EFL Cup 4th Round - Southampton 1 Sunderland 0

This is Going In!

EFL Cup Round 4 and Sunderland at home, a team who we’ve failed to beat at home in our last two home matches with them.  The one before that was the 8-0 game of course.  Where is Mr Poyet and Mr Vergini today?  Davis Moyes is here and if I was him, bottom of the league and Allardyce without a job, I’d be putting my strongest team out today.  They’ve been desperately poor at the start of the last 4 or 5 seasons but this year has topped the lot with just two points so far, one of which was of course against us.  They’re in trouble this year as Newcastle have been relegated so that’s six extra points they have to find from somewhere.

We knew that Claude was going to rotate and it was just a question of how much.  They answer was ‘a lot’.  No Fraser, Virgil, Oriol, Charlie, Dusan, Nathan, Davo from the regular first team and Cuco was also rested so in came McCarthy, Maya, JWP, Hojbjerg and J-Rod as expected.  Others included were Sofiane Boufal making his first start and the kids – Harrison Reed, Jack Stephens at right back, Sam McQueen and Lloyd Isgrove.  There was a place on the bench for Olofela Olomola as well.  So; five academy players – nice one Claude.

Saints start well and pass it about nicely but mainly in front of Sunderland with the first real threat being a ball fired into the box by McQueen which resulted in J-Rod and Billy Jones clashing heads. Initially, J-Rod seemed to have come off the better of the two and got back up and got on with it but was obviously bothered by it and had to go off to be replaced by Olomola.  J-Rod’s run of luck is ridiculous.  He could fall in a bucket full of tits and come up sucking his thumb.  You get the impression that no one wants to play more than him and things just keep going wrong.

Sunderland are making some inroads, mainly behind Jack Stephens who is looking a bit ‘Bambi on Ice’ at right back.  Doing a job but not entirely comfortably. On we go and Sunderland have Wabhi Khazri who was 10 out of 10 for being a prick last season and yep, he still is so it’s amusing when he tries a shot and plays a big air shot and falls on his arse.  Olomola is trying to make his presence felt by running around like a lunatic and Claude is quite clearly trying to calm him down from the technical area.

As you can tell, there is precious little going on.  Boufal lights up proceedings with some ridiculous skill, nutmegging a Sunderland defender with a move straight out of a football freestyle video before winning a corner.  Lloyd Isgrove, who must be in the last chance saloon as a Saints player being 23 and not made it yet, has a chance to run at Djilibodji and bottles it.  Instead of taking him on he kind of runs away from the ball and lets him have it.  What the fuck is that all about?

Sunderland have half a shout for a penalty as Watmore breaks forward and passes it before crashing into McQueen and then Khazri ups his ‘prick’ rating even more by losing the ball and then hammering back to cynically hack Boufal over from behind and about 5 yards from the ball.  Up steps JWP and he should shoot but he doesn’t and it gets headed up in the air and Olomola smashes it at the roof.  0-0 at half time and all a bit crap.  It’s understandable from us as we have so many kids out there but Sunderland are just shocking really.

The second half starts with a Yoshida mistake as he clears a cross straight to Watmore who fires well over.  On the hour mark JWP puts in a  poor cross which is cleared back towards half way and José get in ahead of Anichebe and sends it back, miles up in the air.  Down it comes on the left edge of penalty area where Boufal brings it down with the outside of his right foot, before one touch inside and curling it right footed over Pickford and into the far top corner.  It’s a fantastic goal and totally at odds with the rest of the game.  What a goal and what have we got here and standby for a load of ‘Welcome to Liverpool’ jokes – fuck off!

We defend the lead by giving McNair a free header from a corner which he heads onto the outside of the post and both managers roll the dice with the bench.  Moyes brings on Defoe, the one player who he rested and Isgrove is done in what is probably his last appearance in a Saints shirt and is replaced by Redmond.

Redmond’s first contribution is to fuck up and give the ball to N’Dong who passes through to Defoe and the clearly limping McCarthy gets down well to block the left footed effort.  As well as the injured keeper, Boufal is clearly knackered but Reed is unable to run so he has to be replaced with Clasie and the club record signing just has to get on with it as there are no subs left

Nothing happens at all for the rest of the match until the 93^rd minute when a ball is played into Anichebe and before it gets to him, over he goes like the big sack of shit that he is.  Moyes goes nuts as no penalty is given and ends up getting sent to the stand.  It wasn’t til I saw the replay that I realised that Yoshida has needlessly and clumsily tripped him.  It should have been a penalty all day long.  What the fuck was Maya doing? – there is no need to foul Anichebe ever because he is complete wank.

We play out the remaining few minutes with some nice ‘take the piss’ possession triangles in the left hand corner between Boufal, McQueen and Hojbjerg and we’re through to the quarter finals again.  Get in!

So somehow, we had managed to beat another Premier League side who had a virtually their full team out whilst we had a team of kids, some of whom were wearing nappies. We got lucky with the blind referee at the end but apart from the one shot from Defoe I can't remember them getting near our goal.

The only memorable thing about this pretty shite game is the goal. The goal was a complete thing of beauty, from the moment Boufal's ridiculous first touch brought the ball down out of the sky. Not bad for a debut goal and right up there with the rock 'n' roll pirate nutter Dani Osvaldo's goal against Manchester City.

Of the youngsters, I thought Reed was excellent again before he had to go off. If given an opportunity more often then he certainly wouldn't be any worse than Clasie. these two players sum up what was wrong with The Lying Dutchman’s mindset over the past two years. We sign a relatively expensive foreign player when we had just as good a player in the Academy who has basically stagnated for the last two years. Considering he was playing out of position, Jack Stevens had a solid enough game at right back. His wing play was pretty shocking to be honest but he got in a few good tackles and blocks and didn't look out of place. Lloyd Isgrove had a decent loan spell at League 1 Barnsley last season so I was expecting a decent performance out of him today but he was crap.  In the first half he had a couple of chances one on one with a big slow defender and it just seemed to be scared to take him on. If you are a small pacy winger and you are not going to take on a big slow defender for pace or trickery then what the fuck are you doing out there?  He lost the ball in every challenge that he was involved in and at 23 the time has come to say that he's never going to be good enough to play in the Premier League. Also, bear in mind that this was virtually a Championship side we were playing against today. Olafela Olomola looked enthusiastic but it was far too difficult for him. He's only 18 so has loads of time to learn but it did prove that he is not ready to have any significant impact yet.

