Get Off the Pitch You Dickhead
Here comes the first difficult game. Well, they are all
difficult but compare to what we had already, this is a whole new level. Having had a few issues with drawing a load of
games that they should of won last year, Manchester United had a rather spectacularly
successful transfer window with Nemanja Matic sorting out the defensive
midfield area which allows the creative players to go and create. Sure, they
lost Zlatan to injury but have replaced him with Romelu Lukaku who so far, is
absolutely ripping it up. Just don’t
sing songs about what he’s packing in his shorts though. He doesn't quite have the presence of Zlatan
but he has more pace which makes them an altogether scarier proposition. Having spent £130 million on those two, they
also paid £30 million for a centre back, Lindelof but he has not gotten the
team as yet but Phil Jones has been fit so he has not been needed. In my opinion, Jones has always been a better
centre back than Smalling. Even before
you think about wages, these transfer fees show you the completely different
level they are operating on compared to us.
They still have Luke Shaw who appears to still be beating his thick-as-mince head
against the wall in thinking that he can carve himself out and Manchester
United career. The manager thinks you’re
shite mate – give it up. Shaw just about
beats Calum Chambers and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the ‘Players who left Saints
too early’ stakes. He simply wasn't ready either mentally, or as a player. The manager who Shaw will never impress is of
course, Jose Mourinho who apparently has a record of always winning the title
in his second season. Well he's certainly made a good start this time around
with 4 wins and a draw from 5 games.
I had the bizarre experience of having to write a semi serious
piece for a Manchester United website and you can read it here. Unfortunately, The style of the piece
meant that I couldn't get into talking about how United are self-entitled
wankers and that it's only the travelling away fans who are in any way decent.
To be honest, I'd rather beat Liverpool more than United but a win against
United is never a bad thing and especially at St Mary's, it doesn't happen that
often. In fact, it's only happened once. The Dell days and 3-1 and 6-3 and Matt
Le Tissier chipping Schmeichel and Ostenstad’s hat-trick and grey shirts is a
long long time ago.
Not so long ago, a week ago in fact, came more proof of the
fucking ridiculous politically correct times that we living with the Lukaku
song being deemed offensive and this generated a ridiculous amount of inches,
that's column inches, as in newspaper column.
The world is gone fucking soft. Away from men's football, the FA have
again proved themselves not fit for purpose following the sacking of the England
women's manager, Mark Sampson. Having already investigated
and cleared the bloke twice of racism and bullying accusations, rightly or wrongly, they found
something that he'd done about five years ago that they were fully aware of and
decided to fire him for that. The FA’s
defence was that they were not fully aware of it because no one had read the
report which they had, properly until last week.
Pathetic. Whatever the rights and
wrong is of how he's behaved, that is absolute bullshit. It's ironic that the
woman who is accused him of racism and bullying is a lawyer. I wonder if she's
an employment lawyer. You really
couldn't make it up but the FA clearly do at every turn.
Also, back in media fantasyland, there are still outlets that
are trying to push Van Dijk to Liverpool. It's quite staggering really. They
are talking about January when he absolutely will not go anywhere and they are
also talking about the end of the season when he absolutely will not go to
Liverpool. What's changed in the relationship between Saints and Liverpool? The
only thing that might change by the end of the season is Jurgen Klopp’s
position. We are beginning to get the first people noticing that he hasn't
remotely improve the defence in two years in charge. Very amusing and watch
this space. In some ways I hope these Liverpool stories keep coming up because
Liverpool are playing well but none of the stories would be happening.
Moving onto today and the question is would Mauricio change
the team from last week and introduce Virgil or would it be same again. I have
a feeling, as I said on the United website link above, that Pellegrino is
building us playing three at the back so I would not be at all surprised if
Virgil is playing instead of Tadic or Redmond.
As it turns out it’s exactly the same team as we put out against Palace
with the only changes coming on the bench.
It’s remarkable that we have a bench with so much ability on it… Virgil,
Gabbi, JWP, Hojbjerg, Austin, Pied and McCarthy. United meanwhile have not picked that
horrible little shitbag Herrera and have nstead gone with the pair of elbows
with a wig on top that is Fellaini. A
front four of Mkhitaryan, Rashford, Mata and Lukaku is not bad though is it?
