Manolo Sends the Sunderland Defenders Over There for a Hot Dog
A quick glance at our forthcoming
fixtures shows away games at Sunderland and Watford and then we start playing
the heavy hitters so we really need to get something today, even if it’s only a
point. This game is almost being seen as
a home banker as Saints have been pretty woeful of late and Sunderland won 4-0
in a relegation 6 pointer at Palace last week.
Jermain Defoe’s two goals in that game have given us a week of the media
cracking one off over him and how he’s going to fire them to safety etc. I like Defoe – good player who should have
played for some better clubs than he has.
Spurs were his main club but I don’t remember him being much of a first
team regular and of course he had that spell at the club that could never
afford his wages in a million years.
Still, even with that blemish on his record – he’s still a decent
player. David Moyes is the manager there
these days and he wears the hangdog expression of a man who’s just stumbled
into a party round at Wilfried Zaha’s house.
He’s been predicting a relegation struggle since the opening week of the
season and he’s got his wish.
Since the closing of the transfer window
and the balls up that has seen us short at centre back, we have been heavily
linked with free agent Martin Caceres who was at Juventus but had an achilles
injury and has been without a club for 6 months. A Uruguayan international with 60 odd caps so
he’s got to be decent and he’s been pictured at the Saints training ground in a
training kit. The word is that it’s all
done but we’re waiting for the work permit before announcing it. Now, he hasn’t played in 75% of Uruguay’s
recent internationals because it’s hard to do so when you are wearing a
surgical boot so he should be here soon.
I’ve only been aware of him as a right back but apparently his preferred
position is centre back. He’s not the
tallest at 5 foot 11 but beggars cannot be choosers. Let’s face it, it’s hardly shopping in the
bargain bins if you can pick up a player with 60 caps for a decent country and
has Barcelona and Juve on his CV. If we
can get him and keep him fit then there’s your José replacement. However, on Friday night a story appeared
that he’s returned to Uruguay because of a death in the family so it may well
be all up in the air again.
To today and we have gone with two
changes from the West Ham game with Redmond and Tadic coming in for J-Rod and
the injured Boufal. There has been some
talk in the buildup about Ryan Bertrand being centre back but that doesn’t
appear to be the case. As the teams line
up, Sunderland have a player who looks like he has a blonde palm tree on his
head. It’s a bit like 90’s whipping boy Jason
Lee with his pineapple. I know not who
or what it is but it’s in Sunderland’s midfield. As befits an ex-United and Everton manager,
they have a team of United and Everton has-beens with Darron Gibson, Bryan
Oviedo, John O’Shea, Adnan Januzaj and Steven Pienaar on the bench. Welcome to
the Wearside Retirement Home for players who are not as good as they thought
they were. Oh look, there’s Joleon
Lescott on the bench and Wabhi Khazri, what a wanker he is.
Hang on, why is JWP so wide and what is
Tadic doing there in the middle. Fucking
hell it looks like we’re playing 4-2-3-1.
Halle-fucking-lujah! The new
formations is not an instand fix though as we are resembling a pub team at the
start and Sunderland are having the better of it. A cross comes in from the Sunderland left and
Bertrand doesn’t get much distance on the clearing header allowing Januzaj to
have a shot which hits Bertrand and goes behind. The biggest surprise is that the little twat
had a shot instead of diving which is always his first option. Another of my favourite players, rat face
little shite Seb Larsson tries to work a short corner and then totally makes a
balls of crossing the ball. It’s a bit
worrying that Sunderland are still looking the better side and Januzaj crosses
form the left again which causes panic but luckily Defoe seems surprised by a
cross actually reaching him and it rather hits him and bounces off for a goal
kick.
We get out first chance on about 20
minutes and it’s from a mistake. Redmond
tries to find Bertrand on the left but passes it straight to Billy Jones who
knocks it to Gibson who just gives it away allowing Gabbiadini a snap shot
which he gets all wrong and well wide.
Looking at the Sunderland defence it’s an accident waiting to happen –
Jones, O’Shea… not good.
