Premier League Match 25 - Southampton 1 Brighton 1

Not Heard This One. Sack the Clown Now Les!

A mid week visit of Brighton to St Mary’s and another one of these must win games that we have totally failed to win so far this season. The one thing giving anyone any optimism is the state of the league table in that if we win tonight will probably shoot up as high as 14th and follow that with another win against West Brom and will be about 12th. That scenario is straight from a fantasy world as the more likely scenario and very real possibility is that we will fail to win tonight and then lose to West Brom on Saturday and be bottom of the league.

Seemingly oblivious to all of this is Mauricio Pellegrino whose demeanour never seems to change which on the one hand could mean that he’s a really level headed stable genius but on the other hand could mean that he’s just oblivious, not realising what the fuck is going on and the implications and not learning from any of the mistakes that have been made so far this season.

Attention has been deflected slightly away from Pellegrino for the last few days with the Watford FA Cup results and subsequent draw for the fifth round away to West Brom and also by the last few days of the transfer window. Apparently we are chasing a Dutch winger who is playing for Spartak Moscow called Quincy progr. If Les Reid and Ross Wilson are in Russia and they come back without a player, let alone without a centre back to replace the departed Virgil Van Dijk then as far as I’m concerned, the pair of them can stay in Russia. Siberia is nice at this time of year.

Brighton are playing their first season of top-flight football for about 30 years and they are just about keeping their heads above water, playing brand of football which could politely be described as fucking boring. They just don’t score goals, especially away from home so we should take that knowledge and take a few risks tonight. The other knowledge we should take into the scheme is that Brighton are incredibly defensive usually having 10 players behind the ball so the only way to create many chances against them is to break forward quickly. The aerial route is not really an option because in Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy they have two of the best centre half in the league regarding winning headers – a bit like Stephens and Yoshida for us.  At the other end of the pitch they have a Glenn Murray which partly explains why they don’t score any. He might have other things on his mind tonight having just been arrested for tax evasion and impersonating a footballer. I might have made that last bit up.

One player they have worth mentioning is Dale Stephens Who is a regular in their midfield and fair play to him. It is not something you would ever have predicted if you saw his six match loan spell for Saints back in the league one promotion season. He was bollocks to be honest but it shows that some players hit their stride later in their career.  Chris Hughton is the manager and I will repeat what everyone else seems to say about him in that he seems to be one of the football is a genuine nice blokes. This is of course a bit of a contrast to Gus Poyet who was of course a massive shit bag.

Before the Brighton game had kicked off, it became apparent that Quincy Promes was not joining from Spartak Moscow. The line that we have been fed was that as long as Spartak could sign a replacement, then the deal would take place. In the end, they signed the alleged replacement, a Belgian player called Sofiane Hanni, but Promes stayed put. Our primary target was of course Theo Walcott and once we got blown out of the water on that deal, we switched our attention to Promes.  

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter why but it has not happened so our transfer window can be summed up like this. We have made about £50 million in profit on transfer fees, we have signed a striker that we needed four months ago, the wage bill has gone down and we didn’t replace the centre half who we probably knew we were going to sell from about the 1st of December. This is absolutely pathetic. To think that we used to shit on and make videos about how great we were at transfers. We are not good at them, not the incoming ones anyway.  

I think the problem is that the players who we used to pick up from Europe like Sadio Mané, Victor Wanyama and Virgil Van Dijk cost us about £12 million. Those sorts of players are still out there but instead of costing £12 million, they now cost between £20 and £25 million with wages to match and we aren’t willing to pay that which means that we do even more fucking around playing chicken until the last minute in an effort to save a few quid before we either run out of time, the selling club gets pissed off with us or other clubs blow us out of the water.  The way to get deals done is to get them done quickly and steal a march on everyone but we don’t do that.  We leave it to the last minute and with the media being what it is, that only decreases the chances of stealing a march on everyone.  It’s similar to the need to attack quickly if you want to catch the opposition out on the pitch – we don’t do that either.  Pace and Power – on and off the pitch.

What did Les Reid and Ross Wilson expect? The whole world knows what we got for Virgil and the whole world knows that we got it nice and early so everyone probably assumed that we’d throw an extra £5 million at it as we got towards the end of the transfer window.  So, we have loads of money but we’re not prepared to spend it. If Les Reed dares to break his silence on this complete fiasco then I fully expect him to blame this on Virgil Van Dijk as well.  From deliberate leaks to the press that we were targeting Walcott, Sturridge and players of that quality, we sign a French League reserve striker who has Pellegrino baggage.  We leaked that Everton blew us out of the water when we thought he would sign for us (Toby Alderweireld Part 2) and then we leaked the Promes thing about Spartak needing a replacement and that story changed to ‘they wanted all the money up front’.  Incompetent and a dereliction of duty.  However,  I am firmly of the opinion that it wouldn’t matter which players we signed if we still have Pellegrino in charge. It certainly wouldn’t matter which attacking players we signed because he has absolutely no idea about the attacking part of the game.

