Out of My Way, Bitch!
With fear and trepidation and not much optimism, I’m not
looking forward much to the League Cup EFL whatever Semi-Final first leg
against Liverpool. From the moment I was
walking out of the Emirates after the last round and saw the draw on my phone,
I’d not been very optimistic about it but maybe there’s a chance. They’re irresistible attacking flair has been
blunted somewhat by injuries to Coutinho and the AFCON absence of Sadio
Mané. That’s their most creative player
and their quickest. Counteracting that,
is our loss of Sofiane Boufal who was supposed to be at the AFCON but is
instead, out of the AFCON and recovering from an injury which will be healed by
the time he should have been back from the AFCON.
It looks like whoever wins this tie will be playing Man United
in the final as they won 2-0 against Hull at Old Trafford and there’s not a
chance in hell that Hull will turn that round in the 2nd Leg. They’ve even sacked old Moonface Phelan. If we’re going to do anything today then we
have to put their defence under pressure as the defence is the weak link. It has potentially weak players like Milner
and Klavan and also it has Mr.Arsehole himself, Dejan Lovren, a player with his head
so far up his own arse that he couldn’t see what his wife was up to. Jurgen Klopp seems to have toned down his act
a bit this year and isn’t as much a knobhead on the touchline as last
season. It’s really annoying in that I
want to hate him but he is a very entertaining bloke.
Liverpool's media department broke Rule 1 which is - don't wind up the oppostion. They thought it would be amusing to use a graphic of four of the players who they signed from us to promote the game - even though one of them was never going to be playing. Wankers.
On arrival in the ground, we go to our normal seats which
are occupied by others and realise that there has been a bit of a fuck up. I’d just clicked on the tickets that had been
automatically allocated to us by the online system but on inspection, we were
in Row MM and not row T. Bollocks. Up we go to MM with my 72 year old Dad
wheezing and moaning like a bastard and once we got there, I realize we’re in
the wrong block. All the way down to
pitch level, across to the left, all the way up again, looking along the Chapel
goal line and one row from the back. Not
happy. Dad has survived and through his
panting he is calling me lots of names. It’s actually quite a good view.
Anyway, our team news has already been made public by
Claude during the week in that José Fonte is not in the squad following his
transfer request. I’m in two minds about
this but the decision has been made and that shows strong leadership. It also shows that the manager obviously doesn’t
think José can put it aside and completely focus on the game, another indicator
that maybe the captain has been discarding toys from his pram for a while. So, Maya is in along with Virgil and Cedric
and Ryan Bertand has mercifully been spared from rotation. Romeu, Clasie and Davo make up the midfield
and the attackers are the only three we really could have picked in J-Rod,
Tadic and Bertrand. Liverpool’s team is a bit odd because a lot has been made
this year of Lallana playing as the most advanced of three midfielders but it
looks like he’s further forward with Sturridge and Firmino as the midfield
three look like Wijnaldum, Lucas and Can.
There has to be an opportunity there as I don’t rate any of that
midfield. Wijnaldum has a goal in him but
equally can go completely missing, Lucas is slow and not a player who’s going
to open you up and Can is a candidate for my Overrated Player of the Season
award as I really don’t see what the fuss is about or how the hell he has caps for Germany. The back 4 has Clyne and the three amigos I
mentioned earlier including Mr Arsehole.
Flapper Karius is in goal so lets do it.
From my lofted position I can see that the game starts
with a period of Liverpool possession and we look terrified – so deep and not
getting to the ball at all. Pass, pass,
pass – we’re nowhere, chasing shadows with Clasie in particular not touching
the ball for the first 10 minutes. Oh
look, Redmond is at right back and we have the 6-3-fifty yards-1 formation
again. Is this what Claude meant when he
said we needed to be in the game in the 2nd leg? We’re obviously going to try and choke the
shit out of it and got for a 0-0. When
are they going to score? A ball is
chipped in to Lallana who has got free and he heads down to Firmino who volleys
from 10 yards but luckily Fraser is close enough to throw up a huge paw and
push it away.
Neil Swarbrick is today’s ref and I’ve never really had
an opinion of him before but he doesn’t make a good start as Milner loses the
ball and Bertrand runs it out of defence before Mr Arsehole levers him to the
ground – play on. It takes 19 minutes
for us to do anything as Cedric gets down the right and plays in Tadic whose
cross misses everyone and arrives with Redmond at the back post but his
sidefooted effort is blocked by the keepers boot. If you want clinical then this was the
opposite of that with a lack of conviction again. It eventually falls to Bertrand whose long
ranger is straight at Karius.