As for Sunderland well they were fucking dreadful. It amused me hugely to read the Sunderland press after the game and they were saying that this was one of their better performances. You are playing against a team of kids for fuck's sake and you still only created a chance when you brought on the one player who you have rested from your regular starting 11. They were so much bigger than us all over the pitch that you felt we could just get overpowered eventually but they made up for being bigger by being fucking useless.  Boufal could hardly run for the last 10 minutes and McQueen was struggling as well and then that was McCarthy in goal who couldn't move. I know they should've had a penalty but come on, that was a shocking display. I hope that all the fans in there and were local and haven't travelled down from the other end of the country to watch that shit.

On a personal note, tonight I sat in the Northam as opposed to my usual seat in the Family Stand in the Chapel.  Usually I have two year olds kicking the back of my seat and general non-football blather going on all around me as youngsters don’t have the attention span to sit through 90 minutes.  They are infinitely preferable though to the teenage twats who were all around me tonight.  There was a row of 5 of them right in front of me and all 5 of them were looking at their phones all match, trying to get a picture put up on the big screen.  Watch the game you stupid fuckers!  The good news is that when the goal went in and most us all went nuts, it became apparent that three of them completely missed it because they were staring at their phones.  If you’re gonna look at your phone all game – why bother going?

Anyway, so what have we got in Sofiane Boufal? Well, he's got some ridiculous skill and he certainly has an eye for the spectacular.  I think that if we can give in the ball in the right areas when he only has one defender to beat then we are going to have a great time seeing him rip Premier League right backs to bits.  He will be coming off the bench for now but he can do a lot of damage in 20 minutes.  I hope he can withstand getting kicked up in the air because it’s going to happen a lot.

As we went home in the car, the radio reported the draw, part picked by Francis Benali.  Arsenal versus Southampton, an interesting draw because they certainly won’t play a full side and we won’t either, given that the quarter final is going to part of 9 games in 30 days that we have.  We knocked them out at The Emirates a couple of years ago and we should have got something in the league game this year (Thanks Bobby Madley) so why not.  Last time we were in the quarter final of the League Cup we got humped 6-1 so we’ve gotta do better than that.  Before that though we have a shedload of other games, starting with Chelsea at home in the league.  They’ve won their last three and are looking decent again.  Any team that has David Luiz in it will give you a chance though so bring it on.

Premier League Match 9 - Manchester City 1 Southampton 1

Niall Quinn at City - Trousers Round Ankles Not Pictured

I’ve written this one off to be honest.  When everyone is pontificating at the start of the season about how teams fare on the Sunday after they’ve played an away Europa League game, the usual argument is that you should be given a home game the following week.  The fixture computer gave us a home game after we played Sparta at home and gave us an away game at the Champions after Israel and an away game at the Champions-elect after Milan.  Thanks.  So, the Champions League sides get extra days off and no travelling.  Cheers.

City have Pep Guardiola in charge who has had a silver spoon managerial career being in charge of Barcelona in Spain and Bayern in Germany.  It’s a bit like playing Ultimate Team on FIFA with unlimited funds.  No doubt though that the guy has been brilliant so far and many managers have failed given the advantages that he has used to maximum effect.  It’s a different ball game altogether with City where even a relatively unheralded player who they sign, will cost twice as much as Saints have ever paid for any player.  A quick bit of research shows that they have 5 players in their starting line-up today, who cost more than twice the £16m we paid for Sofiane Boufal.  De Bruyne (£54m), Stones (£47.5m), Sterling (£44m), Aguero (£38m) and Sane (£37m).  Still, I expect they save all that by paying lower wages.

After the Milan defeat, Claude predictably rotated again.  Back came Austin (£4m) for Long (£12m), Clasie (£10m) for Hojbjerg (£12m), Redmond (£12m) for J-Rod (£7m), Fonte (£2m) for Yoshida (£2m) and Davis (£1m) for JWP (£0m).  This all meant that Sam McQueen’s (£0m) first two away games were against Inter Milan and Manchester City.  There was a place on the bench for Jack Stephens (£0m) alongside Boufal (£16m).

Today’s referee is Mark Clattenburg.  Fuuuuuuck…. It still makes me laugh that we requested that the FA’s golden boy referee not officiate any of our games.  One of his crimes was to think that Adam Lallana had turned into a right twat since he got in the England squad.  He wasn’t wrong there was he?

Anyway, a cagey start to the game with City having a lot of possession in front of us.  Fernandinho got a cross in which fizzed across the goal and Sterling tried to put it in with the wrong foot and didn’t get a touch.  We are having sporadic breaks up the pitch and from one of these, Romeu puts Tadic away on the left but he chooses to ignore the overlapping McQueen which was the option he should have taken and instead, blindly fired it across which Bravo saved.

We are playing some decent stuff and finding space high up the pitch.  We pass it around from left to right and eventually tee up Clasie to slice it miles high and wide.  Another good move and Austin gets the ball on the right and puts over a cross which Bravo fields well.  We have obviously been watching how City play and there has been a load of publicity on how City have signed a keeper who is a footballer first and a goalkeeper second.  So, Bravo bowls it out and we’re all over it trying to win it back.  Romeu gets a foot in against Fernandinho but City get it back and continue to pass it around at the back to Stones.  He turns back towards his goal and tries to play it to Kompany who has dozed off, probably wondering what minute he told everyone he was going to get injured.  As it happens, Stone perfectly dissects Kompany and Bravo and Redmond is in, round Bravo and knocking it into an empty net.  Get in there.  If my Under 13’s defence did that I’d find it hard not to lose my rag, especially as my son is one of them and he’d get no dinner.  It’s appalling play from Stones.  People will try and blame Kompany and Bravo but hang on, he’s passed it to someone who wasn’t there, across his own goal, like a fucking idiot.  Cheers mate, 1-0 to us.

Straight from the restart practically, McQueen gets suckered in to giving a free kick away for body checking Silva.  Over it comes from de Bruyne and Stones bundles it in at the back post.  Fuck it.  There looked to be a player offside in the middle but sod it.  The reason I think it’s a goal is because I’m watching Sky and Niall Quinn is slapping his cock about because City have equalised and John Stones has atoned for his error and all is right with the world on Sky Super Sunday Big Club Bonanza.  The graphic at top left says 1-1 and play is going on and we’ve got the ball on the left wing.  They haven’t showed us kicking off because they were showing replays of the goal but then it’s “errrr, it’s still 1-0 to Southampton and they’ve found a reason to disallow the goal”.   It was difficult to hear Quinn digging his way out of it, probably because he had his tongue up John Stones’ arse at the time.  Ha ha ha… cunts!  I guess it doesn’t matter how many monitors you have or how much technology or how many people you have looking at it – you aint gonna see much if you’ve all got your City shirts pulled up over your faces in celebration when the ball hit the net.  Wankers.

