... and the random shirt pulled from the kitbag is.....
We were coming into the Sunderland home game on the back of
a mid-season break which we were given so Chelsea
could bugger off to the other side of the world and lose another
tournament. So, since we last played,
all our relegation rivals had played once and in the case of Reading
and Sunderland , twice so it was with some
surprise that we found ourselves at kick off time, not in the relegation zone.
Saints in the media for the past two weeks has mainly been
about Adam Lallana and the extent of his injury and with the club predictably
saying nothing, those ‘in the know’ (I use that phrase with complete scorn)
have been saying anything from 3 weeks to a year out. One thing for certain was that he was out
today and we have had two weeks to come up with a cunning plan to deal with
this. The plan was obviously going to be
either Gaston on the left wing and someone else up with Sir Rickie or a
straight like for like swap on the left wing.
Also in the media in our break, has been that Luke Shaw is certain to
join Arsenal in January, Jason Puncheon is off to West Ham with Sir Rickie as
Fat Sam looks to replace Andy Carroll… oh and of course, Gaston is off to
Fiorentina…. Never a dull day and never a grain of truth. Feeding the frenzy as far as Punch is
concerned is of course, The Daily Echo who told the world what it knew anyway,
that Punch is approaching the last 6 months of his deal.
In the ground, 2000 travelling Mackems made for a full
looking ground – it’s nice to be visited by a proper club with proper supporters
as opposed to say, Reading. I applaud
that they bring down 2000 people three days before Christmas in shite weather
which, when you think about it, is probably sun tan weather for them. Talking of fans, there appear to be a number
of Saints fans dressed in Santa suits… as my teenage daughter would say to me… “It’s
just wrong!”
Bloody hell! say 29,000 Saints fans as the team is read out
and Emmanuel Mayuka is in the team to replace Adam. Bloody hell! Says everyone again as Steve de
Ridder is on the bench. Superkelv kept
his place in goal for his 600th League appearance and I’m sure that
the Mackems would be delighted as he was with them in the Premier League about
6 years ago, when over a season, he let in nearly 600 goals. Sunderland have had fitness issues over two
of their better players but annoyingly, Steven Fletcher (who has scored nearly
all their goals this season) and Adam Johnson (who was a player I hoped we’d
sign) were both fit. A player I don’t like
is Sebastian Larsson who is a decent player but he’s one of those who spends
more time moaning at the referee and pulling faces than he actually spends playing
football.
Squad rotation means that Sir Alex Ferguson has allowed
Howard Webb out on loan to someone else today and he’s the man in the
middle. Howard gets the game going and
immediately, a ball forward from Danny Rose sees Sessegnon turn his marker with
his first touch and hit a shot from miles out which Superkelv has to turn away
for a corner. We survive the corner and
can then reflect that it wasn’t the greatest of starts. We draw level on chances created soon
afterwards as Shaw plays a great ball outside Gardiner to put Sir Rickie away
on the left and he crosses low to the inrushing Punch who seems undecided as to
which foot to use to hit a first time shot and eventually kind of opts for
neither and it goes lamely wide for a goal kick.
It develops into a tough game with Saints trying to get
Mayuka away behind the defence but our efforts fall down on a stream of overhit
passes. Sunderland competing well in
midfield means that we are soon going long upto Sir Rickie and he’s not winning
much against Cuellar and O’Shea who are the definition of ‘hard but fair’. If he does win anything in the air then
Mayuka is usually too far away from him but the man from Zambia does make a
positive contribution on the quarter hour as Gaston plays the ball up to the
Zambian who lays it off first time, just as Cuellar forgets ‘hard but fair’ for
a minute and trashes him. Sir Rickie
eventually hits the free kick hard and low and it flicks off the heel of a
defender and goes about a foot wide.
It’s a Uruguay – Zambia combination again next as Gaston
plays a 1-2 with Mayuka before firing in a low shot which Mignolet gets 100%
behind and pushes away. The same
combination is at it again a while later with this time, Gaston’s shot always
going over the bar.
