Saints prepare for Anfield
The first Saints game I ever saw was in 1976 and at the end
of that season we won the FA Cup and the second game I saw was at Wembley in
the Charity Shield against Liverpool which of course meant that they’d won the
league with a team containing great names such as Ray Clemence, Emlyn Hughes,
Steve Heighway, Ray Kennedy, Kevin Keegan and John Toshack who scored the
winning goal in said Charity Shield encounter.
All the kids I knew whose Dad didn’t enforce the ‘support your local team’
mantra, chose Liverpool and nothing much
changed until the start of the 90s when Man United finally caught up and took
over. I used to think that I hated Liverpool but I realised that it was the ‘glory hunter’
supporters I hated and not the club itself.
Once the decline started in the 90’s the same supporters became very
irritating with their excuses and refusal to accept that the glory days were
over.
The Liverpool of today are managed by Brendan Rodgers who is
trying to do things the right way and introduce a culture of passing football
with youth team products such as Sterling and Wisdom mixing in with established
players like Gerrard and big money buys like Suarez who is both a brilliant player
and a horrible little shite. Hopefully
for them, the days of spending ridiculous money on average players is over
though it still makes me chuckle that they spent a combined £75 million on Andy
Carroll, Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing.
All the Saints build-up has been to do with the fact that
Nigel Adkins was in the youth team at Liverpool in the early 80s and Sir Rickie
is a massive Liverpool fan with the liver bird
tattooed on his shoulder. Also in the
news has been the Gangnam Style dancing dog mascot which seems to be popular
with everyone. I’m led to believe that
the dog is over 17 so Arsene Wenger won’t be signing him for Arsenal – just
Luke Shaw who will also be moving to Chelsea and
Man
City Southampton ” insightful
analysis. Nigel dropped hints that Gazza
would once again be in goal and was true to his hints as we were
unchanged. Liverpool were making a big
song and dance about having Lucas Leiva fit again and it’s a classic case of a
team struggling when a player is out injured and said player becomes a world
beater in his absence when a couple of years ago, he was derided as one of the
causes of Liverpool’s downfall.
We started pretty well and had the first shot on goal as Sir
Rickie bulldozed Lucas off the ball and hammered in a shot from 25 yards which
curled away comfortably wide. We weren’t
to know at the time but that was about as good as it got for the opening 45
minutes as we had a catalogue of Liverpool
chances. As much as I would like to say
we repelled them with solid defending, the fact is that it was almost entirely
down to luck and crap finishing that prevented Liverpool
taking the lead.
Jonjo Shelvey really isn’t very good and maybe it was
because of that that none of our midfielders tracked him as he regularly began
to crop up in dangerous positions. It
was he who latched onto a poor defensive header from Yoshida but he showed the
form that won him a ridiculously undeserved England call up and scuff his
volley into the ground for an easy Gazza save.
In the next attack, Shelvey spread play out to the right to where Glen
Johnson had enough space to build a small town and he fed the little shit who
ghosted past a pathetic Yoshida tackle before finding Johnson again who couldn’t
turn it goalwards.
It’s all Liverpool and
around the twenty minute mark we are indebted to a Gerrard shot hitting Morgan
in front of Gazza and then we were grateful for Shelvey being Shelvey as
Gerrard put him through. He should have
scored but he had to chase his first touch before running out of angle. Even though the shot was weak, Gazza still
manage to parry it out in front of the goal, just to see if someone was running
in. Luckily there wasn’t. Then it was the turn of Suarez to test Gazza
from a tight angle when he did well to get a shot away considering he was
towing a Japanese man who was holding his shirt. No worries about Suarez being awarded a
penalty for that though. More abysmal
defending later as neither Fonte nor Yoshida took charge of a hoof forward from
Reina, allowing Suarez to knock it past Gazza but credit to Yoshida for getting
back and smuggling it out of play.
Just for a change we got a free kick up the other end when
Lallana actually touched the ball and got fouled but Sir Rickie’s free kick was
never going to trouble anyone. Following
that brief interlude, normal service was resumed with constant Liverpool
pressure and this time we got really lucky as Shelvey powered in a great strike
from an angle and hit the inside of the far post before pinging back out. There was no way that we were going to
continue being this lucky though half time was approaching and you never know,
somehow get in at 0-0 and we’ll be better in the second half.