So, Twattenburg got it right and it was offside but he’s still an oddball fucker.  Fernandinho wipes Austin’s legs out with no attempt to play the ball and gets nothing bar a free kick against him.  Then Clasie goes in for a tackle, wins the ball clean as you like with the tiniest bit of follow through on the end of a City players toe and gets booked.  Still, even the Twatt can’t spoil my mood as we defend superbly for the rest of the first half and don’t really give City a sight of our goal and we get to the break 1-0 up.

You know that Pep isn’t going to take it lying down and so on comes Iheanacho for de Bruyne.  Anyone who thinks this is a good thing obviously missed Iheanacho scoring twice against us last season at SMS in a game where the rest of the City side didn’t give a shit.  They’ve also swapped Sterling to the right and he’s giving McQueen a bit of a hard time but you can always rely on him putting a cross blindly into the box and in front of anyone rather than picking anyone out.

We are defending really well but we can’t string enough passes together to put them under pressure and for the first time in a few matches, we’re just launching it from the back with no real plan.  McQueen does well to bring the ball out and finds Davo who loses it on halfway to Fernandinho who plays a great ball to their left to Sane who is behind Martina who has dozed off.  He has time to pass it across the box and Iheanacho arrives to sweep it into the net.  It’s kind of similar to the Inter goal in the week in that Martina doesn’t cover himself in glory and a low cross is dispatched first time before Fraser can move.  Also on both goals, Virgil is the closest defender to the goalscorer.  Today though, the root cause is Davo losing the ball.

For a couple of minutes, it just looks like a matter of time with Sterling sliding in a good low ball to Iheanacho and his cross is begging to be put in but José just does enough to scramble it for a corner.  Predictably, Hojbjerg comes on for Clasie but it’s still all City and Fraser has to pull out a decent one handed save to deny Gundogan.  It’s amazing that Gundogan is still on the field after a horrible leg breaking effort on Romeu but then maybe it’s not surprising as Twattenburg was staring right at it and three yards away.  Can’t fault his positioning, just his refereeing.

We are now beginning to break out with purpose and have a 3 on 3 break but Tadic butchers the final ball to Austin and it runs straight through to Johnny Bravo in goal.  Whether it was because of that or something else, Claude removes Tadic and brings on Boufal.  He goes wide left and jinks across the top of the box before playing a superbly weighted ball to Austin who hits it straight at Johnny Bravo who saves easily.  We needed that to fly in the far corner really.  Another break a minute later and some more decent play from Boufal and Steve Davis has a shot.  Yep.

Niall Quinn chooses that moment to cream off about how good City have been this half which is true, however, for the last 5 minutes it’s been all us so he’s picked the wrong moment to jerk off.  It’s embarrassing.  Anyway, I bet there was a market with Ray Winstone or whoever on which minute Fraser would get booked for timewasting in and he duly wins some punters some money.  Aguero bursts through the middle after Boufal gets caught in possession and luckily for us he’s in greedy bastard mode and and screws a shot across goal and past the far post.  Soon after we get the dreaded ‘added minutes’ which tends to be up near double figures when you’re drawing away at a big club and it’s 5, fuck off!

JWP is on for Ausrtin as we pack the midfield and to be fair, City don’t get another sight at goal but there’s a panic as Sterling accidentally twats Romeu in the face and then Boufal clears it, just before a Iheanacho forearm catches him in the face.  He’s down but Twattenburg is happily playing on.  I have visions of Arsenal away all over again but we get a boot to it and smash it up the wing.

Full time and thank Christ for that. We were seriously blowing out of our arses for the last 20 minutes but on the whole, we defended well with very few alarms. When you consider the advantages that City have got, given that they had extra days to recover from their European game, not to mention that their squad cost fucking billions, a point at their ground is a pretty good achievement. It also answered a niggling doubt that I had that we wouldn't be able to play in the same manner against the really top boys. For the first hour we played it perfectly, being patient and then looking very dangerous when we attacked on the break. That all went to shit in the last half an hour when we went into defence mode aside from a little three minutes spell when we had a bit of possession in their half.

City are of course hyped to death and so is their manager but in reality, how good are they? Sure they will blow some teams are away but they've been able to do that for the last five years courtesy of having Aguero in their team and De Bruyne can be brilliant on his day, which today clearly was not but other than that they have a lot of players who cost a hell of a lot of money and have price tags way beyond their actual ability. Raheem Sterling is a classic example, costing 50 million quid and he is a player who puts in some decent crosses when it's all instinctive and he has no time to think but give him time to think or give him a couple of options and he's fucking useless. I like John Stones as a footballer but he's not Franz Beckenbauer which is what the hype machine has turned him into since he joined City.  It was amusing post match seeing the pundits scrambling to not blame him 100% for the goal he gave away.  Sorry, as a defender you have to be 100% sure before you pass it across your own goal.  You have to look and you have to make sure the pass gets there.  If he looked then he’s just fucked up the pass and if he didn’t look then he’s a twat and it’s crap play anyway.  You can’t play blind passes in defence and as there was nothing on he should have just turned and hoofed it out for a throw. 

As for the manager, well Pep has always had the odds ridiculously stacked in his favour at whatever club he’s been at and he does at City as well.  Little Southampton have gone up there and got a point so maybe that says that our manager was better today given that the fact that our players cost a fraction of theirs, a very small fraction.

As often mentioned, I watched the game on Sky and after I got past the half an hour build up which didn't even mention Southampton, I had to put up with quite possibly the most biased co-commentator ever in Niall Quinn. He was fucking ridiculous all the way through and if Sky have any sense, that’s him done with commentating on City, Sunderland or Arsenal games.  I remember seeing an interview with Matt le Tissier were he said he was not allowed to cover the Saints game on Soccer Saturday because his natural allegiance would show through. That's all well and good, so why do Sky subject to viewing public to two hours of completely biased arse from that lanky streak of piss Niall Quinn.

Anyway, we totally deserved the point and Oriol Romeu deserves it all on his own for the way he just rolled the midfield and for the way he didn't react to the attempt by Gundogan to break his leg.  How the fuck Mark Twattenburg can miss that when he was 3 yards away staring straight at it is incredible.  I also thought that Steve Davis had a great game on the left (losing ball for the goal aside) and all the forward players did their bit until they all got tired in the second half.  Unfortunately, Tadic was having one of his ‘choose the wrong option’ days.  It was a difficult afternoon for Sam McQueen and Sane and Sterling both gave him problems but he stuck at it and it was another decent performance from the youngster.  I also thought that Jose Fonte was magnificent and the way he organised and in the way he was always in the right place. Virgil was good again but he’ll be disappointed in Iheanacho’s goal as he got in front of him again like Candreva did on Thursday.  However, on both goals, the cross from our rather non-existent right side.  Remember though, Cuco cost as much as City paid for their guy who puts the bins out and a team that cost billions hardly had a sight of our goal when we had our third choice right and left backs playing.

