The Closest Bloke in a Saints Shirt to Notice Dele Alli, is in the Crowd.
Spurs at home and a chance to arrest our recent slump though
we sure as hell could do with weaker opposition to play. Despite getting beaten in the last minute of
their last league game at home to Newcastle, Spurs are having a good
season. They’re probably drawing too
many games but they look like a decent outfit who will do well this year under
the snake Pochettino. I don’t like they
way he left us but that all water under the bridge now – he’s a good manager
and if Spurs stick with him then he’ll do very well. They’re still one Harry Kane injury away from
struggling to score many goals but other than that they look strong.
More water under the bridge is Toby Alderweireld who signed
for them in the summer and has transformed them on his own, into a team that
doesn’t let in many goals, like all who watched Southampton last season knew he
would. The way it all unfolded is still
annoying though and Spurs will continue to be unlikeable whilst Daniel Levy
continues to behave the way he does.
It’s really noticeable how poor Victor Wanyama and Saido Berahino have
been for their respective clubs since the derisory bids and media campaigns
from Spurs happened in the summer. No
doubt it will all crank up again in January.
There hasn’t been much noise out of St Mary’s in the week
other than confirming that Gazzaniga will start in goal again. After that performance against Palace I don’t
think anyone is particularly worried about the prospect for once. The team Ronald is putting out is his first
choice one. Clasie is back in midfield
and he’s the only player that anyone would probably have an issue with. Personally I’d play Romeu but he has to happy
with a place on the bench with Shane Long, who has lost out to Pellè.
There’s an irritating noise in St Mary’s and it’s been
provided by Garmin who have given out these inflated plastic tubes. A lot of kids have got two and are revelling
in banging them together and pissing off everybody over the age of six. It gives the 4 year old who sits behind me
something else to do with his time. He can
either kick my chair or bang his plastic tubes together near the back of my
head. I wonder how many parents will be
letting the kids take those home at the end of the game?
Away we go and with Pochettino well known for his pressing
game, it was nice to see Saints match that with Clasie and Davis snapping
around in midfield and he attackers joining in to hurry Spurs up. Saints created the first chance as Tadic
picked up the ball on the left and his low cross picked out Mané on the edge of
the box and his sidefooted effort was well saved by Lloris. We were all over them for 20 minutes and Mané
again latched onto a bouncing cross and saw his shot deflected over the bar by
Alderweireld who did what he always did and Saints and found himself in the
right place.
You could tell that the pressing wouldn’t last and with
depressing inevitability, Spurs got into the game. Kyle Walker demonstrated the one good part of
his game and got forward, crossing for Alderweireld to head over the bar after
we’d half cleared a corner. Kane had an
effort which Gazza kept out in quite awkward unconventional fashion but it’ll
do.
With 5 to go until half time, Alli picks up the ball and
slips through two half arsed challenges from Clasie and Davis. His through ball to Kane has been made before
Fonte comes launching in and takes him out.
Virgil is over to cover for the captain but plays an airshot and
suddenly Kane is through and on the edge of the box with the ball under control
and just Gazzaniga in front of him. Guess what?
He isn’t going to miss. 1-0 as easy as you like. What a horrific goal from our point of view
and Fonte gets a deserved booking for carting Alli up in the air when the ball
was in a different post code.
We really need to get through to half time now and regroup
but instead of that, Bertrand goes walkabout into midfield and loses the ball
which is switched to Walker who has half the pitch to himself as the full back
has fucked off and no one has covered. A
low cross towards a clearly offside Kane and everyone stops but no flag goes up
and the ball doesn’t go to Kane (so Kane is irrelevant), it goes behind him to Alli
who has come in at the back post. Cédric
doesn’t even know he’s there until he’s taken a touch and knocked it into the
net for 2-0. Pathetic. With the offside rule being as open to
interpretation as it is, rule 1 has to be ‘play to the whistle’. I think my Dad told me to play to whistle
when I was about 5. We might have a
great training ground and facilities and great coaches but we have players who
don’t play to the fucking whistle. It’s
a bit fortunate for Spurs as there is no way Walker was aiming at Alli but you
tend to make your own luck. Alli gambled
and was rewarded... you can afford to gamble as a striker but not as a fucking
defender, all standing there like fucking statues. Half time, arse.
