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.