Save This You Bastard
It’s Sunday, it’s stupid o’clock and it must therefore be a Saints
match moved for TV, this time BT Sport. Luckily,
the clash with the under 14s team that I help run was averted by our pitch
being underwater. Happy days, sort of.
Arsène Wenger has been manager of Arsenal since the 17th century and after the apocalypse and the destruction of the human race, all that will be left are cockroaches and Arsene Wenger who will still be the manager of Arsenal. They are going to finish fourth or fifth this year and next year is going to be the shit storm because Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil will both have left. Having said it will be shit storm, I do wonder how much they will actually miss two players who are brilliant on the day but on other days, don’t seem to give a shit.
The main thing I’ve noticed from the world of football since our last game is Eddie Howe. Of course he spent all the post match from the game against Saints shitting on about the penalty when Adam Smith clearly dived. He shat on about the apology they got from the ref who probably only apologised to stop Eddie’s moaning cos he wanted to go home. They played against Crystal Palace yesterday and had two penalties awarded against them. The second one was missed but Eddie is still shitting on about it as according to him it shouldn’t have been awarded. Shut the fuck up Eddie you boring little twat. Unless you’re going to talk about the ones that should’ve been given against your team like Josh King’s assault on Wesley Hoedt at every single corner we had last week, then shut the fuck up.
So it’s the usual drill and I’m on the Itchen Bridge and I check my phone to see what the line-up is. I’m reading the 11 names and I’m thinking ‘what the fuck is he doing?’. The surprise names are Stephens (who hasn’t even made the bench for the past few weeks) and Yoshida and the surprise omissions are Hoedt, Lemina and Boufal and to a lesser extent Jeremy Pied. Pied’s omission means there is no recognised right back in the 11 so who the fuck is playing there? If it’s 4 at the back then I guess it could be Stephens or Yoshida. If it’s five at the back then I guess it could be JWP. Either way, we are going to have someone playing out of position in the area of the pitch that Alexis Sánchez plays in. Okay then.
Arsène Wenger has been manager of Arsenal since the 17th century and after the apocalypse and the destruction of the human race, all that will be left are cockroaches and Arsene Wenger who will still be the manager of Arsenal. They are going to finish fourth or fifth this year and next year is going to be the shit storm because Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil will both have left. Having said it will be shit storm, I do wonder how much they will actually miss two players who are brilliant on the day but on other days, don’t seem to give a shit.
The main thing I’ve noticed from the world of football since our last game is Eddie Howe. Of course he spent all the post match from the game against Saints shitting on about the penalty when Adam Smith clearly dived. He shat on about the apology they got from the ref who probably only apologised to stop Eddie’s moaning cos he wanted to go home. They played against Crystal Palace yesterday and had two penalties awarded against them. The second one was missed but Eddie is still shitting on about it as according to him it shouldn’t have been awarded. Shut the fuck up Eddie you boring little twat. Unless you’re going to talk about the ones that should’ve been given against your team like Josh King’s assault on Wesley Hoedt at every single corner we had last week, then shut the fuck up.
So it’s the usual drill and I’m on the Itchen Bridge and I check my phone to see what the line-up is. I’m reading the 11 names and I’m thinking ‘what the fuck is he doing?’. The surprise names are Stephens (who hasn’t even made the bench for the past few weeks) and Yoshida and the surprise omissions are Hoedt, Lemina and Boufal and to a lesser extent Jeremy Pied. Pied’s omission means there is no recognised right back in the 11 so who the fuck is playing there? If it’s 4 at the back then I guess it could be Stephens or Yoshida. If it’s five at the back then I guess it could be JWP. Either way, we are going to have someone playing out of position in the area of the pitch that Alexis Sánchez plays in. Okay then.
During the warm up I notice that the shooting drill is going
on and with Austin, Tadic and Redmond are JWP and Bertrand which tells me that
they’re going to be the wing backs or else why would they be there – so it’s
obviously 3 at the back which will be our default formation against strong
sides.
We
start well and Arsenal look all over the place.
They’ve bought in Mertesackofshit to bolster their defence and he’s
scuffs a dreadful clearance straight to Austin.
