Premier League Match 26 - Swansea 0 Southampton 1

Davo Celebrates Not Being at Right Wing-Back Any More

On we roll to the Liberty Stadium and Swansea City who are having a fun time of it this season.  Having started well, they plummeted and ended up just above the bottom three which caused ex-Saint Garry Monk to get sacked and replaced with another ex-Saint Alan Curtis.  Monk had done a pretty good job up until then but fell victim of the ‘Mega TV Deal Next Season Syndrome’ which causes chairmen to get twitchy even quicker than usual.  Curtis had been behind the scenes at Swansea for forever and was promoted to the main job for the rest of the season though he did look somewhat reluctant (he actually looked like a man who'd fallen in a bucket of tits and come up sucking his thumb) and had most armchair pundits predicting relegation.  A couple of weeks later, Francesco Guidolin arrived on the scene from WhotheFuckareYou and he turned up as a coach with the inference being that he would work under Curtis but in no time at all he was the manager and Curtis was back in the shadows.  I don’t know if this has all been explained but it’s all a bit odd for a team who have been run so well for the past 10 years, carefully selecting managers with the same philosophy and carrying on the progress which saw them go from League 2 (or whatever it was called then), into the Premier League and Europe and winning the League Cup.  Guidolin is a bit of an unknown here but what is known is that he’s not Brendan Rodgers who was linked with a return to the club but the Deluded one obviously thinks he’s above sides who aren’t winning trophies all the time like he did at Liverpool.  It would have been amusing if Rodgers had got the job but then it’s equally amusing that the bell end is still out of work.

The ‘three managers in one season’ approach is one we tried in 2004/5 and it worked out really well as the dream team of Sturrock, Wigley and Redknapp combined with eachother and with Rupert Lowe to get us relegated.  All these years on and it’s still nice talking about Lowe in the past tense.  Swansea should have too much about them to go down though, especially when you consider the shite that’s down there at the bottom of the league.  They have some good players in Williams, Cork, Sigurdsson, Montero and Ayew to name but a few and they used to have Shelvey but they seemed to see him as a walking attitude problem so they got shot of him to Newcastle in January.  Bafe Gomis was good at the start of the season but he’s lost form horribly and against us at St.Mary’s, they brought on a guy called Eder to play up front who wouldn’t have looked good in a non-league team but after no goals in half a season, t he’s been moved to the ‘Mayuka Graveyard’ for cheapish foreign players who turned out to be absolute shite and you should never have believed the agent or the You Tube compilation.

Where we have a definite advantage is in goal where we have The Wall and they have Fabianski who has always been dodgy.  Hopefully we’ll get our forward play sorted today after a couple of games off and give him lots to do.  There’s been some media coverage of the Big Vic 5 week ban with the general consensus from people who are not involved in tabloids being that he was unlucky to get the red card against West Ham.  It’s gone now and had we appealed, Clattenburg is not one to admit he was wrong. 

Elsewhere in the media it’s all about Jose Mourinho who, the last time I checked, was not employed by an English club.  Guardiola’s impending arrival at Manchester City has prompted the United-friendly media to go into overdrive, lest their beloved United fall even farther behind.  All very disrespectful to Louis van Gaal but they won’t give a shit about that.  I’d love them to give the job to a Class of 92 Dream Team including Giggs and Neville so a failure would bury that particular myth as well.  The main news of course is Leicester City.  I’d love them to win it and I don’t wish to have anything to do with anyone who expresses an opinion along the line of ‘it would be bad for the Premier League brand to be represented in the Champions League by Leicester’.   Fuck off – it would be the best thing in football for years but the cynical bastard in me wonders if they’ll start getting a pile of shite refereeing decisions.

Back to today and aside from Big Vic, J-Rod and Florin Gardos, we have everyone available and Ronald rolled the dice again and made some changes.  Predictably, Romeu and Targett were back for Bic Vic and Yoshida but JWP was recalled for Mané who had finally been dropped but most surprisingly, Steve Davis was in at right wing-back in place of Cédric, which seemed strange.  Swansea included Jack Cork who I have a lot for time for as he left because he wanted to play football, rather than left for the money.

Away we go and the first action is Routledge trying to get on the end of a ball from the right and he winds up slapping the ball with his hand as it flies over his head.  The letter of the law says that’s a booking but today we have Jon Moss who it would appear, is going to be lenient and referee with common sense, just like Mark Twattenburg does.

