Premier League Match 9 - Bournemouth 0 Southampton 0

No, It's Not Dropping In

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a club on the South Coast that was getting things right on the pitch. Other clubs looked at them and admired what they did and the media wrote positive articles about them.

For Southampton 2015, now read Bournemouth 2018 and fair play to them. On the face of it, with a squad of unremarkable players, they’re achieving great things and currently sit sixth in the table. It won’t last but they will comfortably finish in the middle bracket and be no way near the arse end of the table where their South Coast neighbours will sit. It’s quite crazy that club with a capacity of 11,000 can be this high in the Premier league but that’s the Sky billions for you and the decreasing reliance on match going supporters. There’s been a lot of talk recently about Bournemouth‘s new ground being delayed / cancelled and from a sustainability point of view, you could argue that they don’t actually need a bigger ground these days. I guess they are more vulnerable if the Sky bubble bursts but that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon. The shame is that young Bournemouth fans growing up won’t be able to go and see the team play which makes them more susceptible to losing young fans to the big six and maybe they’ve lost a few to Southampton because you can get in to watch us ... because we have a relatively big ground... and because for the moment at least, we are shit. I have no sympathy for older Bournemouth fans didn’t bother going when they were in the lower reaches of the league when they used to average about 4000 fans a game. I used to think that they would struggle to replace Eddie Howe but to be honest, I don’t really see him going anywhere. None of the big six will ever appoint a young English up-and-coming manager so that leaves the question, would he go to a club like a Newcastle or an Everton? Being the character that he is, I really don’t think that he would and I kind of hope he stays put because it proves that not all managers are complete shit houses.

During our recent golden period, we signed good players from bigger clubs reserve teams and found diamonds overseas. Bournemouth on the face of it, overpaid for Nathan Ake from Chelsea at £20 million but what a good player he looks. Needless to say, Bournemouth are beginning to see the other side of things which is that you can’t be a small club doing well for too long before your players get linked with moves away (Ake to Spurs is a recent one) and before you know it they’re in a hotel room in Blackpool with Jurgen Klopp and the Liverpool-centric media will be encouraging you to move. It’s a horrible fucking game sometimes.

If they keep their current form, the likes of Josh King and Callum Wilson will be on the radar of the traditionally bigger clubs as well so it’s a whole new ballgame for Bournemouth to have to deal with. Still, they are not all about star players. They are about knowing the system but they play and playing as a team. They play attractive attacking football in the main and what’s not to like?  They’ve won games scoring 4 and lost conceding 4 this season.  It’s better than 0 and maybe 1 every week.

The two week international break, far from giving people two weeks off and a chance to calm down, seems to have brought a new level of entrenched misery to the Southampton fan base as any sort of message on social media from the club is met with mass derision.  Mark Hughes is beginning to bring some of that on himself and today’s team selection on the face of it looks dodgy again.  Stephens has been recalled to partner Hoedt, with the in my opinion, better pairing of Vestergaard and Yoshida being on the bench.  Whilst I can live with the centre backs, I can’t really live with Charlie Austin up front.  Cue the sweepstake on what minute he’s going to be taken off.  He even looks fat and unfit before the game kicks off.  If anyone can be bothered – when was the last time Charlie Austin played 90 minutes?

Bournemouth start well and we’re on the back foot and panicking straight away.  Last years diving cheat Adam Smith makes a run from left back and ends up in the centre forward position, causing carnage along the way and he tries to latch on to Wilson’s cut back but gets his feet all wrong and the danger is cleared.

Saints grow into the game after the initial scare and what we have here is two evenly matched teams, set up the same so it’s going to be about individual battles, the main one being in the centre of midfield with Hojbjerg and Lemina against Lerma and Lewis Cook.  Saints main tactic appears to be chipping the ball over the Bournemouth centre backs and hoping Ings can latch onto it.  It’s ok when it works but when the ball forward is over or under-hit it just looks shite.  Hojbjerg gets one right after decent play from Stephens and chips over Ake but instead of Ings, it’s gone to Austin.  Forward he lumbers, jinking in and out of the off licence to buy 8 cans of Stella before passing up a chance to shoot with the left foot, distracted by a kebab shop and with a deft extra touch, around Begovic, missing the last bus home and a goal kick.

There’s one sort of chance before half time when Hojbjerg has a go from long range and it takes a huge deflection off of Fraser and for a second it looks like it might be spinning in but it’s an optical illusion and Begovic just picks it up.  So unexciting are our games these days that I’m getting mileage out of optical illusions.  A half that will not live long in the memory comes to a close.  To be fair, we have defended well and the Bournemouth strikers have had even less of a sniff than ours.  With our immaculate record of defensive concentration over 90 minutes, I’m sure we’ll be fine.

30 seconds after the restart, Brooks crosses from our left and Stephens gets murdered in the air by Wilson and he heads narrowly wide.  Macca was struggling to get that if it was on target.  There’s another 10 minutes of nothing until Bournmeouth have another good chance with Stanislas going down the left and feeding Wilson whose pull back gives King an opportunity which he toe pokes wide in shite fashion.

