Premier League Match 9 - Southampton 2 Fulham 0

A Dickhead, Saturday.

Today we welcome Fulham to St Mary’s as we attempt to maintain our Champions League places bothering start to the season.  For every plaudit you read about us, there is also an article or comment which finds us irritating and how dare we threaten the status quo of the past 10 years or so.  Maybe the bubble will burst this afternoon with the visit of a club who have lost the one thing that made them interesting, the statue of Michael Jackson.  I don’t know if they’ve actually taken it down yet, nor if the rumours that they’re considering a statue of Stuart Hall as a replacement.

Statues aside though, Fulham are pretty boring, or at least I thought so until I saw the highlights of their win at Palace last Monday with two brilliant goals by Kasami who I don’t know much about, and Sidwell, who I know is a Championship player at best.  Of course they have Dimitar Berbatov who must wake up every day, look at himself in the mirror and tell himself he is the best thing ever.  Then he gets in his expensive car and drives past Stamford Bridge, lingers for a second then turns the corner and ends up at Craven Cottage.  I bet he hates his life and the mere mortals that he has to deal with.  ‘Keep Calm and Pass me the Ball’ – WANKER!!!

On paper and with my limited knowledge of them, the Fulham attack looks threatening with Berbatov and Darren Bent up front, Kasami and Ruiz on the wings and Scott Parker in central midfield.  Those decent players are offset by Sidwell and the defence which is shorn of Hangeland who is decent.  I’ve never heard of Amorebieta but I’ve heard about Senderos who has been shit for years.  Unless he’s improved then he’s a big clumsy donkey and another one of those players who is so bad that it’s staggering that they get a game in the Premier League.  In goal they have Stekelenberg who is the current Dutch first choice keeper.   They’ve won their last two matches and that’s enough for some to think they’ll beat us today.  If Mark Lawrenson says it then it must be true because he’s right up there with Garth Crooks in the genius stakes.  The fact is that they had a turgid 1-0 home win against Stoke and a decent win against one of the worst sides in Premier League history so there’s nothing for us to fear here.

It’s been a quiet week for Saints after our lucky pinching of a point (BBC version) at Old Trafford last week with just the usual Shaw to Chelsea, Shaw to United, Osvaldo to Juventus crap to put up with.  Mauricio has made a couple of changes with Sir Rickie coming back in for the injured Dani Osvaldo and there is a place for JWP who has come in for the injured Steven Davis.  Notably, the bench includes Tadanari Lee who scored another couple of goals for the Under 21s in the week.  With 5 minutes to go until kick off, I’m pondering the fact that I have my son who is 9 next to me on one side and a kid of about 10 on the other side who is there with his dad.  There are kids in front of me as well and as a result, I can no longer swear out loud, even when Berbatov gets it.  This isn’t going to be easy.

Away we go and bloody hell, we’re all over them and Fulham are the proverbial rabbits in the headlights.  Fulham obviously want to ease their way into the game but that’s not happening.  Riether knocks it back to the keeper who plays it to Senderos who takes a touch, tries to turn with the speed of an oil tanker and it robbed by Lallana who cuts in and sees his cross parried out by Stekelenberg to Morgan who really should score but his sidefooted effort is past the keeper but blocked by Richardson in front of the goal.

It’s not just the players who you know are shit who can’t handle the pressure.  Scott Parker then gets caught in possession, once again by Lallana and the ball is eventually worked to Clyne who gets a cross in and Sir Rickie, under pressure from Senderos manages to chest it down and half hit a shot straight at Stekelenberg.

Our next chance comes from a crap ball from JWP which goes staright to Sidwell who like the Championship player that he is, gets immediately dispossessed by J-Rod and via Shaw, Morgan and Clyne the ball finds itself with Big Vic who rumbles forward and drills a left footed effort just wide of the post as the defenders all shat themselves and got out of the way.  Whilst all this is happening, Fulham are producing exactly nothing of any note at all.

On 20 minutes we take possibly the most deserved lead ever as JWP hoists over a corner, J-Rod flicks on and Sir Rickie powers it into the top corner with his head at the back post, totally unmarked.  The comedy aspect of the goal is not apparent until the later replays how you that Scott Parker made Berbatov mark Sir Rickie and virtually placed him in front of the man he was supposed to mark.  He didn't actually move as Sir Rickie took two steps backwards and headed in.  A case of ‘Keep Calm and Let Rickie Score’.

From the kick off, Berbatov gets a touch and immediately loses it to Luke Shaw who threads it to J-Rod who is just in our half.  Sidwell lunges in like the Championship player that he is and J-Rod spins and is away.  Senderos comes to meet him and J-Rod just runs past him, cuts inside Amorebieta and then dribbles a shot at the far post which Stekelenberg tips wide.  It’s J-Rod in a nutshell – brilliant approach play and a shite finish – just leather the fucking thing son!!!

