Premier League Match 20 - Southampton 0 Chelsea 3

Natural Momentum makes Oscar twist in mid air and yell at the Ref.

Chelsea at home is not the nicest fixture with which to welcome in the New Year but that’s what we’ve got.  They were a bit flaky at the start of the season but right now they seem to be clicking into gear nicely and looking very strong and up to second in the league.  Not only do we have lovely opposition but we also have lovely weather as it’s pissing down and the walk to the game across the Itchen Bridge was wonderful as cross winds blew you sideways and then changed direction and gusts actually stopped you making any progress.  My son was wearing a beanie hat of mine which was a bit too big and this ended up getting blown off his head and over the other side of the road.

The car radio has already told me the team news in that Sir Rickie is left out again which I assumed meant that The Pirate was fit.  He wasn’t and Gaston Ramirez was in from the start for the first time this season meaning I assume, that J-Rod would be up front rather than wide.  I can see the logic on the face of it but J-Rod has never had a decent game for us as the lone striker so why is he suddenly going to start now?  Elsewhere, Morgan returns for JWP and things are beginning to look a bit brighter on the injury front with Nathaniel Clyne once again on the bench.  Chelsea have a few injuries and suspensions but it’s hardly an issue when you have a squad as deep as theirs.  There is certainly no weak link though I’ve always thought Azpilicuteta at right back is a bit dodgy.  Up front they have Fernando Torres who whilst he’s not as good as he used to be, cost them £50million quid so it’s hard to have too much sympathy.

Away we go and the first 5 minutes are horrible and how the hell we emerge from it at 0-0 is remarkable.  First of all Torres breaks straight down the middle after the first of what will doubtless be the many time Gaston gives the ball away and shoots wide as Dejan and Jose slide about trying to stop him.  Torres is then away down the left and luckily for us, chooses the wrong option though in truth, firing the ball over everyone’s head fifteen foot off the ground is never the right option.  He’s then away again after we give the ball away once more and wins a corner.  Mata’s kick is cleared as far as Schurrle on the edge of the box who really should do better than drilling it wide.  In the aftermath of this, Dejan is down and I reckon he stayed down just to take the sting out of things and give us a chance to regroup before we start again.

The next chance again falls to Chelsea as a cute ball from Hazard put Ramires in but Superkelv comes flying out to slide tackle him on the edge of the box and welly it clear.  Anyone thinking that Gazza should be in goal should be reminded that if he was it would now be 1-0 to Chelsea as he’d have been sat on his arse on the line as Ramires walked it in.

We finally have a chance and it’s a good one as J-Rod finds himself on the left and finds Gaston who pokes the ball through to Adam Lallana.  His turn finds space but his shot is well blocked by the sprawling Ashley Cole who is remarkably mobile for a man with a mobile phone up his arse.  The ball ends back out with J-Rod whose fizzed cross is missed by all.  We could have done with a centre forward to attack that really.  Just saying.

Torres is being a right handful but luckily for us he’s still finding ways to miss.  He picks the ball up on the left and runs past 4 players, none of whom make a tackle and lashes over the bar.  We create another great chance for ourselves as Gaston dinks a wonderful pass over the top to J-Rod whose first touch is poor and enables the defenders to get back and stop him getting a worthwhile shot away.  It’s a good example of why he should not be playing as the main striker.

It’s open and even now with chances for both sides.  Chambo totally does Cole down the right and gets forward, his eventually cross being cleared as far as Lallana who again sees his shot blocked by another sprawling defender, this time Azpilicueta.  Ramires gets forward for Chelsea and like Torres before him, runs through 4 non-tackles and shoots, only to see Superkelv throw up his zimmer frame and tip it over the bar.  Half time is upon us and after 4 minutes of injury time for the Dejan tactical stoppage, it’s time for the players to get out of the rain.

At half time at St,Mary’s you have the choice of watching the kids relay race or you can play trivial pursuits and try and get a 3G signal on your mobile phone.  I decided to have a go at the latter today and as usual, totally fail.  “The Saints are coming” booms the voice of Richard Jobson of The Skids out of the stadium PA and here we go.

