Fuckin' Pick That Out
After the win against Sparta Prague, the message was simple
– now win a bastard League game. When
the fixtures came out, the first three aways at Man United, Arsenal and West
Ham looked pretty tricky but the first three homes against Watford, Sunderland
and Swansea had ‘9 points’ written all over them. So far we had 2 with just one to go and so
today really was a must win.
The media loves a good Meltdown story as we know with Saints
of course being the subject they all love to talk about. A club that sells their best players every
year. The key is that we replace them
but Swansea sell the players as well but do they replace them? For example - they had Michu who did well,
sold him, got Bony who did well, sold him, got Gomis who did well for a bit,
sold him. This year they lost Ashley
Williams to Everton but have they replaced him?
Losing him would be like us losing Jose Fonte which of course we didn’t
do. The manager is Francesco Guidolin
who seems a pretty uninspiring bloke but he did well for them last season to
keep them up when they looked in trouble at one point. Has he got another decent season in him or is
it going to be like the Dick Advocaat situation at Sunderland where he ends up
getting fired or quitting after a few weeks of the following season after
keeping them up.
We were positive going into this match and most were
expecting a cross between the line-up that started at Arsenal and the one that
dispatched Sparta but there were groans a-plenty when the ‘Arsenal’ line-up was
announced with the exception of Long being in for J-Rod. Our one, in-form striker was on the bench and
Hojbjerg was strangely omitted for Clasie to return. Despite having a great game on Thursday, JWP
was nowhere to be seen with Isgrove and Reed making their first bench
appearances of the season. Swansea had
Jack Cork as skipper and Sigurdsson, a player I’ve always rated in
midfield. Up front was Fernando Llorente
who was a great player. The emphasis is
on ‘was’ as it was about ten years ago.
I was pleased to see Jefferson Montero on the bench and not in the
starting line-up as he’s the sort of flying winger that I feel would give us
huge problems. Swansea also have Leroy
Fer in their team which means that they are going to get relegated like Norwich
and QPR before them.
Swansea have Modou Barrow on the right wing and he’s the
player that Ryan Bertrand got sent off against a couple of seasons ago for
launching him up in the air and teaching him to fly. He has a run and is halted in unfair fashion
by Davo. Having a load of defenders back
is pretty pointless if no one attacks the ball and we’re lucky that the
delivery goes right across and ends up with Fraser.
Our first attack is started by Fer who is obviously trying
to complete his relegation hat-trick and Tadic puts Redmond away who finds Long
in acres on the edge of the box and he tries a side footer which should be an
easy save for Fabianski but he drops it and Davo and Clasie get in eachothers
way going for the follow up and they were offside anyway. Shane just looks like someone who doesn’t
want the ball in front of goal and Fabianski looks like what he is – a dodgy
keeper.
A worrying theme of our defending is allowing crosses to
come into the box and we do so again as Barrow has all the time to put in a
cross and Llorente goes in with Fonte and they both hit the deck. I’m expecting a penalty again but Bobby
Madley isn’t refereeing. In fact he’s
been ‘left out’ this week and I’m sure that’s a massive coincidence after the
shit house performance he put in last week.
Virgil doesn’t get quite enough on a Davo corner and
Fabianski saves easily and then controversy of sorts as Shane chases back well
and disposseses Naughton, plays a 1-2 with Davo and is off into the penalty
area. He takes a heavy touch around
Fernandez who slides in and takes him out.
It looks like a clear penalty but Shane gets booked for diving. Fuck.
Like when he was raked by Monreal at the end of the game last week, it
looks like Shane’s reputation has gone against him here. On the first few replays I saw it looked like
a clear pen and then there was one angle which shows Shane treading on
Fernandez so I guess there’s an element of doubt. I’m not sure if he could have avoided the
defenders lunge though.
Glorious chance ahoy as Fonte strides forward a Redmond and
Tadic 1-2 and Nathan is in on the right but instead of squaring for the
unmarked Long, he shows no composure and skies it. Fucking hell.
Shane is going nuts but he’d have probably missed anyway. Everything is going through Tadic who is
having a great game and he inspires another move which ends with Clasie taking
aim from 25 yards and hitting the keeper and then the moment which sums us up
as Redmond gets down the right, plays Tadic in and he beats the defender before
finding Redmond with just one defender to beat.
He steps inside him and just has the keeper to beat. It’s easy and he has the whole goal to aim at
but instead of hitting the net, he hits some poor fucker in the face in Row
Z. Shit the bed. To be fair to Shane he’s over and picking up
the distraught Redmond, probably with the words “I’d have feckin missed it
too”.