The miss does seem to have given us a bit of confidence and
we push forwards again on the right.
Tadic tries to find J-Rod and Klavan should cut it out but he waves a
boot at it and plays and airshot. J-Rod
pokes it across to Redmond who is through with just Karius to beat and this
time there’s no mistake and he finds the corner of the net. Get the fuck in. Believe.
Klopp is going nuts on the sideline, I assume cos he thinks it’s
offside. He sits down when the goal is
replayed on the big screens and Redmond is clearly miles onside.
A minute long round of applause - more on that later.
We’re a different team now, getting right in their faces with Romeu putting together a series of good challenges and Clasie even manages
to touch the ball a few times. Davo is
having a stormer and chases the dodgy Liverpool defenders back into the corner
and wins a throw. In it goes to Bertrand
who waltzes round Lallana and Lucas and Tadic takes over, squirted across and there
is Redmond, 10 yards out with just the keeper to beat and he smashes it straight
at him. Fuck! That simply has to go in. He had loads of the bastard goal to aim at
too. It’s hard to be disappointed though
as the half time whistle blows and we have a 1-0 lead that we all would have
taken at the start and Dad begins the long trek down the stairs to have his
half time piss.
It’s actually quite a lot quieter up here than even the
Family centre behind the Chapel Goal. There’s
a bloke behind us who is desperately trying to chat up the girl he’s brought to
the game and it’s fucking painful and he’s been at it for 45 minutes, talking
about anything but the game. Go to the
pub, go anywhere or shut the fuck up. He
looks like that Dean Gaffney twat who used to be in BellEnders. We are discussing them when Dad comes back
and he says that their as bad as the Chuckle Brothers who sat behind us when we sat in the central
Kingsland before my son started coming along.
Away we go in the second half and Liverpool have
possession and one thing is clear. Klopp
wants his defenders to be footballers and be comfortable on the ball and both
Klavan and Mr Arsehole look as clumsy as you like and we’ll let them have the
ball all day long. As soon as it goes
into the midfield then Saints press and with players like Can (who is trying to
do too much on the ball) and Lucas (not good enough), we are stopping them
getting any rhythm.
Going forward we appear to be targeting Milner who is
looking like a fish up a tree at left back.
Cedric runs at him and Milner has three goes before eventually
succeeding in bringing him down. Tadic’
free kick is headed over for a corner and the same player delivers and Karius
gets lucky with a complete flap and everyone misses everything. They are shit at the back – come on! This is illustrated by Mr Arsehole passing the
ball to Clasie and we build via J-Rod and Tadic before losing it in the
corner. Liverpool half clear it and
Virgil picks it on the left wing and has a run.
Surprisingly Sturridge has bothered his arse to track back but
amusingly, no one helps him so Virgil just runs down the left wing and cuts
in. it’s he’d scored or found someone
other than the keeper with his cross then the media would have been wanking
themselves into an even bigger ‘sell him’ frenzy.
Let’s take a second to appreciate the majestic force that
is Oriol Romeu. It was enough when he
binned the very poncy Emre Can in the tackle but then he brought the house down
with a real ‘get out of the way you little bitch’ tackle on Lallana. Rub some Nivea on that you prick. Liverpool are not threatening at all so on
comes Coutinho for his first game in months and replaces Wijnaldum with Lallana
dropping back to midfield. Coutinho
immediately makes things better but they are still relying on Sturridge further
forward and he can’t be arsed. He gets
manshamed by Virgil in the penalty area and collapses in a heap appealing for a
penalty. Fair play to Swarbrick for not
falling for it as he’s been pissing me off but giving Liverpool every 50-50
decision going. I think we might have
won a free kick at one point.
Romeu is having a huge game and beasts Emre Can again –
you are shit. Coutinho is a bastard who
usually sticks on in the top corner against us and he weaves into the penalty
area and is well dealt with by Yoshida.
Maya is concentrating well today and when he does that, he’s a good
defender. If he keeps things simple and
just concentrates on defending then he’s decent. I would be happy for him to just clear the
ball for the rest of the game.
A Liverpool attack, a foot in and Redmond breaks. Cedric underlaps him and Redmond finds him. J-Rod is up too with one Liverpool defender
and Cedric lashes at the near post and wide and shit. J-Rod is not impressed but he’s not made an
angle for him, just standing behind the defender. It was a shit effort but Jay could have done
more. He’s been good today however, running
his nuts off and with better ball retention than usual.
