Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Premier League Match 13 - Fulham 3 Southampton 2



This is Mitrovic.  Massive isn't he? Might be a Good Idea to Mark Him

Craven Cottage and Fulham in one of those defining games of the season and that it’s a game against one of the teams in the shit mini league of six that are going to be fighting over relegation places at the end of the season. We can’t afford to lose but as I’ve said before, wins in the games against our fellow shite teams will be enough to keep us up this year.

The international break saw Alex McCarthy make his England debut and well deserved and about time. England managed to win the Nations League Division A group and it’s always good to see Dejan Lovren crying. That particular sight will never not be funny. Elsewhere, Stuart Armstrong had a good game for Scotland in their Nations League Division Z win against the Arse End of Nowhere or some country I have never heard of, probably.

Regardless of what anyone says about him being miserable or whatever, Ryan Bertrand, having reached five bookings, will be missed today though at least in Matt Targett we have a decent replacement.  An academy product who could step into the first team as and when required. What a novel idea that is as opposed to having lots of journeymen experience to pros who are on big money and not very good.

The main issue today is the injury to Danny Ings which was picked up against Watford. There are a number of choices for Hughes to make here. Assuming Ings is injured then he could start with Shane Long which gets a big fat no from me because he’s fucking useless. Another option would be to start Michael Obafemi who also made his International debut this week for the Republic of Ireland despite being about as Irish as I am. This option will be far too brave so I can’t see it happening. The other option is to put Gabbiadini upfront and bring in either Elyounoussi or JWP on the right wing. I can’t see that happening either. You just know he’s going to start with the Fat Beered Up Kebab Merchant on the basis of his scuffed disallowed goal from two weeks ago and on the basis that he as good at QPR for half a season 4 years ago.

Fulham are bottom of the league and Jokanovic paid for it with his job.  Getting promoted to the big money league doesn’t buy you very long it seems.  His replacement is the ever popular Claudio Ranieri whose Leicester title win is still for me, the best achievement by any manager in the English game since football began in 1992.  Hopefully Claudio won’t have had time to sort out a defence which has been absolutely dreadful so far this season.

He was helped in this by the Saints team news, when as feared, Charlie Kebab was leading the line.  The rest of the team was as predicted with Michael Obafemi making the bench and once again, Oriol Romeu was nowhere to be seen but there were places for both Steve Davis and JWP, which is pointless.  Why not put someone like Callum Slattery or Marcus Barnes on the bench?  The headline though was that Hojbjerg had been made captain and well deserved.

Saints tsart well and we should be in the lead after about 4 minutes.  Ac roner from the left comes in from Targett and is headed out to Redmond whose follow up is blocked out to Armstrong who absolutely smashes it through the crowd, forcing Sergio Rico to parry it straight out to Gabbiadini.  With the whole goal to aim ain and a free shot, Gabbi merely farts it back at the prone keeper.  Dreadful.

There is nearly another dreadful moment when we nearly let Callum Wanker Chambers score, allowing him a free header from 10 yards which he puts straight at Macca.  How can no one be marking someone ten yards out?

Despite that near horror moment, on 18 minutes we get one of those odd moments.  A throw on the left is taken by Targett, Redmond hooks it over and there’s a shite headed clearance back to the penalty spot and there’s the magnificent hair of Stuart Armstrong who chests it forward and drills it under Rico on the stretch.  This is the Day.  Surely…..

….Not. Out of nowhere a few minutes later, Fulham start all this one touch shit and we of course, don’t get close enough to stop it.  They work it out left to the full back and Cedric is ballwatching from the middle and Le Marchon’s stands up a cross and there’s Mitrovic, stading in a circle of 5 Southampton defenders, like some sort of training drill.  He jabs his head at the ball and the Southampton 5, who are all 4 defenders and Lemina, admire it as the ball goes past McCarthy.  Fucking useless sacks of shite.  When you watch Mitrovic in the build up, Hoedt has him but our fearless Dutchman shites his pants and stands off when the ball comes in.

Fulham are now moving the ball well and we look clueless.  Cyrus Christie is allowed to cut in from the right and curl a shot past the far post and as we approach half time, down the other wing, Sessegnon makes Cedric look a complete mug, leaves him foor dead and then crosses low to the unmarked Schurrle to bury it to make it 2-1.  I’m not even surprised.  Just beofr ehalf time we get a free kick out wide right when mawson cynically takes out Gabbi and earns a yellow card buy Targett’s cross finds the unmarked Hoedt who loses his bearing and heads it backwards and over the bar. Shite.

In the second half we should be dead after 5 minutes.  A misplaced pass upfield and Fulham break again with us in full panic mode.  Schurrle and Mitrovic combine again and the unmarked (that word again) Serb forces McCarthy into a great save down low to his right.  The ridiculous thing is that these are isolated breaks by Fulham.  We have more control on the ball and we look the far more accomplished side but we’re as sturdy as a house of cards in a wind tunnel.

Hoedt pinds a crossfield ball towards Cedric and it doesn’t quite get there because Sessegnon heads it up in the air.  Cedric beats his fellow dwarf to the dropping ball and flicks it to Gabbi, back to Cedric and a backheel into the path of Armstrong and it’s another great hair moment and he sidefoots it into the top corner, giving Rico no chance at all.  What a fucking finish that is.  2-2 – Come On!!!