We have our first effort as Bertrand slings in a cross, the very dodgy Fabianski punches under pressure from Long and it’s eventually teed up for Graziano, who is big and beautiful and he catches the volley quite well but straight at the keeper.  There’s a bit of a battle going on in midfield and it’s good to see JWP fully committing to tackles and winning them.  If memory serves, he broke his foot in this game last year.  Cork is getting stuck in for Swansea as well but he catches Pellè.  JWP’s free kick is met by Fonte at the back stick but goes wide.

It’s a bit odd with Steve Davis playing on the right and he looks a bit uncomfortable but starts a move which gets crossed in by JWP and Romeu bursts into the box but can’t control it properly and it’s cleared.  He should have smashed it first time really and I bet it would have cleared the stand, a bit like Sigurdsson tried to do from Swansea’s next attack.  Power 10/10, Accuracy 0/10.

The first half has been piss poor to be honest.  We’ve been the better of two sides who are not playing particularly well but we do create a golden chance before half time as Davis gets down the right and slings in a great ball.  Fabianski doesn’t want it and Fernandez has totally lost Long who has a free header… which he puts straight at the keeper, right into his stomach.  Honestly, a 5 year old would have saved it.  Shane knows it’s a bad one and now he has half time to think about it.

Watching Graziano at the start of the second half and I’m put in mind of Sir Rickie when he used to come back from injury or suspension and be absolutely crap for a few games with no movement or touch.  Pellè is having a shocker but he’s keeping at it and when Bertrand gets down the left and gets a cross in, it’s typical that Romeu comes in and can only get enough on it to take it away from Pellè’s head and hairstyle.

Graziano is in full ‘mamma mia’ mode just after that as he battles past two men and gives it to Targett but instead of returning it to him, Targett booms in a cross which is deflected for a corner to much arm waving and Italian swear words.  He wears a resigned look a few seconds later and JWP plays a short corner with Clasie and his eventual cross is too close to Fabianski who comes for it, catches it and bangs into Fonte and spills the ball for Pellè to stick in the net.  Disallowed for a foul on the keeper.  Not surprised but to anyone who likes physical play, it's an absolutely shit decision.  José wasn’t even challenging him – he’s caught it and his momentum has seen him run into the skipper and drop the ball.  How is that a fucking foul?

Romeu is off as he’s already been booked and Cédric is on, meaning Davo moves infield.  Clasie picks up a booking for pulling back Sigurdsson and his free kick should be headed home by Williams but he forgets to head the ball and it passes in front of him and off for a goal kick.  What I like about this formation, other than the defensive solidity, is the fact that we can play two up front as it gives Pellè more options and this time he flicks a ball down to Long who turns away from Williams but he can’t get enough on the shot and the keeper drops on it easily enough.

It’s there to be won as Swansea are very average and then we finally get some quality into our play.  Davis sweeps the ball from left to right to Cédric.  He controls and lays it back to JWP, first time cross and there is Long again, away from Fernandez again, with a free header again and this time he gets it away from Fabianski who can only fumble it into the net.  Get in there you beauty.

Charlie Austin is on for us and they’ve now got Gomis and Barrow on.  Barrow was the bloke who Bertrand kicked up in the air at SMS last year.to earn a red card.  Barrow isn’t bad to be fair and he runs at Targett and cuts in before shanking a horrible effort wide of the near post.

Maya has come on for Targett, giving Bertrand the chance to kick Barrow up in the air again as he moved left but Maya has his standard moment of being involved in a penalty shout against us.  Swansea have a striker called Paloschi who wears an alice band and is therefore not to be trusted.  I think he’s been on since the start but I notice him for the first time in the 91^st minute when he and Maya come together and he falls to the ground and demands a penalty.  No chance.  The ball goes to Gomis who loses it to Fonte and we build up the left and Davis again spreads play to Austin on the right and he bears down on goal and shoots, sees it hit Williams and Fabianski turn it round the post.  In truth, Charlie should have got his head up and played in Shane who was completely free in the middle.  Charlie and JWP compound Swansea irritation by pissing about with the corner and time wasting which earns JWP a booking and Ashley Williams is going mental at them but he’s going mental from closer than 10 yards so he has to go back before they can take it.  All very amusing from our point of view of course.  Final whistle and what do you know, we’ve done it again and another clean sheet for 6 in a row.

I love results like this. 1-0 without looking threatened, away from home against a side in a relegation battle.  It’s these sort of results and functional home wins against bottom half sides at home that get you high up the league. Yes it would be nice to blow teams away but realistically that’s not going to happen away from home against anyone but this will do nicely.  Defensively again we looked rock solid with the back three handling everything that a limited Swansea could throw at them and that’s before you get to Fraser in goal. 

