Oi Rafa, Bugger off over there !!!
When we were loafing about in League 1 and the Championship,
the media that were irritating were local as we of course weren’t on the radar
of the mainstream – as I’ve said before, there’s the Premier League and that’s
it. Now we are in the spotlight however and
the week before a game is spent looking at various ‘outlets’, deciding which
stories may have a vague grain of truth in them and which are complete and
utter bollocks. I give you ‘Saints are
in talks with Harry Redknapp’ which I dismissed as bollocks because it would
represent a complete 180 from Don Nicola’s stated policy of bringing through
young players which is not on ‘Arry’s list of strengths. Another one I put on the bollocks pile was
‘Rafa Benitez in talks with Saints’. I
did consider that it may be that we need a new waiter for the corporate
hospitality but come on media, do some homework and at least make it a bit
believable.
I had read a rumour the night before the game that Nigel
Adkins had read what I wrote last week and decided to change the keeper. He obviously didn’t read the bit about it
being ill-advised to throw in a 20 year old kid but regardless, Paulo Gazzaniga
was in goal. Big Jos had failed to
recover and so Maya Yoshida came in for his first start but the new boy that everyone
wanted to see was of course, Gaston Ramirez who also started in place of James
Ward-Prowse. As I was in the ground with
my 8 year old son and not my 67 year old father, I was early and we watched
intently as the first team outfield players played 5v5 keep ball in the warm up
and Gaston failed to give the ball away once.
I have decided that he is brilliant and I haven’t seen him play yet.
As the game is about to start, the uneducated could think
that Villa have 25 players as they are wearing a kit which is the standard
‘yellow with a green tinge’ colour shirt which is the standard for high-viz
jackets and training bibs. Consequently,
they clash with the ball boys and the stewards.
The reason that ball boys and stewards wear that colour is so they stand
out with the logic being that no other fucker will have such seriously awful
taste to wear it by choice.
It’s a lukewarm beginning to the game but in general, I feel
that Saints start the brighter and we quickly have 3 in the Opta ‘Shots off
target’ column with Sir Rickie getting under an effort and putting it in the
crowd, Steven Davis smashing a ball high and handsome to the amusement of the
Villa fans who used to applaud him and then The Great Gaston being not so great
and shanking his left foot effort wide of the post from the edge of the
box. Defensively we are looking ok with
Yoshida looking unruffled and generally positioning himself well and competing
well in the air with Benteke who is about 7 foot tall. There seems to be a slight change in our
defensive formation as we’re 4-4-1-1 without the ball but it still doesn’t
legislate for Foxy dozing off again and presenting possession to Ireland
whose pass to Bent looks dangerous until Jose pulls out a decent rescue tackle.
Gazza has had hardly anything to do as yet aside from pluck
an overhit cross towards the giant out of the air but we still manage to go 1-0
down and once again it’s a catalogue of errors.
First Clyne gives the ball away but gets back and wins it back and gives
it to Punch who attempts a suicidal ball across the top of the box to gift it
back to Villa again. Stephen Ireland’s
cross is cleared back to him and he hits a crappy looking shot into the ground
and everybody stands still. Ireland’s
grandmother has died and been reincarnated a 2nd time before anyone
moves and that person is Bent who walks in front of Fox who may as well be
scratching his arse and pokes it into the net from about 5 yards. What a shite goal to let in… again.
We haven’t been bad up to that point but it all goes a bit
pearshaped after that. Lallana starts
giving the ball away and Gaston is peripheral.
The full backs are unable to get forward and Foxy has taken to hoofing
it as far down the line as he can. To be
fair, Villa are closing down very quickly with Ireland in particular to the
fore. Half time and 1-0 down but it’s
noticeable that there is no booing and the players get clapped off. The only dissenting voice is my son who is
moaning to me “Dad, we’re going to lose aren’t we… we lose every match… what’s
the point?”. “Son, here’s a bloody great
bag of Haribo, sit down and eat them all and we’ll worry about all your teeth
falling out later”.
Before the second half starts we have a sub for each side
with what looks like Frazer Richardson coming on for Clyne until I realise that
Clyne is now at left back and it is in fact Fox who has gone off. I suspect the reason for the substitution was
part-tactical, part-injury but 90% the former.
Stephen Ireland has gone off for Villa which can only be a good thing
for us.
Again we start the half fairly well and Punch has an early
near post shot which Guzan saves comfortably.
Villa appear to be ignoring midfield now and it’s all long to the big
lump up front who is a handful but Yoshida and Fonte are handling things quite
comfortably and it’s giving us the ball more and more and allowing us to
build. You'd think that the hi-viz jackets would enable Villa to locate eachother but apparently not.
Before we can get any delusions of getting a equalizer we
have to survive two decent Villa chances, predictably given to them by our shit
defending, this time from corners. Bannan’s
corner is met by the big bugger and Fonte concedes another corner by heading
over. The 2nd kick is
identical and again, Benteke meets it – looks like it’s going in from where I
am – but it goes just wide. We are
making zonally at corners which as far as I can see means that our defenders
stand in an area and don’t move, jump or anything when the ball arrives there
and it’s in the lap of the Gods if it ends up in the net or not. Whatever happened to marking a fucking player
each?
Scare over and we’re back up the other end and the move
starts badly and the crowd groan as Adam’s pass is behind the run of Punch but
Adam keeps running and picks up his own crap pass before heading down the right
wing and crossing low into the middle where Sir Rickie takes a touch to
manoeuvre a position despite 4 Villa defenders being around him and thumps it
right footed via Guzan’s gloves to make it 1-1.
Get in!!!
