Premier League Match 19 - Everton 2 Southampton 1

Hands up if You're a Twat

Everton away is a bonus game every year.  It’s probably the fixture where I have the least expectation of a result every year and every year we get beat and every year I am not surprised or annoyed about it.  It’s Everton, it’s Goodison, we turn up, they beat us, we go home.

This year in particular it’s looking like a tough assignment as Everton have only lost twice all season under their new manager Roberto Martinez and one of those was in a game where they had to play with 10 men for ages after their keeper got sent off.  Everton have managed to keep their decent Moyes-era defence intact so far but the test for Martinez will be when he has to build a defence (replacing Distin for example) which he totally failed to do at Wigan.  One of his Wigan defenders (Alcaraz) is in the defence today so maybe there’s an opportunity.  The midfield includes Ross Barkley who seems a talent destined to go to the World Cup with England if Hodgson can get over his Carrick / Lampard fixation.  Up front they have the player who’s been their main man all season and it pisses me off because he’s a Chelsea player.  Of course, I wouldn’t mind if Lukaku played for us on loan but it wouldn’t stop me thinking the rule that allows big clubs to stockpile players and loan them out to other Premier league clubs is completely wrong.

Despite his clean sheet last week, Gazza Timebomb is benched in favour of Superkelv.  It sends the wrong message that the youngster has been benched but I think Mauricio has enough ‘play the youngsters’ credit to be forgiven that one.  Personally I think it’s 100% the right decision as it will be to bench Superkelv as soon as King Artur is fit again.  Dejan Lovren is available to partner Jose Fonte in defence and the suspended Morgan is replaced with JWP which leaves us looking a bit lightweight in the defensive midfield area.  To add to the lack of expectation I have, I see that my old mate Mark Twattenburg is the referee, or Mr Narcissism as he likes to be called.  I don’t know that for sure but any referee who wants to be the centre of attention as much as he does deserves the name

As the game starts its obvious that Barkley is the hub of everything for Everton so we have to get close to him which we immediately don’t do and he drives forward before sending Coleman away on the right. His cross it met by Barkley who is still unimpeded by any player in red but his shot his easily saved by the returning Superkelv.

As soon as Saints settle down and start playing some decent football in the midfield then we fuck it up and go behind as Coleman has a dart up the right and easily cuts inside JWP.  Shaw appears to be in the too-central-Danny-Fox position and Coleman has enough space to get it back onto his right foot and attack the box at speed.  Instead of crossing it like a normal player would though he lashes it into the far top corner giving Superkelv not an earthly.  It’s a great goal but it was poor from our two youngsters to allow him the space.

We (nearly) create our first chance as Chambers bundles past Baines and Oviedo on the left and crosses to Lallana who cleverly backheels Sir Rickie through but his shot is blocked by Robles.  The offside flag was up anyway, even though it didn’t look offside from the replay.  Never mind, onwards we go and lovely football breaks out between Adam and Sir Rickie again which gives Luke Shaw the chance to get forward but his eventual shot is bollocks and is more of a threat to the corner flag than the goal.

We have a go at Route 1 as well as a Superkelv bomb is flicked on by Sir Rickie to Adam Lallana.  There’s nothing on as he receives it with his back to goal but he flicks it over both centre backs and finds himself clear but shins the left footed effort wide.  I’ve said it many times over the years but if Adam Lallana had the finishing to match his approach play then we’d have a world class player on our hands.

We have one final chance before half time as we win the ball high up the pitch and Sir Rickie’s cross is headed out to Corky who lays off well to JWP but his shot is hopeless to be honest and sails into the crowd and with that, Twattenburg gets the chance to do his hair and blows for half time.

We start the second half well but nearly manage to let in another goal as Lukaku fed Oviedo out on the left and his cross was sidefooted wide by Barkley when he really should have scored.  Our ‘final ball’ phobia comes back to haunt us straight afterwards as McCarthy is hassled by the pressing game and presents the ball to J-Rod about 30 yards out.  He plays it straight to Lallana and all he has to do is miss the last defender with his pass which he fails to do and the chance has gone.  Frustrating as fuck but not as much as when our next corner breaks to Steve Davis on the edge of the box with loads of time but when presented with a choice of shoot or cross it, the ginger master of the baize just aimlessly wafts it over the bar in shite fashion.

It is time for a substitution as we are in truth not looking like scoring so on comes Gaston for Jack Cork.  I groan loudly as I’m anticipating us soon being 2-0 down.  As with the Spurs game, there are more deserving candidates for being subbed (JWP, J-Rod, Steve Davis to name but three) but off goes Corky again.  Gaston is looking decent though and announces his arrival by dribbling through three players and passing to Chambers whose high cross causes a bit of mayhem, is recycled by Luke Shaw and J-Rod’s eventual shot is deflected wide by Distin.

And then it happened as Gaston picked up a short pass just to the left of centre, works it onto his left foot and lashes it as they close him down.  Robles, who has looked unconvincing all game sees it all the way and somehow manages to miss it as it flies over him and into the centre of the goal.  Whilst the neutral should probably be perplexed and confused by such goalkeeping, we don’t give a fuck and go mental.  Fastastic strike, get in there and Gaston is off to the crowd, shirt off, hands it to an Everton kid and gets booked for it.  Amusingly he can’t get it back and has to don a shirt with no number on it.  He’s hardly going to give it back if you fucking give it to him is he?

We need to settle down, get the ball and start passing it about again but no, we go our usual and seem to get over excited about having scored and Pienaar breaks down the left, slips it infield to McCarthy who rolls it across for the Chelsea player to thunder it into the net from the edge of the box and give Superkelv no chance.  Fuck off Jose Mourinho.

We’re going for it now and Dejan Lovren gets forward and hammers in a shot which deflects for a corner.  It comes to nothing though and we’re more open now which gives Everton further chances.  We seem reluctant to tackle the Chelsea player and he tricks his way past three players on the edge of the box before firing just over the bar.  Also over the bar but at the other end is an effort from Shaw which is well hit but never troubling the keeper.  Big Sam comes on for JWP (who really should have gone off when Gaston came on) with 5 minutes to give us someone else to aim at in the box.

We’re still pressing high and winning the ball back and from one such incident, Jose Fonte gets into nosebleed territory following a little run and is brought down by the Chelsea player.  From the free kick, Sir Rickie gets up at the back stick and heads it down, it hits Distin, everyone appeals and no penalty.  Probably fair enough but thirty seconds later, Sir Rickie flicks a ball on to Lallana on the left and he crosses it, it hits Alcaraz, big handball appeal, again nothing given, fuck off!  Alcaraz in inside the box and he’s jumped with one arm leading, away from his body.  It’s missed this arm and hit the other which is slightly higher than the other one – it’s like a fucking block in volleyball or a charge down in rugby. Clear as fucking day but it’s Twattenburg isn’t it… he of the Norwich away last year and the Arsenal away this year.  Much though I’d like to slaughter him and I do believe he’s an attention seeking whore of a referee – his view is blocked by Alcaraz and the lino is on the other side so it would have been an excellent spot from there.  You could argue that he was in the wrong position as a referee but that’s about it.  We predictably are not happy and Adam gets booked, presumably for mentioning penalty decisions past and the fact that the narcissistic twat had a hair transplant.

We’re done at this point and all that’s left to do is have a go at losing by more which we would have done but for a great save from Superkelv as the Chelsea player again fired in a snapshot which was expertly tipped round the post down low.  It’s some how gratifying that one of the big boys has to resort to dribbling into the corner to waste time at the end but this is what Everton do and Twattenburg brings things to a close and we’ve put in our usual away performance in that we’ve been superb until the final third, had more than our fair share of the game but not threatened enough.

It the same old story but today we had as good a chance as ever to get something from Goodison.  Everton were a bit under-strength, mind you so were we.  The annoying thing was that they had a clown in goal and we didn’t test him aside from Gaston’s shot which made him look stupid.  J-Rod and Sir Rickie again contributed little though the positives of Gaston’s improved performance and goal will hopefully mean we see more of him in the coming weeks, even though his hairstyle is stupid and the shirt with his number on it is now on eBay.  We miss Big Vic in midfield big time.  Mauricio obviously doesn’t rate Corky as much as everyone else seems to and as we were 1-0 down, his removal can be understood more than it could be at 2-2 against Spurs.  Again though, there were others who should have been subbed first which would still have got Gaston on the pitch without removing the defensive element of the midfield.

