It's Speculation Time

20 Goal-a-Season Striker Found

It’s started already and the season hasn’t even ended… the media are making stuff up… the agents are getting busy and everyone is ignoring facts or not doing any research into the facts.  So this is a look at the make up of Saints squad and my opinion on who might or might not be here next season.  First up – the facts.

Fact 1 is that Ralph has said he likes to work with a smaller rather than larger group of players so that basically rules out signing an additional five or six, especially in view of …

Fact 2, which is that we already have too many senior pros, a result of questionable recruitment and questionable contract extensions handed out.  

Fact 3 is that Ralph has also indicated that he would rather sign younger players so anyone who is over the age of about 27/28 is unlikely going to be considered.  

Fact 4 is that with his style of play, Ralph has indicated a preference for players with pace so I can’t see us signing any players who are not quick, regardless of their position on the pitch.

Fact 5 is that he will also want to players who are in the main very fit, which they will have to be to fit into the style of play that Ralph wants to impose on the team so that rules out your injury prone players.

Fact 6 is that we will only spend what we bring in.  I kind of hope it’s not a fact and the board were just managing expectations but I kind of suspect it is a fact.

Fact 7 is realism.  You cannot just bin players who are not good enough who have 4 years left on their contract for example.  It will cost money to either pay up contracts or you end up paying wages for the duration of the contract remaining.

If the media did any homework they could narrow it down to three simple categories before they publish their ‘Southampton show interest in…’ bullshit.  These three categories are Age, Pace and Fitness.  The first name the media will therefore come up with is Theo Walcott who can run like the wind (Tick the quick box) for about 10 seconds before being injured for four months (cross in the fitness box) as he approaches his 31st birthday (cross in the age box). He is a former Southampton player from 15 years ago though so of course in the eyes of the media, that trumps any sort of commonsense criteria that we may have.

So, the likes of Walcott can be ruled out on the grounds of age and fitness, Scott Arfield can be ruled out on grounds of age and probably pace and players that we have been linked to in the past like Gary Cahill are complete nonstarter.  This is before we even start talking about wages for Top 6 club cast-offs if that is in fact where the player is.  We haven’t been linked with Adam Lallana, but if we were – no pace, no fitness, too old.

Some of the players we currently have like Danny Ings would fail on one of the categories but we of course can’t apply the categories to all of the players we already have as we’d probably have none left.  This is about recruitment though and in my opinion, what we need is actually two or three quality players and not the spray recruitment and changing of five or six.  Evolution not revolution.  So this is my best guess as to how the summer will go.

We have the problem of the dead wood to sort out and getting clubs to take players that we have under contract who are all getting paid too much. I can imagine that Ralph will be fairly blunt with these players and tell them that they are not going to play like he did with Wesley Hoedt. This bluntness will help but we will undoubtedly be left with one or two who are quite happy to sit on their fat contracts and do nothing. To my mind we will probably look to clear out the following list of players for differing reasons and if we do, hopefully get the indicated amount of money for them....

Alex McCarthy - £10m
Cedric Soares - £5m
Wesley Hoedt - £6m
Jack Stephens - £4m
Harrison Reed - £2m
Sam McQueen - £1m
Mario Lemina - £15m
Guido Carrillo - £8m
Mohammed Elyounoussi - £8m (maybe we have a receipt and he’s still in guarantee)
Sam Gallagher - £6m
Jordy Clasie - £2m

Charlie Austin - £500k loan fee (minus golden handshake of an 8 pack of lager and a Doner Kebab)

The goalkeeper situation is quite interesting. One thing for certain is that Angus Gunn will be the number one goalkeeper going forward next season. Current number two is Alex McCarthy who is clearly too good to be a number two goalkeeper. Also, he is worth a few quid and there will be a team that will take him. Bournemouth for example are going to be in the market for a first choice keeper. The reason we’d sell Alex is because of the elephant in the room that is Fraser Forster, one of our highest earning players and currently third choice. I can see a situation where we sell McCarthy and use Forster as our second choice (which would be fine) which at least means we are getting some return for the huge outlay every month. In a perfect world, a team would come in for Forster but with his wages I just cannot see it. 

At right back, Yan Valery is first choice and in all likelihood will continue to be so next season. When at Leipzig, Ralph liked to rotate the full-backs though so wouldn’t surprise me if another one he’s brought in as Kayne Ramsay doesn’t really look ready to challenge for a regular first team sport as yet. We do of course have Cedric who I think will be punted out the door to whoever it prepared to give us any more than £5 million quid for him. Hopefully they’ll read the label that says Euro 2016 winner.  Left back will be Ryan Bertrand and we have Matt Targett as a back up. Nothing to see here unless Targett decides that he wants to move to get some regular first-team football.  Sam McQueen I think will be gone, unless the serious injury he has means he is given another season.

