"Ask me one more bastard time about any bastard leaving and I'll bastard well kill ya"
Roll up roll up for a mid-table clash with not much riding
on it as Saints entertain Manchester United.
Usually this fixture would be a victory lap as United celebrated the
title whilst their gloating fans chunter away in irritating fashion for 90
minutes. “We’re the greatest Man United and we’ve won the Premier League”. Err, no!
The last time we had this fixture on the last day of the season was of
course in 2004/5 when we lost 2-1 and got relegated as a result. I remember watching our pathetic surrender,
looking round and seeing Matt le Tissier looking at the floor as all his hard
work went to pot as Harry Redknapp picked Brett Ormerod ahead of Kevin Phillips
in a game we had to win. No such worries
today.
Let’s have a laugh at United. The season started with Sir Alex choosing his
successor and that was David Moyes. They
made a big banner to hang on the ground alongside all that Republic of Mancunia
bollocks and United were pretty average from the outset. They’d beat a couple of the weaker sides and
then lose to anyone who was any good amongst much gnashing of teeth. Welcome to football for the other 99% of us
lads. Most of the fans complaining
blamed Moyes when anyone with half a brain could see that Taggart head left him
with an ageing and in some places, poor squad.
The other big teams had all improved massively and bought well in the
summer. The United hierarchy brought in
Fellaini as a panic measure as the window shut but didn’t address the main
issues – defensive midfield and a defence.
Generally poor results continued and a January window when they once
again, brought in a player in the wrong positions in Juan Mata and things didn’t
improve much. Eventually, Moyes was
fired a few games ago and paragon of virtue Ryan Giggs was put in charge. John Terry got pilloried for banging a
team-mates ex-girlfriend once and lost the England captaincy for it whereas
Giggs bangs his brothers wife over an 8 year period and get made manager of the
biggest club side in the world. Only in
football.
To the teams and Saints had Corky, Big Vic and Morgan in
midfield with Steve Davis pushed up to support Adam and Sir Rickie. Big Sam was on the bench with Guly and Gaston
Ramirez wasn’t, which is surprising as I would have thought he would have
wanted some practice of sitting on his arse for the World Cup where he will do
that for Uruguay. He’s turning into the next Agustin Delgado
isn’t he? Never fit when Saints need him
but then the World Cup comes around....miraculous recovery! Giggs had rated all his players wives in
order of how much he’d like to bang them on a spreadsheet and picked the
corresponding husbands of the Top 11.
There’s was no Rooney or Fellaini (well Colleen isn’t great is she) but
there was Robin Van Persie who has scored about 60% of his career goals
exclusively against Southampton. Adnan Januzaj is playing after declaring he
wants to play for the land of his birth at the World Cup. Medialand wanted him to play for England after his two goals on debut against a
then-woeful Sunderland side but I can’t think there are many England fans
who give a shit. Giggs himself is not on
the bench which is a surprise, given that this may well be his last ever
game.
If anything you would expect United to have the faster start
as they can still qualify for the Europa League if by some miracle, Spurs fail
to beat Villa at home and they win here but the opposite happens and Saints
keep the ball for a full minute before Adam Lallana of all people mis-controls
and Vidic comes in and hoofs it out.
It’s all us but we’re not testing the very dodgy looking
defence. Vidic is still a good player
but Ferdinand resembles a player who should have retired 3 years ago and
Smalling is showing the watching Roy Hodgson that he cannot play at right
back. Big Vic has our first shot – if it
flies in then it’s goal of the season but he doesn’t catch the volley cleanly
and though it’s on target, de Gea picks it up.
The first strains of ‘Giggs will tear (his family) apart’
can be heard from the United faithful which soon gives way to a goading chant
at Steven Gerrard for slipping on his arse.
Obviously they’re please that City are going to win it, meaning that
they’re not even the best team in their own city. United are pleased to get away with a penalty
shout a few minutes later as Shaw beats Dogshit Smalling and crosses to where
Vidic completes with Sir Rickie, spins round and almost throws the ball out of
the penalty area. It’s another nailed
on, cast iron penalty but not given, yet again.
Does anyone think that Twattenburgate is coming back to haunt us? I’m not one for conspiracy theories as a rule
but it’s becoming a bit of a joke – it’s almost every fucking game.
We’re playing some lovely stuff and are all over them. After a long period of possession, Big Vic
again shanks one from the edge of the box and Lallana tries to backheel it past
de Gea but he reads it easily enough.
