Premier League Match 18 - Southampton 1 Tottenham 4

Explain This One Please Ref?

The Christmas fixture congestion has been in the news and a league table has been published regarding how long each team has got to play its three Christmas and New Year games.  Needless to say – we’ve been shafted with 3 games in 6 days, Wednesday, Saturday, Monday.  Chelsea for example have Monday, Saturday, Wednesday, so an extra two days rest for the 2^nd and 3^rd games.  Fair isn’t it.  We have Spurs at home today followed by West Brom on Saturday who will have had an extra days rest and Everton on Monday who will also have had an extra days rest.  Good old level playing field brought to you by the Premier League and Sky.  Cheers.

Spurs – we beat them last year at White Hart Lane at the end of the season when they were on the beach but usually we get stuffed by them, usually with us contributing greatly to our own downfall with a shocking back pass or calamitous defensive error.  We have returning people of course today with Mauricio Pochettino and Big Vic and Spurs have been decent this season without tearing up any trees.  They are however firmly ensconced in the top 6 of the league in this season of two distinct divisions within the Premier League.

Spurs players I don’t like (when they’re playing for Spurs) include Danny Rose who is a good player but a horrible little shit and that’s a description that could be applied to Dele Alli as well.  Then there’s Jan Vertonghen who is a complete thug and our old mate Toby Alderweireld – fantastic footballer but like Koeman, pretended to be an honourable man but turned out to be nothing of the sort.

We change a few from the Bournemouth game with Romeu returning from suspension in place of Reed and JWP replacing the injured Clasie.  The only other change sees Davis start ahead of Hojbjerg.  Spurs are as you'd expect aside from Alderweireld being injured and replaced with Dier.

We tear into them from the kick off – Boufal has a run and beats a player before laying it offto Bertrand who is trashed by Big Vic. Free kick to us and up steps JWP with a perfect in-swinger and up goes Virgil above Vertonghen and nods it past Lloris for 1-0 before Spurs have touched the ball.  Get the fuck in there and another £5 million gets added to the made up figures that the papers are spouting about his transfer fee.

Spurs are clearly rattled and we keep up the pace.  Vic tries to play out of defence in exactly the way he did for us when we all shat ourselves and he gives it away and José and Davo both have shots blocked.  We eventually work it down the left with Davo and Cedric before Redmond has a dart and hits a cross shot inches wide of Lloris’ far post.  It looked a fuck sight closer on the replay on the big screen than it did at the time.  More great play as Berrtand megs Walker and he’s off, a low cross and the ball gets half blocked in the middle and Vertonghen gets a boot to it ahead of J-Rod.  This is an interesting challenge to say the last from the thug.  When you see the replay he clearly sticks his hand in J-Rod’s face and scratches it, in the same way he did to Fernando Torres a few years back.  Vertonghen is a horrible fucker.

Spurs finally get a foothold and start to pass it about.  We halp them by sitting back and letting them do it.  It’s infuriating as we’re virtually running backwards all of a sudden like someone has sounded the retreat.  We have the back four and the wingers, Boufal and Redmond are also back.  The midfielders aren’t getting near the Spurs midfield and it’s horrible to watch.  After a minute or so, Spurs work it wide to Sissoko whose cross, hits Redmond’s back and loops over Fonte and falls perfectly for Dele Alli to nod into the top corner.  Bollocks.  One shot, one goal, large slice of luck with the cross.  You have to ask why Redmond was in the right back position with Cedric inside him.

As the ‘back 6’ formation has failed to keep us in the lead, we inexplicably decide to keep playing that way and it’s all Spurs.  We try and play out and lose it and then it’s full scramble defence.  Romeu covers for Virgil who is upfield but no one covers for Romeu and so Eriksen has a free shot from the edge of the box which he balloons.  There’s almost a fucking nightmare as Big Vic twinkle toes into the penalty area and past Virgil but José knows the shit he’s going to get if Vic scores so throws himself in the way.

We just need to get to half time at 1-1.  J-Rod is not getting a sniff of the ball up front and when Boufal gets it, he’s so deep that when he beats someone, there is no one he can pass to so he has to beat the man again and then either loses it or gets crowded out.  Still, we make it to half time all square and surely Claude is going to sort this shit out.

He doesn’t.  Well, if he does then no one is listening as it’s all Spurs again after the restart with us really not doing much to stop them, paralysed with fear.  It’s easy as you like as a Walker chip over the top is hacked behind by Fonte and from Eriksen’s corner, Romeu loses Kane who crashes a header into the near top corner for 2-1.  No chance for Fraser, shite marking and this is horrible.

We plug away for another ten minutes without any conviction at all and it gets exciting when Walker trashes through Bertand and we get a free kick in a decent area.  Jwp tosses it in, it’s headed away and Spurs break through Sissoko, a good ball and Alli is clear on goal.  Redmond is back and in a flurry of arms and legs, Alli hits the deck as per usual and Mike Dean has his opportunity and it’s a penalty.  There’s not too many complaints and no Spurs players are waving imaginary cards but you that the ref won’t be finished and sure enough after a bit of a delay, red card.  Fair play to Harry Kane for leading Redmond away from the ref and off he went and up stepped Kane for the penalty to surely kill us off but the Saints support erupts into laughter as he smashes it miles over and I mean miles.  The replays show that a fucking great divot of earth came up from his standing foot and actually lifter the ball up an inch which means his striking foot just ballooned it.  I’m only surprised that the cunty little ref didn’t order a retake.

To be fair, we actually respond a bit.  Claude decides against freshening it up and we go 4-4-1 with JWP right and Boufal left.  It’s not really achieving much and Big Vic is enjoying himself and having a shot from the edge of the box which Fraser shovels over.  Rose then tees up Eriksen again and this time he smashes an effort against the bar.  Finally Claude decides that he’s allowed to make subs according to his rotation document for the next two games and on come all three of Tadic, Hojbjerg and Long to replace Boufal, Davis and J-Rod.  I can’t imagine any of the three departing players will be missed much as Boufal has been too deep, Davis has just been muscled out of everything and J-Rod has only had about 5 touches of the ball.  JWP has obviously only been left on for his free kicks and corners as he’s be woeful in open play.

Hugo Lloris is very sportingly keeping us interested by buggering about with his clearances.  From one the ball gets presented to Hojbjerg who tries to find the empty net with a long range left footed effort but all he does is pass it straight to the keeper.  He at least got a shot away which is more than Tadic managed when presented with a similar shanked clearance.  Spurs make a substitution and the only reason I’m mentioning this is because Dembele went to trot off then turned round and went to the ref.  This wasn’t just a quick handshake but almost a high five.  Whatever it was it was fucking odd.

Long has done fuck all in the 15 minutes he’s been on and he’s on his heels and losing the ball when Hojbjerg tries to find him.  Spurs break again and a ball left flicks off Romeu and kindly falls to Son who is through against Fraser and he makes no mistake to bury us and 3-1.  Three minutes later and JWP gets totally manshamed by Rose who dribbles forward before finding Alli who produces a really calm finish past Fraser and into the corner.  4-1 and the exodus that started at 3-1 becomes a stampede.  I’m staying – the 10 on the pitch have tried their hearts out but the damage was already done and Spurs are just too good for us, especially a man down.

Even though the game is gone, a couple of Spurs players manage to confirm my reasons for having a low opinion of them.  Firstly, Vertonghen gets involved with Long for no reason at all and picks up a yellow card and then Alli decides that at 4-1 up in the 93^rd minute, with a very pissed off Saints side, it’s a good idea to do some showboating so I really enjoyed the fact that Romeu decided to kick the diving little showboating cunt up in the air.  Needless to say, Alli got all pissy about it.  Don’t be a twat then.  Thank fuck that’s over.  I’m kind of resigned about it really, they were far too good for us, the referee didn’t help but at the time (from up the other end) I could see why he got the red card out and we’d have lost anyway. 

