Watch Out, Watch Out, Pardew's About
In the two weeks since our win against Man
City , we’d had nothing to do but look
forward to today’s match against a resurgent Newcastle United who have hit a
bit of form courtesy of some decent signings in the transfer window, all from France . When we played and beat them at St.Mary’s,
they had a few injuries so I guess it’s an example of all things evening out
over a season as they have about 8 different players available for this
game. They are of course managed by Alan
Pardew who can most definitely be credited with making a major contribution to
the start of our rise up the leagues – he signed Sir Rickie for starters and 99
goals later, he’s still banging them in for us.
Who would bet against number 100 coming today? Rumour has it that Pards himself likes
banging them in as well of course.
Saints arrive at Newcastle after a quiet two weeks and
though it’s a little boring – it’s nice not to have players getting into rucks
and falling out of nightclubs. Talking
of Lee Barnard, he played for Oldham yesterday against The Skates and though he
didn’t contribute a goal, he did contribute to one of their latest batch of
shit players that they can actually probably afford, getting sent off. It was initially reported (by the official
Pompey Twitter feed) that the Skate had punched Barney in the nuts twice and so
of course, Twitter was full of ‘facking scummer’ stuff like it was some sort of
triumph. The only problem is that it
wasn’t him but another player. Still,
when have facts ever got in the way of a good story in Pompey? Talking of them down the road, they brought
embarrassment upon themselves almost on par with their ‘Alex Chamberlain is one
of ours’ routine when they made a big deal of celebrating two of their
ex-players scoring against Barcelona. Kevin
Prince Boateng and Sulley Muntari would be two of the players they could never
afford who have at least in some small way, contributed to the £150 million
shortfall in the Balance column over the past few years. Enjoy League 2 or the Unibond Southern Division
8 or wherever you are next season.
Meanwhile, back in Newcastle, it’s French Day by way of
making their large contingent of French players feel at home. My Grandfather on my mothers side was a proud
Geordie and though he died over 30 years ago, I know he would be turning in his
grave at some twat singing the Blaydon Races in French just before kick
off. I remember him singing that to me
when I was a kid so that’s a childhood memory ruined.
Mauricio recalled Luke Shaw to left back in place of Fox and
the only selection surprise was playing Lallana instead of Puncheon. Punch has been a bit hit and miss away from
home so I can see the logic in this one but it does seem a bit harsh given his
performance in the City game. Also, the
Punch and Clyne partnership down the right has been getting better and better
as the season has gone on.
Anyway, time for ‘le kick off’ and Saints start well and
look right up for it, pressing high up the pitch when Newcastle have it and
keeping the ball when we get it. Corky
rumbles forward on 3 minutes and is given time to measure a cross into the box
to Sir Rickie who heads down to Morgan who turns and smashes it past Elliot to
put us 1-0 up. Brilliant start and a
slightly ironic one, what with it being French Day and all that.
The next ten minutes are fairly even but Newcastle are getting better and better and
the chances begin to come. Firstly,
Sissoko lets fly from 25 yards for King Artur to go full length to his left to
push it round the post. Then Debuchy
gets down the right and squares to Gouffran who make a total bollocks of his
attempted shot but it turns into a great ball to Cisse who looked like he must
score from six yards until he pulled out a passable impression of someone very
very shit and miscontrolled it before hoofing it miles wide.
The referee is not doing us any favours as he allows Tiote
to go unpunished for kicking everything in a red shirt and then he stops one of
our attacks as Clyne gets bundled over from behind which is a clear foul but he
gives the free kick to the French team, presumably because Clyne has touched
the ball with his hands as he fell.
Twenty seconds later it’s in our net as Elliot launches the free kick,
Shaw misses the header and Cisse smashes a fantastic shot into the net over
Artur and in off the bar. It’s only when
you see it afterwards that you realise that he’s offside when the ball is
punted forward, no one else gets a touch and the flag should have gone up as
soon as he went to play the ball. What
the fuck is the linesman watching? He
has nothing else to watch at all and there are only 4 outfield players in the
Saints half as all the rest are in the Newcastle half as a) we were expecting
to get a free kick and b) we didn’t prevent the free kick being taken quickly. Brilliant goal but shit officiating all
round.
So, 2-1 down at half time and though we have a few issues
with the second goal, it’s a pretty fair reflection of the game so far. I’m going for a cup of tea in case ‘Le Races
de Blaydon’ (or whatever) is given another airing by that twat and another
piece of my childhood dies forever.
Saints start the second half well, no doubt spurred on and
put on the right road by some translated Spanish from Pochettino. A ball up the Sir Rickie brought a free kick
as the Newcastle centre back with the unpronounceable name managed to get his
foot about 7 feet in the air. 25 yards
and a decent strike by Sir Rickie which beat the wall but Elliot managed to get
a strong hand to it to beat it away.
From our next attack though we repeat the first half
medicine and it’s 2-2 as Lallana bursts inside Santon on our right and slides a
ball into the box which is swept into the net by Sir Rickie for his 100th
goal in Saints colours. It’s all us now
and we really should have gone in front when Lallana again got free on the
right and stood up a beautiful cross which Sir Rickie threw himself at and
headed a foot past the post. Having got
to the header which he had no right to get to, he really should have
scored. There’s another chance straight
afterwards as this time, Lallana plays a 1-2 with J-Rod before showing his
Achilles heel (ie – the part of his game that’s shite) and dragging a shot
wastefully wide when he really should have made the keeper do something other
than go and get the ball and take a goal kick.