My initial charity towards Twattenburg and the Alcaraz handball was later found to be misplaced as he apparently said afterwards that he did see it and it wasn’t a penalty.  For starters, it sounds to me like he just doesn’t want to admit he missed it.  If he had seen it clearly then he would have to have given it.  Mind you, Howard Webb at Norwich was five yards away and looking straight at it when Bradley Johnson played basketball in the box and didn’t give it.  Some might say that he’d get more attention if he gave the decision against Everton.  What he would have actually got would be praise for giving a correct decision.  Admit it Twattenburg – you didn’t see it cos you were in the wrong place.  So, Twattenburg is a useless arse after all, no need to be charitable and normal service has been resumed, the useless squirrel headed look-at-me dickhead bag of shite.  Also, Sunday was the first time he'd refereed at Goodison for SIX years.  This is because the last time was a Merseyside derby when he sent off two Everton players and failed to award them a last minute penalty.  Ask yourself why the FA kept him away from Goodison for six years and then ask yourself if he was he ever going to give us a last minute penalty today?

Let’s get all the sour grapes out and talk about the loan system.  Well, the loan system is bollocks.  We lost to Chelsea a few weeks ago and fine – they were better than us and deserved to win.  We fucking lost to Chelsea again today.  In the normal scheme of things, Everton could not buy a striker like the Chelsea one they’ve borrowed, unless they sold Baines and Barkley or whoever, which would make the rest of the team weaker.  Last year the Chelsea player propelled West Brom to a much higher position than they would have been without him and see how they’ve struggled this year with having to rely on players they actually own.  Rules is rules I guess but the rules are shit.  You should not be allowed to loan players to another team in the same division, especially a season long loan job, it’s that simple.  The loan system should be to get you over a crisis with injuries, not to artificially improve your team. 

My Europe-wide rule proposal is

a)      only players under 21 can be loaned out

b)      and not to a team in the same division (or equivalent division abroad)

c)      and not for longer than 4 matches (would hopefully discourage foreign loans)

d)     no loan players allowed to play in any Cup game

I’m sure we can dick around with other clauses for goalkeepers and the like but in short, I think that as it is now it totally distorts the competition.  It’d be fucking hilarious if Everton finish 4^th and qualify for the Money League next year and Chelsea finish 5^th and miss out because of the 25 goals that the Chelsea striker has scored for Everton.  None of this is Romelu Lukaku’s fault – he’s only guilty of being a young player who was stupid enough to sign for the young players graveyard of Chelsea in the first place.  It’s not his fault that Mourinho thinks that the three strikers he has, who he always complains about, are better than Lukaku.

Talking of Chelsea, oh yes we’re playing them on New Years Day at home.  It’s another game where we should not expect too much as they are currently within striking distance of the top of the league.  However, I fancy seeing the Special One giving it a Special Whinge afterwards so watch this space.  He’s usually a completely ungracious twat when his team loses so hopefully we can see a bit of that.

Chelsea player scores, Mourinho delighted.

Premier League Match 18 - Cardiff 0 Southampton 3

Fill this out please Malky

Our visit to Cardiff City on Boxing Day was expected to be against a team without a manager as it seemed that Malky MacKay was a dead man walking.  The owner Vincent Tan had told him to quit or be fired which basically told MacKay that he was gone, probably when the next defeat came along.  They got beaten at Liverpool a few days ago and most assumed that would be that but he’s still here for one more game at least.

From the outside and not being party to all the details, it looks to me that you could argue it both ways – MacKay had got them promoted and as it stands today, Cardiff are out of the relegation zone but they spent a fair amount of money on players who don’t appear to be much good in the summer so I expect Tan wanted more for his money than 17^th place and he wanted a better style of football than the stodgy 4-5-1 keep it tight football they appear to play.  However, Tan changed the clubs colours from Blue to Red as it would be more marketable in Asia.  Being a bit of traditionalist, I believe that you can modify things slightly but riding roughshod over a teams identity is bollocks.  I’m not an expert in marketing but I doubt that there has been a flood of money coming into the club as a result of the colour change, in much the same was as there probably won’t be a rush of money into the soon-to-be rebranded Hull Tigers.  Christ, there were enough complaints because we’re not playing in stripes any more.  Can you imagine the stink if we changed to blue?

We’ve managed to get in the media in the past few days with Adam Lallana getting married on the quiet as it had already been made public that his wedding was initially supposed to be on the day England were are playing their first game at the World Cup.  I would imagine that his missus will be demanding the biggest of enormous wedding parties in June if he doesn’t make the World Cup squad.  So, that was nice and congratulations to Adam and his wife.  The next day he was off to Man United on the back pages and Luke Shaw was off to Chelsea and so normal service had been resumed.

Anyhow, MacKay is still in place and we need a win and something is going to give.  There are some positives and some negatives in our team selection today with Big Jos and Foxy being replaced with Jose Fonte and Luke Shaw.  The bad news is that Dejan Lovren has gone down with a virus and his place goes to Maya Yoshida which reunites the partnership that looked the most solid for us last season.  Kelvin Davis is back on the bench because Cody Cropper is injured which suggests that Davis himself is still injured though not as badly as Cropper as surely if Superkelv was fit, he’d be in the team instead of Gaz Timebomb who keeps his place.  Cardiff have the team out I expected aside from Chilean international Gary Medel being missing which is a bonus as he’s their best player.

The game kicks off and I’m watching a stream from Al Jazeera which has a foreign language commentary which is hilarious due to the pronunciations of the players names.  We have Rod-ray-gezz, Lom-berr, Shom-berrs, Show and Shnee-dar-lang.

Cardiff appear to be right up for it and carve out a great chance after about five minutes as Frazier Campbell gets away down the right and plays it back to Noone whose cross is perfect and right on the foot of Peter Whittingham who is about five yards out.  Thankfully he’s about as useful as the Skate Whittingham was this season and spoons it high, wide and shite.  A bit of a let off the say the least.

When we get into it though and get the ball down, we are passing it around very crisply and giving Cardiff the run around and early warning was served as Adam Lallana, Sir Rickie and Morgan combine to send J-Rod away but he was unlucky to run it out of play.  The warning was not heeded though and Cardiff tried to push up and press but weren’t quick enough to stop Morgan finding Adam Lallana in acres behind the left back and his cross left J-Rod with a bit to do but he’s on it today and steered it past Marshall with his left foot with a big ROD-RAY-GEZZZZ from the commentators.

Usually you get a bit of a response from the home side if you take the lead but there was a real feeling that their heads had gone down as we pushed on.  This time it was master of the green baize Steve Davis and Lallana who set up Sir Rickie who pinged a beautifully weighted ball over the defence to where ROD-RAY-GEZZZZ met it on the volley to despatch it under Marshall for 2-0 and dreamland.  Get the fuck in there.  It’s symptomatic that as a Saints fan I was immediately thinking that we’d fuck it up now.

Whilst we are all trying to digest being 2-0 up within 20 minutes, it gets even more surreal on 25 minutes as some excellent work by Chambers on the right wins us a corner.  Instead of firing it over, Lallana lays it back to Chambers who puts the cross in from deeper, J-Rod gets up and nods it down and even if he’s a bit out of form, you don’t allow Sir Rickie time to control it with no bugger around him in the box as the ball will end up in your net which is duly does for 3-0…. LOM-BERRRRRR.  Cue the obligatory shots of home supporters heading for the exits, a very unamused looking Vincent Tan and a suicidal looking Malky MacKay who was writing notes (or a CV) on a bit of paper.

Cardiff respond after a fashion and Gazza has to make his first save as Taylor’s shot is going sideways but it hits Jose and deflects towards the goal, forcing Gazza into a sprawling save.  There is another dodgy moment as Odemwingie gets played in but he seems to get confused like he does in a transfer window and in the time it takes him to think about it, Yoshida catches him up and clears well.

As it is probably Malky MacKay’s last half time team talk as Cardiff manager, I’m expecting Cardiff to come out firing for the second half but either by accident or design, we diffuse this by waiting until the last possible minute to re-emerge for the second half.  Even so, we cause our own problems by giving free kicks away near our box.  Firstly Corky gets away with one as Whittingham fires his cross over everyone but then Morgan bins someone and picks up a booking that will rule him out of the Everton game on Sunday.  From the free kick Whittingham gets it right and picks out Campbell who heads over as Gaz Timebomb comes flying out and gets nowhere near it.  I love the way that Campbell went chasing the referee wanting another corner when it came off the centre of his forehead and flew straight off the pitch.

I’m not his biggest fan (understantement of the year) but Gaz Timebomb is at least making his presence felt today.  Yet another free kick is hoisted into our box and this time he comes and punches it straight up in the air.  Fortunately, it goes high enough to allow him to get back up and punch it off for a corner.  He has a massive smile on his face which, if I was one of the defenders, would stop me punching him in the mouth as he looks like he’s enjoying himself.