He plays it first time up to Tadic and he holds off mertesacker who
falls over and slips a reverse ball back to Austin who controls and lifts it
over Cech and into the net. 1-0, fucking easy and any complaints about
Pellegrino’s line up can wait for a bit.
We’re
all over them again straight away and Stephens plays a decent ball up to Tadic
and once again, it’s a lovely turn and pass through to Austin running in from
the right. He pulls the trigger but Cech
gets down well to save low down to his right.
Balls. Another chance comes as
Arsenal gift possession to Redmond and Austin brings another save from Cech but
he was offside anyway.
We’re
playing some fabulous stuff with Hojbjerg and Romeu ruling the roost in
midfield against the shit Xhaka and the Ramsey, the rat faced little twat who
is still presumably making videos about England failing to qualify for the World
Cup… oh no that was Wales wasn’t it.
Away we go down the left with Bertrand and it’s a great low ball behind
the defenders and Austin connects again and once more Cech saves, this time
onto the post and away. Needless to say,
Austin was offside again so it wouldn’t have counted.
Arsenal
have done nothing but then an overhit corner from JWP puts them away and it’s
scary as it’s 3 on 1 at the back for us.
Luckily, the golden trio of Sanchez, Lacazette and Ozil combine to fuck
it up and Hojbjerg makes it back to knock it out for a corner. This boy really wants to stay in the team.
Now
it’s all Arsenal with us defending deep with 11 players and Arsenal playing it
around the edge of the box and not getting anywhere. The concentration breaks though and Sanchez
comes to our left and plays in a ball to Ramsey and the twat hits it well first
time and it’s heading for the bottom corner but Fraser gets down with a strong
left hand to push it out. World class save
right there.
We’re
still only 20 minutes into the game and the rest of the first half is Arsenal
attacking and keeping possession between the half way line and the edge of our
penalty area. They’re really not doing
much. On one occasion when they do get
into the box, Lacazette
You
know that the 2nd half is going to start much the same. Wenger will stubbornly carry on the same way
and Pellegrino will want more of the same from us as well. The frist action of note is on 53 when Bertrand
wins the ball in defence and we’re off with Redmond carrying the ball forward,
playing a 1-2 with Tadic and then taking aim from distance only to smash it
straight down Cech’s throat.
They’re
having possession but we’re looking the more dangerous and a great passing move
featuring Romeu, Hojbjerg, Bertrand and Austin ends with Romeu taking aim from
20 yards and Cech watching on as the ball pinged off the bar and over. Yet another great chance is forthcoming not
long after we break again with Bertrand finding Tadic and the Serb once more
finding a ball back to the person who gave it to him and Bertrand holds of
Koscielny and is suddenly through but as Cech comes out he dinks it over him
but I’m sat directly behind the path of the ball and can see it going
wide. If he was a striker you’d go ‘wanker’
but the general mood is ‘oooh unlucky’.
We’re going to bastard well pay for these misses aren’t we.
Arsenal’s
pressure is always going to lead to some chances and Monreal drills wide after
a corner is cleared and Arsene decides what the game needs is a diving little
twat to run into the nearest player and throw himself to the floor whilst he
turns to the ref and throws his arms in the air appealing for a free kick. Yes, it’s Jack Wilshere who takes the place
of Granit Xhaka, named after a rock because he moves as quick as one. Pellegrino’s first roll of the dice is to
take of Redmond who has been pretty desperate and bring on Boufal who immediately
starts committing defenders.
Up
the other end Wilshere has a dive and a rant and gets nothing so the next time
he tries it, Romeu hits him with a ‘this is a proper foul you little twat’ and
bins him. It’s 25 yards out and Sanchez
is over it and it’s a throwback to The Emirates a year ago as it arrows over
the wall and towards the top corner but Fraser’s footwork is good and he gets
across to punch it away quite comfortably.
Can we do this? Welbeck is on and
so is bloody Giroud. It strikes me that
we should bring Hoedt on at this point but we don’t , we bring on Gabbiadini
for the clearly blowing Austin and guess what happens with 3 minutes to go.
Sanchez
who has done nothing all game finds himself out on our right and a couple of
spaces buys him a yard and he clips it into the box to where Giroud loses
Yoshida and before Virgil can react, he’s flicked a header just inside the
post. Fuck off!!!