This wasn’t a game of two halves, more a game of three thirds. 

In the first third which lasted the opening 20 minutes, we were superb, 1-0 up and battering them.  We were on the front foot and bringing the Bournemouth 2^nd half display to a team who are of a much higher standard.  We had them rattled and there was only one team who looked scoring the second goal of the match

The second third started with a bit of Tottenham possession and us dropping deeper, playing the 6-3-1 formation and a lucky deflection on a cross giving Alli the equaliser.  Then we persisted with 6-3-1 until we were 2-1 down and Redmond got sent off.  We lost the match in this third of the game, before the sending off happened. 

The final third of the game post red card was better because it had to be.  Players like Romeu and Fonte suddenly woke up and we looked like a team again, only to get picked off on the break to make it look worse.  The red card meant we lost 4-1 instead of by a smaller margin but it doesn’t obscure the fact that we completely handed the initiative to Spurs in the middle third of the game.

Claude echoed what I’ve said about the good opening 20 minutes and then bad until the red card.  Where I have to disagree is him saying that it was dead once the red card happened.  No it wasn’t or it needn’t have been.  A few will point at the fact there was a triple substitution and that showed intent but did it really?  It was like for like subs.  Hojbjerg for Davis, Tadic for Boufal, Long for J-Rod.  I remember playing Wimbledon at home years ago and they had a man sent off at 2-1 down and they took off a midfielder, brought on a tall striker and played a 4-2-3 formation, missing out midfield altogether and just launching long balls.  They beat us 3-2.  Why not really go for it?  Take Davis off, stick Maya on, bung Virgil up front and launch it.  OK, it probably wouldn’t have worked but why not – doing the same things and expecting different results sure as hell isn’t going to work.   Even without my ‘Virgil up front’ scheme, Redmond should have been followed down the tunnel by Boufal with Shane Long coming straight on to at least stretch the Spurs defenders.  Were we saving the subs to the 70^th minute so as not to tire them out for the West Brom game or was it just a case of the manager being too defensive minded?  A bit of both methinks.

What the f*ck was going on from the 20^th minute until the red card?.  Our back four were stretched the width of the penalty area, Boufal was to Bertrand’s left, Redmond to Cedric’s right and our three midfielders was five yards in front of the line of 6 with J-Rod standing in another post code on his own.  Spurs just passed it around in front of us with so much time.  We gave Victor Wanyama, a player who we know inside out, time on the ball.  He’s not the best if he’s rushed so get into him and he’ll cough up possession.  We know this but we stood off.  They worked it wide, cross, deflection, header, goal.  Easy.  You can’t let teams who are better than you just play – they will score eventually.  You have to unsettle them, you have to make them play under pressure.

The 6-3-miles-1 had another problem and that was J-Rod.  He’s not a striker who is going to hold the ball up for a few seconds to let others get near him so why play that way and expect him to do it?  The ball goes up to him, Spurs win it back, away they go again passing it about .  Easy.  With our wingers playing at right and left back we could never get out and our midfield was right on top of the back 6.  Davis and JWP were completely ineffective and not physically strong enough against Wanyama and Dembele and not quick enough to get away from them.  Romeu was off the pace in the first half, always arriving at where the ball had just been moved on from rather than getting there earlier and making the tackle.  In short, it was absolute shit.

The referee – Mike Dean.  He is clearly bent and favours Spurs.  Statistically it’s proven and today just underlined it.  It’s harsh to give a penalty but once he’s given it then the red card is necessary and even if he’d given a free kick then Redmond would still have had to walk.  There was definitely a foul in there so there you go.  The problem for me is the high five with Dembele.  He must know that that looks horrendous – he’s already sent a player off and given a contentious penalty so having a special handshake with a player is not good form.  As for Dembele – shake hands with the ref at the end of the game like everyone else you twat.

I think that overall, this season is proving what an anomaly last season was.  Last year we managed to finish above Chelsea and Liverpool but this year has seen the Big 6 move on another level.  Chelsea and Liverpool are clearly better and you could argue that all of City, United, Spurs and Arsenal are better too.  The rest of the division can all beat each other but getting any points at all against the top 6 is going to be much harder this year than last.

Next up is West Brom, a team near the top of our division within the Premier League.  Hopefully we won’t bring our ‘scared to death’ tactics to this game and play to win it for 90 minutes.

Premier League Match 17 - Bournemouth 1 Southampton 3

J-Rod: One Yard Out : The Turning Point

A trip to Dean Court as was, to play Bournemouth and a build-up of the usual ‘is this a derby’ shite. In some ways I would like it to be as it would kind of write Portsmouth off of the map but deep down we know it isn't. I've pondered this question many times before but all I could think about in the build up to this game was whether or not when the fixtures were released, I looked down the fixture list first for the games against Bournemouth? The answer of course, is that I didn't.

Eddie Howe of course makes a good point when he says that the rivalry is building and it will continue to build the more that the teams play against each other and the more that each team beats the other one. That is true. Last year however, when we didn't turn up down here and got stuffed 2-0, I just felt as pissed off as I would have felt had we lost to any team who were near the bottom 6 like Bournemouth were at the time. If you read social media though you can easily come across many Bournemouth fans who are desperately trying to make it as big a deal as the Saints Pompey rivalry.  That is never going to happen but these Bournemouth fans are really annoying bastards so it will be nice to win the game and check out what these fucktards are saying afterwards.

I'm listening to a bit of the pre-match build-up on the Radio Solent where we have Dave Merrington in the Saints corner and John Williams in the Bournemouth corner.  It's a bit of a surprise to hear Merrington being the more sensible of the two. Williams is getting a little bit carried away and I hope this comes back to bite him in the arse afterwards. Most Saints fans who are quoted or interviewed on the radio are expecting a tough game and predicting a draw whereas the Bournemouth contributors are in the main giving it the large one and predicting a 3-0 win. We shall see.

We have to be positive despite our chronic lack of goals and I've had a bit of a premonition which came to me when I was trying to fall asleep having been drinking very heavily last Thursday night. I was seeing us winning 2-0 with J-Rod defying his J-Rust nickname that I've given him and scoring two goals.  We were of course near the bottom of the scoring charts in the league but on Saturday, Middlesbrough managed to score three and so we are rock bottom – less goals than anybody.

The team news is a big deal because José Fonte is not in the starting XI.  He’s a sub which is completely bizarre considering it’s a league game.  Harrison reed is starting with Romeu suspended which is good to see rather than shifting Hojbjerg or Clasie into defensive midfielder position and these are the other two midfielders.  Joining Boufal up front is Nathan Redmond with J-Rod being given another chance to see if he can find some form.  If the Fonte news is bad then the other bad news is that Show Pony Mark Clattenburg is referee so expect it all to be about him.  Bournmeouth have bolstered their side this season with loan signings in the form of Jack Wilshere and Nathan Ake from Arsenal and Chelsea respectively.  Other notables are Artur Boruc in goal who is still one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League in my opinion.  Up front they have Callum Wilson who started loast season on fire and then got a season ending injury and like J-Rod for us, has ben searching for form ever since he got back.  They signed a few players in the summer but not many of them appear to be playing like Ibe, Gradel or Mousset.  I like Charlie Daniels at left back but I have an irrational dislike for Adam Smith who is usually at right back.