At centre back we have the three regulars who are Jan Bednarek, Jannik Vestergaard and Maya Yoshida and I feel that all three of these will be around next season. I’m really not sure about Calamity Jack Stephens as one of our priority recruiting areas has to be at centre back and I can’t see Ralph wanting to have five first-team centre backs in the squad especially if he wants to move more towards playing a 4-2-2-2 formation. We will of course get Wesley Hoedt back because having seen him play, Celta Vigo won’t want him. He does look the sort of player that would fit into that free-flowing Ajax side, ha ha ha! Even if we take a huge loss and can get £5 million for him, then we have to take it to get him off the books.  When he goes, we must all ‘like’ it on every social media platform.

I can’t see a strengthening in midfield with the first choice three of Oriol Romeu, Pierre Hojbjerg and James Ward Prowse will very much be around next season. I would not be remotely surprised if Mario Lemina goes and not because he isn’t good enough. Let’s face it, he doesn’t want to be here and he never really has and as soon as it gets difficult he’s always just disappeared. A brief renaissance at the start of the season just gone under Mark Hughes but it was really weird how a relatively minor sounding injury turned into six months without playing. The money will come in handy as well.  Lemina may want a season under Ralph to try and realise his potential in the English game and if he does then great.  I just wouldn’t be surprised if he has his eyes on the exit door.  I believe we have finally reached the final year of the contract of the lightweight nonentity Jordy Clasie so he’ll be off, cut price to Feyenoord no doubt and it is time for Harrison Reed to move on - a decent player but not good enough for where we are hoping to get to.

On the wings we will of course have Nathan Redmond, Stuart Armstrong and Josh Sims in the squad next year. I’m sure we will be getting rid of one of Mohammad Elyounoussi or Sofiane Boufal.  Boufal would fetch more money but he’s the one who has shown the most out of the two.  Personally, I hope it’s Elyounoussi who goes because he has not shown anything that suggests that he is going to be a decent player in this league. No pace, trickery, shooting, work rate, fitness. None of it. At least with Boufal you know he’s got it in the locker. The decision making is not the best at times but at least there is something to work with and maybe he’s another Ralph can get more out of. At risk of sounding like Claude Puel, I’m not expecting much but I am quite intrigued by the possibilities.

The strikers is next year will be Danny Ings with back up provided by Shane Long and Michael Obafemi if he can stay fit for longer than 5 minutes. A few months ago, the last thing I would have ever wanted was for Shane Long to still be here next season but he will be because of his pace and aggressive running.  He’s never going to be the best but he fits the profile of the striker the Ralph wants in his teams. Charlie Austin does not of course and he will want to pick up the last years money on his contract so I can see him either hanging around and being an unused substitute or going on loan to a Championship club and trying to earn himself a contract for the following season.  I can’t see us getting rid of both Long and Austin as that would mean needing to sign two replacements and we won’t have the money to do that.

Sam Gallagher has made a few appearances this season but I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes, probably to a Championship club where he has proved his worth before. He strikes me as a player that takes just a little bit too long to do whatever it is he’s trying to do and I can’t see him getting a huge run of games in the team in order to improve. There were rumours that someone offered a £7 million for him last year and I think if we can get anywhere near that, then it’s a deal worth making.  Good for the club and the player.  

Ralph may think that Guido Carrillo is the 20 goal striker we need - stranger things have happened….  I can’t think of any off the top of my head so I would imagine we will be looking to recoup about half the money that we paid for him and flogging to someone in Spain or France. We’ll be paying half his wages at least, wherever he goes.  Striker is of course a position where we need to recruit a quality player which won’t be easy because every team in the country wants a striker who can score 20 goals a season.

So, my shopping list is a first choice centre back and a first choice striker, followed by a right back if Cedric goes and a winger if Boufal goes.  Hopefully, the hierarchy restructure won’t get in the way at all and we for once, can do the business early.  Being safe two weeks early certainly helps and you just know that Ralph will be pushing to get things done.  It promises to be an exciting time.

Premier League Match 36 - Southampton 3 Bournemouth 3

Watch Us Go Next Year Gary

At the start of the season when the fixtures were announced, I can guarantee that no one searched out the date that we were going to be playing Bournemouth at home and put a big red cross on the calendar. Also, no one at the FA or the police decreed that this game is going to have to be played at 11am on a Sunday to cut down on rival firms drinking time before the game. No one at Sky Sports looked and said “we have to put this blood curdling grudge match in our schedules”. That’s all you need to know really, Southampton versus Bournemouth at 3pm on a Saturday.