At half time, I’ve decided that we’ve lost but you have to
trot out all that cliché shit to your 11 year old about “if we get an early
goal” and “45 minutes is a long time”. I
don’t think he believes me to be honest.
Undoubted highlight is that I’m stood up with a cup of soup in my right
hand and manage to catch a one of those t-shirts that was fired into the crowd
with my left hand after it rebounded off the roof of the stand. It was a great effort to be fair as if I’d
missed it, it would have undoubtedly smashed my son’s soup out of his hand or
knocked my Dad’s glasses off his face.
Kelvin Davis would have dropped it for sure.
To be fair, we made a bit of an effort at the start of the
second half as Spurs opted for containment but it still took 10 minuntes for
our first effort which came from Pellè who almost scooped a shot out with the
ball under his feet and Lloris caught it quite easily. Last year, Graziano scored a fabulous header
against Spurs but this time he met Cédric’s cross and thumped it wide.
The substitutions were entirely predictable with Tadic and
Davis coming off for Long and Juanmi.
That’ll scare ‘em. My spiel at
half time has obviously not worked as my son voices the opinion that “we aint
gonna score if we play all night”. It’s
rubbish and deflating and even kids notice it.
There is no impact from either sub and then, in another entirely
predictable move, JWP came on for Clasie.
JWP’s first contribution was to get tackled near his own
goal line by Lamela and Spurs sub Carroll was presented with a chance with the whole goal to aim at and
instead picked out Gazza with a back pass type shot. Time went by with us creating nothing and not
threatening until the 91st minute when JWP connected with a sidefoot
effort from 8 yards which should not have given Lloris a prayer but a lack of
pace on the shot gave the keeper time to plunge to his left and make a very
good save low down.
Well that was another shocking pile of depressing shite.
Once again we started pretty well, indicating that the manager had picked the
right players and the right formation but we started dying on about the 20
minute mark and then the two goals in three minutes completely killed the game
and at no point did I ever feel that we had any chance of getting anywhere near
getting back into the game. There is no heart for the fight in this group of
players. At the moment, once things go wrong they are completely fucking
gutless and can never turn it round or even look like doing so.
We had loads of problems out there today and one of them wasn't Gazzaniga as he had no chance with either goal. The Portuguese right hand side of our defence is a fucking nightmare. Cedric is so lightweight that he may as well not be there at times and he completely dozes off and Jose Fonte is playing as badly as he has in any time of his career at Saints. Maybe it's because he's covering his Portuguese mate at right back but he needs to look at himself. His positioning is bad, his tackling is bad and his distribution is appalling. Virgil is spending his entire game covering for Fonte mistakes at the moment and yes, he should've done better with the tackle that he missed on Kane on the first goal but he only had to come out there because Fonte had gone launching in higher up the pitch and taken Alli out. Virgil was okay apart from missing that tackle. Ryan Bertrand went walkabout and lost the ball at the start of the move for the second goal but what the fuck was Cedric doing just watching the ball when Alli was totally free behind him. He was so busy looking at Kane in front of him that I don't think he even fucking realised that Alli was behind him. What options have we got in defence though? If you leave out Cedric and Fonte as they probably deserve to be left out, you're then looking at two of Yoshida, Caulker and Martina to come in and anyone who thinks any combination of those three players would make the defence better is up a fucking tree. When you consider the three alternatives in defence it really makes you realise how bad the summer recruitment was. Oh yes it was bad. Today was the day I realised it fully.
