6-1 and Still a Fucking Twat
When the draw was made for the Capital One Cup Quarter Final
and we got Liverpool, it initially looked like a decent draw but since then of
course, Jurgen Klopp has got them playing pretty well. Not as well as the media hype would have you
believe and it’s a bit early for many Liverpool fans to be proclaiming him as
the new Shankly or Paisley but he’s undoubtedly had an effect. It remains to be seen whether he’ll realise
that Milner and Henderson are both complete shit and that Lovren and Lallana
are both complete twats – if he masters that then I’ll believe he’s a great
manager. They are playing well though
and a 4-1 win at Manchester City a week ago made many sit up and notice. I thought I might stop hating them as much
once that slimy smug tosser Rodgers was sacked but whilst Lallana is still
there and I’m still confronted with that fucking awful Nivea advert on my TV
then it’ll still be a team I want to beat, right up there with Spurs.
The advert… well it starts with some beard stroking and then
we then see a montage of things that are hitting Lallana in the face but it’s
not realistic because Brendan Rodgers balls are not featured. What we get is a granny closing in for a snog
which couldn’t have been in there is Wayne Rooney was in the advert. Cut to a fake changing room scene and Coutinho
is kind of in the background because he has some sort of self awareness and he
wants to get paid but he doesn’t want to make himself look a complete
helmet. No such worries for Skrtel, who
rubs Nivea into his arms like he’s about to stick his arms up the back end of a
cow and deliver a calf and we then see Adam stroking his beard again and he’s
enjoying it just a little bit too much. Cut
to the money shot of Adam holding a pot of Nivea to the camera with the other
two in the background. Lallana couldn’t
look more of a knob if he tried. The
biggest surprise is that he’s made it through to the end of the advert and not
been replaced by another player two-thirds of the way through.
Anyhow, back to the football and it’s the Capital One Cup
Quarter Final and it has to be decided tonight with penalties if we have
to. If truth be told I’m not too
optimistic, given our alarming habit of having 20-30 minutes off in the middle
of games. We will be up for it though,
of that there is no doubt and I hope the fans are too. In the eyes of the national media, Saints are
merely there to provide opposition for Liverpool and Klopp who really are the
media darlings who are currently falling over themselves to report Klopp’s every
breath, mainly centred on whether Coutinho will be fit or not.
Ronald’s pre-match press conference tells us that José Fonte
is not going to be fit and that means that Caulker starts. Other than that I expect to see a proper
first choice starting XI with Tadic, Pellè, Clasie and Cédric all in the side
with JWP, Long, Romeu and Yoshida all on the bench. The other three quarter finals were all
completed yesterday with Everton, Man City and Stoke all getting through –
three teams that we’ve played and lost to this season.
Correct on the team front and it looks like Liverpool have
left a few out. Sturridge is playing
though, as is Niveatwat. Pirlo is in
midfield – no wait that’s Joe Allen with a beard. At the back they have Lovren who we could do
with a horrendous mistake from. I’m
finding all this out from my phone as I walk to the ground having been delayed
in traffic and not being able to park the car.
I end up over in a multi-storey near the Ocean Village cinema and this
is only relevant because as we got to the ground and through the turnstiles
which had a ridiculously large queue outside, there’s a cheer. It’s obvious that someone has scored but not
obvious who from the volume and it’s not until Sadio Mané’s name is read out
that I realise we’ve taken 39 seconds to take the lead. Well, they have a slightly makeshift line up
so hitting them hard and early was certainly in the gameplan. For the record, Tadic put Bertrand away on
the left and his cross dropped to the back post where Sadio arrived to head
past Bogdan. Looked great from where I
was in the Chapel concourse.
It’s looking good straight afterwards. Tadic has the full back Randall on toast and
Lovren and Skrtel can’t handle Pellè at all.
We look like we mean business and we’re going to get a second goal
pretty quickly. A header from Big Vic is
clawed away by the keeper and Tadic is cynically blocked off by Randall for the
first yellow card of the game. Robbie
Madley is the referee… we had him at Chelsea when we had a mixture of excellent
refereeing (the Falcao dive) and gross incompetence (Sadio’s booking for diving
when hacked over twice and Virgil not given a pen when Ivanovic ripped his
shirt off). Davis then fired over and after
10 minutes, the tide began to turn as Liverpool began knocking it about. It looked like one of our slacking off
periods was about to happen and it did – we sat back and let them dictate the
game.