I’m not sure that the Davis at right wing back experiment was a success and it was no coincidence that when he was put in the middle and Cédric came on, we looked better and the two were heavily involved with the goal when Shane made up for his crap effort in the first half.  Other positives included Romeu putting in another decent  showing in the absence of the Suspended One and both Clasie and JWP putting themselves about strongly.  Jack Cork is a player that most Saints fans miss but you could see today that he’s not on the level of the guys we currently have.  JWP has upped his game in the last few weeks and has obviously grown in confidence, both with his contribution with the ball in open play and his tackling which used to be embarrassing but is now improving.  Graziano looked off the pace again and you do wonder how long it’s going to be before he’s on the bench and Charlie Austin is starting games.  Today was a game won, leaving Dusan Tadic and Sadio Mané on the bench and whilst I’m sure that they’re a bit pissed off about that as individuals, it’s great for Southampton FC.  Having been poor for the past few weeks and now finally dropped, it’s amusing that the Mané to United / City £30 million transfer stories have sprung up again.

Ronald can do no wrong at the moment – he changes the formation and we win, he changes a winning team and we win, he walks on water and doesn’t sink and he can leap tall buildings with a single bound.  I don’t know about the last two for a fact but I’d put money on it right now.  We’re up to 6^th now, one goal ahead of West Ham and only a point behind Manchester United in 5^th.  This ‘not letting in any goals’ thing is really helping but it’s going to get severely tested next time out with the visit of Chelsea who are an altogether different prospect to the team we beat 3-1 at Stamford Bridge a few months back.  It would be somewhat annoying if that complete shitbag Diego Costa gets the first goal past Fraser.

That’s for another day though – right now it’s time to feel good about being above Chelsea in the league and above bastard Liverpool in the league.  However, let’s not get carried away and start thinking that we can catch Man City in 4^th.  That really isn’t going to happen but unbelievably, improving again on last season is still on.

Premier League Match 25 - Southampton 1 West Ham 0

Recycling Old Pictures... I wonder why!

Well at least Andy Carroll’s injured.  That’s what I thought when I saw that this fixture was coming up.  I remember it being a reported about three weeks ago that Carroll was out for six weeks and with his injury record I expected that to be sixteen weeks but oh joy, he’s made it back early.  Not many teams would worry unduly about facing Andy Carrroll but he always seems to score against us and we always seem to find ourselves in the situation where Yoshida is playing against him and he hasn’t got a clue when confronted with a physical centre forward.  Hopefully, Maya will be on the bench today and stay there for 95 minutes.  Carroll’s rare periods of being fit are similar to Daniel Sturridge.  They’ll be fit for the game against Saints, score and then get injured again.

It has to be said that West Ham have done very well this season and currently sit in 6^th, one place and five points ahead of our good selves.  That gap extending to eight points would not be good whereas a gap of two can be overhauled next week so it’s a six-pointer really.  Ex-Saints loanee Michail Antonio has hit a bit of form recently and scored a few goals and Bilic has taken players from the Championship like him and blended them with good foreign players like Payet, Valencia and Kouyate.  They have a very strong squad and if they have a weak link then for me has to be the defence against pace so hopefully some joy will be had for Shane Long and we could really do with a return to form from Sadio Mané.  We should have beaten them at Upton Park but that was back when we were still trying to only play for 60 minutes and win matches.

Considering he’s never played for them, it’s a bit odd that both Dildo Brothers and Bilic all have spent time commenting on Charlie Austin.  Get over it chaps – he’s playing against you today.  Other than that, the Saints news in the media has been restricted to the Fraser show from Tuesday and the resurrecting of the Vic to Spurs or Arsenal story.  Hardly a story.

At last it’s not Allardyce any more.  Previous games against West Ham has always meant the ball in the air all game and that would be fun today in a gusting wind, the force of which is multiplied by 10 when you’re walking across the Itchen Bridge to the game, trying to ensure everyone with you doesn’t get blown into the road.

The pre-match press conference had revealed that Matty Targett was injured and so, having got another clean sheet at Arsenal I expected a back 4 again but no… the prophecy is coming true and Maya is in the team with Ryan Bertrand moving to wing back.  The two in midfield are Big Vic and Clasie and Graziano is back in place of Dusan Tadic who is on the bench with Charlie Austin.  Despite us having an extra striker fit for this game, Juanmi has still made the bench after his ‘fuck all expect falling on his arse’ masterclass against Arsenal.  Mark Twattenburg is refereeing today – oh joy.