We’ll surely keep it tight now and turn the screw and …. No.  A clearance is boomed over our defence and into the far left corner and Wesley will surely just smash this up the park… nope.  Wesley will surely smash it off Schurrle and win a throw… nope.  Wesley will surely not fuck about and give the ball away…. Yes he fucking will.  Fulham work it into a crossing position, over it comes, Dwarf Sessegnon beats Yoshida in the air and flicks it on to Mitrovic, unmarked, goal. F.U.C.K.!!!

Time for a substitution and time to play with 11 and off goes the Hologram and on comes Elyounoussi who goes to the right with Gabbi to the middle.  Captain Hojbjerg creates a great chance for himself, jinking past a challenge before smashing it straight at the keeper.

Michael Obafemi is next on for Armstrong who has got cramp.  By running onto the pitch, Obafemi has covered more ground than Austin did.  His first contribution is to take a pinged pass with a great first touch around a defender but then he can’t keep his shot down and puts it narrowly over.  It’s the 90 minute plus panic with Redmond again tormenting down the left and crossing for Elyounoussi to fall over horribly and the final chance falls to Obafemi is shoots first time from an Elyounoussi pass and brings a great save out of the keeper.  Obafemi’s swing at the rebound loops up to the keeper who collapses with an imaginary injury and somehow it’s deemed as Obafemi’s fault by a couple of prick Fulham players and that gets him booked.  Small matter in the scheme of things… we’ve lost to a shit team again.

So, we’ve just lost to one of the worst teams in the Premier League so what the hell does that make us? This is another quite ridiculous defeat where we played by far the better football and actually look decent going forward (despite having a hologram at centre forward) and still managed to lose because of three of the worst bits of defending you will ever see.

When you are rating the players for that performance then you would find it hard to rate any out of Cedric, Yoshida and especially Hoedt anything higher than ‘fucking dreadful’. All of the defenders on the first goal, fucking dreadful, both full backs on the second goal, fucking dreadful but the absolute belter was the third goal.  Wesley fucks about with the ball in the corner and then Maya loses a header to a dwarf and then the fucking great big guy is unmarked - again. When you manage your kids team, one of the things you have to teach defenders is that you don’t try and run the ball out from your own corner flag, you just kick it off the fucking pitch and get back into position to defend the throw in. Hoedt showed a level of confidence which is well beyond the realms of confidence and is completely in arrogance and recklessness and stupidity territory.  The guy obviously doesn’t give a fuck. We’ve already let in two completely fucking dreadful preventable goals and he decides to take a chance like that in the corner.  So, Hoedt caused the whole thing but then you have the role of Yoshida getting beaten in the air by Sessegnon, who is about 5 foot 2.   We might as well do the first two goals whilst we’re here - well you need to know about the first goal is that after Cedric is turned inside out by Sessegnon, the cross came in from the Fulham full back and there was Mitrovic, all 6 foot 3 of him with five Saints players making a nice little circle around him and no one getting anywhere fucking near. It’s embarrassing.  Second goal, Cedric gets fucked over again and the cross comes in and Targett has lost his man.  What is the point of Cedric?  He gets beaten in the air which you can kind of live with because he’s funsize but surely the payoff for that is that he doesn’t get beaten easily on the deck.  Not today.

You can’t really blame Hughes for Hoedt making massive fuck ups with his decision making like that but at the end of the day, Hughes is the one who picks the arrogant  fucker and Hughes’ staff of fucking goalkeepers, presumable train him and the rest. Vestergaard got dropped after one poor game at Wolves when he was up against a lightning quick attacker alongside Wesley Hoedt.  He also made about one 10th of the mistakes that Hoedt has made this season. I’ve defended Hoedt against the masses for his fuck-ups because when he’s on it and not being a dick, I can actually pick up that he has was a bit of ability but today is indefensible. I can only think that he gets picked purely because he is left-footed but it isn’t worth it for the calamities he brings and there has to be other options. Vestergaard has to come back in instead of Hoedt and play alongside either Yoshida or maybe Bednarek.

The midfield three of Hojbjerg, Lemina and Armstrong were in the main, excellent today and Redmond and Gabbiadini both tried hard and tried to create.  We played some lovely football in their half  but when the play you’re trying to play around the Hologram that is Charlie Austin that you are really up against it. If he touched the ball more than about five times in the first half then I’d be amazed.  He had about another five touches in the second half before he was predictably substituted. Some of those touches actually went about 20 yards and of course, someone else had to run after them. There’s nothing more to say about Austin other than that he is finished as a top-level footballer but Hughes keeps picking him up because he is his favourite. Michael Obafemi did more in 10 minutes then Austin has done all season.


Two Twats Who Don't Play for Saints Any More

Today is the day where the tide turned for me. Hughes, like Puel and Pellegrino seem absolutely incapable of getting a tune of these players and that’s his job. The Motivational Hockey Guy and Decision maker in Chief says that the squad is better than this league position so who’s to blame?  The noise for Hughes to go is only going to get louder and louder and to be fair, if his stubbornness and his persistence with his favourites continues, it is going to cost him and it deserves to.

The main positive today was of course Stuart Armstrong who scored two superb goals and with his intelligent movement, provided the outlet for many passes from the central defenders and the midfielders. Now we see the reason why we bought him and it makes his limited game time so far, even more baffling.