Next up is the fourth round of the League Cup against Sunderland at home. I think it’s called the EFL Cup now.  The Mackems are of course utter dogshit in the league so we should see them off quite comfortably but we are going to be considerably different in our lineup. I can't see any of Virgil, Oriol, Charlie or Fraser starting for example and there will be a chance for Alex McCarthy, Harrison read, J-Rod and maybe Sofiane Boufal will start. Either way, we should beat Sunderland so hopefully a decent crowd will roll up at St Mary's to watch us push David Moyes one step closer to the sack and Sam Allardyce one step closer to getting his old job back. They played Adam Johnson when I knew he was a proper wrong’un so there's no way they are going to take the moral high ground and not employ Allardyce again.

Europa League Match 3 - Inter Milan 1 Southampton 0

The Moment We Realised It Wasn't Happening

It’s just another game tonight at the San Siro against Inter Milan. It’s just a run of the mill Thursday night at one of the most iconic stadiums in world football against one of the super powers of European football. No biggie. They were winning the Champions League with Jose Mourinho in charge and we were... well, shite and two divisions below our local rivals. Today would be a good day to remember who our local rivals are but for the life of me I can't.

Inter as we know have to leave a few players out of their Europa League squad due to financial fair play reasons and have been having a crap time of it lately. They sacked Roberto Mancini as the season started and got Frank de Boer in, have started the league season badly and lost the opening two Europa League games. This in my mind makes them more dangerous tonight. In addition to all this, their captain Mauro Icardi decided to write an autobiography saying that he could have all Inter's hardcore Ultras killed by Argentinian gangsters if he clicked his fingers. Not the brightest thing anyone's ever committed to paper and he's about as popular with the Inter faithful as Harry Redknapp is with his wife right now. Get well soon Mrs Redknapp by the way.

There had been more debate than usual about rotation and which was the priority game, this one or Man City away at the weekend. If it was down to me then it would be this one all day but it is not down to me. Seeing as he's our only striker who can hit the net, if Austin was 100% fit then he'd have started but no, J-Rod is up top. Elsewhere, Steve Davis is out, JWP is in, Redmond has a niggle, Shane is in and I can't be the only one who thinks Jose Fonte should be starting tonight. A defence with Cuco, Maya and Sam McQ in it certainly looks less than watertight on paper.

We look very lively at the start but the first chance is for Inter as Martina plays a shockingly shite back pass straight to Icardi who has stopped threatening to have people killed long enough to try to backheel it towards the danger area but Fraser blocks it away for a corner.

After this scare the game settles down and Saints are bossing possession.  To be honest, Inter don’t look that interested in closing down or chasing back especially on the wings.  Virgil pings a ball out from the back and it’s over Miranda who has just kind of left in and J-Rod is away.  He cuts in from the left once he’s retrieved the ball and there’s a moment when he could have have hit it but he tries to cust back inside a retreating defender and loses it.  Let’s put that down to two years of hardly playing.

J-Rod does better work as we approach the half hour, picking up a clearance just over half way and poking the ball out to McQueen on the left.  He puts over a great cross behind the defence and J-Rod goes in with keeper Handanovic who gets there first and it rebounds off the Saints man and rolls towards the goal.  There’s an Inter defender there and you hope he does a Bridcutt (see Sunderland 8-0 game) and somehow fucks it up but he clears it easily enough.  Back we come again and Martina pulls a god ball back across the top of the penalty area and JWP arrives like he did against Leicester, leans back like he did against Leicester and shats it over the bar like he did against Leicester.  Fucking hell.

It’s amazing how much possession we’re having and how dominant we are.  Literally all over them but the score is still 0-0 and it still is as Martina delivers a good left footed cross, up goes Long with a defender and it flicks on to the back post and J-Rod is inches away from it.  Another head in hands moment.

Before half time there’s a quick reminder of the dangers at the other end as Maya delivers his ‘one a game’ shite piece of play and heads a long ball down to Eder who takes and fires wide of the post that Fraser had covered anyway.  Half time and a superb performance everywhere bar the final third.  Though Inter have a much stronger line up than they had in the previous two Europa League games, we are still bossing it.  In the San Siro and we’re bossing it… everywhere except on the scoreline.

The second half starts in similar vein with Saints having all the control and creating the chances.  Hojbjerg slides in J-Rod who is well tackled by Miranda.  Corner and over it comes from JWP and the whistle blows well before it reached J-Rod at the back past who gets above the defender and heads in.  I cannot for the life of me see why the whistle went but there’s no spewing frustration as the whistle had clearly gone before Jay headed it.

More decent play and Long is in a footrace with a defender on the left and for no reason at all a foul is given against him but that’s the least of Shane’s problems as his hamstring has pinged and he has to go off and Austin is on.  Within 5 minutes he’s combined superbly with J-Rod and has an opening on the edge of the box but he drags his shot wide.  Should have done better.

The referee covers himself in whatever the opposite of glory is on the hour mark when Austin lays the ball off and Brozovic arrives a minute or so later and trashes him.  Advantage played as Tadic shoots straight and Handanovic.  Surely we get the free kick on the edge of the box now?  Nope, play on, wanker.  He does eventually remember how to referee a game and books Brozovic.

So, all the play and all the chances missed and then guess what.  Inter play it across to Santon on the left wing who evades the non-existent Martina and crosses low.  Candreva isn’t seen by shows JWP how to finish this sort of chance and lashes it first time left footed into the top corner before Fraser can move.  Fuck off!  One shot on target, one goal, have that.  Inter are looking decent now and Icardi produces a ridiculous turn in the box to leave Virgil standing but gets greedy and Maya slides in to knock it off for a corner.

Time for another debut and on comes Sofiane Boufal for Tadic who has tired in the last few minutes.  He takes up a position on the left wing with J-Rod switching to the right.  Having got themselves in front and starting to play better with the confidence provided by the goal, Brozovic decided to undo it all and produces a ridiculous sliding tackle through the heels of Hojbjerg and the ref has no option whatsoever but to give him a second booking.  I have a feeling this is going to make things more difficult as the time wasting has already started and this is going to make it even worse.