We
have no real time to do anything and it seems that both sides immediately
settle for a point. Steve Davis comes on
for Tadic but there’s nothing of note in the last few minutes and so the points
are shared.
And bollocks. A point against one of the big boys is never to
be sniffed at but when you’ve been ahead for 85 minutes it is a little bit hard
to take. The bottom line is that we should have buried them in the first 15
minutes and we missed chances throughout the game to win it. They really only
created the one chance at the other end other than their goal but they managed
to get a point from it.
With Yoshida and Stephens in the team, we were always going to be susceptible once they sent Giroud and Welbeck and it was a great header by the Frenchman as he ghosted in between Maya and Virgil and perfectly flicked a header into the corner. Suave good looking French bastard. The only thing at this current Arsenal side has in common with the good Arsenal sides of Wenger’s first eight years is the fact that they are called Arsenal. That’s it. Cech is still a superb goalkeeper as he proved today but there really wasn’t much else. The much vaunted front three of Ozil, Sanchez and Lacazette didn’t really do much. Sanchez pissed around and eventually chipped aimless balls into the box. Ozil came alive are occasionally butand you can see why they get so frustrated with him and Lacazette did absolutely nothing. It was a shame that Wenger recognised this because if he’d left like it was out there and there is no way that Arsenal would’ve scored. Still it was good to see our old boys Theo Walcott and Calum Chambers playing for Arsenal, only they weren’t playing for Arsenal and they weren’t even on the fucking bench. In Walcott’s defence, he has just fallen out of favour. Chambers was never in favour but he still signed his new contract and he still doing fuck all with his career like the total Oxlade-Chamberlain waste of space that he is.
I have to begrudgingly admit that Pellegrino’s selection in the main worked. The three at the back worked well against Arsenal diminutive strike force but maybe it would’ve been good to have kept a substitute in hand and shoved Wesley on when Giroud came on. Pierre Hojbjerg was man of the match without a doubt and you would think it would be really hard to Pellegrino to leave him out of the next game but don’t be surprised if he does. He is managing to leave Mario Lemina out of the starting line-up at the moment so anything is possible. The one thing that Pellegrino definitely got wrong was the selection of Nathan Redmond over Sofiane Boufal. Sure Redmond works hard defensively but whenever he got the ball he had absolutely no fucking idea what to do with it. If he had a choice of 20 options and only one of them was wrong, Redmond would pick that one. He played well on the right against Bournemouth so just maybe playing the right footed winger on the right is the answer. As I’ve said before, I know that this theory is a bit wild and out there. I also know that Pep Guardiola thinks he’s a great player but the insane one would not have been impressed today. Mind you, that is certifiable so maybe he would’ve thought the opposite.
A word from Dusan Tadic. I am not his biggest fan and after 18 months I feel that it’s about time we got some performances out of him and today he was right on it, causing all sorts of problems for the Arsenal defence. I do hope that Pellegrino perseveres with only playing one out of Tadic and Steve Davis. Tadic would’ve had more than one assist today if it wasn’t for Charlie Austin‘s tendency to be offside. Long may continue though and hopefully Austin can bring the best out of Tadic like a Graziano Pellé used to.
Other stand outs today include Fraser who was superb throughout, especially the save low to his left outside which was world class. He was also coming out for crosses as well and catching them all and he must be doing something right because the moron show have canned the ironic clapping and cheering.. I thought JWP did okay in an unfamiliar position. There were times when he drifted inside and the player on the ball had no option out wide on the right but he performed his defensive duties well in the main and it’s always good to have them on the pitch for set pieces. Jack Stephens again showed was composed player he is and three at the back formation really suits him.
Virgil - I don’t know. I find myself looking for mistakes from him now for signs that he doesn’t actually give a shit and today was one of those games where I thought it was sloppy. He has got a lot of quality obviously so when he’s taking a free kick and it goes straight off for a goal kick and there is no Saints player within 30 yards of it, I wonder if he’s actually giving a shit.
Next up we have a visit of Claude Puel and Leicester City. Claude seems to have found a way of harnessing Leicester’s good attacking players which is mildly irritating because he never managed it with us. Maybe he’s just got better attacking players now. Anyway, the whole of the football world outside of Southampton who saw his sacking as being very harsh will be hoping that Leicester win . In the context of the run of fixtures that we have, this one is of course one of the more winnable ones, so we have to be at it from the first whistle and Pellegrino has to get his selection right. Boufal has to play and I would suggest that Lemina has to play as well. Bring it on.