When we stop giving free kicks away there is only one dangerous looking team on the pitch as a great move down the left ends with Shaw finding himself confronted by the keeper on the left hand edge of the box and the keeper smuggles it away for a corner.  The corner eventually finds itself to the edge of the box where Corky attempts to score his first goal since he was 8.  It’s on target but straight at Marshall who gathers easily.

The Timebomb nearly goes off a couple of times in quick succession as he takes a swipe at a fizzed Yoshida backpass and slices it to Jose rather than a Cardiff forward. He then takes his eye off a simple back pass from Jose which is rolled along the ground and it runs about a yard behind him after it’s rolled under his foot.  It has to be said that Yoshida is having a decent game.  He wins many tackles when one v one and though his distribution is a bit ropey, is happy most of the time to play safety first football which when you’re in defence is never the worst thing to do.

Whilst hunting for his hat-trick, J-Rod lashes one wide of the near post on the hour mark and at the other end Campbell smashes on into orbit as he fastens onto a route 1 hoof forward which bounces to him off an aerial challenge between Jose and Cornrlius.  Cornelius is the Danish centre forward who Cardiff paid millions for in the summer and he’s been injured virtually ever since and this will probably be one of the sticks that Tan uses to beat MacKay out of the managers position.

You can see that Saints are playing within themselves but we are still creating chances and come close when Sir Rickie plays another lovely pass to Morgan on the right wing and his volleyed cross is over the keeper and headed away by the right back with the very long double barred name as J-Rod closed in. 

We are in the substitution zone as the last ten minutes ticked down on Malky MacKay’s career as Cardiff manager.  JWP is on for Lallana and Gaston and his Alice band is on for J-Rod.  With five minutes to go we embark on a major bout of keep ball which is great but if an opposition side did it to us I’d think they were bastards.  It is good though – three short passes then a booming long one to the other side of the pitch, a nod down and then the process starts again.  It really is taking the piss somewhat.

Big Sam is on on 92 minutes as Sir Rickie gets a deserved 30 seconds off to save him for the Everton game on Sunday and the game ends with the Timebomb nearly going off again as Gazza drops another cross but gets away with it.  You can only beat what’s in front of you and we have and Malky’s P45 is no doubt being printed up as we speak.  Great performance by ourselves though.

Thanks fuck for that, our first win in six and totally deserved.  Whilst they didn’t lay down and die, Cardiff certainly weren’t very good and proved to be perfect opposition for us.  The central defence of Jose and Maya certainly looked more secure than Dejan and Big Jos did against Spurs but there were enough ropey moments to suggest that better opposition could certainly have troubled us.  And then there was Gazza who of course came away with a clean sheet.  Anyone who tells you this was a flawless display from him has had a severe overdose of Christmas Goodwill to all men.  He got lucky on several occasions, usually with crosses into the box which he was usually nowhere near but to be fair to him, he just gets on with it, plays with a smile on his face and in the main did well.  He did catch a few though so fair play to him – let’s just hope the percentages of those he deals with and those he flaps at keeps moving in the right direction.  At the end of the day, Cardiff didn’t get a single shot on target with only a deflected by Jose causing Gazza to make a save.

There were some excellent performances out there again with J-Rod and Sir Rickie recovering from their shockers against Spurs to have excellent games today.  Adam Lallana was once again Man of the Match and everything went through him though the platform was provided by Corky, the always industrious Steve Davis and Morgan who will be a big miss against Everton.  The full backs were also superb today with Shaw being a complete pain for Cardiff down the left and Chambers defending solidly and getting forward well on the right.  We are lucky to have them and long may that continue and Chelsea and Mourinho can just fuck off.  Who’d be a young player at Chelsea… remember Josh McEachran?  No, neither does anyone else.

So, the games just keep on coming with Everton away on Sunday, then Chelsea at home on New Years Day (Wednesday) and then Burnley in the FA Cup on the Saturday.  As far as I’m concerned, Everton away is a bonus game which I am not expecting anything from.  Mind you, they’ve just lost at home to Sunderland and that arse Poyet so you never know.  I would imagine that JWP will come in for Morgan and that Dejan Lovren will be back in the side somewhere.  Our win today has given us a bit of license to go for it so lets have it!

In a shock announcement on Sunday, Malky MacKay was sacked.  No one saw that coming.

Premier League Match 17 - Southampton 2 Tottenham 3

Jos: Pick that one out!

Gazza: I Can't Believe I'm this far off my line.

Spurs at home.  I hate Spurs.  Delusions of grandeur and media darlings and until last week, Andre Villas-Boas.  The much maligned Daniel Levy has done English football a favour by getting rid of him and hopefully no one else on these shores will touch him.  The caretaker they have in charge is Tim Sherwood who I always thought was a decent player especially in the mid to late 90s when in his pomp at Blackburn and Spurs.

The Saints news of the week is that The Pirate has been charged with being a naughty boy in the scuffle at St James’ Park last week.  Violent conduct is the charge which usually carries a mandatory 3 match ban.  It could have been worse as stealing treasure usually gets you ten matches and thirty lashes.  Of all the players and staff who were on the bench when it all kicked off, if you had to pick one to get involved it would have been The Pirate.  I’m pre-judging it a bit here as he may be entirely innocent.  I very much doubt it tough.

He’s not even on the bench today which is a shame because he was very good in the last home game and Spurs feature Erik Lamela who the Pirate is widely reported to have chinned when they were team mates at Roma.  Sherwood has gone for a very attacking side as befits a man with a ‘shit or bust’ attitude as he’s unlikely to get the job.  He’s picked two strikers including Adebayor who can be anything between brilliant and an absolute waste of space.  Rumour has it that AVB refused to pick him and his stubbornness on this issue (along with 5-0 and 6-0 defeats no doubt) contributed to his downfall.  Worryingly, Spurs have loads of good attacking players today and our defence is one again decidedly makeshift with the Timebomb Gazzaniga in goal, Big Jos once again in the centre but this time it’s really scary as Luke Shaw is missing meaning with have the Jos-Fox left sided defence combination which is always shockingly bad.  Elsewhere, JWP drops to the bench with Morgan returning and Sir Rickie is back in up front in place of the absent Pirate.

Spurs started confidently and were knocking the ball around in midfield quite well as you’d expect.  The first we get it we boom it forwards to Sir Rickie and Dawson climbs all over him to give us a free kick.  It’s from about 35 yards and Lloris has the sun in his eyes but Sir Rickie’s effort is too close to him and he saves it easily enough.

Danny Fox has started the game pretty well and finds himself with an opportunity to burst forward which he does well, making 40 yards before feeding inside to Adam Lallana who spin turns away from a clumsy looking Chiriches before hitting a right foot shot past Lloris and in off the post.  The man is on fire at the moment and a great start for us.

We’ve settled well now and the pressing game is working and Spurs aren’t troubling us at all going forward. We’re bothering them though as Sir Rickie nicks the ball off of Rose on the left, feeds inside to Lallana who chooses exactly the right option and weight of pass to find J-Rod on the edge of the box with a free shot which he curls over the bar with just the keeper to beat.  Bad, bad, miss.  A minute later, Adebayor starts a move by galloping forward with the ball out of his half.  He seems to overhit the ball out to the wing but Soldado keeps it in and crosses.  Adebayor runs in between Foxy and Big Jos, neither of whom go with him and volleys into the net from about 4 yards out with Gazza flailing about on the line.  It’s four yards out for fucks sake and the cross has travelled all the way from the touchline.  I don’t actually blame the defenders too much as they’d have been quite within their rights to expect the keeper to catch it, punch it, even flap it away but to stand on the line and do fuck all is criminal.

So one Spurs attack and one goal.  To be honest, there wasn’t a lot else to report in the first half aside from Sir Rickie clattering Dembele and Sigurdsson hacking Steve Davis over as he started a Saints break which received a deserved booking.  Going forward we had some decent play up the right wing involving Chambers but the ball ran out before he could fire it across.

