Yoshida Pisses About and Sterling is away...
In the build up to the Manchester City away game, many have
been pointing at our unbeaten away record and looking at Manchester City’s two
defeats in their last two matches and building it up as if it’s an easy win for
us. Bollocks will it be. Their two defeats were a freak result against
Liverpool and a defeat away to Juventus in the Champions League which is hardly
the definition of a crisis. We do have a
sniff because they have their main defensive lynchpin Vincent Kompany out
injured but what is billions of pounds of investment if it’s not to build a
squad with. Whoever is out, they’ll
still have a decent side on the pitch.
An uneventful week for us aside from speculation as to who
was going to play instead of Graziano but there is no choice really as J-Rod
has just had a foot operation so is out for about two months. So, Shane Long it is and I like seeing him
play down the middle. Sure enough, Shane was up front but there were surprises
elsewhere with Romeu in for Clasie, Maya in for Cédric and JWP in for
Tadic. Gaston made the bench, as did
Curacao’s finest, Cuco Martina. City’s
side with all their injuries and all that, featured a front three, two of whom
cost £50 million and the other being Sergio Aguero. I imagine that the midfield of Yaya, Delph
and Fernandinho cost them a bit as well.
The chance for us was getting at the back line which had the slow di
Michelis, the thuggish Otamendi and in goal was Willy Caballero as Joe Hart was
injured from dropping a bottle of Head & Shoulders on his foot, allegedly.
As the game starts, our formation looks very lopsided with
Steve Davis on the left but it’s not clear if he’s one of the attacking three
or making up a midfield four. Formations
are irrelevant though when you give the ball away with metronomic regularity
like we do. City swarm all over us and
Sterling forces Stekelenburg into a save before a backpass and a momentary
panic before Maarten decides against diving on it and toe pokes it clear. Aguero makes his first contribution soon
after and Big Vic scythes him down on the edge of the box. A clear yellow card tackle if ever there was
one but Roger East says no and it’s just a free kick. Up steps Kolarov and smacks it against the
bar. It bounces down and everyone piles
in but Stekelenburg again does well to calmly claw the ball back from the
line. Stekelenburg’s at it again,
rusging out to block Aguero after some more shambolic giveaway passing, this
time from Romeu.
It’s just a matter of time before they score and having
allowed City to load the gun, we take it off them and shoot ourselves in the
arse. Maya dawdles with it out at right
back and decides to try and take on Sterling.
Predictably he loses it and Sterling penguins away, into the box and
squares for de Bruyne to tap into an empty net. Well played Maya you fucking
idiot. They can’t score if the ball’s in
row Z for fucks sake.
We are now a complete shambles and a header comes in from
Fernandinho after a corner and it’s expertly turned round the post by
Davis. Not Kelvin Davis – he’s not on
the pitch and if he had been it would have gone in… Steven Davis has stuck an
arm out and deflected it wide. It’s a
penalty and a red card but not today and we’ve got away with one there. We make the most of the reprieve and defend
the corner like wankers and it falls to Delph on the edge of the box. He hits it and it flicks off of Virgil and
sends Maarten the wrong way. 2-0… it
should be about 5-0.
We’ve been complete shite but then out of nowhere, some hope
as Virgil lopes forward, plays a 1-2, crops a shoulder past a defender and
hammers in a shot which beats Caballero all ends up but pings off the bar and
away. A bit late but we’re now playing
with Big Vic and Shane Long both testing out Caballero but he’s comfortable
enough.
Just before half time, José Fonte goes down and doesn’t get
up. There’s a bit of fuss in the
technical area but eventually we bring on a sub. I have this horrible moment when I think that
as Yoshida is having a mare, we might move him and bring on bloody Martina but
no, Caulker is on. At half time it
occurs to me that we are resting players for Wednesday’s cup game against
Liverpool. Cédric and Clasie are two who
Ron thinks struggle with three games in a week and I’m sure that Tadic will be
back as well on Wednesday. This wouldn’t
be a problem if the squad players had stepped up but Yoshida’s has been shite,
Romeu has looked lost and then you have JWP who has hardly touched the ball and
has been completely irrelevant to the game.
Also, it goes down as another 25 minute spell where we just haven’t
played at all to be added to the Leicester and Bournemouth 2nd
halves and the Man United middle hour.
Tadic has obviously had enough rest for Wednesday’s game so
he’s on for Romeu with Steve Davis moving back and suddenly we look like a
team. A break down the right and Davis
is taken out off the ball by Kolarov.
Play goes on and eventually we cock it up but the ref brings it back for
the free kick. I don’t think I’ve ever
seen an advantage played for that long before going back to the original
infringement. It was like a play in
rugby union. Kolarov wasn’t sin binned
however but even better, Tadic’ quick free kick caught Sterling sleeping, Mané
fired a cross and Long rose at the back stick to bury the header. Game on!
