Premier League Match 37 - Sunderland 1 Southampton 1

Don't mention the F-Word.  Paolo practices next year's goal celebration dance

At the weekend we have a game against Paolo Mussolini’s Sunderland side which was shaping up to be a ‘Champions League Final’ as the mild mannered and understated ex-Fascist put it.  That was amusing – everyone knows about his salutes in Italy, the ramblings in his autobiography and his appearance at a Fascist leaders funeral but somehow, one line at a press conference of “I’m not a fascist” made all that evidence go away.  Expect a new, updated, much thinner autobiography soon.

To the game and make no mistake, we can guarantee our safety with a win in the game but the desperation for this result has been tempered by Wigan contriving to lose at home to a Swansea side that has been on the beach for two months.  The simple maths are that Wigan will have to win an away game at an Arsenal side who are pushing for a Champions League place (which Arsene Wenger sees as a trophy) and then beat a resurgent Villa at home on the last day to stand any chance of finishing above us.  The Arsenal match is not until Tuesday because yesterday they had the small matter of the FA Cup Final against Man City to deal with where as you all know – they managed a very well deserved 1-0 win so maybe we should be a bit worried about them winning at the Emirates.  Even if they do win both league matches, we have to get no points from the trip to Wearside and a home game against Stoke Rugby Football Club. 

Maybe now we can start looking forwards to the summer transfer window with some optimism.  Staying up will mean that we’ll be scanning the news excitedly for rumours and details of high quality incoming players whereas relegation would have us waiting for the inevitable departures of Luke Shaw, Morgan, Corky and others, whilst wondering whether we should offer Danny Butterfield a new contract and trying to convince ourselves that Steeeeeve de Ridder will do a job next season.

My bad mood and irritation about our defeat at Spurs has been quelled by both the Wigan defeat and by the comments made by Andre Villas-Boas in the media where he was very complimentary about us and Mauricio and the ‘fantastic’ side he is building.  He was using us as a stick to hit Chelsea with (he described them as ‘invisible’ in terms of their style of football) but the bottom line is that he didn’t need to say that about us so it was nice to hear.  It’s funny – when he was at Chelsea I always thought he was a bit of an arse, like a kid who had been bought the most expensive and best train set.  Maybe being at Chelsea brings out the worst in people.

Other manager news which doesn’t have much to do with Saints but you have to mention it as in the grand scheme of things, it is news of seismic proportions.  Yes, Dean Saunders has been sacked by Wolves.  No?.... oh yes, Sir Alex Ferguson has announced his retirement.  He got the job in 1986 after a defeat at The Dell when  Ron Atkinson’s United side got buried 4-1 by the mighty Saints with a couple of the goals coming from a young and thin Matt le Tissier.  I was a 17 year old in the Milton Road end for that game and remember it well and remember well how bad United were.  There have been many times over the 26 years that I’ve found Fergie to be an ungracious hypocritical tosser and an arrogant bully boy to boot but you can’t argue with his achievements.   Saints have of course, had a few successes against him and it was always nice to hear his ‘gritted teeth’ analysis of the game afterwards – the grey shirts 3-1 game springs to mind, as of course does the 6-3 stuffing.  This season, he’s praised us after a United win and we were labelled the best team to visit Old Trafford this season which we’ve heard a few times after we’ve played teams off the park and lost.

When he started winning everything you always felt that United had the advantage of having the biggest ground and global fanbase and therefore, had the most money to buy big players with.  Over the past few years, both Chelsea and Manchester City have had more cash to throw around due to ridiculously wealthy owners but United still keep on winning more often than not.  Everyone thought Ferguson needed to get a midfielder in at the start of the season but United won the league the moment they signed Robin Van Persie – you have to think that Fergie really does know best.  Good luck to his replacement David Moyes .... no pressure.   Sadly, I have a feeling that he’s going to do pretty well.  So, United will get relegated next year and Paolo’s not a fascist (he said as he goose-stepped out of the room).  Hmmm!

To be fair to Paolo, his arrival at Sunderland made people comment about the negative side of him which is that he’s undoubtedly a nutcase and he has a history of completely losing the plot.  What was lost in all the fascist stuff and the powder keg stuff was that no one really acknowledged that he’s an incredibly engaging personality who was always going to have a good initial impact.  He got this with a stunning 3-0 win away at Newcastle and a very good hard fought 1-0 win at home to Everton.  Alright, they got buried 6-1 at Villa but the 7 points they’ve got with him in charge means that in all likelihood, his appointment will be vindicated.  Longer term – who knows?