There are now two different teams on the pitch – Saints are
now flying and Villa are looking like rabbits in the headlights of a fucking
great oncoming bus and as we now at Saints, we love our buses. A superb break instigated by the Great Gaston
sees the ball arrive at Lallana’s feet and his first time half volley flies
just over the bar but it’s not long before we’re in front as Clyne cuts in from
the left and via Sir Rickie and a superb pass from Gaston, gets it back just in
front of Guzan and slots it past him.
The replay of this goal reveals one of the worst shouts for offside I’ve
ever seen in my life as Clyne receives Gaston’s pass and the Villa defender
(Holman or Vlaar) who is directly behind Clyne and looking at him and playing
him onside, sticks his arm up. Don’t
think so mate and a jump into the fans and a booking later makes it 2-1 to the
boys in Red.
It’s all Saints now and Punch pulls out a clever turn and
curls a left footed effort just wide of the far post but he’s not to be denied
a few minutes later as once again, the Great Gaston feeds Sir Rickie who waits before
feeding in Punch who turns the covering defender and crashes it into the far
top corner via a slight deflection to make it 3-1. If I wasn’t an experienced
SFC fan with a long memory of all our incredible capitulations, I’d say we were
cruising.
With memories of substitution-gate from the Man United game
fresh in the mind, we bring on Mayuka and JWP as straight swaps for Punch and
Davis and the momentum keeps up aside from Villa getting a free kick when
Benteke, all 7 foot and 18 stone of him, gets brushed by Fonte and falls over
like a sack of shit. It’s a great
position for Villa but Darren Bent’s free kick is one of those where the moment
he hits it, you know it’s flying over the bar.
We then get the Gaston Ramirez Show for 10 minutes as first
he wins the ball in midfield and sets Adam Lallana away down the left with a
beautifully weighted pass. Instead of
hitting it with his left, Adam turns inside onto his right and gets
tackled. Gaston then sets up Mayuka who
curls a shot just wide and then Gaston shows he’s human. We get a free kick near the corner flag and
only Gaston knows what he was trying to do as he hoofs it into Row Z. No one cares particularly and it’s now a
great atmosphere with ‘One Nigel Adkins’ booming around the ground, a chant
which is heartily applauded by the manager who despite his relentless positivity,
must have been feeling the pressure.
We all know that South Americans have their cynical side
which is incredibly annoying when you’re the opposition or when the South
American in question is Gus Poyet but when one of your South Americans goes to
work, it’s hilarious. There are 5
minutes to go when we get awarded a goal kick and time is virtually up by the
time Gazza has taken his gloves off, re-tied his laces and spent ages putting
his gloves back on. The Villa fans are not in uproar though as most of them
have gone and the one’s who are left have kind of given up. Those left would not have been impressed
however as we re-enacted the promotion match against Coventry and passed it
about for fun as the crowd chanted “We are Southampton, we’re taking the piss”.
As we tick into the 90th minute, Sir Rickie sends
Mayuka away who shows decent pace to get there before Guzan who flips him over
– penalty all day long. Yellow card for
Guzan which would have been a red earlier in the game and all of the irritating
bastards who are streaming for the exits, stop on the stairs blocking
everyone’s view. Keep going you tossers. Now, the big question – is taking a Premier
League penalty any different from taking one in the Championship or League 1? Sir Rickie, bang, no it’s not different at
all, 4-1, get in, final whistle, game over.
At last we’ve started and as second half performances go,
that was brilliant. Make no mistake
though – Villa were shockingly bad in the second half but who cares and the
post match reaction has been a reminder of what it was like whenever we beat a
bigger club when we were last in the Premier League – they were bad rather than
us being any good. Make no mistake
though, the front six were very very good and with Nathaniel Clyne at left back
and Frazer on the right, he defence looked very solid as well. I was very impressed with Maya Yoshida who
played with great intelligence which seemed to help out Jose Fonte no end. Maya has great confidence on the ball but
someone needs to tell him that a forty yard chip across his own six yard line
to Frazer is more often than not, going to end badly. As mentioned, the front 6 were superb and
Emmanuel Mayuka looked decent when he came on as well.
There was more good news straight after the game with Polish
goalkeeper Artur Boruc signing on a free transfer. Boruc was rated as one of the best keepers in
the world about 5 years ago and he’s still only 32. A big personality who of course, made his
name with Celtic – with any luck he’ll be as good as the last goalkeeper we
signed with a Glasgow past, the legendary Antii Niemi. You can’t argue with the goalkeeper business
we’ve done in the summer as we’ve swapped Bart for Boruc and Dismal Forecast
for Gazza. It’s tough on Kelvin Davis
who you could argue has gone from 1st to 3rd choice in an
afternoon and it’ll be interesting to see who gets the nod in Tuesday’s game in
the Capital One Cup game against Sheffield Wednesday and more importantly, who
is in goal against Everton next weekend.
Finally, we’ll end on a sad note. In the Kingsland I’m usually flanked by my
Dad on one side and a lovely old guy called Bill on the other who attends games
with his two sons who sit the other side of him. Sadly, Bill, a big Hampshire Cricket fan as
well as a Saints fan, passed away last Saturday aged 85, having just witnessed
the last ball of Hampshire winning the CB40 cup final on the TV. As a football fan he really knew what he was
talking about and at the start of the season he turned round and told the
Chuckle Brothers that they really should stop moaning about everything while I
sat there laughing to myself. He would
have missed the 4th goal today as he would have been downstairs
having a pee as he was when every game drew to a close. I used to have a laugh with him about that to
which he’d reply “you wait until you’re eighty-bloody-five”. A lovely guy who will be greatly missed and
my thoughts are with his family, most of which I’ve met at St.Marys at various
times over the last few years.
Rest in Peace Bill.
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