Five minutes later it should be all square. Tadic picks it up on the left and drives
goalwards. There’s some real half arse
tackling by Sagna and di Michelis and suddenly he just has Caballero to
beat. It should be a right foot slot
into the far corner or a left foot blast across the keeper but instead he tries
to scoop it over him and Caballero stands up long enough to claw it away from
over his head. The rebound falls to Long
who gets a shot in but in true Steven Davis fashion, Fernandinho sticks out an
arm and deflects it wide. That’s a
penalty and a red card too but the ref is at least consistent and we get
nothing. I can’t get over Tadic’
attempted finish though. Just hit it
man!
As we reach the 70th minute we are committing men
forward and then city break on us. We
have a chance to win it back but JWP puts in a horrible limp tackle and de
Bruyne is off and away. The ball
eventually finds it’s way to the penguin who does his best Happy Feet
impression away from Maya who looks like he’s carrying a sumo wrestler on his
back. Back to de Bruyne who picks out
Kolarov on our right and all our defence (Maya specifically) has fucked off and
Kolaraov, all on his own on our right, drives it across and in off the far
post. Great finish… wanker.
Talking of wankers – Yaya Toure. He’s got a shite attitude – only interesting
in running forward and shooting and as soon as you get around him he just hits
the deck and expects a free kick.
There’s no I in team but there is one in Selfish Twat. Fernando is on for Delph and then they
replace their ‘cheap’ striker Aguero with Wilfried Bony who cost about £30
million I think.
Yaya takes another dive – tosser. He’s always talked about like he’s one of the
best players in the world but then one of the genuinely best players in the
world comes on as David Silva comes on for The Penguin. Just what you want when you’re 3-1 down and
we respond to their bringing on of the mercurial Spaniard by bringing on Juanmi
for JWP, replacing one irrelevant player with another. It all peters out like you knew it would
before the ref puts us all out of our misery.
I fell like I’ve written this before but you can’t just play
for a portion of a game and expect to get something out of it. You certainly won’t get anything out of Manchester
City at the Etihad if you present them with a 2-0 start. The whole gameplan has to be around keeping
it tight and not doing anything stupid but the message obviously didn’t get
through. There were a number who were
atrocious in that opening 20 minutes but Maya Yoshida in particular has killed
us, like he killed us in the Man United home game. Just clear the fucking thing man. Or whatever
that is in Japanese.
I’m sure that Wednesday’s team selection will prove that
Ronald has rested players today. I’m
also sure that in the aftermath of this game that he’ll get slammed for it but
he can’t win. If he’d played Cédric
today and Maya on Wednesday we’d have heard all the ‘disrespecting the cup’
stuff and ‘giving up on Wembley’ complaints.
I’d be amazed if any of Cédric, Tadic, Pelle and Clasie don’t start on Wednesday.
Back to today though and today proved again that having Big
Vic and Romeu in the same side doesn’t seem to work. Picking them together was I assume to make us
difficult to play through but the pair of them kept giving the fucking ball
away so it all went to shit and it was no surprise when Romeu was hooked at
half time. You can have one player in
midfield who is not the greatest passer if he just plays it simple to someone
who can pass it well. If you have two
then it appears you have twice as much chance of just giving it away. As said before, this should be the end of the
Maya at right back experiment but we may have to persevere with that
occasionally until Cédric learns to play without a crash helmet. I guess Martina may prove to be something
other than completely out of his depth but I can’t see it. JWP is reminding me more and more of Matt
Oakley with every passing game at the moment.
You know he’s got ability but too often the game just completely passes
him by. One of these free kicks has to
hit the net soon and he has to learn to tackle or at least get in the way. He’s learning in the Premier League which is
tough when you compare to a recently departed midfielder and consider that
Morgan Schneiderlin was similarly lightweight and ineffective at a young age
but in League 1 you don’t have to be brilliant every game. It just isn’t working at the moment though.
On the positive side, today proved how good a keeper Maarten
Stekelenburg is. I’ve seen some really
quite stupid articles which point the finger at him but he’s been solid all
season and showed up well today. In my
opinion we haven’t missed Fraser Forster at all. Our other loan, Stephen Caulker looked decent
when he came on today as well and will surely have moved above Yoshida in the
pecking order now.
Referee Roger East had an odd game today. He was clearly trying to let the game flow
and didn’t want to book people which is laudable but I don’t think there’s a
Saints fan anywhere who would not have booked both Big Vic and Romeu in the
first 10 minutes. Vic’s tackle on Aguero
in particular took me back to the days of Paul Wotton where the ball was in
another post code when the tackle landed.
The ref also missed two clear penalties for handball, one for each side
which at laest show consistency I guess.
Strange to think that if he’d given our one and not theirs then we would
probably have been 2-2 with half an hour to play which would have given us a
sniff of getting a result we didn’t deserve.
To complete the ref’s odd game, the advantage rule as played for our
goal was more like the Rugby Union interpretation. So – undefeated away record gone and two
defeats in a row. Moving on…
Liverpool come to town on Wednesday for the Capital One Cup
Quarter Final. Of course, all the focus
will be on them and their German Messiah - Not here though. I’ll be focussing on Nivea Twat Adam Lallana
shitting himself when he gets booed and hopefully on us reaching our first semi-final
since most of the people who sit near me in the Family Centre were born.
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