in midfield where they
only had Welbeck, Carrick, Valencia and Cleverley who are all of course, a load
of shit... oh and Scholes is on the bench, great.
Away we go and whoooosh as a tidal wave of white floods
towards our goal. Shit me… we don’t
touch the ball for about 5 minutes as United just pop it about while we chase
shadows. We’re keeping our shape through
and not letting them through except for Danny Fox who appears to be running
around in a random pattern which doesn’t involve going anywhere near Antonio
Valencia which wouldn’t be a problem if he was the United left back but as he’s
their right winger, it’s a problem. On
one occasion, Valencia lays it back to Rafael at right back, Foxy goes to press
the ball and Rafael just rolls it back to Valencia who is now in about 40 yards
of space behind him and the nearest to him is a fucking ball boy.
We survive the first 10 and then begin to get a grip and
when we do get the ball, the midfield are doing their best to keep it with
Steven Davis, Ward-Prowse and in particular, Morgan to the fore. We have our first effort from a corner as
Foxy fires it across low and a training ground move is executed perfectly until
Lallana plays a virtual air shot as opposed to smashing it in the net. We’re snapping into tackles now and competing
all over the pitch but no matter how well you’re playing, it’s always a bit of
a shock to the system when you score which is what we do on 25 minutes as
Cleverley’s pass forward to Kagawa is intercepted by Morgan who dives forward
and feeds Punch who cuts onto his left foot and serves up ‘The Butterfield’
which of course is an inswinging cross to the back stick for Sir Rickie to attack
against the full back, in this case Rafael.
When the cross lands it’s Man versus Boy and Sir Rickie gets up and
thumps his header down and across Lindegaard and into the net. St Mary’s goes mental, even in the old peoples
home in the Kingsland which is a bit of a shocker. As the game restarts, all the old buggers pop
their hips back into place and away we go.
Sadly, it doesn’t take long for normal service to be
resumed, five minutes to be exact as Foxy illustrates to all that he hasn’t
learnt the lessons of the first ten minutes as Valencia is allowed to cross the
ball, totally unhindered by our full back, Clyne slips at the back post
allowing Van Persie to control superbly before firing across Superkelv to make
it 1-1. Great finish to be fair. Saints are unruffled by the goal though and
keep going forward and there’s another close thing as Sir Rickie fastens onto a
bouncing ball 25 yards out and lashes in a left footed volley which curls just
wide. United’s last chance of the half
is a free kick right on the edge of the box which Van Persie makes a complete
bollocks of and chips harmlessly wide.
Half time, 1-1 and a very good performance so far.
Saints come steaming out at the start of the second half and
are well on top due to the midfield 5 who are playing superbly. This is easily the best game that Punch has
ever had for us and I think you’d struggle to find a better performance from
Morgan as well. He’s doing what he
always had the potential to do and dictating the game, making Cleverley and
Carrick look very pedestrian, ably backed up by Davis and Ward-Prowse. Added into that we have Lallana’s ability at
turning out of trouble and keeping the ball and we have a measure of control
that one would never have thought possible against Man United. The domination is turned into something
tangible on 55 minutes as Sir Rickie finds himself out on the left before
finding space and floating a lovely cross onto the head of Morgan who has
ghosted into the box as Evra falls over.
A thump of the head and it’s 2-1 and St.Mary’s has gone proper mental
this time. At risk of sounding like Dave
Merrington, it’s a brilliant goal for me as our deepest midfielder has managed
to get himself ahead of the striker and bagged his first ever goal at St
Mary’s.
Straight away we have a chance for 3-1 as Punch easily turns
Evra and makes space for a right footed shot which he thumps goalwards bringing
a smart save from Lindegaard at his near post.
Taggart has obviously seen enough and United make a couple of
substitutions which put me in mind of a trip I made to Old Trafford once when
we were already 4-1 down and they brought on Giggs and Beckham. This time, Cleverley and Welbeck were taken
off and Scholes and Nani came on which even before the game restarted, made
United look a better side.
We were still maintaining control of the game and I had the
impression that as long as the defence held firm and basically, didn’t do
anything stupid then we’d be fine.
Superkelv then gave Foxy a complete hospital pass which was easily
picked off by Valencia
who crossed along the top of the box to Van Persie who for a second imagined he
was in a Dutch shirt and shanked it wide.
So – we got out of jail there but Kelvin’s not finished and decides to
test out the definition of madness; trying something for a second time and expecting
a different result. This time his pass
fails to reach Clyne and Nani nips in, plays it into Van Persie who is trashed
by Hooiveld in a man and ball effort – penalty.
He might have got away with it elsewhere on the pitch and against
someone other than United but to be fair, it’s a penalty in exactly the same
way as the one we got given up at the Etihad when Lescott trashed J-Rod.... oh
wait! Up steps Van Persie and we wait
for the net to bulge.... but he’s made a wanker of himself and chipped it and
though he’s gone down, Superkelv has managed to get his hand back and flip the
ball wide. Again we’ve got away with
it... Come Onnnnnn!!!
The next ten minutes see Guly and Mayuka come on for Punch
and Sir Rickie. Punch has had a
marvellous game and fully deserved the standing ovation he got and Sir Rickie
had done what he’s paid for, scored a good goal, created one as well and all in
front of the watching England
manager. I expected Guly to go up front
and Mayuka to go to the right wing but the opposite happened and immediately,
the dynamic of the game had changed.