Half time and I’m annoyed.  I’m annoyed that we gifted them an easy goal when it should have been 2-0 and I’m annoyed with someone in the crowd in the Family Centre.  The usual Dad and Son are not next to us today – instead it’s a different kid and his mum.  Mum has no interest in football whatsoever so it obviously press-ganged into it and has no idea what behaviour from her 9/10 year old is acceptable at football and what is fucking annoying.  Continually bouncing up and down on your chair is annoying, continually looking behind you is annoying, continually talking shite about anything but the game you are watching is also annoying.  Unlike with the Chuckle Brothers in days gone by, I don’t feel I can tell this kid to shut the fuck up and the mum is on her phone so I can’t say anything to her either.  I know you have to expect a bit of this when you’re sat in the kids section but I like to think that I guide my own kid as to what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

Anyway, we’re off for the second half with the first incident being Dembele off and a player I’ve never heard of called Bentaleb on.  We seem to have gone into ‘kick it aimlessly’ mode and Spurs look more threatening than they did all first half when once again, Soldado finds space on the left and passes it back to Rose on the edge of the penalty area.  A quick 1-2 with Eriksen and Rose gets to the line and fires it across though.  Like at Newcastle though, there’s no danger as Big Jos is there.  Having played the airshot with his left foot last week to gift Newcastle their goal, this week he saves the opposition the bother, right foot, own goal, fuck off!  Every will of course say it’s unlucky and one of those things when in fact it’s lead-footed, clumsy shit.  Where was Gazza?  Same place he always is when a cross comes over, on his goal line doing nothing.

On the hour mark and quite unexpectedly, we equalize as a decent move gets better with a lovely defence splitter from Corky which sends Lallana in behind the defence but running to the right corner.  Lloris has come half way out for reasons only known to himself to Adam switches it infield to Sir Rickie who rolls it calmly into the empty net from the edge of the box.  Lloris proves that we don’t have a monopoly on dodgy keepers and as the ball hits the net he produces to usual sign of the player who has just made a cock of himself and appeals for offside.

Spurs take of a player who has been shite in Lamela and replace him with Chadli and Saints take off Corky who along with Lallana has been our best player and replace him with JWP.  Immediately, a ball is played from the Spurs right wing, in behind Big Jos to Adebayor who is through on goal.  Gazza should be first to the ball but of course he doesn’t move until late and Adebayor gets the shot away. In the end Gazza makes a decent save and deflects it wide but it should never have come to that.

We then let in a goal that I can honestly say – if my Under 10 team let in goal like this I’d have gone mental at them.  However, the fact is that they wouldn’t have allowed a throw in to go into a forward who laid it off, got it back, bundled past a powder puff challenge and smashed it in the net.   Adebayor’s goal and good for him.  Guess Who King Powder Puff was?  Yep, he’s big and Dutch and out of his depth.   The description of this goal has been written from watching a TV replay.  All I saw of it in real time was Adebayor sticking it in the net because the stupid little shit next to me was shouting complete bollocks at someone about 10 rows back and I got a distracted by the little fucktard.  When my own son asked me about the goal I gave it the “I don’t really know mate…. I WAS DISTRACTED”.  Fucktard’s mum heard that and had a quick word with him.  I am a very bad man.

In the next five minutes Spurs should have put the game out of sight.  First Soldado puts one wastefully wide after Jos got caught out of position and the covering Dejan messed up a clearing header.  Then Soldado hit the side netting after more shit defending down our left and then Chadli curled on just wide from the edge of the box after Adebayor had easily got the better of Big Jos on the left and squared it.

It’s a miracle it’s still only 3-2 and Mauricio tries to get this substitution right and brings on Gaston on for Steve Davis.  After his usual trick of getting caught with the ball a couple of times, Gaston starts to contribute and a lovely run and pass puts Lallana through but Lloris is quickly off his line to smother the shot.  With 10 to go it’s last throw of the dice time as Foxy is shot and replaced with Sam Gallagher meaning Chambers at left back and JWP on the right.

Big Sam looks a bit of a handful at 6 foot 4 and he latches onto a Lallana pass in the inside right channel before drilling a shot which Lloris saves well.  The 90 minutes are up and we get the opportunity to boo Defoe for a bit as he comes on for Soldado.  It’s getting bloody frustrating as the timewasting tactics get stupid and then Gaston’s free kick into the box is flapped by Lloris but no one can get a decisive touch on it when it lands.

We have one final chance as a JWP corner is again flap-punched away by Lloris but it comes too fast to Sir Rickie on the edge of the box who can only smash it into the ground and over the bar.  Bollocks, another home defeat.

It’s all very well rolling out the clichés of “all stick together” and  “keep doing what we’re doing” and “keep working hard” and “believe in our selves” and all that.  I agree, all that has to happen and it will happen and the chances are that it will turn around but the bottom line is that it won’t until we get our important players fit again.  It really is that simple especially in the defence.  The facts are that Big Jos is worse than Jose, Fox isn’t on the same planet as Shaw and as for Gazza, as I’ve said before, an empty jersey tied to the fucking cross bar would do as much as he does.  He’s scared of the fucking ball – end of.  You may be able to cater with one stand-in but two makes it difficult and three makes it downright impossible.  The stand-in who doesn’t weaken the team is of course Calum Chambers who was excellent again at right back.  He’s not as good as Nathaniel Clyne yet but it’s not a catastrophic weakening of the team like it is with the other three.

Mauricio deserved some criticism for today as well it has to be said.  If you give him the fact that Fonte is carrying a knock then you have to wonder why the fuck Jack Cork was taken off at 2-2.  On the face of it, it’s a stupid substitution and it cost us the game.  Within seconds we were 3-2 down and for the next 10 minutes we were nowhere as Spurs carved out about five chances and it was only due to their shit finishing that we weren’t looking at being 4-2 or 5-2 behind.  If they’d got any on target they would have scored because of who we had in goal.  Dejan Lovren was like a one man defence at times but sooner or later he’s going to get overrun as he can’t cover for Foxy and Big Jos and do his own job.  To be fair, it does Jos no favours when Foxy is left back as he’s never in the right position so Jos gets dragged elsewhere as well. Corky was a vital part of that cover for the defence and removing him just threw the game away.  If you remove the screen in front of the defence then it stands to reason that the defence will have to deal with more and as our defence is now officially a fucking nightmare, removing Corky was suicide.  If Mauricio felt for some reason that he had to bring JWP on then today, J-Rod should have been removed as he was fucking useless from the first whistle to the last.  I have no problem with him bringing Gaston on for Davis as we needed to be a bit more creative and bringing on Gallagher for Fox was a last throw of the dice.  It also showed though that he thought that playing Chambo on the wrong side and JWP at right back was a better option than leaving Foxy on. 

I’m interested in Cody Cropper who has been in the USA international squad.  I’m interested because even though I’ve never seen him play, he has to be better than Gazzaniga.  If he’s not then he should be sold immediately.  Bad goalkeepers are like a disease eating away at the foundations of a house in that they undermine everything.  You don’t like to be too harsh on a young player but for fucks sake!  In order of seniority, our keepers should be Boruc, Davis, Cropper, A Wireframe Man used for free kick practice, An empty jersey tied to the crossbar, A Cone, Gazzaniga.  You wouldn’t think it from reading this but I don’t usually pan individual players but there are some games when you just can't help it.

Others were poor today as well – Sir Rickie got a goal which will hopefully do wonders for his confidence but other than that he was very poor and as mentioned, J-Rod did nothing.  Adam Lallana was outstanding and I thought Calum Chambers, Dejan Lovren and Jack Cork put in decent shifts.  Everyone else seemed flat though it must be hard to run your bollocks off and then see shite goals being conceded due to complete ineptitude by players who are never going to learn and improve (Foxy and Big Jos) or need to develop in a less rarified environment than the Premier League (Gazza). 

We lost today to a Spurs side who we really should have beaten.  They really weren’t that great but they didn’t have to be.  The key moment of the game was at 1-0 when J-Rod shat his effort over the bar when it was easier to score.  2-0 and in view of Spurs recent thumpings, their heads might have gone down and we would have strolled it. Two minutes later it was 1-1 from Spurs first attack.  Another key moment was getting back to 2-2 and Mauricio hitting the Cork suicide button.  Mauricio made a Christmas joke in his interview saying we gifted them goals but if the interviewer had had any bollocks he’s have pointed out that taking Cork off was the biggest gift of the lot.

Our next three games see us take on Cardiff and Everton away and then Chelsea at home.  In my opinion we have to prioritise the Cardiff game, a) because it’s the next one and b) because it’s the most winnable on paper. If Jose Fonte is at all fit, I want to see him starting the Cardiff game and I assume Luke Shaw will be over his latest illness.  I don’t get the Fonte thing – I could understand having a half fit striker on the bench as you may need to turn a game around but why a half fit centre half.  I would imagine if we need to bring on a centre back in the first half then it would be Yoshida so Jose is on the bench in case we need a centre half in the last 20 minutes.  It doesn’t make sense.  The chances of us getting to the last 20 minutes with a lead and wanting to shore things up when we have our current defence is virtually nil.