Away we go and Saints attack and Wilshere picks up the ball on the edge of his own box and fannies about with Bertrand nicking it off him.  Wilshere reacts and fouls him – well it would have been a foul anywhere else on the pitch but in the penalty area in the first minute, no chance.  We win a corner off Daniels and Bertrand’s delivery nearly catches out Boruc but he manages to shovel it out from the line.

From Bournmeouth’s first attack, they win a corner off of Boufal and work it short back to Wilshere who has all the time he needs to curl in a cross and Hojbjerg stands and watches as Ake nips in front of him and executes a perfect diving header and into the bottom corner, giving Forster no chance.  Fucking hell.

We respond by pissing about in defence and Boufal over-elaborates and loses it, presenting King with a chance and he makes space for himself before hammering in a shot which hits Fraser and luckily, just drops down for him to pick up.  Good save by The Wall to be fair and it should have been 2-0.

We can’t seem to settle into any sort of rhythm.  Reed is giving the ball away virtually every time he has it and Hojbjerg is having his worst game since he got here, an absolute shocker.  Balls forward find J-Rust isolated and everything keeps bouncing off him.  Only Boufal seems to have anything about him and it’s looking like it’s going to be a long afternoon.

We keep trying to pass it out from the back and Bertrand and Boufal combine to give Clasie the ball which he sends down the line.  Great touch by J-Rod to Boufal and then we seem to lose all impetus as usual by going square to Hojbjerg, Redmond and back again.  Clasie picks it up again and plays square to Bertrand and Bournemouth are all back again now.  Bertrand is in the mood to make things happen and he drives inside a pathetic attempt at a tackle by Smith and then outside Francis who has the speed off the mark of a cow.  Bertrand then smashes it across Boruc and into the net right by the post.  Fucking brilliant goal and our boy certainly deserves celebrating in front of the Bournemouth fans who have been giving him loads of stick – presumable for playing 5 games for them on loan about 10 years ago. 

Something has changed with the goal.  We’ve grown and they’ve shrunk.  Wilshere is caught again pissing about in his own area and this time Clasie gets to him and the ball breaks to Boufal whose shot is deflected kindly for Bournemouth, straight to Boruc. Boufal is suddenly unplayable and pulling the strings and showing why we bought him, sliding a lovely ball into Redmond on the right who pulls it back but as is our way, no one gambled on getting to the near post.

We are completely controlling this now and Hojbjerg sends the rampant Bertrand down the left.  Considering they have two right backs on the pitch in Smith and Francis, it’s ridiculous how much space Ryan is getting and he measures a great pull back to Redmond who tries to side foot it home but instead barely kicks it and the ball just carries on going.  Shite.  Boufal is running rings round them and he doesn’t need to have a dive but he does and it deservedly booked.

Half time comes and goes and I’m thinking that we only have to be positive in this game and not play in front of them and it’s there for the taking.  They look very average everywhere and all we have to do is believe.  Claude says ‘fuck that’ (in French) and decides to be more positive and brings on Davo for Harry Reed.

Davo is involved straight away, chipping a ball forward which causes panic and Francis decides a good caurse of action is to head it across his own penalty area to Redmond.  Lucky for him, Ake is alert and digs him out of the shit and blocks Redmond’s effort.  It’s only a temporary reprieve though as Davo pings a gret ball left to right to Cedric.  Our European Champion holds it long enough to pick out Davo again and then the magic happens.  Davo into Boufal, a back heel back to Davis who takes it on, chips over the sliding Boruc and there is J-Rod, 1 yard out….. and this time he doesn’t miss the ball and bundles it into the net for 2-1.

Bloody hell we’ve scored twice and are in front.  I know – let’s get sloppy as Bertrand allows himself to be robbed by King who finds Wilson who skies one.  This sloppiness is contagious as Cook is closed down by J-Rod and the clearance rebounds and Jay is heading towards goal along the bye line but Boruc gets out well to save.  He really should have passed to Redmond on the penalty spot.

Claude then pulls a surprise by taking Boufal off and replacing him with the maskless Tadic.  Boufal has been superb and has made Smith and Francis in particular, look stupid but he has been booked and Twattenburg is referee so a wise precaution.  We have a great chance to wrap it up as Bertrand against gets free on the left and his cross finds Hojbjerg at the back post.  He hammers it past Boruc but Ake has got back to clear it.  More great football and Redmond picks it up in the inside left channel before curling a good effort just over the bar.

At the other end, outr biggest danger is Twattenburg.  Wilshere is up to his old trick of running head long into people, hitting the deck and squealing like a bitch and Twattenburg is buying it.  Last time I checked, it’s not a foul if you stand your ground and someone runs into you.

Anyway, my growing annoyance with Twattenburg totally goes as we reach 85 minutes as Redmond picks it up on the left, twists past Arter and get tackled by Cook only for the ball to bounce free and J-Rod just swivels and hits it right footed, over Boruc and arrowing into the top corner.  What a fucking goal that is.  Absolutely brilliant.  Bournemouth are done. Afobe is on, Fraser is on, Ibe is on.  They have nothing except a Cook shot which Fraser saves easily enough.  Claude pulls the ‘standing ovation’ substitution as Shane comes on for J-Rod.  J-Rust no more.

Back in your box Bournemouth. That was a pretty good away performance as they go with the right blend of tenacity, decent defending and pace on the break. The clinical play upfront was more than enough to get us over the line today. The headlines will go to J-Rod and deservedly so and he certainly deserves it after the run he’s had but there were a few heroes out there today starting with the manager who got everything spot-on from half time onwards. Steve Davis was absolutely superb when he came on and his introduction helped Clasie and Hojbjerg completely dominate the Bournemouth midfield pair of Arter and Wilshere who were next to invisible.

In defence, it has to be said that all of the back four were superb with Virgil and Maya easily repelling any attack Bournemouth put together and the fullbacks being a real menace further forward, particularly Ryan Bertrand who added another superb goal to a very good performance and he wound the crowd up which is always good to see.

J-Rod has had an absolute fucking nightmare in front of goal for the past few weeks and his first half performance was pretty ropey today as well but just bundling a goal into the net from 1 yard made a world of difference. He doesn't score the second goal without the first goal as without the first goal he doesn't just turn and hit it, he takes three touches to bring it down and then gives the ball away. What a goal. I'm a big fan of Artur Boruc but it was fantastic to see him flying across the goal and not getting anywhere near it as it ripped into the top corner.

Like I said, the midfield won the game in the second half. Both Hojbjerg and Reed were pretty ropey in the first half but the introduction of Davis was massive and Hojbjerg really improved as the second half went on.

As for Bournemouth, well they were very disappointing. The midfield pair of Arter and Wilshere were absolutely shite, and they got nothing at all going down the wings with Pugh and Smith. I can't stand Smith and I can't stand Francis either so it was absolutely glorious to see Bertrand rip the pair of them a new arsehole on the first goal.  There are a lot of teams in the Premier League where if you can stay solid and hit them with quick counter attacking play, they just can’t handle it and Bournemouth are firmly in that category.

Another thing about Wilshere. He has always had this habit of just running headlong into the nearest player and flopping to the ground. It was driving me absolutely nuts today that Twattenburg him a free kick every single fucking time he did it and later on in the game when Hojbjerg was blocked off by a Bournemouth player, it was a free kick to Bournemouth. Wilshere couldn't resist going on Twitter at the start of the week saying he was looking forward to playing in his first South Coast Derby. Well now you've played it one you pikey arsehole, did you enjoy it? To be honest, I don't expect he gives a shit that he lost. He got an assist for a goal which was a really good cross so I expect that it's job done as far as he's concerned. His stats will look a bit better to either get him back to Arsenal for next season or to get him a move somewhere else.  Eddie Howe made the mistake that lots of England managers have made and played him too deep. 

