Premier League Match 13 - Southampton 1 Everton 0

Koeman: I Was Not Aware of This Young Player

Claude: I Was, I Do My Job Properly

Picture the scene as Ronald Koeman arrives at St.Mary’s.

“Good morning Mr Koeman, hope you had a pleasant trip”
“The changing rooms are through here and …. Well you know where they are I guess”
“Nice to see you”

(Behind hand)… “C**t”

Yes it’s the return of Mr Honesty and Integrity to St.Mary’s as Everton rock up, an Everton side who started the season very well on account of having some very favourable home fixtures but now have hit a bit of a wall and what a shame that is.  They came into some money in the summer from some bloke who used to be associated with Arsenal and Everton basically lost themselves and forgot their principles and tradition.  They prided themselves in being The Peoples Club but within five minutes of the money turning up, they’d turned into Liverpool.  It was all about how much money they could spend but as anyone with even a semblance of brain knows, chucking money around in random fashion isn’t always the best way.  The first money they chucked was of course at Ronald to the estimated tune of £7 million a year which made him abandon the principles he had and had repeatedly stated when at Saints. “I honour my contracts”.. “I would hate to be a manager who was all about money” and various quotes like that.  OK, leave for a ridiculous amount of money – I get that completely, even though he probably had already earned more money than most of us could dream of.  It clearly didn’t sit too well with him though because then the excuses and blaming Saints started.  Whatever, admit you left for the money or just shut up.  Trust in meeeee, trust in meeee!

Everton’s defence has been creaky since Moyes left and whilst it’s no wonder that Martinez made it worse, it was a bit of a surprise that Koeman replaced John Stones, their best young quickest defender with the old, slow and cumbersome Ashley Williams who usually forms a slow lumpy defensive partnership with Phil Jagielka.  At full back, Coleman is still an excellent player and then you have Baines who has never ever been able to defend.  The paceless defence is covered by Gareth Barry who is the only player on FIFA ’17 to have a minus figure in the ‘Pace’ category.  In goal is Maarten Stekelenburg who probably wasn’t what Everton fans had in mind then they started crowing about all their cash and taking players from Saints.  But for Jeremy Pied’s unfortunate injury, they would have got Cuco Martina as well.  Get well soon Jeremy.  They did spunk £30 million on an erratic winger in Yannick Bolasie as they needed an erratic winger to complement their other erratic wingers Lennon, Mirallas and Deulofeu.  Lukaku is of course a threat up front and Barkley should be pulling the strings in midfield.

After the shocking shower of shit that was Sparta away, Claude proved that he wasn’t impressed in the slightest and sprang a major surprise with Josh Sims starting on the wing ahead of both Long and J-Rod.  He couldn’t have picked a better day to throw him in given that another famous quote from the Snakey Bastard when he was here was that “none of the youngsters were good enough and putting them in the team would be like putting ketchup on your chips” – I’m paraphrasing there.  Redmond can feel somewhat lucky to have got a starting place which I guess is down to injuries to both Tadic and Boufal.  The midfield sees JWP get a rare league start alongside Pierre and Oriol.  The best back 4 and keeper in the country were all present and correct.

So, we’re at home, the Lying Dutchman is in town and the players owe us a performance.  Let’s go…. But before we go, the new PA system is being volume tested.  In the family section there were small kids holding their ears.  I have less issue with that and more with the shite music they were playing.  Said music went on far too long and the players had their pre-match huddle to deafening 80s Disco Shite.  The three of us had to do our score predictions using our fingers as we couldn’t shout loud enough to make ourselves heard.  Maybe it was a deliberate ploy to stop too much abuse getting through to the Slippery Slithering Snake.

Everton kick off and immediately Bertrand is in and winning the ball off of Lennon.  Down the left to Redmond and we work it back across to the right where Baines fails to clear, Cedric retrieves and there’s some great one touch interplay between Sims and Hojbjerg before Sims shot is blocked out to Cedric.  He crosses and the ball drops to Sims who hooks it across and Austin has a free header from about an inch out and even with our record in front of goal, he isn’t going to miss that.  1-0 and get in and have that you Slithery Tosser.