There might be a bit more on it if both teams had something to play for. Saints have still to make mathematically certain staying up for next season but Bournemouth are there already and in truth, have been there for quite a while. This amounts to another good season for Bournemouth who have comfortably managed to stay in the Premier League whilst other clubs of similar size have fallen away and been relegated. Once again I find myself impressed by the work that Eddie Howe has done but because they haven’t really improved from last season, his stock seems to be a little bit lower than it was this time last year when there was talk about him being a potential new manager for one of the really big clubs. They have in truth been pretty dreadful since Christmas as this season has followed the same pattern as last and that they were virtually safe by Christmas and then it looked for a while like they might make a late bid for relegation but they managed to win again to keep their heads above water.

Their seasonis summed up in their last two results where they thumped Brighton 5-0 away from home before the following week, losing at home to an abysmal Fulham side who have been mathematically relegated for about a month. I’m beginning to wonder if a manager can just go stale club if he’s there for too long, especially when he has taken them as far as he possibly can. The question for the Bournemouth hierarchy is could they get anyone better equipped to deal with the circumstances at The Vitality and the question for Eddie is whether or not he’s going to be happy just trying to achieve the same thing season and season with no real prospect of improvement.

On the pitch, they do undoubtably have some very good players with Nathan Ake, Ryan Fraser, Callum Wilson, David Brooks and Josh King being the best of them.  Wilson has made the last few England squads which will undoubtedly mean that other clubs come sniffing in the summer (trust us, we know how this one works) and Ryan Fraser has already been making noises about moving on. So, it’s a big summer for The Cherries but for now, summer doesn’t matter but hopefully after today, Saints can concentrate on the summer and the joy of relatively stress-free last few games.

Team news and oh shit, Maya Yoshida is missing and Vestergaard is not back so Ralph is kind of forced into playing a flat back four which includes Jack Stephens. This kind of has disaster written all over it but hopefully we can do enough going forward. High scoring game in prospect I feel. I think this is the first time that Danny Ings and Shane long have both started.

The Bournemouth line-up sees the return of Artur Boruc and Nathanial Clyne, To players who I have very fond memories of from their Southampton days.  Clyne joined Liverpool of course but without any of the shit or dick-headedness of Lovren, van Dijk and Lallana and was a very good player from us when we first landed back in the Premier League – not to be sniffed at allegedly.  Boruc was the first Premier League standard goalkeeper that we had and was largely excellent for the period that he was first choice. He was somewhat unfortunate to get bombed out when Fraser Forster signed. I’m sure there will be some twats giving them a hard time today but neither of them deserve it.

How are we go and straight onto the front foot and camping in the Bournemouth half.  The first real chance comes after a 15th minute corner which Bertrand swings in and Bednarek swings a leg at it and it is hacked away from just in front of the line by King. They haven’t got out of their half yet and we very nearly create another chance as Ings slightly over hits a clever through ball and Redmond can’t get there in time to lift it over Boruc. The Holy Goalie definitely seems to be carrying a bit more timber and he did back when he played for us but he was smartly off his line there.

Hojbjerg then floats a lovely ball over the defence to Redmond and he knocks it inside and there is the Feckin’ Goal Machine who drills it goalwards, watches it deflect off some half arsed attempt to block by Ake and nestle in the corner of the net. 1-0 and about time and the Shane has done it again.

Still all Saints straight after the goal and we lose the ball on the edge of their box, Bournemouth break, pass, pass, pass and Gosling scores, drilling it past Gunn from just inside the box. Fuck off. That is literally the first time they have got anywhere near our goal and I don’t think Angus gone has even touched the ball yet. Defensively we were all over the place. And to be fair to Bournemouth, they took the chance really well.  Gosling cups his ear to the Saints fans at the Chapel End.  Twat.

Howe knows he has completely got out of jail and hooks one of the centre backs and brings on Ryan Fraser, switching to their usual 4-4-2.  Regardless, we get back on the front foot and Shane finds another opening on the left and shoots, it’s half stopped by Boruc and then Shane manages to hit the near post with a shot into an open goal from 5 yards. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.

The tactical change that Howe has made has certainly made a huge difference and out of it, Bournemouth are now dominating the game with us struggling to get any sort of momentum. With our midfield not able to get anywhere near the ball. Oriol doesn’t get anywhere near the ball and launches Fraser up in the air. Fraser is on the ground for so long I actually think he might be dead for a second but he gets back up and is perfectly OK.  The healing properties of lying on the ground for a couple of minutes are quite remarkable, as is the fact that Oriol has been booked again.

