Premier League Match 14 - Southampton 1 Norwich 1

You two can fuck off back to Wochdale !

I find midweek games a pain in the arse..

Let me clarify that... I love midweek games once I’m in the ground but hate the hassle of getting there.  I am one of the poor unfortunates who rely on Southern Rail to get them to places on time and they are so bad that it is quite stressful wondering if I’m going to see the kick off.  The good news is that I will probably miss the mascot dog doing Gangnam Style and the annoying baldy bloke attempting to be funny.   Also stressful but in an amusing way, is getting all my gear ready and heading to work (in Brighton) on the train in the morning.  The scarf around my neck got me a (relatively) good natured ‘Scummer!’ shout from a passing Skate this morning as the train passed through bandit country near Havant.    I used to live near Havant with the joke being ‘Havant got a chippy, Havant got any decent pubs’ .  You can’t say ‘Havant got a football club’ because they have and if Pompey lose their court case to be allowed to buy Fratton Park, they may well have two.

We welcome Norwich to SMS this evening and irritatingly, they’ve picked up of late so it’ll be a really tough game, tougher I’m sure than QPR and Newcastle.  The build up has been all about the ex-Rochdale strike force of Holt and Lambert who have played in every division and are now in the Premier League and scoring goals.  Holt mouthed off earlier in the season about players like the two of them never getting a chance for England and of course, he was dead right.  I’ve seen some Saints fans reasoning that we should leave Sir Rickie out tonight as it’s 3 games in 7 days etc and blah blah blah, save him for Liverpool etc.  WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!!  For starters, the most important game is the next one and in this league, if you start winning as we just have, I don’t think you change a winning side unless you absolutely have to.  This is our best starting XI and if you are going to prioritise the games, we have a better chance of winning this one than Liverpool away at the weekend....and I have a feeling that the big man may want to play in that one.

Usually of course, you don’t want to notice the referee but tonight it’s inevitable as we have Mark Clattenburg, fresh from his reinstatement following Chelsea’s slanderous racism accusation.   Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t we also get the first game back for Sian Massey after the Andy Gray sexism thing. Chelsea have refused to apologise for the blatantly wrong accusation and so it’s rumbled on for much longer than it should have done – what a bunch of (insert expletives here).  I do not and have never believed for one second that Clattenburg is a racist but I do believe that he is a piss-poor referee and he was abysmal when we had him against Fulham earlier in the season.  Hopefully he’ll be decent tonight.

Saints start relatively well and put Norwich under a bit of pressure.  When Norwich get the ball it invariably breaks down on their right back Whitaker who in really shite fashion, passes the ball straight out of play a couple of times, much to the annoyance of his right winger Robert Snodgrarse who is a whingy bastard at the best of times (see Leeds reports from past seasons).  Norwich  and Snodgrarse have the first effort which requires a goalkeeper when he blasts one straight at Gazza which he saves easily enough.

Saints are playing ok without looking too dangerous which can be put down to Norwich defending deep and pretty well and Twattenburg being very lenient with any tackling from the Norwich defenders, particular Turner who seems to want to take Sir Rickie’s head home as a souvenir as he looks like he’s trying to wrestle it off his shoulders at every collision.  The big man escapes on 25 minutes and gets a bit of space on our right before sending over a lovely cross to Lallana who has to volley it first time and does so, about three foot over the bar.

Having previously turned down an opportunity to run at the Norwich defence, Luke Shaw has a run at Snodgrarse who unsurprisingly just brings him down.  Surprisingly, Twattenburg gives it to earn himself an extended round of applause and unsurprisingly, Snodgrarse moans about it.  Lallana’s cross into the mixer deflects off of Holt and hits Sir Rickie on the upper arm before hitting Holt again who has a Rochdale flashback and knocks it down for Sir Rickie to poke into the net.  It’s a scruffy goal but no-one in red is complaining.

I am weighing up our ‘clean sheet’ potential at this point and Norwich really aren’t offering much .  Holt is having a bit of a mare and they don;t appear to have too much else going on up front.  The main threat seems to be through Tettey in midfield who is producing the odd surging run.  For us, Yoshida is playing like he has something in his eye combined with an inner ear infection as he's missing every header by a mile and Gazza is not filling me with confidence as he fails to claim anything.

Saints are pushing for a second and following another round of applause for Twattenburg, Gaston’s free kick from the right, skims right across the goal with goalkeeper Bunn struggling.  Half time is upon us and Luke Shaw showed a bit of inexperience by showing Snodgrarse inside onto his only foot and then missing the tackle.  Clyne dived in and took him out and the Twatt (correctly in my view) awarded the free kick, right on the right hand corner of the area as Norwich were attacking.  My view was directly behind it and you could see that three men was not enough to have in the wall and the three were to far to the right – it should have been 4 or even 5 players as Snodgrarse was only ever going to shoot which he did – to the left of the three man wall and under the flailing Gazza who really made a shite effort at getting to it.  Fuck it… the bastard didn’t even hit it that well.

Half time and 1-1 and oh shit, the dog is doing Gangnam Style and I haven’t missed it.

The second half starts and we struggle to get out of first gear.  Emboldened by their somewhat fortuitous equalizer, Norwich are pressing us back and looking like they actually have a thought about winning the game.  A poor final ball often lets them down though and the closest they come in this period is a Holt header from a corner which hits Gazza on the line and is cleared.  Considering Holt was only 5 yards out, the keeper really should be claiming that one.

Jason Punch is looking our most lively player and he comes close on the hour mark as a lovely control and turn buys him a bit of space and his left footed curler is heading for the bottom corner until Bunn gets down and pulls off a decent save.  Following a nondescript 10 minutes or so, the Great Gaston injected some life into things with a burst through from midfield  which was brought to a grass-eating conclusion when he was trashed by Ryan Bennett whose tackle was about 10 yards from the ball.  I know there was a covering defender and Bennett knew it as well so it was never going to be a red card but fucking hell, so cynical.

Norwich had stopped committing too many players to their attacks from about the 70^th minute and by the 80^th, I detected that we had settled for a point also.  No attacking subs had been brought on which was a surprise as many seemed knackered which was never better illustrated when Punch got himself into a decent position and delivered a superb cross into a great area… which had no Saints players in it.

Luke Shaw went down with cramp on 85 and on came Ben Reeves who no matter how many times I see him, looks like a mascot from a local school.  I was pleased that Holt had gone off at this point as the thought of Norwich loading high balls into our left back area for Holt to compete for against 5 foot nothing of Ben Reeves was a frightening one.  J-Rod was given 3 minutes of normal time as a replacement for Punch with Gaston going to the right but neither team looked like scoring to be honest and Twattenburg got something right as he managed to blow the whistle for the end of the game.

This was a difficult game to analyse really... one point gained or two dropped?  It reminded me of some of the games in the Championship and League 1 in that the away team came for a draw and we tried to break them down.  Today we did that, got in front and I feel that if we’d got to half time 1-0 up then we’d have probably got another in the second half as Norwich came out a bit and we’d have won 2-0 or something.  However – the goal we gifted them before half time fucked that right up.  For the first 20 minuntes of the second half I felt that Norwich thought they could win it before settling for a point again.  We didn’t have the necessary energy or belief to break them down again and I think Nigel settled for a point with 15 to go or else he’d have thrown on Mayuka for Lallana or something like that.  Overall, a fair result and both teams will be happy enough.

I thought Corky and Sir Rickie looked shattered in the second half and Adam disappeared altogether.  Gaston had his moments without being near the level of the Newcastle match and I thought Punch was our best player going forward, despite what the Row R morons think – they decided he was rubbish three years ago and are too stupid to actually watch the game and re-evaluate for themselves.

Nigel seemed to be happy enough with a point whilst throwing a few bombs at Twattenburg.   When viewed in slow motion, it could be argued that Clyne got the ball in the tackle leading to the free kick for the Norwich goal but in real time I thought it was a foul and it certainly looked like one.  The bottom line is that if Gazzaniga had had another man in the wall and/or not made a complete bollocks of the free kick then no one would be talking about the decision so I don’t think you can blame the ref for that one but having said that.... he was absolutely dreadful anyway. 

Nigel does have a decision to make in goal for the next game and I’m pretty sure it will be one of Davis or Boruc in goal at Anfield.  If it was down to me it would be the Holy Goalie but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.  Gazza has played a major part in giving the opposition their goals in the last two home games that we’ve dropped points in and I think that the fans will start getting on his back if he continues for now which is no good for anyone but it’s especially not good for a youngster.   As everyone knows, one mistake and it’s a goal when you’re in goal – even defenders get away with it sometimes which was perfectly illustrated by the amount of times Yoshida missed the ball today and was bailed out usually by Fonte or Shaw.  Finally, I don’t usually argue with what opposition manager’s have to say, especially when it’s a nice inoffensive manager like Chris Hughton but his assertion that Norwich deserved to win is utter bollocks.  They didn't seem to have much ambition or quality up front so it's annoying that we threw them that goal.