Sunderland have it in midfield and it’s
played to Januzaj who gets completely manshamed by Yoshida and just grizzles on
the ground. Both Saints and the referee
ignore the little prick and carry on, Tadic playing Gabbiadini through. Mannone forces him wide but he gets his head
up and pulls it back to Cedric on the edge of the box, a lazy waft of the right
boot and well wide and well shit.
Luckily we didn’t have long to wait as
Romeu put Bertrand away on the left and he produces a wicked curling cross
which flies into the net off Gabbiadini who has got inbetween Kone and O’Shea,
despite O’Shea’s efforts to rip his shirt off.
It’s a bit lucky, in fact it looks like it’s flown in off his arm but
there’s no way that’s going to get given as handball. Get in and 2 in 2 for the
new man.
We’re controlling the game now and going
into half time with a 1-0 lead as we build on the right with JWP and Cedric
before the ball finds its way to Tadic whoo finds Gabbiadini with his back to
goal but a second later he’s facing the right way and Kone and O’Shea have gone
for a hot dog and bang, 2-0. I fucking
love this clinical lark. What a turn,
what a goal. Top man.
Moyes responds at half time by taking off
a United has been in O’Shea and sending on an Everton has been in Pienaar. There’s no change to the pattern of play
though and early pressure bring a corner, in it comes from JWP and Gabbiadini
half connects with a volley in the box which is straight at Mannone. JWP is growing into his more attacking role
and after a move which started with Stephens expertly binning Defoe, JWP tries
a 30 yarder which curls about a foot wide of the post.
It’s all us and we’re peppering the goal
with decent efforts with Bertrand and Tadic testing the keeper from the edge of
the box and JWP heading Redmond’s excellent cross down and wide when he really should
have buried it. There will be no
hat-trick for Manolo and he’s off with Shane Long on and the new man tests
Mannone as well with a header from a Cedric cross which the 8-0 keeper tips
over. Hojbjerg is on for Tadic in the
last ten minutes and the camera pans to J-Rod chucking his shin pads around in
the dug out, obviously narked off at not getting on.
There is only a slight fear that
Sunderland will score with an Oviedo cross and a Borini header wide the closest
they get. It’s game over soon afterwards
if it wasn’t already as Fraser boots long, Shane holds it up, Redmond sends
Bertrand away and another wicked cross towards Shane but Denayer dives in and
slams it into his own net. The notable
thing about this goal was that Bertrand got on his bike to receive the pass and
Khazri who was marking him just let him go like the useless lazy wanker that he
is.
Two minutes later and Sunderland have
totally given up, the fans have fucked off and so have most of the
players. Bertrand to Long, first touch
to JWP, back to him and a precise side foot finish into the corner. Who’d be Vito Mannone – four goals conceded
and no fault of his – totally down so the useless sacks of shite in front of
him.
There’s one more incident of note as
Sunderland get a free kick on the right, whip it in and it ends up in the net but
have no far – that complete wanker Khazri has punched it into the net. What a fucking tool.
Now that is more fucking like it. A comprehensive away win and a handing out of
the dicking that the relegation threatened club deserves and boy did Sunderland
deserve it. I think they actually thought they could just turn up and win today
having won so comfortably at Selhurst Park last week. They were fucking
dreadful but more on them later.
We looked like a proper team today, solid
at the back, combative in midfield and a threat upfront. The arrival of
Gabbiadini has changed everything. Now, we have a focal point, a forward with a
great touch on the ball and a player with clever movement and confidence and
most importantly, he knows where the fucking goal is. Early days I know but we seem to have a
complete beauty on our hands here. Without him it would've been 0-0 at half
time like countless other games that we had this season but he had three
chances in the first half and two of them ended up in the net. That's clinical,
the exact opposite of what we have been all season and we go in with a 2-0 lead
and are able to manage the game in the second half. Tadic in particular had a
good game today with Redmond and JWP providing good support and good quality
from the wings. Shane Long also look very good when he came on and deserved his
goal. It was interesting seeing that J-Rod threw a bit of a paddy on the bench
when he wasn't called upon as the last substitute. I understand his frustration
as he probably wanted to put a case for being included at Wembley but he can
have absolutely no complaints as he was completely shocking against West Ham last
week.
