The cover of the Programme told you all you needed to know.
Before the draw was made for the FA Cup I had decided to
break the habit of a lifetime and not go.
The only way I would have definitely reversed this decision was if we
got the Skates which was pretty unlikely given that by the time the draw was
made for the 3rd Round, they were long gone. So, we got drawn at home to Chelsea and I definitely wasn’t going to go
because fuck paying £40 for a ticket.
Then we set the prices at a reasonable £25 and then my 8 year old son
fancied going due to Frank Lampard being his favourite England player so
I relented and here we are at St.Mary’s.
I said at the end of the last blog that we wouldn’t take
this game seriously no matter what anyone from SFC said in the build up. As expected, Nigel talked up the FA Cup and
great memories from it and talked of how it was different to the League Cup and
taken more seriously etc etc yeah yeah my arse.
When the team was read out, Nigel had decided to leave our Sir Rickie
and Gaston who, in case you didn’t know are our two best and most likely to
score players and replace them with J-Rod and James Ward-Prowse. Corky was at right back again and the overall
feel of the starting line-up was ‘makeshift’.
Chelsea on the other hand were coming off the back of a pathetic home defeat
to QPR in the league where Rafa did what Rafa does and looked at the second
game and forgot all about the first. The
upshot was that they turned up at SMS with their full side and even managed to
buy Demba Ba so that Torres, that useless sulking £50 million quid worth of ladyboy
didn’t have to play. Hazard and Mata
returned having been rested against QPR and their side on paper looked rather
tasty. The prospect of David Luiz and
Ramires playing against Steven Davis and JWP gave me the shits. As for my lad – well, he was running a temperature
and doing the weak and feeble thing that kids do and Lampard was on the bench –
not a good start.
Cup games of course mean that the seats around you will be
filled by a different arse to usual and there is of course, the chance that
there will be away fans in your section especially as we’re playing a big
team. To my delight, next to me was a Chelsea supporting twat
from Romsey. Now, I know a few Chelsea supporting twats
as I work with one who is unbearable in his glory hunting and lack of knowledge
of anything non-Chelsea. He’s been
unbearable ever since well before they won the Champions League but it of
course has peaked from that point on. I
wanted bragging rights for Monday of course but as the game kicked off, I knew
I wasn’t going to get them.
The first ten minutes are mainly taken up with me trying to
get used to us playing at home in the white monstrosity which looks ok close up
but just looks crap from the stands. The
players have started quite well in it though and we’re keeping Chelsea at arms length and trying to get
J-Rod in at every opportunity.
Chelsea Romsey then manages to set a record for ‘earliest
piss after the game has started’ by making everyone get up and move for him on
12 minutes. Inside my head a voice is
going “no, fuck off and go the other way” but being the nice chap that I am, I
let him out. He was back just in time to
see us break forward and see Punch deliver a superb diagonal pass to J-Rod who
took it in his stride and flicked it past Turnbull with the outside of his
right foot and watched it nestle in the corner.
A brilliant pass and finish and 3000 Chelsea fans in the Northam and several
hundred around the rest of the ground fell silent.
The next ten minutes sees a bit of a surge in confidence
which Chelsea
combat with Cahill fouling J-Rod at every opportunity and getting away with
it. Around the half hour mark the tide
was beginning to turn as the Chelsea
midfield took hold of proceedings.
Ramires, Mata and Hazard suddenly all started playing and we responded
by letting them get on with it. Our
midfield ‘screen’ just disappeared and Chelsea
picked passes at will. It was a matter
of time and so it came to pass that in the 35th minute, Moses and
Hazard combined to set Mata free who dinked to ball past Boruc for Ba to hoof
into the empty net to beat Fernando Torres’ “Minutes for a first Chelsea goal”
record by 876 minutes.
Chelsea Romsey has seen 40 minutes go up on the scoreboard
and decided that he needs to go to the bar so we all stand up again and whilst
the game is going on, he’s taking his mates beer orders as everyone else just
tries to look round him. What a complete
twat this bloke is. My only consolation
about what happens next is that he missed it.
45 minutes were up as Cole burst past Cork and rolled it back for Moses to smash
into the net with an excellent finish.
For the past five minutes I’d been desperate for us to get to half time
at 1-1 and then you never know… but the instant the ball hit the net, you kind
of knew that was it. We were so close to
half time that we barely had time to kick off.
There’s a popular book series which I’m sure you’ve all
heard of called “Where’s Wally” which contains pictures full of stuff and you
have to spot the aforementioned Wally who is hidden somewhere. Rumour has it that Saints are releasing their
own version as an ‘extra’ on the DVD of the season called “Where’s Corky” as I
couldn’t spot him in amongst the 20 outfield players as Mata got the ball out
on our right with half the pitch to himself.
