"Not a Penalty, Not a Penalty.... Oh it's the big club... Penalty!"
Spurs
away today and that isn’t easy. They
haven’t lost at home all season and though people are pointing out that we were
the last side to beat them at White Hart Lane – that was when they were on the
beach after Leicester had won the league last season. It’s annoying but Mauricio Pochettino has
turned them from perennial 5th placers to a team that is there or
thereabouts, right at the top of the league.
An incredibly hard working team with very physically strong players like
Vertonghen, Alderweireld and Dier in defence, Wanyama and Dembele in midfield
and a sprinkling of stardust from Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli and Harry
Kane. They are a very difficult team to
play against and we got our arses handed to us at St Mary’s earlier on this
season to the tune of 4-1. They
absolutely dumped on us in midfield that day so that’s one area we’re going to
have to compete strongly in if we are to have any chance today. They have a bit of a nasty streak in them as
well with Vertonghen, Dembele and Dele Alli all capable of being complete shits. Good players but horrible fuckers. Something we are lacking in our team. As well as our ex-manager, they also have
some of our ex-players in the aforementioned Toby Alderweireld and Big Vic who
would both still be Saints players if most of us had our way. Can you imagine a back four of Bertrand,
Virgil, Toby and Cedric with Big Vic and Romeu in front of them. Goals conceded – very few.
The
full ridiculousness of our fixtures this season came into full view when
Chelsea won their FA Cup tie last week and we had yet another postponement as a
result, meaning that three more games now have to be shoehorned into April and
May. It suddenly occurred to me how
predictable this was in that on the weekends of the FA Cup 5th
Round, 6th Round and Semi-Finals, we had pencilled in League
Fixtures against Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea who are three huge
clubs who are almost guaranteed to be still in the FA Cup on those dates. Ok, we knew the Europa League would give us a
game every three days at the start of the season but we got needlessly shafted
with the 3 games in 5 days at Christmas and we’re going to get shafted at the
end of the season as well. All entirely
preventable is the FA had any nous.
There
was some positive news with the England squad announcement in that JWP and
Nathan Redmond both got their first call-ups for the full squad, joining Fraser
Forster and Ryan Bertrand in Southgate’s first squad as permanent England
manager. That word ‘permanent’ seems to
have emboldened Southgate with him binning Walcott and Rooney from the
squad. Walcott is a strange one as he’s
been playing this season and doing well but Rooney has had it coming on form
grounds for a while. Then the spoilt it
by picking Luke Shaw who has played about 3 games since he left Saints two and
a half years ago.
To
the teams today and Claude has gone with the same side again, again pairing the
calamitous Maya and Jack at centre back.
Harry Kane being injured might not mean it’s as bad as I fear but I
reckon the chances of letting in less than two goals are slim. I always had a go at Pochettino for not
having a Plan B but he seems to have now, going 3 at the back with Walker and
Davies playing as wing backs. Referee
today is Andre Marriner, who we last had at Wembley when of course, as far as
we’re concerned, he didn’t cover himself in glory.
We
don’t start that well and Tottenham’s Kane replacement, Son Hueng Min has the
first chance. It’s a brilliant ball from
Eriksen out on the right which curls in behind the flailing Yoshida and Son
hits it first time only for Fraser to be in the right place to block well. We’re just holding on at the start with no
real presence in midfield but Redmond attempts to break on the left and gets to
the ball well before Dier who comes launching in and carts Redders up in the
air. It’s a bad one and you’d be fearing
a red card if it was one of ours but of course it’s just a yellow.
We
still haven’t really done anything in the game when we go 1-0 down. Dembele,
under no pressure gives it to Eriksen and he cuts in from the right into a
gaping hole where one of Davis or Romeu should be protecting the centre backs
and just passes it into the net from the edge of the box. It looks like a really good goal but fuck me,
how easy did we make it for him?
We
learn from this mistake by trying it again as Vertonghen passes it into
Alli. The nearest player is Stephens who
is scratching his fucking arse about 5 yards away and marking no one but
luckily, Alli’s shot on the turn was scuffed and straight at Fraser. Apparently, Dele Alli doesn’t want to be
called Alli anymore and wishes it to be first name only but he’s such a twat
I’ll carry on with Alli.
From
our first bit of positive play, JWP’s cross is headed up in the air and JWP
does well to win the header. It drops to
Romeu who tries a sort of scissor volley which he hits well and it deflects of
Alderweireld and just wide for a goal kick.
Yep, you read that right.