This of course was a different formation
today as we went back to the Koeman-Pochettino-Adkins 4-2-3-1 and boy does it
look better. We had some proper
protection for our suspect centre backs and it made a huge difference and it
gave us a player in the No.10 position. Romeu and Davis totally bossed the
centre of the park after the first 15 minutes with Cedric and Bertrand
especially being a threat going forward. The centre backs coped admirably with
the threat of Defoe who was restricted to trying to pick a fight with Jack
Stephens and the Sunderland man actually look like he was about to cry at one
point.
Yoshida and Stephens manage to be part of
the defence are kept clean sheet today, as they were against Liverpool. In both
of those matches, the opposition did not have a traditional target man centre
forward. In the other two games where we had this defensive pairing, Andy
Carroll and Fernando Llorente have caused havoc, so any thoughts along the line
of we've cracked it, really need to be put into that context and the fact that
in our next game, we are against possibly the best in the business at being at
target man in Zlatan Ibrahimović.
So Claude gets another big pat on the
back for changing the formation and I really hope that he sticks with it. It
gets our attacking midfielders further up the pitch and closer to the striker
and also protects the back four better and doesn't leave Romeu having to do it
all on his own. Please stick with it...
Now for the jokes - Sunderland were
fucking awful. The list of things that would piss me off if I was one of their
fans is endless but will start with Didier N’Dong in the centre of midfield. In
the 90s, you could get away with it wearing a pair of coloured boots if you
were a good player. If you weren't then you just looked like a complete wanker.
Now, in 2017, virtually all the players wear coloured boots so the extrovert
has to find a new way to stand out. N’Dong does it by having a ridiculous
fucking haircut which no one would really give a shit about if he was a
world-class or even a good player. Gareth Bale has a stupid monstrosity on his
head but no one cares because he is one of the best players in the world.
Likewise, Lionel Messi can have a ginger beard and blonde hair and no one cares
because he's Lionel Messi. Didier N’Dong has a stupid name, a stupid haircut
and in addition to that, he is fucking shit, quite possibly the worst player
I've seen this season. Halfway through the second half, he along with the rest
of the Sunderland midfield, he just stopped giving a shit, stop running back
and that's why we helped ourselves to two more goals in the last few minutes.
I will also say a special mention for
Adnan Januzaj, who once scored a goal for Manchester United, ironically against
Sunderland which got him hyped up as the next greatest thing, the next Cristiano
Ronaldo, the next George Best, tug-of-war between England and Belgium and some
Balkan country for his services at international level. He is a lightweight,
cheating diving little cunt and fair play to the referee today. He must've
refereed Januzaj before because he was not giving him a single fucking thing
even when he was getting absolutely smashed. You reap what you sew you cheating
little cunt. Then we have Wabhi Khazri –
an absolute disgrace of a player. Sunderland
are screwed – their players with the right attitude are not good enough (O’Shea,
Gibson, Jones, Mannone, Pienaar) and there are loads with the wrong attitude who are absolutely stealing a living (N’Dong,
Denayer, Januzaj, Khazri). No chance.
I briefly mentioned our next game and our
date with Zlatan. Our next game is two weeks away and it is the EFL cup final
against Manchester United at Wembley. As I write, my tickets haven't arrived
yet so I don't think it's truly sunk in that we are off to Wembley. As for our
line-up on the big day, I think it will be the line-up that started today. Even
if Boufal is fit, he will only be on the bench so I guess that leaves the
question of who plays alongside Yoshida at centre back. Jack Stephens must be
favourites but it could still be Martin Caceres though with today's news that
possibility has receded somewhat. shit, I'm even hoping for a miracle return
Virgil van Dijk.
This win today should calm a few nerves
that we were going to get dragged into the relegation dogfight and we can now
go to Wembley with a bit more confidence both as a team and as fans.
Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will
be....
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