Premier League Match 9 - Southampton 2 Leicester 2

Kelvin Springs Out of his Rest Home

Two weeks have gone by since the amazing win at Chelsea and shedloads of players have been away playing internationals with mixed results.  Steve Davis had a dream week and scored two as Northern Ireland beat Greece to qualify.  Considering that before the Chelsea game he couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo, this is pretty amazing, as is the fact that Northern Ireland qualified.  Fair play to them.  Shane Long cracked a great goal for Ireland against Germany as the Boys in Green won 1-0 but then got crocked in their final game in Poland so will be out for 4 weeks-ish.  Ireland at least have a playoff to look forward to, unlike Virgil van Dijk with Holland who managed to come 4^th in the group behind Turkey, Iceland and the Czech Republic.  This exit predictably saw the ‘Koeman for Holland’ speculation start again.  Anyone with a memory which goes back further than about a month will remember the answers he gave last time when asked about the speculation.  Unsurprisingly, nothing has changed aside from the Dutch FA saying that they are backing the current manager who after all, has only just taken over.  It doesn’t stop them asking though..zzz!

Ryan Bertrand played for England in the home game against Estonia which we won 2-0.  He had a solid, rather than spectacular game which was pretty much the same for everyone except for Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane who were both dreadful.  Ryan was on the bench for the Lithuania away game which England won 3-0 at a canter.  Cantering is all you can do on the stupid plastic pitch which there is no excuse for having at international level and it should be banned.  Kane was great in this game, as was Ross Barkley but it doesn’t matter as Rooney will still play ahead of both of them despite Kane being a better No.9 and Barkley being a better No.10.  We won all 10 games in qualifying but anyone who goes on about that as some sort of major achievement is deluded.  Switzerland are the standard of a relegation candidate Premier League side and no one else in the group was above League 1 standard.  Still, I’m totally confident that Hodgson will make the most of the resources at his disposal and we’ll be great in the tournament when all our big players like Rooney, Carrick, Henderson and Milner are crammed into the side.  Milner taking free kicks is always good as well.  Someone said that it was a positive that 19 players from the last World Cup squad were still involved... remind me how we did in that tournament?  Ah yes, we were the first team knocked out.  Only Lampard and Gerrard have gone and they’d still be in Hodgson’s squad if they hadn’t retired.  I bet he still rings them as asks if they’re available as well.

On the eve of the game came the news that José Fonte has signed a new contract to take him up to 2018 and the age of 35.  I don’t think anyone could begrudge him that as he’s been superb for pretty much all of our Premier League years after being so good to take the piss right throughout the Championship and League 1 years.  Congratulations Captain.  It’s makes me laugh that his predecessor as captain was the shitbag Nivea Twat.

Leicester at home is a game that at the start of the season, you pencil in for 3 points but they’ve started well, basically hounding and harrying teams into submission from the first whistle to the last.  They are higher in the league than us though so it’s a tough one.  Jamie Vardy has been their main source for goals which is odd as he scored about 5 last season in total.  Other dangers include Jeffrey Schlupp who looks a good player down the left hand side and Riyad Mahrez who has been left out a bit recently but he started the season with 4 goals in the first few matches.  Claudio Ranieri is their manager and he used the build up to mention that he was interviewed for the Saints job when the shitbag Pochettino left.  I expect the lack of enthusiasm that would have greeted him here was the same as the lack of enthusiasm at Leicester.  I wonder if any of their fans are moaning now.  They have a couple of ex-Saints in their ranks but Dean Hammond doesn’t even make the bench and Bag Thief Nathan Dyer is on loan from Swansea.

Our team news is that it’s the team that played the second half against Chelsea apart from … oh shit!  Stekelenburg has picked up a back injury and Kelvin Davis is in goal.  Fuck no.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve slated Gazzaniga in the past (the most recently being Leicester away at the end of last season) but in pre-season he actually looked quite decent.  Looking past that though, it actually puts me in a bad mood again that the club have this glaring issue in the squad.  Jordy Clasie is back on the bench which is missing Shane Long.

Leicester start the better of the two sides and pin us back.  Fuchs gets over a good cross from the left wing and Davis hesitates like a pensioner about to cross a motorway, then dives out at it and misses it completely in a move that is not going to fill anyone with confidence.  The first shot of the day is from Vardy who puts an Albrighton cross well over and then another cross and another almighty carnage inducing flap from the keeper which ends with Virgil heading it out from near the goal line and Davis catching it by the penalty spot.  Fucking shambles.  The defence is playing deeper and not knocking anything back to the keeper.  It’s not great.

We finally start playing after 10 minutes and it’s Virgil who starts playing from the back.  We win a corner as Cedric’s cross is headed over and JWP’s delivery is met well by Virgil but hacked off the line.  I reckon Virgil is good for 6-8 goals this season.  On 20 minutes we win a series of corners with JWP swinging them in from the left and Tadic from the right.  It’s Tadic who gets the assist though as Fonte rises unchallenged at the near post and flicks a header down and across and inside the far post which didn’t have a Leicester presence on it.  Considering their two centre backs are Huth and Morgan – two monster sized players, it’s surprising we’re getting as much joy on corners.