The
Romeu effort is a bit of a brief interlude as a long diagonal from Alderweireld
is won easily in the air by Alli as Stephens didn’t get off the ground and
eventually we smuggle it away for a corner.
From it, Alderweireld has a free header and Fraser gets down well to
claw it out. How one long ball caused
this much grief is plain for all to see.
Be big, be strong, mark your man and just head the fucking ball.
We
finally have a bit of pressure and some link up play with Bertrand finding
Gabbiadini, to Tadic and a pull back and Gabbi swings his left foot, catches it
superbly on the run and it curls just wide and into the side netting. Good effort but oh fuck, it looks like he’s
pulled something. Gabbi carries on –
another attack and Cedric hoists in a huge cross which looks like it’s out but
Redmond manages to keep it in beyond the back stick. The lino has flagged for a goal kick and
anyway, Tadic creams it over the bar from 6 yards with an open goal. On the replay it’s nowhere near out so why
the fuck has the linesman flagged. I
guess we’ll never know if Tadic knew the flag was up or whether his finish was
just shit. What we do know is that if
he’d scored like he should then Marriner and the lino between them would have
disallowed it.
Whilst
the fume is rising about all this, Gabbiadini is done for the day and Long is
on but not yet as Spurs attack again.
Vertonghen plays it into Son and there’s some Keystone cops pinball
carnage involving Cedric, Romeu and Yoshida who tries some sort of wanky
scorpion kick clearance thing and as it comes out towards Davis, Alli comes in,
dives over his leg, crumbles and Marriner does the rest. Cunts.
There’s contact and I can see why it’s given but he’s completely bought
it. With Kane missing, is Alli going to
score? Of course he fucking is and 2-0
it is. We’re then allowed to bring Shane
Long on to give us 11 players to play against the 12.
So
2-0 down and our main striker off and for a moment it looks like we’re getting
buried with Eriksen pulling the strings and nearly putting Son through again.
Right
on half time, Redmond attacks on the left and there’s a decent chance but
Dembele cynically blocks him off when he tries to go past him. It’s a ‘good’ foul from a Spurs point of view
and 100% deliberate and no attempt to play the ball but Andre the Cunt decides
it’s not a yellow card. We make a
laughable bollocks of the free kick with JWP rolling it to no one but Cedric
makes something of it by smashing in a shot which Lloris funbles out to
Tadic. Ben Davies takes a swing to try
and clear it but misses the ball and whacks Tadic who takes a step before
throwing himself. It’s the same as the
Alli incident basically in that the defender didn’t mean to make contact but he
did and the forward makes a meal of it.
Needless to say, Andre the Cunt thinks this one is fine and so it’s play
on. What’s the fucking point? Half time.
To
be honest we deserve to be behind as the midfield and defence haven’t
competed. Big Vic and Dembele are just
shitting all over Davis in particular and in my opinion we need more presence
in there in the shape of Hojbjerg.
Anyway, whilst I’m still trying to come up with a substitution and a
tactical switch, the second half starts and Bertrand gets away on the left,
fires over a low cross which Alderweireld misses and there’s JWP at the back
post to control and ram it into the net.
2-1 – game on!
We
are suddenly at least having parity in midfield as Romeu has woken up and we’re
getting the ball to Tadic and Redmond but forays forward keep getting halted by
Shane Long either mis-controlling or being offside. Fucking hell man – you’re the fastest player
on the pitch and they are leaving half a pitch for you to run into. Just time your fucking run…. He eventually does time a run and Davis slots
him through but his shot from an angle is comfortably saved by Lloris who then
for some reason, drops the ball and falls over it.
Boufal
is on for Tadic who has again struggled to make much happen and Harry Winks,
another little shit in the attitude stakes, is on for Spurs. Whilst we’re having a decent amount of the
play, we not creating much as a combination of Long being offside, being
flagged offside when he’s not and Boufal playing like a man who is playing
football for the first time, is hampering things somewhat. The last throw is J-Rod on for Redmond and us
going 4-4-2. I don’t see why J-Rod
doesn’t come on for Davis or maybe even a defender. We’re 2-1 down and not going to get another goal
unless something changes. Like for like
– basically replacing a player with an inferior one who was sub for a reason –
is unlikely to cut it.
We
try going long with Cedric pinging it but J-Rod can’t be arsed to jump and it’s
headed back with the lumbering Janssen knocking it past Stephens who doesn’t
commit himself when he really should be taking everything out and he eventually
hammers in a powerful shot at the near post which Fraser again saves well.