From the free kick, Inter have set up with such a high line that JWP has a huge area to curl the ball into and he does this and Virgil is totally free, meets it with a left foot volley and straight at Handanovic who saves easily.  Resignation has taken hold by now and we aren’t ever going to score are we?  We’re going to keep trying though with Davis on for J-Rod and Virgil playing up front.  Romeu has a potshot blocked and another corner.  In it comes from JWP and Virgil meets it, beats Handanovic and off the line for another corner. In it comes again and this time the ball drops above six yards out and Austin gets there and hits it, Handanovic blocks again.  Great save but Charlie had to lift it into the roof of the net.

There’s one last chance for JWP that you know we’re not going to score from in the 95^th minute as Boufal feeds it in and via Virgil it sits up for JWP on the volley which he puts a couple of feet wide.  Fucking hell….Gutted

I can write the post-match bit in one of two ways. Either from the point of view of 'we won the JPT when they won the Champions League' or from the point of view of purely the 90 minutes I've just seen. Big Picture vs Small Picture.  I will try and do both (and probably fail).

Small Picture first... No doubt everyone to do with the club and in the media will be saying well how did Saints lose that? It's perfectly simple - if you are complete dog shit in the final third for 90 minutes then you will not win many matches.  It got to the stage at the end when even when we were smashing the ball at the goalkeeper from 5 yards, I fucking knew it wasn't going to go in so there seemed hardly any point in even getting excited. It was similar to all those years ago when Bradley Wright-Phillips used to get clean through against the goalkeeper, you just knew it wasn't going to end up in the net so you may as well sit down and wait for the opposition to get away with it again. It wasn't just players like J-Rod, Austin, Virgil and JWP missing chances, it was also pathetic attempts at a final ball by Tadic and Martina amongst others. Inter had one decent chance, bang, win the game 1-0.  Efficiency in the final third-it's what it's all about chaps. You can be as good as you like on the rest of the pitch but if you're going to smash the final shot at the goalkeeper, some bloke in Row Z or at the fucking moon then you may as well not bother.  No debate though, we were very good in the other areas of the pitch.

If you look at the players individually, none of them played particularly badly but when it comes down to it though Long and J-Rod were never ever going to threaten the opposition goal and Martina was infuriating.  In the second half he wouldn't have put a decent cross in if he played all night and replaced the Inter players with training cones.  If we'd had a final third tonight we'd be sitting here today top of the group, having won about 3-0 and Frank de Boer would be down the Job Centre this morning.  If we’d scored first there was no way Inter would have come back given the fragile morale in that team.  It was always going to be the case that Inter were better against us than against the other two sides in the group.  Having lost the first two they’d have been virtually out if they’d lost tonight and de Boer would have been out of a job so they picked a stronger team.

We are short up front and I think we all kind of knew that.  Charlie Austin is doing it most of the time but Shane Long appears to be proving that last season was the exception rather than the rule.  He looks tired to me after the Euros and is picking up niggling injuries in addition to just not looking like a goal threat.  J-Rod cannot be expected to be firing on all cylinders but I find it worrying that he appears to have lost the speed which made him such a handful.  You could always rely on his willingness to pull the trigger as well but even that went missing at the crucial time tonight. 

At the other end of the pitch, it’s interesting that suddenly Virgil is getting a load of attention as the media wake up to how good he is.  Maybe one positive from tonight will be that he lost Candreva for the goal so maybe the boys with the big chequebooks will be put off. I may be clutching at straws here.  I was very impressed with Sam McQueen particularly in the first half and Maya had a decent game.  Cuco?  Yeah, let’s leave that one for now.

Unbelievably, Sparta Prague, having just won in Israel, sit top of the group and they were quite comfortably the worst team we have played.  We should still qualify of course as we should beat this Internazionale team and Be'er Sheva at home.

This fixture has meant a lot of reflection on where we come from in the past seven years. All that leaves me with a nice feeling about the club but it doesn't take away from the fact that we had a glorious chance tonight to put qualification from this group to bed and we fucked it up. Of course, we rested a few as well so now the pressure is on to get a result at the weekend, away at Manchester City who are coming into that game off the back of getting smashed 4-0 by Barcelona.  After you Claude...

Big Picture.... 7000 fans in the San Siro, some of whom would have been at Hartlepool and other godforsaken places a few years back. I salute everyone who made the trip. It is barely believable that we have gone from League One Minus 10 to being disappointed and frustrated with a 1-0 defeat to Inter Milan in 7 and a bit seasons.  We've got them at home in a couple of weeks and in many ways that'll be even better as it'll be sold out and we'll be looking to put tonight's result right.  One of the European heavyweights will be coming to our ground and it won't be for a pre-season friendly.  Can't wait.  Tonight isn’t terminal to our chances of going through so we have to learn from it and move on like we always do.  Inter Milan at the San Siro and we should have won – we really should have won.

Premier League Match 8 - Southampton 3 Burnley 1

Charlie and Jay Playing for Their School Team

Burnley at home is the first game in our next sequence of 7 matches in 3 weeks before the next international break.  They’ve been promoted, relegated, promoted in the last 3 seasons and still have Sean Dyche in charge, trying to make a better fist of the Premier League than last time.  On the face of it they seem to have a better squad this time around as long as Andre Gray deletes all his old tweets and doesn’t get banned again.

There are many connections between the two clubs with the most obvious being Jay Rodriguez and Charlie Austin who were once their forward line.  There’s also a connection with good old Dave Merrington who will be displaying Merringtitus on Radio Solent as a Saints co-commentator whereas he was a fierce centre half for Burnley back in the black and white TV days.

We’ve just had an international break and what fun it was.  Gareth Southgate was the interim England manager and the two performances England put in reflected their manager in their uninspiring and boring manner.  His first squad was at least a bit interesting but not really for the right reasons.  Oxlade-Chamberlain got back in on the back of doing precisely fuck all for Arsenal since Fat Sam dropped him.  He gave an interview when he said that being dropped was the kick up the backside he needed.  Surely you are dropped because you’re level isn’t high enough at that time but a month later when the level hasn’t risen, you’re selected again.  Jesse Lingard was also included and I actually didn’t mind this.  He’s become almost a regular with Man United so he’s bound to be there or thereabouts and he’d always been decent for Southgate in the Under 21s.  Lingard made the starting eleven which is fine because we’re playing Malta at home.  Today’s position to shoehorn Rooney into the side was defensive midfield alongside Jordan Henderson Football Genius.  Ryan Bertrand got a start but Fraser Forster didn’t.  I must have imagined Hart being complete shite for England in the summer, being bombed out of Manchester City and flapping around like budgie for Torino and I also must have imagined Fraser keeping five clean sheets in a row.  Away we go and Malta are shite, some neat passing in midfield aside.  They’re best player used to play for Coventry in the Championship so that tells you that this is a League 1 or League 2 level side apart from the goalkeeper who is decent.