So, it’s all us really and it’s pissing down and to be
honest, it has the look of a 0-0 draw about it.
As I was travelling to the game in the car, Dave Merrington had said
that a draw would be better than a defeat which is remarkable insight and he’s
a legend so I’m relatively happy as I can’t see Sunderland scoring which if
course, they then do as Johnson tries the left wing and gets himself free for a
pass from McClean, feeds inside to Sessegnon who scuffs his shot but it turns
out to be a perfect pass to Fletcher who can’t really miss and he doesn’t. Bollocks.
The goal has a large element of fortune about it but it’s decent in that
Sunderland got both wingers out on the left which gave Johnson the room to get
away from Clyne.
The only incident of note in what remains of the first half
is Sir Rickie playing Mayuka through and he has the chance to lash it left
footed but instead opts to look for the foul and goes down under a challenges from
Cuellar which provokes all kinds of predictable ‘get up you diving bastard’
abuse from Gardiner. On first viewing, I
thought he was looking for it and that it was a dive and I had no problem with
Webb not giving a penalty. TV replays
later prove that that he nudged the ball past Cuellar who then clumsily took
him out so it would definitely have been a penalty at Old Trafford. The rest of the half is only notable for
Larsson getting the booking for dissent that he’d been working on since about
the tenth minute.
It’s half time I’ve received a text message from a mate of
mine over in Dublin who is asking me to get a programme for his son who has
been in and out of hospital for the past three years. Saints are of course now selling programmes
from the food outlets so the only way for me to get one at this time is to get
in the queue along with everyone else.
Fifteen minutes of watching blokes get served beer ends with me not
getting served beer but getting a programme and getting a look from the guy
behind the counter like I’m some special type of wanker.
Like in the first half, there is an exchange of chances at
the start of the second with Shaw bursting forward and setting up Sir Rickie to
fire over the bar from a long way out and then Gardiner getting forward down
the right and hitting a low shot which flashed in front of the lunging
Sessegnon who this time, didn’t manage to slice it to one of his own players
with an open goal to aim at.
All in all though, it doesn’t even look like happening for
us. Gaston is fading badly and his head
has gone down, Mayuka is having a shocker now and looks like he’s playing in
concrete boots and Punch has not got past Danny Rose once and is playing like a
man who knows he’s not going to do anything today. We’re at the hour mark and it’s time for the
first sub. Everyone knows that Mayuka is
going off and on comes Steeeeeve to replace him and move to the left wing,
allowing Gaston to come inside. From a
tactical point of view it makes sense but is anyone expecting a player who
hardly pulled up trees in the Championship to change the game?
De Ridder bursts past the full back a couple of times which
looks promising but leads to nothing and so it’s time for another injection of
something from the bench as it’s a straight swap with Steven Davis coming on
for Morgan who has had a shithouse of a game and has been largely bypassed or
outfought. Guly comes on for Punch with
Gaston now being moved to the right. It’s
interesting that Guly doesn’t get much stick when he comes on and me theory is
that no one thinks he can actually make things worse.
The closest we come to scoring is a Steeeeeve corner which
is met by Jose about ten yards out but his header is shit and going wide anyway
before it hits a defender and goes out for a corner. As the play gets stretched, Sunderland break occasionally
and win a free kick following a Steve Davis foul. Gardiner takes about 10 minutes to take the
free kick but when he does, it’s straight down Superkelv’s throat but he drops
it between his legs and then sits on it.
How relieved must he have been not to arse it into the net in front of
the Sunderland fans who used to ridicule him.
It’s all hoofball from here on in but it’s hoofball with no
conviction and it really is saying that “this is all we’ve got left”. It’s just heading practice for O’Shea and
Cuellar though it does bring one last chance as Sir Rickie tees up Guly who
scuffs it wide. Shiiiiiite!!!
It was a bit of a relief when the final whistle went to be
honest. I felt a bit like a dementia
patient who had been put of his misery, having spent the last 20 years soiling
his trousers. It was crap… everything
about it was crap so where do we start. This may come out as a rant.
