Premier League Match 38 - Southampton 0 Manchester City 1

Give Him a Contract - Do It Now! 

Surely we can’t fuck this up. We have to lose against Manchester City and Swansea have to beat Stoke and there be a 10 goal swing in the goal difference. To put that into context, Swansea have only scored 27 goals all season so realistically, they are going to have to score about 20% of the goals they have scored all season, in one match. Also, Manchester City are going to have to be on it for 90 minutes against us when there is a World Cup just around the corner and I have next to nothing to play for. What City do have to play for is 100 points for the season which they can get by beating us 1-0 so I can’t see it happening.

There have been some interesting noises coming out of Stoke with the chairman basically painting Mark Hughes as the antichrist and the reason that they are getting relegated. We should’ve got rid of him earlier says Peter Coates, the Stoke Chairman. This is the same Peter Coates that appointed Paul Lambert so is he actually saying that if Lambert had been given more time, he would’ve saved Stoke? This is an interesting trying to sort bearing in mind that Lambert has an absolutely appalling recent record as a manager and virtually everybody reaction to Lambert appointment was “well that’s Stoke relegated“. This is only really relevant to Saints if you think that the whole of Stoke City football club is so intent on making Mark Hughes the scapegoat, that they are going to throw it in today and get smashed by Swansea. I really can’t see it. Lambert needs a good performance and Stoke City supporters will be travelling to the game in numbers so I don’t think we’ve got too much to worry about on that score.

As Hughes said straight after the Swansea game, we have put ourselves in a fantastic position to stay up and all we have to do today is complete the job, be professional and give City a decent game. If we do that then we will all be celebrating winning the “Not Quite Shit Enough” Trophy.

City of course have been playing football from a different planet this year and everyone knew that were going to win the league from about October onwards. They of course have spent billions in order to get into this position but it is not their fault that the other big clubs have all in truth been pretty poor this season. The brand of football that City have been playing is ridiculously good and Guardiola is absolutely the perfect manager to have in the scenario that City find themselves in. They have so many good players that they could rest virtually an entire team against us today and still field a team which would undoubtably be strong enough to finish in the top six, if not the top four.

Saints only made the one change to the Swansea game with Yoshida returning to replace the concussed Bednarek.  City had Ederson, Kompany, David Silva,  Walker, Yaya Toure, Aguero and Jesus not playing.  Despite all that, they had a front three of Sane, Sterling and Bernardo Silva, a midfield that included Fernandinho and de Bruyne along with Gundogan and about £150 million worth of defenders.

As the game starts there’s a nagging pain in my head.  It could be the kids behind me playing with the clackers that have been left for everyone.  It could be Mr Knowledge directly behind me who can see offsides from his position behind the goal that the linesmen can’t see.  It could and in fact it is, the fucking mascot dog who has taken over from the little drummer twat from the Bournemouth game and it beating out various rhythm’s whilst the game is going on.  Fuck off dog.

When I can ignore the dog long enough to concentrate on the game, it’s started as it will continue with City on the ball and us no engaging until they get within 40 yards of goal.  This is the same way we played at the Etihad so no surprise really.  Jack Stephens tries to add the element of the unexpected with a good slalom out of defence and he plays a scruffy 1-2 with Austin before side-footing straight to the keeper who remarkable for Claudio Bravo, catches it.  Saints win a corner after Cedric overlaps and the pull is swung in by Tadic and up goes Hoedt to flick a header over Bravo but slapping off the bar and someone gets given offside as they go for the rebound.  Hoedt has another chance as after Austin had been felled (like a tree), Tadic’ kick evaded everyone and fell to Wesley at the back of everyone and he lashed a difficult chance wide of the near post.

City aren’t doing much to be concerned about and in a flash, Sterling has turned away from Yoshida and thumps a shot over the bar.  Hoedt is having a good game so far and he wins a ball against de Bruyne perfectly but over goes the City man and Andre Marriner decides it’s a free kick.  Bollocks decision but justice done as Sane hits the wall.  Saints are doing well when we go forward without threatening to prove that Bravo is as crap as we all know he is and Romeu has a last from 30 yards which sails harmlessly over and into the City fans behind the goal.  There is some spirited singing going on from the Northam End but the fucking dog ensures it doesn’t catch on elsewhere by beating out the wrong rhythm.  I am against all cruelty to animals but the dog needs a kick in the bollocks.