Talking of joy, Cedric and Schlupp aren;lt having anyway as they clash heads and collapse and there’s blood everywhere.  Schlupp obviously has the harder head as he manages to resume without the turban bandage and a change of shirt.  Cédric can’t be too bad as he’s up the wing feeding Mané who turns and curls a left footed effort towards the far post which Schmeichel gets down well to claw away.  He’s a decent keeper to be fair – not as good as his dad but a lot less punchable as well.

Another corner and another goal as JWP changes the angle with a quick 1-2 and curls in a cross which is met by Pellè.  Graziano again demonstrates this startling accuracy he has at being able to hit the post from absolutely anywhere but it bounces out to Virgil, bobbles off his shin and back onto the post before he knocks it in amisdst howls of protest for offside.  I’m not sure what the rules are these days but as Pellè headed it, Virgil was offside.  I can’t imagine the post changes the phase of play or whatever so it should have been disallowed… but who cares.

The ref then hands the yellow card to  Big Vic that he’s been looking to give him since about the 10^th minute.  He tried to indicate that it was for persistent fouling by doing the pointing thing to lots of areas of the pitch but as he’d only committed one foul previously, he ref looked a bit of a twat.  Leicester are known this season for coming back into games and rescuing things and they are going for it before half time.  Firstly, Drinkwater hits a shot from the edge of the box which Davis does well to push over the bar.  The following corner falls to Huth and he makes space from himself before applying a carthorse finish and slicing it wide of the near post.  We have made it to half time with a 2-0 lead and more remarkable, without letting in a goal.  I have no idea how.

Ranieris decides to go for it at half time, bringing on Mahrez and Dyer on for Schlupp and Okazaki.  Schlupp has his head injury and Okazaki has done absolutely nothing aside from throw himself about looking for free kicks.  The start of the second half is fairly even with both sides looking to get on top but we’re confortable and it should be 3-0 as Big Vic puts Sadio away through the middle and he nips it round Schmeichel as he comes out to meet him about 30 yards out but he can’t get the shot away and a Leicester defender gets a foot in.  Balls.  From that moment on it was all Leicester as they started finding spaces and our midfield appeared to stop playing.  JWP and Davis weren’t getting on the ball at all and Big Vic seemed to be hampered by some sort of injury and the yellow card that he got earlier.  Clasie came on for Steve Davis and Maya for Cédric who by this time was wearing a very fetching red and white turban.  I kind of understood the first sub but would rather that Romeu came on and unless there was an injury I don’t know about, I’d have left Davis on… so I guess I didn’t agree with it.  Maya for Cédric…. Just no.

We have another chance as Mané cleverly teed up Pellè who lashed over but the general flow of the game has not changed since the subs came on and the inevitable happened on 66 minutes.  Virgil tried to bring the ball out down the left and played a ball to Tadic who was as powder puff as could be in trying to retain possession and away went Dyer.  Virgil was drawn out of the middle and couldn’t prevent the cross which was met by Vardy at the near post to thump in a header for 2-1.  We had 3 marking 2 in the box but Vardy ran inbetween Fonte and Clasie and was completely unmarked.

The next 20 minutes are all Leicester.  The only real question seems to be if they’d score before running out of time.  Vardy smashed a chance just over the bar after a neat move when they just pulled our defence all over the place.  The midfield still wasn’t playing, JWP and Clasie were the definition of powder puff and J-Rod (on for Tadic) and Mané might as well not have been there.  Mahrez was proving that his manager was an idiot for not starting him and Dyer was proving that Swansea were stupid to let the bag thieving little twat go out on loan.

In a rare bit of respite, we break forward and Mané has a chance to run deep into their end of the pitch but he instead tries a chip from 50 yards and it’s close-ish but ultimately it just hands Leicester the ball back again.  Leicester’s next attack is defended well and ends up in the hands of Davis as the clock hits 90 minutes.  Davis looks long, one assumes towards Graziano but the kick is a horrible flat load of shite which is knocked behind our midfield.  There’s a lightweight challenge from Clasie and Mahrez has it, one pass and Vardy is through.  He ain’t gonna miss is he and bang, he doesn’t. Fuck off. Fucking goalkeeper can’t kick a football.  All he had to do was send it sailing into their half for Graziano to compete for but no.  Bollocks.  Davis has the ball in his hands and within 5 seconds it’s in our net. Fucking useless.  Clasie was extremely powder puff with his challenge as well.  On 90 minutes, at 2-1, you whack him and take the booking, not get muscled off the fucking ball. 

The remaining couple of minutes of injury time passes relatively quickly which is good news for us and that’s that.  Balls. You have to hand it to Ranieri. I guess at two nil down he had to try something but he rolled the dice and it worked perfectly for them. In the second half we had absolutely no answer to them and if the game was five minutes longer, we would've lost.  They called him the Tinkerman because he used to change a winning side and then lose but he got it right today, eventually.  He’s still odd though - Why the hell Mahrez in particular is not in the side ahead of Okazaki from the start is beyond comprehension.