He’s at it again a minute later as he starts a move by feeding Lallana and Shaw’s eventual cross is almost apologetically headed wide by J-Rod like he had no confidence whatsoever that he’d score.  More great football though.  Something strange then happened at the other end as King Artur, who had been leaning up against the post, smoking a fag and swigging from a bottle of vodka, actually touched the ball as he claimed a cross, one handed, without spilling a drop.

This is as close to a ‘spell’ as Fulham have had as the ball gets fed to Berbatov who slips over and loses the ball to Shaw.  He responds by having a little dive and looking longingly at the ref.  I have been told by my son that I swore at this point.  So Berbatov, they kept calm and passed it to you Berba and what did you do?  You fell over, fucked it up and had a dive, you utter cock.

Normal service was resumed after Fulham’s foray into our half and Morgan gave it to Sir Rickie on the left who rumbled forward and skimmed a shot past the keeper and saw it ping away off the far post.  JWP returns it and Fulham have yet again decided that it’s a good idea to let Sir Rickie have a free header at the back post.  This time it’s parried out by the keeper and Shaw quest to score his first league goal goes on as his effort flicks off of Riether and wide.

A second goal was needed and it duly arrived as Adam Lallana hit a deep cross from the left to Sir Rickie at the back stick again and he looped his header across to the lurking J-Rod who couldn’t help but head it into the net, crashing into the post for his troubles.  2-0 and easy as taking the ball off a prima donna Bulgarian.

The second half sees a change for Fulahm but it’s a straight swap at right back and the new guy Aaron Hughes immediately gets roasted by Shaw but Sir Rickie gets caught in two mind as the ball comes back to him and shins it our for a goal kick.  It’s very odd, there are about 55 minutes gone but the game is done.  Fulham appear to have no ambition aside from keeping the score down and are playing like a team at 0-0.  Saints seem to sense this and are not exactly busting a gut to score a third and go into Olé mode, stringing 20 odd passes together trying to get Fulham to come out a bit, which they don’t.

One player who is still trying to inject a bit of urgency for Fulham is Berbatov….only kidding… Scott Parker who is the very personification of optimistic as he runs straight into Big Vic with the ball and ends up without the ball and in a heap on the ground.  There soon followed a moment to get excited about as JWP put in yet another excellent cross and J-Rod got airborne to scissor volley a shot just past the post.  Now that was a brilliant effort struck with real conviction.

It all gets slightly sloppy for the remainder of the game but there is an amusing incident where Lovren slid in to deny Amorebieta a run on goal and he responded, dare I say it, by punching Dejan in the arse.  Amorebieta is from Venezuela so maybe that kind of thing is acceptable there.  The most bizarre incident at St.Mary’s since Punch went off for a shite.  There are substitutions as Bent is put out of his misery and Guly got a run out in place of J-Rod for the last 10 and we have a chuckle at the stadium announcer as he announces that Kaciniklic is coming on for Ruiz.

The final action of the game is Adam Lallana slaloming on from the right before trying a ridiculous effort with the outside of his right boot which deflected massively off of Hughes and spooned just over the bar.  There was barely time to take the corner and that was that.

All over and up the league we go, bloody hell, we’re 3^rd.  The second half was boring to be honest but the day I complain about the manner of an easy win is not here yet.  It’s worth noting that any 2^nd half showing would have paled in comparision to the magnificent first half showing.  It appears we’re not exclusively a 2^nd half team after all.

Mauricio took the chance to big up Sir Rickie’s England chances.  He was great today but I have a 9 year old centre half sat next to me in the family centre who would have given him a harder game than Senderos.  He did prove again though why he should be the starter if we’re only playing one up top.  It was also a bit of a reminder that we have a bit of squad depth now and the two who dropped out injured (Dani and Steve Davis) will have seen Sir Rickie and JWP come in and put in performances that makes them near on undroppable for next week.

On the way home I listened to Stan Collymore’s show on talkSHITE and he opened up with Clyne, Lallana and Rodriguez for England and highlighted the elitism that goes on with for example, Man United’s Smalling getting picked despite being nowhere near as good at Clyne.  All great stuff.  On the other side of the coin, you have the BBC which of course, had Man United’s home win against Stoke as their main story and then they had it as their main game on Match of the Day.

We truly had stand-out performances all over the park today.  The centre halves and goalkeeper will never have an easier game but Clyne and Shaw were a menace on the flanks and Big Vic and Morgan totally outshone Parker and Sidwell which enabled JWP, Lallana and Rodriguez to get on the ball and do damage.  I thought the two in the centre of midfield were immense today but if you look at our England wannabe list, then Lallana and Clyne really should be in the squad now.  J-Rod was also superb today.  His finishing absolutely does my head in at times but it’s all there other than that.  I’ve seen comments saying JWP is the new Beckham – not quite sure about that yet but he’s going to be making himself impossible to leave out of this Saints line-up with the way he’s playing.  His set piece delivery is a massive plus from last season when we were complete shite in this area with Gaston usually hitting corners to an imaginary, 20 feet tall centre forward.