As for the Rochdale reunion – well Sir Rickie scored from a Grant Holt assist so all’s well with the world.  Holt didn't have a great game and he was left in no doubt of that with the frequent chants of "you're just a shit Rickie Lambert" but it was obviously an off night for him and I for one wouldn't begrudge him the success he had last season or this and I'd rather see Holt play for England than some Billy Big Bollocks from Man United reserves.  Next up for the boys in red could well be a debut for the shit white kit as Nigel and Sir Rickie go back to Anfield.  We can get something there even if the thought if our defence up against Suarez gives me the shits.

Premier League Match 13 - Southampton 2 Newcastle 0

Clean Sheets, Yesterday

In the past few weeks we’ve had people who used to be in the employ of Southampton FC, coming back to haunt us in Gareth Bale and Nathan Dyer.  Today it’s not a returning player but a returning manager in Alan Pardew who in contrast to Bale and Dyer, only caused us a problem by scoring when he was here, rather than after he’d left.... if you believe that sort of thing.   As a manager, Pards started us off on this journey with the JPT success and the signing of many of the players who got us through League 1 and the Championship.  Sir Rickie and Jose Fonte are the obvious two who are still in the 1^st team now but he also signed Punch though his contribution to our promotions was somewhat limited.   Newcastle have another ex-Saint in Mike Williamson who never played a game for us but Pompey paid £3million for him at one point before selling him for nothing before he’d played for them in one of those genius financial transactions that they are so good at.

The endless lack of interest I had in the medias ‘Sack Race’ was ended with Roberto di Matteo becoming the first manager to be removed from his post this season due to Chelsea being in the bottom three and out of every competition they entered... or maybe it was due to ridiculous decision making by a club owner treating his club like a team on Championship Manager.  I’m sure that if he could, Roman would pay someone to reset the season and start again.  After losing to us last week, QPR decided that it was so embarrassing getting outclassed by the Saints that they could take no more and fired Mark Hughes on Friday, after they had of course, established the availability of his replacement.  Both Chelsea and QPR have made headline appointments with Chelsea bringing in Rafa Benitez who is about as popular with Chelsea fans as John Terry is with Wayne Bridge.  QPR of course have brought in the Twitchy Satchel Faced Geezer which has given us all the chance to watch the media rewriting history and removing his relegation with Saints in 2005 and the fact that Pompey are nearly dead as a result of this miracle spell there from 2006-08.  The final post script is that di Matteo is now favourite for the Saints job as Nicola Cortese “likes the idea of having a Champions League winner at the helm”... according to reports.   But of course… di Matteo is of course an Italian manager, like Paolo di Canio who was also linked and Cortese is after all, an Italian Chairman who is Swiss but never mind about the small details.  What a load of shit....

To the teams and the Toon were missing 3 of their better players with main defender Coloccini, main midfielder Cabaye and playmaker Ben Arfa all sidelined.  The rest of the side looked handy though and was regular first choice.  I dunno if it’s the stripes playing tricks on the eyes but on first glance, Newcastle look like a physically huge team with Ba, Cisse, Tiote, Santon, Williamson and Taylor all looking about 6 foot 5 each.  Not that I am particular up on my reality TV but the front page of the trash newspapers tells me that right back Danny Simpson has been taking time off from plugging holes in the Toon defence and has been plugging holes in the back of that talentless make-up plastered chav from the X-Factor judging panel... and I don’t mean Louis Walsh.  No accounting for taste I suppose.  Saints only made the one change to the bench from last week with Foxy missing and being replaced by another player who is not very good at left back, Guly do Prado.

Away we go and the Toon Army are soon in full voice with a mighty ‘Alan Pardew, he shags who he wants’ which is amusing but the counter attack of ‘Nigel Adkins, he shags his own wife’ sees the contest awarded to The Northam on points.   With Gazza probably being nervous with his couple of mistakes in the last two games, a dodgy backpass probably wasn’t what he wanted but having controlled the ball from Yoshida, he took too long to clear it and his clearance struck Demba Ba before looping right up into the air.  To be fair, Gazza, claimed the ball well as it came down which was a good end to what was a real ‘brown trousers’ moment.

Newcastle, as you would expect given all the giants in their team were pretty direct in their approach and Yoshida in particular was all over the place, usually about 6 feet under the ball but luckily, Fonte and especially Shaw were bang on it to snuff out any potential danger.    There are always debates regarding young players as to whether they have (the almost mythical) ‘it’.  Whatever ‘it’ is then Luke Shaw has ‘it’ in abundance.

Saints were beginning to get it together as an attacking force and at the centre of it was Gaston Ramirez who had obviously heard my Dad’s wish for him to have a really good game.    The Great Gaston broke forward and it ended up with his shot being blocked by some part of Taylor’s anatomy which looked very arm-ish but referee Martin Atkinson was not interested.  Nor was he interested in a couple of assaults on Ramirez and Lallana but he was all over a tackle by José Fonte on Cisse which he didn’t give as a foul until Cisse lived up to his name and rolled about.  Yellow card for José and an Oscar for Cisse who managed to limp theatrically into the box for the subsequent free kick, which we cleared giving Lallana a run at Williamson who didn’t do a lot wrong with is tackle but Atkinson was in ‘two wrongs make a right’ mode and gave us a free kick to the right of centre.  Would it be Sir Rickie or The Great Gaston?  The latter curled it over the wall and Krul pulled of a decent save to his left.

Saints have taken over now with Newcastle reduced to booming it forward towards Ba and Cisse who are putting me in mind of Papa Waigo in that they are always offside for no readily apparent reason other than not being arsed to look along the line.   Either that or they have different rules in Senegal.   They watch on as Saints cut through the midfield with a lovely move involving all four attackers which ends with Sir Rickie teeing up Punch from the left but his first time shot hits Krul on the foot and bounces clear.  A similar passing move is then halted by Williamson who hoofs Gaston over rather than play the ball which earns him a yellow card.  Thre ref could have played on as Punch had the ball and was attacking the last defender but there you go.  From an identical position as last time, it’s Sir Rickie’s turn and he curls the free kick over the wall and watches it ping off the angle of post and bar and off for a goal kick as all the players and 30,000 punters and Tim Krul stand motionless.

We deserved a goal and finally got one on 35 minutes as Sir Rickie was allowed to turn in midfield and chip the ball over Santon to Punch who was beaten to the ball by Krul who hacked it clear.... badly.  Clyne fastened onto the clearance, chested it down and tried to score from 50 yards but his off target effort was half headed away by Williamson straight to Gaston who drew Krul before slipping it to Lallana who tapped home for 1-0.

The rest of the half was taken up with more Newcastle hoof and another decent move from us which resulted in Morgan getting forward and hammering in a shot which was heading for the bottom corner until Taylor slid in a made a good block.  Half time and I’m having soup and chatting to anyone who’ll listen about the half we’ve just witnessed.  I was surprised at the ineffective performance of Tiote in midfield in that he wasn’t getting near Gaston and was allowing him to do more or less what he wanted.  I’d have changed that if I was Pardew and I’d have possibly gone and shagged someone I shouldn’t have.  The extent of Pards changes in tactics though was to remove nondescript midfielder Ferguson and bring on Sammy Ameobi on the left wing.  Ameobi is about 6 foot 6 by the look of it but however tall he is, he’s towering over Nathaniel Clyne.  I wonder what technical masterpiece of tactical tinkering is coming here then....?

Like the first half, our defending was a bit iffy at the start of the half and it was heart-in-mouth time as Ba flicked a ball on to Anita who has a girls name but more relevantly, he was clean through with just Gazza to beat.  I call it the BWP (Bradley Wright-Phillips) test – when a player is clean though and he just never looks like he’s going to score and Anita had this about him and sure enough, Gazza came to the rescue and blocked it.  And now the weather – it’s absolutely battering it down.

Mr Atkinson is beginning to get on my tits now as he consistently misses stuff and it’s no surprise to me that nothing is given as Gaston goes over in the box, under a challenge from Tiote who clearly fouls him.  All that is forgotten a few minutes later as Morgan picks the ball up on the left, feeds it into Punch who plays a 1-2 with Lallana before firing in a low cross which Krul can only parry to where Gaston is standing.  He can’t miss and he doesn’t and it’s 2-0 on the hour mark.

The brief now is to concentrate and we fail to do this temporarily and after clearing Simpson’s first cross, it ends up back with the Tabloid Front Pager and his cross is met by Santon whose header is going in the bottom corner until Gazza gets across and pulls out a superb save.