The media are always so nice to Eddie Howe. Before the game they all asked him about the significance of the South Coast element and Eddie was at pains to point out that it meant a lot to their supporters. After the game when they've just been humped, no one mentioned the south coast side of things - it was all about what Bournemouth didn't do and about how they can't string two wins in a row together. Why not ask him how he feels to have let everybody down and got beaten by their great South Coast rivals in their own backyard.  They’d have asked him about the significance of beating Saints if they’d won.

The best chant from the crowd today was one of there is only one south coast Derby. I expect any Pompey fans are watching enjoyed hearing that one. Get back in your box Bournemouth.

It's a funny old game. A quick look at the league table immediately after the game and we are seventh which is quite mad. Before the game we were the lowest scorers in the entire division and 90 minutes later we are seventh in the league.  It would be a major achievement to finish any higher than this but the nice thing is that for now, until Everton catch up their game in hand at least, we’re above Ronald Koeman.

Talking of ex-managers, we now have 10 days until our next game which is at home to Pochettino and his North London Bastards who of course include Big Vic and Shithouse Alderweireld.  Hopefully we put up a better show than we did last year in this game where we limply lost 2-0.  We did the same at Bournemouth last year and put that right today so who knows?

Anyway, Merry Christmas from all at League One Minus 10. That’s just me by the way.

Premier League Match 16 - Stoke 0 Southampton 0

Zzzzzzzzzzz!

Midweek, Stoke.

Having had a dreadful start to the season, Stoke have been improving and now sit on the same amount of points as us for the season so this is officially a mid-table clash.  Mark Hughes is still in charge there and must be one of the longest serving managers in the Premier League now.  His teams are usually attack minded so we should be in for a good game that will suit us.  After all, we only look any good when teams attack us.

This is our first midweek league game for a while so, bearing rotation in mind, it will be interesting to see what we do.  Maya Yoshida has been the midweek centre back for example, usually in place of José Fonte.  After Be’er Sheva, Claude bought himself a bit of good will with the win against Boro so he’ll be keen to keep that going.  I always think that this is one of the more unappetising trips of any season so a point is always decent here.

The teams are announced and what do you fucking know, Fonte is playing, adding more fuel to the debate.  There is obviously no issue with him playing 3 games in a week but isn’t it odd that the first time it happens is when there’s no Europa League game.  There obviously was an issue there  as either José or the club didn’t want him cup tied for the Europa League.  Fat chance of us ever finding out who instigated that one.  I for one will never believe it was a coincidence.  Elsewhere, Martina continues with Cédric unwell and Bertrand returns in place of McQueen.  Midfield sees Davis and JWP ahead of Hojbjerg and Clasie (despite Claude saying Clasie had had his best ever game for us against Boro).  In the non-functioning part of the team, Redmond and Long come in for Redmond and J-Rust with The Bouf keeping his place.

Stoke create the first chance as Allen, a player who is defying my view of him which is that he’s shite, getting onto the end of a ball played through by Shaqiri and shooting low for Fraser to save with his feet.  The resulting corner is half cleared out to Charlie Adam who attempts an overhead kick and launches it into the crowd.  It’s like watching an elephant trying to do gymnastics only less gracefully.

I’m still not sure which is Sofiane Boufal’s strongest foot.  All I know is that he’s scored a pearler with each for us so far and he has a go with his right today after picking up Redmond’s pass after a decent run but it slices off his boot and well wide.  He then picks it up on the left and tries to trick his way past 4 defenders and loses it.  Whilst Adam is pondering which Saints player to kick next or what flavour pie he’s going to eat at half time, Boufal nicks the ball off him again and shoots at the far post but Grant gets down well to save.  It really is all about Boufal, picking up the ball in midfield and running at the back-pedalling defence.  Another ball finds Long but he lets it run across himself to the left and he smashes it well wide with all the conviction of a man who hasn’t scored for 9 years.

Stoke fans have always been a strange bunch and the latest instalment is justa rounf the corner.  JWP gets challenged in the penalty area and just falls over.  He doesn’t appeal, doesn’t gesture to the ref and he gets straight up and plays on.  This is the cue for the Stoke fans to go off on one like they’ve just been on the end of one the game’s great injustices.  A minute later we win a throw in and it goes to Boufal.  Arnautovic steams in with a stamp tackle and takes Boufal off above the knee.  After consulting with the lino who is right next to the incident, out comes Anthony Taylor’s red card and after 27 minutes, the man who used to have a man bun is off.  Well he is when he can be arsed to drag himself off like the fucking prima donna shit haircutted Drama Queen that he is.  It’s a cauldron of inbread noise now as Bertrand swings in the free kick which Virgil is close to but Grant gathers well.

We were well on top before the twat got sent off but the momentum has gone.  Stoke have gone rigid 4-4-1 and the inbreds are giving it loads and they clearly don’t know who their enemy is.  JWP is still getting it for his non-dive and other than that, they seem to think they’re booing Boufal for getting his knee in the way of Arnautovic’ studs but they’re instead booing all the black players in what I hope is just ignorant mistaken identity.

Half time and my prediction is in – sideways and backwards and 0-0.

As the last ten has been flat, I’m hoping to see a difference and there is more intensity.  JWP incurs the wrath of the inbreds again by dancing round Whelan who carts him over right on the edge of the box.  It needs a blast rather than a chip and Virgil casually strokes it into the wall. On the hour we have two decent chances a First Bourfal cuts in from the left and his curler is on its way past Grant only for Martins Indi to head off the line.  We recycle and it comes back to Bertrand who hammers it from the edge of the box and Grant reacts superbly with a strong wrist to keep it out.  Great save. Bastard.  Doesn’t he know that we can’t fucking score.  If we get a decent effort in at least have the grace to leave it!

Redmond has faded from the game and is replaced with Tadic and Long’s drought goes on as he’s replaced by J-Rust.  It’s worth pointing out that J-Rust has at least scored this season so by Long’s standards he’s positively prolific.  He gets a chance to prove it as Davo wins the ball in midfield , slots it through to Boufal on the right of the area.  He could shoot but instead he weights a superb ball behind the last defender and J-Rust is a foot out and foot is the key thing here… he goes for it with the wrong fucking one, misses it and it passes behind his foot and away.  Fucking hell it’s even worse than the wrong foot miss on Sunday against Boro.

The rest of the game just passes by with no excitement or anticipation that we might score at all.  Martina is lobbing in hopeful balls from the right with not much quality and not many players in the middle.  He eventually comes off for McQueen as we have no other attacking option on the bench but nothing chances.  We play it around on the edge of the box, Stoke drop back and eventually it ends up with José Fonte and we start again, sideways, backwards, into the box, back out of the box again, then Stoke get a foot to it and Stoke welly it miles.  That’s it, 94 minutes, 0-0, comfortable point for Stoke.  Clueless shite.

Nearly 70 minutes against 10 men and we can’t score.  Is anyone surprised?  I’m not.  We have non-scoring strikers and no midfielders willing to run into the box.  Stoke defended well from set-pieces and in open play and unless Boufal conjured something out of nowhere, we were never going to score.  It’s happened to many teams before but it was just crushingly predictable that it happened to us.  It would probably have happened had they gone down to 9 – they’d have defended the edge of the box and we’d have been clueless.