England huff and puff and are generally one paced and directionless – sound familiar?  Amazingly, the player who raises the tempo is Henderson and he puts over a great cross which Sturridge expertly guides into the corner with his head for 1-0.  Henderson again then tees up Alli to take two attempts and make it 2-0.  From a Saints point of view it’s a fucking nightmare as Ryan Bertrand picks up a hamstring injury and has to go off and the rest of the first half is shite…. Followed by the whole of the second half.  Half arsed, shite and the commentators and pundits are doing my fucking head in.  If you can’t do your fucking job and tell it as it is then fuck off.  Ryan Giggs – what a boring fucker, someone in a coma would wake up after ten years asleep just to get out of the room he was in.  No wonder he can’t get a job.  How the hell did he chat up his brothers wife… just threw money at her I guess.

Rooney – no one on TV said it but he was fucking dreadful.  Slowed every move down, usually passed it sideways.  Whenever he tried to pass it forwards then he overhit it and not just by a little bit but by fucking miles and he had the touch of someone with two prosthetic legs.  After the 25^th overhit pass straight out of play, there are a few boos in the crowd and all the pundits are up in arms about it.  I’m not a fan of booing your own players but in this case, admit that it’s at least understandable.  He was shite.  Then there was a debate about his role with the team. 

The Slovenia game was notable for the fact that Rooney got dropped and that was it. Credit to Southgate for dropping him but then the performance was shithouse and the most boring 0-0 draw ever.  The only excitement was provided by shit England back passes.  First Dier had a go, Hart and the post to the rescue, then Henderson, Hart to the rescue again.  Cahill then decided not to jump and Dandruff Boy made one of the best saves I’ve ever seen by clawing it out of the top corner.  Fair play to him, he’s been shite but he was brilliant tonight which will mean Fraser on the bench for at least another two years.

Over the two games, I can say that Sturridge is a lazy cunt who makes no runs at all which at least prevents him getting the ball and being a greedy bastard with it. Walcott was shite and didn’t beat his man once, Cahill was given a few moments by a fucking postman or brickie or whoever he was up against, Kyle Walker added attacking to the things he can’t do to go alongside defending which he of course didn’t have to do.  The single most damning thing is that Henderson was probably our best player in the first game and fuck me, he got made captain in the second– Henderson – a bang average midfielder who stood out simply because he injected a bit of urgency on a couple of occasion in the first half of the Malta match.  Alli was pretty decent in both games and Lingard had a good first half against Malta before fading to nothing for the rest of the week.

One final thought – Southgate is not the man.  Ever.

And we’re back at St Mary’s thank Christ… Today is of course about the three points but it’s also about the homecoming of Francis Benali after his lunatic running and cycling effort around the 44 grounds on the Premier League and Championship to raise money for Cancer Research.  The man is a legend.  With Bertrand being injured, I guess it was too much for Franny to put a kit on and play at left back so Matt Targett was in, with Cuco replacing the injured Cedric on the right.  The only other slight surprise was Clasie being preferred to Hojbjerg on the right of the midfield diamond and a slight disappointment that Sofiane Boufal wasn’t even on the bench.  That news was softened by the fact that Shane Long was after picking up an injury with the Republic.

Saints make a good positive start and the left side of Burnley’s team looks very suspect and the I realise that it’s two players who both beg the question ‘how the fuck are they playing in the Premier League?’.  One is Stephen Ward at left back, an agricultural donkey who gives agricultural donkeys a bad name.  On the left wing is rat faced little twat George Boyd who we came across playing for Peterborough in League 1.  Fair play to him for kidding a few people that he’s good enough to be here.

It’s down the other side that the first chance comes from as Targett fastens onto Romeu’s crossfield ball and totally unimpeded by full back Lowton (Villa reject), slings over a great cross which Austin meets and heads down and goalwards.  It’s in… it’s definitely in and we’re 1-0 up… no we’re not as Heaton has got down and made a ridiculous save flipping the ball wide as it bounced up off the ground.  There is mass head holding and applause for the keeper.  Unreal save.  Bastard.

It’s all us with Burnley struggling to get out of their half and then Targett sits down and obviously isn’t getting back up again.  Claude immediately summons Sam McQueen from the bench and on he goes.  It’s refreshing in the extreme as our previous manager, the Lying Dutchman, would have put Yoshida on and played him out of position.  The injury and subsequent break has made it all a bit disjointed though and the game becomes a mess and our next chance comes from an underhit backpass from Virgil which Fraser has to react to and launch forward.  Such is the lead-footedness of Ward that it goes over him and Tadic is through but he knocked it too far and though he got to his touch first, Heaton was right on him to smother it.

Burnley make an appearance in our penalty area as chip forward causes confusion.  It looks like it’s going over Virgil so Jose covers round but Virgil then reaches it and falls over José behind him.  Meanwhile the ball falls to Gudmundsson who crashes down amongst the wreckage of our centre backs.  There’s an appeal but not a full one and amazingly, Mike Dean waves play on and a long ball finds Austin clean through.  As Heaton comes out he tries to chip him and makes a total bollocks of it.

We have one more chance before half time as Redmond twists and shoots, Heaton flaps it out and Austin, who has not had a great half, almost falls over the ball as he fails to force it in at the back post.

Half time is all about the appearance of Francis Benali to rapturous applause from the whole stadium.  What a guy.  I’ll forgive him the fact that he hasn’t mentioned once that he played against me in a match when we were 15.  McQueen is looking decent for us but Franny would certainly get a game ahead of Stephen Ward if I was picking the team.

It’s all us again at the start of the second half and it takes five minutes for Davo to win a corner.  Over it comes from Tadic, won at the back post by Virgil and there’s Austin to take two attempts and force it over the line but over the line it is and 1-0.

Almost straight from the kick off we win the ball and a great break down the left (Lightning McQueen anyone?) and Redmond feeds Tadic who digs out a shot and another corner as Heaton tips over.  Davis swings it in, everyone in the middle misses it but Redmond has peeled off and drills it first time past the defender and keeper to make it 2-0 and you would think, game over.

Burnley respond with nothing and they’re all over the place, allowing Tadic to dissect the right back and centre back and put McQueen in.  Over he goes as he cuts across the defender, penalty.  It’s the first penalty with both Tadic and Austin on the pitch since the infamous squabbling children episode but no arguments this time.  Charlie, Heaton the wrong way, 3-0.