Chairman Gao is introduced to the fans before the game
– careful Jinsheng, you’ll get a
reputation for only turning up for the big games. Away we go and it annoys me that we’re not
smashing into them at every opportunity.
We seem content to just hold them at arms length and defend in
numbers. Fellaini is even looking like a
decent player as they just knock it about.
We have intent when we get the ball though and Tadic finds himself
running at the defence and getting towards the penalty area but he’s blocked
off robustly and you are never getting that decision against United.
We’re holding our own but not really forcing things and on
20 minutes United take the lead when they build down the left and the totally
right footed Young picks up the ball.
He faces up Tadic and it’s as obvious as you like that he’s going to
cross it right footed. Tadic does the
same with his left foot from the right side in every game but he doesn’t close
down the right footed cross and over it comes, Lukaku shoves Hoedt and meets
it, great block by Fraser but it falls to Lukaku to simply knock it in the net. Fuck.
To be honest, if he’d beaten Stephens like that I’d have been saying that he was
bullied and Hoedt really should have been stronger but that really looks like a
foul.
We need to recover and with our lack of goal threat, it’s
already obvious that if we let in another then we are fucked, so Maya trashing
through the back of Mata on the edge of the box is not what anyone wanted. Up steps Rashford and it whistles about a
foot wide of the near post and Fraser wasn’t getting it.
The United fans have spent about 10 minutes droning their
version of ‘Feeling Good’ which is tedious in the extreme and then decide to
sing about big cocks for a bit. It suits
them better I think. There’s not a lot
going on for the rest of the half aside from Shane Long catching Fellaini late
and getting a yellow card. Valencia is
trying his best to get Craig Pawson to send him of but luckily it’s
yellow. Fellaini deserved it anyway.
The
second half is a different kettle of fish altogether. Romeu and Lemina have truly come to the party
and we are suddenly dominating the game – higher up the pitch and looking more
of a threat. We win an early corner
which Tadic puts over and it drops on the six yard line and it looks like Romeu
must score but somehow he hooks it wide, understandable given that about four
United players threw themselves at the ball.
Eric Bailly clearly hasn’t played against anyone quite like Shane Long
before as he thinks he’d got time to saunter over to a loose ball. No mate you haven’t.
Having
been invisible in the first half, Nathan Redmond has woken up, drilling a hot
at the near post which de Gea saves comfortably. United as an attacking force are really not
doing much and for the first time in months, there is actually a bit of
excitement and expectation when we go forward. Redmond
again is on the run and swerves past both Matic and Valencia and whips over a
first time left footed cross which is just a little bit too high for Long and
he heads over. We of course have a few
dodgy moments when United break and Lukaku gets free on the right and drills in
a shot which Fraser blocks well.
Lemina is
running the show. If we were winning you
would say that he was show boating but there’s a real purpose in what he’d
doing. Winning the ball back and then
pulling out all the tricks to make space for himself and set up another attack,
making Matic and Fellaini look very average.
Mourinho is worried and on comes that little shit Herrera and Chris
Smalling in place of Mata and Mkhitaryan to bolster the United rear guard
effort. Their fans are not singing about
big cocks any more and are very quiet. Daley Blind on for Rashford and a 6-2-1-1 formation.
Another
corner, a Romeu header and the elbows with a wig heads it away from in front of
the goal. Mauricio rolls the dice and
Steve Davis is off and Gabbiadini comes on.
Striker for midfielder – tick. We had
our first genuine ‘GOAAAAAAfuckittt’ moment for a while as Romeu ran at the Untied
defence, playing passes with Gabbiadini and Tadic before screwing his effort
across the goal and just in front of Long.
As the
clock ticks down, two more subs with Cedric and the knackered Long replaced
with Austin and JWP who goes to right back.
Running out of time here and Another Lemina run and we win another corner. 93 minutes are up but we have to delay
because Mourinho is being a twat so the ref has to send him to the stand. That diffuses the head of steam nicely doesn’t
it for fucks sake. United survive the corner despite Fraser being right up there in the mixer and another goalless home
defeat is chalked up.
