Premier League Match 12 - Sunderland 0 Southampton 1

Ronald laughs at those who Question the Starting XI

A few weeks ago, our list of upcoming fixtures included matches against the managerial might of Bellend Sherwood , Cock Rodgers and Dick Advocaat.  By the time the games had come round and the opposition were faced with the proposition of playing Southampton, they sacked the said managers and replaced them.  For Bellend, Cock and Dick, read Caretaker, Klopp and Fat Sam.  The result of these changes is of course us having to contend with new manager bounce.  It didn’t do much for Villa or Liverpool and now it’s Sunderland’s turn to have a go.

Sunderland are one of those Premier League clubs, like Villa who appear to have been collecting incredibly average players.  Sunderland’s specialty has been players from Big Clubs who were never that good anyway and are either too old and on the way down like Wes Brown, John O’Shea, Younes Kaboul and Jermain Defoe… or they were brought into Big Clubs and because they weren’t the finished article, said big clubs couldn’t be arsed to develop them.  Players like DeAndre Yedlin (Spurs), Fabio Borini & Sebastian Coates (Liverpool), Adam Johnson & Jack Rodwell (Man City) and Patrick van Aanholt (Chelsea). They have a couple of decent ones in Yann M’vila and Jeremain Lens but for every one of those there’s a shithouse like Lee Cattermole and Seb Larsson.  Every time we play Sunderland I make some reference to Larsson’s ‘confront the referee’ face, looking like he’s licking piss off a stinging nettle and whoops, I did it again.  And now they have Fat Sam who has started with a 1-0 defeat at West Brom, a referee assisted 3-0 win at home to Newcastle when they got played off the park and last week, a 6-2 dicking at Everton.  After that result, I’m guessing we’ll get park the bus, long ball performance today.

All is more or less well in Saints world.  Today we have to deal with Big Vic being suspended and we still have injuries to the back up strikers but Shane Long is back in training so it shouldn’t be too long before he returns though I’m sure he’s aiming at the Ireland play-off game next week.  Despite the lack of new injury concerns, I was still a bit alearmed witht eh team selection with Maya being preferred to Cédric at right back but the real shock was JWP being preferred in midfield to Romeu which means a midfield three of JWP, Clasie and Steve Davis – lightweight or what.  The bench looks horrific too… we have a very old man in a goalkeeper kit with his helper, we have a centre back in Caulker, a right back in Cédric and a defensive midfielder in Romeu.  The attacking options are Juanmi who you know will come on and do nothing and Ryan Seager who you know will not come on.  The one remaining place which should have been filled by Gaston, instead has gone to Martina, giving us two specialist right backs – well, you can never have too many right backs.  For Sunderland, surprisingly, Lens and Defoe are on the bench, Cattermole is injured which means he’s given up before the game instead of giving up after half an hour like he usually does.  Larsson is nowhere, I assume licking piss of a stinging nettle or chewing a wasp.

Sunderland kick off, knock it back to centre back and hoooooooof up to Fletcher, who loses it against Virgil and there’s no one with 30 yards to help him out.  Wonderful stuff.  We settle down and play some decent possession stuff but don’t really create a chance until 15 minutes in when Clasie swings a ball out towards Tadic whose header puts Pellè in on the left nad his superb back heel is right into Tadic path.  He tries to pass it into the corner but the giant Pantillimon stops it with his foot.  A decent chance gone.

Clasie is controlling things, just picking the ball up front the defenders and spreading it wide again to Tadic.  His cross takes a deflection and eventually falls to Mané whose half volley is beaten out again by the keeper.

Sunderland really are bad up front.  Fletcher is getting no change out of Virgil and José and the players supporting him, Watmore and Toivanen and not getting involved.  Toivanen eventually gets on the ball and in a real ‘what the fuck was that’ moment, slices a shot at the corner flag.  Utter filth.  A Saints break is halted y a cynical pull back from Johnson and he gets cautioned – not for the first time in his life though usually it’s by the Police rather than a referee.

Half time arrives and it’s been both a good and frustrating half.  We’ve been the better side by a mile and the only one playing any football but it’s still 0-0 and we haven’t really looked like scoring.  The longer it stays 0-0, the more likely I think it is that they’ll sneak a goal like they always do when we play up here and nick it.

Borini is on for the hopeless Toivanen but it does little to change the pattern of the game with Mané having our first effort of the second half with a drive from 25 yards being beaten out by Lurch in goal for Sunderland.  If anything we’re more dominant in midfield with the three midgets running the game.  There’s no pressure being put on them and they can just free Mané and Tadic at will.  Tadic is always getting his cross in and we win corner after corner.  At every corner, Virgil is being wrestled by Billy Jones and it’s ridiculous.  He’s almost got both arms round him and both his feet off the ground like a small child hanging onto their Dad.  In the book of Mike Jones this is ok though.  Virgil’s too nice – he should be moaning like a bastard at the referee so that next time at least he’ll have a fair chance of getting to the ball.