Paolo the former Fascist has lost a few players through suspension and has covered this by recalling a full back and shoving Adam Johnson up front to partner Danny Graham who according to some, was on the verge of an England call up when he was playing well for Swansea in the first half of last season.  Since then he lost his place, Swansea signed Michu, he got sold to Sunderland despite being a Newcastle fan and to cap it all – he hasn’t scored a goal yet.  Let’s hope that continues for another 90 minutes at least.  Our team news sees the return of Morgan Schneiderlin with Guly dropping out of the squad altogether, probably due to the injury he picked up last week.

What becomes apparent from the opening few minutes is that Sunderland are very tentative or nervous or shite or maybe a combination of all three.  We’re on top straight away and force a couple of corners which in our usual fashion, we waste with poor delivery from Lallana.  We get an early free kick in a very good position to cross into the box but Lallana wafts it over everyone and out for a goal kick which was a colossal waste, especially as Sir Rickie had lost his marker at the back post.

When Sunderland get the ball they inevitably welly it away but the impressive Rose breaks away down the left and is halted by a decent tackle by Clyne.  It’s worth reflecting that Rose is their best player by a mile and like Carroll at West Ham and Lukaku at West Brom, not owned by the club they’re playing for.   I may have mentioned before that I think loaning within the asme division is a joke.  As an aside though, how on earth is Rose out on loan at Sunderland and that Afro-headed clown Assou-Ekotto is in the first team at Spurs?   In the diagonally opposite corner of the pitch, Luke Shaw bursts into the box and it looks for a second like Colback is going to foul him but Shaw stays on his feet when many would have hit the deck.  Luke obviously hasn’t had the lesson at school yet about falling down in the penalty area though Grant Holt did try and teach him that at Norwich this season.

We are running the game in midfield through Corky, Morgan and in particular, Steven Davis and creating chances which we should be doing better with as usual.  Firstly, Sir Rickie tries a speculative 30 yards which he scuffs enabling Mignolet to pick it up and then, following a corner which isn’t properly cleared and a Big Jos pay off, J-Rod’s shot is deflected but luckily for Mignolet, it’s deflected to him rather than away from him.  To be honest though, J-Rod should have lashed it instead of trying to place it as should Adam Lallana a few minutes later as he picked up a Davis knock down and produced his usual scuffed finish which dragged wide of the post.

Scuffing the finish is not our problem alone though as Sunderland finally have a meaningful moment in our half as O’Shea heads down a corner to Johnson whose shot from 6 yards is barely going to reach the goal even if King Artur had somehow contrived to miss it.  Up the other end and there is more scuffing as Davis breaks out of our half before drilling a ball at Sir Rickie which he controls superbly with his head before making a balls of the volley.  Mignolet is obviously expecting him to smash the cover off it and almost lets the following bobbler roll under his foot before picking it up.

It feels like we’ve been here before.  The possession percentage in our favour is ridiculous and we’ve had loads of shots and corners without ever really looking like scoring.  One problem seems to be that Sir Rickie drops deeper to get involved in the build up but when he does this and is therefore not going to score, that leaves J-Rod, Lallana and Davis or Can’t shoot, Can’t shoot and Won’t Shoot.

At half time, Paolo was obviously cool, calm and collected and Connor Wickham is on for James McClean who has been utter garbage.  There were many people who raised an eyebrow at us paying £7m for J-Rod in the summer but if memory serves, Sunderland paid £9m for Wickham so I reckon we did ok.  With him and Danny Graham, Martin O’Neill certainly knew how not to pick a striker.

Talking of J-Rod – well he’s next to have an effort on goal as he loses Cuellar before meeting Davis’ corner but heads it straight at Mignolet who we are making look very good with our inability to put the ball either side of him.  Sunderland do look better since half time and manage to string together about 5 passes to get Rose away behind Clyne down the left and his low cross finds Graham who is probably dreaming of scoring at the Stadium of Light (in a Newcastle shirt) as he plays a horrible airshot and the danger passes.

In a carbon copy of the previous corner, J-Rod again loses Cuellar and again thumps the header straight at Mignolet and I’m beginning to accept we’re going to draw 0-0 when totally against the run of everything, Sunderland score when Johnson works the ball to Bardsley who hits it.  It’s a decent strike but it’s going straight down King Artur’s throat until it flicks off of Big Jos and flies over the keeper and into the net.  For fucks sake.