We are in a living and breathing Ref and Lino nightmare where once again, Gaston is fouled as he breaks into the box but because he doesn’t go down straight away (which didn’t work last time anyway) and Atkinson unsurprisingly doesn’t give it.  The Lino on the Kingsland side seems to have temporarily forgotten the rules which state... if a player smashes it off the side of the pitch without it touching anyone else then it’s a throw in to the OTHER team, not the team that has just smashed it out of play.  Twice, Simpson clears, twice it goes straight out, two throw-ins to Newcastle.

When we’re not expecting any help from the referee we’re still looking dangerous and we hit the woodwork for a second time as Punch is well set up by Adam and Gaston before beating Krul with a first time snap-shot, only to see it ping off the near post and away.  As we approach the last 10 minutes, it’s sub time with first Sir Rickie being replaced with J-Rod and then it’s standing ovation time as Gaston makes way for Steven Davis.

A while ago I commented that the Chuckle Brothers and the other Row R idiots have been pretty quiet this season despite us getting beaten regularly, having been annoying as you like while we were winning over the last 3 seasons.  We’re winning today so of course, they start moaning if we give a ball away or dare to keep possession with a sideways pass.  They really are clueless fucktards and I wish they’d go away.  “I’ve never rated that Puncheon, he always gives it away” is one classic.  I despair, I really do.

Meanwhile, on the pitch the entertainment is being provided by Lallana who really should do better when clean through than drilling the ball straight at Krul and by Gazza who retrieves a Toon hoof forward which sails out of play and pulls the much loved Argentinean laces trick which of course involves removing left glove, right glove, undoing a lace (probably) and tieing it up again.  Gazza then applies the coup de grace having put his gloves back on, by stuttering in his run up for the goal kick.  If I was an opposition fan – I’d hate him.

In the last few minutes we have three decent attempts on goal as Davis fastens on to a Punch pass and Krul flies out of goal to make the block.  From the resulting corner, Jose is up highest and sends an angled header over the top of Krul and it bounces to safety off the bar and away.  The final word is with the officials unsurprisingly as Lallana puts J-Rod through and he passes the BWP test and smashes it past Krul, only to be pulled back by a lino flag which is just completely wrong but in the lino’s defence, the action was 10 yards away with a totally unimpeded view.

93, 94 done.  Get in there and a clean sheet.  You don’t get many clean sheets in Southampton, especially when Alan Pardew is in town.  If you were a moaning negative bastard like the clowns who sit in Row R in the Kingsland, then you left St Mary’s moaning about how many chances we missed and how we should have won by more.  You’d be right of course but at the end of the day, just enjoy the fact that we were pretty amazing today and easily beat the side that came 5^th last year.

The headlines will go to The Great Gaston but like last week at QPR, you can’t pick out individual players as you’d have to mention all of them.  The front 4 were outstanding all game going forward and for all the talk of missing chances, there were probably only 2 chances where we maybe should have done better (Punch in first half, Adam in the second) .  The other near misses were down to the width of the woodwork and some outstanding goalkeeping.  When we were in the Championship, I always felt that Morgan and Corky together in the centre was solid but didn’t offer us enough going forward.  In the Premier League though, against better sides that come forward more, they are developing into a superb combination that allows cover for the defence and allows the forwards to go and play.  The back 4 stuck to the task well with the full backs being superb all game.  Clyne has a bit of a problem ballwatching a crossed ball but in the main he coped well with having to play against a 7 foot winger in the 2^nd half.  I thought the centre backs looked ropey for the first 10 minutes of both halves but coped reasonably with the limited threat from Newcastle and then there was Gazza who pulled out a brilliant save down low to prevent Newcastle getting any ideas about maybe stealing a point.

Up next we have a midweek home game which is a bit of a rarity in the Prem with the visit of Norwich City.  We moved out of the bottom three with this win today so if we can follow that up with a win on Wednesday, we may actually put a bit of a gap between us and the teams below the line which would be nice.  Get yourself along to SMS on Wednesday night.

Premier League Match 12 - QPR 1 Southampton 3

QPR player (insert name here) collects his Wages

Since the season started, Saints people including me have trolled out the excuses about playing in-form teams and playing teams who are in the top half and all that stuff which ultimately gets you nowhere.  Well today we’re up against a team who are undeniably the worst in the league as they are rock bottom and haven’t won a game yet. 

QPR are managed by Mark Hughes who had a stellar career, the highlight of which was being one of the stars of our greatest Great Escapes back in the day, playing in the famous Dellhurst Park match and forming with Chris Marsden Football Genius, a midfield pair who kicked the living crap out of anything that came near them.  He had prepared for that stellar career defining moment by playing for those football nonentities Man United, Chelsea, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.  So – not a bad player but as a manager – mainly shite and never more shite than this season as he’s spent a fortune on old lags who are on their last big pay day and combined them into a team that is bottom of the league, without a win all season.  On the face of it they’ve done the most bizarre thing for these times of austerity and spent a fortune on players with no resale value and paid them stupid wages.  That level of stupidity makes you wonder if they’ve got relegation clauses in their contracts.  None of the transfer deals were stranger than the signing of Julio Cesar to play in goal who must be on mahoosive money.  No harm in signing a new first choice keeper but they’d already signed Rob Green, paying him (one assumes) pretty well and he’d only played one game, even if that was a 5-0 defeat.  Other notables are Bobby Zamora who doesn’t like football which is nice to know if you’re paying someone over £50 grand a week to play football and Andy Johnson who never plays due to injury, probably caused by consistently diving on his face.  There best player seems to be Esteban Granero in midfielder who along with Cesar, must wonder what the hell he’s doing there, until he gets his payslip every month.  A quick look at QPR fans views reveals that the general feeling is that they’re ok going forward but have a ‘Championship standard’ defence…. Sounds familiar.

With crushing predictability, the build up in the media has all been about which manager is getting the sack for losing.  Call me mad but I think we’re going to go well today.  I was impressed by us last week aside from the shitty goal we let in and with the same side out there, I think we’ll be fine.  Tony Fernandes the QPR chairman has been very vocal in his backing of Hughes and though he hasn’t said so, the Don must be backing Nigel as Nigel made no mention of a horses head in his bed at his weekly press conference.

Unsurprisingly given the decent show last week but surprisingly, given that he always changes something, Nigel kept the same team and the same subs for this game.  The aforementioned Zamora and Johnson were nowhere to be seen for QPR but they did have Djibril Cisse up front who I’ve always thought was a player with a much bigger reputation than he deserves.  Granero and Taarabt in midfield but the defence did indeed look dodgy including Bosingwa, Traore and Anton Ferdinand, none of whom are any good at defending.  “One Nigel Adkins” was booming out from the away end and the QPR faithful responded with a deafening  “One Mark Hughes” though that second bit may be a big wobbly dangly lie.

The opening fifteen minutes of the game were decent from us and we looked the better side by a mile with the passes zipping about and QPR’s midfield in particular, not getting to grips with ours.  The first chance consisted of a barrage of short passing leading to Lallana playing a 1-2 with Gaston and firing his attempted ‘goal of the season’ volley just over Julio Cesar’s crossbar.  Another five minutes go by before we’re close again as Punch cuts in off the right win and curls in a cross which Adam bungs himself at but can’t quite reach and it bounces, beats the flailing Cesar and bounces away off the left hand post.

QPR’s players decide that collectively, it would be good if they actually put in some effort to earn their £50-£100 grand a week as Adel Taraabt weaved his way past Clyne and Fonte with some wonderful close control on the run before firing at the near post where a large Gazzaniga shaped object blocked it well.  Gazza was not looking so great from QPR’s next attack though as Hoilett let fly from 35 yards and the keeper pushed it round the post with an element of luck and floppy chocolate wrists.

These were really isolated incidents of QPR pressure in amongst Saints dominance and on 25 we took the lead.  A Gaston corner was headed out to Cork who learned from last week and instead of turning back towards his own goal, headed it back into the mixer which Gaston teed up Jose for a massive mis-hit shank which fell to Punch, who due to a combination of Cesar and Bosingwa, managed to hit the bar from about two feet out.  As the ball dropped, in piled Sir Rickie to head the ball into the net and to cop Diakite’s swinging boot in the face.

So, 1-0 up and I expected QPR to come roaring back at us and for it to be like the Alamo with us praying for the half time whistle.  The reality however was that we kept playing, kept the ball and continued to look the more likely to score with QPR offering only sporadic threat.  Cisse decided to take a break from being shite in the middle and decided to have a go at being shite on the wing.  Trouble was that he got a cross in and no one was there as no one could be bothered.