With Saints on the ropes a bit, you need the players to go back to doing the basics, especially in defence. By this, I mean win headers and tackles and clear the ball properly so what does Jack Stephens do?  Firstly he allows hopeful punt forward to bounce and it kicked right up in the air allowing Willson to challenge him and win the ball and in the next phase of play he scuffed a clearance a whole 10 yards and Bournemouth eventually win the corner from which Brooks shoots from the edge of the box and it flies through a pack of bodies, Gunn saves but can’t hold it and Wilson taps into the net from 3 yards.  More goading of the ultras in the Chapel.  Twat.

Bournemouth spend the rest of the first half lying on the ground after any sort of challenge, be it a foul or not. Three minutes of added time at the end of the first half tells its own story but we can’t get on the front foot again and half time arrives.  

Ralph makes his own tactical change at half-time with Matty Targett coming on and Ryan Bertrand going to the left side of a defensive three. The man sacrificed is the walking yellow card that is Oriol Romeu.

David Brooks is a player who has had a very good season and he’s obviously a very good player but he is pathetic. He goes down after a nothing challenge on the halfway line. He is not injured and it’s not a foul but in time honoured Bournemouth tradition, he decides to lie on the ground and by the time he’s decided to get up again, with absolutely nothing wrong with him, the following is happened.

Saints pick it up and work it to JWP who is about 40 yards out.  A Purposeful run forward and he works it onto his left foot and drills it low and it’s wrong-footed the Pole in Goal and nestled in the corner.  Another one for the watching England manager and 2-2.  Get in.  There’s a little token protest from Bournemouth about Brooks being down whilst this was going on but not too much.  They know he was being pathetic.

Ings has a chance as JWP picks him out in the box, floating a superb ball over the defence but he tries a first time flick and Boruc saves.  Next time, in it comes from JWP and Ings chests down and battles two Bournemouth defenders and comes up with the ball.  Back to JWP and into the path of Valery who take son Ake for pace and brilliantly gets the cross in and there is Matt Targett of all people, at the back stick to head the ball powerfully across Boruc and into the far side of the goal.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ralph decides to put on Armstrong instead of Lemina to replace Ings and Armstrong’s first contribution is the dribble across the pitch and lose the ball to Lerma. The ball goes on to King and Armstrong tries to take him out but on goes King, finds Fraser on the left and his low cross is converted by Wilson from close range. For fucks sake, we can give a goal away from absolutely anywhere.

It’s the 88th minute and we really should be keeping things tight from here on in but Jack Stephens just got the ball. He walks into the centre circle and passes it straight to Bournemouth player. One pass later and Wilson is clean through on goal but luckily, he is not is deadly from further out than 5 yards and Gunn manages to block.

Austin comes on for Long and immediately seems to be on a one man mission to waste as much time as possible with the ball in the corner. I didn’t even consider that this must be something to do with Cardiff and their game. Someone behind me pipes up that Cardiff are losing so I guess that explains it. I’ll admit that I find it a little frustrating that we are playing like we were desperately hanging on for a point against Bournemouth at home but it doesn’t really matter a toss. I’m sure the Bournemouth ultras will be giving us loads about that but it is not really about you guys, it is about ensuring we got the point that we needed.

The final whistle goes and it is confirmed that Cardiff have lost the point that we got today means that we are mathematically certain to be staying in the Premier League for another season and Ralph Hasenhuttl has done the first part of the job he was brought in to do. Fair play to the man and what a difference he has made. We would have got relegated if we had persisted with Hughes or if we got the appointment wrong. The man has been brilliant not only for what is done on the pitch but for the unifying effect he has had amongst the fan base.

What a ridiculous game that was. Brilliant spells of play from us mixed in with utter garbage with horrific misses and appalling defending. We also had an opposition who only produced good play in flashes but every time they did, they scored. I would say that we were the better team for the first 20 minutes and the whole of the second half and they were the better team for the last 25 minutes of the first half yet we’ve ended up drawing. I would be absolutely spewing about two dropped points in normal circumstances but we have to see this game in the bigger context.

Let’s be honest, it was gonna be a bit of a shambles from the moment the team was announced. Jack Stephens once again proved that he’s just not good enough for Premier League level with the 20 minutes before half time being particularly diabolical clearances that went 10 yards, letting the ball bounce and generally defending like a 10-year-old in a game where everyone else is an adult. The second half was better with Bertrand moved to the left of the defensive three and the more solidity that gave and Targett’s introduction meant we were a lot better in the second half.  We should have won of course, especially after Targett put us 3-2 ahead but if you think that, you reckon without our ability to throw in a goal from virtually any situation and Armstrong was the fall guy, dribbling across the pitch, losing the ball and then failing to bring down the guy when he tried to make up for his error.