The day after the game there was an interesting couple of quotes from Cedric.  You know Cedric, the bloke I usually talk about when I’m talking about all the things that were shit about whatever game I’m talking about.  Well he said we have a weak mentality and even at 1-0 up we think we’re going to concede.  Tell you what mate, if I was in a team with you and Wesley Hoedt, I’d think we were going to concede as well.  How you’ve got the brass bollocks to level any criticism remotely at anyone else is completely beyond me.  Wanker.  Fuck off back to your boy band.  Like when Charlie Austin criticized the fans - why does it always come from the most guilty as they adopt attack as a form of defence.

Next up is Leicester away in the Reserve Team Trophy but next up in the League is another manager under pressure but for very different reasons, as Manchester United and José Mourinho come to town. It’s fucking November and we are looking at having a must win home game against Manchester United. As far as the big six are concerned, United are probably the least likely to beat us easily so we have to go out there, be positive and try and win the game, hopefully without the arrogant prick centre back and the Hologram.

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Premier League Match 12 - Southampton 1 Watford 1



"... And then They Called Time at the Bar Early FFS!"

Watford at home and another decent chance to get our first home win in the league since Margaret Thatcher was in power. The home league games get a little more difficult after this so it is one that we really need to make count.

With the international break coming up after today, you would have thought that master planner Ralph Krueger would’ve waited until after today’s game before dropping the Les Reed bombshell and he certainly could of waited until after Saturday before giving an interview to the local press which is what he did on Friday.  Needless to say he rattled on endlessly about nothing much, pausing for breath and to spit out a winning line on Ralph-Bingo. Apparently the Reed sacking was the decision of the Ownership Board which consists of Ralph, Chairman Gao and his daughter and Katarina Liebherr. It’s a relief to know that these four football geniuses  have their fingers on the pulse and very comforting to know that they are going to be choosing the future football direction of the club by appointing a new Overlord.  Ralph does this to me. Any positivity I might feel about an event at the club is immediately hoovered out of me as soon as Kruger starts with his bollockspeak.    

The most horrifying bit was that there is no timetable of bringing someone else in and there is no decision yet on what the new structure will look like.  Ralph is setting up a workshop or somesuch bollocks to sort that out and it will be decided in due course.  Apparently, Reed was nearly fired in the Summer so it’s not like Krueger and his fellow Ownership Board Members haven’t had time to at least consider this possibility.  Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring then as we continue to barely keep our heads above water.  The one thing he said which I totally agree with is that we won’t be spending in January unless we can sell. Gao has allowed Reed to invest any money received from player sales and Reed has wasted most of it, so the mistakes need to be rectified and that means getting the huge wages of the deadwood, off the books.

Today’s opponents Watford are managed by Javi Gracia who took over from Marco Silva when he did the great defector thing about two months into last season. Gracia has outlasted the usual life expectancy of a Watford manager and this season they sit comfortably in mid-table. They have a physical side with the likes of Deeney, Chalobah and Cheating Fucker Doucoure but they also can play a bit with the likes of Pereyra catching the eye this season.

I was thinking about Hughes and his coaching staff before the game and how it kind of mirrors the squad at his disposal. There is Hughes who was a striker, Mark Bowen who was a left back and Eddie Niedzwicki, Dave Watson and Kelvin Davis who were all goalkeepers. It’s a bit like having five centre backs and only one right back and it makes you wonder if Les Reed and Ross Wilson ever looked at the bigger picture when recruiting anyone.

The team shows changes with Gabbiadini, Armstrong and Yoshida all starting in place of Long, JWP and Hindenburg.  From the names it looks like it’s going to be 4-4-4-2 with Armstrong coming off the right wing but as we line-up for kickoff it looks like we’re playing 4-2-3-1 with Gabbi on the right, Redders on the left and Armstrong behind Ings.  In a welcome move, Michael Obafemi is on the benchin place of Shane Long.

The early chances are all Watford’s with Bertrand failing to cut out a through ball that he really should have got to and Deulofeu running in on goal and shooting from a  narrow angle for Macca to block.  Then, the amusingly named Isaac Success found space to shoot only for the lunging Hoedt to deflect it away for a corner. 

We grow into the game and had a couple of chances ourselves with our first decent move seeing Gabbi pick it up in the right hand channel and then over-optimistically curling a shot over the bar.  Next we win a corner and Berrtand’s kick it met full on by Hoedt but straight at Foster and he can only parry it for another corner.  This time it comes in again from Bertrand and its half cleared and Pereyra fails to clear, ducking about on the edge of the box, in goes Ings and nicks it and Gabbi turns and puts it past Foster,  Jesus Christ we’ve scored at home.

We look like we might get a second for a bit with Lemina putting a great right footed cross from the left and Yoshida climbing high and heading wastefully wide, then we look dreadful again with Hoedt and Yoshida trying to out-fuck up eachother which ends with Macca having to save a shot from Pereyra.

In amongst all the mistakes, football breaks out in superb fashion on the left with Armstrong at the heart of it and he arrives in the box to meet Bertrand’s cross but Foster keeps it out with his boot as he dives the wrong way.  Really good save.  On 40 minutes both managers decide to make their half time substitutions early as Will Hughes comes off for Watford, to be replaced by Deeney and a clearly unfit Ings hobbles off to be replaced by the clearly unfit Austin.  Not sure about this as we now lose all the pace that was causing Watford problems at the back.  Maybe throw Obafemi on ?!!?  Anyway, half time.