5.30 and kick off time, well it probably is.  Someone had better check that the powers that be haven’t moved the fucking kick off time since we all got here.  I have a mate who’s a travelling West Ham fan and he ended up giving up his ticket for the game as he had waited until their Cup game with Liverpool was over to book train travel, by which time the cost had shot up, by which time there was a potential tube strike, by which time he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back to Ipswich where he lives and therefore decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Anyway, away we go and Saints start well , closing West Ham down and Song dawdles on the ball in his stupid fucking glasses which make him look like Edgar Davids but not play anything like him.  Shane nicks it off him and after an exchange of passes with Sadio, hands up a cross which Cresswell stands and watches as Cédric bursts past him and thumps a good header goalwards, only for Adrian to spring right and keep it out.

We look by far the better side and win a corner which Clasie takes and it’s cleared away to the other side of the pitch where Fonte retrieves it, plays it to Mané who plays a superb first time pass into the area to Big Vic.  He manages to poke it across goal as the tackle comes in and Maya Yoshida is still up from the original corner and reacts first to sweep it into the net with Cresswell gaain not covering himself in glory as he stood and watched.  9 minutes and 1-0.  Game over as we don’t let in any goals these days….

It’s great that Maya has poped up with a goal but it’s his defenind that’s been the problem this season and he’s in proximity as Valencia pulls out what look like a ridiculous dive as the ball runs out for a goal kick.  Later replays show that Maya has clumsily trodden on his foot and it should have been a penalty.  I guess sometimes you got to be grateful that Twattenburg is a shit referee.  I don’t get it – if he thought there was contact then it’s a penalty, if he thought there was no contact then it’s a dive and he should have booked him, wrong though that would have been.

Saints are creating problems up front and Reid and Collins are struggling to cope with the pace and persistence of Mané and Long and Reid hauls down Sadio as he turned him to concede a free kick.  Ryan Bertrand chips it intot he mixer and Graziano chests down and then plays an air shot in similar style to Sadio at Man United.  In that instance there seemed to be a collective awakening of the West Ham players and Saints seemed to take a step back.

Ex-Saints Michail Antonio fired over a low cross which was well cleared by Maya before over on the other side, Payet suckered in Big Vic and threw himself to the floor under minimal contact to win a free kick.  He whipped it in himself onto reid’s head and his point blank header was parried away by Fraser.  You’ll never beat The Wall.  The West Ham pressure gives us the chance to break and Mané is on the charge on a 3 on 3 break but unfortunately, one of our three is José Fonte who butchers the pass to Graziano and the chance has gone.

Half time and so far so good on the scoreboard but the way we have allowed West Ham to run the game for the last 20 minutes is a bit reminiscent of some of our half and half performances from earlier in the season.  The opening ten minutes of the second half is more of the same with nothing much going on in either penalty area and then the complexion of the game completely changes as Big Vic misses a ball in midfield which bounces for Payet.  Vic hunts him down and goes in hard, missing the ball and down goes Payet like he’s been fucking murdered.  West Ham players surround Twattenburg who suddenly realises he has a stage and everyone is looking at him.  He goes for the yellow card and then changes his mind and out comes the red.  Fuck.  Winston Reid, who was the chief protagonist in calling for Vic to be sent off, then tries to act as a peacemaker to the Saints players like an absolute wanker.

Whilst we’re all waiting for Payet to stop acting like a fucking pussy and get up, both managers make substitutions with Romeu coming on for the sacrificed Mané and West Ham threw on Byram and bloody Andy Carroll for Tomkins and Moses.  The fact that Bilic made two subs before Payet has got to his feet hardly suggests that Payet is remotely injured.

West Ham have a bit of possession as you’d expect and we settle in for half an hour of playing on the break.  It’s Route 1 at its finest as Fraser booms one forwards, Red fucks up the header and it hits the retreating Collins and drops to Shane Long, one touch, left foot, past the keeper, clips the bar and over.  Shit.  Back to defending then.

To be honest, West Ham don’t look like scoring and there’s no quality in the final third.  You’re happy is limited players like the twat with the glasses tries to curl one into the top corner from 25 yards which he’s never going to do.  Byram is putting =g in crosses from the right but they’re all floaty and harmless and Virgil and José are handling Carroll well.  Charlie Austin comes on for Pellè and new signing Emenike is on for them for Antonio meaning Payet has fully recovered from his horrific injury.