We look seriously fired up and are soon creating another chance as we give the defence the run around and Redmond finds space to cross and picks out Sims who should score but the header kind of slides off his head and Stekelenburg saves easily enough.  More ponderous defending from the Blue Billionaires and Sims and JWP work a chance for Hojbjerg which he drives a yard over from the edge of the box.  Look at what you left behind Snake Boy as Virgil picks it up in defence and strolls past Lukaku who can’t be arsed, beats Barry who can’t run before it goes to Hojbjerg and then onto Austin whose shot is rather tame and straight at the keeper.

Everton are actually here as an attacking threat and from their first attack Barry slides a pass in, it’s dummied by Lennon and Coleman is in behind Bertrand.  He produces the perfect pull back to the penalty spot and Gueye, another big money buy, is on hand to launch it miles over the bar.  Utter shit but Everton are improving and another cross from the right is met by Barkley but he gets the header all wrong and miles wide.  I want to like Ross Barkley but he is completely brainless.  How many times is he going to turn and run into Romeu and lose the ball before realising that he isn’t getting past him.

We’re still playing well with good combinations all over with Redmond putting Sims away, onto Cedric and his cross is just too high for Hojbjerg who heads wide.  The key thing here is that unlike the sideways and backwards of the past couple of weeks, a midfielder has made a great run into the box and got ahead of the striker, thus making the defenders actually think.

Half time and happy days so far.  The difference in our performance from the Sparta match is huge and Sims has made a huge difference with his desire to always go forward and his enthusiasm.  Sometimes it needs an Academy player rather than a £30 million signing doesn’t it?

We start the second half well and have a chance as everyone misses a JWP corner and Hojbjerg picks it up beyond the far post.  He easily beats a half arsed challenge before deciding that smashing it is a better option than trying to find any one of the 8 players in the penalty area and hits the outside of the post and behind for a goal kick.  Koeman’s half time chat was obviously completely lost on Lukaku, Bolasie and Barkley who are either completely not arsed or just shite.

It’s just a case of whether we can get a second to put it to bed.  A Hojbjerg cross towards Austin is half cleared to Sims whose half volley is comfortably saved.  Whilst it’s still 1-0 there’s always a chance it can go wrong and Evrton win a free kick on the right hand edge of the box when Gueye is dumped by the Rock of Romeu.  As previously said, Lukaku has been shite but he doesn’t have to move to take a free kick and up he steps before launching it miles over the bar.  Fellow lazy bastard Bolasie then runs at the Saints defence before hitting a shot closer to the corner flag than the goal.

Back up the other end and Cedric turns Baines inside out whilst Baines demonstrates his idea of defending which is to not close down but just wave his legs about in an attempt to block the cross.  He doesn’t block the left footed cross which clears Jagielka and Austin thumps a header towards the bottom corner but bloody Stekelenburg pulls off a brilliant save low down by the post.  Charlie really cannot believe it and nor can those who slagged off Stekelenburg all of last season.

Austin pokes another good chance over the bar as a Bertrand corner evades everyone and lands at his feet and then Sims has the crowd on its feet by getting back to rob Baines on the edge of our box and then taking off, making Ashley Williams look a complete mug on the half way line by knocking it one side and running the other as the Welshman looked worth every penny of the £12 million Everton spent on him.  Unfortunately, the clearly knackered Sims made a balls of the pass and they cleared it.

Koeman throws on the two wingers who he clearly doesn’t fancy in Mirallas and Deulofeu but it makes no difference to the general pattern of play with Sims again running at Jagielka and getting over a dangerous cross which Everton clear more by luck than judgment.  It’s ok though because it goes to Lukaku who inexplicably, considering he’s built like a heavyweight boxer, gets muscled off the ball and JWP drives forward and shoots, Stek spills and Austin squares it back to JWP who somehow manages to slide it wide from 6 yards with an open goal.  Why can’t we ever put games to bed FFS!!!

We’re still trying though and another superb Cedric cross clears Jagielka and JWP brings it down on his chest before smashing it but there’s the bloody goalkeeper to throw up an arm to block it and Jagielka gets back to clear it off the line.  Why can’t we ever put games to bed FFS!

Claude rolls the dice in the last 10 minutes with Clasie, McQueen and Long coming on for Redmond, Sims and Austin.  Needless to say that these were three separate substitutions and the standing ovation for Sims as he went off was one of those great moments, especially in view of the Snake’s comments on young players.  He’s one of our own.  Yep.  Full time.