The second half starts with another of those left footed Gabbi efforts from far out on the right and this one is over Foster who just watches it as it passes and goes a couple of feet wide. Predictably, Deeney is playing off of Yoshida and taking any opportunity to knock him about and this is causing us problems.  Meanwhile, Chalobah plays a neat 1-2 with Success and gets into the box only for Bertrand to cover behind and clean him out.  Big horrible foul and surely a second yellow… one problem is that the arsehole with the whistle has missed it.  Oh, we got a break there.  How on earth is that not a foul?

To make up for his incompetence, Hooper delivers an evening-up coup de grace as Redmond brilliantly bursts in between two Watford players on the right and picks out Austin with his low cross and the Fat Beered-Up Kebab Munching Pub Player somehow mis-hits it and sends it bobbling over Foster for 2-0… or so we thought.  Celebrations have happened, time has stood still, civilizations and empires have risen and fallen… and then it gets disallowed for an imagined offside.  Fuck off.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.  Two wrongs make a shit referee.

JWP is on for Armstrong who has been decent and so we approach the last 10 minutes when you know that with a one goal lead, Southampton will fuck it up… and we do.  A break on the right, panic stations in defence with none of Yoshida, Hoedt or JWP covering themselves in glory and it breaks to left back Holebas who hits it and Cedric is being a wanker, closing him down sort of with his back turned and it flicks off him and past Macca for 1-1.

In the last ten there’s only one side looking like winning it and it’s not us. Deeney wins a corner and in the ensuing melee, McCarthy seems to punch a ball onto his own crossbar.  Michael Obafemi gets a run for the last 4 minutes in place of Redders but too late to make an impact and we have an excusciating last 3 minutes with Deeney winning every header in our box but somehow and mercifully we survive.


Groundstaff at St.Mary's The Last Time We Won a Game There.

And yet another game at St Mary‘s ends without a home with. I don’t really know what to say anymore. We have a referee to talk about of course as he gave a performance which is designed to provoke a comment or two. Okay, let’s stay with him first.

Apparently it was Mr Hooper's fourth game in the Premier League and I’ve seen it said since the game that because he was inexperienced, they were only going to give him a low profile appointment. I’ve also seen it mentioned that they were hardly going to give him the Manchester Derby in only his fourth game. The reason they are not gonna give the Manchester Derby in its fourth game is nothing to do with sporting fairness and it’s nothing to do with looking after the referee.  It is purely to do with looking after the Premier League brand because the Manchester Derby is going to be beamed all over the world and watched by billions of people so they’re not going to put an incompetent half-wit in charge of that game because of any potential damage to the brand. The brand is of course the Premier League and whilst Southampton and Watford are part of the Premier League, they are very much part of the supporting cast, so games that don’t involve any of the top six don’t really matter to the FA top brass. This is why we get used as the testing ground.

Regardless of the reason for his appointment, Mr Hooper was fucking useless, consistently getting things wrong, consistently getting in the way and they always say that referees need to get the big decisions right, well he got both of them wrong. Watford should’ve had a penalty which in course meant we should’ve had a red card and Saints should’ve had a second goal.  I’d love to know how he arrived at the decision to disallow it.  Apparently they thought it took a second touch off of Yoshida who was in an offside position.  It clearly didn't.  Maybe if Austin had connected properly rather than hitting it off his own foot then it would have been given.

Talking of which, it was nice to see Charlie Austin and his interview on Match of the Day where he was basically having a bit of a rant about how we should have VAR to help the officials. I totally agree with everything he says and he has gone up a bit in my estimation but still not enough to make up for the fact that he still looks completely unfit. Whoever said the interview to the tune of Parklife deserves a medal as well.

Hughes deserves some credit today for shaking things up a bit. The change to the 4-2-3-1 formation in the main worked well, at least until Ings had to go off and Parklife came on.  Gabbiadini playing off of the right wing was a good move and accommodating Armstrong in the side is probably the way forward. The central defence look better with Yoshida playing instead of The Hindenburg but one of our old Achilles heels came back to bite us in the form of ‘No Competition for Right back’ Cedric. I have no idea what the fuck he was doing regarding trying to block the Holebas shot but let’s just say that it was absolutely pathetic wet lettuce defending at its worst.  Take a ball in the face, take a ball in the bollocks, take the ball with anything rather than making yourself as small as fucking possible you tight shirted boy band wanker. Absolutely embarrassing and another two points disappear over the horizon.

International Break and another chance to let all the shit settle down for another couple of weeks.

Friday, November 9, 2018

No More No Les


You’re Fired. Just Like That!

I’d like to claim some measure of responsibility for Les Reed leaving Southampton football club but I
don’t think I can but it is ironic that he leaves two days after I wrote one of my most well received blogs ever. 

He had to go, he really did. It doesn’t matter how well anyone does in their first 5 1/2 years in any particular job - if you are underperforming/very poor for 2 1/2 successive years then you are really up against it. You could argue that it’s the players or its the managers or it’s any number of circumstances that have conspired but the fact of the matter is that Les Reed was the senior board member responsible for the football side of the club which is the core business. It is failing so he is failing and we have reached the point where under his stewardship, it was clearly not going to turn around. The main area that has been a disaster in the last two years is recruitment so I fully expect Ross Wilson to be following Les out of the door in the next few days and certainly before January. Also leaving, is Martin Hunter who was the technical director of the Academy. I guess he is being judged on the number of academy players who have made it through to first-team level. I touched on this in the other blog and there is an issue with them not being given the chance to develop in the Premier League but it has clearly been decided that the players coming through are not good enough and that is his responsibility.  I don’t have too much to say about Martin Hunter only that his interviews were incredibly dull to listen to so you do wonder how he is going to inspire a young player.  Below first-team level, none of our young players are in any of the England International development squads and at least one of the age group teams got relegated last year so it is not surprising that Hunter is on his way also.