It got even better in the last minute of the half as Clyne saw a cross blocked by Traore who really should have got to the 2^nd ball but couldn’t be arsed when faced with Clyne’s greater determination.  England’s next Number 2 fed Punch who cut along the top of the box, past a half arsed Faurlin before hammering a left footed effort into the far corner giving Cesar no chance.   Being Saints fans, we know shite defending when we see it and this was Exhibit A.  No determination to win the ball from Traore and no closing down from Dopey Ferdinand.  Fantastic finish though and 2-0 as the half time whistle blew.

One assumes that Mark Hughes gave QPR an almighty blocking at half time whilst Nigel read a poem or quoted from ‘The Art of War’.  Nigel also must have read something which contained reference to ‘dozing off and make a game of it’ as we put no challenge in on Taraabt as he received a throw in and allowed him to swing a cross into the box where Gazza made Hoilett’s job easy for him by rushing out like a twat and getting nowhere near it.  So, 2-1 and once more, we expect a QPR bombardment.

But it didn’t happen.  A clearly tiring Gaston was replaced with Steven Davis on the hour mark and Saints kept playing and kept dominating.  It should have been 3-1 almost immediately as we cut through the defence before Sir Rickie cushioned a great header down to Punch who from 10 yards out, shanked a right footed shot into the floor and wide.  That man Punch was at it again a minute later, this time expertly pulling down Shaw’s cross and swivelling before smashing a half-volley inches wide of the far post.

In response to the near misses and the re-assertion of our dominance, Hughes decided to bring himself on, only it wasn’t, it was Shaun Derry who must be about 42 by now.  The move predictably failed to stem the flow though Derry did at least look interested and Punch worked himself another opening on the left before forcing Cesar into a good save as he went for the far post.  Both teams then made substitutions with Nigel replacing the excellent Shaw with Danny Fox and Hughes, a goal down a going nowhere, deciding to replace a right back in Bosingwa, with another right back in Fabio (who is a left back if I’m not mistaken).  This is a really strange one when you consider that he had Shaun Wright-Phillips, brother of the legendary Bollocks Wright-Phillips, on the bench.

Ryan Nelsen was a one man defence for QPR so any time Sir Rickie wanted to make life easier for himself and remind himself of playing against League 1 defenders, he just peeled onto Anton Ferdinand who has made a pretty decent living out of being Rio’s brother, which has helped cover his lack of ability.  Sir Rickie’s knock down found Yoshida whose acrobatic scissor kick was acrobatically turned aside by Cesar in 'one for the cameras' style.  It was merely delaying the inevitable though as QPR couldn’t be bothered to defend a short corner, allowing Morgan to advance into the penalty area and hammer in a cross which was nicely finished by Rio’s brother.  The celebrations of Gazza with the fans behind the goal and Gaston on the bench tells you all you need to know about the club at the moment.  I know I take the piss out of Nigel for his dial-a-cliche interviews but ‘Together as One’ – yeah, baby!  Ten minutes later, game over, away win.

Nigel: It won't be me!

Well that was fucking brilliant.  We never stroll any game of course but this was pretty close as we dominated it virtually from start to finish – a team against 11 individuals and not very good ones at that... ind you, Ryan Nelsen would have solved many of our early season woes.  Due to the way our season has gone so far, until the 3^rd goal you always feared the punt into the box followed by defender / goalkeeper calamity and QPR spawning a 2-2 but in truth, we pissed it.  Everything about it was outstanding from the team to the supporters and the best bit was the support for the manager.  Mark Hughes must have been a bit jealous of the support that Nigel got but then, Nigel has achieved two promotions whereas Hughes has achieved the square root of fuck all at QPR.

The 4-4-1-1 formation is really working and the catalyst has been Jack Cork who, after our abject midfield display at West Brom, has come in and transformed that area.  We now have a defensive base to the midfield which allows Adam, Gaston and Punch to go and do their thing.  They went and did their thing before but we had no one there for when the screwed up and lost it.  Some of the play going forward was breathtaking today as we passed and moved and QPR couldn’t get near us.  We did over-elaborate at times and I found myself pulling out the ‘someone fucking hit it’ eloquent phrase on more than one occasion so thanks to Anton for doing it for us.  No one had a bad game today and if I start mentioning names when I’m going to have to mention all of them. Punch was The Man today – absolutely superb and showing ability and hard work which he’d successfully hidden for the best part of two years. 

The only team selection that Nigel has to make for next week is in goal as Gazza was horribly at fault for the goal and looked a bit uneasy throughout.  If it was down to me I would go for Artur Boruc but it really could be any one of the three in goal against Newcastle next weekend.  Having had a field day with the ‘loser gets the sack’ nature of the QPR game, the media are looking for something extra to tag on next weeks game.  Well it isn’t a local derby (no shit) and it isn’t really a 6 pointer so it has to be about Pards and there being a grudge.  Can’t see it myself as Pards was a League 1 manager when he was executed by The Don and he’s a Premier League Manager now and Saints have had the same elevation in status.

There were those rumours though….

Premier League Match 11 - Southampton 1 Swansea 1

Dyer - The Southampton Years

It’s been a strange week.  There’s been a round of Champions League matches that I personally couldn’t care less about and there has been the announcement of an England squad which as usual, includes a load of Liverpool players.  It’s a comfort that you can play for an unsuccessful mid-table club and still catch the eye of the England manager.  Arsene Wenger has been moaning about Jack Wilshere getting called up after 14 months out injured which is ironic considering Arsene kicked off big time when Wilshere was selected for the England U21s one summer which resulted in him withdrawing which meant Arsenal took him to China for a pre-season tour which led to him being out injured for 14 months.

Despite all this going on, Saints seem to have been the main story in the media as we are bottom of the league and the manager hasn’t been sacked yet by the evil Don Cortese who of course rules with an iron fist, makes Nigel work in intolerable conditions, picks the team, picks the formation and tells Nigel that he has to use the Academy products etc etc.  The media know all this about The Don without actually hearing it from the horses mouth as he never talks to them.  They also can’t have heard it from any current employee because of course, the Don has had them all killed, diced up and fed to his dogs.  I love Twitter but Christ, there are some idiots on there and it gives ‘proper’ journalists a platform to put out their unsubstantiated bullshit and when you ask them to explain, they just ignore or block you.  That’s you Neil Ashton of The Mirror.

So, we are where we are which is last and we have 4 points from 10 games which means we will reach the magic 40 point safety barrier in another 90 matches.which will be about Christmas 2014.  So, in order to hit the target in the next 28 matches, we have to improve somewhat and the visit of Swansea City is a good place to start.  They started brilliantly with a 5-0 win at QPR and since then, I don’t think they’ve scored an away goal so it’s definitely one we should be looking to win.  They have ex-Saint Garry Monk who played about 10 games for us about 10 years ago and in my opinion, never looked like he had too much in his locker but he’s been playing at a higher level than Saints for a few years now including regular-ish games in the Premier League so fair play to the guy – we could almost certainly do with him now.  They also of course have Nathan Dyer who I never ever took to in a Saints shirt.  He always seemed to have ability but a poor attitude and I associate him with David McGoldrick (who was a tosser) and particularly with one of my all-time most hated Saints players, Bollocks Wright-Phillips.  Of course, the handbag nicking episode in Southsea didn’t endear him to anyone but he did score points when he scored for Swansea against the Skate Bastards in the FA Cup and gave it loads.  If he plays he’ll be up against Danny Fox which gives me the shits…. or will he?…. Luke Shaw made his debut as a sub against West Brom and I have a feeling he’ll be in from the start today.

Swansea signed Michu in the summer when we were allegedly looking at him and he’s contributed 5 league goals so far playing just behind the striker so he’ll be a threat and the new manager, replacing the defecting arse Brendan Rodgers, is Michael Laudrup who has started well but did come out with the strange opinion that it was ok to bribe players to win which kind of got swept under the carpet.  You can bribe us to win if you like Michael.  He’s had to put up with a load of shite media speculation as well about falling out with everyone so maybe it’s just our turn.

To the teams and Nigel has in my opinion, picked a good one as it’s 4-4-2 with Gazza retained in goal despite Boruc once again being available.  Luke Shaw was in at left back as kind of expected and the midfield saw the return of Corky to partner Morgan in the middle with Adam Lallana and the recalled Punch on the wings.  Sir Rickie was up front with The Great Gaston just behind him which meant that Steven Davis, J-Rod and Foxy were all finding themselves on the bench.  Guly didn’t even make that which is one in the eye for the people who believe that Don Cortese insists that he has to play.  Swansea didn’t appear to have a centre forward in the line up, Garry Monk was in the team and Little Shit Dyer was on the bench.

I want us to win this game today for the 3 points and for Nigel Adkins but also because my brother in law is coming to the game with us… or the Swansea Born Sheep Shagging Welsh bastard to give him his full title… he has though adopted Saints as his second team so he was hoping for a draw today.