And bollocks. We played well though and have not got what we
deserved. The fact that Mourinho was throwing on defenders and defensive
midfielders in place and attacking players as the second-half wore on, tells
you all you need to know about who was on top and looking the better side. Our
fans appreciated it too and even though we scored zero goals at home yet again
there is an appreciative ovation for the players at the end of the game. That's
really cool actually because it shows that the home fans, or the majority of
them anyway know something about football, appreciate the efforts and can see
further than the fact that we lost. As
for the fucking 83 minute brigade… The majority of you are a fucking
embarrassment.
Another game against United comes and goes where we got less
than we deserved. I swear it's fucking psychological. For the first 30-40 minutes we
gave them too mush respect and allowed players as limited as Fellaini to
dictate the game. When we got into it and realise that they actually aren't
that great, we looked decent but by then unfortunately the damage was done with
the goal. The cross should never ever have been allowed to come over from Young
as he is completely right footed playing on the left and he’s never put over a
left footed cross in his left. He even
dummied crossing it with his right foot before he eventually did. Tadic really should've blocked that but once
it came over, that's where luck plays a major part. Lukaku clearly barged Hoedt
over but the referee didn't see it and Fraser makes a great save from the
initial header but Lukaku suddenly sees the ball presented to him right in
front of an empty net. Lemina and Romeu
completely dominated the midfield from that point and all United had in the
second half was all the cunty tricks in the book to waste time with Fellani
being shown up to be as limited a footballer that he is.
Our two midfield boys were magnificent but there's only so
much that they can do. The sad truth is that despite Shane Long having a really
really good game, he didn't threaten the goal once. The three players that we
have the furthest forward are not the same standard as the rest of the team.
It's like having a knife where the handle is absolutely magnificent but the
blade is fucking useless. It looks absolutely great until it comes to practical
use. Don't get me wrong, I love Steve Davis as a footballer but I thought the
first substitution today was quite telling when he was removed to bring on
Gabbiadini. We have needed Davis to knit everything together but maybe now,
with Lemina and Romeu in midfield, I wonder if we need a Davis style player at
number 10. We could go with someone who
is more of a goal threat. It's not about individual players but about what
makes the best team.
I thought that Pellegrino did all that he could today and
his substitutions were spot-on. We had JWP on for the last 10 minutes playing
at right back but on the pitch to deliver the set pieces and we chucked on the
extra striker with Austin coming out. I would however have argued that it
would've been better to throw Virgil on and stick him up front.
We are not far away. It is just a matter of time before it
clicks into place.
Unlike last home game against Watford, there are a number of
players that we can talk about as having had really good games. The most
eye-catching display was from Mario Lemina again and he truly bossed the game
in the second half. Whilst less eye-catching, Oriol Romeu was fantastic.. The
two of them were really trying to find a forward pass through the defence to
one of the wingers of the fullbacks and were playing higher up the pitch which
is what we hoped would happen when the back four got sorted. Talking of which,
Wesley Hoedt is looking like a brilliant signing and one thing that really
encourage me is that the one weakness that he was supposed to have, a lack of
pace, didn't seem to be a problem when he was in a foot race with the allegedly
quick Lukaku. Maya Yoshida also did a good job and was much more safety first
than usual which is no bad thing. He knows that his place is under threat from
van Dijk on the bench and he stepped up to the mark today. It would be
incredibly harsh on him to be left out and that those of the decisions that the
manager gets paid to make.
Shane Long put in a real shift today and the only time he
annoyed me was when that big high ball went over the United defence and he was
looking for the slightest contact before crumbling to the ground, rather than
going after the fucking ball and trying to stick it in the net. The ref knew it and was never going to give a
penalty. I was up that end of the ground
and didn’t even get excited about it.
Post match I saw a tweet by Luke Shaw congratulating the proper players at his club on their win. See You Next Tuesday in the Under 23's you fat twat.
So – we’ve proved that we can get up for it and play a high
tempo against Manchester United. Now we
have to do it at the National City of Inbreeding – Stoke.
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