Emenike gets his head on a Valencia cross which did have a bit of pace on it but heads well wide and we have a bit of fortune as Valencia hits one which is heading goalwards but it hits Carroll and plops down for Fraser to pick up.  With two minutes of normal time left, Romeu picks up a ball in midfield and drives forwards, eventually putting Austin through on the right but he snatches at the shot and it’s wide of the near post.  It is too much to expect him to score with every shot though it would have been a nice thing for the Dildo Brothers to talk about afterwards.

Twattenburg has a golden opportunity to even up the red card count as the clock reaches 90 and Byram hits Bertrand with a stamp tackle on top of his ankle.  Ryan just hops away without going down and no one surrounds the referee so it’s a yellow card.  So, a more dangerous, more contact, more intent tackle is a yellow card.  Shit referee.  I guess in some ways it’s not going to attract as much attention if both teams are down to 10.

There is one major alarm as a cross from the West Ham right is floating over everyone and Cédric has bran ache and manages to volley it towards the back post which has Fraser scrambling across the goal before hacking it clear.  JWP is on for the clearly knackered Clasie and eventually Twattenburg decides that he’s gathered enough attention for today and blows the whistle.  Get in.

Another win and another clean sheet and happy days and definitely the sort of game we would not have got something out of earlier in the season.  Because he would want it this way – let’s start with Mark Twattenburg.  Remember the Norwich away game when Vic last got sent off and we conceded within about a minute of the brandishing of Twattenburg’s red card.  On that occasion he was right but this time it’s debateable.  Like I said, he was clearly going to give a yellow card but the rolling around and the West Ham players surrounding him, gave Twattenburg the opportunity to play to the gallery and make it all about him.  Like an actor who can’t resist one last curtain call, he responded.  It was a dumb tackle and it looked like Big Vic was reacting against losing the ball.  It’s clumsy and not malicious and he’s hardly touched him and Payet has made a massive meal out of it.  Surely as a referee you’re supposed to be able to sort this out in your head, if you’re not an attention seeking whore.  Compare and contrast with the Sam Byram stamp tackle on Ryan Bertrand.  He saw it clear as day and deemed it only worthy of a yellow.  Different referees having different interpretations is one thing but the same referee within half an hour.  In my opinion, Vic should have got a yellow and Byram a red but the Twatt thinks it the other way round.  Twattenburg has a crime sheet against us as long as your arm and today is another example of what a shite referee he is.

Ronald preferred to focus on the positives which were of course, the three points, the performance of Yoshida and the performance of the whole team defensively. He said he’ll be having a word with Big Vic.  I guess he might feel that he’s been here before.  I don’t feel that we should be fearful of the 5 game ban that Vic will now get as we have Oriol Romeu to step in and do the same job and he’s been excellent of late.  He’s probably not quite as strong defensively but he offers a lot more going forward and appears to be able to control himself and not give the referee the opportunity to send him off which is always a bonus.

When it was 11 v 11, I was getting the feeling it was one of those games where we played well for half an hour and then eased off.  From the half hour mark to the sending off, we were very ordinary and didn’t get anything going at all.  Post red card we just concentrated on keeping the shape and making sure they were going to have to do something special to score which in truth they never looked likely of doing.  Even bloody Carroll didn’t look like scoring.  It almost seemed like a tactic of ours to let Byram cross the ball because every time he did it was a terrible loopy cross which is easy to defend against.  Most of the time we managed to have José or Virgil marking Carroll so he couldn’t win the clean ball he’d have had more chance of getting against Yoshida.

I cringed when I saw Maya in the starting XI but he played well at the back and came up with a goal.  It was interesting in his post match interview that he acknowledged he’d made mistakes this season due to lack of concentration and said it was up to him to change perceptions of him.  Personally, I think that’s a great attitude.

So, we consolidate 7^th place and are now just two points below West Ham in 6^th and four behind Man United in 5^th.  In the past 5 games we’ve got 13 points out of 15 and not let in a goal.  I will break with my usual mantra of only looking one game ahead at a time and have a look at the 5 games that Big Vic will be suspended for.  They are Swansea away, Chelsea home, Bournemouth away, Sunderland home, Stoke away.  Chelsea at home looks the hardest out of that lot but if we can get 10-15 points out of that lot then it could look very interesting.  We’re probably just a likely to get between 0-2.

So, not a bad few weeks, 13 points out of 15, 7 scored, 0 conceded and a Manager of the Month award.  Hands up if you were on the ‘Koeman out’ bandwagon before this little run.

