Premier League Match 20 - Southampton 1 Manchester City 3

Hojbjerg and Kompany Get Their Deserved Red Cards.  Almost.

Had we beaten West Ham last week then we would be going into this game on the crest of a wave and maybe, though illogically, thinking that we had a chance of upsetting Billionaire City.   However, after the West Ham slap in the face, even the most optimistic won’t be thinking that today as they approach the ground, they will be thinking variations of “we haven’t got a fucking prayer against this lot”.  Mind you, fans of Palace and Leicester will have been saying the same thing recently and they beat City but crucially it was a City without Fernandinho who is the single most important player in amongst all the Galacticos.  With any luck he won’t be playing today which will give us a small chance I guess.  City’s resolve will also be strengthened by the fact that Liverpool have opened up a seven point lead on them at the top of the Premier League so I would say the chances of getting anything out of the day or somewhere between slim and none.  I feel like I’m a bit of a miserable twat being this negative about our chances but I would say it’s being realistic. Sometimes you just know. It’s a bit like turning up to a gunfight with a fucking peashooter.

Ralph said after the West Ham defeat that some players looked tired and he may rotate a few. When I saw the team…. My oh my!  It was a selection that clearly smacked of saving some of our best players for a game we might win.  All of the front three were rested along with Yoshida and Vestergaard.  There was a debut at right back for Kayne Ramsey and starting places for JWP, Jack Stephens, Charlie Austin and strangest of all, Mohammed Elyounoussi. I actually think that one of these changes might be tactical as Vestergaard will get ripped to shreds by the likes of Stirling Agüero and Sané. The composition of the bench gave some real pointers as to which players will likely be leaving in January. There was no place on the bench for Cedric, Hoedt, Gabbiadini or Davis.   When the manager is freshening up the team and you are an international footballer and not even on the bench – you know you have no future.  To be fair, Guardiola went for some rotation as well but it was stuff like leaving out Leroy Sané and playing Bernardo Silva instead - you get the drift.

Early door and Lemina gives the ball away then Stephens compunds this by getting outmuscled by Sterling who is half his size.  Eventually it is worked back to Bernardo and McCarthy pulls off a worldy to keep it out from about 10 yards.  Our first chance follows a break from Hojbjerg, a ball inside to Elyounoussi and the winger clipped a superb ball to Austin who was clean through but instead of hitting it first time, a trampoline touch that Shane Long taught him took it straight to the keeper.  Two minutes later and Bernardo advances down our left, plays a 1-2 with Danilo and this is enough for Lemina to give up helping Targett out and a pull back is despatched by David Silva for the most unsurprising opening goal in history.

City respond to going in front by humiliating us in their 6 yard box, popping first time passes about and the goalkeeper getting involved as well.  Wankers.  Then they pass out and are away with Mahrez running through on goal.  He drills it wide after a long run but it quite brilliant football. Another quite brilliant move cuts us open and McCarthy again has another worldy to keep out Aguero from 5 yards.

There’s more piss-take as Ederson dribbles round a lunging Hojbjerg on his goal line.  We win a corner which feels like something worth celebrating and JWP’s kick is flicked goalwards by Austin and Ederson surprisingly saves it with his hands instead of catching it between his ankles or some such ridiculousness.

It’s beautiful when all the over-confidence catches up with City and it does when Zinchenko, who is not on the same level as the other City players, turns inside in the left back position and gets caught by Hojbjerg.  On marches the captain and lashes it past Ederson who doesn’t move to unbelievably make it 1-1.

Then the key moment – Stephens picks it up on half way and pings a superb diagonal over Zinchenko to JWP who knocks it past his marker, gets in front of him and bears down on goal.  Arm in the back, over he goes, nothing.  Fuck sake.  So, he’s neither dived or been pushed.  Ridiculously unlikely I’d have said.

Guess what happens?  After another minute which included a City goal kick which possibly should have been a corner to us, forward come City, Stephens gets too tight to David Silva and then gets his feet in a mess and passes it straight to Sterling.  He cuts in and crosses, it hits JWP and flies past McCarthy at the near post.   Part self-inflicted and part bad luck but just when we were looking half decent, 2-1 down and a sense of injustice again as ‘2-1 to the referee’ rings round the ground.

With two minutes left til half time we have enough time to concede another goal and it happens with Zinchenko being allowed to cross from our right and Aguero in in between Targett and Bednarek to head in front point blank range.  Maybe Macca could have stopped it but anyway, it’s 3-1 and game over.

Whether it’s because of his papthetic display or for another reason but Lemina is off for Redmond as we start the second half.  That’s about as exciting as the second half got to be honest as no one really gave a toss.  Sterling smashed a shot into McCarthy’s face so that goes down as another good save and Aguero span past Bednarek and Stephens before hitting the bar.  Saints were content with a  holding pattern with the odd clattering tackle with Austin scything through Fernandinho so late that the ball was in another post code.  City weren’t beyond this kind of shithousery as well and Kompany launched a two footed drop kick as Elyounoussi which earned him a yellow when it clearly should have been a red.

Yan Valery came on for Romeu who was clearly being rested for more important challenges and then the ref evened up the non-penalties when Valery looked to have brought down Sterling from behind but nothing doing.  Long came on for Austin cos we needed 2 goals but unfortunately we only have 15 minutes and not the 63 matches that Shane would need to score them.  Charlie signed off with a ‘playful wave’ at the City fans who had been on his case since the Fernandinho tackle.