In midfield you cannot play two lightweight midgets and one physically strong player and expect to get away with it against teams like Spurs who have pace and strength all over the midfield. That one is down to the manager. The one key battle today was Big Vic against Dembele and Dembele made Vic look fucking stupid and he is especially fucking stupid if he thinks he would get a game in the Spurs midfield. Fuck off and sit on the bench you sulky twat. As I’ve said before, I do feel for Vic a bit as he’s at his best when just winning the ball and keeping it simple. He’s having to do a lot more than that now because of the deficiencies of others and he doesn;lt look capable of doing it.
We had loads of problems out there today and one of them wasn't Gazzaniga as he had no chance with either goal. The Portuguese right hand side of our defence is a fucking nightmare. Cedric is so lightweight that he may as well not be there at times and he completely dozes off and Jose Fonte is playing as badly as he has in any time of his career at Saints. Maybe it's because he's covering his Portuguese mate at right back but he needs to look at himself. His positioning is bad, his tackling is bad and his distribution is appalling. Virgil is spending his entire game covering for Fonte mistakes at the moment and yes, he should've done better with the tackle that he missed on Kane on the first goal but he only had to come out there because Fonte had gone launching in higher up the pitch and taken Alli out. Virgil was okay apart from missing that tackle. Ryan Bertrand went walkabout and lost the ball at the start of the move for the second goal but what the fuck was Cedric doing just watching the ball when Alli was totally free behind him. He was so busy looking at Kane in front of him that I don't think he even fucking realised that Alli was behind him. What options have we got in defence though? If you leave out Cedric and Fonte as they probably deserve to be left out, you're then looking at two of Yoshida, Caulker and Martina to come in and anyone who thinks any combination of those three players would make the defence better is up a fucking tree. When you consider the three alternatives in defence it really makes you realise how bad the summer recruitment was. Oh yes it was bad. Today was the day I realised it fully.
In midfield you cannot play two lightweight midgets and one physically strong player and expect to get away with it against teams like Spurs who have pace and strength all over the midfield. That one is down to the manager. The one key battle today was Big Vic against Dembele and Dembele made Vic look fucking stupid and he is especially fucking stupid if he thinks he would get a game in the Spurs midfield. Fuck off and sit on the bench you sulky twat. As I’ve said before, I do feel for Vic a bit as he’s at his best when just winning the ball and keeping it simple. He’s having to do a lot more than that now because of the deficiencies of others and he doesn;lt look capable of doing it.
Clasie was actually at the heart of most that was good in
the opening 20 minutes but after that we may as well have taken him off. Davis
was out on the right, I assume to help Cedric out and to get Sadio into the
middle but he was ineffective as well. If you look at the summer recruitment in
the midfield area then we got Clasie who doesn't look fit for purpose for the
Premier League at this stage. The one player I like in there is Romeu and he
needs to play every week from now on. We need a nasty streak in there-someone
who is going to put a foot in. Harrison Reed has to come into the equation as
well. I want players that try for 90 minutes and make contributions for 90
minutes, not ones who fuck off after 25.
As for the strikers, well Graziano is doing exactly what he did last season and dying on his arse as we reach winter. Maybe he's carrying a knock but the fact remains that he's on the pitch and not doing much at the moment except moaning. Tadic is fucking useless for 98% of every match. I don't want that useless twat taking a single corner or free kick from here on in. Why the fuck is Gaston Ramirez not even considered good enough for the bench? With J-Rod injured for fucking ages, the attacking options are Shane Long who is only ever good enough to be a substitute and we have that other masterpiece of summer recruitment, Juanmi.