Half time and we should of course be winning but we are not,
again.
The clamour for Austin to come on is not heeded at half time
but it is soon after and he’s on for Long on 53. Austin immediately seems to energise the
attack and he throws himself at a Bertrand cross which misses everyone and
floats just wide of the far post.
Redmond, who is definitely a winger, finds himself out on the left and runs
directly at the defenders and they do not know how to deal with him. In that instance there is an obvious solution
to our attacking woes – Austin through the middle with Redmond and Tadic on the
wings. You can have that one for free
Claude.
Clasie has played an hour so of course it’s time for him to
come off with Hojbjerg coming on. With
the midfield bolstered it’s looking good but then there’s Austin chasing back
to left back and it become apparent that Redmond is still the central striker
nominally and Austin and Tadic are covering right and left. Two more great chances to score come and go
as first, Romeu bounces a header down and over the bar from a corner and then a
ridiculous miss as Tadic wins the ball off Jack Cork and Davo puts Redmond away
on the right wing. A great cross and
Austin meets it 10 yards out. The whole
ground goes ‘goooaaaaaaaaaaa..fuck’ as he somehow hits the bar with the rebound
flying out and hitting Fabianski on the back of the head and away. Jesus H Christ.
It’s quite fucking mad how we are not in front. We’re all over them and there’s pinball in
the goal mouth and a Swansea boot gets to it but then it happens. Once again Tadic is the provider and his
cross loops up off a Swansea boot and falls to Austin who takes a touch on his
chest to control and swivels and lashes it past Fabianski in one movement. At fucking last.
We of course need a second goal to make sure but this is
Saints 2016/17 and we aren’t going to get one.
Austin has a flash at the near post which is saved and Romeu flicks a
header wide from a good Davo cross.
Swansea have sent on Montero to give us something to think about and
Claude responds by taking off Tadic and putting Cuco Martina on at right
midfield to double up on the winger.
Typically there’s a shit yourself moment as Swansea get near
our goal for the first time since the opening 10 minutes and Llorente lays a
ball off to Sigurdsson and his low stabbed effort is pawed away by the
sprawling Fraser. That one would have
been hard to take.
Final whistle and get in there and thank fuck for that. The main emotion is certainly relief. We should have won much more comfortably than
we did and been well out of sight before Sigurdsson had that shot at the end
but we got there. There was still some
confusing stuff tactically out there (Austin on left, Redmond in middle) but
the overall pattern of play was much better in the second half, We played higher up the pitch and delivered
balls into the box which caused problems.
Claude must be feeling rather pleased with himself as
everything worked out fine in the end. I
understand the need to manage Austin and his fitness. It’s apparent that he requires the forwards
to do a lot of running wide and back and that has to be balanced against
Charlie’s fitness record and the need to have your best goalscorer on the
pitch. After trying the break the
crossbar with that absolute sitter, it was a great finish for the goal. We can’t mention finishing without mentioning
Nathan Redmond. That kind of summed up our
season in that one moment – nice approach work and great skill to create the
opening and when all seemed good, smashing it at the passing Flybe plane. He had a great game other than that though,
injecting much needed pace into the forward play but he appears to be the new
target for the idiots. These will be the
same idiots who used to slaughter Mané when he was shite (and he was, quite
often) and the same idiots who have now promoted Mané to the level of Messi and
Ronaldo now that he’s left. Tadic had a
great game, mainly on the right and side and yet another assist for the goal.
Back to Claude and though the Austin selection issue sorted
out at the end, I’m not so sure about the Clasie one. Again he was replaced before the hour and
again Hojbjerg made us much better. It
was good to see some tactical flexibility as well as he recognized the threat
of Montero when he came on and putting on Cuco as a defensive right midfielder
was a smart move. It’s sign that when we
do play teams with lots of pace out wide (Palace for example) that he will
adapt to it. After all, we got a clean sheet and there haven’t been too many of
those recently.
Swansea were bang average and there’s no way the manager is
going to last until Christmas. Last week
he subbed a player in the first half and there was much teddy throwing and
disrespect and today there was the same.
Once you’ve lost the players, you’ve had it.
Next up is the League Cup 3rd Round on
Wednesday. As I write I have absolutely
no idea what it’s called these days but we have the boring draw against
Palace. This has got to be 4th
in the list of priorities for the season so I fully expect to see a much
changed side with the likes of Reed and Isgrove featuring, McCarthy in goal and
the only certainty is that Clasie won’t play 90 minutes.
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