Luke Shaw appears to be struggling with a bit of a knock and
possibly due to being on a yellow card, he gets hauled off and replaced with
Danny Fox. More tactical appears to be
the removal of Steve Davis to bring on Gaston Ramirez. Gaston has been on the pitch about a minute
when Newcastle bomb another free kick forward and Fox is on his heels, allowing
Debuchy to get the ball first and try to volley it straight across. Fox is flailing about trying to get back and
flapping his arms like he’s trying to fly.
The ball strikes his hand, miles away from his body and Mr Foy is only
going to give one thing and quite correctly in my view, it’s a penalty. Cabaye steps up and sends Artur the wrong way
to put us behind again. It’s just shite
defending – it’s not really Danny’s fault that it’s hit his arm but it’s his
fault that he’s allowed the free kick to go over him and allowed Debuchy to run
free. You can have all the possession
you like and be on top but if you’re going to miss chances and then give goals
away by not concentrating then it’s not going to be a great afternoon.
We’re making an attempt to get back into it and then someone
loads a gun and gives it to Danny Pistorius and he shoots us stone dead. Sissoko gets away down our right and hammers
in a cross which Fox should have let run but instead he hit it with the outside
of his left boot, back across our six yard line and it hits the unfortunate Big
Jos and ricochets into the net. It’s
crap of the highest order as even if it hadn’t his Jos it was going back into
the danger area and towards three Newcastle players. I spend my Saturday mornings trying to make
sure that 8 year olds don’t pass it across their own goal. If you want to come to one of our training
sessions Danny then I’ll get one of the 8 year olds to teach you.
With ten minutes to go, Punch comes on for the totally
ineffective J-Rod who has contributed next to nothing today but it’s too late
for him to have an impact and he should have been on at 2-2. We have a brief moment of hope when Gaston
bundles past a challenge before hammering in a shot which the keeper parries
before Gaston lifts the rebound over him and onto the bar. Everyone has stopped though and then you
realise that Gaston has shovelled the ball round the defender with his
hand. Obviously frustrated at being
caught he then has a dive in the box and quite rightly gets nothing apart from
ridicule before chirping away to the ref and getting himself booked. The game peters out and we find ourselves on
the end of a 4-2 defeat which to be honest, we didn’t really deserve.
I wasn’t really expecting anything from the game but it’s a
bit of an irritated feeling that I’m left with.
Things certainly seemed to conspire against us today but there’s no
doubt we were architects of our own downfall.
The first goal could of rebounded anywhere off of Artur but went
straight to Sissoko so that was a bit unlucky even though we contributed by
having too many men forwards. Brilliant
though the second goal was in terms of the strike, he was offside and rewinding
further, it should have been our free kick at the other end so cheers Mr
Foy. Hopefully Sir Chris Hoy won’t get bombarded
with hate-tweets like he did by those oh-so-classy Chelsea fans. The Match of the Day ‘analysis’ (and I use
the term loosely) seems to imply that it should stand because it was a great
goal and we should change the rules to allow great goals even if they are
offside. Sorry but complete bollocks –
if the flag goes up when it should then he doesn’t even have a shot and in my
opinion, the lino should be banned for a week for missing which from his view,
was pretty fucking obvious.
We managed to end up with 4 bookings and they got none which
is remarkable considering that Tiote spends the game running about and kicking lumps
out of whoever is near him. There was one
bit at the end of the first half when he went in high on two players in a
succession and didn’t even concede a free kick so I’m guessing he borrowed the Cloak
of Invisibility which Yaya Toure had on a couple of weeks back. Aside from that though we killed ourselves –
it was ridiculously bad defending from Danny Fox for both the second half goals
and it wasn’t a day for left backs as Luke Shaw missed the header for the
second goal.
Certainly Mr Pochettino seemed pissed off at the end. I wonder if the interpreter is trained so
that if Mauricio says “the referee was a right cheating fucker” it gets
translated as “we had a harsh decision go against us”. Pards was unbearably smug afterwards as he
had every right to be, putting one over Don Nicola but he did have some nice
words for Saints and Sir Rickie in particular which, whether you think they
were sincere or not, he didn’t need to do.
For me, we looked ropey today in defence. The full backs got killed on numerous
occasions and the pressing game wasn’t as effective against a side who got it
forward quickly and attacked with pace.
Steven Davis was very quiet today and J-Rod was practically non-existent
which was a surprise as he’s been playing well.
Adam had a decent 20 minutes at the start of the second half but Gaston
was shite when he came on and contributed a handball, a dive, some teddy bear
throwing and a yellow card. Not good
enough son.
I guess there’s no choice but to put it down French day as
being merde and concentrate on next week which is a big one, home to Queens
Park Pompey and the return of our mate ‘Arry.
Forgive and forget, I don’t think so.
Fans will forgive most things as long as 100% effort is put in – this
goes for both players and managers. Upon
departure, if a manager admits that his heart wasn’t in it from day one, then I
think he deserves all the hostility that he gets. The best medicine we could dish out though
would be to send them back to their Subbuteo stadium with zero points and
therefore hammering in another nail in the coffin marked ‘relegation and
administration’. Call me ‘Arry Admin.
If you bought one of these, you're a total Bell End
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