If you give a player like Mata a free crossing opportunity, then you
know he’s not going to just hit it across without looking and miss everyone
like say, Steeeeeve would do. Oh no,
he’s going to wait and not panic and then he’s going to put it right onto the
forehead of Ivanovic who’s going to
thump it into the net from 6 yards giving Boruc no chance at all. 3-1 and we’ve let in 3 goals now in 10
minutes – all from down our right.
To make matters even more depressing, Nigel then gave up by
taking off Morgan, our one midfielder who was competing and replacing him with
Steeeeeve which meant Guly moving into the middle where we would now get
completely overrun which it did 10 minutes later as Ramires and Hazard took the
piss before the ball went through to Ba to make it 4-1 from close range. To add to the general shiteness of things,
the stretcher was on to take Jose Fonte off the pitch as he’d done his knee
trying to get a last ditch tackle in.
Big Jos on.
Chelsea Romsey needs a pee again as we reach the hour
mark. It’s not the fact that he’s a Chelsea fan that’s the
issue as he’s not giving it the large one despite them being 4-1 up. The issue is that by now, I know everything
about him as he’s just talking about anything other than the football in front
of him. He’s a teacher at a Romsey
school where he’s been for 17 years and Mr Finn has now retired and he supports
Everton and we bought him an Everton pink away shirt and had ‘Finny’ printed on
the back of it with his age as the number. What a cunt. If I’d been here with my Dad then my Dad
would have told him to shut the fuck up, let alone me. As I was here with the boy then I had to grit
the teeth and get through it.
Unbelievably, I get to fell grateful towards Rafa as he
takes off Ivanovic and brings on Frank Lampard so at least my son gets to see
him play. We manage our first attack of
the second half straight after that and Guly pings in a great ball to
Steeeeeeve whose first touch is shiiiiiiiiiiiite which allows Turnbull to
smother his shot and then spring up to impressively keep out the follow up from
Davis. Normal service is soon resumed
and Moses puts Ba in for his hat-trick only to see him denied by a decent save
from Boruc who’s at it again to keep out a trademark Lampard shot from the edge
of the box. Punch is replaced with Tadanari
Lee who goes out to the right wing to play in a position where he’s doubtless
never played in his fucking life but I’m past caring now.
We’re getting destroyed by a much better side and the last
thing you need in that situation is the referee to be a wanker but wanker he is
as Lampard chips a ball against Steven Davis which hits him square in the chest
which of course means a penalty. I don’t
really give a shit whether he scores or not but up steps Lampard to send Artur
the wrong way.
It’s been a shocking day so far and so for the 3rd
time ever in 37 years of watching Saints games, I buggered off early. I do feel a bit of a jerk for doing this as I
often moan at other people for doing so but in my defence, the 2nd
time and today was because of my young kids having a mare. My lad is struggling and I have to carry him
back to the car which is the sort of thing he is getting far too heavy
for. By the time we get there and away,
the radio is on just in time to hear the last rites from Dave Merrington.
And so my last ever FA Cup game comes to an end and we got
dicked because whilst they were miles better than us, they also wanted to win a
lot more than us and took the game a lot more seriously than us. We were bloody pathetic and even though the
cost was reduced, I resent having paid to watch that gutless pile of shit when
even the manager gave up on the hour mark.
We often hear of Nigel “drawing a line” underneath a game when it’s over
but he drew a line under this one as soon as the draw was made. It annoys me that I even held the slightest
hope that we might go out there and at least try to win the game. That is categorically, me done with all Cup
games (unless we draw the Skates or get to a quarter final).
It’s hard to pick out who played well for us today; Shaw,
Guly, Davis ,
Punch and Morgan were ok in the first half and J-Rod took his goal well. No one managed a decent full match though it
was tough on Artur Boruc who was completely blameless for all of the goals and
didn’t get much help from those in front of him. Corky got shown up for what he is, a
makeshift right back and JWP looked like a kid playing a mans game. As a team we were alright for 30 minutes but
we stopped playing as soon as Chelsea
got their first. The final hour was as
bad as anything this season and just highlighted how poor we are when you dip
into the squad. Big Jos, Davis and Guly are
passable, J-Rod and JWP are not strong enough, de Ridder and Lee just not good
enough.
Next week we have a vital 6 pointer against Villa at Villa Park . You
have to think that Jose will be missing and Adam Lallana won’t be fit. You also have to think that Big Jos will be
starting as knowing us, the signing of Davide Astori or any other centre back
won’t have been done in time but bearing in mind that Villa play with a big lumpy
centre forward in Benteke, Big Jos should be fine. Hopefully Nathaniel Clyne will be fit but if
he isn’t, I really hope we play Frazer at right back as Corky is needed in
midfield. We’ll need another new captain
and I can’t see either of the Davis
brothers being in the side, it has to be one out of Morgan, Corky or Sir Rickie
for what is the latest biggest game of the season.
So, work on Monday and I’m getting ready for an incoming
tirade of unknowledgeable bullshit.
No comments:
Post a Comment