Saints Reveal the Formation Dancing Celebration from Tenerife
Fulham at home and I don’t care what anyone says. We have to
win this game. The reason we have to win this game is because we have lost to
them once already and they are shit. It was of course the Wesley Hoedt
game at Craven Cottage where he tried to show everyone what a hero he was by
shielding the ball in his own corner. He
hasn’t played for Saints since and it got Mark Hughes sacked as well.
If ever there was a blueprint for how not to survive your first season after promotion then Fulham are showing you how it’s done. Spend a fortune on a load of attacking midfielders and strikers and somehow end up with a defence which is worse than what they had in the Championship. They did sign Alfie Mawson who is currently not playing and also, once promising defender, Calum Thingy who was at Southampton for 12 years before fucking off as soon as he could when he was just about to maybe pay some of the investment in him back.
If ever there was a blueprint for how not to survive your first season after promotion then Fulham are showing you how it’s done. Spend a fortune on a load of attacking midfielders and strikers and somehow end up with a defence which is worse than what they had in the Championship. They did sign Alfie Mawson who is currently not playing and also, once promising defender, Calum Thingy who was at Southampton for 12 years before fucking off as soon as he could when he was just about to maybe pay some of the investment in him back.
So, if you have a shite defence and a decent attack, what
happens is that you win the odd game but most the time, you will get completely
battered. The manager they got promoted with, Jokanivic, lasted until the first
losing streak and then got sacked because the defence was shite. He was
replaced with Premier League winner Claudio Ranieri who has somehow stopped
them from scoring without making the defence any better. The chances are that
if they lose tonight, Ranieri will be on his way again and Fulham will be
relegated, seeing as there is already an eight point gap between them and the
team currently in fourth bottom, which in case you had forgotten, is one place
above us. The team in fourth bottom is Cardiff who played yesterday and got
stuffed 3-0 at home by Everton so with that and last weeks 5-1 home defeat by
Watford, they seem to having a little bit of an implosion which we need to take
advantage of today.
Most of the talk around the team has been about the inevitability of Maya Yoshida coming back into the side in place of Jack Stephens and whether McCarthy would displace Gunn. In the event there are three changes from the Arsenal game with the defensive no-brainer being one, Bertrand for Targett being number 2 the third being Austin being given a start with Armstrong dropping to the bench. On paper it looks like a better side. Fulham have Mitrović upfront who I wanted us to sign in the summer but some of their big-name players like Seri, Mawson, Sessegnon etc are not in the starting 11. Who the fuck is Bryan? Who the fuck is Ream? Who the fuck is Chambers? Oh yeah, that’s Callum Chambers, wanker.
There aren’t many Fulham fans here considering it’s only just up the M3 and a vitally important game to them. Are they always this badly supported down here or have I had such a shit season that vast majority have given up?
The game starts and in truth, we don’t look that good. We look wary and let Fulham have the ball around the halfway line and as predicted, with Austin playing, we are not really pressing them. It’s all a bit pedestrian. Fulham don’t look very good at all as you would expect but we are not asking enough questions.
The first chance comes on 15 minutes when Valery tries to feed the ball and low into the box and it gets cleared straight up in the air and comes down on top of the goalkeeper Austin stands his ground and the keeper, Rico kind of falls over him and the ball gets nodded into the net by Saints beer and kebab talisman. It’s always going to get given as a foul and after a momentary moment of excitement when it looks like van Gerwen with the whistle has given the goal, it’s a free-kick to Fulham.
Something weird is happening down on left hand side where Bertrand has half of the pitch to himself. He sends over dangerous cross which is just missed by three onrushing Saints players and flicked out for a corner. Bertrand himself takes the corner and the keeper flaps it out to the edge of the box where Romeu meets on the volley. It’s not the cleanest strike but it goes through a crowd of players and ends up in the net so who fucking cares. 1-0, Come on!!
