Premier League Match 6 - Liverpool 3 Southampton 0

Hughes Demonstrates How Big the Massive Shit Was That Saints took on the Visiting Fans

A nice easy game at Anfield against Liverpool.

Whilst we have been throwing away two goal leads against Brighton, Liverpool have been beating absolutely everybody that the Premier League has put in front of them and also Paris St Germain in Europe - Neymar, Cavani, Mbappe and all that lot. Having played against that front line I somehow doubt but they are shitting themselves at the prospect of facing a Southampton attack whose best attacker is actually a Liverpool player technically and can’t play today. Wouldn’t it just be a great football story if Shane Long was a thorn in their side today. I’m trying not to laugh as I write that.

Last year has Liverpool pissed all over us in both games, winnign 3-0 at Anfield and 2-0 at St.Mary’s.  The abiding memory of the home game was van Dijk just strolling through the game and not breaking sweat along with the rest of the Liverpool defenders.  The away game was patehetic as well and over as a contest before the game started.  Whilst I’m expecting us to be tougher to beat today and not allow Liverpool to just coast through the second half, I have absolutely zero expectation of anything other than defeat. I feel that we will see a return to the 5-4-1 formation with Shane on his own upfront, hopefully supported by Redmond and Elyonoussi from the wings with probably Yoshida slotting in between the two centre backs. It would also be a surprise if Oriel Romeu didn’t play today as well.  I hope it’s a back 5.  The thought of the slow Vestergaard and Hoedt playing against Salah and Mane is scary as you like.

Usually I spit bile at Liverpool and part of me really just can’t be bothered but on the other hand, it is still fun from time to time. On the face of it, they have a charismatic manager and they have a great team playing fast paced attacking football so what’s not to like? The reality is though but I think Klopp is a fucking twat and the arrogance and sense of entitlement put across by the Liverpool-centric media and their fans on any platform you care to mention, makes them about as a likeable as a dose of gout.  It really has come to something when you would prefer absolutely anyone else to win a trophy.  Personally, I’d rather Manchester United won the Premier League and a hate them.  I draw the line at Pompey in cup competitions but that’s not remotely realistic anyway.

So, it’s great to see them fail. It’s great to see Adam Lallana and his career go down the dump. It’s great to see Dejan Lovren fuck up a regular basis but we won’t worry about him today because the chances of him playing, what with the emergence of Joe Gomez and that pesky perjury trial in Croatia, are next to nothing. I’ve done this a million times but the pursuit of van Dijk and the way it got swept under the carpet was absolutely fucking disgraceful and yes, it’s still rankles and nothing would give me more pleasure than him fucking up this afternoon. Then of course you have the YNWA Brigade should be called the YNWAWISU (when it suits us) after the treatment of Karius after the Champions League final last season. It was all abuse and death threats until they paid £70 million for a new goalkeeper and then they decided to be nice to him again.  Then of course there’s the fact that you can’t turn on a TV football programme, read any paper, read any stuff on the net – without it all being about Liverpool winning the league.  Wankers, all of them. 

Mark Hughes has this week been talking up Charlie Austin’s form in training. All well and good that he’s looking in better form but is he fit enough to play for longer than 45 minutes?  I assume the shout out was some sort of motivation because at some point we are going to need him today. I would say it’s very unlikely that he will start the game as a game upfront when you are not gonna have much of the ball is not really his game.  Maybe it will be like that famous game at United when he came on as a sub and score the winner with his first touch.

Hmmm, interesting selection in the event as it looks like a 4-5-1 with Ings being replaced with Romeu and Elyonoussi with Targett.  To me that looks both very negative and unlikely to work as we do in fact have the twin giants against two of the quickest strikers around.  Liverpool are giving Shaqiri his first start and four attackers shows that Klopp is not really worried that we’ll be much of a goal threat.

We start ok and then lose the ball on the edge of the Liverpool area when Lemina fucks about.  From the break, Liverpool win a corner and play it short to Robertson who slides a ball inside the full back to Shaqiri.  Cedric comes over and makes no effort to stop the cross and it flicks off of Long and hits a startled Hoedt and bounces over the line.  Fuck sake.  I thought Wes was a bit unlucky there and there are certainly others more to blame.  5 mins, 1-0 and game over probably.

Now that just stopping them from scoring is out of the window, our attempts to attack rest mainly with Redmond who again looks on fire, finding space behind Robertson and he’s clipped by Firmino as he goes to cross the ball but doesn’t make a big enough meal of it so is never going to get a penalty for it.