I remember answering some questions about the summer recruitment at the start of the season and I feel like a complete knob for being positive about it at the time and even being quite positive a few weeks back. I think I swallowed the bullshit from Les Read about how good these players were but the fact is only Romeu and Van Dijk look anywhere near fit for purpose. Still, #WeMarchOn #MyArse
For me, this game was a game where the expectations changed. We are not going to finish in the top half, we are more likely going to be looking and hoping we can find three teams that are worse than us. Maybe I'm being a bit of a drama queen here but it was a day when I finally realised that our squad is just not good enough as we do not have the collective team spirit or fight to get by. Look at bloody Bournemouth at the moment. They do not have players with the same ability as ours but they're a miles better fucking team at the moment because they fucking play like a team both for eachother and for the shirt. Look at the team spirit in sides like Leicester, Crystal Palace, Stoke etc all teams who are going to finish well above us this year. All of these teams have improved their squads whereas we’ve stood still at best. Even fucking Aston Villa and Newcastle are showing more fight than our bunch of gutless wankers at the moment. Maybe it’s time for our lot to realise that they’re not as good as they fucking think they are and it doesn’t matter how great you are as an individual if you don’t play as a team. Maybe they don’t give a shit because they’re all looking for a move somewhere else – well perhaps someone better explain to them that though we are a “showcase” club, you’re not really showcasing your talents. Maybe it’s time for the club to stop making these self-congratulatory videos and realise that if you take your eye off the ball then you will quickly end up back in the shit. All the clever marketing shit in the world and deals with American academies etc won’t make up for crap on the pitch.
Koeman had some harsh words to say in the public about the naive and shambolic nature of our defending. It was good honest stuff but now he needs to deliver on his threat of changing some of the players. Truth is he doesn't have many options at the moment but January is fast approaching and recruitment will once again be the focus and we also need to ship out. It's easy to say what we should have done but watching Toby Alderweireld today made me realise that if we were truly ambitious, we would have sealed his signing in the January of last season and we also would have signed van Dijk to play alongside him in the summer. That is what an ambitious club would have done. We thought we could get by by eventually signing Van Dijk and making do with Calamity Yoshida and a player from the Championship who has been relegated twice in the last two seasons.
Ryan Bertrand also gave an interview where he said we need to focus on what we did wrong in the mad three minutes. Bullshit!. The second half was a complete non-event because Spurs knew they had won the game and just got through it with the minimum of effort. We did absolutely nothing apart from the show a complete lack of fight or guts. The three minutes in question was where the goals went in but what about minutes 20 to 40 when we did next to fuck all and the whole of the second half where we were no threat whatsoever until the 91st minute.
As I said, Spurs won that without looking particularly brilliant themselves, probably because they didn't have to. They coasted through the second half and easily kept us at arms length I have a feeling that if they had needed to win 4-0 then they could have done quite easily. Their keeper and centre backs are very good but they won the game in midfield where Dembele and Ali totally bossed it. Lamela and Erikssen didn't really do much but they still did a fucks sight more than Tadic and Mane.
As for the strikers, well Graziano is doing exactly what he did last season and dying on his arse as we reach winter. Maybe he's carrying a knock but the fact remains that he's on the pitch and not doing much at the moment except moaning. Tadic is fucking useless for 98% of every match. I don't want that useless twat taking a single corner or free kick from here on in. Why the fuck is Gaston Ramirez not even considered good enough for the bench? With J-Rod injured for fucking ages, the attacking options are Shane Long who is only ever good enough to be a substitute and we have that other masterpiece of summer recruitment, Juanmi.