As for Fulham, well they were truly woefully shite.  If we’d needed to win 6-0 then we would have done.  It’s all very well Jol taking solace in the fact that they drew the second half but we were in exhibition mode for most of it.  The players that I suspected might be bad were indeed worse than that.  Sidwell, a Championship player at best, was a wafer thin presence in midfield who continually allowed players to run past him and the back 4 may as well not have been there and Senderos frequently wasn’t.  A terrible, terrible footballer and I saw better centre halves in League 1 a couple of years back.  I was a bit worried about the front 4 but Kasami, Ruiz and Bent barely touched the ball and Berbatov’s attitude was beyond pathetic.  Keep Calm I’m on well over £50 grand a week.  Value for money on today’s performance?  A final word on Fulham for Maarten Stekelenberg who must feel like sacking his agent.  At least Julio Cesar earned a fortune for his one season at QPR.

As I write, we’ve dropped a couple of places to 5^th with both Spurs and Chelsea winning on Sunday to go above us.  We are however, above both Manchester clubs which is bloody hilarious when you think about it.  There are some Capital One Cup games during the coming week but ours is the following week so next up for us is Stoke away in the league which is certainly a game we can win and a game we need to win if we’re serious about being a Top 6 side.  There’s a danger of sounding like an arrogant bell end when you say things like that but even though we all know it probably won’t last, it’s where we are right now and it’s fucking great isn’t it…

Premier League Match 8 - Manchester United 1 Southampton 1

The BBC have edited out all the Saints players

Well I was going to do a blog on the internationals but Sir Rickie spent two games sat on the England bench without getting on so the internationals have been relegated to mere paragraphs.  England of course, needed to win both games to qualify and they duly did again Montenegro and Poland.  The first game was 0-0 at half time and it was getting to the point when our man may have been called upon as the forwards were producing nothing.  A superb run by Andros Townsend and a close range finish from Rooney paved the way for a comfortable second half with an own goal, a superb shot from Townsend and a last minte penalty from Sturridge sealing an easy 4-1 win.

Before the Poland game there was a large slice of hype about King Artur being the new Tomaszewski and all that but on the day it transpired that Artur was injured, every Saints fan panicked and the Arsenal triple-word-score keeper Sczzqkzzcesyyzcz was in goal instead.  The 2-0 win was fairly routine and we’re now in Brazil 2014 armed with Roy Hodgson’s new positive attacking intent and a new winger in Andros Townsend who in two matches has knocked Theo Walcott out of the team for the foreseeable future.

As for Sir Rickie – well there’s no doubt that Andy Carroll is still his main rival for a place in the World Cup squad but if I was to be bold, I’d suggest that England would have played a lot better in these two games if team player Sir Rickie had been on the field instead of the selfish sulky showboating twat by the name of Daniel Sturridge.  If there was an award for taking the wrong option then Sturridge would win it every game, unless Walcott was in the team.   Another Saint who may get a chance to stake a claim is Nathaniel Clyne whose competition for a place is Kyle Walker who can’t defend, Glen Johnson who can’t either, Chris Smalling who is never a right back in a million years and Phil Jones who isn’t either.

Other Saints news has come from other internationals where Steve Davis scored in a rare Northern Ireland non-defeat and Dani Osvaldo also grabbed a goal for Italy.  Gaston did his usual and went round the world to sit on a different bench for Uruguay and his agent took the opportunity to stir up some press rumours about his client being wanted by Napoli.  I did see one snippet about the Little African Bloke who says that he wants to use his spell in France as a springboard to come back to Saints next season and get in the team.  I have a feeling that it may need more than the zero goals he has scored so far for Sochaux to persuade Mauricio that he’s worth bothering with.  The phrase “not as long as he’s got a hole in his arse” comes to mind.

And then we had Monkeygate.  I give up, I really do.  Hodgson tells a joke about a monkey and an astronaut and someone from the dressing room cries ‘racism’ and goes to the press.  Cue shitstorm, cue Jason Roberts, cue the Association of Black Lawyers who all make the connection between the term ‘monkey’ and ‘black people’ which is not a connection that anyone else had made.  So, ‘monkey’ is now probably a word we should all avoid, as is chimpanzee, ape, gorilla, baboon etc.  So now, if a woman (hopefully) says that you’re hung like a baboon... instead of it swelling your ego to massive proportions, you have to report it to The Sun.