So, Cardiff away – they’ll be in red, Malky MacKay will still be their manager and their owner will be a twat.  It’s a game we really have to get something from.  

‘No sustituir Jack Cork' - as they say in Spanish.

Premier League Match 16 - Newcastle 1 Southampton 1

Corky moves in to nick his watch.

Following our better showing against Manchester City, we have a long old trip to St.James Park to play a Newcastle side who have just won at Man United and have flown up the league under our ex-manager Alan Pardew with 4 wins out of the last 5.  Pards cannot let a press conference go by when he plays Saints, without mentioning that he was hard done by to be sacked by The Don.  He’s right of course but whilst part of him might have been pleased to not be working for The Don, he’s now working for Mike Ashley. 

Newcastle are what I’d call a bi-polar club as it’s either going really well like now or it’s shocking.  I never get any impression of stability and that the wheels could fall off at any moment.  It looked like they were falling off in the summer when they didn’t do much business in the transfer window despite appointing Joe Kinnear as Head of Recruitment / Manager in Waiting prompting mass protest and marches against Ashley etc.  There was that story that he recommended signing Shane Ferguson from Birmingham before someone pointed out to him that Ferguson was on loan to Birmingham, from Newcastle.  True or not it was very funny.  The only player Kinnear managed to play any part in bringing in was a loan of Loic Remy from QPR for the season who may or may not be about to go to prison for a long time.  In my opinion, allowing loaning from a club in a lower league is almost as stupid as allowing loans from clubs in the same league. After talking of Academy structures during the week, I do wonder if Newcastle are trying to get players in the first team via the Academy or is the focus purely on the first team itself?  Having commented on their lack of stability, Pards is now the second longest serving manager in the Premier League, behind Mr Wenger who at a guess, has clocked up more years than the rest put together.    

There are rumours of some surprise selections by Mauricio for this game and so it proves as Jose Fonte is left out in favour of Big Jos – I assume to counter Newcastle’s somewhat direct style of play.  The big news though is that Adam Lallana is on the bench and we’ve gone with Sir Rickie and the Argie-Italian Rock ‘n’ Roll Pirate up front.  Morgan Schneiderlin makes a welcome return as far as the bench as well. 

As we are in the smug position of having English players, I’m going to have a little dig at our opponents.  I do have a soft spot for Newcastle as my Grandfather was from there (came South to find work in the 1930s)  and he’d be turning in his grave that such a proud area should be represented in the way they are with just the one English player in the 18.  Newcastle have their usual team full of mostly French and African players but in amongst that they have the ex-Saint who no one remembers in Mike Williamson.  Their other English player is not English any more as it’s Shola Ameobi who for years was the subject of a fierce eligibility battle between England and Nigeria as neither country wanted him.  He then was finally capped by Nigeria so he doesn’t count as English, however you dress it up.

Newcastle start well and force a couple of corners which Gazza catches.  This is a good thing and I only realised he caught it after I opened by eyes.  He scares me I have to say.   Sensing that we now have a super confident keeper between the sticks, Anita chips the next corner to the edge of the box and Debuchy tries a volley which would have been goal of the season but it slices a couple of yards wide.

Saints aren’t getting anywhere and every time we do get the ball up to The Pirate he just loses it and Newcastle attack again.  Ameobi gets down our right and scuffs a cross over.  It should be Gazza’s to claim but he’s not positive enough and manages to get beaten to the ball by Gouffran who lays it back to Remy about 8 yards out.  Usually Remy smashes it into open gaping things but this time his shot is hacked off the line by Calum Chambers and we survive.

We finally get up their end of the pitch on 25 minutes with a decent move involving Davis, Sir Rickie and the Pirate and JWP fires in a long ranger which is easily saved by Krul but three minutes after that brief threat we’re behind as Corky gives away a free kick on the half way line which Debuchy chips into the box.   It’s really really shit as Williamson wins an easy header  against the non-jumping Sir Rickie to knock it down but there’s no danger as Big Jos is there.   However, a big swing of the left foot when the right foot was the one to use, an airshot and Gouffran easily dances round Gazza to tap it home.  What a fucking shit goal.  Losing the header is one thing as it really should have been attacked but I’m afraid that Big Jos’ mistake is fucking abysmal.  You have to make the opposition work for goals against you and that was just too easy.  As an aside, if you ever read the match report on the Official Saints website then you’ll have seen reference to  ‘a loose touch from red shirt’.   For fucks sake, tell it how it is.  What that actually means is ‘a cripplingly bad bit of defending by Hooiveld who swung and missed at a ball with his stronger left foot because he didn’t want to use his right foot’.  I should write for the Official Site.  Give me a job – I’d last one match if I was lucky.

Saints spend the rest of the half having lots of possession and doing fuck all with it .  Sir Rickie is too deep, The Pirate might as well be in the Carribbean and J-Rod has not been involved at all.  The closest we get to the Newcastle goal is Davis putting Sir Rickie away on the right wing and his cross is cut out.  It’s half time and the stats say we’ve had 66% of possession with which we’ve produced fuck all.  Newcastle lob a free kick into our box and it’s carnage.

It seems that someone agrees with me and it’s decisive from Mauricio at half time as JWP and Dani the Pirate are replaced Adam and Morgan.  Both outgoing players have been pretty average to be fair so neither could complain about being taken off.  We immediately look more balanced but one interesting variation is that J-Rod appears the be the farthest forward with Sir Rickie still playing deep.  Newcastle’s defence now has the threat of a runner in behind to deal with and the slow Williamson and Coloccini and his Wig are immediately appealing for offsides that aren't there and the Geordie faithful are getting on at the ref an lino even though they’re correct.

Newcastle are finding space but it’s mostly in front of us with Remy trying a shot after a long ball and knock down and Gouffran trying to catch Gazza out with a quick long range free kick at the near post.  In both cases, Gazza is up to the job and makes routine saves.  Sensing that the tide is turning as Saints begin to dominate possession even more, Pards decides to replace a striker who hasn’t scored for a year with a striker who hasn’t scored for a year and Papiss Cisse comes on.  Whilst I was confident that Ameobi would never score, Cisse is different as he scored from miles out against us last year even though he was offside – he at least has the ability to put it in the net.

Jack Cork doesn’t look much like Big Vic but he does a passable impression of him as he bins Sissoko and picks up a booking.  I’m finding this very frustrating as we are still not creating chances despite dominating the possession.   Steve Davis overhits a pass at which point I get on Twitter and post “Davis great at keep ball but no end product’.  No sooner had I hit the ‘Tweet’ button then out of nowhere Shaw breaks away, feeds Morgan who plays a ball to Davis who chips it up with right and hits it on the full with his left and it curls away from Krul and smacks the post and away.

Two minutes later and a Newcastle attack is broken up  in our half and we’re off with Lallana leading the charge.  He’s cynically binned in predictable fashion by Tiote but not before havng slipped the ball to J-Rod who plays a 1-2 at full pelt with Davis and strokes it past Krul to  equalise as 1 goalkeeper, 4 defenders and about 40,000 Geordies appeal for offside…. Which it wasn’t.  Great goal.

Back come Newcastle with a long ball from Santon which is nodded down in the box and Big Jos scuffs another shite clearance straight to Debuchy who luckily for the big man, scuffs it so Gazza can make an easy enough save.  What exactly has José Fonte done to get dropped?

We almost completely turn it around with out next attack as Davis who is now at the centre of everything and totally making me look like an idiot, advances up the right and squares across the top of the box to Sir Rickie who catches it well but it hits a defender and off for a corner.  The corner is flicked on by Dejan at the near post and J-Rod looks like he has to score but doesn’t get enough on it and it’s blocked at point blank range by Krul.

We’re on top at the moment and looking the more likely but it all changes round as Lallana fired a meaty back pass to Gazza who casually took his eye off it and scooped it up in the air and straight to Remy.  The goal was wide open as Remy went to shoot but she said no Mr Remy, she said no and he put it high and wide in really shite fashion.   Gouffran has been taken off and replaced with Ben Arfa who is a great player but I’m not sure he’ll get the space against us to be effective.  Pards also replaces Santon with another Random French Bloke.  The momentum is now back with the Toon but Ben Arfa keeps running into players and Tiote took time off from kicking people and had a shot from 25 yards which went comfortably wide.