One of the main beneficiaries of Ralph being in charge has been JWP who is doing all the things that he used to do but he is now not a complete liability when we haven’t got the ball. Fulham try bringing the ball out down the left hand side and JWP absolutely smashes into a 50-50 and comes out with the ball. On it goes to Austin and Redmond, then back to Hojbjerg and he drives it just wide with a keeper doing an impression of a statue.
There is a minor scare as Fulham actually get some possession which ends with Mitrović getting in behind Bednarek and smashing the ball over the bar from a narrow angle. Straight after that though, Fulham give us another goal which all starts with a shit clearance from Rico that doesn’t reach the halfway line. We win a couple of headers in midfield and it eventually breaks for Austin to tee-up Redmond and his shot is pushed out by the keeper but JWP is on hand to knock the rebound into the net from about 10 yards. Christ they’re shit but who cares. We are 2-0 up, we haven’t even played very well and we haven’t had to.
Second half and we need another goal. The chances of Fulham scoring two are remote but we know how this works – they get one and then we shite our collective pants. We need a third to close it out but no, instead the ball bounces in the box and Babel, resplendent with his red wig, has a shot deflects off Bednarek and hits the bar.
Fulham throw on a couple of subs including Sessegnon and look a little bit dangerous for a brief spell but we look calm in defence with Yoshida in particular leading the way. Austin has reached the stage where he has to be subbed or he’s going the throw up and I hear myself uttering words I never thought I’d say – “this could suit Long today”.
Most of the talk around the team has been about the inevitability of Maya Yoshida coming back into the side in place of Jack Stephens and whether McCarthy would displace Gunn. In the event there are three changes from the Arsenal game with the defensive no-brainer being one, Bertrand for Targett being number 2 the third being Austin being given a start with Armstrong dropping to the bench. On paper it looks like a better side. Fulham have Mitrović upfront who I wanted us to sign in the summer but some of their big-name players like Seri, Mawson, Sessegnon etc are not in the starting 11. Who the fuck is Bryan? Who the fuck is Ream? Who the fuck is Chambers? Oh yeah, that’s Callum Chambers, wanker.
There aren’t many Fulham fans here considering it’s only just up the M3 and a vitally important game to them. Are they always this badly supported down here or have I had such a shit season that vast majority have given up?
The game starts and in truth, we don’t look that good. We look wary and let Fulham have the ball around the halfway line and as predicted, with Austin playing, we are not really pressing them. It’s all a bit pedestrian. Fulham don’t look very good at all as you would expect but we are not asking enough questions.
The first chance comes on 15 minutes when Valery tries to feed the ball and low into the box and it gets cleared straight up in the air and comes down on top of the goalkeeper Austin stands his ground and the keeper, Rico kind of falls over him and the ball gets nodded into the net by Saints beer and kebab talisman. It’s always going to get given as a foul and after a momentary moment of excitement when it looks like van Gerwen with the whistle has given the goal, it’s a free-kick to Fulham.
Something weird is happening down on left hand side where Bertrand has half of the pitch to himself. He sends over dangerous cross which is just missed by three onrushing Saints players and flicked out for a corner. Bertrand himself takes the corner and the keeper flaps it out to the edge of the box where Romeu meets on the volley. It’s not the cleanest strike but it goes through a crowd of players and ends up in the net so who fucking cares. 1-0, Come on!!
One of the main beneficiaries of Ralph being in charge has been JWP who is doing all the things that he used to do but he is now not a complete liability when we haven’t got the ball. Fulham try bringing the ball out down the left hand side and JWP absolutely smashes into a 50-50 and comes out with the ball. On it goes to Austin and Redmond, then back to Hojbjerg and he drives it just wide with a keeper doing an impression of a statue.
There is a minor scare as Fulham actually get some possession which ends with Mitrović getting in behind Bednarek and smashing the ball over the bar from a narrow angle. Straight after that though, Fulham give us another goal which all starts with a shit clearance from Rico that doesn’t reach the halfway line. We win a couple of headers in midfield and it eventually breaks for Austin to tee-up Redmond and his shot is pushed out by the keeper but JWP is on hand to knock the rebound into the net from about 10 yards. Christ they’re shit but who cares. We are 2-0 up, we haven’t even played very well and we haven’t had to.