Going forward we were pretty good in the main though the ‘un-clinical-ness’ remains. Shane scored for the fourth time in five games and he also managed to come up with the miss of the century when he hit the post from 5 yards with an open goal. Redmond was unplayable at times but slightly wasteful but other times And it was good to see Danny Ings not only play reasonably well but last until nearly the 80th minute.

Ralph have a very good interview on match of the day in the evening we basically spoke about the job that needs doing over the summer. He said that the planning for next season can start tomorrow and from that, he clearly believes that he is going to be allowed to do this. We all know that there needs to be a clear out and we all know that that is going to cost money in itself in some cases. We clearly also need to back the man and get in the two or three quality players that we need to turn this side into a genuine top half team again.

That’s for another day though. For now, we have two relatively stress-free games to go, starting with West Ham away at the Virtually Free Athletics Stadium next week and ending with what should be a bit of a party at home to Huddersfield and I am particularly looking forward to that one.

It might feel strange to some to celebrate staying in the Premier League but this time, we got ourselves into such a hole that has become a remarkable achievement to be safe with two games to go. The main reason for this is that we can look forward to next season with some genuine excitement knowing that the form we have showed since Ralph came in would have us one place behind Manchester United if it was replicated over a whole season. Now, we can celebrate the fact that we will get to see whether Ralph and the squad can achieve this next season. Where’s my beer.

Premier League Match 35 - Watford 1 Southampton 1

If you enjoy reading these blogs and haven't already done so - please can you spare a fiver or a tenner and send it the way of Francis Benali.  Details to be found on https://www.ironfran.co.uk/

========================================================================

Feckin' Goal Machine Strikes Again

Last year at Watford we got absolutely robbed Doucoure punched the ball into the net in the last minute to make it 2-2. At the time we were absolutely fuming at how the shithouse got away with such blatant cheating but at the end of the day, if he had not done it, Saints would have won that game and then probably Pellegrino would have stayed charge for a little bit longer and we would probably be mid-table in the championship by now. So - no harm done Doucoure you cheating fucker.

Watford have had an incredible season really. They are on course to finish seventh as the best of the rest and they are also in the FA Cup final so even if they get beat, they have a very good chance of being in Europe next year which is brilliant news for them. The manager Javi Gracia is on course to be the longest serving Watford manager since Graham Taylor. I haven’t fact checked that particular statement but I have certainly gone through a few in the last few years. The good news for us is that Troy Deeney managed to get himself sent off a week or so ago so he will be missing against us today. This is really good news because we of course have defenders who  in particular, struggle against the big bustling centre forward types who put themselves about.

Hopefully we will have taken enough positives from the second half of Newcastle to ensure that there is no repeat of the first half and it will be very interesting to see what line-up Ralph goes with bearing in mind the quick turnaround from Saturday’s defeat. It sounded like Vestergaard wasn’t too far away from being fit and the official line on Valery was that he was being rested so hopefully those two will be back in contention today. I’m hoping that Ralph decides to give either Kayne Ramsey or Alfie Jones a place on the bench and not Jack Stephens, whose confidence is clearly shot to bits. Elsewhere it will be interesting to see if Lemina starts. I can’t see him lasting 90 minutes so it’ll be just be a case of whether Ralph wants to use him at the start or at the end.

Other Saints news following the Newcastle defeat was that shock of shocks, Wesley Hoedt was a prick on social media. It really isn’t going to go down well if you like a post about a player which is about an opposition player who has scored a hat-trick against your parent club. Even if the goalscorer happens to be your best mate or even your fucking brother, you just don’t do it unless, as Wesley has proved on countless occasions, you are a prick. I wonder if it’s escaped his attention that we have done I have a lot better ever since Ralph saw through him and fucked him off.

At the weekend, Brighton picked up a point at Wolves and surprisingly, they didn’t score again. Cardiff were predictably beaten at home by Liverpool. Cardiff’s next two matches are Fulham away and Crystal Palace at home. Fulham have been relegated for a while but have won their last two games as Scott Parker tries to put his mark on things.  Palace are now safe – especially from the Nazi’s who they have never heard of - which probably means that the supporters would quite happily tank the game at Cardiff to put Brighton in the shit.  Brighton are playing tonight against Spurs so will be good if Mr Pochettino put out a full side and doesn’t rest everybody for their impending Champions League semi-final.

Team news and on the face of it, it’s worrying.  Stephens is playing again and there’s no Valery or Vestergaard so unless it’s a back 4 with Jack at right back, JWP is in defence again.  Before kick off it looks like we are 3 at the back again but Stephens is on the left of the three.  Well that’s better anyway.  Elsewhere, Shane Long is up front as two games in four days was always going to be too much for Danny Ings.