The second half is about to start and Luke Shaw has had enough and been replaced with Nathaniel Clyne who takes up a position on the left.  The first action of the second half sees Chambo again burn down the right being pursued by Schurrle who obviously doesn’t fancy it.  The low cross is smashed off for a corner by Cahill.  Gaston’s flag kick sees Dejan get a header in and then Jose’s shot blocked by a prone defender and there’s a second where time stands still, the ball appears to be free and both our centre halves and J-Rod are in the vicinity and looking at it rather than trying to smash it in the net.

The Special One is obviously not impressed by what he’s seeing and is decisive in deciding to hook Mata and Schurrle and replace them with Oscar and Willian who on the face of it, are not bad subs to bring on.  One of them in particular makes an impact almost straight away.

Oscar, who is named after the trophy they hand out to the best actors, then gets played clean through by an excellent Hazard pass after a superb Chelsea move and knocks the ball wide of Superkelv and then goes down.  It looks like a penalty from the other end and we’re looking at a red card and 1-0 down but the referee blows and books the cheating little fucker.  Jose Mourinho is up and appealing but shows a sense of fun by waving to the Northam in response to a loud ‘sit down Mourinho’ chant.  The Special One probably knows that it’s highly likely that the referee has got that one right.

The cheating bastard didn’t have long to wait for a goal though as he got away down the left and crossed.  The ball looped up off of Calum Chambers toe and went over Superkelv, hit the inside of the post and bounced out sympathetically for Torres to nod into the net from 4 yards.  He did well to chase it in but the deflection on the cross and the bounce off the post were certainly kind to him.  I had an immediate feeling of ‘well that’s this game gone then’ and this was only increased by the substitution we immediately made of Sir Rickie coming on for Corky who was about the last person in the midfield or attack who deserved to be substituted, again.

We almost immediately fashioned a decent move with Sir Rickie superbly cushioning a ball to Lallana who in turn fed Clyne on the left.  His cross was allowed to bounce by Terry and Cahill and Sir Rickie got in but couldn’t get enough on his header and it went straight at Cech.  Straight afterwards it was all over as another fine Chelsea move culminated with the diving bastard playing the final ball to Willian who took his time and drilled it past Superkelv from the edge of the box.  Great finish and a great move and 2-0.  ‘You’ve only come to see the Chelsea’ boomed out from the arrogant bastards as a steady stream of Saints fans headed towards the exit in pathetic, plastic, glory hunter fashion.  Say what you like about the Chelsea fans but at least they’re there supporting their team to the end.

I bet they’re glad they stayed to the end though cos if they’d left they’d have missed Torres break away and feed Ramires who passed it on to Hazard who showed great vision to chip over the top to the diving bastard who took his time and drilled it past Superkelv at his near post with the aid of a slight deflection off of Jose Fonte. 3-0 and the steady exodus became a tidal wave of red and white clad people streaming for the exits.

The remaining time offered nothing except Chelsea taking the piss, passing it about while we looked somewhat dispirited with no one in midfield to make a tackle.  Gaston lashed a left footed shot just over the bar but that was it.  Easy for Chelsea in the end and we were thoroughly ass-whipped by a far superior team who look to me, far more likely to win the league than Manchester City or Arsenal.

Well that’s half an hour of my life that I’m never going to get back.  It was painful to watch from the hour mark onwards as we got completely stuffed by a very good and powerful side.  They had a couple of underperforming players out there and so they replaced them with two players who made the team immeasurably better.  In fact, you could measure it as they made three goals difference.  To our credit we don’t trot out the injuries excuse too often but if we did, citing the lack of Boruc, Big Vic and The Pirate, Chelsea had Lampard, Ivanovic and Luiz all missing.  In order to compete with Chelsea we’d need to buy about 8 more players in the £15-£20 million bracket so expecting us to compete with them as we stand is fanciful in the extreme.  That said, after the first five minutes, we did compete well until the first goal went in but then it all went to rat shit.

