Europa League Match 4 - Southampton 2 Inter Milan 1

The Two Main Men

If my time as a Saints fan is anything to go by, there won't be many Saints supporters who get to see a competitive home game against one of Europe's superpower clubs. Inter Milan have earned the right to be mentioned up there with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and the other Italian giants Juventus and AC Milan. That is a fair reflection of their pedigree and tonight they are playing at St Mary's. 40 years ago, as a seven-year-old I saw us play Anderlecht who at the time we are one of the biggest clubs in Europe. I obviously can't remember too much about that game but I remember that the atmosphere was electric and the chocolate boxes behind the Milton Road and at the Dell were ridiculously packed.

In the context of Europa League Group K, we cannot afford to lose this game. A defeat would put us right in the shit regarding qualifying for the knockout stages. If we could have hit a barn door at the San Siro a few weeks ago, we would have a little bit of leeway here.

Inter have by their standards been having a shocking time of it this year. Three points in three games in the Europa league pales into insignificance compared to them being 9th in Serie A. Frank De Boer paid the price for this and was sacked a couple of days ago so they have the youth team manager in charge tonight. Hopefully, he is a lot like Steve Wigley.

It's an interesting night for Claude with his team selection. We have this game and we have the less than glamorous trip to Hull City on Sunday. I do not see that game being more difficult than this one and so to me, we should be putting out of the stronger side tonight. I am therefore not terribly impressed when I see that your Yoshida is playing ahead of Fonte and that J Rod is in ahead of Austin. I'm happy with JWP and Hojbjerg being in ahead of Clasie and Davis because the latter two were pretty poor on Sunday.  In the full back positions, Sam McQueen gets the nod ahead of the recovering Bertrand and on the right is Cuco the Clown.  Personally, I would've played either your Yoshida or Steve Davis as a makeshift right back ahead of the clown Martina who was so bad in the Chelsea game that the thought of him playing again tonight makes me cringe. The selection on the bench throws up a question and it makes me wonder why we signed to Stuart Taylor? With McCarthy being injured you would expect Taylor to be on the bench as the experienced option but no, Harry Lewis is preferred and I don't know how old he is but he looks about 15..

Inter have put out what looks like a fairly solid and strong team with Handanovic in goal through to Banega and Icardi up front. No matter how badly they are doing by their own ridiculously high standards, they are not going to be easy to beat with international players from Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Italy dotted around all over the pitch.

Away we go and a decent start down the right with Tadic putting over a decent cross right onto J-Rod’s head and he climbs well but there’s a lack of conviction in the header as it goes wide.  J-Rod has another chance a few minutes later when he tries to curl one into the far top corner but it starts too central and Handanovic can watch it over the bar.  We have one more off-target effort as Redmond cuts in and shoots wide before Inter get into our half and what do you fucking know?

Perisic against Martina was always going to be a fucking nightmare and he beats him and crosses right over to the other side where Medel retrieves it, exchanges passes with Candreva and crosses from the dead ball line.  Perisic should score but his effort hits Martina and the ball somewhat fortuitously finds its way back to Icardi who slams it first time intot he bottom corner before Fraser can move.  Fuck!!!  It looked like there was a foul on Virgil by Medel out on our left but no one is interested in giving that so 1-0 down again from Inter’s first shot.  You have to say that they’re efficient.

We are all kind of stunned and frustration sets in as we slow everything down and do not look like scoring at all.  J-Rod is hanging onto the ball too long and every move seems to break down on him.  We look good in midfield with JWP and Hojbjerg making up for a somewhat wayward performance from Romeu. Aside from J-Rod, the other dead zone is on the right where Cuco has gone into full clown mode.  I love the way he goes steaming over to a situation where he has no chance of winning the ball, only to realise it, stop and then chase back as the opposition have skipped round him and away.

The world seems shit and on half time we win a corner.  Tadic takes it poorly and it gets cleared up in the air.  Rather than aimlessly head it, Hojbjerg brings it down on his chest and tries to bundle past Perisic and the ball bounces up and hits him on the elbow.  Penalty given.  Absolute bullshit decision.  There’s some sort of scuffle going on as the Italians protest and from the other end I can see McQueen take a slap in the face from someone.  The ref is looking straight at it and calls the offender (Candreva) over and bottles it with a yellow card.  A good three minutes have gone by before Tadic steps up and it’s a shite penalty at a comfortable height and just right of centre with Handanovic going the right way and saving it easily.  Fuck off… half time.

I’m of the same opinion as I was against Chelsea on Sunday.  There is no point in leaving a player on who is not going to do anything so we may as well take J-Rod off now but we don’t and it’s an unchanged team who are back on to start the second half.  We make a good positive start and Hojbjerg’s cross finds its’ way to JWP who strikes it well but Handanovic makes a strong.  A few minutes later and Virgil and J-Rod combine and JWP creams one towards the top corner but Handanovic is there again, throwing up a really stong arm to keep it out again.  It the last contribution for Jay and Austin is on and Jay appears to take out his frustration on the advertising hoarding.  Soon, there’s another great chance as Hojbjerg cust in from the right and keeprs going before chopping onto his right foot but Ranocchia makes a really good block.