Allen clipped a ball over the top to Sturridge whose control
was shite and it ran towards the right back position. Sturridge picked it up, Caulker didn’t get
close enough and then showed Sturridge onto his preferred left foot and he
smashed it past Stekelenburg for Liverpool to score with their first shot… cue
the wanker dance in front of the Saints fans in the corner. Don’t injure yourself doing that you twat. Five minutes later they have their second
shot as Can put a great ball through and Sturridge was in acres. He had so much space that I thought he must
be offside but sadly not, it was just shit defending and bang, 2-1 down. Our midfield is hopeless. Big Vic is doing his thing but Clasie has
curled up and died. Liverpool are
putting him under pressure and he’s disappeared.
We had a half shout for a penalty for handball but I don’t
know why anyone even gets excited for those these days. There was certainly no way Madley was going
to give it. In general though, Liverpool
were now in complete control. Niveatwat
came over to the Chapel / Kingsland corner to take his second corner of the
game (the first had sailed over every one and out for a throw). This one’s better and it’s half cleared to
Moreno who smashes it hard and low and it flicks off a player in the penalty
area (Origi) and 3-1. Fuck off. It’s
nearly 4-1 right on half time as a cross comes in from our left and Niveatwat
has a free header from 4 yards but luckily, Clasie appears and makes his one
contribution of the half to brilliantly hook it away. Niveatwat scoring right in front of me would
have been a bit much to bear. Sometimes
you know at half time when a game is done and this is one such day. We’ve been fucking crap for 35 minutes and
deserve to be 3-1 down.
Half time is spend pondering what we can do to get back into
it but the fact is that the 11 that are out there is our best available. Could bring Juanmi or Martina on I
guess. As it is we change formation and
go with 3 at the back with Big Vic in between Caulker and Virgil. I can see this maybe working against a weaker
side who are sitting back and not attacking much but not today. It looks like Bertrand is in midfield and
Tadic is a kind of left wing back… this can only end well.
We look a bit interested for 5 minutes but Liverpool are
taking it quite easy and still dominating possession. We’ve got fuck all in midfield now and Joe
Allen is looking like Zidane, finding space all over the place. On the hour mark, Sturridge goes off and Ibe
comes on and we replace Clasie and Cedric with JWP and Long. Well – might as well get beat by loads than
by 3-1, replacing a lightweight midfielder with a lightweight midfielder and a
full back with a striker. It nearly
works as Tadic gets in another cross and Long can’t seem to get off the ground
as it slides off his head and wide. The
next goal is either going to make it interesting or kill it stone dead and
predictably it’s the latter as Ibe puts a good ball through to Origi and the
man who has done absolutely nothing his entire Liverpool career, creams it into
the roof of the net from the edge of the box giving Maarten no chance at all. Four fucking one.
Oh look, five fucking one as Moreno goes down the left,
impeded by absolutely no fucker, crosses and there’s Ibe with all the time in
the world to control it and smash it past the keeper. All it needs is a Nivetwat goal to round it
off and has a go but slices it horribly wide.
People are streaming out of the ground and whilst usually this boils my
piss, today it hard to be too harsh on the deserters.
Damage limitation as Romeu comes on for Davis and maybe it
did limit the damage with just the one more goal with Origi completing a
hat-trick with a free header from a cross by a teenage substitute who had run
round Caulker like he wasn’t fucking there .
Fucking garbage.
In some ways it’s easier to take than losing 2-1 in the last
minute but that was right up in the ‘hard to swallow’ stakes. We all crapped on about a move to Liverpool
being a sideways move for all our players – anyone think that now? Now that they haven’t got a retard running
the side they look pretty good and even previously bad players look
decent. From tonight’s line up, Skrtel,
Lovren, Moreno, Allen, Can, Lallana & Origi (to name but 7) all look twice
the players they looked under Rodgers.
Make no mistake, Liverpool were very good and very clinical with their
finishing but we made them look like Barcelona with a display that was as bad
as you could ever wish to see. Origi’s
hat-trick and the final score put me in mind of a game against Spurs in ’95
when we were ahead and then conceded 6 with Ronny Rosenthal scoring a
hat-trick. Neither Rosenthal or Origi
had done anything with their respective clubs to suggest what was coming but it
came against Saints. Is it a freak
result? Maybe, but we were really bad.