It has to be said Les had a great five years as we got stronger and stronger until the point where he decided he couldn’t work with Ronald Koeman anymore and Ronald took the first opportunity to get away.  As I’ve said many times before, the manager is the most important person at the club as he runs the first team and without the first team doing well, everything else falls apart. It’s also very dangerous to believe your own hype and think you have some sort of Midas  touch.

Thinking the Claude Puel would be a suitable replacement for Koeman was Reed’s first big mistake and the next came in January 2017 when Jose Fonte flounced off to West Ham and Virgil Van Dijk got injured and we basically didn’t replace them. That cost us the League Cup final which we should’ve won and I then we had the bizarre Martin Caceras fiasco when we signed a player too late, who we didn’t want to play for financial reasons.

Where this leaves Mark Hughes is interesting. Hughes was a Les Reed appointment and they apparently go back a long way. Whilst I feel that it is unlikely that the press reports of him being sacked after the Watford game if we don’t win it have any truth in them, I can’t help but feel his position has been somewhat strengthened by Reed going and no one else coming in immediately. One thing is certain though that with Reed gone there is no one else left to blame so Hughes will be firmly in the firing line of Ralph Krueger and everyone else should result not improve. That’s a bit harsh perhaps because he can only work with the players that he’s got but that’s the reality.  Of course, whoever the new director of football turned out to be my want to get his own man in place as soon as possible and that really wouldn’t be a surprise unless Hughes starts pulling up trees. 

In Hughes press conference he was of course asked about all of this and it worries me slightly that he hopes for more control in transfers. Firstly, I think we need to have a big clear out before we bring any more players and secondly, Hughes track record when he is given the cheque-book and the decision making is really not very good. However, he is now by default, the senior football person at the club so Ralph, for all his talk about taking time to find the right person, need to get his finger out and do it quickly.

What I am also interested in is who made the decisions on the football side? If Martin Hunter has been sacked last week, you would have said that it was a Les Reed decision. Who exactly is Les Reed’s boss? Did he still report to Krueger or does he report directly to the Gao family who we of course know nothing about and where exactly is Katarina 20% Liebherr in the mix? 

If it was Krueger’s decision then I guess you don’t need a huge amount of football knowledge to look at the results of the first team, and the age group sides and decide that they are not good enough and make a decision based on that but bear in mind that Kruger knows very little about football. The complete lack of football knowledge in the upper echelons of the club makes me feel slightly worried about who we get in to replace Reed in particular but I don’t believe that sitting around and doing nothing because you are scared to do anything, is the right way to run a football club.

The King is dead, long live the Motivational Hockey Guy.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Earth Calling Planet Gao - Your Club is a Shambles



Excuse me Motivational Hockey Guy, Where's My Booster Seat?

I’ve got something to get off my chest.

When the Leicester owner died in the helicopter crash a week or so ago, the work he’d done for Leicester both for the football club and the city became even more apparent. Not only has he financed the team that won the Premier League, he also funded hospitals and schools and numerous other initiatives around the city. Compare and contrast with Chairman Gao who has not even made a statement to Southampton supporters, let alone make a mark on the city outside of the football club. We've seen his daughter at the Saints Exhibition in the Civic Centre but that's it.  He's turned up to one game I think and didn't say anything public then.  Oh how we laughed at our neighbours down the M27 when it turned out one of their owners didn’t exist.  Is this really much different?  

Gao leaves the day-to-day running of the club to the football board which mainly consists of Les Reed as King of all Football Matters and Ross Wilson as Head of Recruitment. This is of course the recruitment of managers and recruitment of players which since D-day, Summer 2016 has been pretty much, a complete disaster.  I wonder what Katharina Liebherr makes of it all when she considers her fathers legacy.

Where we had Fonte, Van Dijk, Wanyama, Pelle, Mane and Koeman, we now have Hoedt, Vestergaard, Lemina, Austin, Boufal and Puel/Pellegrino/Hughes. It almost makes you cry looking at those six names that we had as recently as two and a bit years ago. All big personality, big character leaders and bloody good at what they did, making the more average around them raise their levels. Now look at what we’ve replaced them with. None of the names on the second list can hold a candle to any of the names on the first list. None of the second list would’ve been any more than squad players or assistants if they had been around at the time that those on the first list were around. Some of the second list may yet come good and some have made fleeting decent contributions but it’s not the same, not by a long chalk.

At the same time in this huge decline in what matters, the manager and the team on the pitch, the marketing side of the club has upped their game and merely succeeded in pissing everybody off. Season-Ticket Plus – is that Plus goals or Plus Entertainment or Plus Players that Care.  Nope, the Plus is in the cost.  This is a scheme to charge you more for your already ridiculously expensive season ticket and give you the opportunity to spend more money on some peripheral stuff that (I’m guessing) most people don’t care about.