Les In Siberia After Digging a Big Hole for Himself

I had no idea that that statement about Pellegrino having no idea about the attacking side of the game, was going to be so expertly illustrated by the man when I saw the line-up for this must win game against Brighton at home. Brighton, as everyone knows, play a deep massed defence which you are the need to go over, round or through. In order to go over all round you need a central striker who is going to be physical and win the high balls and attack crosses and give the team something to aim at and be a focal point. To go through you need a striker with a clever movement off the ball. If you want to have a fucking nightmare and achieve absolutely fucking nothing then you need Shane Long upfront and that’s what we got. Not only that, he picked an attacking midfield three of JWP, Steve Davis and Tadic. For fuck‘s sake. What the fuck is Steve Davis going to add in that position. This means that our furthest forward players are going to be Shane Long and Steve Davis. It is absolutely beyond comprehension that Pellegrino has picked those for as our attacking threat against Brighton at home in a must win game. I am actually in my seat 45 minutes before the kickoff and I am completely fucking deflated. I’m getting used to being deflated at the end of the game but you shouldn’t be deflated at the start. I class myself as a realist as a football fan. I’m not a happy clapper who thinks everything is great all the time but I’m also not blindly positive either. I do not understand what Pellegrino thinks he is going to fucking achieve with that line-up. The only silver lining I can think of is that when he comes to making substitutions in the second half, he can’t possibly make the team any worse which of course is what he usually manages to do.

The bench is like a Who’s Who of Southampton’s most expensive footballers. Mario Lemina, Guido Carrillo, Manolo Gabbiadini, Sofiane Boufal.

The game starts and we are fucking shit. Brighton start better than us and we look very lethargic and one paced like you hoped we wouldn’t be but completely knew that we would be. The deflation that I felt seems to have settled upon 80% of our fans in the ground. Within the first minute there is an almighty calamity in our defence as Hoedt falls over, followed by Romeu and Izquierdo smashes a relatively simple chance miles over the bar.

There is a spirited singalong of ‘Oh when the Saints’ which actually spread to the Chapel and so that was a good effort and the singing distracts your attention from the fucking rubbish that is on the pitch with Brighton looking much better than us. They have Solly March on one wing who looks lively and Izquierdo on the left wing who is lightning quick and is going to give Cedric a lot of trouble today. Yes, Brighton, probably the most defensive team in the Premier League, have set up with more attacking intent then we have as the home side in a must win game.

From Brighton’s next attack, Izquierdo cuts on from the left and plays it in to March and Hoedt lunges in carelessly and clumsily takes away March’s standing foot.  Clear penalty all day long.  Jesus.  Up steps Glenn Murray and sends McCarthy the wrong way for 1-0.  The good news is that we have 75 minutes for our dynamic front four to gel.

Of the front four, it’s only JWP who looks anything remotely decent and he whips in a superb first time cross towards Long but Duffy gets there first and saves Shane the bother of putting it in the crowd by doing it himself.  It’s a good ten minutes before we threaten again with most of that time being taken up with Mat Ryan taking a goal kick.  Anyhow, Bertrand tries to catch him out by hammering in a shot from a narrow angle which rises just over the bar at the near post.

The closest we get to scoring is Hojbjerg charging down the goalkeeper as Ryan dallied and his smashed his clearance against Hojbjerg and ridiculously, it rebounded onto the cross bar and was cleared.  That’s the kind of chance we’re relying on to score.  We have one last effort before half time with a JWP corner from the left being played low and out to Bertrand and his sidefoot effort from the edge of the box was narrowly over the bar.  Half time and a chorus of boos for the idiot.

My half time discussion is with two 13 year olds and we decide that Long and Davis have to come off for Carrillo and Boufal.  We got the second bit right but the players removed were Tadic and Romeu.  Both the removed players had been shite to be fair but they weren’t the worst and as the players lined up, it looked like we were going 4-4-2 with Davis in midfield which of course, is tried and tested and absolutely does not work.