I think we caused the keeper to make one decent save and then there was the J-Rust miss.  Two misses from two feet out in two games and in both cases, he’s gone for it with the wrong foot.  It’s not a case of him trying to use his strongest foot (which lots of players do) but it’s just using the wrong foot.  Use the inside of the foot farthest from the ball, not the outside of the one nearest.  It’s. That. Bastard. Simple.

It looks likely though that J-Rust will be getting opportunities to put it right as Stoke are bleating about an alleged Shane elbow on Martins Indi so it looks like that’ll be investigated.  There seems to be an inability to accept that Arnautovic deserved to get sent off so they want to make sure we get a player banned as well.  If you’re so aggrieved, why don’t you appeal the red card you got you arseholes… and watch the ban go from 3 matches to 4 for a frivolous appeal.  No matter how much they’d like to think they’ve advanced from the Pulis days – they’re still twats.

It’s not Claude’s fault that he has a squad with only one striker who can score goals in it and he’s injured. Is it Claude’s fault that we get no players in the box?  Does he tell Davo and JWP not to run ahead of the ball?  Does he tell the wingers to stay wide? Does he tell us to keep playing sideways and backwards?  Does he tell the midfielders to feed it into the box and then for the receiving player to pass it straight back out again?  If the answer to any of these questions is yes then he needs to adapt the way we are playing.  If no then it’s the players fault for not being brave enough to try and make things happen.  This is why Boufal stands out like an oasis in the fucking desert at the moment because he doesn’t play the percentages, he doesn’t think first and foremost about keep-ball. 

To my mind when a full back is crossing the ball you should have at least 3 players in the box – the striker, the winger from the other side and one of the midfield players.  I don’t really know any more whether it’s down to the players themselves or the manager.

It’s an opportunity missed and that’s why there’s been so much anguish over a result that most of us would have settled for before the start.  Next up is a trip to Bournemouth where we failed to turn up last year.  Despite us being in Europe and having a ropey old time with scoring goals, we’re still above them in the league but you hear all about it if they’re above us for 5 minutes.  Time to put them in their place but at the moment, I have to say that I’m not confident.

Premier League Match 15 - Southampton 1 Middlesbrough 0

Bouf!!! - Pick That Out!

After Thursday’s appalling shithouse of a display, we really need a visit from Middlesbrough who are officially the least entertaining side in the division having scored less than everyone and not conceded very many.  Nailed on 0-0 draw then given our troubles in the final third and the lack of Charlie Austin today, following his injury from the Thursday abortion.

Some teams come up to the Premier League and try and play football to survive, like Bournemouth did last year in the main.  Some come up and try and bore the shit out of it and that’s the approach of Aitor Karanka and his Middlesbrough team.  They were in the final few weeks of their promotion season when he walked out and was persuaded to return.  All very odd and I don’t really know what happened there.  They have a couple of ex-Saints in Gaston Ramirez and Calum Chambers.  Gaston’s 4 years at St Mary’s were ultimately not very rewarding for anyone but there was the odd moment.  I do wonder how he would have done under Claude in the Number 10 position but there was no way he was going to get the opportunity and it was for the best that he moved on.  My thoughts on Calum Chambers and his career trajectory are well known.  I saw one write up this week which was raving about him.  The point is that he’s had to go to a bottom end Premier League Club to get a game and Arsenal now have at a rough guess, 5 centre backs ahead of him in the queue - Koscielny, Gabriel, Mustafi, Mertesacker and Holding.  Would have been better off staying at Saints of course but there you go – enjoy that beautiful pure Middlesbrough air.

The media are still trying to stoke the fires of Fonte to United and Virgil to everyone.  The Virgil one was all about Liverpool and then others were linked, then Liverpool dropped out allegedly so it went quiet and miraculously, a release clause was invented to get the story moving again and every Big Club was linked and Celtic were mentioned as having a sell on clause (which is probably true).  The release clause thing is of course horse shit but linking all the Big Clubs (and Everton) and Celtic made for clickbait overload on both sides of the border.  We’ve also been linked with incoming strikers due to Charlie Austin’s injury.  Sunderland are really not going to let us have Jermain Defoe when he is their one chance of staying up… the stories are beyond funny.

So, we need a win – any sort of win.  An entertaining feel good win would be nice but anything will do.  Any thought that going out of the Europa League would mean a change in the rotation policy was shot down with the selection of the second choice full backs in McQueen and Martina.  JWP partnered Clasie in midfield and Rusty Rodriguez was given another chance up front ahead of Shane.  The Phantom of the Opera was back, as was Sofiane Boufal.  Gaston Ramirez was always injured when he was due to play for us so maybe it’s something about St.Mary’s he doesn’t like as he’s out again and so is Negredo, their main striker.  Jordan Rhodes is up front – he’s a player who scored loads in the Championship  no one took a punt on him until Boro did in January of last year nd he rewarded them with not a lot and even less this season.  I’m fully expecting Karanka to play for a 0-0.  Should be a great game.

The first half does not start like it’s going to be a good game as Clasie gives the ball away in the first action of note and a chip forward down our right finds a lack of Fonte and Martina and just Fischer for Boro.  The two Saints wanderers get back and Fischer does for both of them in a tight space before finding Rhodes but his snapshot is blocked at source by the sprawling Fraser.  Our first effort is from Clasie who plays a 1-2 with Rusty before shooting wide as some though he was going to replicate the Arsenal away goal.

It all gets a bit tetchy as Rusty caught Adam Clayton, the U2 bass player and we then didn’t put the ball out and built down the left and McQueen fired in a cross which Clasie decided to put out of play, or maybe it was actually supposed to be a shot but it was that bad.  Roughly 10 seconds after he’d crossed it, McQueen was taken out by the Boro right back  who got a very deserved booking.  U2’s next album will not be delayed by the injury.

Boro like to try and play out from the back and they’re not very good at it and cough it up to Clasie who feeds a good ball into Rusty who hits it first time and Valdez saves easily.  Shoots of recovery from Rusty though who is really putting a shift in.  More shite finishing though as Tadic (who has been dreadful) puts over his one decent cross which finds JWP all on his own but his header (if you can call it that) is dog shit and well wide.

Young JWP is not having a good few minutes as he tries to find a player in red and white which a pass back to the defenders and he succeeds in dissecting the defence superbly and Fischer is away.  Some greag scrambling defence by Virgil stops him getting a shot away, the Fonte blocks from Stuani before the same player smashes it over the bar in piss poor fashion.  The half is over and it’s been as piss poor as expected.

Redmond is on for Tadic at half time which is not welcomed by some (Tadic has been dreadful as said earlier) and the change means that Boufal is more infield rather than wide left.  He immediately looks better there and sees a shot blocked after a decent run and cross by Martina and a nod down from Redmond.  On 55 minutes we get a moment totally out of keeping with the rest of the game as the ball moves forward between Romeu, Clasie and JWP before moving on to Boufal who takes a touch and belts a left footed effort which starts straight before curling away from the rooted keeper and into the top left corner.  What a fucking goal that is. Brilliant.

What have Boro got?  Not a lot aside from a ridiculous optimistic shout for handball when the ball pings about and hits José square in the chest.  You should almost be booked for appealing for utter shite like that and luckily the ref wanted nothing to do with it. Davis is on for Boufal and he’s on the end of a superb curling Martina cross straight away and have you ever seen Davo score a header for Saints?  No, nor have I.

We look like the only team who might score again and on 81, a JWP corner is well met by J-Rod and U2’s bass player nods it off the line.   It’s not J-Rod’s day so far and it certainly isn’t as the game ticks down as Redmond burgles the hopeless right back and puts over a perfect cross which takes out he keeper altogether and J-Rod slides…. And connects… a yard out… and over… by miles.  Fucking hell.