The game starts and I thought that Swansea thought we had a ball of our own as they sure as hell didn’t want to let us to have their one.  They looked very comfortable with it but after about 5 minutes we eventually got hold of it and looked much more direct and dangerous than they did.

On about the ten minute mark we have our first ‘ooooh’ moment but it’s with a small ‘o’ and not a capital one as Morgan takes on a shot which is wildly optimistic and lunches it over the bar.  We have obviously identified that the high ball into Sir Rickie is going to give us a bit of joy and a few minutes later a Clyne cross is headed down by the big man and Adam Lallana’s snap shot is well held by Tremmel in the Swansea goal.  Gaston is producing some nice touches and revelling in his free role which allows him to get on the ball and he’s next to have a pop but his left footed curler is a couple of yards wide. 

There have been two man debates in the Premier League this year and the other one is about diving, mainly about people who go to ground and therefore make life more difficult for referees.  Some referees don’t need the players making it hard for them and that’s because some, like Andre Marriner, who is the wanker in the black today, are fucking useless.  Nathaniel Clyne bursts past the Routledge on the outside who clearly grabs his arm before then putting is arm across Clyne’s chest.  The whole ground know it’s a penalty but because Clyne stayed on his feet instead of collapsing like he’d been shot, it doesn’t get given.  So everyone, here’s an incident of a player being honest and getting no reward for it... will it be highlighted by the media and shown on Match of the Day etc?  Of course it fucking won’t.

Swansea don’t have much threat up front as Michu (he’s from Wales) doesn’t look comfortable playing with his back to goal and he doesn’t have the pace to burst past the defenders.  They are relying on neat interplay involving Pablo Hernandez (from Wales) who works Ki Sung-Yong (another good Welsh boy from the Valleys) who goes for the near post, forcing Gazza to tip it wide.  Shaw, our new left back, hasn’t signed for Arsenal yet and is doing a good job against Hernandez, showing a decent turn of speed to get back at the winger when he’d been caught upfield.

Our midfield is looking so much better than in previous matches with both Corky being central to everything and Morgan digging in well but a little too strongly as he trashes Brittan in the centre of midfield and picks up a deserved booking.  Ashley Williams (actually from Wales) followed suit a few minutes later by taking out Gaston to give a free kick in a decent area.  With Sir Rickie and Gaston standing over the ball, no one had any idea who was going to take it and eventually Gaston chipped it to the totally free Jose who from the corner of the six yard box, made a total bollocks of it, squirting it across the goal for a Swansea boot to hack it clear.

Bearing in mind the Clyne incident from earlier, Adam Lallana decided to have a little dive when he goal goalside of Rangel and into the box and surprisingly (but thankfully in a way) Mr Marriner got this one right and waved it away.  We had reached half time, having kept a clean sheet for 45 minutes.

The half time section of my reports used to solely focus on the Chuckle Brothers but as some have commented, I’ve not been talking about them much recently.  I don’t know what it is but despite our iffy performances, they’ve been pretty quiet and it’s been nice.  There has been the occasional ‘why-deeee-doooo-dahhhhht?’ from the whining  one and the odd deliberate spoonerism from the  moronic one but nothing that was going to make you turn round and strangle one of them.... until today.  The second half his minutes old when it happens.  The moronic one is a foreigner of some description (possibly Spanish or from Mars) and he takes great pleasure is pronouncing foreign players names in what he thinks is the correct manner, all rolling of the R’s and all that... for example, do Prado becomes ‘do Prrrrraaaaarrrrdo’ and yes it is annoying.   Never more so when he decides to shout out ‘ Paaaablo Herrrrrnaaaandezzzzz’ at the top of his voice like a commentator does when said player has scored.  Not only is Hernandez on the other team but he hasn’t scored and the ball is nowhere near him.  In fact, the Swansea keeper has it.  I turn round and notice that the twat is reading the squad lists on the back of the programme and not watching the game at all.  I hate him, big time.

Back to the game and Swansea fashion a half chance which Routledge smashes a mile over the bar and it’s his last involvement as he jogs off to be replaced by Nathan Dyer who nicks the electronic board and the linesmans watch as he makes his way onto the pitch.  Saints are in general, in the ascendency and make a mess of a glorious opportunity as Adam finds Morgan inside the box but his attempt to pick out Sir Rickie rather than have a dig himself, is too short and allows Williams to throw himself in front of the big man before he gets the shot away.

Sir Rickie is having a good game in a creative capacity and his knock down is collected by Lallana who tries to go past Williams and goes down.  It looks like a dive from where I am and I’m not remotely surprised that it’s not a penalty.  There is a bit of excitement as the whistle blows but it all turns to groans and bile at Marriner as the book comes out for diving.  It was only when watching the incident back later that you realise that though the original lunge missed, in the the follow through Williams trod on Adam’s foot and it was a penalty all day long.  The earlier dive had obviously counted against him here.

Unperturbed we keep coming forward and the goal which looked like it was coming, actually did as Sir Rickie found Morgan in the box who chested it up in the air before heading over the onrushing keeper to make it 1-0.  Now all we had to do was keep a clean sheet for another 25 minutes.  Easy.

Well for 10 minutes it looked easy as we didn’t look in any trouble from Swansea and we were going to add to the lead if anything and then guess fucking what.  From our own corner, it got half cleared back to Corky about 40 yards out who instead of sending it back in to the 8 men who were in front of him, turned and gave it to Maya who went back to Gazza which was pointless.  Gazza then gave a ball to Maya which had a flashing blue light on top of it and the Japanese had a crap touch allowing Dyer to rob, burgle, pilfer and steal from him, drive forward and hit it across Gazza and in off the far post.  FUCK!!!!

Foxy comes on for the clearly tiring Shaw who has had a really promising debut and immediately gets forward and slings in a decent cross which is cleared.  Saints are still the better side and have a near thing as a Ramirez corner is met by Sir Rickie but the header slides wide.  There is time for a hero to emerge but it’s not going to be Andre Marriner who doesn’t give anything when Lallana gets trashed by Monk, arguably inside the box.  If it’s not a foul then he has to send Adam off but no.  It has to be said though that Adam didn’t get the penalty because of his dive in the first half so you have to say that it serves him right.

Swansea know they’ve got out of jail here and the timewasting starts with the Korean bloke managing the feat of staying down in theatrical fashion as we get into injury time and Swansea have used all 3 subs.  He’s running around ok to defend a corner though before collapsing again.  I apologise if he turn out to be injured.

So, one nil and we fucked it up.  Never has the song been so true as we loaded the gun and shot ourselves in the foot and handed Swansea a point which they had done nothing to earn and didn’t deserve.  Not their fault but they’ll be wondering how the fuck they got out of St.Mary’s with a point.  On the plus side we played a lot better than we have in any game bar the Villa match and looked like a decent team.  Jack Cork made a huge difference to how solid we looked and it was great to see him, Punch, Gaston and Sir Rickie get through 90 minutes without getting substituted.  Luke Shaw was also a major, major plus and once he gets a few games under his belt, I can’t see him losing his place until we sell him to sodding Arsenal probably.

Nigel’s post match interview seemed to blame Gazza for the fuck up on the goal but I don’t think it’s as clear as that.  Why did Corky play it backwards to Yoshida when he had 8 players in front of him?  Why did Yoshida go back to the keeper from near the half way line when under no pressure and why when he received the ball back from Gazza, did he not realise that Dyer was up his arse and just welly it into touch rather than trying to control it and finally, why couldn’t Syer have been shit like he was for us and shank it across the goal.  Whatever your opinion of who is to blame and whoever the media try and pin it on, it isn’t Nigel’s fault is it?

And then… following on from Gareth Bale a week or so ago, Dyer gave an interview in which he was very nice and respectful towards Saints and like Bale, acknowledged our role in his development.  Fair play to him (he said through gritted teeth).

Onwards and I will be fucking amazed if the media don’t build up next weeks’ match away at QPR as about ‘loser gets the sack’.  Mark Hughes has spent millions on 30+ year olds and they haven’t won as yet, in fact, our point today has taken us above them in the league.  We will be going into that game with a bit of momentum from the performance in this match and a bit of belief that we can get out of the hole that we’ve dug for ourselves but that will all evaporate if we fail next week.  Time to deliver.

Gazzaniga's Pass to Yoshida arrived in this

Premier League Match 10 - West Brom 2 Southampton 0

Les Reed and his bodyguard watch on and wait....

