That's not Going In Is It?
Which way
is it to St Mary's? I'm asking because we haven't been there for months.
It's
actually eight weeks since we lost our home to West Ham and since then we've
had just three away games and a trip to Wembley. Today it's Bournemouth at home who look like
they were free-falling into relegation until the last three games when they
picked up two wins and a draw which puts them level on points with us, although
having played two games more. I've gone through phases of liking and disliking
Eddie Howe but at the moment, you have to say that he's worked a bit of a
miracle to keep that squad of players away from a relegation struggle. They
signed a load of players in the summer but they've nearly all not stepped up to
the mark and it's taken reverting to what was virtually the team that got them
promoted to get them these last few results.
The Derby
question. Yawn. I want to win this game no more or no less than any game
against the mid table side that we should win. The only extra, if you like, is
that their fans will be unbearable if they manage to leave Saint Mary's with
three points.
Season
ticket prices, along with changes of kit get the gums flapping and it’s the
former that has been announced for the 2017/18 season. The bottom line is that mine has stayed the
same so I’m happy. It’s never going to
go down so if I was annoyed, all I’d be annoyed about is new season ticket
holders paying the same as me. I can see
that it’s just a tactic to encourage ‘new’ season ticket sales and it’s on the
back of a season where having a season ticket has been a huge advantage for
getting tickets for certain high profile games.. Maybe it’s linked to the mooted takeover and
any potential new investors wanting to know exactly how big the fan base can
be.
To
today and it’s like summer, walking across the Itchen Bridge with that strange
yellow thing that I don’t recognize in the sky.
It occurs to me that my old man, who went on holiday and missed the Cup
Final, has not seen Manolo Gabbiadini play as yet and of course, he isn’t
seeing him play today either. As it
turns out, Claude has pinned his hopes on J-Rod re-enacting what he achieved at
the Dean Court Vitality Subbuteo Ground and has gone for him ahead of Shane
Long. Despite media speculation that the
international break with lots of players being all over the world, would give
Martin Caceres his debut, we once again have the Maya & Jack show at centre
back and the rest of the side picks itself.
On paper, Bournemouth look really Championship. Their two ‘name’ players are/were both on
loan, Nathan Ake and Jack Wilshere but one’s gone back to Chelsea and the other
is on the bench. When Howe woke up to
the fact that he really needed to win some games, he decided that Wilshere
wasn’t the man he needed. I doubt that
when he signed on a season long loan from Arsenal, that Wilshere thought he’d
be dropped to the bench when the going got tough and have to watch Andrew
Surman and Dan Gosling play in his position.
Artur Boruc is of course in goal – I liked him. The first proper keeper we had in the Premier
League this time around.
Away
we go and Bournemouth immediately have 11 behind the ball but oddly, they don’t
look solid at all. It’s almost like they’re
just waiting for us to score. A header
forward is picked up by Tadic and he suddenly has loads of space as the
defenders back off and it’s on his left foot from the edge of the box and miles
wide. No excuse for not working the
keeper there.
It’s
Tadic again with the next chance as J-Rod gets up well to head down and this
time the Serb screws a right footed shot across the goal from a tight angle. We look like we’re going to score but at the
same time, there’s not too much to get excited about – we work it out from the back,
Tadic plays a great ball to Bertrand but as soon as he crosses it low, J-Rod is
flagged offside and there is no excitement at all as his first effort it saved
and he walks in the rebound. We’ve had a
few dodgy offside calls recently but this one is spot on. J-Rod has another very optimistic effort
which at latest is on target from out wide on the left but already there’s a
lack of cutting edge and almost a lack of intent. Redmond is looking decent when he gets it and
Smith at right back looks terrified every time he does so maybe there’s an
opportunity there.
Bournemouth
first show when JWP lets a ball roll under his foot on the right and King
attempts to break but JWP clearly hauls him back. It’s a booking clear as day but Fat Boy Moss
must have had part of his fat face obscuring his vision so it’s just a free
kick. They win a corner from it and we
nearly concede as it drops in the box and Surman goes for it with Forster who
comes launching out and the ball is eventually smashed off the line by Steve
Davis.