Premier League Match 24 - Arsenal 0 Southampton 0

No chance Bug Eyes

Gooners away and a bit of a free hit after winning at Old Trafford the last time out.  With Arsenal having their best chance for years to win the title and still smarting after our relatively recent 4-0 dicking of them – it isn’t going to be easy.

You kind of feel that it has to be Arsenal’s year this season as both Chelsea and Man United are poor and we’ve just had the news that Man City will have Pep Guardiola as manager next season which will not only bring a brilliant manager to the wealthiest club but also the ability to attract some really top players.  Pep doesn’t usually come second.  Wenger’s probably stubborn enough to think Arsenal can finish above City next season with Giroud as their main striker, no decent defensive midfielder and Mertesackofshit at centre back.

Wenger ‘s pre-match press conference of course revisited the 4-0 defeat at St.Mary’s and he once again needlessly brought up his assertion that the first three goals should have been disallowed and our perceived (by him) strong arm tactics.  He didn’t mention the two disallowed goals we had that should have stood.  All of this is moaning and revision of history is designed to put pressure on the referee, who today is Lee Mason who is one of those referees that I don’t think anyone likes.  I guess Arsene must be worried about playing us and so he should be.  I can’t think about Arsenal though with thinking about last year at The Emirates when we got a complete bag of shite off the referee in the league game and I’m expecting the same today.  It never happens in favour of Arsene’s team though.

The transfer deadline day was a bit of a non-event for Saints, as promised, with just Jack Stephens going out on loan to Coventry.  I’m a bit surprised at this to be honest as we are currently playing three centre backs and we only really have Goal-a-game Yoshida as a backup.  Florin Gardos isn’t fit yet and Jack is the most senior other than that.

To The Emirates and my seat is right on the very edge of the Saints allocation and I’m next to a gangway which is about a metre wide and then it’s the massed ranks of Gooners.  I got chatting to a steward who told me that the season tickets for behind the goal next to the away end cost over a grand and were the cheapest in the ground.  For that price I guess they have the right to do whatever they want, even if that’s sitting there very quietly, taking abuse from the away fans.  I can’t imagine the fans in that area have much fun when Spurs are in town.  One amusing thing that I found out about the expensive Arsenal season ticket is included in the astronomical price, this season they get 5 home cup games.  Unfortunately for the fans, the 5^th was a shite FA Cup tie against a Championship side and the 6^th and therefore not included is Barcelona at home which many season ticket holders won’t get tickets for and you can’t imagine it’ll be a Category Cheap game for the one’s that do, so they’ll have to find near on another hundred quid if they want to go.  The steward might have been talking shite so don’t shoot the messenger.  Whilst we’re on about ticket prices though, our tickets tonight were priced at £26 whereas my Palace supporting mate had to pay £46 to sit in the same seat at the Emirates last year.  Bollocks isn’t it?

I was expecting a more or less unchanged team as we were off the back of three wins in a row but no.  When the list of names was read out I first noticed that there was no Matt Targett so we’re obviously going with 4 at the back.  Romeu was in for Clasie and JWP was playing.  No Charlie Austin due to a slight knock apparently – bollocks!  Still, Graziano is back and on the bench.  Arsenal, clearly mindful of the mauling that Shane gave them last time have left out Captain Mertesackofshit and have picked Gabriel who I assume is quicker.  All I know him for really is allowing himself to be wound up a treat by Diego Costa and getting himself sent off.  When you see names on the team sheet like Ozil and Sanchez you do think that it’s going to be a tough one.  Calum Chambers and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, both of whom were linked with loan moves to us during the past month, are continuing their career breaks by taking up their positions on the Arsenal bench.  I wonder if they have a seat with their names on it or at the very least, I wonder if they always sit in the same bench seat?

It’s a promising start all round as we settle down and play some decent stuff and the referee allows a couple of hard but fair tackles from Big Vic and Romeu.  Ramsey is already having a whinge and we’ve only just started.  We win a free kick of our own out on the left as Tadic is trashed by Bellerin.  It looks like Mason is going to let a lot go cos that would be a booking in a lot of games.  JWP curls it in and it just goes over Virgil’s head and bounces goalwards, forcing Cech to shovel it round the post.

We’re looking good and dominating possession but then Arsenal get the ball and Dirty Sanchez looks up and pings an amazing ball over Virgil to Ozil, whose eyes are clearly offside.  One ridiculous bit of ball control and he shoots but Fraser is down to block with his feet.  Bit of a warning there.