Mahrez gets clean through from our left and McCarthy again has to keep the score down and all this would be kind of acceptable until Hojbjerg went into full ‘fucking idiot’ mode and trashed through Fernandinho with 5 minutes to go and give the referee the opportunity to send him off.  The ref got this one spot on.

And so another advert for the European Super League comes to an end after a second half which was as boring as it could possibly be with the game already decided and neither team being that fussed about anything else happening.  We’ve lost 9-2 across two games v City this season.  Despite all this, Hojbjerg still managed to get himself sent off which was fucking ridiculous as he now misses, I think, three matches for the red card plus an additional one as it is his second red card of the season. No question, he deserved to go but how the hell Vincent Kompany stayed on the pitch after his two footed airborne effort against Elyounoussi is completely beyond me. After picking up a yellow for the challenge he should’ve got a red for, he then took out Alex McCarthy whilst he was still in the air which is even a bloody foul and a yellow card offence in Rugby Union.

With the score at 1-1, like the West Ham game, we had a very good penalty appeal turned down, like the West Ham game and 30 seconds later we were 2-1 down, like the West Ham game. The penalty appeal today is given if it’s for a big club (see Salah at least 5 times a season) - like the one in the West Ham game.  Hey, even if we had been given the penalty and gone to one in front, I am 1000% sure that we would have lost because City could’ve scored as many goals as they wanted to today but with their two goals just before half-time it was job done and thank you very much and who are we playing next? The team they are playing next is of course Liverpool so they are going to have their eye on that one and of course I hope they win.  Today’s referee was Paul Tierney from Wigan, which is 20 miles from Manchester – maybe he was worried about them not giving a lift home the spineless twat – just saying.  Penalty aside, we also had the Kompany Drop Kick and also we had Danilo refusing to go to the referee to get booked and the referee then sheepishly walking after him rather than giving him a yellow card for the original foul and then a second yellow for being a fucking dick straight afterwards.  

Ralph certainly hadn’t prioritised this game and had chosen it to rest some of our more influential players like Ings, Redmond and Armstrong. This was not a game for Vestergaard with the ball being at the feet of small nimble attackers the whole game so it was a genuine chance for others to show what they could do.  Bednarek in the main played well but did lose Aguero for the third goal. Stephens did some nice things with the ball on at his feet including putting JWP clean through for the non-penalty but his defending was in the main poor and on the second goal it was an absolute joke.  Kayne Ramsey looked terrified in the first half when he was playing as a conventional right back. When he went to the right of a defensive three (a tactical switch probably bought about by him struggling), he actually did quite well but I sensed that he didn’t really want the ball and other Saints players seem to sense that too and very rarely gave it to him. He did put in a couple of decent tackles and for the first game in the Premier League and playing against this calibre of opposition, he can be quite pleased with himself. This will probably be an unpopular opinion but I thought JWP put in a decent shift at right wingback to cover Ramsay and in the centre of midfield, Oriol Romeu and Hojbjerg were excellent until Pierre’s red mist moment.  

Mario Lemina had one of those games where he found himself playing against better players and a better team and instead of deciding to raise his game to show he was worthy of being on the pitch against these players, he just collapsed and couldn’t be bothered and showed and amazingly disrespectful attitude towards his manager, his teammates and the fans who pay to watch him. On the whole he’s been very good this season but today was a throwback to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final. He has too many games where it just looks like he can’t be arsed and I sense that Ralph saw that today which is why he got hooked on half-time.  There have been some reports of him playing whilst injured but it happens so often that you have the question his attitude.  Then we had Mohammed Elyounoussi who produced a very passable impression of a hologram, barely touching the ball and when he did, having a virtual hundred percent record at giving the ball back to the opposition.   The odd promising run but zero at the end of it.  Up front, Charlie Austin at least tried but he had to score that chance (provided by Elyounoussi amazingly) but no…. and its games like this when you have to take every chance, let alone when you are clean throughout against the goalkeeper.

Match of the Day 2, went out of their way to do us no favours whatsoever in that the edit showed Austin being substituted for no reason other than to show that he flicked the V’s at the City fans as he left the pitch. That was deemed more highlight-worthy than Kompany’s drop kick or Danilo’s blatant dissent.  More examples of Top 6 refereeing ridiculousness also happened in the Manchester United versus Bournemouth game when Eric Bailly should have been sent off twice and Ashley Young should also have walked. Earlier on in the week we had Mo Salah diving for a penalty which was less obvious and JWP is one today and needless to say, he got given it. To the Big 6 really need monumentally bent referees? Aren’t the bent FFP rules and consequently the fact that they have mega billions of pounds to spend, enough? Clearly not.

Saints start 2019 away at Stamford Bridge and whilst that is in all likelihood going to end in defeat we have reason to be optimistic for the New Year. It is all about staying up and just maybe having a little go in the FA Cup. 2018 has been uniformly bollocks apart from a small spike when Hughes kept us up and the surge of optimism when Hasenhüttl was appointed. I don’t think anyone can doubt that we have the right man in charge now but January is going to be telling as it is up to Ralph Krueger and the board to back the manager as the manager will have a clear picture now regarding which players are fit for purpose and which ones will go.

All aboard for more ups and downs in 2019. Hopefully The proportion of ups compared to downs will be slightly higher this year. Happy New Year to everybody, apart from Liverpool.  Liverpool can get in the fucking bin.