Away we go and… Goal, one-nil to the mighty saints. What the actual fuck?. Watford have taken the kick off back to Cathcart in defence and he has been closed down by Shane Long, smacked the ball against him and it’s landed perfectly for Shane to run through and dink the ball over Foster as he came out. This is not a drill. There was something else magical about this in that Doucoure of all people was stood there with his arm up appealing for handball against Shane. Fuck off you cheating prick. Shane Long, three goals in four games, feckin’ goal machine. Right then, now for the rest of the game.

Watford have a decent chance straight away as they play it out to the wing to Will Hughes. Andre Gray is in the middle, he’s offside and he’s been offside the whole move but they’re allowed to carry on and the ball comes across and Gray shoots, Gunn saves and the ball pops up and Gray can I only head it wide.  In the excitement of the start I haven’t noticed who is referee – It’s Mike Dean.  Great.

Watford have the attacking threat of Gerard Deulofeu, who has been brilliant the past few weeks and scored an absolutely fantastic goal in the FA Cup semi-final. Our concentration goes to shit for a bit and we allow him onto his good right foot, just to the left of centre and he sets the curler off towards the far post and a scrambling Gunn sees it go a couple of feet wide.

It is a very open game and we are finding a lot of space and having a lot of possession in the Watford half of the pitch. Hojbjerg battles well and finds JWP out on the right and his excellent cross in between the defenders and the goalkeeper reaches Shane at the back post and ‘GOOOOAAAAAFUCK’ and the goal machine can’t crane his neck enough and can only had it wide. A good chance, should be 2-0.

Watford I have a guy called Mossina at left back and he is shite. Long bullies him and superbly brings down the ball out of the sky.  On it goes across the goal to Redmond who allows the balls to run across him and again it looks like he’s going to tap it into an empty net but a sprawling Foster gets something on it and the ball pops up and hits the post before going wide. Fucks sake. Should be 2-0, for the second time. From the corner, MayaYoshida gets himself free again but again finds a new way to miss, this time clearly controlling the ball with his arm before playing an airshot.

Surely it’s 2-0 this time as JWP again gets down the wing and again puts over a perfect cross and this time it’s Ryan Bertrand at the back post who meets it but it hits the outside of the post again and goes wide  again. There is an old cliche that you have to score when you are on top otherwise it comes back and bites you in the arse (or something like that).  Good job we have a good record of holding on to 1-0 leads, otherwise I’d be worried.

I mentioned earlier that the referee is Mike Dean and as we approach half time he has managed to do about 40 minutes without doing anything horrendously fucking ridiculous but then Bednarek goes into a tackle against Gray and wins the ball as cleanly as you could possibly win it. There is a slight contact on the follow-through but that’s enough of Mike who gets out his yellow card with clear relish. Fucking idiot.

Half-time and this has been going remarkably well. Watford don’t seem to know how to deal with us at all going forward and the gamble of playing JWP at right-wing back has really worked because he’s done well defensively and still managed to get forward and get over a couple of absolutely brutal crosses which we should’ve made more of. It becomes apparent that Shane’s goal has been timed at 7.69 seconds which is absolutely ridiculous.

Mike Dean is obviously decided that he liked being the centre of attention from little bit before half time so Romeu of course gets booked straight away but not very much at all. Watford have change the shape and are looking the better for it and we nearly have a flashback to last year as Deulofeu attacks on the right and Stephens (who has played well so far) gets a tackle in but the ball get crossed back in and  Doucoure looks like he’s going to score but he makes a complete bollocks of the timing of his jump and the ball ends up getting his arm again but this time he doesn’t execute as well as he did last year and the ball drops down for Gunn to pick up.  It’s enough for me to call him a cheating prick again though.

Subs on with Armstrong being replaced by an 11 year old I don’t recognise.  Oh hang on, Josh Sims has wiped his beard off and goes onto the right wing.  As the half goes on, Romeu commits another couple of fouls so before Mike Dean can really be a twat, Oriol is off to be replaced with the Rock Star Instagram Model.

80 minutes and we’re still causing them all sorts of trouble when we go forward and Long gets the chance to run at the Watford defence on the left hand side and on the edge of the penalty area, Kabasele just brings him down with no other thought in his mind. Mike gets the yellow card right this time and after a lengthy delay for the injury, JWP whips in the free-kick but Foster pushes it away at the near post. Shane has had to go off and Yan Valery has come on, pushing JWP into midfield.

Straight away the new man is in the action, leading the charge out of the defence and skipping past a challenge. Redmond is in the middle and JWP has made up ground on the edge of the box and is unmarked. All Valery has to do is pick him out but he manages to dissect the two of them and the chance is butchered.