A trip to the Hawthorns to face the Baggies in our Monday Night Football debut.  It’s been a source of comfort so far this season that we have either remained outside the relegation zone or a point or so adrift but now there is a 5 point gap following wins for Villa and Norwich over the weekend so we need to get moving and fast.  West Brom is not an ideal place to come with this is mind as they’ve made a good start and aside from losing to Man City in the 92^nd minute, have been getting outstanding results at home.  They are managed now by Steve Clarke who I freely admit, I thought would be a poor choice but so far so good and good luck to the man who has always been a No2 up til now.  As a No2 turned manager, he’s no Steve Wigley or Stuart Gray, that’s for sure.

Surely we will today see a more pragmatic approach from us as trying to win 5-4 really isn’t working but then again, any fringe players who were hoping to get in, did their chances no good at all in the debacle at Leeds in the COC.  As it is, The Great Gaston is fit again and is named on the right wing in a very attacking looking 4-4-2 with Lallana on the left and J-Rod and Sir Rickie up front.  Is it odd that I see a line-up fill of attacking intent and attack minded players and think “we’re going to get stuffed” because that’s how I feel?  It is undoubtedly, too open and whilst we will cause the Baggies problems when we have the ball, when we haven’t got it, it will be open season, especially as they have a reputation as a fast counter-attacking side..   Artur Boruc has been replaced by Gazza due to the pathetic fans who gave him a load of stick on his home debut and then whinged like babies when he gave some back.  I am not impressed that he has been dropped because of this and I hope you Chapel End morons who were involved in all this, feel proud of yourselves.  How long does an internal investigation take for fucks sake.  It’s been 8 days since the Spurs game.

We make an encouraging start by reaching the 5^th minute and still being at 0-0, Gaston has got himself on the ball from his right wing berth and looked decent and the team looks fairly solid until Yoshida slips when given a simple pass and West Brom are away. The ball is slipped to Shane Long on the left who cuts in and thankfully pulls it back behind everyone and we get away with it.  The next few minutes teach you that West Brom are going to kill us if we give the ball away cheaply with their pace out wide and that Mulumbu in the centre of midfield is an absolute beast (in a good way) as he repeatedly picks up the ball and drives forward with neither Morgan or Davis getting anywhere near him.

On the quarter hour we have our first shot in anger as Gaston tries to trick his way into the box and the ball breaks to Sir Rickie on the right and he hammers in a decent low shot (the kind that Kelvin Davis would really struggle with) but Foster is rock solid.  West Brom go straight up the other end and Odemwingie and Jones find themselves with the ball on our right wing with Foxy and Lallana about thirty yards away.  Odemwingie simply cuts in and smashes in a shot which Gera prods over the bar from right in front of Gazza.  It seems the problem of actually getting close, putting pressure on and getting tackles in before the opposition shoot has not been addressed as yet... fabulous, I bet this is going to end well.

We’re not too far behind in terms of creating chances and we are having most of the possession but West Brom just look much more dangerous than we do.  Sir Rickie can't get enough on a header from a Gaston cross and it just plops into Fosters’ midriff... ten seconds later and Odemwingie has smashed a shot inches wide following a throw out and one pass while we do the 'red training cone' thing in defence.

On the half hour West Brom take the lead through and unsurprising source.  It’s slightly controversial as there’s a clear hand ball at the start of the move by the eventual scorer but we have more than enough time to regroup and defend but we just don't.  Lallana gets completely the wrong side when he comes into tackle Odemwingie and the ball gets played out to the right where Jones as usual, has half the pitch to himself.  He simply passes it back to Odemwingie when who is 25 yards out with no one closing him down.  He has time to advance 5 yards before hitting it, a flick off of Maya and it flies past Gazza for another pathetically easy goal conceded.

We have a good go at conceding our usual two in two minutes but somehow survive til half time with Gazza making a decent block from Long and then Morgan blocking the shot from the rebound with his arm.  The Baggies knock it back to their keeper who booms it 70 yards straight to Dorrans on the left with no one in our team getting anywhere near to getting a head on it depite it being in the air for ages.  More Keystone Cops defending later and luckily, Odemwingie hoofs it over the bar.

We start the second half pretty well and with J-Rod actually getting on the ball and crossing into the mixer where Olsson heads it against Gaston’s head and it rebounds to Sir Rickie who chests it down superbly and half volleys against the bar with Foster nowhere.  Usually a near miss will pump a team up but it seems to deflate us and the match goes through a period of West Brom being totally comfortable and us being very uninspired and lethargic and seemingly accepting the inevitable.

This duly arrives  on the hour mark as Davis tries to put Clyne away and West Brom intercept.  The ball goes to Ridgewell who I will never accept as a Premiership footballer and he booms it down the line to long who has Fonte for company, almost.  Easy as you like, Long turns onto his right foot and with Jose getting nowhere near him, booms over a ‘come and get me’ cross onto the head of Odemwingie who can’t miss and doesn’t to make it 2-0.  We’ll go home now then shall we.

Gaston is looking tired as expected and J-Rod has had a pretty poor game and they’re replaced with Mayuka and fans favourite Guly do Prado whose first attacking involvement is to connect with a decent Foxy cross only to pull out the best 50p head effort seen since the wistful League 1 days of Neal Trotman.  An interesting substitution is made with Fox being replaced with Luke Shaw who is making his Premier League debut.  One for the future, the very near future I expect.

We should cough up a 3^rd goal after some woefully weak defending by Jose allows Lukaku in but his cross to the back stick is volleyed wide by Chris Brunt when he really had to score.  We have a penalty shout with 10 to go when Adam Lallana was taken out by Olsson and I can't find a single reason why this wasn’t given but it wasn’t and so our chances of a consolation goal and just maybe, an interesting last 10 minutes were gone.

There are 87 minutes gone and we have in the main been woeful and easily beaten but the fans give  it a large ‘One Nigel Adkins’ to the obvious appreciation of the man himself.  It’s heart warming stuff and shows that whilst it’s rare for life in football to be ‘fair’, the fans of this club in the main, want to see Nigel Adkins stay as a reward for what he’s achieved, even if (I guess) it involves us going down.  On the pitch, Lallana plays a 1-2 and pokes an effort which Foster smothers well.

And so a predictable, numbing performance comes to an end and the inevitable away defeat is confirmed.  Unless something changes, we are not going to get a single point in away games all season.   West Brom were set up in exactly the way you should be set up in this league if you’re not one of the top 6 clubs - with a back 4 including full backs who gets forward, two defensive midfielders who help out the centre backs, three attacking midfielders with pace and invention and a lone front man who works the width of the penalty area.  Whether we play 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 then we have the same problems in every match which in my opinion, come down to us having no defensive midfield and defenders who aren’t good enough.  Even if Morgan Schneiderlin was Patrick Vieira and a complete natural in that position (which he clearly isn’t), then he couldn’t do it on his own.  We had two out and out strikers on the pitch yesterday as well as two No 10’s in Ramirez and Lallana and a midfielder in Davis who is much happier going forward than defending.  It’s too open and we will get stuffed every time we play this way, especially away from home.   I know that Odemwingie got the goals but the most important players for West Brom were Mulumbu and Yacob who sat in the middle of the park, screened the centre backs, broke up our play and then either drove forward or passed it to the creative players.

Even allowing for the lack of screen in front of them, our defending is comedic.  We allow players to just walk up the wing, have a bath, have a fag and still have enough time to cross the ball unhindered or even better, enough time to pass it across the top of the box to a player who then has a free shot while totally free of any challenge.   We rarely pick up players and on the rare occasions that we do, we don’t tackle them.  Are we trying to get into Europe on the fair play ticket by not getting any bookings or something?  It ridiculous, I know it’s a cliché but sometimes you really have to just get stuck into ‘em.  We’re so easy to create chances against and it’s garbage and we keep on doing it and it will get Nigel Adkins the sack, sooner or later and we will of course, get relegated.

There is a desperate hope that we can sort it out in January by signing some more players but who‘s to say we won’t make a complete balls of the transfer window like we did in the summer.  I know there are Reed and Cortese shaped conspiracy theories as to who is to blame for this but we undoubtedly signed players in the wrong positions in the summer.  Steven Davis is a better footballer than Dean Hammond but I’d rather have the latter because he’s a better defensive midfielder.  We needed to sign one of J-Rod and Mayuka but didn’t really need both, we needed to sign a left back and we didn’t, we needed to sign two decent centre backs, we didn’t get either, we needed pace on the wings, we didn’t get any.  Also, from last year, two of our stronger characters in Dean Hammond and Billy Sharp are no longer there.

We are where we are though with the players we’ve got and so how do we sort it out?  Calum Chambers plays in midfield and at centre back so could he do a job in a holding role?  Is Jack Cork nearly fit yet?  If not, could Yoshida play in midfield? - I know it’s out of position but desperate times call for desperate measures, should we try Hooiveld and Yoshida as the centre back pairing as it hasn’t been tried yet, should Desperate Dan Seaborne be in the team and should we re-sign Paul Wotton as a free agent?