With Yoshida and Stephens in the team, we were always going to be susceptible once they sent Giroud and Welbeck and it was a great header by the Frenchman as he ghosted in between Maya and Virgil and perfectly flicked a header into the corner. Suave good looking French bastard. The only thing at this current Arsenal side has in common with the good Arsenal sides of Wenger’s first eight years is the fact that they are called Arsenal. That’s it. Cech is still a superb goalkeeper as he proved today but there really wasn’t much else. The much vaunted front three of Ozil, Sanchez and Lacazette didn’t really do much. Sanchez pissed around and eventually chipped aimless balls into the box. Ozil came alive are occasionally butand you can see why they get so frustrated with him and Lacazette did absolutely nothing. It was a shame that Wenger recognised this because if he’d left like it was out there and there is no way that Arsenal would’ve scored. Still it was good to see our old boys Theo Walcott and Calum Chambers playing for Arsenal, only they weren’t playing for Arsenal and they weren’t even on the fucking bench. In Walcott’s defence, he has just fallen out of favour. Chambers was never in favour but he still signed his new contract and he still doing fuck all with his career like the total Oxlade-Chamberlain waste of space that he is.
I have to begrudgingly admit that Pellegrino’s selection in the main worked. The three at the back worked well against Arsenal diminutive strike force but maybe it would’ve been good to have kept a substitute in hand and shoved Wesley on when Giroud came on. Pierre Hojbjerg was man of the match without a doubt and you would think it would be really hard to Pellegrino to leave him out of the next game but don’t be surprised if he does. He is managing to leave Mario Lemina out of the starting line-up at the moment so anything is possible. The one thing that Pellegrino definitely got wrong was the selection of Nathan Redmond over Sofiane Boufal. Sure Redmond works hard defensively but whenever he got the ball he had absolutely no fucking idea what to do with it. If he had a choice of 20 options and only one of them was wrong, Redmond would pick that one. He played well on the right against Bournemouth so just maybe playing the right footed winger on the right is the answer. As I’ve said before, I know that this theory is a bit wild and out there. I also know that Pep Guardiola thinks he’s a great player but the insane one would not have been impressed today. Mind you, that is certifiable so maybe he would’ve thought the opposite.
A word from Dusan Tadic. I am not his biggest fan and after 18 months I feel that it’s about time we got some performances out of him and today he was right on it, causing all sorts of problems for the Arsenal defence. I do hope that Pellegrino perseveres with only playing one out of Tadic and Steve Davis. Tadic would’ve had more than one assist today if it wasn’t for Charlie Austin‘s tendency to be offside. Long may continue though and hopefully Austin can bring the best out of Tadic like a Graziano Pellé used to.
Other stand outs today include Fraser who was superb throughout, especially the save low to his left outside which was world class. He was also coming out for crosses as well and catching them all and he must be doing something right because the moron show have canned the ironic clapping and cheering.. I thought JWP did okay in an unfamiliar position. There were times when he drifted inside and the player on the ball had no option out wide on the right but he performed his defensive duties well in the main and it’s always good to have them on the pitch for set pieces. Jack Stephens again showed was composed player he is and three at the back formation really suits him.
Virgil - I don’t know. I find myself looking for mistakes from him now for signs that he doesn’t actually give a shit and today was one of those games where I thought it was sloppy. He has got a lot of quality obviously so when he’s taking a free kick and it goes straight off for a goal kick and there is no Saints player within 30 yards of it, I wonder if he’s actually giving a shit.
Next up we have a visit of Claude Puel and Leicester City. Claude seems to have found a way of harnessing Leicester’s good attacking players which is mildly irritating because he never managed it with us. Maybe he’s just got better attacking players now. Anyway, the whole of the football world outside of Southampton who saw his sacking as being very harsh will be hoping that Leicester win . In the context of the run of fixtures that we have, this one is of course one of the more winnable ones, so we have to be at it from the first whistle and Pellegrino has to get his selection right. Boufal has to play and I would suggest that Lemina has to play as well. Bring it on.
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