Talking of simians, Gus Poyet is back in work at Sunderland.  Whoever is in charge of recruitment really should resign.  Get a fascist nutjob as manager, sign a load of average players including an American centre forward wardrobe and then replace the manager with another nutjob who may or may not have taken a shit on the dressing room floor at Brighton.  Can you keep up Gus you legend in your own mind.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, Saints are away at Manchester United.  We are unscathed following the internationals with Mauricio stirring up a King Artur mystery by saying that he’s not injured in the slightest.  I’m not interested in the mystery to be honest, I’m just pleased we haven’t got either of our ‘Championship standard at best’ reserve keepers in goal.  As it is the only changes are Luke Shaw coming back in for Danny Fox and J-Rod is picked ahead of Sir Rickie, presumable because we’re going for a five-in-midfield set up.  Call me old fashioned If you like but I’d go with Sir Rickie as a lone striker any day than Dani Osvaldo who has never played up front on his own in an Premier League match before and has so far, not really shown himself to be suitable for the role. 

United have Adnan Januzaj on the wing who everyone in the media has been creaming themselves over after he scored two goals on his debut against the team who are bottom of the league.  After one match he managed to spark a debate about him playing for England when he hails from about four European countries, none of which are England. None of that was his fault of course but it shows the incredible power that Manchester United have over the thinking of the media.  I remember a similar ‘can he play for England on residency’ fuss over 2 goals on debut Federico Macheda about 4 years ago, which all died down when it turned out that he was shit.  He’s now failing to score for Doncaster.  Aside from the ‘wonderkid’ they also have the small matter of Robin Van Persie and Squirrel Head up front so the defensive record was going to be examined today.

Right from the kick off and we’re right on it.  The defence is on half way and the midfielders and attackers are swarming all over the United players.  It’s great watching them panic and kick it anywhere.  Crosses are flying in and half clearances are being won back with ease.  It’s all us and we have a chance on 8 minutes as Davis totally does Fellaini on the right wing and hits over a cross at perfect height, over the defender and straight onto the head of J-Rod who showed his customary predatory instincts and headed it over the bar.  Who have we got in the squad who decent at far post headers?

Of course, it isn’t going to be all one way traffic and the first time United break and the first time Januzaj gets the ball, Clyne whacks him and manages to skilfully not get booked.  Also, United have van Persie who has scored about 98% of his career goals against Southampton and he manages to get a foot on an overhit through ball and mercifully, his audacious lob is off target or else we’d have been watching it on TV for the next 30 years.  He seems to have the taste for it all of a sudden as he cracks in a shot from the edge of the box but king Artur is right behind it.

Saints have a glorious chance to take the lead on 20 minutes as Squirrel Head comes back into defence to pick the ball up and loses it as he shites his short as Big Vic closes him down.  The ball bobbles free to Lallana who plays a lovely ball into Dani Osvaldo who scuffs his first time effort along the ground for de Gea to make a comfortable save.  Our Rock n’ Roll Pirate should really have done better with that one.

One of the pre-requisites of pressing high u the pitch is that you have to play a high line and hope that the linesman is watching.  Squirrel Head gets played into space, offside correctly given.  Januzaj crosses low into the box, offside correctly given against Evra.  Januzaj plays in the Squirrel, he’s offside but flag stays down.   The squirrel advances and it’s kept out by the King but the rebound falls to Van Persie who steers it away from King Artur before rolling it into the far corner as Dejan lunges towards the near post.  I assume that RvP meant it so it’s a superb finish but going 1-0 down feel a bit against the run of play. 

It’s now time to dig in but the tide has turned dramatically as Nani crosses from the right and the Squirrel has found about 5 yards in the penalty area whilst Jose is looking around to try and locate where he is.  He turn, he shoots, he hits the bar... thank fuck for that!

Osvaldo tries to trick his way into the box and gets tackled and the ball eventually breaks to Lovren who dodges past a crude Fellaini lunge before hitting on from 30 yards which though he hits it like a shell, was straight down de Gea’s throat who sadly, doesn’t do a Taibi with it.

It’s all Saints as we approach half time and we seem to have targeted Carrick and especially Fellaini as weak links as the big Belgian with the stupid hair reacts to the fact that he’s playing like a twat by smashing into Osvaldo and forcing him to go off for a few minutes.  He’s no match for Big Vic though and after the big Man has once again ran through him and headed towards the penalty area, it’s left to Van Persie to bring him down and we get a free kick on the right hand edge of the box.  With no Sir Rickie and no JWP on the pitch, Luke Shaw lines it up and hits it straight at the wall.

It’s half time and time for all bar 3000 in the stadium to munch on some serious prawn sandwich.  United are winning and all is well in their world.  Before the game I really felt that we would win the second half and I still do… I just wanted us to be at 0-0 and not 1-0 down…. But it’s only one.

Predictably we start the second half well, picking outr way through the United midfield until Davis releases Shaw down the left and his low cross is stabbed wide by a combination of Lallana and Jonny Evans.  Januzaj manages to get himself booked for bringing down Clyne and then Mauricio realises that we need England’s Number 9 on the pitch and so Sir Rickie comes on for J-Rod.  With Ashley Young not being in the United starting line up, there has to be one diving bastard in there and Nani has a dive over a Shaw challenge, gives the referee a glare and gets given nothing.  Big Vic is given something though, a yellow card for launching Januzaj up in the air.