Next up is Swansea at home – a failure to win that and the vultures really will be circling.

Capital One Cup 3rd Round - Leeds 3 Southampton 0

Haven't heard a single thing about this match aside from the report in The Times which I managed to read while I was in Holland.  The impression that I have is that is was slightly worse than complete shit.

I will cobble a blog together over the weekend... and here it is....

Seaborne launches into another subtle demonstration of the art of defending.

Just two days after the Spurs defeat and we’re off on the road up to Leeds to play in the Capital One Cup in a genius piece of fixture scheduling.  We had to move the Spurs match as they played on Thursday and it wouldn’t be fair for them to have two games in three days but it was fair for us to have the same problem.  Apparently, we asked for this game to have been played on Wednesday but it was refused… and the Football League wonder why the Premier League sides always play reserve sides in this competition and totally devalue it.  Having said that, even if this game was on the Wednesday or any other day, Nigel would still have picked a reserve side and I got 10 out of 11 with my prediction.

I always forget about Ben Reeves as he’s neither a youngster, nor a first teamer.  He started his career as a left back and then became a midfielder and in this competition last year, played in the ‘Number 10’ role just behind the striker.  It’s either a sign of our weakness at left back or a sign that we don’t know his best position but Reeves took his place at left back in a back 4, along with Butters, Big Jos OG Machine and Desperate Dan Seaborne.  Chappers, JWP and Guly’s Fault made up the midfield with Steeeeeve, Manny and Tadanari Lee up front.  Leeds played their full side including Building Labourer Michael Brown and El Spitter Diouf – I’d say we were second favourites.

I have always believed that you set the tone for your performance in the first few minutes and we kick off and play the ball back to Reeves who immediately gets caught in possession, forcing Seaborne to hack away the incoming cross.  Not a great first few seconds.  We knock the odd ball forward which finds either Mayuka or Lee but in the main it’s all one way and danger arrives on 15 when Guly tries to prove that Brazilians can tackle on a cold midweek night in the North and fails, giving away a free kick.  Said free kick is put to our back post where Diouf hooks it across to ex-Skate Varney who has an open goal from a foot and manages to slide it wide.  It’s one of the most shitty pieces of finishing you’ve ever seen in your life.

More one way traffic later and Tonge, totally unimpeded by our central defenders, heads over the bar after Reeves is torn apart on our left and then Varney proves that he’s better from long range rather than a foot out and cuts through our right hand side and curls one just wide (or did Superkelv get a touch).  More pissing about in defence later and Reeves wafts one across the back four to Desperate Dan who makes a complete bollocks of his back pass to put Varney in again but once again, the ex-Skate is our friend and lobs the stranded Superkelv and sees his shot hit the post and bounce out.

The ref is giving every single challenge as a Leeds free kick and when Mayuka brushes against a Leeds player who goes down like a sack of shit, Leeds get a free kick and we are asleep as it’s taken quickly and yet another cross comes in from our left which Austin heads wide when he really should have done better having made a run from midfield which no one bothered to track.  After all these repeated attempts, we finally manage to let the goal in that we deserve as Varney is once again put away down our right and as it cuts in, he beats Desperate Dan with embarrassing ease before pulling it back to where it half cleared to Tonge who side foots it past Superkelv and Reeves on the line.

So half time and we’ve had the full house of shit defence, ineffective midfield and bugger all up front.  Leeds on the other hand have been excellent and Colin Wanker will be a tad perplexed that they’re not more than one goal in front.

We set the tone for our second half performance with Desperate Dan, under no pressure at all, in a demonstration of utter shite-ness, passing the ball straight to the ex-Skate Varney who then advances to the edge of the box before Desperate hoofs him over to get booked.  Useless Wanker.  We eventually manage to clear the free kick but you can tell that the second half is going to be exactly the same as the first.  It’s all Leeds and Varney continues his one man mission to keep the score respectable by shooting straight at Superkelv who to be fair, makes a decent block.

Just after the hour, the ineffective Steeeeeve is replaced with Lloyd Isgrove who makes his debut and Luke Shaw is on for the equally ineffective Lee and immediately Shaw puts in a decent cross which breaks to Mayuka who takes an age to control it before screwing his effort well wide but on the positive side, at least we’ve had a shot.  Isgrove links well with Chappers to burst into the box but loses the chance to shoot with a poorish touch allowing Leeds to smother the danger.

There are 5 minutes to go and we’re playing ‘shit or bust’ football now but Shaw’s pass forward is intercepted and Austin runs 60 yards at our defence (I use the term 'defence' loosely) before seeing his shot parried by Superkelv into the path of El Spitter who is not Varney so he can’t miss from there and he doesn’t to make it 2-0 and start the coach.  The shit keeps coming and Chappers and Butters manage to fuck up the sort of thing they’ve done every day since they were about 10 as Butters took a throw, Chappers cushioned it back behind him and Butters sliced if off for a corner.  I coach a team of 8 year olds and we've got the "throw in - cushioned back tot he thrower" routine susses.  It’s completely bollocks and the corner is played short to Tonge who runs into the box and falls over under the slightest challenge from Shaw, penalty, up steps Becchio who has been on for about a minute, 3-0, game over and there are two things we should be pleased about; one is that it's over and two is that no ex-Skates scored.  No one really cares though apart from I suspect, the 500 poor buggers who have travelled up there to watch a complete load of apathetic shite.  If Don Cortese is looking for adjustments to make to his loyalty points scheme, he should give priority for every away match to the 500 who went up to watch a game that no one at the club gave a shit about, from the players to the management.

So, what would Nigel have learnt from that… well, I’d have said that if you’re going to rest first teamers then you’re better off playing Under 18s than experienced players who are not getting a game.  What’s the point of playing Desperate Dan?  Everyone knows he isn’t good enough and maybe Jack Stephens would have learnt something from playing.  Calum Chambers would surely have done better than Guly in midfield and to prove my point, Lloyd Isgrove did more than Steeeeve is much less time.  Also, I’d have said that Superkelv was the keeper least in need of playing in this game.  Why play Superkelv when Gazza could have done with the experience of playing in a hostile atmosphere and Boruc could have done with the game for match fitness?  Also, anyone who thinks that the answer to the left back problem is Ben Reeves needs to give their head a wobble – never in a million years.

Nigel took any criticism on the chin and stated that there were players who needed to show they deserved to be in the league side and they didn’t prove anything of the sort.  As I said at the start, the game two days ago gave him an excuse to use for selecting the side that he did but he’d have done that anyway.  Our next game is undeniably much more important though as we appear on Monday night football away at West Brom and we have some positive news in that The Great Gaston is fit and ready to single handedly save our season as we attempt to win every game 5-4.  Maybe more importantly, Jack Cork is also fit to give the midfield a bit more defensive nous.  Start them both I say.

Premier League Match 9 - Southampton 1 Tottenham 2

Bale out, Forecast In... I'm a Genius, me !

Sorry this is late... family break abroad... no internet.... still not seen the highlights as Saints Player is up the shitter...

Spurs at home on a Sunday, so scheduled as they had a Europa League game on Thursday night.  Usually this would be completely unnecessary as whatever team was in Europa League action would have played their reserves but fair play to Spurs and Andre Villas-Boas, they’re playing more or less their full side and taking the competition seriously.  One player missing from the European game was Gareth Bale who was on paternity leave but bloody guess what, he’s back today and aren’t we lucky.  It’s a shame his missus couldn’t have held out until today but never mind.  It’s odd but I always want to see Theo Walcott and Alex Chamberlain do well but up until now, I’ve never had much time for Gareth Bale.  Maybe it’s because he dives about when there’s no need or maybe it’s because he doesn’t play for England.  Maybe of course it’s that we took Tommy Shit Forecast as part of the deal which of course, is not Gareth’s fault.  Dear old Tommy Forecast… he who makes us remember Dear Old Rupert and his cracking deal for a future England goalkeeper with the ‘North London Yobboes’ who he’d declared some sort of Posh Boy war on over the Glenn Hoddle / Dean Richards (RIP) defection.  What a twat Rupert was.  Aside from Bale, Spurs have many attacking players who scare the shite out of me as a Saints fan, Lennon, Dempsey and even the ex-Skate Defoe who isn’t really a hate figure because he is one of the many who have made them bankrupt.