Half time and we’ve done well, City haven’t had a shot on target as yet and now for 15 minutes anyway, the fucking dog will stop beating the drum.  I’ve managed to remain ignorant to the Swansea score at this point but they’re losing 2-1 and the legend that is Peter Crouch has scored. He was there in 2005 the last time we got relegated out of the Premier League.  He then moved to Liverpool… nothing much changes.

The second half starts and the dog is not there.  Maybe the bastard got put down.  It hasn’t helped with Saints defence concentration though as Stephens trashes Sane and de Bruyne whips in a horrible free kick to defend, so no one does and Stone lunges in and just fails to make contact.  After this we went in ‘they shalt not pass’ mode and there were bodies being thrown in the way of everything.  Even Austin managed to lurch back in drunken fashion at one point and deflect a Sterling shot onto the post.  The resulting corner is met by Stones and McCarthy tips over with ease.

Subs come on with Long and JWP on for Austin and Redmond for us and Gabriel Jesus and Diaz appearing for City.  De Bruyne is fucking ridiculous with his weight of passing and vision though there is a funny moment when he’s not concentrating and the ball bounces off his back and off for a throw in to us.

Hojbjerg slides a superb ball inside Danilo to send Bertrand away and he digs a cross out and JWP meets it but can’t get enough on it to worry Bravo.  The glorious chance to win it then arrived as Cedric broke down the right and found Romeu who floated a lovely ball over the defence to Tadic and he beat Bravo three times before shooting but Fernandinho had got back on the line to clear comfortably.

Strange substitution time as McQueen came on for Bertrand.  The skipper didn’t look injured so why do that?  90 minutes up and Cedric and Hojbjerg have a dose of lino rage as the man with flag doesn’t give us a throw in that was clearly City’s.  Here’s a booking each lads and I can’t blame Marriner for that one.

After Jack Stephens I got overexcited and set off on one of his marauding runs which ended up with him losing the ball on the edge of the city penalty area, City broke and Long deliberately gave away a free kick on the left. It was quickly taken to de Bruyne and he pinged a ball forward which in common with a lot of the season, sailed over Jack Stephens’ head.  This uperbly weighted pass was brilliantly controlled on the run first time by Gabriel Jesus and he simply lobs it over Alex McCarthy and into the net to win the game, give City 100 points and spark mental over the top celebrations from the champions. Meanwhile, Southampton supporters as a whole kind of shrugged and yes it’s annoying but at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter at all, other than really to serve as a metaphor for the entire season. Actually, all it will matter to is the bean counters because it cost us a place in the league table and £3 million quid or whatever it is per place, but as they’ve wasted about £25 million on Carrillo in fees and wages and are still sitting on a vast majority of the VvD money, I think a last-minute goal conceded against the champions can be forgiven.

News came through pretty soon that the nine goal win that Swansea needed had not been forthcoming and in fact, they actually lost at home to Stoke so in the end, we stayed up with a rather pathetic 36 points and we could have lost by ten after all. So, we have won the NQSE Cup and the club will get another chance after sailing rather too close to the wind this season. Will next year be any different? It rather depends if lessons have been learned. Step number one has to be to give the hero of the hour, Mark Hughes, a three-year contract and give him time. Both the board and the fans need to give him time.

As for the match, well the players in the main put in a decent performance. No one was fantastic and no one was terrible and a draw would probably have been a fair result but all it takes with the top six is one moment of quality and one moments’ lack of concentration and that’s your lot.

After a few hundred absolute fucking morons decided to invite the pitch at the final whistle, we had to wait a bit for the players to come out for the lap of appreciation and to be fair, they’ve done so much right over the last 6 to 7 weeks they deserved the round applause that they got. Dusan ended up giving away all his kit and boots and dancing around in his pants so what’s not to like about that?

With this being a World Cup year and the football summer in effect being shorter, Saints have to break the habit of a lifetime and actually get on with stuff.  If there is going to be a change in the boardroom on the football side of things then it needs to be done very soon. The manager situation of course needs to be sorted out very soon and we all know who should be getting the job.  We cannot afford to wait until after the World Cup has finished before we start putting things in place and I hope that the owners, that’s the Gao’s and the Liebherr’s as well as Reed and Krueger realise this.

Season 2017/18 has been fucking dreadful . We have got away with it by the skin of our teeth and thank fuck it’s over. In every Hollywood disaster movie, there is a shot at the end of the hero (Stallone or The Rock) casting an eye over the rubble and saying something corny along the lines of “now we rebuild”.  For Southampton FC, the rebuild starts now.