Second half and we need another goal. The chances of Fulham scoring two are remote but we know how this works – they get one and then we shite our collective pants. We need a third to close it out but no, instead the ball bounces in the box and Babel, resplendent with his red wig, has a shot deflects off Bednarek and hits the bar.
Fulham throw on a couple of subs including Sessegnon and look a little bit dangerous for a brief spell but we look calm in defence with Yoshida in particular leading the way. Austin has reached the stage where he has to be subbed or he’s going the throw up and I hear myself uttering words I never thought I’d say – “this could suit Long today”.
As it panned out, the boy Shane put in a decent shift but
the game panned out without any more goalmouth action and to be honest, that
was exactly what we wanted. No fuss, no
alarms, 2-0 win and thanks very much. I
noticed that there were many more times when we cleared the ball properly with
a proper foot through it, seventy yards, fucking have it. Yan Valery nearly killed someone in the crowd
with one such clearance but they can’t score if it’s 70 yards from our goal so
that’ll do. Gmae management I think they
call it, or common sense.
Up the fucking Saints. A comfortable win which is nice. It could, with more ambition in the second half have been a more emphatic win but the bottom line is, until we can find a striker who can score 15 goals a season in this league, we are always going to struggle to even put away the worst of opponents and Fulham were quite possibly the worst of opponents. They certainly had the worst defence. A relatively competent attacking display today and we would’ve scored six. As it is we will certainly take the 2-0 win and be delighted with it. Three points on the board and I know that Ralph will impress on the players that we are going to have to improve to beat virtually anybody else.
It was the day that really illustrate to me that no matter how good your manager is, it is totally down to the players that he has at his disposal. Ralph, as we all know, wants to play a game where we press from the front but that is impossible to do when you have Charlie Austin upfront so you have to find other ways to win the game. In the first half in particular we allowed for them to have the ball on the halfway line and it was painful watching Austin jog across the pitch getting nowhere near. When the ball aws worked out the full-backs then either Redmond or JWP closed down. I think this is part of the reason why Redmond played wider instead of primarily at the middle where he has been since Ralph arrived.
Up the fucking Saints. A comfortable win which is nice. It could, with more ambition in the second half have been a more emphatic win but the bottom line is, until we can find a striker who can score 15 goals a season in this league, we are always going to struggle to even put away the worst of opponents and Fulham were quite possibly the worst of opponents. They certainly had the worst defence. A relatively competent attacking display today and we would’ve scored six. As it is we will certainly take the 2-0 win and be delighted with it. Three points on the board and I know that Ralph will impress on the players that we are going to have to improve to beat virtually anybody else.
It was the day that really illustrate to me that no matter how good your manager is, it is totally down to the players that he has at his disposal. Ralph, as we all know, wants to play a game where we press from the front but that is impossible to do when you have Charlie Austin upfront so you have to find other ways to win the game. In the first half in particular we allowed for them to have the ball on the halfway line and it was painful watching Austin jog across the pitch getting nowhere near. When the ball aws worked out the full-backs then either Redmond or JWP closed down. I think this is part of the reason why Redmond played wider instead of primarily at the middle where he has been since Ralph arrived.
Talking of wide areas, I have never seen a game where a team
give a player of the calibre of Ryan Bertrand half the pitch to himself. Fulham
didn’t seem to have anyone at right back or anyone on the right hand side of
midfield. The player furthest to the right was the fucking goalkeeper,
especially in the first half. It’s just a shame that Ryan isn’t fully fit yet
because if he was he would’ve had an absolute field day. The midfield three
today were all excellent with two of them getting the goals and the skipper
driving everybody on for 93 minutes. There is some serious potential in that
midfield three in an attacking sense as well if we can find a better solution
upfront. JWP continued his resurgence
under Ralph and whisper it quietly… there’s an England game soon.