Enough of Spurs for a minute, the last week has all been about if and when Nigel Adkins would be fired in the wake of our shitefest at West Ham.  Whilst I wasn’t impressed with his team selection, I can see absolutely no reason to jettison the man who has brought us two successive promotions and I would be royally pissed off if we did so.  Who would we get as a replacement… ‘Arry Fucking Redknapp is of course the media choice – you’re having a laugh, especially if you’re in the press and pedalling that this is a done deal…is it bollocks.  Don Cortese working with Harry Redknapp… yeah, right!  So, hopefully a decent performance today will put the Adkins obituaries on hold for a while longer.  We as fans can’t control the shit that’s put in the press so lets ignore it and just back the manager – he wants the same thing as us after all.

Artur Boruc makes his home bow in goal and unsurprisingly, Sir Rickie is recalled.  With J-Rod also in the team it looks like it’s going to be a repeat showing of the failed ‘£6m centre forward on the wing’ load of bollocks but as the game kicks off, despite the FACT that “Cortese picks the team and formation” (© SFC Internet Mongs), we’re definitely playing 4-4-2 which will of course bring all the conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork and apologising for all the bollocks they spout.  No?  Thought not.  Spurs are not playing in white because it of course clashes with our all red strip and instead are wearing a very colourful grey and black number.   Andre Villas-Boas seems a more likeable character at Spurs as when he was at Chelsea when he put me in mind of a spoilt child who had been given a very expensive train set which didn’t work properly.  He pisses me off though because there’s a Premier League manager who is ten years younger than me.

I bet both our full backs are hoping that Bale starts on the other side but especially Danny Fox who got ripped to shreds by the ex-Saint in a recent Wales v Scotland game.  For now though it’s Bale v Clyne and our current man keeps pace with him and gets the tackle in.  That’s about as good as it got in the first half and I’m not joking in the slightest.  Spurs had a real purpose about them while we laboured to produce anything.  Moments after I said that I didn’t think much of Walker then he’s away down our left with no one anywhere near him.  His pull back to Defoe is decent but the Skate slams it wide.

Having left Spurs with half a pitch on our left and got away with it, we decide to give it another go as Defoe picks it up on the right with Fox and Lallana nowhere.  Maya goes over and just shepherds him inside without even the hint of a tackle.  Defoe feeds Huddlestone who with all the time in the world, chips it to our right where Bale climbs above the static Clyne and heads it across Boruc and in.  Absolute shit from us.  It was like watching red training cones.  What’s happened to tackling?  What’s happened to tracking your man?  What’s happened recognizing potential danger for fucks sake.  Garbage.  To be fair, Bale’s celebration is muted, possibly out of respect for Saints and possibly because it was so fucking easy.

There are twenty five minutes to half time and I’m already hoping that we make it without being further behind.  To be fair we do actually defend ok for 20 minutes with Fonte and Yoshida coping well with anything to came from Spurs but it’s back to normal on 40 minutes as Lennon is allowed to run from the edge of his own penalty area with no challenge at all, slip it to Defoe who turns it past Boruc towards the goal.  Jose manages to get back to it but seems to overruns in and can only scoop it into the onrushing Dempsey and it bounces into the net for another apology of a goal.

At the time I wasn’t sure why but it was obviously some fans of ours had had a pop at Boruc and as Celtic history tells us, Artur won’t take it lieing down and so he gave some back – good for him.  No doubt there will be ‘fans’ kicking off about this later.

Half time and thank God for that.  Bloody terrible.  It was as bad a first half as I can remember from Saints.  If you ponder what you need in a good team and then compared that list to what Saints have then we come up pretty short.  We have no strong defenders, no strength in midfield, no pace on wings and no threat up front.  No attack and no defence and basically, bollocks.

The second half, as it had to really, starts better and we have our first semi-decent-but-still-off-target shot as Punch manoeuvres into position and hits a left footed volley just wide.  We’ve obviously been told to shoot on sight as Foxy, so far out he’s actually by the Cowherds, half way up The Avenue, lashes one just over which was obviously a better option than trying to find any of the six players who are in front of him.  Spurs are still dangerous though when it’s not with Defoe who manages to become the first player in three years, including all the League 1 shite we played against, to hit the screen high above the goal.  Useless Skate.

Cortese then decides that we need to bring on the African we signed for commercial reasons only and switch to the only formation we can possibly play, 4-3-3 as Emmanuel Mayuka comes on for Punch on the hour mark.  The new man makes his mark immediately by running past the very casual Vertonghen and crossing to J-Rod at the back stick who really should do better than heading wide.  Suddenly we’re in the game and Spurs are on the back foot with Sandro trashing J-Rod to earn himself a booking and give us a free kick.  Foxy floats it in and Jose beats Friedel to it and it loops up in the air.  It looks for all the world that Maya is going to nod it into an empty net but somehow, Gallas manages to get something on it and the ball goes wide and all Maya can do it welly the post in frustration.

On 66 we get back into it for real as Foxy’s skiddy corner is expertly flicked goalwards by Jose, forcing Friedel into a decent block at the near post but he ball popped up for J-Rod to bundle into the net.  The look of surprise on his face will hopefully not happen again now he’s off the mark.

I thought the goal would wake Spurs up and remind them that they still had a game to win but we carried on in the ascendency and another Mayuka created move ended with J-Rod flashing a left footed shot wide when once again, he should probably have at least hit the target.  Mayuka again was playing cretator after cutting in from the right and sliding in Sir Rickie but his shot was blocked by Gallas who was right on top of him and playing much better than his usual standard of ‘average with quality sulking’.

Mayuka is proving to be a right pain in the arse for Spurs and he bursts past Vertonghen again who can’t be arsed to put a tackle in so he just grabs him and takes the booking.  We’re now playing some great stuff and carve the defence open with some one touch passing but Lallana’s pull back only finds bloody Gallas yet again who keeps getting in the way despite now playing on one leg.

The final throw of the dice is to bring on Ben Reeves for Foxy and to remove the excellent DAAAAAAAVIS (explanation later) and bring on Guly who get some ridiculous booing from the complete fucktards in the Upper Kingsland.  Just piss off you wankers.  I have a definite feeling that it’s just not going to fall for us as Guly has a shot blocked and the rebound falls to Morgan who absolutely hammers it goalbound but it hits Sandro on the head in almost comedy fashion, wiped him out and bounces to safety.

93, 94, final whistle, bollocks, another defeat in a proverbial game of two halves.  We went from being shockingly bad in the first half to looking like a decent side when we went for it in the second.  Was it down to the introduction of a bit of pace from Zambia or was it down to reverting to 4-3-3 which we’ve played all year.  Maybe it was down to Spurs switching off because the game was so easy in the first half.

I feel that the introduction of Mayuka was massive as it made Spurs have to defend against something other than balls up to the front men.  It opened up the whole game as it pushed Spurs back and allowed our midfielders to get on the ball further up the pitch and break forward.  You need pace in this league and you need to be direct when you break upfield, not stop and check back onto your good foot all the time.  This is why players like Mayuka are so important and consequently, I think more consideration should be given to Tadanari Lee and even Steve de Ridder to show what they can do in this League.  It’s not to be all and end all but you need some pace in the side in the Premier League.  The pace with which Spurs broke in the first half was frightening – mind you, two slugs and a fucking snail would have look quick against us in the first half.  The second half put some sort of feel good factor on the proceedings which is just as well as the first half was so bad that another 45 minutes of that would have seen the atmosphere resemble that of a creditors meeting at Fratton Park.

We, like all clubs I guess, have some complete fucking idiots as fans, some real thick morons.  If you’re reading this and you booed when Guly came on or if you were giving Boruc some stick from behind his goal then I’m talking about you.  Just fuck off and don’t bother coming to games any more.  You’re either a ‘Premier League only’ supporter who hasn’t turned up for 7 years or you’re a ‘Winning only’ supporter who was fine while we were smashing up League 1 and the Championship but the moment it gets difficult, turns on the players.  Pathetic tossers.  There’s one such tosser behind me who always used to bellow ‘DAAAAAAVIS’ as the top of his voice every time Kelvin wafted a clearance out of play.  Said tosser obviously only has a few words in his vocabulary so he must be delighted that Steve Davis is in the side as every time he passes a ball that’s not forward then it’s ‘DAAAAAAVIS’.  Thick wanker.

We’ll go out where we started with Gareth Bale.  He went up in my estimation today for not celebrating his goal too much and for giving a decent interview on Match of the Day where he acknowledged to role SFC played in his development.  Fair play to him.  Aside from his goal, I don’t feel he had a great game today aside from a couple of flashes but he dug in defensively in the second half when required.  Good luck to the guy.

Next up for us, Colin Wanker and Leeds on Tuesday in the 3^rd Round of the COC.  They’ll be up for it so lets hope our fringe players are as well.  I’m expecting a line up something like… Davis, Butters, Arsene Shaw, Desperate Dan, Big Jos Hooiveld Own Goal Machine, Chappers, JWP, Guly, Steeeeeve, Mayuka, Tadanari