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 91st 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 6th now, one goal ahead of West Ham and only a point behind
Manchester United in 5th.
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 4th. That really isn’t going to happen but
unbelievably, improving again on last season is still on.
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