Shaw has the next effort as he burns in from the left, switches it back
to Adam on the wing whose cross is a little high for Shaw but he still reaches
it and loops his header over the keeper and onto the roof of the net. De Gea is called into action when Vidic
messes about with it and gets caught in possession by Lallana who plays a 1-2
with Big Vic and then curls his shot too close to de Gea who saves comfortably.
And then, Adnan Januzaj touched the ball... and lost it to
Shaw, had a dive and had a tantrum.
How often does it happen that we play loads of football and
fail to score and then try a more direct approach and then bingo! Jose Fonte lobs on forward towards Sir
Rickie, he wins it in the air against Vidic who tried to challenge and
Ferdinand who didn’t and knocks it down to Davis. Davis returns the ball to Sir Rickie, past
the flailing Rio who tries to throw a zimmer frame at it but he’s too
slow. Sir Rickie vs de Gea with loads of
time, bang.... 1-0. Get in. As we celebrate, All 10 outfield players for
United are crowding the referee as only they can without getting a charge of
failing to control their players. Later
replays show Vidic going to head the ball and heading Sir Rickie’s elbow (I’m
not making this up) and there’s plenty of claret around so we got a bit lucky
there. In my opinion, it’s the correct
decision. The United reaction is truly
pathetic though, especially from Januzaj who is nowhere near it but he runs 40
yards to get involved and say his bit.
As if anyone’s going to listen to you, you little shit.
As if by magic, United then summon up an attacking move
which starts with RVP down our left. He
chips into Evra and the ball finds its way to Smalling who screws his shot
across the goal and out for a goal kick.
Oh look, they’re all round the ref again wanting a corner. What a complete shower of cocks. United are getting close to scoring though as
we fail to pickup from a throw-in and Mata managed to screw another shot across
the goal and past the far post when he should have done better. Januzaj caps a great first half for the
overrated one and gets booked for spitting his dummy out once too often.
Half time comes and goes with me pondering just how bad
United have been. Van Persie has worked
quite hard but not had any of the ball.
Kagawa and Januzaj have been non-existent and only Welbeck and Evra have
looked anything approaching decent.
Defensively they look so slow and J-Rod would have torn them a new one
down Smalling’s wing. Giggs tries to redress
the balance by removing Kagawa and bringing on Carrick and away we go
again. Ah, hang on a minute, it’s all
changed. United have pushed up and are
controlling the tempo and we are suddenly incapable of string passes
together. The referee seems to have been
convinced by all the crowding of him in the first half, that he’s been treating
United harshly and every coming together is being given as a free kick to
United, even incidents involving Januzaj who is basically looking to dive every
time a player goes near him. Welbeck
goes over on the edge of the box and it’s a foul by Big Vic as he’s kicked him
high. It’s just to the right of centre
and Mata and RVP are over it. The wall
is to the right, King Artur to the left and as Mata approaches it I’m thinking
‘we need a man on the line’ and Mata gets it up and over the wall and in with
no bother at all for 1-1. Old habits die
hard – we’ve dominated 45 minutes of this game and scored once, United have
dominated for 5 minutes and scored once.
Hang on… suddenly they’re all over us and we can’t get out
of our half. They’ve pushed up and
because we have no pace up front, we can’t get in behind them and turn them
round. Januzaj actually manages to
deliver something and Welbeck gets up well but heads over the bar. Just after the hour mark we make our first
sub and it Big Sam on for Jack Cork who is obviously being rested for the World
Cup and then the highlight of the game as Luke Shaw manages to foul Januzaj
before he dives and picks up a yellow card as a badge of honour. It’s still all United but there’s no danger
as Smalling hoofs a ball over from the wing and Fletcher gets up and heads
wide.
We finally create something and it’s more down to Rio’s walking frame than anything else. The ball breaks to Big Vic on the edge of the
box and Rio gets his frame and his legs tangled up as he tries to close him
down. In his head, Big Vic smashes it
into the top corner but the reality is that he shanks it wide again. It’s all gone very end-of-season as Lallana
goes off to a standing ovation to be replaced with JWP.
Surely it’s Guly-time as the clock ticks down but the
departing Brazilian is not ready to come on but Calum Chambers is to replace
Luke Shaw who gets a predictable standing ovation from the Saints fans and an
extremely annoying one from the United fans who really should just fuck off as
they obviously assume he’ll be with them soon.
We have one situation that nearly comes off for us as the
season ticks down as Sir Rickie tries to chip one over the defence to Steve
Davis but it’s just too long and de Gea picks it up. Even if Davis had controlled it, he’d have
passed it so no damage done. Final
whistle, season over, summer of speculation and World Cups begins.
Ultimately, the 2nd half was the dampest of damp
squibs as we did nothing to get anyone excited.