Final whistle and we got there and we deserved it.  The better side as we had the one true moment of quality and the vast majority of the chances in the second half.  The less said about the turgid first half the better, as it was absolute gash.  There were some good performances from some players who don’t usually put in good performances with Clasie showing up well, along with J-Rod who more or less did everything but score.  I have to say that even Martina put over a couple of decent crosses.  No one was bad but it was never going to be a game full of exciting football.  The other positive was the performance of Boufal in the second half before he was subbed.  We are beginning to see just what we've got in him and today we saw that it would be better utilized in the middle of the pitch.  

Claude’s post match interview revealed that Charlie Austin would be out for 3-4 months which is a bit of a disaster.  Looking at it positively, the timing of it gives J-Rod and Shane an opportunity to prove that they have what it takes and if they don’t take their chance then we have options in January, namely getting someone else in or recalling Sam Gallagher or whatever.  

Next up we have the horrible trip to Stoke City where I guess the rotation will carry on so expect Cedric and Bertrand to come back in.  Whatever he picks, I hope he finds a way to play Boufal at No.10 and I suspect he will.

It wasn’t a day for pretty football but who cares and Wednesday at The Brittania won’t be either but if we manage to pull off a win there like we did last year, I won’t care how we do it and neither will Claude.

Europa League Match 6 - Southampton 1 Hapoel Be'er Sheva 1

Claude Spots a Player making a Forward Run and Gets Angry

A season defining game against a team who none of us had ever heard of until this season.  Hapoel Be’er Sheva are in town the play the 6^th and final group game in the Europa League.  The permutations are simple – the winners go through and if it’s a draw, goalless is good for us and any score draw puts them through.

As with any midweek game, we’re all wondering what line-up Claude is going to pull out of the hat and the rumours and denials regarding José Fonte have made this more of an issue than it should have been.  It’s time to stop fucking around and play our best team and in the main, Claude does this aside from two glaring omissions.  One is our very own Captain, Leader, Legend who is on the bench instead of Yoshida for the 6^th Europa League match in a row and the other is that there is no Sofiane Boufal, with his place going to Josh Sims.  Ok, Sims has been great so far but this is somewhat important. 

There is a decent contingent of Hapoel Be’er Sheva fans in the corner at St Mary’s and it’s a perfect night for football.  There is a nagging doubt in my mind about how we are going to play it.  We should go all out for the win but with 0-0 being a ‘win’ tonight… well I wonder.  Should be no bother though – they are very average and we’ve been very good at home in the Europa League so far.

Early signs are encouraging as we win a corner on the left and despite Redmond putting over a really loopy corner, Austin climbs well to win it at the back post and heads it straight to the keeper.  Over the next 20 miutes or so, the optimism wanes as we basically sit off when they have the ball and go into sideways and backwards mode when we have the ball.  All our forwards are really good at maintaining possession and knocking it back to a player behind them.  Part of the reason for that is that there is no one breaking forward to try and find with a forwards pass.

Hapoel haven’t come to lie down and a cross from the left evades everyone and finds Buzaglo on the right and he takes a touch before lashing over the bar.  A bit of a warning there.  We meanwhile are doing the Israeli’s defending for them by running into a defender or giving the ball away.  Redmond has a glorious chance to play a ball through a 15 yard gap to put Sims away but he passes it straight to a defender.  Really, really shit!

There’s some minor excitement on 35 as first, Big Ogu kncoks Romeu over and gets yellow carded and then Sims wins the ball and plays it to Redmond but his curling right footed effort is too close to the keeper who just parries it away.  A coupld of minutes later and we have a corner which Redmond loops over and Austin climbs again and heads wide this time but as he lands there’s something wrong and after a delay, he has to go off with a physio holding his arm to his side and out at 90 degrees to his body.  I’m no expert but that’s not good and he’s replaced with Shane Long.

Long is running about as you’d expect and Hapoel panic a bit and he gets carted over about 35 yards out.  We are in the 46^th minute so someone has to hit it and with neither Tadic or JWP on, surely it should be Virgil but no, Redmond tries a Ronaldo knuckleball free kick and it’s wank – one bounce and the keeper picks it up.

Half time and not much optimism that we’re going to be two goals in front going into the last 10 minutes.  Whatever the score is, you just know we’re going to arrive at the last ten minutes with Hapoel just needing one goal to knock us out.

The second half starts with a good block from Yoshida which he had to make after a shite Romeu pass had put us in the shit.  We win a corner after a dangerous low cross from Bertrand is well defended as Long closed in.  the corner flicks off a defender and finds long at the back post.  He has to shoot instantly first time but instead of that, it bobbles off both his shins and he loses it.

The first sub sees Tadic on for Sims with the debut of Dusan’s mask which looks really big and uncomfortable.  I can’t imagine he’ll be competing for many headers but he almost has an impact straight away as Romeu drives intot he box and his shot deflects to Maskman and his curler is away from the keeper but headed away comfortably enough.

The Hapoel right back has been booked and Redmond uses this to attack him and he goes past him at will before expertly picking out another Hapoel player.  Bloody hell.  70 minutes gone and we’re all so fucking half-arsed.  Davis and Hojbjerg have not pushed forward all game and they certainly aren’t going to start now as ‘0-0 win’ looms large on the horizon.  Another corner in from Bertrand on the right and Virgil is up and he beats the keeper to it but it’s just too high and he can only flick it wide.

The what do you fucking know?  Hapoel have a bit of possession around half way and we have all 11 behind the ball.  They work it up the left and the ball infield is poor and Romeu intercepts and tries to find Hojbjerg with a first time pass which doesn’t reach and Hojbjerg doesn’t react.  One pass right and it’s not a particularly good pass but Buzaglo runs away from the goal towards the corner flag and wraps his right foot around it, driving it past Fraser’s right hand in right into the bottom corner.  Well what a surprise.  One shot, one goal.

JWP is on for Hojbjerg but for the next 10 minutes we do nothing.  There’s no moore urgency, no more craft, no more intent.  The centre backs are taking turns to get into the boxand on 90 minutes we have an effort as Tadic gets over a cross from the left and Yoshida meets it and heads it down but straight at the keeper.  Three minutes extra to go.

Another minute ticks by with Hapeol winning a throw in and wasting time.  Finally, we build up the left, Tadic cross and it lands at the feet of Virgil and he calmly passes it into the net via a deflection to make it 1-1.  He’s our best defender, best midfielder and now he’s our best striker. It was notable that when the cross came in, we had 4 players in the box instead of the usual one.  Bodies in the box = goals.  Who’d have fucking thought it. There are approximately 90 seconds left.  Time for one last chance.

It comes as Cedric builds down the right, finds JWP infield and his cross is perfect.  In comes Maya Yoshida, beats the defencer, meets it well, heads it down and six inches wide.  So near to a totally undeserved place in the last 32 of the Europa League.

And so another Southampton FC shit European campaign comes to an end. An absolutely disgraceful performance. Playing for a 0-0 draw at home - just fuck off! That one is down to you Claude. We only played with any attacking intensity for the last 3 fucking minutes.  So much for our fucking European football expert of a manager. We should have been blowing this lot away from the start. A home game in front of a full house and we play like that. Fuck off.  In many ways it’s even worse than the Midtjylland exit last year.  That was the single worst performance ever but this year we’ve managed to be shit enough over 6 matches to not qualify from a really easy group.