I remember answering some questions about the summer recruitment at the start of the season and I feel like a complete knob for being positive about it at the time and even being quite positive a few weeks back. I think I swallowed the bullshit from Les Read about how good these players were but the fact is only Romeu and Van Dijk look anywhere near fit for purpose. Still, #WeMarchOn #MyArse
For me, this game was a game where the expectations changed. We are not going to finish in the top half, we are more likely going to be looking and hoping we can find three teams that are worse than us. Maybe I'm being a bit of a drama queen here but it was a day when I finally realised that our squad is just not good enough as we do not have the collective team spirit or fight to get by. Look at bloody Bournemouth at the moment. They do not have players with the same ability as ours but they're a miles better fucking team at the moment because they fucking play like a team both for eachother and for the shirt. Look at the team spirit in sides like Leicester, Crystal Palace, Stoke etc all teams who are going to finish well above us this year. All of these teams have improved their squads whereas we’ve stood still at best. Even fucking Aston Villa and Newcastle are showing more fight than our bunch of gutless wankers at the moment. Maybe it’s time for our lot to realise that they’re not as good as they fucking think they are and it doesn’t matter how great you are as an individual if you don’t play as a team. Maybe they don’t give a shit because they’re all looking for a move somewhere else – well perhaps someone better explain to them that though we are a “showcase” club, you’re not really showcasing your talents. Maybe it’s time for the club to stop making these self-congratulatory videos and realise that if you take your eye off the ball then you will quickly end up back in the shit. All the clever marketing shit in the world and deals with American academies etc won’t make up for crap on the pitch.
Koeman had some harsh words to say in the public about the naive and shambolic nature of our defending. It was good honest stuff but now he needs to deliver on his threat of changing some of the players. Truth is he doesn't have many options at the moment but January is fast approaching and recruitment will once again be the focus and we also need to ship out. It's easy to say what we should have done but watching Toby Alderweireld today made me realise that if we were truly ambitious, we would have sealed his signing in the January of last season and we also would have signed van Dijk to play alongside him in the summer. That is what an ambitious club would have done. We thought we could get by by eventually signing Van Dijk and making do with Calamity Yoshida and a player from the Championship who has been relegated twice in the last two seasons.
Ryan Bertrand also gave an interview where he said we need to focus on what we did wrong in the mad three minutes. Bullshit!. The second half was a complete non-event because Spurs knew they had won the game and just got through it with the minimum of effort. We did absolutely nothing apart from the show a complete lack of fight or guts. The three minutes in question was where the goals went in but what about minutes 20 to 40 when we did next to fuck all and the whole of the second half where we were no threat whatsoever until the 91st minute.
As I said, Spurs won that without looking particularly brilliant themselves, probably because they didn't have to. They coasted through the second half and easily kept us at arms length I have a feeling that if they had needed to win 4-0 then they could have done quite easily. Their keeper and centre backs are very good but they won the game in midfield where Dembele and Ali totally bossed it. Lamela and Erikssen didn't really do much but they still did a fucks sight more than Tadic and Mane.
How things change. A
few weeks ago we were unbeaten in 8 games and the results were holding up. The cracks were there already in that we were
playing badly for large portions of matches, even ones we were winning but we
were papering over said cracks. These
cracks have become chasms in a few short weeks though and it’s only by working
hard and being determined and playing as a fucking team that you get out of it. We can get out of it as contrary to what I’ve
already said – we have decent enough players to stay out of trouble but not if
they play with a lack of application and inspiration like they did today, like
they did at Palace, like they did against Liverpool in the cup.
Moving on and oh fucking great we have Arsenal at home. The Premier League is there for Arsenal to lose this season as they will never have a better chance to win it with United, Liverpool and Chelsea all being shit and City being massively inconsistent. Our best chance is Arsenal getting into that mode they sometimes get into where they just pass it about for five minutes with no end product whatsoever. Right now I can't see anything happening other than another spirit crushing home defeat. Happy fucking Christmas. Maybe I’ll feel better about it all come Boxing Day.
Moving on and oh fucking great we have Arsenal at home. The Premier League is there for Arsenal to lose this season as they will never have a better chance to win it with United, Liverpool and Chelsea all being shit and City being massively inconsistent. Our best chance is Arsenal getting into that mode they sometimes get into where they just pass it about for five minutes with no end product whatsoever. Right now I can't see anything happening other than another spirit crushing home defeat. Happy fucking Christmas. Maybe I’ll feel better about it all come Boxing Day.
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