Alderweireld Leads an Old Bloke onto the Pitch
No
one seems to be factoring in that Burnley have already beaten us once this
season and that they beat Manchester City last time out. However, they’re in the bottom three for a
reason and it’s our job today to keep them there. They are playing with spirit though and
there’s much to admire. Sean Dyche
appears to be an excellent young manager with a bright future and I hope they
stay up though as there are many more deserving candidates for the drop,
Sunderland, QPR and Tottenham.
One
of them, namely Sunderland, sacked Gus Poyet last week after another abysmal
defeat when they yet again, completely gave up and lost 4-0 at home to a Villa
side who hadn’t scored away from home since 1987. They say Gus had lost the dressing room –
well it appears he also locked it as they only had 10 players for five minutes
at the start of the second half as permanently whinging tosser Seb Larsson was
absent. As far as I know, that’s not
been explained. I feel sorry for Gus,
said no one, ever. Tosser.
The
Saints week has seen Eljero Elia declared fit for action this weekend and
reports of a positive reaction from Graziano Pellè to being dropped last
weekend. It’s been a week for
international call ups and all the usual suspects got all the usual call
ups. Fraser and Clyney are with the
England squad but Ryan Bertrand is not.
Roy Hodgson values continuity you see – it doesn’t matter that his best left
back option was not in the last squad.
Instead he uses the out-of-form and non-defending left back Leighton
Baines, the out-of-form and out-of-fitness and barely playing Luke Shaw and the
out-of-the-Arsenal-team, non-attacking Keiron Gibbs. Harry Kane got in though which is a good
thing and it also sounded the death knell of Rickie Lambert’s England career, a
highly predictable by product of his ill-advised dream move to Anfield. Such a shame.
Well played Brendon.
Other
than that we’ve had contract renewals for Ryan Seager and Dominic Gape and the
usual speculation of players signing for Arsenal and Spurs and United. Morgan and Sadio Mané to Arsenal, Morgan,
Toby and J-Rod to Spurs, Clyney to Man United…. Yawn! The only new one is Sadio being linked which
is basically because he played well last week and Theo Walcott is yet to sign a
new contract at Arsenal. That’s how it
works folks!
There
is a strange yellow object in the sky as we take our seats in time to hear the
team news. Usually I look on my phone
before nearing the ground but I forgot today and head reached the communication
dead zone that it SMS before I had chance.
Ronald appears to have had a meltdown and picked too many attackers with
Graziano recalled and Shane Long retained…. And Dusan Tadic and Sadio
Mané. It’s looking like a very attacking
4-4-2 formation with Morgan and Steve Davis in the centre of midfield which is
Vic-less. The man mountain has racked up
9 victims this season and one more will see him banned for two matches and with
the yellow card amnesty coming up, I guess Ronald wants to ease him though to that. Burnley are unsurprisingly unchanged from
their win against City and it’s like a who’s who of Saints connections with
Ings and Vokes on the pitch and Jutkiewicz on the bench. Other players include Ashley Barnes who
always seems a bit of a cock and celebrated big time at Turf Moor when his shot
which was destined for Fraser’s midriff, deflected and went in. They also have George Boyd who looks like a
rat and dives around like a twat all the time.
He did however score a great goal last weekend.
Saints
start well at a high tempo and are zipping the ball about with Morgan at the
fore but haven’t created anything meaningful when Fraser makes a routine
clearance and collapses. There’s been a
minor collision with Vokes but there’s nothing in that really. You can tell that he’s done himself though
and that it’s serious and that’ll be it for the afternoon and probably the
season. With the medical team on the
pitch, it takes about a minute before someone is making the signal to get the
sub on and five minutes later he leaves the field on a stretcher. Bollocks.
It’s time for Superkelv and here he comes to a hero’s welcome. This is good – everyone loves Superkelv as a
bloke but he’s always given me the shits as a keeper and my mind goes back to
when King Artur broke his wrist last season and we had a combination of
Superkelv and Gazzaniga in goal for 10 or so games. It was similar to holding a grenade with the
pin out and wondering when it was going to go off.
The
stoppage has knocked us back a bit and following a scrappy passage of play we
get it back together with Morgan sending Bertrand away down the left and he
played a perfectly weighted ball into Graziano who took it on the run and
instead of hitting it like Pellè 2014 would have done, he tried to jink inside
a defender and the chance was gone.
Burnley have found a way to get at us as well and it’s by long crosses
and piling in. With no Big Vic there’s
only Morgan trying to pick up the knockdowns.
Boyd swept a long ball out to Barnes on the left, his cross was knocked
down by Ings to Vokes who creamed it and Superkelv managed to block it even
though he appeared to be diving the wrong way.
Good save that man and just what he needed.
The
corner is cleared to Boyd on the left hand side of the box and he takes a
tumble and José Fonte launches himself at him.
Put it this way, I’ve seen them given but Boyd’s reputation for hitting
the deck has probably gone against him here. José has to stay on his feet
more. He’s done this a few times now,
just trashing through everything and getting the tiniest bit of the ball before
he trashes the player. Sterling against
Liverpool at SMS springs to mind.
Saints
are looking dangerous when they attack though and Morgan tries a sidefooter
from the edge of the box which is on target but deflected out for a corner
following good work from Clyney, Mané and Pellè. A few minutes later we’re ahead as Tadic gets
a yard on Trippier (who was having a bit of a mare against Bertrand) and
crosses. Sadio’s header wasn’t going
anywhere but dropped to Clyne who lashed it across the goal and via a
deflection and an airshot from Pellè 2015, arrived with Shane Long at the back
post who sidefooted it over the keeper and into the roof of the net. Get in.