Mayuka obviously wasn’t going to win a thing up against Vidic and
Ferdinand and so the possession percentages immediately started swinging back
towards United, prompted by that little bastard Scholes who was dictating the
game now. I was quite disappointed when
he retired, pleased when he came back and now I wish he’d stayed retired or
signed for Oldham .
With ten to go we make our final change with Adam Lallana
going off to be replaced with J-Rod who takes up his usual (out of) position on
the left wing. This substitution does
nothing to alter the inexorable swing that is going on towards United. By taking off Punch and now Adam, we may have
gained in a bit of energy but we’ve lost the ability we had to keep the ball
which the two of them were doing so well.
Usually when a team can’t maintain possession they lump it up to the big
guy but he’s gone off as well so we lump it up to a 5 foot 8 Zambian bloke
playing his first ever game in English football. Even Ferdinand is finding it easy now and strolls
forward well into our half before anyone closes him down. United have thrown on Hernandez as well, just
to make it even more difficult and he gets though and is about to shoot until
Clyne slides in superbly and hooks the ball clear.
The clock is now ticking very very slowly and with 3 minutes
of the 90 remaining, United win a corner and Nani’s kick from the left sails
over everyone out to the right wing where Valencia picks it up with no one
near him. Danny Fox is having a stroll
around, picking daisies and trying to remember the words to ‘Flower of
Scotland’ in readiness for his international next week and the cross lands on
the head of everyone’s favourite drug test forgetter who heads it against the
post for Van Persie to smash into the net from a yard out. Bastards.
A deep sense of impending doom had come over me along with “we’re going
to fucking lose now aren’t we?”
We only had 4 minutes of Fergie time to negotiate but in the
first of those, Nani’s passed should have been cleared by Jose but he sliced it
out of play for a corner. The resulting
flag kick was put across by Nani and Jose compounded his error in giving away
the corner , by allowing Van Persie to get in front of him and superbly flick a
header over Superkelv and into to send the irritating away fans into delirium
and leave about 5 of our players on the deck holding their heads. Talk about a kick in the nuts. Sickening.
Lost 3-2.
From a Saints point of view, all the discussions I was
earwigging as I left the ground and all the questions in the post match
interviews, centred around the substitutions.
My take on it is that it was right to make the substitutions but the
wrong players were replaced and the wrong ones brought on. Guly for Punch didn’t affect things too much
but the other two substitutions were just wrong. Lallana may have been tired but was he any
more tired than Ward-Prowse who went down with cramp about 5 minutes
later? Also, I don’t care how tired he
was; Sir Rickie was keeping two of their players occupied and was a constant
threat. Taking him off merely handed the
initiative to United as it meant Ferdinand (who was creaking like the old man
with rickets that he is) and Vidic could just stroll out with the ball and join
in with the attacks. OK, assuming Sir
Rickie had to come off for a moment then Mayuka should not have come on as he’s
had one training session and never played English football before. Tadanari Lee would have given the energy and
cover down the left and J-Rod wouldn’t have given the centre backs a free ride
if he’d been played in his natural position, rather than the one Nigel seems
obsessed with playing him in. The subs
may have added energy but they meant that we just gave United possession – we
were leading because we’d managed to keep the ball when we’d got it and had our
fair share of possession. As soon as you
let teams like United dominate possession then they will score especially if
you defend like we did for the last two goals.
Ah – the defence. It
seemed to me like we were trying to commit suicide back there at times. If we got away with one then we carried on
trying to commit suicide until we eventually managed it. For Not-so-Superkelv to put a defender in the
shit with a dodgy kick out once can kind of be forgiven but to do it a second
time is just moronic. Danny Fox was in a
parallel universe of his own all game and in his universe, Antonio Valencia was
nowhere near him. It was embarrassing
how much space he gave him and he appeared to be completely daydreaming on the
second goal to allow the cross which Ferdinand headed against the post. Then of course we had the Jose double for the
winning goal. Then there’s Jos who has
given away two stonewall penalties in three matches so far though thanks to
terrible penalty attempts and decent goalkeeping, we’ve got away with
those. The front 6 were, in my opinion,
superb… and we’ve still got Gaston on the bench as the song goes as it would be
hard to drop anyone based on that performance.
A final moan is about the England squad which has been
recently announced. Yesterday, Andy
Carroll got injured and Roy Hodgson was at SMS today, saw Sir Rickie smash
Vidic and Ferdinand around, score a goal, set up a goal and then decided that
Carroll didn’t need replacing. He will
also have witnessed the latest much hyped big club midfielder in Cleverley, get
completely outplayed and eclipsed by James Ward-Prowse and Adam Lallana. I’m not for a second saying that JWP should
be in the England
squad but surely Adam is pretty close now.
Where do Saints go from here, well, we go to Arsenal for
another ridiculously tough fixture. I
would anticipate it being the same starting XI with Ramirez and Yoshida on the
bench. If it wasn’t international break
time now then those two would probably be starting. After today it looks like Yoshida may be the
more urgently needed of the two. It’s
still an incredibly exciting time to be a Saints fan and whilst it was gutting
to not even get a point today, we have to remember who we were playing against.
Repeat after me….. We’ll. Be. Fine.
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