Liverpool cut us open again and Salah is brilliantly threaded in between our centre backs and Cedric appears and pulls out a superb tackle to knock it out for a corner.  Danger averted you would think but oh no, over it comes and Matip at the back post has a free header which he puts in the top corner giving Macca no chance.  It’s another zonal marking classic as no one has blocked Matip and Vestergaard is too far away from him to get there in time. 20 mins, 2-0 and game over definitely.

Oddly, we’re nto actually playing that badly when we’re not letting in goals and we get the ball in decent areas but there’s only Shane in the box at best.  A decent pull back from Targett is missed by Long and that twat who used to play for us has to clear it for a corner.  Liverpool break out again and Romeu mullers into Shaqiri, from the front, wins the ball and gets booked for it, I think because the little fat prick went up in the air.  Lemina wanders over as Romeu is getting booked which is the first contribution he has made in the game.  Yep, he’s back to the Mario from last season and not giving a flying one.

We are still living very dangerously at the back with Vestergaard being left 1v1 with Salah but just about get away with it because Salah is not completely on his game though his clever backheel past the post was brilliant and unlucky.  As we reach 45 minutes we get two ‘predictables’.  One is that we will let a goal in as soon as there’s a break coming up and the other is that it will be from a soft free kick award.  Slah goes down under Hoedt’s challenge and the free kick from 25 yards is smacked against the bar by Shaqiri but bounces down and unsurprisingly, no one in a yellow shirt reacts and Salah can’t miss.  3-0 and game fucked and can we go home?

The second half is bollocks testimonial paced football. Liverpool don’t need another goal and all we are interested in is keeping the score down.  Armstrong and Bednarek come on for Romeu and Targett and we are now playing the formation we should have been playing from the start and despite the lack of pace in the game now, we look much better for it.  Vestergaard looks better in the centre of the three and we can get some players further up the pitch.  Austin comes on for Long with 20 or so to go and the game plays out.  Salah thinks he’s scored again but he’s run back on the pitch and was offside and we finally have a shot on 91 minutes when Austin takes a diagonal pass and drills it at the near post and Alisson saves easily.  Crap.

Well that was shit.  Exactly the same as last season where the game was over after 5 minutes and the rest of the game was damage limitation and a waste of everyone’s time and money.  I read before the game about a woman on the Isle of Wight who had a 3.30am alarm call to travel up to Anfield today.  I really hope she enjoyed her day despite the team giving her absolutely nothing to be happy about.  One of my son's mates was going to his first away game today as a birthday present.  So, there’s people like them and people all over the world who got up at stupid times to watch the game on TV or whatever.  Nothing to cheer about.  Nothing to get excited about. Pathetic.  You’ve got to have some fucking bollocks about you to play in the Premier League.  Most Saints fans are realistic and know that we’re not going to go toe to toe with Liverpool at Anfield but we did nothing, turned up, lost, fucked off home.

I wanted Mario Lemina gone in the summer and no matter how good he can be when he wants to be, whenever the going gets tough, like against a top 6 side or in a relegation battle, he just can’t be bothered and strolls about.  I absolutely loath his attitude.  If I was Hughes I’d be tempted to let the coach leave without him and he can drive himself home… oh no!  Maybe Lemina was audition for Klopp and Liverpool – he proved that he was brilliant at setting up Liverpool counter attacks.  So… he was a waste of space and others were below par today with Bertrand having his worst game that I can remember in a Saints shirt.  The Targett on the wing experiment didn’t work – it was probably to double up on Salah but he didn’t play out there in the first half at least.

I think Hughes got more or less everything wrong today.  The initial formation was wrong, the Targett thing was wrong, leaving Lemina on was wrong.  Having chosen to play 4 at the back, one of Hoedt or Vestergaard should have been left out for Bednarek or Yoshida.

Zonal marking was brought in last season because we couldn’t defend corners because we didn’t have any good headers of the ball and there was improvement.  However, we have a 6ft 4 centre back in Hoedt and a 6 foot 7 one in Vestergaard and they’re not marking players and we’re relying on smaller players to block the oppositions huge units in front of them and it isn’t working.  After a World Cup where the grappling in the box was highlighted, surely a system that relies on physical contact in the box is not the way to go.

Liverpool?  They’re a really good side and as long as van Dijk and their first choice strikers stay fit, the will run City very close this season.  They certainly won’t have an easier three points then they got today.

Next up for us is Wolves away, a newly promoted side who are looking much better than us.  At least our Liverpool player will be able to play for us.