It is still looking relatively comfortable as we approach 90 minutes but Watford are ramping up the pressure of it and for the first time we are just beginning to look a little bit ragged. Pareyra gets a shot in from about 10 yards which Gunn is forced to save and though it takes ages and several attempts, we do eventually clear it. Back it comes though and he gets fed out of the right wing. Another cross comes in, a lucky bounce and there is Andre Gray to swing a foot at it and it flies into the roof of the net at the near post. Fuck off.  It’s absolutely ridiculous how we’ve managed to do this.

There is only a little bit of time left but it’s enough time from Mike Dean to make a dick of himself again as Kabasele, clear as you like, is last man up against Redmond and he put two hands on him and shoves him over. Mike has his whistle to his lips and decides that the clearest push ever seen, is not a foul. The only thing that could’ve been more ridiculous is if he’d given a foul and then not given him a second yellow.  Before there’s any more incident and his incompetence is highlighter further, Mike decides he’s had enough.

This is What a Twat Looks Like

Absolutely fucking infuriating. No doubt people will try out the stats about how many points we lost from winning positions and I don’t really care to be honest. What’s the opposite of clinical? Whatever it is then that is us. It’s not that we miss a ridiculous amount of chances but we do manage to butcher an enormous amount of situations where we just a little bit more care or a little bit more quality we would create a situation where we would find it harder to miss the score. How the fuck did we not win this game? It should absolutely have been out of sight at half-time. We get the early goal which is brilliant and because of the way it came about, an absolute bonus and then we spent 45 minutes dominating the game and only forced Foster into one more save. if you look at the game as a whole, we have scored one goal which was lucky and by that I mean that 99 times out of 100 the clearance doesn’t hit Shane and it certainly doesn’t bounce into the perfect place on the pitch for him to run through in score. That said, it was an absolutely brilliant finish from the hurling playing goal machine. 7.69 seconds is a record that you have to think it’s gonna last forever unless someone has a shot straight from the kick-off. I’m not even sure if you can score straight from the kick-off these days with the one touch kick-off now in place but even if you can’t, I guess the only way that Shane’s mark is going to be beaten is by a tap by one player and then the shot by another.

Shane did have a very good game after the seventh second but he should also scored that header and Redmond should also have scored as well and we took the wrong pass and fucked up the opening on numerous occasions. The absolute classic was the Valery one in the second half. A clinical side scores that and wins the game 2-0 and thank you very much.

I think they were excellent performances all round today. I admit that I absolutely groaned when I saw Jack Stephens name on the team sheet but he slotted in on the left hand side at the back three and had what for him was a very solid match. I also thought Armstrong and Romeu were pretty good right throughout the match until they got substituted which in Romeu’s case was to stop him getting sent off.  Has he ever been sent off for Saints? I don’t think he has.

Having started breathing again and calming down, a point at the end of the day is huge in the scheme of things. It puts us six points ahead of Cardiff plus a better goal difference and the last of their three games is Manchester United away and they are basically going to have to win all three of their remaining games to have any chance of overtaking us and that’s assuming we don’t beat Bournemouth or Huddersfield at home. It would have to be truly spectacular for us to finish below Cardiff. This is probably why Ralph didn’t seem overly disappointed at the end of the game as he sees the bigger picture.

Looking even further ahead, Watford are probably going to finish seventh this year and are in the cup final and will qualify for Europe. Do you honestly think they are much better than us? It goes to show that if that is the standard you have to reach to finish seventh then we most certainly should be capable of it next season with Ralph at the helm. The current squad of course needs adding to but I think today gives an indication of exciting times ahead.

The one remaining question at the bottom of the Premier League is whether it is Cardiff or Brighton who go down and Brighton had an agonising 1-0 defeat away at Spurs tonight, only conceding in the 89th minute but the positive is they did complete their sixth consecutive game without scoring a goal.

Saints move on to a home game against Bournemouth on Saturday. Aside from a freak win at Brighton, Bournemouth have been pretty dreadful for the last couple of months and the first questions are being asked about Eddie Howe and whether he can take this Bournemouth team any further. He can do what he fucking likes as long as he starts after Saturday. If we play well then we will win and I’m sure that Ralph will spend the next few days impressing on the players that the job is not yet done.

Footnote: Your truly was a guest on The Ugly Inside Bournemouth Preview show where I chatted about the Watford game without all the 4 letter detail written above. Enjoy.