I don’t feel that Newcastle are going to score but there’s time for one more scare as a Ben Arfa shot deflects up in the air but in the best bit of goalkeeping of his run in the team, Gazza positively comes off his line and catches it superbly over Sissoko’s challenge.  He’s hurt himself a bit and is still on the ground and Sissoka, the referee and a couple of Saints players are stood round him.  Next thing we know the referee is on the deck holding his face and it’s hilarious.  Later replays prove that as Gazza pushed him away, Sissoko has flicked his arm up and twatted the referee in the face with the back of his hand and he’s taken a dive big style.  It’s takes about 3 minutes to stuff a pad up his nose and a very confused looking referee is ready to continue.

Steve Davis who is still on his one man mission to prove me wrong, threads another lovely ball through to J-Rod but before he can strike it, Debuchy gets a toe in fronm behind him and nudges it back to the keeper who picks it up  No one even appeals for a backpass which is a bit odd as he wasn’t trying to clear it for a corner so what else was he trying to do?  I’m not saying we should have had a free kick but at last ask the question.

High farce flares up again as Morgan steams in and bins a Random French bloke.  It shouldn’t even be a foul really but it happens to be on the same random French bloke who got injured in that shocking assault by Callum MacManaman last season and so the Newcastle bench (as they are prone to do) over-react to it and a big melee starts.  It’s all handbags and ends up with both goalkeeper coaches getting sent to the stands.

After it all dies down, Mauricio bloods another Academy boy in the Premier League with Sam Gallagher coming on for J-Rod.  His first involvement is to get pushed over when a throw in is launched up to him but there was no way the ref was going to give that as he will have just wanted to blow the final whistle and get off without any further controversy.  Full time.

You’ll struggle to find anyone who thinks that a draw wasn’t a fair result.  Both sides could have won it but it would have been very harsh on the other.  From our point of view, I never felt like Newcastle were a threat up front but we gave them a goal thanks to an easy header and an airshot and nearly gave it away when Gazza presented that chance to Remy at the end.  On the other hand, we had no threat at all up front in the first half but got it together after half time with J-Rod causing them all sorts of problems.  If he could just be a little bit more clinical in front of goal then we’d have a real player on our hands. 

On the face of it, the second half improvement is not rocket science.  We have our best available players on the pitch and we play much better – go figure.  It turns out that Adam Lallana is carrying a slight knock, hence his appearing on the bench and Morgan of course is on his way back from injury.  It doesn’t explain the situation with Jose Fonte though as he’s been a reliable part of a very strong defence and in recent weeks he’s been left out once for Yoshida who immediately contributed to a shite goal conceded against Villa and left out again today for Big Jos who did what he did today.  Fonte issue aside, I feel Mauricio managed it well today especially in the second half.  It would have been easy to put Sir Rickie up top and stuck J-Rod on the wing but he knew J-Rod’s pace would cause problems so Sir Rickie sat deep and passed it around.  There are issues that need addressing like the total non-performance of The Pirate in away matches but we’ve got to be happy with a point here and we once again showed how good we can be.

We have dropped another place in the league table and sadly, it’s Man United who have moved above us but we have a real chance to get moving in the right direction next week with the visit of Spurs who despite being higher in the league than us, are in turmoil having got stuffed 5-0 at home by Liverpool in addition to getting gubbed 6-0 at City a couple of weeks  back.  Mr Villas-Boas has discovered that replacing a lead violinist with eight kazoos is not the best way of making the orchestra play better.   Bring it on....

PS – Andre Villas-Boas has been relieved of his duties at Tottenham by mutual consent.... bollocks!  I was really hoping that it was going to be Glenn Hoddle all over again and we’d beat them and send the Spurs manager to his doom but they’ve pulled the trigger already, maybe sensing that they were going to get thumped next week!.  It’s quite amusing in a way as I’ve been engaged in a trolling / not biting session with a Pompey fan on Twiitter who thinks that any Saints manager or player would jump at the chance of joining Spurs.  I quoted Bob Dylan and “the times they are a-changing” and I genuinely believe that as I don’t see Spurs as a big enough step up (if at all) to mean that anyone would automatically jump ship given the chance.   I could of course end up looking a clown here but I really don’t think so as apart from anything, Spurs now seem to think they deserve to be part of the elite so they’ll go for another foreign manager with a big reputation.  I see that Fabio Capello was at their game Saturday which is odd as they have no Russian players and he’s the current Russia manager.... and they have form of letting their manager manage a league club (Hiddink and Chelsea).... and Capello is best mates with the Spurs Director of Football....  I don’t like AVB but I like Spurs even less.  Just look at their recent record, sack Jol after finishing 5^th twice, sack Redknapp after finishing 4^th, sack AVB after selling his best player and giving him 15 games to integrate 8 new players.  By the way, they’re 6^th in the league.  Good luck to whoever gets that job as they’re a pretty classless bunch.

Speculation about your manager or players leaving comes with the territory of doing well.  What would you rather, 9^th in the Premier League and Mauricio at 33/1 for the Spurs job OR 6^th bottom of the entire league and Richie Barker about as likely to be the new Spurs boss as Arsene Wenger.

FA Youth Cup 3rd Round - Southampton U18s 7 Portsmouth U18s 0

I Know! Same Picture Every Time..

The Skates were in town for the FA Youth Cup 3^rd Round game.  The draw was made a while ago and n order to get to play us, they had to beat Barton Rovers and I have no idea where that even is.  Anyway, they duly scraped through 1-0 and so are here under the lights at SMS, in front of a crowd of nearly 4000.

The Twitterskates seem to think that they’re going to win but they surely can’t be favourites as we play in the Premier Youth League against decent sides and they’re in a vastly inferior league.  There’s also the fact that we have a much vaunted Grade A Academy and the last I heard, they were debating whether to even have one at all given their financial turmoil.  Pompey’s first team has been in freefall recently which has seen them hover above the trapdoor into non-League football and lead to the sacking of Guy Whittingham who fell firmly into the ‘nice bloke, shite manager ‘ category.  Their new manager is Ritchie Barker who is present tonight. 

In other fishy news, one of their current players posted a picture of himself with Adam Lallana and got endless bile and vitriol spat at him by some Pompey fans.  To be fair, it was a rather stupid thing to post, a picture of you acting like a fanboy with your biggest rivals captain.   So that was a player from today not being particularly bright and then the news that a player they had last season has just been arrested for match fixing which though amusing, is not really Pompey’s fault.  It appears Sam Sodje’s crime was to arrange a bet on himself being sent off and then deliberately and bizarrely punch an opposition player in the bollcks and then do it again to make sure he got sent off.  I was at the infamous game at Coventry in 1994 when Bruce Grobbelaar let in a very suspect goal in the first minute before we screwed up his plan with keeping possession for the remaining 89 minutes and winning 3-1 with Ronnie Ekelund to the fore.  I will never be convinced that Bruce was innocent so Saints fans of older than a certain age have been there.

Tonight, the game starts in fairly even fashion with a Pompey full back having a half chance but it swings towards Saints as the game settles down and we go 1-0 up in the 27^th as Gallagher rolls around Whatmough too easily and squares for Hesketh to arrive and finish well.  With half time approaching it’s 2-0 as chaos following a corner is resolved with Mason scoring from close in.  Mason is of course the player who made headlines when he signed for Real Madrid when he was about 6.  I have no problem accepting Real Madrid cast-offs.

As the second half starts to becomes obvious that this is going to be a slaughter as the Pompey lads seem to have shrunk in stature as Saints stepped it up.  Saints get a free kick on the right hand side of the box and no Pompey player reacts as it’s rolled to Targett who has a free shot.  Pompey keeper Bass (no fish jokes please) does well to save but with the Pompey defenders playing statues, Big Sam Gallagher slots home for 3-0.  It’s 4-0 soon after as Hesketh pulls a trick out of the Gazza’96 book and flips the ball over a defender with a shock of blonde hair and scores easily.  

A Leggett chip to the back post and a Sir Rickie-esque header back across from Big Sam makes it 5-0 before he completes a hat-trick with a goal i can;t quite work out as Targett’s ball kind of hits him on the knee and bobbles past Bass in apologetic fashion via a post.  I actually feel a bit sorry for the keeper as he’s done his best and has been their best player by a mile but he’s had no help from those in front of him.  It’s also nice to have a new ‘Big Sam’ to talk about as opposed to ‘Fat Sam’ from the West Ham Total Hoofball no Striker Academy of Football.

Whilst I take no pleasure in a bunch of kids getting mullered, I do take great amusement from the spectacle of Pompey fans leaving early.  There’s less than 4000 in here mate so no need to beat the traffic.  By leaving early they probably missed the last goal as substitute Mark Irvine ran through to fire past a totally unprotected Bass to make it 7-0. 