I don’t pretend to speak for everybody but I am a relatively long in the tooth football supporter.  I hit 50 in a few weeks and I can remember life before 1992, before the Premier League brand and despite all the crap that comes with Premier League football these days, I still maintain the same values which hopefully I’ve passed on to my kids. We want to turn up 15 minutes before a game, watch the game, see 90 minutes of players in red and white shirts giving 100%. When the final whistle blows we want to clap the players off and then we want to go home. That’s it.  Which part of that don’t you understand?  The message is that it’s the football that’s important.  Everything else doesn’t matter.

The list of things I don’t want includes the opportunity to buy ludicrously expensive Artisan burger and I don’t even have a desire to know what an Artisan burger is. I don’t want ridiculously loud nightclub style music right up to kick off and as soon as the game ends. Once the game ends I want to actually talk to the people around me as we are filing out of the ground. After another mind and spirit-crushing 0-0 draw against a team at the bottom of the league, I do not want to hear Paul Weller screaming “Shout to the Top” at 2000 dB. I had to mime that “I am going for a piss and don’t leave without me” to the other people I was with.  I guess the club don’t want supporters discussing the garbage we’ve just seen until they’ve put some sort of positive spin on it on a website. I don’t want plastic clackers and I don’t want the mascot dog with the drum.  I don’t want flame-throwers that don’t work when it’s windy and I care not for fireworks.  Give us something decent on the pitch and we won’t need all this atmosphere enhancing bullshit.

Now back to Les Reed’s department - I don’t want to see more squad filler experienced pathway-blocker pros who are absolutely no better than the youngsters are we loaned out the Championship clubs. The double bonus of this is that you don’t then have to loan out the experienced pro to another club because no one want to buy them because we are paying them too much money (Boufal, Clasie, Carrillo). I don’t want our highest wage earner to be our 4th choice goalkeeper and the way that you avoid this is to not give him an extended contract when he still has four years of his existing contract to run and he is already in terminal decline.

Jake Hesketh or Stuart Armstrong?  Josh Sims or Mohammed Elyounoussi?  Harrison Reed or Jordy Clasie - you might not think Jordy Clasie is relevant any more (and we did sign him in Summer 15) but we are still paying the lightweight nonentity to be out on loan somewhere.  Sam Gallagher could not possibly be worse than Guido Carrillo and Guido Carrillo himself could not possibly be worse than Shane Long and Charlie Austin.  Why do we still have Steve Davis when we have James Ward-Prowse and neither are regulars in the team? Why do we somehow have five average centre backs on our books, none of whom are any better than any of the others? You could pick any two of them out of a hat and it would make absolutely no difference whatsoever.  So, we have too many central defenders and yet we only have one right back. We have a manager who I assume wanted to sign the centre backs because he was going to play with three on the pitch and then he on a whim, changes to a formation the only requires two of them. If he was going to play 4-4-2 then maybe the list of summer targets would have been different.  Maybe we could’ve done with more wingers, or keeping Josh Sims, or actually having a central striker who could hold the ball up.  We could offer mega wages to a decent striker if we weren’t paying Carrillo, Clasie, Boufal, Forster, Davis, Austin, Long… none of whom would be missed.  Everyone makes mistakes but come on…

Who remembers Reed saying he wanted all the teams of the club to play the same formation which would’ve aided both in continuity of moving between the teams (the pathway) but also with recruitment because we would’ve known we were recruiting for specific positions instead of what the plan appears to be now, which is sign any desperado who is willing to join us.  This 'same formation and style' thing was shown to be rubbish when Puel was allowed to change the formation to a diamond midfield as soon as he arrived with no time to prepare for it.

We used to be the club that foreign pros came to enhance their career.  There was problems with this when they wanted to move on but now we have a club that they come to because we pay more than most foreign clubs and you get a nice four or five year contract and if it doesn’t work out, hey… doesn’t matter, you’ve got five years worth of big wedge coming and Saints will loan you out somewhere.  Remember when we used to talk about the black box and how are used to look at a players character and aren’t we so clever… and yet we still sign Sofiane Boufal when his character was clearly lacking somewhat.   

We just love wasting money - why did we sign Angus Gunn? Now, he looks like a very good goalkeeper but as I said before we have an England international goalkeeper on big wages a week, currently as our fourth choice. It seems like the more money we get in from the Premier League, the less careful we are and the more we completely cock things up. When Southampton was careful with the money (pre-Premier League) they would never have had this situation develop. Did we think that one of the Premier League big boys was going to come in for Forster?  Is that why we gave him an extra contract, which is why we signed Gunn as his replacement. Something went severely wrong there didn’t it?

Mark Hughes is coming under fire with loads saying we should sack the manager and all that sort of stuff.   Do you trust Les and Ross to find someone better?  Hughes has questions to answer though.  I can’t understand the formation change when we signed a lot of players that looks suitable for the three at the back formation. I also can’t understand the persistence with Shane Long and Charlie Austin, nor that ridiculous back four with two of the tallest slowest centre backs you could possibly imagine. That would have even been a disaster in a Football Manager game, let alone in the real Premier League.  Les Reed should be asking Hughes why this has happened?  Maybe he is?  If he isn’t then he isn’t doing his job.  Hughes got the job because he kept us up last season and he deserved it in all truth.  However, he also got it because Reed and Wilson have got the last two managerial appointments horribly wrong so they were not about to give anyone a stick to hit them with by not appointing Hughes and taking another punt.