United have a similar chance to the one we had at the start of the second half with Januzaj putting Evra away on the left but his cross is stabbed wide by Fonte who gets there in front of the Squirrel.  It’s pinball around our box soon after as a Squirrel corner is met by a van Persie flick header which hits the bar.  The ball eventually comes back in from the right and it met by Nani with a header from 6 yards but The King gets down well to claw it out at the foot of the post.  The best goalkeeper in the Premier League is up to it again five minutes later as Januzaj lets fly from 25 yards and The King flies away to hit right to claw it away one handed.  We want the rebound to fall to one of our players of course which it doesn’t but it does the next best thing and falls straight to Fellaini, hooooof!

We need some fresh impetus to get the initiative back and JWP comes on for Davis on 65 minutes.  He immediately puts a free kick in exactly the right place and Osvaldo gets up and flicks a header wide.  United need to freshen things up as well and so in a move that mirrors our of throwing on of a young player, they replace the ineffective Nani with Ryan Giggs.

The changes have improved us more than them as we pass it up the pitch through Shaw, Big Vic, Morgan and then Lallana who is clipped by another crude Fellaini lunge but is allowed to play on and sees his low shot saved by de Gea.  We’ll have the free kick on the edge of the box please ref!!

Morgan was then possessed by the ghost of Chris Marsden as he picked the ball up in our half and kept going past Squirrel, Fellaini, Januzaj and Evra before he was possessed by the ghost of Jack Cork and dribbled a terrible scuffer wide.

With quarter of an hour to go, Moyes decides to remove Fellaini from Big Vic’s back pocket and replace him with Welbeck, thus keeping his quota of ridiculous haircuts on the field.  Big Vic’s job is done and he’s replaced with Guly which is the last throw of the dice for us and if Guly scores, we’re on the pitch.

We’re going for it and there’s only one team looking like scoring.  Welbeck breaks away down our left and though he has a five yard start on Morgan, the Frenchman pulls off a superb sliding tackle to set us away on a move which ends with Lallana playing a clever ball inbetween Evans and Evra for the overlapping Clyne who hammers in a diagonal shot which de Gea parries out.  Following that chance, Moyes shites himself and takes Squirrel Head off and replaces him with Carlton Palmer, fresh from being shocking for England in the week.

We win a corner on the left as Luke Shaw tries to cross and it’s blocked.  There is one minute to go.  Time stands still in the Theatre of Wet Dreams as JWP takes the corner.  Dejan Lovren has lost his marker and connects at the back post to send the ball into a mass of players on the line... and it’s in as thousands of United fans from Malaysia to Devon to London all cough up a bit of their prawn sandwich.  GOAAAAAAAAALLLLL!  Dejan is off to the corner and is immediately bundled by the 10 outfield players.  It turns out that Adam Lallana was standing in front of de Gea and it’s flicked off his knee and gone in but no one cares who has scored.

As United sulk back to the centre circle, the 4^th officials’ board goes up and there are 5 minutes of Fergie-time to be added as Moyes-time will never catch on.  Instead of the usual “oh shit here we go” reaction you would normally get, there seems to be no fear or trepidation but a feeling of ‘we’ve got a chance to win this”.    You know that under Mauricio we’re going to have a go and immediately, Osvaldo lashes a shot well wide.

In truth the rest of Fergie time is even with Rafael taking a little tumble in our box over a Fonte challenge but it’s only the Men in Black who look likely to score as Lallana tries a left footed curler from the edge of the box which de Gea gets down well to save.

Final whistle, 1-1 draw, get in there.  United aren’t what they were but this is still a massive point and totally deserved.  More possession, more shots, more corners, more ammunition to fire at those who aren’t yet taking little old Southampton seriously.  Another off day for United I guess.  Well though we played and no matter how deserved the point was, we still rode our luck a bit but it was nice to come away with more than we did last year when we played better but lost 2-1.

I’m sure this will be mentioned on every Saints related blog but the Match of the Day highlights were incredible.  I had a moan about the way it is edited when we played West Ham at home and Morgan’s bad tackle was shown and dwelt on, as was an interview with Fat Sam crapping on about it and two equally bad tackles by Hammers players were not highlighted.  Today we had an even game where Saints had more shots on target but the highlights package showed just about every United shot and for us it showed the miss by Osvaldo in the first half and then the Clyne shot at the end and the goal leaving the impression that we hardly got in their half.  I suppose you just have to laugh at it but once again, it’s the power that Manchester United have over the media.  Hopefully, this Fergie-less version of Man United will find the preferential treatment they’ve enjoyed over the years on the wane but I guess they won’t whilst they’re still bringing in the most cash.  Still, Match of the Day is put together by the BBC who are paid for by license fees which you and I have to buy and for that of course, we get an unbiased and impartial service, my big fat hairy arse. 