Our first effort of the second half is another to add to the “Jack Stephens Free Headers I’ve Missed” Greatest Hits collection as he met a JWP free kick all on his own and headed well wide.  On 63 minutes after a build up on the right, Cedric switched play to Boufal and the value of committing defenders was illustrated again as Boufal was fouled by March.  Over it comes from JWP and he completely scuffs it, it flicks off the wall and then Stephens improvises a back heel and it rolls into the corner.  It’s a horribly lucky goal but we kind of deserve it after the Hojbjerg incident in the first half.  Thirty minutes to find a winner.

Carrillo is finding it tough on his debut.  He can’t win a header against the huge Brighton centre backs but he’s not afraid to mix it and he shows great strength to turn Dunk and gets a shot away which flies wide.  Pierre, who is again our best player then tries his luck again from distance and hits it well but straight at the keeper.  Long, who has proved to be just as ineffective in a two man attack as he is on his own, makes way for Gabbiadini in the last throw of the dice but far from us working up a head of steam, there’s kind of nothing and it all just peters out.  Brighton settle for a draw (to be fair, that was all they ever wanted) and we’re not capable of anything else.  In the 92^nd minute, Davis produces his best bit of football of the match, carrying the ball up the pitch on the break and then slightly over hits his pass to Carrillo and it runs through to the keeper.  If Shane Long had still been on, he’d either have stopped running anyway, been offside or got there and then missed.

Saints Attacking Midfielders Surging Forward

What a load of fucking shit. I really can’t be bothered to write much more. It has all been said before and it will all be set again unless Les does the one thing in his power that is not governed by a transfer window and sacks this useless pillock we have as a manager right now. Get Marco Silva in and offer him a fucking massive bonus to keep us up. We need a manager with a bit of bollocks about him who is going to whip these underperforming sacks of shit into shape and get them playing like a team with some intent to actually score some fucking goals and win some fucking games.

Pellegrino should have been sacked three months ago and I will repeat now what I said then which is that we are going to get relegated if we keep Pellegrino in charge. Doing nothing is absolutely killing the club and he’s becoming the bloke everyone hates.  The bloke hasn’t got a fucking clue and he needs to leave now. His team selections are crap, his substitutions are crap, his game management is crap, his ability to learn from his mistakes is crap and how many times do we have to hear that it’s a results business when we have only won 4 games out of 25 and this bloke who is completely out of his depth is still in charge. What are we waiting for? What’s the redeeming feature?  We are going down with Pellegrino, of that there can be no doubt and no one is going to slag anybody off if he gets sacked. It’s not like the Claude fuel thing where everyone can say but he finished eighth and got to a Cup Final. Everyone is just going to say four wins out of 25. Signed, sealed, delivered and fuck off.

Let’s talk about the game after all. The first half was as bad as anything we have seen all season. It is right up there with Spurs away, Leicester at home and Liverpool away. It was entirely predictable from the first whistle that would be absolutely shit and so it proved. We desperately needed Carrillo on in the second half so he did that but instead of taking Shane Long off which she should’ve done, he went for 4-4-2 which meant that the wingers were not as far up the pitch and so we didn’t get any crosses in towards the guy who we bought on to head the ball. Also, Pellegrino decided that it was best to take Romeu off and leave Steve Davis on who was managing to put in the most diabolical performance and remain on the pitch. I mean, Romeu was bad today but Davis was a whole new level of shit. Sideways and backwards, giving the ball away, running into players blindly and just losing it - it had it all.  Again, Pellegrino has gone 4-4-2 with Davo as one of the central midfielders.  It doesn’t work, it never has, it never will.

Playing Shane Long as one of the two men strikeforce relies on him linking up with the other striker and reading the game. That guy couldn’t even read a fucking book let alone what another striker was going to do, where he was going to flick the ball etc.  He eventually brought Gabbiadini on but seemed to play him deeper but still the wingers didn’t get up the pitch and cross the ball. Brighton shut down JWP quite well and whilst Boufal had a couple of dangerous moments, he was guilty of over elaborating and fucking around with the ball rather than getting it into Carrillo. Carrillo for his part, look exactly what he is, a player without match fitness. The second half in the main was better because Brighton did what we do and retreated and just let us have the ball knowing that we couldn’t really hurt them. We equalised through a lucky free-kick and I’ll never be 100% sure that Jack Stephens meant it but fair play, it ended up in the net and he now moves ahead of Shane Long in this seasons goalscoring charts which says it all.

Pellegrino spends the whole game still in the technical area flapping his arms around. All we need is a branch of a tree in a mini to hit and he look like Basil Fawlty in a tracksuit. Fuck off Basil. Fuck off now and definitely fuck off before we play West Brom on Saturday. Lose that and we are bottom of the league. Let that sink in - rock bottom, 20th out of 20 in what is a pretty shite Premier League. It will be some achievement to be bottom of that lot.