We play a formation where we have four defenders three midfielders and three attackers only it's not three attackers it's one attacker with two wingers who play really really wide and on the wrong side as we have left footed players on the right and right footed players on the left etc. What invariably happens is that we end up with the full back and the winger tarting around with the ball in the corner before one of them slings a cross aimed vaguely at the one guy in the middle who is marked by two players. The other variation in our attacking play is the quick break which by the time the winger on the wrong side checks back onto his good foot is not a quick break any more.

It's easy to criticise the likes of Nathan Redmond and I was spewing with him during the game but when you think about it, after he's beaten the full-back which he did on numerous occasions, he had so few options to pass to. That doesn't excuse the fact that he never fucking found any of them are but the lack of players in the box and a lack of midfielders breaking into the box is one reason why we are not scoring any goals and haven't done in three out of the six European games. It was only Virgil’s last minute goal that stopped that being four blanks out of six. Isn't it odd that we scored last night when we started putting players in the box when we needed 2 goals with 3 minutes left?  The ball drops and we have more than one player in the box so therefore, a better chance of scoring.  It’s not bastard rocket science is it?

So, there is a lack of intent in our forward play and now it's absolutely apparent that our strikers just aren't good enough. You have to laugh or else you'd cry at the fact that with 10 minutes to go and needing two goals, we have Shane Long as our one striker who is anywhere near the goal and he hasn't scored for nine months. Charlie Austin now being injured and likely to be out in a while it does make you fearful for how the fuck are we going to score any goals in the next few games with either Shane or Rusty Rodriguez up front.

When Claude started and we played the diamond formation and the forwards had to be more flexible than before, I could see why we wouldn't need a striker like Graziano Pelle any more. Now that the formation has been modified and we're basically playing with one central striker, he is exactly the sort of player that we need to hold the ball up and maybe allow some of the midfield players to break in the box. He was also pretty good at getting on the end of crosses like the one’s we’re continually punting into the box.  I remember Ruud Gullit pointing out on Match of the Day that when teams sit deep you need a big man is to chuck the ball into occasionally and it's one option that we just do not have now. Our attacking play is so limited and so easy to defend against.

As for individual players tonight – Virgil, Maya, Cedric, Davo and Oriol (shit pass aside) were decent, Fraser had nothing to do except shank a couple of kicks and everyone else was pretty shite.  Josh Sims found it hard against a very deep defence and just kept running into players but you can’t blame him as he’s just a kid.  That one’s down to the manager who also decided to have a player with a broken face on the bench ahead of our record signing who is exactly the kind of player you need against a massed defence.  I hear that Sofiane had a small injury.  I bet he’s back on Sunday and he’ll probably be in the training photos on Friday.

The European campaign as a whole has been fucking dreadful.  Drawn in a group against three bang average sides, we’ve managed not to qualify and we haven’t even really gone for it.  We were ok in the two games against Inter.  Won at home and played well away aside from missing a shedload of chances.  Hapoel home and away were shithouse performances like we were fucking scared of them.  Nothing at all going forward in either game as we sat deep and passed it about.  Sparta at home was easy after we’d been awarded a very dodgy penalty and then in Prague we let in an early-ish goal and didn’t really show any attacking urgency to try to get it back.  Against sides that attack us we’re passable but against teams who defend deep we haven’t got a clue.  We haven’t got the players with the guile to open them up and we haven’t got the players to go direct but Claude persists with sideways and fucking backwards and no runners into the box.  Team selections have been questionable to say the least, especially Sparta away – some players are interchangeable and some are definitely not.  Playing Martina when Cedric was fit, playing J-Rod when Austin was fit, not playing Romeu and where the fuck was our £16 million signing tonight - probably being saved for Middlesbrough.   Here’s a thought – why not qualify and then rest players when the job is done!

I have to say that Maya has in the main played well but he’s no José Fonte as a player or as a leader.  Still at least José will I assume be available for Mourinho to pick in the next round as he didn’t play a minute for us.  38 games as captain last season and he didn’t play a minute in the European competition we qualified for as a reward.  Something is fucked there.  Over 38 games last season we did brilliantly to finish 6^th and qualify for the group stages and this year we don’t even really go for it. Why did we bother?  Why did we celebrate when we qualified? Still, #WeMarchOn and #WeFuckOff.  Is that the high turnover of players and manager?  All the new players will have no idea about how much it meant to everyone to qualify through the league last season.  Then there’s the fans – those that spent fortunes travelling to the three away games to see us score no goals and play absolutely appallingly in two of the games, those who wedged out for the three game package for the home games, those who got up to watch all the game in the middle of the night in some far flung place in the world.  I tell my 12 year old boy that he’s been fortunate to see Saints when they’re on the up – it’s all he’s known but the crushing disappointment was written all over his face.  The walk back across the Itchen Bridge was like a counselling session – “Mané would have made a difference… Pellé would have made a difference… why wasn’t Fonte playing… where was Boufal?”  It’s hard telling your kid that Saints nearly always find a way to let you down.

There’s the manner of defeat as well.  If we’d gone for it tonight and in the other games, played our best sides at all times and over the 6 games and ended up getting knocked out by teams who were better than us then that would be acceptable.  This is not – three goals in the last five matches against very average opponents, two from Virgil and one from an own goal.  Fucking rubbish.

I try in the main to be balanced when I’m writing these blogs and I’m conscious that all my opinions from the time they are written may well be completely contradicted by what I write in anger after a shit performance.  I also hate saying ‘I told you so’ but I said after the Sparta abortion that if we failed to qualify then it would be a turning point for Claude and it undoubtedly will be.  The League Cup win against Arsenal reserves had bought him a bit of time but any feel good factor from that, flew out of the window after this shit.  He could have got away with failing to win at home to Middlesbrough on Sunday has we won tonight but not any more.  I have to admit that I was in full Poortvliet mode for his post match interview because I just couldn’t be arsed to listen to it.  Same old shit – ‘it zis a good opponent’.  No it fucking wasn’t.  They were shit (so were Sparta, so were Inter) and we played like we were scared of them.  Because there was an option to go through with a 0-0 draw, Claude froze and took that option.  It’s a dangerous game and it bit us in the arse big time.  Turn off the radio.

 That's the Shoulder That's Been Carrying our Whole Goalscoring Threat All Season.

Premier League Match 14 - Crystal Palace 3 Southampton 0

We Are the Team You Wanna Play if You're on a Shit Run

If the mood around our club was euphoric after the Arsenal cup win, the next day it came crashing back down to us with allegations of historical sex abuse at the club. With the recent revelations from players up in the north it was basically only a matter of time before this resurfaced again in connection with Southampton. I remember seeing a BBC documentary in the late 90s where Dean Radford spoke of his ordeal at the hands of a youth coach. As far as I know, there was a court case and rightly or wrongly, the coach in question was cleared so I guess there must be a load more evidence for the same player to come out and talk about the same incidents as he had in the original documentary.

I guess that explains why the name of the coach was mentioned in the original program but not in the recent South today interview (Update: Bob Higgins has now been named… again). The coach in question had a reputation that was well known in the city in the 80s.   Evidently, none of this was known at my school in Waterlooville when he rocked up and ran a coaching session. It makes me shudder to think about it to be quite honest.  All I remember about the actual session was that it was a couple of passing drills followed by a 20 a side kick about.  Load of rubbish.  However this plays out, I hope that the players in question get the result they wish for.

To today and a trip to Selhurst Park.  It has to be said to the Crystal Palace are in a bit of a crisis. A recent league table of all 92 clubs in the football league and the results for the last calendar year put Crystal Palace in 92nd place. If you just look at that, in the current climate it's an absolute miracle that Alan Pardew is still in the job. Since that league table was published, they've managed to continue their losing run to 6 matches in a row which ironically is exactly the same length of losing streak that Hull City had until we rocked up there a few weeks ago.