It’s easy to be gracious when you’ve won 3-0 and Mourinho was and criticized Oscar for his dive and praised the referee.  Will he fine or drop him though?  I doubt it.  It would have been interesting if it was 0-0 in the last minute when it happened – would the Special One have agreed with the referee then?  When you see the replays it’s horrible.  He leans forward, drags his foot into Superkelv and takes off.  He’s even turning and appealing to the referee before he hits the ground, the cynical little shit.  In his mind he’s weighing up a penalty, a goal and a red card to the keeper against maybe getting a yellow card and the potential rewards far outweigh the risks.  There is an additional thing in that the twat would have scored if he’d stayed on his feet but he scored anyway later on so I doubt he cares about the yellow card at all.  It’s boring to repeat what myself and countless others have been saying for about 20 years but an obvious dive like this should be punished by giving a 3 match ban based on TV evidence.  The FA always give it some bollocks about not wanting to undermine referees but giving Oscar a 3 match ban now would not undermine Martin Atkinson in any way.  He got it right and it would help him in the future as some players might not actually do what Oscar did.  There is a school of thought now that Atkinson should have sent him off.  It’s interesting when you think that he tried to get a fellow pro sent off and then he stayed on the pitch to set up two goals and score the other one.

Anyway, sod Chelsea and cheats and the FA.  Saints looked really tired for the first time this season and too many players had poor games.  Adam Lallana had his worst game for a while in front of the watching Roy Hodgson and J-Rod did his England cause no good at all with his third poor performance in the last four games.  I’ve seen calls on many Saints fans websites to play J-Rod as the central striker, a role which in my opinion he is totally unsuited to it as he’s not strong enough to hold the ball up and today in particular he barely got a kick and didn’t occupy Cahill and Terry in any way.  Most of the time they just walked in front of him and cleared it unchallenged.  He needs the bit of space that playing wider gives him so he can use his strengths which is to run at people at pace.  Gaston…. Oh Gaston…. well at least got involved and had a couple of shots and played a couple of great ball into forwards which hardly anyone else did but how many times does he give the ball away by either dwelling in possession or by aimlessly running into players.  Chambo was good coming forward today as was Clyne when he came on as they had a bit of space but whenever we ventured infield we got no change at all out of Ramires and Mikel who ran the show.  We really missed Big Vic today who would have at least made it competitive in there.

Mauricio did his usual and took Corky off again and we predictably went to shit afterwards as Steve Davis and then JWP failed to stamp any sort of authority in defensive midfield.  Surely the idea at 1-0 down against the Big Boys is to stay in the game as long as possible and just need the one goal to get something.  Being 3-0 down ten minutes later was I’m afraid, a bit predictable and of course, the game is completely gone by then.  Also, leaving Sir Rickie out when The Pirate wasn’t available was just wrong.

We had more possession yet again but I’m getting tired of that stat being trolled out.  How much possession did we have in their half?  If knocking it about in your own half wasn’t and only ‘forward going’ possession was included in the stats then Chelsea would have just shaded it by about 80% to 20%.  They had purpose in possession and we in the main did not.  Propaganda football was what Gordon Strachan used to call it.  I’m not for a second advocating banging it forward as that would make me Fat Sam but there’s no point in aimlessly passing it across the back 4 if you’re going to lose it and have the opposition break on you the moment you try and pass it forwards.

Next up we have the FA Cup against Burnley at home and players have obviously been instructed in their interviews to mention it and mention the fact that we’re taking it seriously, probably due to shite ticket sales for Saturday which I am at least partly responsible for.  Again, repeating what I’ve said for years, early round cup games should be a tenner and no more and at double that, on top of Christmas and having three kids and being skint, I won’t be going.  Let’s face it – we will field an understrength side as well.  If I was to guess I’d say that Sam Gallagher will start as well as possibly Matt Targett. 

It doesn’t feel like it much after the gubbing we got off of Chelsea but Happy New Year! 

Look at out league positions the last five New Years (courtesy of www.statto.com)

2014 – 9th in Premier League

2013 – 17th in Premier League

2012 – 1st in Championship

2011 – 2nd in League 1

2010 – 13th in League 1 

Perspective.  All of you who buggered off between Chelsea’s second goal and the end and need to get some.