Bournemouth
are then guilty of fannying around in defence and Cedric wins it high up the
pitch, exchanges passes with JWP and pulls it back to Tadic who again is on the
edge of the box, again it’s on his left foot and again he misses, this time
clipping the outside of the post with Boruc nowhere. Again we have another little flurry of
chances with Yoshida getting up all alone at a corner and flicking an
admittedly difficult header wide and then Tadic lofting a superb ball in front
of J-Rod and the rusty one hit an excellent volley which Boruc took off to tip
over the bar. Half time and 0-0. Christ they are shite but predictable as you
like, we can’t score.
Harry
Arter is on for Surman who never recovered from the Fraser clattering which
means that Jack Wilshere is 4th choice in midfield for Bournemouth. The first chance of the second half is down
to our soft centre as a routine straight high ball is not delt with by Yoshida
and he manages to get knocked over and manshamed by King who advances, draws
Stephens who is the last defender and slips it across to Afobe who just has
Forster to beat but with a shite touch and a crap poked shot wide, we get away
with it.
There’s
not a lot happening until Redmond decides to let fly from range and it’s
straight at Boruc but seriously travelling so all the keeper can do is block it
straight out and it eventually falls to JWP who places it wide of a gaping
goal. Everyone went ‘unlucky’ but like
Tadic in the first hlf, he has to hit the target from there. Claude rolls the dice and on comes Boufal for
JWP and Shane Long for J-Rod who may as well have not been there since half
time.
With
basically four forwards on the pitch we look very open all of a sudden but
Boufal produces a bit of magic to beat three players in a tight space before
Ryan Fraser just bundles him out of play with no attempt to play the ball. It’s not a penalty but surely that’s
obstruction. Thinking about it – you don’t
see obstructions given any more, especially in the penalty area. We have another glorious chance as Tadic
again plays a great ball to put Long through on the left and he dinks it over
Boruc and wide. Great idea, shite
execution and again – he should have done better.
Wilshere
is on for King who has been woeful and Bournemouth immediately look better in
their 4-4-1-1 formation and put us under pressure. When you put our defence under pressure then
all sorts of shit happens and Yoshida ruins a great tackle by following it up
with a shite clearance and Smith drills one along the ground, off the post and
there’s an almighty scramble with Forster again spreading himself well to shut
the lights out on it.
With
10 to go and Bournemouth now dominating the game as we dropped deeper for some
reason, Wilshere tries to thread the ball through, Yoshida get a touch and
diverts it towards Ryan Fraser and the cheating little cunt gets the slightest
touch from Bertrand and throws himself and Fatty Moss takes it on the word of
the linesman because he’s not up with play himself. Penalty.
Fuck off! No one seems to want to
take it and up steps Arter and smashes it at a passing plane. What a load of shit!!! He’s looking at the
penalty spot and it is the same one that Harry Kane ballooned one from but when
they show the replay on the big screen, it looks like he’s just slipped because
he was trying to welt it.
I
feel like we’re going to win 1-0 now because it would be funny but there’s no
logic to this. It’s still all
Bournemouth and Claude decides to take Tadic off and replace him with McQueen
to I assume, shore things up on our left.
Surely it would have been better to put Hojbjerg or Clasie on to mark
Wilshere. Anyway, we’re still too deep and backing off as Arter takes aim to
try and make up for his shit penalty but Forster gets across well to pull off a
decent save. Get me to the end of the
game for fucks sake. 92,93… thank fuck
that’s over.
What a
strange game that was. We really should have won it but at the end we were very
very lucky to go away with a point. There seems to be a train of thought about
this game that Bournemouth bossed the second half but in fact, they bossed the
last 20 minutes and people have very short memories. For the first 70 minutes,
Bournemouth were absolutely dreadful other than that they hadn't letting a
goal. The midfield created absolutely nothing, often hitting any attempt to
travel straight out of play and the defence looked like it was ready to crack
at any moment. The fact that it didn't was down to some decent goalkeeping by
Boruc and some blunt stagnant attacking play from us. Overall though, it’s 0-0 becauise neither
team could finish a fucking dinner.