Clasie can see his name up in lights as the ball comes to
him thirty yards out and he goes for the volley, plays a massive airshot and
manages to collapse with cramp all in the same movement. The fact that he still gets cramp really
pisses me off but he’s been good for the last half an hour and is replaced with
Hojbjerg who is soon followed onto the pitch by JWP replacing Davis. I find it mildly amusing that Clasie has got injured in a tackle with fresh air. Origi is on for the Scousers, he who scored a
hat-trick against us when they dicked us 6-1 in this competition last year. There’s a comedy moment when J-Rod gives away a
free kick. He is clearly out on his feet
and Long is ready to come on but Liverpool want to take it quickly so Jay just
boots the ball away so he can get off. I
expect he saw the yellow card as entirely worth it.
On comes Long and Lallana gives it away and our pass
forward finds the Irishman who finds himself up against Lucas on the left and
there’s only one winner there. He steams
past him and gets his head up and picks out Redmond on the right. He gets there before Karius and has to chip
it and it’s over the keeper, onto the underside of the bar and out via a lucky
intervention from Mr Arsehole who didn’t know where it was. How wonderful would that have been if it had hit
the Arsehole and bounced in.
90 minutes are up and Coutinho picks it up, shoots, miles
over, aaaaaaaaaahhhh… At that moment, I
realise that there’s a Scouser in the seat directly in front of me. Fair play to him, that's the first sound he’s
made all game. I know he shouldn’t be in
our end but he has at least shut his trap for the entire game. Now fuck off you knob.
That, after the first 15 minutes, was a massive
performance by Saints, played with a purpose and intensity which has been
lacking too often this season and especially in the past few weeks. Full marks to Claude on his team selection and
his tactics tonight. There will be some
that say that we should have won by more and that’s probably true but I’d have
snapped your hand off for this result before the game started so I’m not going
to complain now. We also kept a clean
sheet which could come into the reckoning with away goal counting double after
extra time in the 2nd leg. We’ve
got a chance up there. Both team will
still be without their African players and you would assume that Coutinho will
be fit to start but tonight showed that we can definitely do something up
there. It sure as shit isn’t going to be
easy and Liverpool will create a lot more than they did tonight but maybe we
can make them look ordinary again. Yes –
we made them look ordinary which is not something you’re going to have read in
the media since the game. When I got
back to the car I turned on talkSHITE and there was a post-mortem taking place
about Liverpool’s problems. You’d be
hard pressed to find out who the team was who had beaten them. Far from this situation changing it’s
actually getting worse as everyone gets even more ‘big club’ focused. Where’s the OFF button?
All the sections of the Saints team did their job superbly. All of the back 4 were magnificent with Maya
having the mistake free performance that was needed. Virgil was just outstanding again – it’s the
norm of course and performances of that stature against the big boys will mean
those who get annoyed easily would do best to keep away from rumour and
bullshit websites until January is over.
The midfield of course ran themselves to a standstill
with Romeu being the stand out. He would
have been even if he hadn’t have smashed Nivea Twat but the fact that he did
elevates him to God-like status. Up
front, Redmond will feel that he should have scored more but he put away the
one that mattered and I must say that J-Rod was superb tonight, especially
bearing in mind he was living off of scraps.
Burnley away is next and I’m sure that some players out
there are going to be completely knackered but we should keep the same side if
we can and try and build on today. Everyone will be feeling pretty good about themselves so lets keep it
going. Burnley are decent at home but if
we can go toe to toe with their energy levels, we’re better than them so it
should be a good day.
We scored the goal tonight in the 20th minute
which was fitting in the extreme as it was supposed to be in the 20th
minute that we all clapped to celebrate the life of Jack Dowding, the Saints
fan who passed away suddenly, aged 20 on Saturday morning due to complications
with his Diabetes. In the event, the
applause started on 21 minutes and was well supported. The Channel 5 highlights mentioned his name,
as did the highlights on the Saints official website and both were good to hear.
Jack and his Dad and Step-Mum have been my
next door neighbours for the past 5 years.
I didn’t know Jack very well - a wave at the top of the drive and the
occasional ‘hello’ – that was about it – and I have no idea whether he read any
of this drivel I write and if he did, I don’t know if he knew it was the sad
bugger next door who wrote it. I spoke
to his Dad and Step-Mum on Tuesday about how much they wanted to go and
equally, didn’t want to go to this game today.
I haven’t spoken to them since as yet but I’m sure they’ll be glad that
they went and the fact that the goal went in on 20 minutes will not be lost on
them. R.I.P Jack.
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