On paper, Palace have a decent side.  They spent £32 million on Benteke up front and have the attacking talents of Puncheon, Zaha and Townsend.  Ledley and MacArthur are a decent enough defensive midfield shield which they need with the ropey Dann and Delaney at centre back.  They seen to struggle when Pards tries to shoehorn Cabaye into the side somewhere and his suspension today along with selecting Tomkins at right back instead of the horrific Martin Kelly makes them look a lot more solid on paper.

Saints have reverted to the side that played against Everton with the only difference being Boufal for Sims who is on the bench.  This is probably harsh on Sims but Boufal looks right up for it from the start with some ridiculous dribbling in the edge of the box which leaves about 4 defenders wondering where he’s gone before firing in a shot which Hennessey saves comfortably.  He’s at it again seen after, taking ona  couple, then having a dive which isn’t given before recovering the ball, turning Tomkins insie out and squaring for Bertrand whose shot deflects and just past the post with Hennessey going the wrong way.

Palace give a warning as to where their main threat lies as Zaha gets down the wing and puts over a good cross which Beneke meets and has a 50p head moment and thumps the header wide.  There is however, no creativity needed from Palace for what comes next as Cedric goes back to Fonte on the right and he slides it across for Fraser to clear, in theory.  In reality, Fraser takes a bit swing with his left boot but the ball flicks off his right foot and he plays a massive air shot.  Oh look there’s Benteke hiding behind him and he rolls it into an empty net.  You don’t know whether to laugh or cry really but you have to say that it’s been coming from the point of view of Fraser’s kicking which has been pretty random of late.

Two minutes later and a Palace corner from the left.  Puch takes it, Ledley flicks on along the ground and we play statues and just watch as it rolls across to Tomkins who is virtually standing on the line and 2-0.  Where the fuck was everyone?  SO from being totally in control and being the better side, we’re now 2-0 down three minutes later.

We have a go at getting back into it before half time but our efforts are summed up by Cedric putting a great cross over and absolutely no one attacking it.  From his next cross, it loops up off of Austin and Hojbjerg meets it with a left footed volley and succeeds in sending them ducking for cover in the stand behind the goal.  Truth is we haven’t been that bad but we’ve let in two shit goals.

As we start the second half I’m thinking that if we get one back then Palace are going to shit themselves and we may well go on and win it but all we manage in the opening 15 minutes is a cross from Redmond who has woken up and Boufal takes his eye off it as the a defender closed him down and lashed a volley well over.  Sims is on for Hojbjerg as we go for it but it really doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.  JWP has a massive shout for handball which it seems no one else in the ground has spotted.

Sims is trying to make things happen and takes a pass off of Boufal before curling a shot just over the bar.  You can feel any belief we had ebbing away and Austin raises a jog for the first time in the match when he jogs off to be replaced by Shane Long.  As he went on, Claude said “Right Shane, I know you haven’t scored since fucking Domesday but if you could manage two in the next 20 minutes, that would be great”.  No worries says Shane and his first touch is a header from a Cedric cross which at least brings a save out of Hennessey.  Bertrand’s corner is cleared out, JWP returns it and it hits Virgil’s head and loops up and bounces off the bar.  It’s crossed back in to Fonte and he has a free shot from 6 yards and shanks it miles wide.  Fucking hell.

That was the last chance.  A goal then and we still could have got something but what happens?  Palace get a corner which is cleared, a shot comes in and deflects straight to Puncheon and his cross is knocked in from 3 yards by Benteke who has casually taken a stroll into the six yard box with no one marking him.  3-0, ridiculous, let’s go home it’s one of those days.

So what is it then?  I don’t think we’re tired with all the games because of the rotation of the squad.  You can’t have it both ways – you can’t rotate the squad and have tiredness as an excuse.  Is it attitude?  We’ve lost to Hull and Palace after they’d lost the previous six games?  Do we turn up with an air of superiority and get beaten because the opposition want it more and we just turn up expecting to win?  I hope not.  If you just look at the goals conceded today, the first one is a goalkeeper mare which can happen, the second is just shit defending and the third is a bit unfortunate as the original shot is blocked and deflects perfectly to Puncheon.  So, Palace had the breaks but you make your own luck and we didn’t deserve any.  We had 45 minutes of being good in front of goal against Arsenal in midweek and at half time on Wednesday we’ve reverted to the norm of being shite in front of goal.  This doesn’t help.  At 2-0, Jose Fonte had a great chance and you can make all the excuses you like about him being a centre half and it falling to the wrong player and all that but you just know that Palace would have shit themselves had we made it 2-1 with 15 to go but no, we let them keep their first clean sheet since the 21^st century began.

We’ve lost this because our defending was horrific which is unusual for us.  They’ve scored three goals from a combined distance of about 3 yards.  You have Fraser’s massive fuck up for the first goal, some stand and watch defending from the corner for the second goal and José just letting Benteke wander into the six yard box on his own for the third goal.  They didn’t really have many more shots on goal.  We were the better side until the final third by a country mile but we’ve lost 3-0.  Great.  Propaganda football at its best.  There was some great skill and tricks from Boufal but he can’t do it on his own.  If there is absolutely no goal threat from the other strikers then we’re going to struggle. 

The forwards were piss poor today with only Boufal showing anything in flashes and Redmond was non-existent.  Sadly, Charlie Austin was dreadful today, on his heels and easy to mark.  Delaney is a pretty limited defender but if you just stand there he’s going to win everything all day.  Hindsight is wonderful but surely Long would have been a better bet up front today but that would have admittedly been a tough call from the start as he hasn’t scored since last year’s Christmas tree still had needles on it. Interestingly, my boss who is a Palace fan and therefore has no preconceived ideas about our players thought that JWP was our best player in that at least he tried to do the right things for the whole game.  He also said that we were by far the more accomplished team but that we wouldn’t have scored if we’d played all night.  It’s a worrying habit we’ve got and we’ve have several games like that this season.

Next up we have our most important European game, probably ever with Hapoel Be’er Sheva at home where as you doubtless know, we need a win or a 0-0 draw.  It promises to be a defining night.  Win that and everyone will be happy, fuck it up and …

Will our captain Jose Fonte be playing.  Evidence suggests not as he’s not played a single minute in the Europa League as yet.  A story has emerged that he has been throwing a strop since the start of the season because Saints didn’t sell him to Everton.  Assuming this is true, I guess it’s entirely realistic of him to expect Saints to sell to the manager who has just shafted them.  Having turned down Everton’s bid and the media driven non-bid from Manchester United, José has been mysteriously missing from every Europa League match.  I will be absolutely spewing if I find out that either he’s refused to play in the Europa League out of protest or we haven’t picked him because we or he doesn’t want him to be cup tied for a potential move to United.  If the club have made the decision not to play him then we have directly undermined our own chances for the sake of a want-away player and a different club. 

Winning the Euro’s with Portugal and changing his agent (to the same one as Mourinho) certainly seems to have moved the goalposts for our José.  Whatever happens with him – he is a club legend and always will be.  At nearly 33, I have no issue if there is genuine interest and money on the table from a huge club (not Everton).  It’s almost a Sir Rickie Lambert scenario where you can’t deny him the opportunity. If indeed he is off in January, probably to United I have a feeling the Lambert comparisons won’t stop there and within 6 months he’ll getting the odd game in the EFL Cup and losing his place in the Portuguese side after United sign two £40 million centre backs in the summer.  Careful what you wish for.  I say that a lot and no one ever listens.