There will be no hat-trick against his former club as ex-Claret J-Rod is on for Austin.  Burnley make another appearance in our half and from the second of two successive corners, Dean points to the spot for what looks like nothing.  Later replays proved it was actually for nothing and Vokes rolls it down the middle for our first goal conceded in 6 and a half matches.  Cheers Mike.

With 15 to go you feel that there might be alarm bells ringing but there are none.  Davis reminds everyone of the one flaw in his game by dragging a very presentable chance wide and José thumps a free header from a corner just wide to his obvious annoyance.  The final chance is down to another great break down the left and McQueen delivers a superb cross on the run which J-Rod meets at full pelt at the back stick but he can only scuff it into the ground and Heaton saves again.  Full time, happy days.

As wins go in the Premier League, that was incredibly easy. This was down in equal measure to our vibrant attacking football which should really have brought more goals and Burnley being absolutely shite relegation fodder.


I would say that all 14 of the players used today were an absolute credit to the shirt. Everyone was an 8/10 at least but for me, Nathan Redmond was the pick of the bunch. Maybe it's because Boufal is nearing fitness but whatever the reason, Redmond was fantastic today.  A major plus today was Jordy Clasie, who not only played the full match but had probably his best game in a Saints shirt.  I also have to mention Sam McQueen who though he had absolutely fuck all to do defensively, terrorised the right hand side of Burnley's defence and put I have a succession of great crosses and of course, won the penalty as well. Made me think of Wayne Bridge who of course, started as a left winger and eventually became left back. He did OK for himself.

I keep hearing about what a great manager Sean Dyche is but he's already been relegated with Burnley once and he is heading that way again. The game plan today was to get a 0-0 draw and the soon as they went behind the game plan appeared to be to lose 1-0, another goal of the game plan was to lose 2-0. In short, they did absolutely fuck all and I would not have been happy being one of their travelling supporters today. I mean, nothing else is working so stick an extra man upfront and try the long ball for fuck's sake but no, Nothing. 3-1 flattered them horribly and it was all down to Tom Heaton in goal and Mike Dean's desire to make a name for himself as the referee who gives the most penalties every week. Dyche had a moan about the one they didn't get given in the first half which in real time and right front of me, I didn't think was a penalty either (until I saw it later).  To be fair he did admit that we were the better side but how could he not but it's a pretty desperate straw he's clutching at to mention a penalty decision he didn't get after 20 minutes when you've been absolutely played off the park. It's easy to forget that they sent to half Michael Keane was in the last England squad. Maybe it was an off game but he was pretty average today.

Claude was understandably delighted and of course pointed out that we should have one of my many more. The style of football that he has asked playing is now putting average opponents to the sword. In case you hadn't noticed our next five games are Inter Milan away Manchester City away, Chelsea at home, Hull away and Inter Milan at home. If we get through that lot undefeated then a) it will be a fucking miracle and b) it will be a fucking miracle.  It'll be interesting to see what we do with the team selection for the Inter-away match and Manchester City at the weekend. Normally you would expect a stronger team in the Premier League game but I think most fans would prefer to put a strong team out in Milan and take our chances with the City away game which is after all, the most difficult Premier League fixture of the season. We have a few injuries of course what with being down to the third choice in both full back position is but on the positive side Shane Long doesn't appear to be too badly injured, J Rod got a run out today and I would think that Boufal will feature somewhen in these next two games.

For today though, the unbeaten run went up to 7 games and we've come back after an international break and demolished someone. One of my favourite hobby horses is Match of the Day and how ‘big club’ focussed they are.  Usually I just accept it with rolling eyes in my head but this weekend was difficult.  MOTD2, which we always feature on now because we only play on Sundays, was delayed a night to Monday so they could feature the hyped to fuck 0-0 bore draw between two of the big clubs, Merseyside Redcunts and Manchester Redcunts.  They did show quite a lot of our game but the analysis, provided by Keown and Kilbane was horrific.  They show the penalty shouts and yep, it sure looks like Virgil carted Gudmundsson and it should have been a penalty.  However, they’re asking why Virgil turned his back on the player and that’s plainly obvious.  José was on the ground behind him and Virgil was falling over him at the time so you could hardly say it was deliberate.  Then they moved onto our penalty and basically said that McQueen dived, no mention of how well another Saints youngster played on his debut.  Yes it was a soft penalty but compare and contrast the reaction to that penalty and the one Luke Shaw won against Saints earlier in the season.  The same kind of challenge, a slight touch and over he goes but no one even mentioned the possibility that Shaw dived.  At least they agreed on the Burnley penalty which was absolute horse shit though no one actually mentioned that it should have been our free kick as Vokes has hold of Virgil’s shirt right the way through the incident.  If you’re going to be the ‘go to’ man for penalty shouts Mike Dean – at least get it fucking right.

What can you say about the legend that is Francis Benali that hasn’t already been said?   Two weeks of a marathon a day and 75 miles on a bike is absolutely mental for a 47 year old bloke.  I’m a 47 year old bloke and there is absolutely no way in this lifetime as I can barely run to the chip shop.   If you haven’t done so, stick some money in the pot here…

http://www.benalisbigrace.com/

What’s next?  Oh yes… Inter Milan at the San Siro… fucking hell!

Premier League Match 7 - Leicester 0 Southampton 0

Out of the Way, Steptoe

Leicester City – Premier League Champions 2015/16.

No matter what is said on Sky or in the media, Leicester winning the league last year was the biggest achievement in domestic football ever, bearing in mind the difference in resources between the haves and the have nots.  People go on about Blackburn in ’95 as being similar but they had loads of cash compared to everyone else because of Jack Walker and it was before the days of Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour.  Man United or Chelsea or City winning it three times in a row is not even close to Leicester’s win last year.  They won’t win it this year of course but a run in the Champions League and a top half finish would be great for them and the memories are forever and all supporters of non-mega clubs can smile at the amount of teeth gnashing that Leicester’s title win will have caused in the corridors of the powers that be.  Chat shit, get banged.

They’ve started well in the Champions League this year with two wins out of two so more power to them.  They only lost one player in the summer but it was a big one in Kante who followed the cash to Chelsea like a spoilt little Lallana.  Claudio Ranieri has strengthened the rest of the squad with the money and they should be on for another good season.  Not everything will break their way this season like it did last and Vardy and Mahrez will do well to replicate last season’s heroics.  They’ve already struggled this season with the new rules on pulling shirts which means that Huth, Morgan and Fuchs have to actually defend rather than assault every player who stands near them.  I just realised that I said ‘new rules’.  It’s not a new rule, it’s just applying the existing ones.