Ha ha ha. Well, fuck you Ronald and do you want ketchup or fucking mayonnaise with that? A beautiful result at the end of a very good performance. The only minor gripe is that we didn't give them the hiding that they deserved. Ironically, the only reason we didn't was because of the performance of our ex-goalkeeper.  How ironic that for all the talk of the Everton project and the amount of money that they had to spend, their best player was a goalkeeper that Ronald decided wasn't good enough to be Southampton's first choice.  Football can still be the beautiful game sometimes.

The post match interviews were absolutely priceless and full marks to Conor McNamara of the BBC who asked the question about Josh Sims with obvious references to Ronald's comment about our Academy. True to form, the arrogant arse didn't want to be asked about Josh Sims and he admitted that he was not aware of him which is fucking hilarious considering he was an England age group International and made loads of appearances for Saints under 21 side last year, when the Lying Dutchman was the manager. If ever you wanted a reason to believe the widely held rumour that the Saints hierarchy weren’t too sorry to see him go, then that was it.

There was only one winner on the managerial front today and he wasn't Dutch. Claude had the guts to select a 19-year-old for his debut ahead of two experienced players and boy did it pay off. Sims was absolutely superb from the first whistle until the standing ovation he got when he got substituted. Always on the half turn and always looking to go forward which is something we've badly lacked in the past few weeks. He showed the way for others to follow with Hojbjerg and Ward-Prowse playing with a lot more attacking intent that they have of late.  Austin got his goal and led the line well and was unlucky not to have a second goal with the save that Stekenlenburg made from his header.  Redmond gave the ball away a few times but his performance was again a marked improvement on the last couple of weeks. The back six were absolutely magnificent with Cedric in particular being a massive improvement on the clown of Martina. His defensive work and his crosses are improving all the time as is Bertrand as he gets up to full speed after a couple of injuries. Aaron Lennon hardly touched the ball for Everton and this was because he spent the whole game trying to defend against Bertrand's runs forward.

Virgil had one of those games that gets every media pundit in the country trying to sell him to one of the big boys, or Everton, comically. He is the best defender on the pitch and when he steps into midfield he is the best midfielder in the pitch as well. If he does move on, which inevitably he will at some point, I really hope it's to one of the big three European clubs in Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich as he is that good. He doesn't do it on his own though as Jose Fonte was once again showing European championship winning form next to him and the two of them combined to make Lukaku look absolutely shit. In front of them was of the Rock of Romeu who made Ross Barkley look like a kid playing in a man's game.

You can't mention how good we were without commenting on how shit Ronald’s Everton were. The defence were as slow and pedestrian as we all knew that they would be and the fullbacks, especially Baines, couldn't get forward at all because the wingers in front of them weren't doing any defending. Bolasie, all 30 million of him, like Lukaku, is another one who will only apply himself when he fancies it. Gareth Barry is another one that I just don't get. A bit like Michael Carrick at United where everyone says he's brilliant and is this and is that.  The fact of the matter is that he is 36 and he can't run any more, not that he ever could so in a fast paced game where the opposition midfield get about him, he is not going to be effective. Is it amazes me with all that money to spend, they've got a team with very little pace in it and they didn't even spend the money they got for John Stones, let alone the warchest that they allegedly have. I loved Ronald Koeman when he was with us but I can't help but hope it all goes disastrously fucking wrong there is and he's about as likely to get the Barcelona job he so covets as I am. I guess there's always football manager games Ronald.

The final comment has to be about young players.  Of our young players that the Asshat said weren’t good enough last season: Reed, Hesketh, McQueen, Olomola, Stephens and Sims have all played at some point this year and Saints are a grand total of two points behind Everton in the league and still in Europe and still in the League Cup, which Everton are out of. A quick read of their fans forum reveals that they have quite a few good prospects as well who many fans think would make the first team better. Don't hold your breath on that any of them are getting given again any game time soon. Perhaps Saints should have a look at some of these Everton academy players and see if they fancy joining a club where they might actually get a chance.

Ronald must be feeling lower than a snakes belly after that.  Good.  Off you fuck.

Meanwhile, we’re off to Arsenal for the League Cup Quarter Final on Wednesday.