I’m sure you’ll have worked it out but in the match report part of this blog, all the stuff in bold is what was missed out on the Saturday night Match of the Day highlights.  If you have a quick scan of the bold typed bits, it’s all our attacks.  Before any jumped up United supporting mong from Devon tells me that my blog is biased… yes it is, it’s a Saints blog… the point is that I’m not publically funded with a mandate to be unbiased…. the BBC should not be biased.  Still, at least we can rely on Alan Shearer still who highlighted how good we were and did this via clips that weren’t shown in the original highlights of the game.  I’d pay extra to watch the highlights package that shows Fellaini and Carrick shitting themselves every time Big Vic got anywhere near them.  £24 million they paid for Fellaini, £4million more than we paid for Dejan Lovren and Big Vic… mad!

Mauricio was full of praise for the effort of the players and again made mention of aiming for the Champions League places which he of course did in Spanish which no doubt wound up the watching millions no end, especially as they had the impression that we just stole a totally undeserved point.  Stick to Spanish Mauricio – if Roy Hodgson had spoken in Spanish then the Monkeygate shitstorm wouldn’t have happened.  I know that league tables don’t really matter at this stage of the season but we get a great point away at United and manage to drop 2 places to 6^th which is only annoying as it limits my ‘Champions League’ gloating.  It is a very good day and this was made better by the Gus effect on Sunderland as they got tanked 4-0 at Swansea.  New manager bounce anyone?

Next up we have a very winnable home fixture against Fulham who look destined for a season of fighting relegation.  They’ll probably have that ‘Keep Calm and Pass Me the Ball’ Wanker up front and hopefully Dejan and Jose will ensure than he doesn’t actually get much of it.  If you’re a United fan reading this then I have no idea who you’ve got and I don’t give a fuck.  Have no fear though, every attack you have will be shown on the BBC.

Premier League Match 7 - Southampton 2 Swansea 0

"I've done the celebration, I practiced it for ages, then you disallow it, Big Vic not Impressed"

What’s not to like about Swansea?  They play football on the floor, have a progressive outlook and a really good manager.  They’ve come up through the leagues and reached the Premier League and made a really good job of it, won the Capital One Cup and are now doing well in Europe.  The only area they seem to fall down on is that there appear at first glance to be hardly any Welsh or English players in their regular XI and of course, as I’ve said before, my brother in law is a Jack.

Swansea won again in the Europa League this week and it’s their European adventure which means that this game is being played on a Sunday and not Saturday.  I’m not going to crap on again (too much) about 1.30pm kick offs on a Sunday but the Premier League can kiss my ass which they will be able to find at Stoneham Park in Eastleigh where I will be coaching my sons football team rather than being at St.Mary’s.  The repeated Twitter requests to the Premier League asking why we have these grass-roots-football-trampling kick off times have still not been dignified with a response and no shock there.

My one remaining chance of getting to the game lay with the weather – if it pisses down then the kids game will be cancelled so I can wrestle my ticket back off of my mum and thus negate the risk of the 3^rd Party who I have passed my ticket onto, punching an opposition supporter in a drunk and disorderly rampage and getting ejected from the ground.    Not a chance as the weather is decent so I’ll be on tenterhooks hoping the old girl behaves herself.

All that’s happened since our last match is a spate of international call-ups which were all expected, including the retaining of Sir Rickie in the England squad as cover for when Rooney and Sturridge pull out.  If the unusual does happen and those two don’t pull out then no doubt those two will start the game along with Welbeck and Sir Rickie will be vying with Defoe for a place on the bench at best which is skant reward for playing in the Ukraine away match when Rooney and Sturridge couldn’t be arsed.  It was probably for the best though as they made miraculous recoveries to play for their clubs three days later.  England will qualify on Friday night if we beat Macedonia and Ukraine fail to win in Poland so a clean sheet for King Artur could send England through but if it’s still in the balance come the last game on the following Tuesday then Artur will take on the Tomaszewski role at Wembley.  Look on You Tube for “England Poland 1973”.

Oh yes, Dani Osvaldo took the slightly ill advised move of making public his annoyance at his ex-girlfriend who has been making waves in Argentina by complaining about him.  It was good to hear his side of the story but he’s opening himself right up for being tabloid fodder. Sure enough, one of his soundbites of “I’d like to play for Boca Juniors one day” was reported as him wanting to leave now and a comment of “the Premier League is more physical” was taken as justification of why he wanted to go.