Too many players had poor games today and in fact it’s
easier to mention those who didn’t – Superkelv, Jose, Maya, Shaw and Cork . So, six out of the eleven were under par and
so was the manager. Two weeks to come up
with a solution to the Lallana problem and the answer is to play a player who
has not started a game all season and move our most creative player away from
where he does his best work. Mayuka
started ok but seemed to lose the plot when the penalty decision went against
him and from that moment on he was woeful, summoning the spirit of Ali Dia with
a first touch that couldn’t have been any heavier if it was made of lead. Gaston featured in all our good work but in
the second half he seemed to let his head go down and continually gave the ball
away. Nigel said that he plays on the
left for Uruguay and that may be, but he doesn’t have the pace to play the role
out wide in the Premier League and in a 4-4-2 which is what we played until the
first sub, he has to do too much tracking back.
He kind of half does this so is not effective defensively and is then
too deep to get involved in attacks. It
reminded me of when we occasionally used to try shoe-horning Matt le Tiss into
a 4-4-2 formation on the wing. It doesn’t
work. I know Gaston is more of an
athlete than Tiss but then so was Douglas Bader.
One thing that screamed at me when you look at this game as
a whole, was that we have a decent enough starting 11 which has done well the
past 6 matches but delve into the squad and there really isn’t much there. I think Steven Davis is a decent player but
doesn’t really fit in to the way we want to play at present but other than
that, we are struggling. As a said
before, Mayuka hasn’t played and de Ridder hasn’t even been amongst the 7 subs
all season and yet today, he was the first sub used. Neither have even been playing for the Under
21s as overage players so neither would have been sharp in the slightest. Steeeeve hardly played in the Championship
and though he has the requisite pace, as we all know, his final ball is shite
even when he plays on the right… so how the fuck was he going to be any good
playing on the left in a higher division.
To be fair to the bloke, he did look more likely to make something
happen than anyone in the last 20 minutes when we were particularly clueless.
We scored a load of goals last year from set pieces and everyone
knows how important they are. OK, Danny
Fox took them all and he’s not in the side but today we at various times, had
corners and free kicks being crossed into the box by no fewer than 5 players…
Punch, Gaston, Morgan, Steeeeve and Steve Davis and none of them were any
bloody good. If you’re looking for
someone to play on the left wing, maybe Danny Fox is the man.
I felt a bit sorry for Sir Rickie, trying to play when
getting shite service, no support and up against two hardened centre halves in
Cuellar and O’Shea. Usually he gets
service from Gaston, Adam and Punch but one was injured and two were off colour
today. I’m sure that I saw Punch getting
on the Sunderland bus in Danny Rose’s pocket
because he didn’t beat him once. Rose
was too quick and Punch seemed to know that and so all he had was cutting
inside onto his left foot which Sudnerland were very switched on to.
The season is shaping up horribly like our last season in the
Prem in 2004/5 in that we are playing a lot of winnable home games in November
and December and not winning enough of them.
Back then we had Steve Wigley as manager and were plumbing managerial
ineptitude only ever beaten by Jan Poortvliet.
I am not of course suggesting Nigel Adkins is in their company but he
had a bad one today, as did virtually everyone.
I was looking for a equalizer more in hope than expectation from about
55 minutes onwards and was not remotely surprised that we never looked like getting
it. Mignolet made one save, all
match. There’s no doubt that Sunderland
nicked it with a bit of jammy goal and they worked Superkelv about as much as
we worked Mignolet but once the goal went in they did a great job at defending
it, got the points and fair enough. The
good news in all this (and there is some) is that we’re still winning our quest
to be slightly less shit than three other clubs…. Long may Wigan, QPR and Reading continue to be more shit than Southampton .
We now have 3 games in a week, away at Fulham who are very
good at home, away at Stoke who are very good at Rugby and Wrestling and at
home to Arsenal who have hit a bit of form just in time to play us. Guess what…. we need some points.
Footnote: This report is dedicated to my friend Robert Saunders who is an exiled Mackem living in Southampton. He will be so gobby as a result of this that I will have to wait about 6 months before I talk to him again. Bastard.
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