I can suddenly see Wigan winning at Arsenal and us needing something against Stoke RFC in a nerve shredding encounter next Sunday and obviously Mauricio can see it too and so there’s a double change with JWP and Punch replacing the ineffective Lallana and Corky, who has been decent but when you need a goal, he’s your man as much as Paolo di Canio’s your man if you want someone calm, considered and collected.

Two minutes later and Sir Rickie laid an immaculately weighted ball in front of the overlapping JWP who crossed left footed.  Punch headed straight at the keeper again but from the prone position, managed to swing his right foot at the ball and smash it into the net.  Get in.  At that precise moment, I knew we were safe as there was no way Sunderland were going to score again – a team that shite were not going to get lucky twice. 

Sunderland didn’t seem to have a clue about how to go about the rest of the game and it was there for the taking for us but we could only really fashion one more chance with 3 minutes to go as J-Rod chipped over the defence to Sir Rickie who hammered in a right footed volley across the keeper and Mignolet plunged to his right to keep it out – the bastard… good keeper though.

Full time and we’ve done it, we are safe and are going to be playing the Premier League next season.  It ultimately matters not that we’ve flopped over the line somewhat – We Are Premier League, as the song goes.  I flick onto Radio Solent to hear the end of game analysis and it’s hilarious.  How can you be a Sports Station and not have a clue what the league table is….

“Saints are 13^th, no, they’re 14^th and not safe yet … not mathematically anyway …. Villa and Wigan can both go… oh hang on they’re playing eachother… but Villa’s goal difference is better than ours… I’ve just added it up… which I’ve had to do because the internet connection doesn’t work…. Disgraceful, Premier League ground with no broadband… um, we’re safe.. no we’re not…. We’re going to talk to Lizzie in the studio who has worked it all out… hello Lizzie, are do you have the league table?  Yes I do and I can tell you that QPR and Reading are relegated and then it’s all up in the air after that”.  Genius.  When they’ve finally worked it out (someone put 50p in the broadband meter), big Dave Merringtitus comes on and says “what Saints don’t want to do… is lose 13-0 to Stoke” (I may have made that last bit up)….

To the match and it’s another where we should have buried them, no question, been 2-0 up at half time and cruising.  If we’d got the goals we should have done then we wouldn’t have had to put up with Paolo the former Fascist doing his gibbon dance on the sideline when Sunderland scored.  They never seem to have a camera on him when Sunderland concede a goal do they?  Still Benito, a good gibbon dance will take the attention away from the fact that you appear tactically clueless and you were very very lucky to get a point.  When you see Wigan playing brilliantly in the FA Cup final and compare that to Sunderland today, it will be a bit sad when the inevitable happens and Wigan get relegated.  Still, with our point in the bag now, at least I can want them to beat Arsenal.

The key for us today was undoubtedly the substitutions made by Mauricio in the second half.  JWP and Punch came on and the two combined to score a couple of minutes later.  It sounds simple because it is – we needed more goal threat and at the moment, out of all our available attacking midfielders, Punch offers the most.  At risk of being all “I told you so”, I have thought and said for weeks that Punch deserved to be in the side more than Adam Lallana and maybe Mauricio explained why he hasn’t been, alluding to a personal issue.  We know his partner has just had a baby but maybe there was something else as well.  Adam Lallana is way off his game and J-Rod seems to have sunk back to his pre-Pochettino level when it comes to confidence in front of goal after his 3 in 3 purple patch a month or so back.  Gaston Ramirez may have had a poor second half of the season but he’s at least more likely to come up with a goal, so we’ve missed him.  Though Sunderland were bollocks and didn’t really test us much, I thought the defence stood up well, especially in the full back areas.  Jose looks decent again at centre back and aside from yet another quality decisive finish from Big Jos, he handled Wickham and Graham pretty well – mind you, I’m 44 and stopped playing 12 years ago and I reckon I could have done a job on those two.  Shite though Sunderland were though and though it would have been a scandal if we lost – we nearly did and it’s a good job that a point is enough.

So, at the bottom of the league there are only 3 teams now who can go down – Wigan, Sunderland and Aston Villa.  Wigan are gone if they fail to beat Arsenal at The Emirates but it would be great for the neutral if they win that and we have all 3 teams bricking it on the final day.  This would be great because we won’t be one of them.

Typically though, we have to have something to worry about and as I write, I’m reading reports of Don Nicola “considering his future”.  Fuck.  Rumour has it that the Liebherr estate wants more of a say.  I dunno… if you’re in business and your CEO has presided over a massive turnover increase over a four year period, wouldn’t you just be tempted to acknowledge that he knows what he’s doing and keep out of it?

Anyway, one more game to go, Stoke Rugby Club on Sunday.