So – bullshit fixture lists.  They get to play at home in the Champions League on Tuesday whereas we get to go to fucking Israel (which is not even geographically in Europe) on Thursday so they’ve had two extra days to prepare and no travelling.  I know it’s all about TV but surely there has to be some consideration for integrity of the competitions.  Here’s one for free - Europa on Tuesday, Champs League on Wednesday – sorted.  Anyway, here we are and we’ve reverted to our ‘West Ham’ line-up which is our strongest team.  Austin and Tadic in for Long and Hesketh up front, Hojbjerg and Davis in for Clasie and JWP in midfield and the first choice back 4 all present and correct.  Despite the rotation of the squad, I think it’s too much of a stretch to expect a win and Leicester haven’t lost at home for about 18 games so it isn’t going to be easy.  We’ve got Eric Black on the bench, fuck the Daily Telegraph.

Away we go and it’s a good start with Cedric getting in a good left footed cross and Charlie finding space in between Huth and Morgan to get a header in but straight at Schmeichel and he also gets his head on a Tadic cross next but this time he can’t get it on target.  Leictester aren’t showing anything yet and whenever they threaten to do so, Romeu is in and winning the ball and via Redmond, the ball ends up with Davo breaking forward.  He tries to chip it over the defence for Austin but it looks to have gone too far but with the angle against him, Charlie just hits it and it catches everyone out, flies past Schmeichel and pings off the far post and away.  Great effort and really unlucky.  If you’re not confident then you don’t even try that effort.

Leicester’s attacks are all breaking down but then we have a collector’s item – a mistake from Virgil.   He finds himself at right back and plays a shit house of a pass which gets half way to Fraser and straight to the one player you don’t want to give it to, fucking Steptoe Jamie Vardy.  Fraser does his best and sends him across the top of the penalty area and this delays him just long enough for Romeu to steam in and half block the shot.  The rebound comes out to Slimani and Romeu blocks it and then back to Vardy and Romeu blocks it again.  Absolutely fucking outstanding from Oriol and he celebrates like he’s just scored a worldie.

Hero has an attempt at turning villain next though as Romeu tries to find Fonte with a pass and fucks it up, straight to Slimani bearing down on goal but Jose gets his body in the way and Slimani hits the deck.  It’s a great tackle in my book but it would probably have been given as a penalty at one of the big clubs and despite being the Champions, Leicester don’t have that advantage as yet.  Half time and as long as we don’t shoot ourselves in the arse, we’re the better side here.

We’re back on it at the start of the second half and some lovely play by the ever impressive Hojbjerg and Davis sees the former slide Redmond through but he new Thierry Henry scuffs his shot straight at the keeper.  Virgil has recovered from his aberration in the first half and confidently brings the ball out of defence before playing the ball into Austin.  Two Leicester defenders seem to get in each others way and Austin turns with just Schmeichel to beat and he tried to bastard chip it and the keeper didn’t sit down like he was obviously supposed to do and pawed it away.  Fuck it.  You can’t have a go at Charlie because of the credit he has in the bank for the run he’s been on but fuck me, we do miss some chances as a team.

Drinkwater hits the side netting after a run in which he is shadowed all the way by Romeu and you can tell that Leicester are not happy with the way they are attacking as Steptoe is taken off and replaced with Okazaki who this season, comes on as a sub every game whereas last year he got substituted every game.  The substitution seems to put some life into Leicester and from a corner, Drinkwater again has a go and catches it well from the edge of the box but it’s straight down Fraser’s throat.

Saints show sporadically with Hojbjerg finding space for a low shot which is well saved but it’s mainly Leicester and there’s all sorts of carnage in our box as everyone leaves a Fuchs long throw, Fraser paws it out and when the cross comes back in, Okazaki gets up well and flicks a header just wide.  Tadic and Austin are replaced with Long and JWP and so we reach the 90^th minute and all three subs get involved.  Martina takes a quick throw whilst no one was concentrating, Long hooked it back from the corner and it runs to JWP, 15 yards out and he fucking leans back and creams it over the bar.  Golden opportunity to win it and utter shite.

We almost make it even worse in the last minute as Fraser produces a very tired looking shite skidding kick which is knocked forward.  It’s reminiscent of Kelvin Davis’ shite kick against Leicester at home last season but whereas last year the chance fell to Vardy and he buried it, this year it falls to Ulloa who is dogshit and he hits it first time, Row Z.

There’s isn’t time to restart once the ball is back from Ulloa’s attempt to hit a satellite and so we have another point on the road which is good… but there’s a nagging feeling that we should have had all three.  Charlie Austin will blame himself for trying to chip Schmeichel but we can’t criticise him too much as he still looks the only player we have who is going to score.  For me, a worse miss was JWP at the end as it’s unforgiveable to not even test the keeper from that range.

Also, the focus will be on the Austin miss but we have to remember that we got lucky on a couple of occasion when we sloppily gifted chances to Leicester with shite back passes though it was fantastic work from Romeu to bale Virgil out of the shit when he fucked up.  The defence is looking great again overall – 6 games without conceding a goal is impressive going no matter who you are playing against.  Claude was quick to highlight the defensive work of the whole team in creating that record and long may it continue.  The post match interviews were almost trying to play on Claude’s language skills and trying to get him to admit he was angry with Charlie for missing.  He was disappointed of course but respectful of the fact that we’ve come to the Champions home ground after playing on Thursday 2000 miles away and we’ve got something out of the game.

There were some major performers in red and white out there today with Romeu and Hojbjerg being the pick of the bunch in midfield.  The triple-block from Romeu deserves a place in the memory alongside the Triple-Niemi against the ridiculously good Arsenal side of the early 2000s.  Romeu is turning into a great player and will only get better with regular football which aside from one loan season when he was farmed out by Chelsea to Germany, he has never had in his career.  The same applies to Hojbjerg who looks a fantastic player with every game he plays.  Elsewhere, José Fonte looked back to his best which is vindication for the decision to leave him at home for the trip to Israel.

It’s time for an international break and we’ve got two weeks of Gareth Interesting Southgate but we can take our mind off it by knowing that we’re going to see Sofiane Boufal when it’s over and hopefully he can help us carry a bigger threat in the final third. When the England squad did get announced, there were deserved places for Ryan Bertrand and Fraser Forster and if there’s any merit in the thinking of the latest England manager then both should start… oh hang on, Alex Chamberlain is back in the squad after doing fuck all this season so merit is out the window.  Hang on, Glenn Johnson!!! There are hasbeens and then there are those who never were anything other than complete shite.

Back to Saints and I read that we have the same number of points and same goal difference as we had last season after the same number of games.  I must look up my list of Meltdown Fuckwits on Twitter to check if they’re ok or admitting that they might have been wrong.