So the Saints go marching on in the FA Youth Cup and this could be there year where we underline the status of our Academy by doing well in it.  This competition is a straight knockout competition so there’s always the possibility of getting a really difficult draw or just putting in one substandard performance and then you’re gone.  The test of how good these kids are is solely how many of them make it to the first team squad in the future.  At a time when there’s a lot of publicity for the Man United Class of 92, maybe in 20 years time we’ll be seeing a line-up of Gallagher, Hesketh, Sims, Mason, Debayo and Targett or any other combination of todays line-up in a Class of 2013 film.

The facts are that when we came into some money with Markus and Nicola taking over, we spent it on infrastructure and on the Academy.  When Pompey were in the money, they spunked it all up the wall on players they couldn’t afford as has been well documented elsewhere and whoever the owner was didn’t give a single thought to the future.   I use the term ‘owner’ to apply to all of them - Mad Mandy, The Arms Dealer and his son, The Invisible Arab, The Fat Ice Cream Seller Bloke and the Loan Shark.  The investment in our Academy is bearing fruit now with Premier League standard players coming through the system to supplement (in the main) wise expenditure on experienced players.  Tonight, based on the eligibility rule of 18 or under on 31 August 2013, I think we could also have played Luke Shaw, Harrison Reed, James Ward-Prowse and Calum Chambers if we’d wanted to, not to mention Omar Rowe, Jordan Turnbull, Jason McCarthy, Sam McQueen, Jake Sinclair and Ryan Seager.  Just imagine... the one player with any first team experience who did play was Sam Gallagher and look what he did.   At the other end of the scale, Pompey (I think) had one of their players from this game who has played a couple of games in League 2 whilst many of the others look like park players like I myself was when I played for Havant Schools against a Benali and Wallace brothers inspired Saints Academy in the mid-80s.  Yes, we got annihilated as well.

Obviously natural ability plays a large part but if you had two players of the same natural ability and one went to Saints and the other to Pompey – who do you reckon would turn out best?  If I was one of the parents watching their son play in blue last night, even if (god forbid) I was a Pompey fan, I’d find it hard to not wish my son was playing in red.  This is nothing new of course as 12 years ago, Mark Chamberlain who was a Pompey player and worked for Pompey at the time, sent his own son to play for Saints.  It’s a sad state of affairs down the wrong end of the M27 and one they really have to address with some longer term planning and financial commitment.  It sure isn’t going to be easy but in any walk of life, you have to get the foundations right otherwise sooner or later, it’s all going to come crashing down irreparably.  If you have strong foundations then you can build again and the foundations are the youngsters in the Academy, unless you of course are Chelsea or Manchester City when the foundations are the size of the owners’ wallets.

I’ve seen a few articles praising Rupert Lowe for turning round the Saints Academy which is only fair as he did recognize that it needed to pick up again after not producing a great deal for a decade or so.  However, that praise should come with the caveat that Lowe’s stated aim was to produce players to sell on, as he cared more of the financial bottom line rather than what was going on on the pitch.  Now, in the Liebherr-Cortese era, the aim is markedly different as it’s to produce players to play for our first team, not some other clubs’ first team.

Saints fans should do some crowing about this result – not particularly because it was 7-0 but because it shows how well we have done through the long term planning and investment and it should make us smile at the gulf between the rivals and wallow in a bit of smugness with the comparison between how to do it and how not to do it.  The Pompey kids will have been gutted to have been dicked 7-0 but hopefully for them, it will be character building and good for their longer term development and some of them can turn into decent players for them in the future.  You have to remember that these are kids, even if they wear a blue shirt.

I did however smile at some of the comments from the Twitterskates afterwards which were along the lines of “it was only a youth team game” and “when was the last time you beat us?” and “it’s Premier against League 2”.  Well, the last Pompey win against us was that very dodgy FA Cup game when they were in the Premier League (and were in administration) and we were in League 1.  Before that, their last win against us was in the 2004/5 season, the same season we last beat them and we beat them twice that season.  I swear some of them still think David Norris scored the winner a couple of years back and the ‘you haven’t beaten us for years’ contingent will in the next breath, talk of winning the league in 1939.  Do you think they’d have been crowing much if they’d won 1-0 last night, let alone 7-0?  Of course they would.  My personal favourite though was one missive which read something like  “the lads may have lost 7-0 last night but they’ll wake up this morning and not be Scummers and they’ll be glad”.  Erm... no they won’t – they should wake up and aspire to be of the standard of some of the Saints boys and hope that Jason Dodd or Paul Williams or even Mauricio Pochettino saw something in them that might make Saints make an enquiry.

Premier League Match 15 - Southampton 1 Manchester City 1

A Kun and a Nasri

In the build up to the Manchester City game, the question I was pondering was “have I got over that fucking defeat by Aston Villa yet?”.   For me the answer was a massive No but I guess the more important question was whether Saints had got over it.  Not only was it a defeat but it had come at a cost with Big Vic and Nathaniel Clyne injured and out for today along with the longer term casualties of King Artur and Morgan Schneiderlin.  Other fall out from the Villa game was Adam Lallana saying they were a bunch of mouthy twats who will get in when they play us next time.  He didn’t actually say this – not out loud anyway.

City arrive at St.Mary’s with an alleged dodgy away record, having won their last away game at West Brom where they were 3-0 before knocking off early and letting in two late goals to make it look closer than it was.  They are of course the complete opposite of us in that they don’t put any homegrown players in their first team and just throw £25 million around to buy whatever player they fancy.  Since last year they’ve brought in Fernandinho in midfield, Jesus Navas on the wing and Alvaro Negredo up front, as well as di Michelis in defence who I don’t think cost as much.  They do make noises about developing players through the club but as yet none of these words have translated to players being in the first team with any young English talent they do have being bought from other clubs (Scott Sinclair from Swansea and Jack Rodwell from Everton) before said players suffer career death and if they’re lucky, get loaned out or sold.  I do admire their away following though which is always large in number and they’re here again as the Sold Out signs went up for the first time this season.

Other news has seen the World Cup draw take place and England ended up in a group with Italy and Uruguay which means that any out of our English contingent could be up against Dani Osvaldo and watched from the bench by Gaston Ramirez.  So England will have to break the habit of a lifetime and actually win against a decent side in a tournament which we haven’t done since beating Argentina in 2002 if my memory serves me correctly.  So, zero expectation from me.

The World Cup is for another day and the team news today is that Mauricio has decided that Dani Osvaldo’s goal and improved performance against Villa gets him in the team ahead of Sir Rickie who is benched.  Jack Cork and Calum Chambers come in for the injured Big Vic and Nathaniel Clyne and Jose Fonte Baby returns in place of Maya Yoshida who may have to wait for a while for his next chance.  Our team looks very light but it’s not too far removed from what played at beat City last year.  I’m not massively confident of a result but you never know – Pellegrini has done us a favour by leaving out Navas and picking Milner who is the only player in the England squad who makes Tom Cleverley look like a footballer.  Talking of England, we have 6 starters and Sir Rickie and Harrison Reed on the bench whereas City have Milner, with Hart on the bench.  Good luck to the FA Commission trying to change that.

After a minutes applause to mark the death of Nelson Mandela which was immaculately observed with no one being quiet, the game starts with Saints looking decent but the quality of the opposition being obvious in the way they knocked it around.  Saints created the first chance as a Shaw cross was half cleared and it bounced to Davis whose shot rolled down his shin and off his boot and wide.

City’s first attack produces a different result though as Fonte produces a poor clearing header and just plops it down into the midfield where City pick it up and feed Kolarov who has time and space to fizz over a low cross dissecting five Saints players and Aguero finishes easily to make it one nil – fuck it!  It looked to me that Jose should have headed it back to Gazzaniga but maybe wasn’t confident enough in the keeper.  Whatever the reason for the mistake though, it’s in our net and bollocks to it.

City put us under a bit more pressure and Gazza look nervous and is not coming for anything.  He’s not as nervous as I am as it’s brown trousers time whenever City get near our goal.  Our man attacking threat is through Shaw which is quite ironic as no doubt Milner, who can only be in the side for what he does when he hasn’t got the ball, is nowhere near him.  First he crosses in and The Pirate plays an airshot under loads of pressure and then he feeds Corky who surprises everyone and hits the first on target shot of his Saints career and all those who put a spot bet on Row Z, Seat 435 lost their money and Pantillimon swallowed it up.