Arsenal’s next attack is on 20 with Bellerin crossing under no pressure from Tadic, Giroud flicking on and Ozil, eyes clearly offside, stabs it goalwards from about 4 yards but Fraser throws up his left arm instinctively and knocks it away for a corner.  It’s not quite up there with his save from Charlie Austin at QPR last year but it’s pretty close.

There’s a guy two rows in front of me who is taking time out from watching the game to check his phone and he’s found out that Spurs are 2-0 up at Norwich and is enjoying baiting the nearby Gooners with the news.  Amazingly, they don’t bite, not even one of them and they just carry on sitting there quietly.

We are creating chances of our own though but we seem to have a lack of conviction.  Firstly Tadic picks it up on the edge of the box and makes space before curling a tame effort into Cech’s midriff, then following a half cleared corner, Virgil flicks a ball across and for a second Mané looks like he’s in but instead of hitting it first time he delays and allows a defender to get close before squirting a shot across goal and wide.  Romeu also tries a long range curler which is over Cech and flicks the roof of the net as it goes behind.  With a bit more quality from the front men we could have a great night here.

The second half starts with Arsenal in the ascendency.  Having refereed the first half very well, Mr Mason seems determined to give Arsenal absolutely everything in the opening few minutes and I wonder if Wenger’s been in his ear at half time.  Our first sniff is from a shocking pass from Flamini which is intercepted by Long and he takes off before treading on the ball like a twat and now Arsenal are away and on the edge of our box.  Giroud curls one towards to top corner and Fraser takes off and flips it over the bar.

More over playing from Arsenal and this time it’s Bellerin giving it away and Mané is running at the centre backs but instead of burning past Koscielny he allows himself to be pushed wide and then scuffs his shot straight at Cech from the edge of the box.  There are ironic cheers on 61 as Mason books Cédric for pulling back Dirty Sanchez and the first ex-Saint makes an appearance with Theo Walcott coming on for Joel Campbell who has done very little but more than Oxlade-Chamberlain.

There’s an immediate chance for Walcott as the ball somewhat fortuitously breaks for him on the right and he has a free shot by Fraser gets a big boot in the way and then pushes the follow up effort round the post.  The Wall is back.  Dirty Sanchez then gets up well at the back post and heads across but Fraser is down again to push it around the post.  Another glorious chance goes begging as Koscielny meets a Walcott cross from about 6 yards out and heads over the bar.  Maybe it’s going to be our day.  The Meerkats are still silent and still not rising to the bait being offered from in front of me.  ‘Spurs are winning lads... so are Leicester’.

Graziano is on for Tadic and Mané has moved to the left wing.  It makes sense as we’re now going very direct anyway and Fonte goes down injured and the Arsenal fans get really annoyed about it.  Two minutes later with a turban bandage applied to his head and they’re still getting irate about it even though he’s clearly not time wasting.  I guess I’d be the same if the roles were reversed.

The sub has not stemmed the tide though and Arsenal and Dirty Sanchez actually get the ball past the wall but JWP is there to hack it off the line.  WHAT ARE YOU DOING RONALD! JWP is going off and fucking Juanmi is coming on.  We now have four strikers on... why not Clasie for fucks sake.  We immediately win a free kick on the right and with no JWP to take it, Bertrand curls it straight to Cech.  Aaaargh!

Mané is having a strange time of it at the moment.  Back in the day when he was scoring goals and confident, he’d quite happily fall down too easily and get booked if there was a chance of a penalty.  He had a golden opportunity as Gabriel went off his feet in the penalty area but he stayed up and nothing came of it.  I’m not advocating taking a dive but it’s odd that he didn’t given his past history.

With 10 to go the only sub I’m worried about coming on for Arsenal is Oxlade-Chamberlain and from where I am it looks like he is as Flamini trots off but in fact it’s Coquelin coming on.  Is Arsene Wenger taking a point?  Hardly a game changer is he.  The first thing he does is get booked for a cynical scythe into Long.  Perhaps realising that we have too many attackers on the pitch, Ronald pulls Mané and puts Targett on the left wing and he immediately breaks forward only to be brutally taken out by Gabriel who really is a bit shit.  We again waste the free kick.  Threr is of course time for some pinball in our box as Arsenal go all Tika-Taka with Ozil, eyes still offside, at the centre of it and he’s about to shoot when Virgil appears like a missile and takes man and ball.  For good measure, Fraser stops a Dirty Sanchez follow up with his face.

We got the ball up their end one more time and it broke to Juanmi on the edge of the box and he tried to take a touch and fucked it up and lost the ball which prompted my first serious outburst of swearing and a ‘hit it you useless little cunt’.  My new steward mate was pissing himself laughing and said ‘you do realise you’ve been swearing at him since the moment he came on’.