The substitutions we made today didn't really do the job. From Ronald’s post-match comments you can tell that he thought we were beginning to lose a grip on the game and needed to manage it better, hence why he bought Clasie on to try and get us passing the ball again. For me, the problem was that the wrong player was substituted. Steven Davis was having a good game where as Tadic and Mané were both completely anonymous. Clasie is also playing his first game in English football and has been injured so it was wildly optimistic to expect him to be able to be immediately comfortable with the pace of the game. As we saw, he spent the vast majority of his time on the pitch just chasing shadows and being lightweight. In hindsight, Romeu out should've come on and he certainly should have come on instead of Rodriguez who eventually replaced Tadic.

If you look at the game as I whole, there is no way that we can say we deserved to win it. It was like the Man United home game in some ways in that we only played for about half of the match and the other half we just let happen. You are not going to win many games if you do this. Having said that, we nearly did win it and we would have if we had a goalkeeper instead of a crumbling pensioner between the sticks. We were to one up with a minute to go and our goalkeeper had the ball in his hands. After a 20 year career, you would think as a goalkeeper he'd have the technique to launch it into the oppositions half but instead of that we got a low trajectory shite kick which barely reaches the half way line, was immediately knocked past our midfield which put us right in the shit and they scored from it. Also, I know Vardy blasted the shit out of the ball but was Davis making himself big? Really? Maybe this is harsh but it almost looks to me like he's trying to get out of the way. Even forgetting the equalizing goal, his performance was nothing short of shambolic. From the moment he missed the cross in the first minute to right through to Vardy's second goal. Our defenders obviously didn't want to knock the ball back to him because they didn't trust him to clear it or play a simple pass which would enable us to build again. Instead, the fullbacks just turned round and usually wafted it off the pitch for a throw-in which meant in the second half in particular, we could never release the pressure. The one time it was knocked back to him in the second half , Vardy gave him a 9 yard start in a 10 yard race and still managed to block the kick. 

I appreciate what Kelvin Davis has done for the club but he is 39 and might pop a hip out every time he moves  In a couple of years he'll be wondering why the world smells of piss and Werthers Originals. Throughout his career both with Saints and with other clubs, he has proved he is not good enough to play in the Premier League and now it is chronic. Gazzaniga has his faults, there is no doubt about that… and he has driven me absolutely nuts in the past, however, he is now miles better than Davis and it should certainly be the second choice keeper. If Stekelenburg had played today we would have won. If Gazzaniga had played today, we probably would've won. Not-so-Super Kelv is not the only factor of course but it is the single biggest factor as to why we didn't win on Saturday. He simply has to have played his last game for Saints now. I assumed that the game we gave him at Manchester City at the end of last season to bring him to 300 games for the club was as far as it would go. That was a sentimental decision but at least I could understand it a bit. There wasn't much riding on that game so why not reward a club stalwart?  There is loads riding on every game at this stage of the season and Kevin Davis should not be playing. He must never play again or else we are just giving points away.  It’s not his fault he’s been selected but the loyalty the club shows to him is damaging.  There will be better keepers playing regularly in League 1 and 2.  I dunno who the Skates have got in goal at the moment but he’ll be better than Davis.  The club has built a squad in which every player is replaceable aside from the goalkeeper.  Stekelenburg is a good No.1 but we have no other goalkeeper on the books who is anywhere near good enough and this is the 4^th season in a row where this has been the case.  We’ve had this problem ever since Boruc was our No.1

Elsewhere, as previously mentioned, Tadic and Mané were terrible and in addition Ryan Bertrand and Big Vic seemed way off the pace. Shall I mention the referee? Let's just say he wasn't doing us any favours in the last 20 minutes where near identical challenges were being committed by both teams but they only seemed to be given one way.

Bollocks, two points dropped. Moving on, we now have a game I am really looking forward to. In my twisted mind, we were going to go to Anfield, win and

a) Brendan smug twat Rogers was going to get sacked,

b) Adam Lallana was going to get substituted after 55 minutes,

c) Tadic was going to tear Clyne a new arsehole,

d) Graziano was going to score a hat-trick whilst Lovren floundered on the ground next to him on all three goals and

e) Lallana was going to come over to the Saints fans at the end of the game to try and apologise for being a fucking thick twat, only to be pelted with Nivea products.

Not all of this can happen now as of course Brendan Rodgers has already been sacked, Lovren is injured and it's very easy to imagine that Lallana won't get much game time under Jurgen Klopp.  I'll just settle for winning the game and putting the first dent in the regime of Anfield's latest Messiah. It is not going to be easy but we have a habit of bouncing back from disappointments so you never know. Keep the faith, in exactly the same way that all the twats that streamed out of St Mary's on 80 minutes didn't do today. I hope the traffic was really really bad anyway and you were late for your dinner.