We had a go at riding our luck again as Suarez hit a superb
free kick which beat Gazza and came back off the bar. The ball went out to Johnson on the right and
we’d not marked up following the free kick and Agger met the cross with a
really good header to give Liverpool a lead that
they really didn’t deserve – my arse. It
has to be said though that Agger was stood in the middle of 4 of our defenders
so it was some achievement to get a free header from there.
The half ended with some hope for the second 45 minutes as a
Sir Rickie superbly brought down a Gazza goal kick and hammered in a right
footed shot from 40 yards which but unfortunately Reina was watching and
scrambled it wide. Half time and the general
concensus was that we were lucky to only be one down – no shit. Dave Merrington said so and who am I to argue
with him. He also said we didn’t want to
concede another goal before half time which is a quite brilliant piece of
insight and analysis which is why he’s a legend.
Saints started the second half with Gaston playing a bit
deeper and we did get a measure of control of the ball with Punch having a shot
deflected wide and then Gaston optimistically trying his luck from somewhere
near Everton’s ground and it flew over the bar.
Liverpool soon got to grips with things again and came pretty close to
killing the game off when Enrique played a 1-2 with Suarez with more poor
finishing, stabbed it wide when clean through.
Lucas was running the show – how bad is that? – but he was
knackered and so Liverpool gave us a chance by bringing on Jordan Henderson who
like Shelvey, has England
caps. He totally butchered one break
away with a horrible first touch before the excellent Enrique brought a decent
save out of Gazza with a driven shot at the near post. Steven Davis came on for Cork in a more or less, like for like swap –
calling it an attacking substitution is having a laugh to be honest.
J-Rod came on for the disappointing Punch but the next
action was Suarez proving again, if proof were needed, that he’s a horrible
cheating little shit as a fabulous Liverpool
move ended with Gerrard firing in a cross which Suarez attempted to punch in
the net. Well spotted ref and a deserved
booking which means he’s suspended for their trip to West Ham – I bet that Fat
Sam is gutted. He then missed a sitter
which was presented to him by a crap Morgan pass across the back 4. Final whistle – thank Christ that’s over.
I know we only lost 1-0 but we were shite, intimidated and
beaten before we started. Fuck knows why
as Liverpool are hardly the 70s or 80s vintage
– they are very very average as probably proven by the fact they only beat us
1-0 when we were shocking. Maybe there was
just a little too much fawning over Anfield which created a mindset that we
didn’t really belong there like a bloody non-league club playing there in the
FA Cup. It is a wonderful ground and the
best away ground I’ve ever been to but players aren’t supposed to be affected
by thoughts like that, especially when you’re in the same division and only 4
points behind them (now 7).
Nigel as usual tried to focus on the positives which were
basically, that we stayed in the game and didn’t get completely humped. As positives go, that’s pretty lame. It pales into insignificance though when
compared to Brendan Rodgers assertion that horrible little shit Suarez was not
cheating when he tried to punch the ball in the net. I’d also question as to whether Liverpool were ‘magnificent’ as he claimed.
There has been some talk of our 3 games in a week being an
issue but I think it’s mental rather
than physical tiredness. Also, if we
wanted to freshen it up – do we have the players on the bench who can come in without
weakening the side? I don’t think so
aside from maybe Steven Davis, Big Jos and a keeper. Again, this comes back to our summer
recruitment and whilst I’m on that one, why did we sign Emmanuel Mayuka? We were only really ever going to play with
one up front this season and that was going to be Sir Rickie or maybe J-Rod so
why sign Mayuka. You could argue that
you need an impact sub but having signed him and being 1-0 down with 10 minutes
to go, why not play him to add some pace.
It worked a treat in the Villa home game and he’s not been seen since.
Ok, he had a lamentable performance at Leeds
in the Carling Cup but then, who didn’t?
I will repeat again that I think that the time to bring in
Boruc (or even Superkelv) is now. We
have two home games coming up against Reading
and Sunderland where we just simply cannot
afford to throw points away. As for
today, well it was a shocker and we got what we deserved. Losing at Anfield isn’t going to break our
season but if we’re going to rock up at mid-table sides and not even give them
a game because they were intimidating 20 years ago then we are going to have
some fun when we visit Man United, Chelsea, Spurs etc. That’s for later though, like I said, we have
Reading up next
at home and we have all sorts of reason for wanting to beat them, not least the
mugging they gave us last year.
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