Saints then wake up and realise that there is a very winnable game in front of them here.  Ings cuts in from the left and drills one at the near post which Begovic pouches with ease.  Lemina appears to have injured his knee and is having to go off and with no Romeu on the bench, it’s concerning to see Armstrong coming on.  Concerning because he’s not shown anything to suggest in can play midfield in a 4-4-2 but then maybe it’s a sign of positive intent from the manager.

Far from being restricted by Armstrong’s presence, Hojbjerg produced the best moment of the game when a patient move ends with Cedric’s cross being headed out and Pierre takes it on his chest and volleys towards the top corner but Begovic sees it well and pushes it over the bar with relative comfort.  Pierre really is our best player now.

This period of relative dominance for us, ends in the usual way with a corner and some shite marking, Stephens getting under the ball and missing it and a free header, from Ake which mercifully is straight at McCarthy.  Hughes takes the opportunity to take both strikers off but to be fair to him, two more are on with Long and Gabbiadini.

Unbelievably it nearly works.  Firstly, Smith pisses about and gets dispossessed and Hojbjerg overhits a ball to Long which meant he was saved the embarrassment of fucking it up.  Football has broken out on the pitch and we’re suddenly stroking it about – one side to the other in controlled fashion in Hojbjerg pings a long ball out to Cedric.  His cross is well won at the back stick by Long and he heads down the Armstrong, 6 yards out.  He has to score.  A touch on the chest to bring it down but with Begovic flying out at him, he basically shites his pants and plays and airshot.  Fuck sake.

Eddie Howe has settled for a draw and brings on Gosling in midfield and takes a striker off but then the key moment.  Redmond on the the right hand side pulls out one of the best crosses you could ever wish to see.  Over it comes, taking out the keeper who misses it and straight onto the head of Gabbiadini behind him.  All he has to do is cushion it into the empty net….  Onto the roof of the net.  Fuck.  We’d have taken a point at the start but we should have won.

For all the doom and gloom before the game, including my own, how the fucking hell have we not won that?  We were the better side pretty much from the start until the end, had all the decent chances and managed not to win. For me, it proves that no matter what position the teams are on the table, the Premier League outside of the big six is pretty average and you should be looking to beat every other one of the teams regardless of where they are in the League table.  Bournemouth are currently sixth.

Considering how average we have been for the last few weeks, I thought Bournemouth were absolutely piss-poor and could not have complained in the slightest if they had lost. Though I had issues with Hughes starting 11 today, his substitutions were all positive. He replaced Lemina with Armstrong after the injury and kept two strikers on the pitch at all times whilst Eddie Howe was taking off a striker and putting on a midfielder to try and hang on in the last five minutes. We can’t buy a goal though. The misses by Gabbiadini and Armstrong were very very poor and the performance of Charlie Austin was unbelievably bad. Since he got injured last season, Austin has not done a thing and his fitness levels appear to have got even worse.  How can you have a full pre-season and come back looking like that?

It has to be said that the reality of Hoedt and Stephens in defence was miles better than the prospect of it as they restricted the highly rated King and Wilson to next to nothing. There are actually some positives to take out of this game but the problems of the last three seasons are still here. It was highlighted on Match of the Day that we have a 4% conversion rate for the chances we created and that we are fifth on the list of chances created.

At the end of our last match I pondered how many Saints players would get in a combined 11 between Saints and Bournemouth and most Bournemouth fans with the same thing on Twitter in the past week had a nine or 10 Bournemouth players in their side. I think that if everyone is honest and they picked a team without Hojbjerg in it then their views can be completely discounted as can the views of any Bournemouth fan who refers to us as Scummers. You’re just embarrassing yourself lads are not worthy of anyone’s time.   Based on today’s game, I guess the combined side with be Begovic (not his fault but Macca didn’t have a shot to save), Cedric, Smith, Hoedt, Steve Cook, Hojbjerg, Lerma, Redmond….. then you’re struggling because no forwards were worth a place.

As you know, I find the whole Bournemouth rivalry thing entirely tedious, in the same way I found the Brighton one boring as well.  This time last year I worked in Brighton and now I work in Poole amongst the Bournemouth fans.  I was talking to a match attending Bournemouth fan in a shop on Monday about the game and he had no issue whatsoever with Saints and very mindful of the times Saints helped them out in the past.  He also though the Scummers thing was ridiculous and that they were somewhat fortunate to get a point out of this match.  I guess it proves in case you’d forgotten, that Twitter is not the final and binding barometer of opinion.

So, if we take today as a positive because of the performance and an away point, there is no room for anything other than a win next week as it is Newcastle at home. Nothing Else will do.  They haven’t won a game yet and if we don’t end our shocking home form on Saturday then the mood is going to be very dark going into December when the games get much more difficult.