City unsurprisingly (as they’ve spent the budget of a small country on their players) look the likeliest to score again and we all fear the worst as Toure picks out Zabaleta who has powered into the box bedind a dozing J-Rod and laid it back to Aguero.  Time stands still as one of the dealiest players in the league takes aim…. And smashes it over the bar in shite fashion.  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Alvaro Negredo is the City centre forward and he revels in the nickname of ‘The Beast’.  When he scores at The Etihad, even the stadium announcer gets in on the act and gives it the big one… “goal by The Be-eeeeeeeeeast” etc.  To earn a nickname like “The Beast” I assumed that he must be a bit of a tough guy, a bit fierce, a little bit animal in his approach.  So it was with great surprise and hilarity that he got hit with a man and ball tackle by Dejan Lovren and made a noise like a 5 year old girl makes if you take her favourite toy away and slap her round the head with it.  It was highlighted by the fact that the crowd was quiet at that moment.  The Beast got his free kick, Dejan and all the fans in the Chapel / Kingsland corner laughed at him and his nickname is now officially “The Pussy”.

We survive the free kick and are back on the attack with Chambers on the right who beaks past a powder-puff challenge from Nasri and crosses to Lallana who looks miles offside but he’s allowed to go on and wins a corner as he attempts to juggle it over the last defender. The corner is cleared and finds its way out to Lovren on the right who demonstrates ability that a centre half really shouldn’t have by skinning di Michelis and Kolarov on the outside before sending over a superb cross which is once again cleared for a corner.

Despite our attacking play looking decent, there is always the fear that City can score at will but we have a significant moment when Aguero shanks a cross shot and Gazza gets down to save.  This is significant because even though he hasn’t hit it well and every goalkeeper at every level should save it, it’s the first save Gazza has managed since the moment King Artur broke his hand so hopefully he should now start playing with some confidence.

We are definitely the team in the ascendency now and Lallana sets off towards goal and feeds Shaw who sends over a great low cross which everyone leaves except Chambo at the far post but he can only head wide as Kolarov put him off.  It’s unsurprising but he didn’t look like he had much belief he could score.  Another break forward by Steve Davis sees the ball fed to JWP about 25 yards out but his shot is on target but not fierce enough to trouble the BFG (Big Fucking Goalkeeper) in the City goal.

We are certainly at our best when City are attacking and we nick the ball because superb though Toure and Fernandinho are going forward, they’re not so great when they turn the ball over and not particularly quick in reacting to the transition.  I like using words like transition as it makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about.

Anyhow, the transition takes place in our penalty area as Jose slides in to win the ball and bin Aguero with a ‘win the ball or penalty’ tackle.  Shaw plays the ball to Davis who set off and feeds Our Argie-Italian Rock ‘n’ Roll Pirate and in the time it takes to say ‘why the fuck isn’t Lambert playing’, he twists and turns, leaves Vincent Kompany on his arse before curling a glorious equalizer over the BFG and into the far top corner with the added touch of skimming it off the bottom of the crossbar.  It’s a stunning goal – I didn’t think anyone would come close to Adam Lallana’s goal against Hull but I think this beats it.  Quite sensational.

As half time approaches and we’re all still in an Osvaldo wonderland, we have a go at going behind again allowing Milner of all people to get in a decent cross which Nasri controls well before lashing it hopelessly over the bar.  It couldn’t happen to a nicer horrible little shit and time for the half time oranges.

We seem hell bent on letting City in front again at the start of the second half as we allow Aguero a free shot from the right which he gets on target but Gazza gets down well to palm it away.  We then fanny around when we should have been clearing it 70 yards and give the ball to Toure on the edge of the box who bulldozes forward before curling a powerful effort just wide.  It’s one of those where it leaves his foot and you’re just waiting for the net to bulge and it’s a huge relief when it doesn’t.

We have a golden chance ourselves to take the lead as we approach the hour mark as J-Rod bursts through Kompany and Di Michelis but the last touch takes him too close to the BFG who saves at his feet.  The rebound goes straight to The Pirate in roughly the same position where he scored from but his sidefooted effort is woeful and just keeps going up.

There’s a definite tactical switch by Saints to get it forward quicker and after Corky (usually) has won it, it gets pinged over Zabaleta towards J-Rod.  It almost bears fruit a Shaw’s ball is controlled by J-Rod into the path of The Pirate but he drags his shot across the BFG and wide.  There’s another chance as Steve Davis bursts past Toure and optimistically shoots but straight at the BFG.

Pellegrini didn’t get to where he is today by having shite on the pitch and so The Pussy (who had been complete shite) was replaced with Garcia and Milner is gone to be replaced with Jesus Navas.  Note to the stadium announcer: I expect it’s pronounced ‘Hey-Zuss’ and not ‘Jeee-zus’, even as we approach Christmas.  Christmas or not, Jesus or not, he’s powereless to prevent the next Saints attack as Lallana fashions an audacious scoop over the defence for The Pirate who wins a corner trying to pull it back when in my opinion he should have just lashed it goalwards.  JWP’s corner picks out J-Rod who can’t get his header on target.

Either team could win it and I’m still expecting it to be them as Aguero gets a run down left and fires at the far post but once again Gazza is not tested as it flies wide.  It’s substitution time as Sir Rickie comes on for a clearly tired Osvaldo and Gaston Ramirez comes on for the magnificent Adam Lallana and adds to Manchester City to the list of ‘teams I have played 4 minutes against’.  City have brought on Dzeko and someone else who cost millions but the main action for City is nasri trying to get himself sent off.  After hacking down Davis and getting himself deservedly booked he then arrives about a day late for another tackle and floors Chambers which was very cynical as he had no chance of getting the ball.  It’s a second yellow all day long but the referee decides to bottle it and let the horrible little shit stay on.

I mention this from time to time and I feel the need to repeat it now.  The game unfolding in front of us is a classic end to end game and there is a very real chance that we might win it and if we scored then the roof would be blown off and it would be one of the moments that you always remembered when you looked back on all the matches you’d watched.  So, bearing all that in mind, why the fuck would you get up and leave on 80 minutes.  Is getting home 15 minutes earlier really worth the chance of missing one of the great moments?  I can’t understand it in any game really, let alone one where the scores are level and it’s a great game.  You really should have a word with yourselves and there are a lot of you.

As we reach the 90th minute, Mauricio pulls a surprising one and sends on Harrison Reed for Steve Davis who has had a superb game.  Scholesy gets stuck in a plays a couple of nice passes but there is sense that both teams have now settled for a point.  It doesn’t stop Aguero who has clearly got frustrated with things and he throws the ball away in comedy fashion and gets booked. Did you know that if you add a ‘T’ to Aguero’s nickname of ‘Kun’ then you get ‘Nasri’?

It looks like we’re going to get a last minute chance to win it as Reed gets hacked down about 25 yards out and central but the ref bottles it again and decides to end the game instead, the git.

I certainly left the ground a lot happier than when I went in.  We had gone toe to toe with a club with ridiculous resources and a fantastic set of players and got a point with 4 of our main players on the sidelines.  Whereas on Wednesday, the replacements had all been quite frankly poor, all the boys who came in today were superb with Jack Cork and Calum Chambers competing with Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana for man of the match.  All 4 players mentioned there are English as well and 3 came through the academy.  It gives me a warm feeling.

Aside from the missing players, another source of negativity for a lot of fans going into the ground would have been the omission of Sir Rickie for Dani Osvaldo but today you saw why that choice was made…and how.  What a fucking goal that was.  I still say that Sir Rickie would lead the line better and get more out of the players around him but you can’t play both of them against the big guns so in future I think I’ll stop moaning and trust the manager, even if he doesn’t speak English J  As an aside, I’d like to see Sir Rickie do an interview one day in his best Scouse accent with Mauricio’s interpreter stood next to him just repeating what he says.

It’s only a point but the change of mood is palpable.  The players and the manager didn’t need reminding that Saints are a decent side but memory deficient fans did.  From my own point of view it was nice to leave the ground with a smile on my face after leaving on Wednesday with Tourette’s syndrome and wanting to murder someone.  Next up we have Newcastle away who have been on a decent run at home in particular.  I see no reason why we can’t go up there and give it a right go.  We know they’ll be quite driect about things as Pardew’s teams always are but as long as we keep the back door shut, have a bit of luck and we don’t have a shocker with the officials like we did last year up there, we could get something.

As for the league table – well we’re 8^th and still above Manchester United.  According to one article I read, they need to sign about 4 of our players to save their season.  Then I noticed that it was written in crayon by Robbie Savage so I ignored it.  If it’s true and Robbie is In the Know then they can have Lee Barnard, Aaron Martin, Tadanari Lee and Jonno Pace.