6 minutes added time said the scoreboard.  Shit…. But it passed without much incident, the highlight being Virgil taking off from defence, pursued by Arsenal players and every time one caught up he put on the burners and ended up nearly at the corner flag in front of us before winning a throw.  Brilliant.

Final whistle, 0-0, get in!  It’s a great result coming as it does, on top of the United win.  Four points from two away games at Arsenal and United.  Snap. Hand. Off.  Throughout the second half there was that horrible growing feeling that it was going to be like last year here and we’d concede late and go home with nothing and we certainly lived dangerously at times.  It’s not lucky though as we have Fraser Forster.  The Wall is fucking back.  Four games after missing the best part of a year and he’s still to concede a goal.  It’s been said that he didn’t really have to work too hard for the other clean sheets but it was obvious that just his presence is huge.  It’s not that Maarten Stekelenburg is a bad keeper, it’s just that he’s not as good as Fraser but then, not many are.  The big man has it all and aside from the saves today, his command of the penalty area was massive as well and much better than how I remember it pre-injury.  Of the saves though the one from Bug Eyes Ozil in the first half and Walcott in the second stand out.  The Ozil one in particular because it was right in front of me, his eyes were offside and the massed ranks of Gooners to my left were celebrating already… well stood up in full Meerkat pose anyway. 

The Arsenal fans are a funny lot.  They sit there as if in a silent prayer meeting for the majority of the game and then do Meerkat impressions if something vaguely exciting happens for them.  That moment though will be completely random – winning a throw-in on the half way line etc.  Mind you, paying what they do I guess they can do what they want.

All the headlines will be about Fraser and rightly so but there were other heroes as well including all of the defence and in front of them, Big Vic and Romeu were immense.  Romeu was both brilliant and hilarious at the same time.  He’d pile into tackles, win the ball, flatten the Arsenal player, then fight his way away from three more players before passing it five yards straight back to Arsenal.

The only disappointment is that we had chances and situations that should have resulted in clear shots on goal but we butchered them.  The reluctance to shoot from the edge of the box was back again with Big Vic, JWP, Mané and Tadic all being guilty of not pulling the trigger at times.  When we did shoot it invariably ended up as a back pass to Cech which he just picked up.  Arsenal’s defence was there for the taking with Gabriel and Koscielny making it seem that Merteasckofshit was still out there.

There was a lot of Arsenal moaning about timewasting which was pretty groundless to be honest and how dare José get his head stitched up and a bandage put on it.  Wenger was apparently at his moaning best after the game and it sounds like Ronald might have pointed out that he’s always moaning and it all got a bit feisty.  I have a feeling that the ‘first three goals should have been disallowed’ shit from the St Mary’s game got right under Ronald’s skin.  Wenger blamed the ref for the first three goals at SMS and he’s blaming the ref again today.  He’s not blaming the fact that he had £200 million to spend in the last two transfer windows and he’s brought in one outfield player who is a lightweight squad player.  I feel that most of the Arsenal players arm waving and moaning was down to the fact they weren’t winning and they were copying their manager and blaming the ref.

For what it’s worth, I thought Lee Mason refereed the game pretty well overall, especially in the first half.  In the first 15 minutes of the second half he seemed to give us nothing but otherwise I thought he was fair.  Last year in this fixture we had Andre Marriner and every time Big Vic went near Cazorla, Ramsey  or particularly Sanchez, they hit the deck and got a free kick as the ref totally bought the dive or got ‘big club at home-itis’.  For example, last year at The Emirates, Jack Cork was kicked out of the game and the next 6 weeks of the season by a Ramsey tackle and the ref didn’t even give a free kick.  Wenger doesn’t mention this of course, just what goes against his side.

It really is a huge point for us.  I heard an interview with Eddie Howe a couple of weeks ago when he said that you have to respect every point in the Premier League, so if you’re level with a few minutes to go, especially away from home, your first priority is ensuring you don’t lose.  He’s dead right.  A goal for them at any time in the second half and there looked no way that we would score.  Mané has no confidence, Long was working too far away from the danger zone and everyone else seemed frightened to shoot.  There was Juanmi of course... why bother.  He’s fucking useless. 

Ten points out of the last twelve and up to 7^th in the league, above Liverpool on goal difference, nice!  Next up is a chance to consolidate that against the team immediately above us and five points ahead, West Ham.  Five clean sheets in a row anyone?  Don’t bet against The Wall.

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