90
minutes are up and we do have one chance as good play by Long and JWP tees up
Boufal on the right hand edge of the box and he cuts infield, it all opens up
and then he shanks it wide. Arse. The end.
To be honest, I'm not that gutted when it's over and
our defeat has been confirmed. I honestly didn't expect to get anything out of
today. The only thing gnawing away at me yet again is that we have definitely
had the shit end of the important refereeing decisions. The two penalty shouts
are so similar it's crazy. Neither Steve Davis or Ben Davies meant to commit a
foul but both caught the forward and brought them down without touching the
ball. Yes,
Tadic made a meal of it but so did Alli as he always does but they get the
penalty and we don't. The
one that really gets me ultimately didn't matter because Tadic whacked the ball
over the bar from 3 yards. Southampton cannot go away to places like Arsenal
and Tottenham and not get a fair shake of the refereeing decisions and expect
to win. It just isn't going to happen. It probably all seems like
sour grapes and to be shitting on about the referee after the game but this is
Andre Marriner and maybe he shouldn’t have refereed us this soon after the EFL
Cup Final
It’s interesting reading the columns by ex-pro
referees in the papers the next day. Graham Poll was incredulous about us not
getting a penalty for the Tadic incident and Mark Halsey was up in arms that
Eric Dier didn't get sent off for the launching of Nathan Redmond in the first
half which would have made a bit of a difference if Spurs are been down to 10
men after 10 minutes.
Claude afterwards was moaning that we let in two
goals despite not being under any pressure. That's what happens if you keep
playing the same players in central defence and expect to get different
results. It’s the definition of madness.
I don't understand why Martin Caceres isn't playing yet? We are wedging
out loads of cash to have him here as a non-playing a substitute at the moment
whilst the players in his position continue to fuck up on a daily basis. He
must be fit enough to start a game now and he must play for the last 11 games
of the season. The only thing that I can think of is that we haven't yet
another two week break before our next game so he really has to be 100% fit by
then.
With the
unfortunate injury to Gabbiadini we are now back to where we were before the
January transfer window which means playing at the permanently offside Shane Long
upfront or J-Rod who still looks nothing like the player he was before his
injuries. When you've seen Gabbiadini for a few weeks, you realise quite how
limited Shane Long is. Yes he is quick but this is nullified by his brainless
running into offside positions. It should've been tailor made
for him today with Spurs playing such a high line but he was caught offside
about 6 times and on the one occasion when he wasn't offside, he got flagged
anyway, probably because the linesman took one look at who it was running after
the ball and decided that he must be offside on the balance of probability.
We started to slowly today and let Spurs dictate the
game. The first goal was down to our old favourite of no one closing down the
player on the edge of the box and the second was of course a soft penalty. We
only really started playing with any intent after half time, got our goal back
but I never really sensed that we were going to get another at any point.
Annoyingly, Spurs are a very good side with a good
balance of steel and flair. They are definitely the second best side in the
Premier League this season. Big Vic did
a good job in winning the ball though he did often give it back to us if he
tried anything more ambitious than s 5 yard ball. Dele
Alli is of course a very good player but a horrible little shit and it seems
that Harry Winks is determined to follow in his footsteps. He is not as good a
player yet but he seems to have a bit of an attitude about him and is the sort
of player that you would like to see get fucking slapped by someone.
There were good performances for Saints from the
usual suspects, Romeu in the 2nd half, Cedric, Bertrand. All of
Redmond, Tadic and JWP had their moments but were all a little too in and out
of the game. Steve Davis really struggled against the physical Tottenham
midfield and this is something that I've noticed when we come up against the
big sides in that he seems to get out run and outmuscled and caught in possession
which doesn't happen to him against the more rank-and-file members of the
Premier League. He's had a bit of a ropey old season so it was nice to see
Fraser Forster pulling out a few good saves today and looking more like his old
self.
Next up, guess what, a two week break but at least
this time it's everyone as its international week. After that we return to
Premier League action with a home game against Bournemouth who much to my
surprise have managed to haul themselves away from the relegation zone with two
recent narrow home wins. With Gabbiadini in the team I was really looking
forward to playing them but hopefully J-Rod will be able to reproduce the form that
he showed at Dean Court or the Vitality Bowl or whatever the fuck it's called
these days.
After today’s defeat, the league table says we are
still in the top half with two games in hand so it's not all bad, as opposed to
Andre fucking Marriner who is very bad indeed.
He doesn't have the personality of Clattenburg in that you want to punch
him in the face but he is proving to be just as incompetent.