Another great chance as JWP, again under no pressure, finds Tadic who crosses.  Mané gets onto the end of it, beats a defender in the box and sees his shot blocked before Graziano has another shot blocked for a corner.  Another corner, José flicks it goalwards and Yedlin clears off the line as Sadio steamed in. Sunderland have a rare break which ends with Watmore passing the ball straight to Stekelenburg but then it’s business as usual.  The usual like up between the unpressured JWP and Tadic, a cross, a clearance by Kaboul and Steve Lampard Davis shoots past the Lurch, only for Coates to get back on the line and clear it.  Bastard.

You feel it has to happen soon and another good build up involving Fonte and all the midfielders sees Tadic play Bertrand in on the ‘underlap’ and M’Vila makes one of those decisions which makes you wonder if there’s any judgment at all in his head and launches in at Bertrand who knocks it past him and gets carted over. Penalty – even in the book of Mike Jones.  I’m a little more confident in Tadic these days from the spot and he doesn’t disappoint with a perfect well struck penalty into the inside of the net giving the Lurch no chance even though he went the right way.

Mysteriously, Fat Sam replaces Fletcher with Rodwell and straight from kick off we appear to have switched off and are taken aback by Sunderland passing the ball on the ground.  They create an opening for Johnson and his cross eventually finds Borini who hits it first time but Stekelenburg is alert and claws it away from the near post top corner. The resulting corner is headed backwards and hits Maya on the back/shoulder as he challenges.  Half arsed penalty shouts, piss off.  Defoe is on for Sunderland, replacing Gomez who has done nothing and Saints bring on Romeu for Clasie and Juanmi for Mané..

We have just one more moment to worry about as Virgil commits an unnecessary foul on Borini on the edge of the box and up steps Noncin’ Johnson and curls it just over the bar.  The rest of the game is played out in relative comfort and there appear to be no belief from Sunderland that they can back into it.  Caulker puts in an appearance in the 90^th minute, replacing Tadic and that’s just about it.  Comfortable.

Well we got there in the end and that's just fine and dandy, even though we needed a penalty to do it. As a Saints fan for 40 years, I have never once moaned about the nature of a victory and I am not about to start now. I remember a series of one nil wins under Ian Branfoot, achieved with terrible football but the bottom line was that they were 1-0 wins and we got three points and we didn't get relegated that year. We really should have won a lot more comfortably today but bearing in mind our usual result at Sunderland, I'll take it.

We played pretty well today until the final third where there seemed to be a certain something lacking. Sunderland barely troubled us in defence at all. I remember one save from Stekelenburg which came straight after we scored but other than that, Sunderland did absolutely nothing and were basically, as the chant goes, fucking shit.

There's nothing quite like watching a Fat Sam team launching the ball up to a centre forward from 70 yards away and the centre forward has no one within 30 yards of him. I'm not a great fan of Stephen Fletcher and I don't think he's a particularly good player but he had absolutely no chance today and he must've been really pleased when he got substituted. The funny thing is, Fat Sam will probably turn it round as he always seems to. Ask any Sunderland fan whether they'd take a few 1-0 wins now.  Just when you think that the dinosaur managers are going out of the game, Fat Sam gets another job, Neil Warnock finds employment again and you just know that Redknapp is sitting there hoping Bournemouth keep losing.  There must be some sort of managerial Jurassic Park lab out there somewhere which brainwashes club owners into continually employing these fossils.

I was really concerned when I saw that JWP was replacing Big Vic and I couldn't understand Yoshida's selection either. I guess it's a lesson to me that Ronald knows best. JWP's inclusion enabled us to dominate possession of the ball in midfield and even when we lost it we soon got it back as Sunderland just launched it and Maya at right back was the right choice because he is good in the air. Sure, we lost a bit going forward without Cedric and Mané seemed to struggle a bit due to no full back overlapping and giving him a bit more space and another option for a pass. You wouldn't expect a midget lightweight midfield of JWP, Clasie and Davis to be effective against a Fat Sam team but as today proved, you need your height and strength at the back to deal with the air raids. There’s no need to be trying too much to win the ball in midfield because Sunderland are going to be launching it and your centre backs can just pick the ball up so why not put your best 3 passers in midfield.  At the back, Jose and particularly Virgil, were superb. It was just a battle for them against Fletcher but they held strong when Defoe came on. Now, I hate Defoe, as he is a horrible little shit, he used to play for Pompey, he used to play for Spurs and I feared the worst when he came on but the worst was what he came up with as I don't remember him even touching the ball in the 20 or so minutes he was on for.

Big Ron was rightly pleased with the performance and the ‘total domination’ of the game whilst acknowledging that we should have won by more.  Fat Sam had a go at clutching at straws with the Yoshida penalty incident but he didn’t even sound very convincing at that and he did acknowledge that we were by miles the better side.  Looks like the Fat One has his work cut out this year.

So, another international break and we sit seventh in the league which we would certainly have settled for at the start of the season. We are above Liverpool and miles above Chelsea so life is pretty good. Next up we have Stoke at home and then the fixtures get interesting with a visit to Manchester City and Arsenal and Tottenham coming to St.Marys... all coming in the next six games. Yes it’s tough games and we may conceivably might lose a couple but look at it this way, we could be top of the league after that little lot.