Mauricio adds fuel to the Great Gaston debate by not even naming him in the 18 for this match with Guly the preferred option.  Steve Davis retains his place on the left and it’s as you were…. Oh no it’s not, Luke Shaw is not available as his mum won’t let him out until he’s finished his homework and so Danny Fox comes in at left back.  Swansea have a few different players from last year with Wilfried Bony up front, a big ginger bloke called Canas in central midfield and the centre backs are Amat who is new (to me anyway) and the ridiculously named Chico Florres who from seeing him on Match of the Day, seems like a good player, if a bit of a thug.  Michu has come prepared for a tough match, wearing one of those rugby scrum caps – he is playing against Dejan Lovren so I can’t blame him.  We also of course welcome back one of our ex’s with handbag thief Nathan Dyer in the starting line up.  If he’d let Bollocks Wright-Phillips do the robbery then all would have been fine as BWP would have missed.

It’s October but the sun is out and so the old Sunday park football rule comes out which is “win the toss, let the opposition keeper have the sun in his eyes”.  So, we are kicking towards the Chapel in the first half so something has got to give.  We haven’t scored in the first half all season and we haven’t scored at the Northam end so if we’ve got nil at half time then there could be trouble ahead.  Presumably there are no other Sunday football rules applied like “anyone who throws up is a sub” and “last one here gets the smallest kit”.

Apparently, Saints have the most possession in home games in the entire league but it’s possible today that that particular stat may take a hammering as Swansea are (Arsenal aside) the best passing side in the League.  However, some of their players aren’t so good at possession football and one of those is Jonjo Shelvey who is the sort of player who, as the opposition, you want to have the ball on the edge of his own penalty area.  When put under pressure he has two goes at gifting us the ball and eventually scuffs clear to no one and the ball breaks to Sir Rickie who puts Dani clean through.  The Argentine-Italian Don Juan leaves Chico on his arse before taking a touch too many and losing his angle before lashing wide of the near post.

The chance sees a change in the dynamic of the game and suddenly it’s all Saints and then that most miraculous of things, the first half goal, happens.  Adam Lallana has Ben Davies on toast out on the right and gets a cross in which is half cleared out to Steven Davis.  He plays a simple but superb ball into the path of the skipper who has continued his run before smashing a rising shot past Vorm and into the top corner.  It’s quite staggering to think about how many goals Adam would have scored if he hit every shot like that.

Once behind, Swansea really up things and we find ourselves chasing shadows.  Our main tormentor is of course Nathan Dyer who is up against Danny Fox who is nowhere near him.  It’s not Dyer but Rangel who fires in a lovely cross to the back post to where Michu thumps a header goalswards but the King has got across to keep it out.  After a minute of Swansea possession they work a chance for Shelvey who hits a decent low effort from 25 yards which the King gets down well to save.  Ex-Skate Routledge then falls over for no reason and we break and it’s ended with Lallana being hoofed up in the air by Canas about 30 yards out.  Sir Rickie looks much more likely to score free kicks these days but though his effort is curling wickedly and on target, Vorm saves comfortably enough.

We are breathing out of our collective arses soon after though as Dyer seems to have half the pitch to himself as he cuts onto his left foot and hits it.  Time stands still as it beats Artur’s dive, hits the inside of the post and flies across the goal about 6 inches from the line.  I’d say we were a tad fortunate.  “Robbed” as Dyer no doubt said to himself.

Dyer is at it again just before half time as following a superb build up from the Swans, he once again fires in a cross which is met very well by Bony but the King flies across to his left to keep it out in quite marvellous fashion.  Like I said a few weeks ago – The Best Keeper in the Premier League.  Half time and 1-0 to the mighty red and white machine.

There were no reports of anyone being ejected from the ground for drunk and disorderly at half time so I assumed that Mum was behaving herself.  By the time the second half starts I have made it home and have found a stream of the game on a channel I have never heard of.  There is a co-commentator who from every utterance he makes, shows that he does not much care for Southampton Football Club.  I can’t place the voice though…

The first notable action of the second half is a big lunging effort at a tackle by Canas which trashes through Dani Osvaldo and leaves him on the deck.  A players reaction will often tell you a lot about the bloke and as a result, standing there and laughing as he got booked makes Canas a bit of a twat.

It’s still Swansea doing most of the pressing though and we are resorting to long balls out of defence which almost without exception, result in Swansea picking the ball up again.  There are half chances as Dyer fires well over the bar and Bony mistimes his jump and heads another Dyer cross over the bar.  When Dyer gets the ball, Danny Fox is never wider than the edge of the penalty area and it makes me wonder if it’s a tactic.  If you close Dyer down then he’ll skip round you and drive at the penalty area which is where he’s at his most dangerous.  However, his crossing is a bit hit and miss so maybe we’ve decided to just let him cross it as usually the cross will be shite… or maybe I’m talking bollocks and Fox is just having a poor game.  There are many in the crowd who think Fox couldn’t be any more out of his depth if he was nailed to the bottom of the English Channel.  He doesn’t help himself by giving the ball away cheaply a couple of time either.