Surely it’s going to come in a minute – Tadic swings over a corner and up gets Virgil to thinmp it goalwards but too central and the keeper tips is over again and then finally, as the second corner is half cleared, Romeu flicks it goalwards and it loops over the keeper and hits the bar, falling for Virgil to ram it into the net from close range.  The referee immediately looks like he’s disallowed it but it’s a goal and the big man gets a deserved first of the season.

Three minutes later and it all goes proper mental as Tadic and McQueen work an opening down the left and Tadic gets a yard and crosses low and it takes a deflection off one Milan defender and that seems to confuse Nagatomo at the back post and he stands there like a twat and it bounces off his hip and loops past Handanovic and into the net.  Cheers mate, 2-1.

Davis on for Tadic for the last 15 as Claude demonstrates his European experience and Dvo seems to calm things down and we keep possession nicely until Romeu plays a shit house of a pass across our own box and straight to Icardi who forces Fraser into a decent low save.  It feels ridiculous to say it but that incident aside, we are extremely comfortable and the only side that looks like scoring.  Redmond shoots wide after a break up the left and we play out the last knockings in the corner with Davis, McQueen and Hojbjerg not letting inter have it.  The ref has seen enough and fuck me, we’ve won.

This is a game that in a few years, when I'm an old bastard dribbling into my cornflakes, I'll be looking back and will be able to say "I was there". Southampton 2 Inter Milan 1. Just let that sink in for a little bit
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Okay. The first half was pretty dreadful from our point of view with us offering absolutely zero attacking threat and then letting in a shit goal on Inter's one visit into a half.  After the first few minutes, the atmosphere was pretty flat because the team weren't doing it on the pitch. Like in the Chelsea game, there was a lot of sideways and backwards and are losing the ball as soon as we tried to do something positive with it.  The second-half however was completely different and we tore them the new arsehole that they desperately deserved and the crowd responded superbly. I sit in the family stand so I'm used to it being fairly quiet but tonight was very different and I’m not just talking about the presence of half and half scarfers. Sure, we got a bit lucky with the winning goal but boy did we deserve it, not just for tonight but for the game in Milan as well.

There were many great performances in the second half but some players did it for the whole 90 minutes, in particular, Sam McQueen, Virgil, Maya, Pierre Hojbjerg and James Ward-Prowse. I'm writing his full name, instead of just JWP because today, he was the real deal. A superb performance in midfield from start to finish and the best game I’ve ever seen him have. If only he was a little bit more forceful when it comes to demanding the ball to take a penalty. On that note, that has got to be it for Tadic and penalties. Even the ones he scores are dribbled into the goal but I think that's two he's missed now and to be honest with our basic problem of not scoring enough goals, missing penalties is not something we can afford.

It seems churlish to talk about negatives but J-Rod really needs to be playing every single game that the under 23 side plays because he was so far off the pace, he was virtually running backwards. Also, though he improved in the second half, Cuco Martina is a fucking nightmare. Cedric or Pied or an Academy Right back or the January transfer window cannot come soon enough.  Then there’s the referee Pawel Gil – unreal decision not to send Candreva off and I know it’s a Premier League thing to penalise holding at corners etc but Ranocchia has rugby tackled Virgil on at least 3 occasions and he’s not given it.  Also, you have to say, the decision we got given for the penalty was scandalous.

Inter Milan got what they deserved. There is a lot that I like about Italian football, particularly the way their sides usually defend.  I'm not talking about the niggly, time wasting, diving method of defending but the actual technical defending that Italian sides do so well. There are times when it oversteps the mark though and it just becomes blatant thuggery. Though it was up the other end of the pitch to where I was and I didn't see it at the time, the actions of Candreva around the penalty with scuffing the penalty spot and then elbowing McQueen in the face were absolutely fucking scandalous. You would think he may get some sort of retrospective ban for that but who does that benefit? Not us.  We could probably do with him playing against Sparta Prague and he is one of their better players even though he's obviously a horrible little fuck. I was amazed at how little Inter did, Not just tonight but in the first game as well. I guess that's why they've had nine managers in six years.

The coverage we got in the media was predictable in the extreme. Even though it was one of the biggest wins in the clubs history, Manchester Red Cunts losing on the same night was of course a bigger story.  On the highlights that I watched when I got in they spent 10 minutes discussing how the Red Cunts should build their team around Carlton Pogba, who got injured in the first half of the game today and therefore didn't contribute anything to the game they were showing the highlights of.  When they did get around to showing our game, or when anyone talks about it on the radio or anything like that it's always in the context of the players that we lose every summer and the manager fucking off and that gets a bit tiresome as well as you know that all they really want to do is talk up Virgil moving to a huge club at some point.

Fuck ‘em all, we don't need to be top of the bill to have a fantastic night. I don't give a flying fuck if Inter aren't what they were a few years ago.  They are still a massive European name and with the possible exception of Manchester Red Cunts, the biggest side in the competition and we beat them quite convincingly.  With Sparta beating Be'er Sheva we are now in the position of needing to win one of our last two games to be certain of qualifying for the knockout rounds. It would be nice to do that in the next game which is away in Prague as that would leave us top of the group going in to the last round of matches. Sparta were distinctly average at St Mary's when we won 3-0 so let's go out to improve our pretty dismal European away record.

Tonight, we played Inter Milan at home and we won.  Mental.