United stepped up their game a bit and we didn’t seem to have the energy
to respond. The first half was excellent
but we needed to be more than the one goal up given our dominance and United’s
lethargy. I think United managed 2 shots
on target all day and one was the free kick.
Mauricio played down the game today and spoke in the context of the
whole season and he was right to do so.
Today preserved the feelgood factor of the season as a whole and not
getting beat meant that everyone was happy.
The post-match lap was a celebratory affair but both Luke
Shaw and Adam Lallana made the mistake of actually waving at the crowd which
will immediately be picked up on as ‘waving goodbye’. I think that in the media outlet race to put
that caption on a website, talkSHTTE were the winner.
Within an hour of the season finishing, we had allegedly
received a bid of £27million for Shaw and £20million for Lallana. Will it ever stop? The answer to that one is no, even if Ralph
Krueger gives Mauricio a budget of £200million for the forthcoming season and
the two players in question sign new deals.
Ralph was interviewed live on local radio and as usual, spoke a lot of
sense. No one has contacted the club
regarding any players or Pochettino and discussion will now start regarding the
future. It’s a message that has been
consistently stated for the past 3 months or so and I see no reason to believe
that it’s not true. The one thing you
can safely say about the Liebherr dynasty is that it has integrity and a belief
in doing things the right way. Mauricio
said he wanted to get the season done first, they respect that so that’s what
happened.
Meanwhile, back in media bullshit fantasy land, the big
clubs (and Spurs) want to sign our entire team before the World Cup. In case you hadn’t heard of it, the World Cup
is the biggest football tournament in the universe and every professional club
will be watching it and looking out for players they might want to sign. As all our players are contracted until well
after the World Cup, it would make perfect sense to us to sell now of course,
before they shine at the aforementioned World Cup and stick millions on their
value. It would also make sense to sell
now so every club knows how much money we have to spend on replacements. In case you missed it, I was being very sarcastic.
Talking of the World Cup, Sunday night brought the leaks and
Monday brought the squad announcement.
The first news was Ashley Cole announcing his international retirement
which of course meant that he hadn’t been picked, refused to go on standby and
that Luke Shaw was in the squad. Twitter
went in to meltdown as everybody went ‘in the know’ crazy but it wasn’t until
2pm the next day that we heard that Adam Lallana and Sir Rickie had been called
up as well. It’s a great day. Of the three, it’s Sir Rickie’s inclusion
that is the story for me. It’s his one
shot at this and there cannot possibly be a more deserving player to make it to
the World Cup. His football career is
building up to be a Hollywood movie in the making though Hollywood will have
him scoring the winner in the final. I
wonder what odds you could get on that.
The rest of the England squad was more or less as
predicted. I thought Roy would pick
Carrick but he did have the balls to go with Barkley in the end. I also thought he’d bottle taking Shaw as
well so fair play to him. Now he has to
follow this through in the tournament and play the younger players. There’s a still a very pedestrian and dull
starting XI that he could pick out of that squad but for now, Roy is doing
ok. Having said that, the standby list
was the major disappointment where is seems that the criteria was that you have
to be past it or just shit.
Consequently, Nathaniel Clyne didn’t make it which despite me being
biased, is astonishing to me. We have
Glenn Johnson in the squad who is average at best and can’t defend for shit,
covered by Jones and Smalling who are not good enough in their proper position,
let along out of position on the right.
The one decent player on the standby list is John Stones but other than
that you find Flanagan who is as raw as you can be, Carroll who is a one trick
pony, Ruddy who is useless, Carrick who never had it at international level, Defoe
who has retired from proper football and Cleverley who is just a bad joke. Clyne and Jack Cork should be on the standby
list – no question.
Anyway, the World Cup and England is a month down the
line. As it stands, we have 3 players in
the squad and if we still have 3 in the squad when England play Italy then
Katharina, Ralph and Mauricio will have done well.
Back to SFC and it’s been a fantastic season. We’ve finished 8th and as is
always the case – where you end up is where you deserve to end up. Out squad was not big enough to finish higher
than Everton, Spurs and Man United as we suffered due to the injuries to King
Artur and Big Vic and also the Dani Osvaldo situation. Regardless of all that though, from my 38
years of being a regular at The Dell and St Mary’s, this season ranks in the
top 5 and in terms of achievement in modern football it probably the best,
given the way we’ve done it, the football we’ve played and the way we’ve got English
Academy kids through into the team. We
are the blueprint for English football going forward – not some B League
bollocks. We have a great thing going
here – let’s keep our better players and push on – please!
Season review to follow shortly.