It
should be 2-0 from our next attack as the ball breaks to Pellè 2015 and he
manages to smack the bar with it from 5 yards.
So it should be 2-0 but 30 seconds later it’s nearly 1-1 as another deep
Burnley cross is knocked back down by Arfield and smacked by Ings, only for
Superkelv to take off and claw it away. This
is a quality save and gets the whole ground up an applauding. Great stuff.
We
have one further chance before half time as Tadic gets away from Trippier again
and delivers a cross to the near post which Davis meets with a flick header and
Heaton does well to back-pedal and shovel it onto the bar and over. It’s half time and things are going to plan
though we do need to tighten up in midfield.
The clouds all turn dark and move across the sun and the rain starts to fall. There is a rumble of thunder and a deep sense of foreboding fills the air.... Big Vic is coming on. Oh yes, Big Vic is coming on. He’s replaced Tadic and lines up next to Morgan in the centre of midfield. We look more solid even before the game has kicked off again.
We’re
on the attack almost instantly with Bertrand getting down the left and chipping
the ball into Steve Davis who lashes a shot into the side netting. Davis is having a decent game today having
been a bit off recently and is the kind of player that makes the whole team
tick when he’s on his game. The part of
Graziano’s game which is still functioning is his hold up play and he expertly
brings down an Alderweireld pass on his chest and lays it back to Shane Long
who hits one first time from 30 yards which flies just wide. Heaton in goal was more than a bit worried
about that one.
It’s
Bertrand again though who sets up the second goal. His throw to Mané is returned to him, onto
Steve Davis who waits for Bertrand to make a run before lifting the ball over
Trippier who is still chasing shadows trying to look like a footballer. Bertrand volleys it across with pace and
Shackell feels he has to get something on it but that something is his knee and
it bullets past the keeper. Top finish. Actually, it’s utter gash. That’s why you’re going down, as the song
goes.
What
we need now is a goal from Pellè 2015 and he has another go when we play a
short corner and Davis chips one up for Graziano to get his head on but there’s
not enough power to test Heaton. The
rest of the game peters out. Burnley
throw on Jutkiewicz for Ings and the new man is lively but no threat and he
manages on shot which flies miles over the bar.
They win a free kick when Toby stands his ground under a header and
Jutkiewicz runs into him, collapses and gets the decision. Burnley sub Wallace lines it up like he knows
what he’s doing and then shats it wide in Championship fashion. It’s easy as you like and the fans sing ‘Happy
Birthday’ to Ronald Koeman again.
Final
whistle, 2-0, happy days. Ultimately the
second half was easy once Big Vic came on and we had the right blend of
attacking and defensive players on the pitch.
Another problem in the first was that Mané, who has been our best player
recently, was too deep and too far from the area of the pitch where he makes a
difference. Once we went 2-0 up we
handled the game really well and Superkelv didn’t have a save to make in the
second half as Burnley managed a couple of long rangers into row Z and that was
it. The first half was a different story
though and the veteran did his job with aplomb.
It’s one thing everyone saying that he hasn’t played for the first team
for a year – he’s barely played at all as I don’t ever recall him playing for
the Under 21’s (as a ‘double age’ player).
Question for you all – who is the oldest player to ever play for Saints
Under-21’s? Answer (99% sure anyway) at the bottom...
I
have a feeling that it’s the form of Shane Long that made Ronald pick an over
attacking formation. He probably wanted
to recall Pellè but didn’t think Long deserved to be left out, which he
didn’t. Big Vic managed to get through
45 minutes without launching anyone and getting a yellow card so no harm done
and all is well. Long was decent again
but Graziano is still misfiring somewhat.
Hitting the bar from 5 yards was pretty horrible and though he produced
a lot of good hold up play, the lack of confidence was shown with the
non-shooting effort in the first half which will give our idiot fringe
‘supporters’ something to kick him over.
After the game he got called up to the Italian squad and the Facebook
item that broke the news was bombarded by idiots questioning it and him. I lose faith in the mentality of some Saints
fans when I see things like that.
Talking
of losing faith, Fatty Shaw has dropped out of the England squad due to being
thick and fat and Hodgson has called up Danny Rose. Danny Fucking Rose. Another fullback who can’t defend whilst Ryan
Bertrand just rolls on being part of the best defence in the league. I have decided that Hodgson must think he’s
French. Personally, I’ve spent my life
with people thinking I’m French as I have a French surname. It sounds like I’m joking about Hodgson
thinking he’s French but I honestly would not be surprised. I can find no other logical reason.
Out
of the teams at the top end of the league, everybody won this weekend except
for Liverpool who lost at home to Man United.
They really had a shocker and ended the game with Lallana being injured,
Sturridge being injured (well, there is an England game to pull out of),
Gerrard with a 3 game ban and Skrtel about to get the same on video evidence
after his stamp on de Gea was missed by the referee. Be smug about that little lot then Rodgers,
you tosser.
As
mentioned before – it’s time to focus on Roy Hodgson’s inadequacies for a week
or so and hope that Graziano plays and scores for Italy and that no one comes
back injured. There are bound to be more
stories of Saints players leaving but the next thing to focus on is our next
league game which is away to Everton which will be a sterner test of Superkelv
than Burnley provided today. Let’s do
this.
Radhi
Jaidi (35)
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