Defensively, there was the odd wobble but in the main, the
return of Maya Yoshida added that element of calm that has been missing. All
three of the central defenders had excellent games to reduce Fulham to just the
one chance. Angus Gunn didn’t really have anything to do and I’m still
struggling to understand Ralph’s preference for him over McCarthy but I guess
this is a situation that’s not going to really resolve itself until the start
of next season.
As for Fulham. Fucking hell. They know that they are getting relegated. The fans, the players and the manager all know that they are getting relegated. Hardly any fans turned up which for a vital game just down the M3 is poor and the players were just hilarious. I was watching Tim Ream in the second half and I’ve never seen anything like it. He just ambled about, looking for another one of his defenders to take responsibility and do his job for him. They were garbage. I’ve already touched on the Tinkerman’s tactics and how the fuck can you leave Sessegnon out? What was particularly telling was that when they lost the ball they had Mitrović, Cairney and Babel not even trying to get back. Back to the Championship you go and we have to make sure that we do not join them.
With the van Dijk chatter from last week it was interesting to see another one of our ex-players, Calum Chambers playing for Fulham today. Since he left us five seasons ago he has had three seasons not playing much for Arsenal, a season getting relegated with Middlesbrough and now, a season getting relegated with Fulham. In addition to that he has no settled position. He was a right back with us but wanted to be a centre back so he played there a few times are Arsenal and now it’s midfield because he is not big enough to play at centre back and he also is not good enough on the ball to play in midfield. He is basically Jack Stephens and like Jack, he should have stuck with being a right back. If he had stayed at Saints for a few years then I’m sure that’s where he would’ve ended up and he would be a lot better player now than he is but he chose to be the richest player he could be instead of potentially the best player he could be. I have no sympathy at all, in case you haven’t worked it out. Relatively speaking, we are pretty weak at the moment and he wouldn’t get in our side at all. He was an England captain at under age level and came through at the same time as JWP. Which one of those two is a decent premier League player now and which one isn’t?
Our next game is Manchester United away so we could well find ourselves back in the bottom three after that one but we have to go there with the ambition of doing a lot better than we did away at Arsenal. Still being in the game after 20 minutes would be a good start. They are decent of course but they have a lot of injuries so we have a chance. For now though, let’s just enjoy winning this game and being above the line rather than below it.
As for Fulham. Fucking hell. They know that they are getting relegated. The fans, the players and the manager all know that they are getting relegated. Hardly any fans turned up which for a vital game just down the M3 is poor and the players were just hilarious. I was watching Tim Ream in the second half and I’ve never seen anything like it. He just ambled about, looking for another one of his defenders to take responsibility and do his job for him. They were garbage. I’ve already touched on the Tinkerman’s tactics and how the fuck can you leave Sessegnon out? What was particularly telling was that when they lost the ball they had Mitrović, Cairney and Babel not even trying to get back. Back to the Championship you go and we have to make sure that we do not join them.
With the van Dijk chatter from last week it was interesting to see another one of our ex-players, Calum Chambers playing for Fulham today. Since he left us five seasons ago he has had three seasons not playing much for Arsenal, a season getting relegated with Middlesbrough and now, a season getting relegated with Fulham. In addition to that he has no settled position. He was a right back with us but wanted to be a centre back so he played there a few times are Arsenal and now it’s midfield because he is not big enough to play at centre back and he also is not good enough on the ball to play in midfield. He is basically Jack Stephens and like Jack, he should have stuck with being a right back. If he had stayed at Saints for a few years then I’m sure that’s where he would’ve ended up and he would be a lot better player now than he is but he chose to be the richest player he could be instead of potentially the best player he could be. I have no sympathy at all, in case you haven’t worked it out. Relatively speaking, we are pretty weak at the moment and he wouldn’t get in our side at all. He was an England captain at under age level and came through at the same time as JWP. Which one of those two is a decent premier League player now and which one isn’t?
Our next game is Manchester United away so we could well find ourselves back in the bottom three after that one but we have to go there with the ambition of doing a lot better than we did away at Arsenal. Still being in the game after 20 minutes would be a good start. They are decent of course but they have a lot of injuries so we have a chance. For now though, let’s just enjoy winning this game and being above the line rather than below it.
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