It came as
no surprise to me that without Gabbiadini, we struggled to score a goal or look
in any way fluent going forward. We couldn't score before he signed and we
can't score when he is missing. J-Rod looked a bit of a threat and did some
good things that he was falling into that Shane Long the trap of being offside
all the time and also if there was any physical challenge to be won, he didn't
win it. He just didn't seem to react if ever there was a 50-50 ball that he
might of won and it was usually Francis who got
his foot on the ball and cleared it.
I never thought much Francis as a player but he was very good today. It
would've been a different story if he'd had to cope with Gabbiadini's movement.
Howe’s game plan was clearly to soak up as much as possible and then try and
nick it at the end and to be honest they should've done. If we are concerned
about our strikers not being very good, then Bournemouth have Afobe. Everyone
is going to talk about Arter’s penalty at the moon but Afobe’s miss was worse
in my opinion.
Claude
said afterwards that he knew our players would be tired after international
week. All I can say is that Martin Caceres must be terrible in training because
Yoshida has been halfway round the world playing for Japan and he still got the
nod to start today. I don't like it go on about them but our two centre backs
are a disaster. How the fuck we got a clean sheet today is one of the great
unexplained mysteries of football. Jack Stephens is great on the ground. When
the ball is on the deck he plays it really really well, he wins his tackles and
he looks like a good player. When the ball is in the air however… fucking
hell. I have never seen a centre half in
my entire life who wins less. If there is any sort of challenge from the centre
forward then Stephens just does not win the header and the ball just plops down
and it's in the lap of the gods as to who picks it up. This was particularly the problem in
the last 20 when we retreated to the edge of our own box. Claude had a shocker today with the subs –
Redmond had faded out of the game so it should have been him coming off for
Boufal. Removing JWP seemed to turn it
all to shit. The McQueen sub was odd too
as mentioned earlier.
It will be
reported that Arter’s penalty miss was totally down to the pitch given way.
Bullshit. The way he ran up to the ball was ridiculous he was obviously going
to try and belt the living shit out of the ball and his standing foot was always
likely to give way as he planted it too far from the ball. He is about their
eighth choice penalty taker so he obviously didn't have the faintest idea about
what he was going to do so he just resorted to the tried and trusted belting
the shit out of it. It was bloody funny
though and a measure of justice for the fact that Ryan Fraser just threw
himself when he got the slightest tug from Ryan Bertrand. The penalty was
awarded by John Moss who is the personification of ‘you’re not fit to referee’.
He is not fit, he can't keep up with play and his decision-making is absolutely
baffling. Corners given as goal kicks, players clearly pulling another one back
is not given a yellow card and he is exactly the sort of referee you don't want
against Bournemouth who are a very cynical side, committing fouls in your half
to stop breakaways at every opportunity. Having said that, how JWP didn't get a booking for grabbing Pugh by
both shoulders shows the referee is not biased, just completely incompetent.
In amongst
it all there were some decent performances from us with Fraser Forster having a
decent game. He actually came off his
line a couple of times and whilst not everything was clean, he did what he had
to do and it was a decent save from Arter at the end. Oriol Romeu was once more, a machine in the
middle f the park and he had to be in the last twenty in particular as everyone
else went missing. We were blunt up
front with neith J-Rod or Long looking like Premier League strikers and
Bournemouth defending deep and in numbers meant not much space for Tadic,
Redmond and JWP. Redmond started the
game like he was going to tear Smith a new arsehole but then faded as the
second half progressed. Steve Davis had
a mixed match as well – excellent when we’re going forward and on top but he
seemed to struggle once we were on the back foot.
So, having
not had a home game for eight weeks, we have course got another one within four
days . Crystal Palace are at next at home where we will get to see a centre
forward who is really good in the air playing against Yoshida and Stephens. Not
only that, they are coming to us on the back of a 2-1 win away at champions
elect Chelsea. Hopefully they will be completely knackered and put on an ‘after
the Lord Mayor show’ performance but Fat Sam has now masterminded the winning
of their last four games so we are going to have to be considerably better than
today to get anything out of it.
Anyway,
has anyone found the ball?
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