It’s on the other wing that we have our next major problem as Jose Fonte dallies on the ball and cocks up his back pass and gives it straight to Bony who cuts in and Lovren cynically leaves a leg out and hacks him down on the edge of the box.  The biased co-commentator says ‘that was a penalty’ when it clearly wasn’t and it’s annoying me now, who the fuck is it?  Meanwhile, Lovren gets booked for the foul and Fonte gets booked for moaning about something when there was nothing to moan about – you fucked up Jose, now just hope they mess the free kick up.  I’m confident on that score as Shelvey steps up and it’s not even a surprise that he curls it comfortably over the bar.

Dani Osvaldo is off for JWP which is less about his injury and more about getting us an extra body in midfield so we can maybe have some possession.  Having removed one striker, Mauricio then makes it a double and Sir Rickie comes off to be replaced by J-Rod who I’ve never particularly rated as a one man strike force.

When Canas can’t trash through people and he comes up against someone who goes in as hard as he does, he’s not as effective and he loses out to Steve Davis and the ball ends up being worked out to JWP on the left.  He then does a fabulous trick which we’ve all done and swings his left at it to cross it and nudges the ball with his standing foot and off for a goal kick.  Mike Dean has had a shocker though and given a corner, much to the Chewy-Wasp faced annoyance of about 4 Swansea players.  JWP’s flag kick lands at the back stick and Big Vic diverts it into the net and is off doing and somersault in the corner but it’s been disallowed… for nothing.  There is no foul, no one is holding, nothing at all.  It’s been disallowed because he knows he was wrong to award the corner.  So, next time you want to deliver a “two wrongs don’t make a right” moral lecture to your kids, remember that “two wrongs don’t make a right, they actually make a shit referee”.

There are fifteen minutes to go and it’s time for a mismatch as in a Heavyweight v Flyweight contest, Big Vic hoofs Dyer up in the air.  You do not steal Big Vic’s mobile phone and get away with it.  Ten minutes later and the disallowed goal becomes an irrelevance as King Artur launches one forwards and the Swansea central defence do something I wouldn’t have been happy with in the Under 10’s this morning.  Firstly Amat lets it bounce and then Florres tries to outmuscle J-Rod instead of just clearing it, allowing J-Rod to swing his left boot at it and bounce it past Vorm and into the net for 2-0.  All the pretty football that both these sides are noted for and the goal comes straight out of the Book of Allardyce.  There is a Jaidi moment in the celebration when Big Vic jumps on the pile of celebrating players and somehow, JWP gets a smack in the face.

Game over and you know it is when Guly is allowed on the pitch for the last 4 minutes as a replacement for Steven Davis.  As the game ends the commentator says “…. And that’s all from me at St.Mary’s with my expert summariser, Efan Ekoku”.  Hmmm, why does he not like us?  Never played for Swansea, never played for Pompey… played for Bournemouth… maybe that’s it, if so, small time wanker.

The official attendance was 28,570 which is of course, at least one more than actually turned up as one of my three tickets was unused.  I hope what we got paid for the stupid kick off time was worth the shortfall.  Anyhow, we’re up to 4^th in the league which is quite something really.  We were expected to drop to 5^th with Spurs being at home to West Ham in the 4pm game but they contrived to lose 3-0 to a team who haven’t scored an away goal since the mid-nineties.  I will not settle for having to play a qualifier to get into the Champions League, I want automatic qualification!

Mauricio picked out Captain Lallana and King Artur as the main men today with the former putting forward a strong claim for England recognition – if only he was as good as Milner, Cleverley or Young.  As for Artur… Roy Hodgson had best hope England get the job done before the Poles come to Wembley.  Michael Laudrup is a class act and his post match interview reflected this as he basically said that it’s no good dominating possession if you can’t score. 

There were issues today in that I think we proved that you struggle in midfield if you play two up front against good passing sides.  There was a long period of the game from Lallana’s goal to JWP coming on where we were distinctly second best.  The JWP change also got some help on for Fox who whilst he doesn’t help himself with his positioning sometimes, was repeated left exposed against Dyer and Rangel down his wing.  As for the people who were audibly giving him stick… I expect you were the same guys giving King Artur stick a while back and I expect you were the one’s giving Guly stick and I expect that you’re a fucking moron.  Danny Fox is a valuable squad player and until Matt Targett proves worthy of being Shaw’s understudy then he’ll be here.  He was a valuable member of our promotion winning side and never gives less than 100% and deserves a bit of respect.  Sharp, Hammond and Chaplow – all in the same boat in that they’d struggle at Premier League level but all afforded a level of respect.  If all that’s a bit much to understand… do you think booing a player really helps the team?

It’s international break time and Sir Rickie and others will be trying to nail down a place at Brazil 2014.  Saints next match in the league is a piss easy trip to Old Trafford.  If we can come away from that one only having conceded 2 goals this season then that’ll be quite something but even if we lose, we’ll still be above them.  4^th… bloody hell.

4th