Where do we go from here? We probably won’t go down this year because there are 5 other teams who are as terrible as we are but it'll be this year or the next if nothing changes from the top.  As it stands, everything is screwed and the Southampton Way is dead.  Les and Ross need to go – that much is obvious.  We no longer attract the best untapped talent from abroad. We no longer promote youth players and give them a chance to prove that they can be a genuine Premier league performer.  There is no pathway.  We no longer are ahead of the game in any area and we no longer have an owner who gives a toss.

Welcome to Southampton 2018.

Monday, November 5, 2018

Premier League Match 11 - Manchester City 6 Southampton 1



Doh! I've Picked Shane Long Again.

Manchester City away. No chance.

Such is the level of optimism these days that we go into the game with Manchester City at the Etihad just looking to keep the score down. Regardless of how well or badly we have been playing, City have been burying everybody by an average of about 4-0 so if we keep it down below that then I think we can be quite satisfied with our days work. Sooner or later, City are going to stick eight or nine past someone but with professional footballers being as they are, usually a team get three goals ahead and just play the game out.

Kevin de Bruyne getting injured in midweek means City are without their best player but when you have a squad worth billions and you bear in mind that they have been doing without him more or less all season, it doesn’t really make much difference to our prospects of getting anything out of this game. David Silva, Leroy Sané, Sergio Agüero, Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, Riyad Mahrez… For fuck’s sake. They can put out the third team and still have a decent shout of beating us. Such is the ridiculousness of the haves and have nots in the Premier League.

Talking of which, the European super league has been back on the agenda with all of the top six apart from Tottenham seemingly involved in the discussions as I’ve said before in this blog-I can’t fucking wait for it to happen. Off you go and take all the shithouse players, managers and Sky Sports and Liverpundits with you. Don’t let the door hit your arse. I wrote a manifesto for the English game post-Euro Super League here.

http://leagueoneminus10.blogspot.com/2017/07/off-you-go-good-riddance-so-as-follow.html

Last year in this game, we set up to defend the shit out of it and very nearly got away with it, only losing to Sterling’s 97th minute winner in a game that will be remembered mainly for Guardiola’s strange interaction with Nathan Redmond after the game. One thing I remember about this game But no one in the media will highlight, was van Dijk strolling around like he didn’t give a fuck and making a horrendous error for the first City goal. He doesn’t make mistakes now he plays for Liverpool of course - he is the best defender in the world.

So, three minutes in and knowing that we have to be defensively perfect to get anything out of the game, some panicky shit in defence and the ball gets fired at JWP who can’t control it.  Aguero picks it up, feeds David Silva who slots Sane in and his cross is smashed into the net by Wesley Hoedt and all the people who had Hoedt as ‘First Own Goal Scorer’ at odds of 1-50, celebrated wildly.  A bit unfortunate for him as he had to do something with Sterling right behind him but smashing it into the roof of your own net isn’t a great option.

We learn the meaning of defensive solidity and three minutes later, Sterling picks it up on the left and slalom’s into the box whilst we watch him, moving about as much as dead bodies in a fucking morgue.  Sterling gets to the line, cuts out Macca with the pull back and Sergio Aguero doesn’t often miss from 5 yards with an open goal.  He’s no Shane Long that’s for sure.

It nearly gets worse straight away as Bernardo Silva plays in Aguero and McCarthy pulls off a superb save to turn it wide as the defenders who are supposed to be helping him, collectively shite themselves.  The respite lasts for about 5 minutes when we have three chances to clear the ball and take none of them.  Eventually, after a few passes, Sterling has it on the right and he stands up a cross.  No worries, Jack Stephens is under it but the Hindenburg (shit in the air) doesn’t get off the ground and Sane flicks it on to David Silva who is hiding in plain sight about 10 yards out and he belts it into the top corner.  If you useless twats could mark the players in the light blue shirts – that would be really good.

Then the afternoon took a turn for the surreal and Southampton did a goal.  Bertrand took time off from not tackling or marking and played a superb ball through the defence to meet up with Ings run and Ederson came out and trashed him.  Lee Mason gave the penalty and no one argued in the slightest.  Up stepped Ings to roll it into the corner for 3-1 to give us a real chance of turning it around.  Ha ha fucking ha!

Far from getting back into it, we have a go at immediately conceding as City manage to string together about 10 passes in an area of about two square metres around our penalty spot.  No one tackles, no one clears it, there are a couple of nutmegs in there and the smell of brown trousers is overpowering.  Someone has a shot and it hits Hoedt and bounces clear.

45 minutes are up so it’s time to let in a goal.  Portuguese International Major Tournament Winner Cedric Soares decides to try and shield a ball out of play and it all goes full schoolboy as Aguero takes it off him and passes to Sterling who gets a bit lucky as his airshot sends Hoedt for a hotdog and he then smashes it in.  Great defending Cedric.  A real safety first classic.

Can we go home yet?  Oh no, just another 45 to go.  My money is on 8-1.

We actually start the second half quite well.  JWP plays a ball into Long who does his best thing of the match by stepping over it.  Everything that involves touching the ball he’s fucking useless at.  Anyway, JWP picks it up again and smashes a shot at Ederson who parries it out and does well to save Ings follow up.