I watch The True Geordie videos on You Tube every week and
the recurring theme as Newcastle lurch from one heavy defeat to another is that
the Toon fans don’t need a team that wins but they do need a team that
tries. I’ve never been able to level
that criticism at Saints before but tonight there was large parts of that game
where we didn’t try. Everyone looked
energetic when we had the ball but it’s when you haven’t got it that you notice
who can and who can’t be bothered.
Pretty much the whole game was a disaster after the first 10
minutes. The midfield disappeared and
from that point on, Liverpool pissed it.
You can point fingers at virtually everyone including the manager (who
at least acknowledged his failings).
What the fuck was going on in the second half? I understand the fact that it’s a cup game and
you have to go for it but you have to have to have a bit of brain about
it. If you’re going to move Big Vic to
the back then you are taking our one midfielder with any strength out of the
midfield. Surely then you have to bring Romeu on or else what’s going to
happen? I’d love to know what
instructions were given to Bertrand.
Where the hell was he playing? He
clearly didn’t know and was one of the worst at not being arsed when we lost
the ball.
Was Tadic, a player who doesn’t defend, really at left wing
back? Does Vic have any clue about
marking players? The amount of space
that Origi had in the second half suggests not.
When playing with 3 centre backs, surely they have too be relatively
close together, not miles apart. Caulker is passable, just about, maybe... as a
centre back in a back four but due to a lack of cover at right back, was kind
of playing as the right centre back in the three and also at right back with
loads of space around him and he doesn’t have much pace and has the turning
circle of The Titanic and they exploited it massively. Mind you, he was awful in the first half as
well, especially on the first goal. Get
close, don’t let him turn, show him onto his weaker foot. Any of those would have done but no, back
off, let him turn and send him onto his favourite foot... bang!. Clasie showed another deficiency in his game
today, playing like a 12 year old in a mans game. Liverpool put him under pressure and he just
disappeared. Sure he’s a good passer but
he’s got to show it and show more desire to get on the ball and influence the
game or else he’s a waste of a shirt.
Why did we switch off yet again after starting well? It’s like we have a collection of players
with the memory span of a goldfish. They
can remember what they’re supposed to be doing for a short time and then they
just start wandering about with no plan and no clue. After the first 10 when we were all over them
we went back to long ball up to Pellè... boom! Tadic & Bertrand stopped
taking on the already booked novice full back who would almost certainly have
been sent off if we’d kept running at him? Why stop attacking the obvious
weakness? Everything should have gone
down that side, much like how Liverpool pinpointed the massive space around
Caulker in the 2nd half.
Positives.... err, none!
I guess it proved how good José Fonte is and I guess it proves to the
board that we’re not as good as all the #wemarchon cringe bollocks stuff
suggests we are. However, I did smile
when Niveatwat, displaying his usual lack of self-awareness and horrific PR
fuckwittery, tried to go and applaud the Northam at the end of the game. Not a good idea when you’ve just won 6-1 and
everyone’s pissed off anyway and he got a predictable response. It might have had more chance of being accepted
if Liverpool had lost Adam.
On a day where stories hit the papers with Ronald hinting
that the ‘sell expensive buy cheap’ policy was not sustainable long term, it’s
worth having a ponder on what happens this summer when no doubt, Big Vic and
Sadio Mané will be off. We’ll probably
get about £40 million for the pair and what will we do with it? With the money from the new TV deal kicking
in as well, another summer of cheap buys is not going to go down too well – not
least with Ronald. Of course, spending
big does not always bring results (Ramirez, Osvaldo). We have a slightly deeper squad now but the
quality of the starting XI is down.
Thoughts of improving on last season seem somewhat fanciful today, to
say the least.
However, on Saturday we have Villa at home. A win in that one will make things feel very
different. They are properly in complete
disarray so it should be a great game.
Personally I’d like to see Harrison Reed brought into the side to add
some bite into the midfield. That I think
is our problem area as no combination of any three players has looked entirely
convincing all season so why not give him a go.
Part of being a Saints fan is dealing with the disappointments and part
of it now is dealing with horrendous exits from Cup competitions with bottle
job performances like this one. Getting
beaten by Sheffield United at this stage last season was pretty bad and an
abysmal performance and you could argue that though it’s Liverpool and not a
League 1 side, we’ve surpassed ourselves tonight.
Fucking rubbish.
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