We have another effort from a corner as Ings meets it at the near post and Ederson saves superbly in the bottom corner.  Now that’s over, it’s clearly time to let in another goal but not just yet as Sane’s ridiculous shot from the right smashes off the left hand post.  90 seconds later and Aguero slides Sterling in again and he scores through Macca’s legs to make it five.

Michael Obafemi is on for the last ten and his first contribution is to create a chance for Long which he predictably fucks up.  On the next attack we give it away on the edge of their box and you know they’re going to score – it’s just a case of who.  Sterling finds Sane and he scores from 15 yards.  McCarthy should keep that one out but why fucking bother when you’ve spent the whole game watching your defence and midfield completely go missing. 

I watched this game on a dodgy internet stream. It should’ve been only accessible via the dark web. I nearly switched off at 3-0 but the timing of Danny Ings goal meant I watched until half-time. I managed about 15 minutes of the second-half until the fifth goal went in and then the dodgy stream collapsed and I just couldn’t be fucking bothered to find another one.  I have to say that City were brilliant.  It gives me great comfort to know that Liverpool won't win the League because City will.  They will probably win the Champions League as well and if they play 60 games this season, they won't have an easier one than this.

I haven’t criticised Hughes too much until now as the problems are more than just his butt playing a narrow three-man midfield which basically allowed Sane, David Silva, Bernardo Silva and Sterling to run whenever they liked completely unhindered, was fucking ridiculous. We didn’t get close to David Silva all afternoon. I know he is a great player but him picking up the ball when there are five of our players circling him but none within 20 yards is absolutely woeful. And Hughes picked Shane Long again and once again, he was fucking garbage – hardly a surprise is it?.  Michael Obafemi will hopefully get more chances and the longer he spends around the first team, the more likely it is that he will learn not to pass the ball to Shane Long if he wants to get an assist at Premier League level. My personal Shane highlight of the day was when we had a break on the left hand side and he basically just trod on the ball and let City have it. Hughes was going mental at that point on the sideline but I bet he still picks the useless twat next week.

Personally, I think that Hughes has to leave Long and Austin out of the 18 altogether and use Sam Gallagher (if fit), Obafemi and Marcus Barnes because they cannot possibly be worse. If Hughes continues to select Long and Austin then it will cost him his job and I will have absolutely no sympathy if he hasn’t at least tried the youngsters.

And so much for that bollocks from the last two games about our improved defence. Two clean sheet against two teams that didn’t muster a single attack between them is not quite the same as Manchester City going in dry. You can’t give goals away against anybody, let alone the big boys. JWP getting his feet in a mess on the edge of the box lead directly to Wesley smashing in his second own goal of the season. Jack Hindenburg-Stephens not even getting off the ground and getting beaten in the air by Sane which lead directly to David Silva’s goal. There was some classic schoolboy from Cedric getting tackled whilst trying to shield the ball out of play. Not that we would’ve got anything out of the game but we had just scored and 3-1 down going into half time when he fucked that up.

Elsewhere, Ryan Bertrand didn’t do himself any favours in front of the watching Gareth Southgate and having being given a chance, JWP had an absolute fucking nightmare. I usually defend Bertrand as he is a very good player (see the pass for Ings goal) but today he just looked like he was going through the motions and that is simply not acceptable, especially when you are the captain. Also, when you are as utterly fucking shit as we were, it’s the captain’s responsibility to come out and do the post match interviews. If you don’t want to stand at the front when things are going badly, let Pierre Hojbjerg take the armband because he seems to be the only one who is willing to put his hand up and talk to the media and say that it basically isn’t good enough.

I can deal with the fact that we lost and I can deal with the fact that City and their players are miles better than us but what I can’t deal with is that City did the basics better than we did. They ran without the ball, they pressed, they marked players. The only way you can beat teams that are better than you is by outworking them. If you don’t have the ability then you can make up for this by working incredibly hard but when the other team has more ability than you and they are also working harder, then you get absolutely fucking dicked like we did today.

Danny Murphy did some good analysis on us on MOTD2, highlighting that Hughes set us up 4-3-3 and the intention was to press high but no one did.  He highlighted occasions where because we were narrow and not pressing, one pass from the back and City bypassed our front 6 and engineered 5 vs 4 attacking situations.  Is that Hughes fault or is it the players?  I felt a bit differently after watching that because he picked a side of high-energy players as much as he could with Long instead of Austin etc – maybe they didn’t follow instructions, maybe they didn’t get enough instruction, maybe they couldn't be arsed to play for the manager. Who knows?  Murphy used to play for Hughes at Fulham so he has insight into the manager and also said that Hughes would rather go out against the big boys with an attacking plan rather than sitting back.  Maybe the big boys are just too good now.

Today isn’t terminal for our season because we got exactly the amount of points that we thought we were going to get but it is another nail in the coffin regarding my enjoyment of brand Premier League. In a week where the European Super League is back on the table, this was a bloody good advert for it both in terms of the complete mismatch which went on at the Etihad this afternoon and in terms of me wanting the big clubs to just fuck off and go and play with their own ball, somewhere where I don’t have to pay any attention to it. English football would be better off without them.

Next up, Watford at home. Where the odds on 0-0?

As an aside, on Sunday morning I watched my sons Under 15 side avenge a 5-1 defeat to the same opposition a month ago, with a marvellous performance and a 7-2 win with the added bonus of my centre half offspring scoring a really good header.  The most enjoyable game of football I’ve seen for ages.  Football really is a great game when your team plays with maximum effort and application.