Premier League Match 34 - Newcastle 3 Southampton 1

Ralph Checking Out Players Who Won't Be Here Next Season

It’s time for the longest away trip of the season as we head to Newcastle United, scene of a very important turning point last season. We were so abysmally fucking terrible -  and I mean worse than any of the other abysmally fucking terrible performance Saints put in under Pellegrino - that the self styled ‘Useless One’ actually got fired straight afterwards. After this of course, Mark Hughes kept us up and if that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have Ralph as a manager now and be going there today, almost safe from relegation for another season.

There was a minor delay in us being safe from relegation during the week when Brighton managed to continue their free-fall towards the Championship by losing at home to Cardiff which means that we are only five points ahead of the Welsh Dead Player Transfer Fee Dodgers. Both Brighton and Cardiff have horrific fixtures to come so in all truth, one, possibly two points will be enough for us.

Rafa Benitez has worked another miracle and kept Newcastle up despite having to deal with the Mike Ashley shit show. Salomon Rondon and Ayoze Pérez get the goals and the signing of Almiron in January has given them a bit of a creative spark which are seen them win enough games to keep themselves above water. Fair play to Benitez and Newcastle fans must be absolutely praying that he is still there next season. They already have the two points that we need so hopefully, like Wolves last week, they really won’t need to win as much as we do.

Ralph’s press conference this week revealed that we have a few walking wounded with Jannick Vestergaard sounding like the most likely not to make this game which will probably mean a return to the 4-2-2-2 formation which to me, would mean that it’s a straight choice between Josh Sims and Stuart Armstrong for the left-wing birth.

When the team was announced it was confirmed that Vestergaard was not fit but also that Yan Valery was not available either so when I first saw the 11 players I thought it was going to be for 2 to 2 with Romeu and Stephens, the two recalled.  I thought this would mean Stephens right back but as the game started to become apparent that JWP was right wingback and we had three central defenders with Bednarek moved to the left and Stephens on the right. Hmmmm… really not sure about this.  Another surprise for me was Mario Lemina being fit enough for a place on the bench.

The early action confirmed The Newcastle were going to attack the JWP/Stephens channel on the right hand side of our defence. Rondon puts Almiron on his way downt he win and his cross is tipped away easily enough by Gunn. Rondon is a huge powerful unit and it worries me seeing Yoshida and Stephens up against him.

We win a corner which Bertrend swings in from the right hand side.  Dubravka the keeper flaps it down but it falls to a Newcastle player  and one big boot forward and nine of our players are out of the game as we again show a horrendously shit approach to keeping the back door shut. Almiron and Rondon are clean through with just JWP back.  As any hard and cynical pro would, JWP just takes him out Almiron about 70 yards from goal with absolutely no interest in the ball at all. It should really be a clear red card but the rules are such that it’s a chance worth taking. Newcastle go nuts, one of their assistants gets sent to the stands and all Newcastle gate is a free-kick 70 yards out and a yellow card for JWP.

We don’t get away with it for long however as Yoshida tries to pass the ball into Hojbjerg in midfield but it’s got flashing blue lights on top of it and a siren is wailing as Hayden steams in and wins the ball which drops to Pérez who is kind of half closed down by Bednarek and Yoshida and he fires it across the goalkeeper and in off the far post. Fucks sake. Totally preventable goal.  Considering that this is a classic Ralph goal - win the ball high and attack quickly – you’d think our defenders would know how to not cough up this type of goal.

Two minutes later had a ball down the JWP/Stephens channel and Rondon delays long enough before crossing to the back post along the ground and Pérez has stolen a march on Bertrand, bounces the ball towards a goal and Gunn has dived early and the ball bounces over the top of him and in. Absolute shite

We have a half chance with an Ings header from a corner straight after that but it really isn’t very much at all and an easy grab for the keeper. JWP’s nightmare on the right continues on the right when he fails to cut out a ball and Almiron takes the piss out of Hojbjerg and Yoshida before the ball ends up with Gunn.  He would have taken the piss out of Stephens but he was nowhere to be seen.  We heed the warning by letting them piss down our right hand side again and Almiron’s low cross finds Rondon at the back post but this time at least, Bertrand is awake enough to chuck himself in the way.

Half time and no doubt Ralph is giving it the big one – at least I hope he is because we’ve been fucking awful.  As the teams re-emerge it becomes obvious that hes not been happy.  Stephens and Sims have been both been utterly non-existent and are replaced with Armstrong and Lemina as we switch to a back four.  Bear this in mind – Ralph has left JWP on at right back when he’s on a yellow card, rather than put Stephens there.  The change around is instant with Armstrong immediately bustling past two players in the Newcastle area and crossing low, causing a bit of panic and we win a corner.  In it comes and Yoshida meets it well but flicks it wide when he really should’ve scored.

Though we are the better side now, Newcastle are still creating the better chances as again they go down our right hand side and pull the ball back to Ki who smashed one at the far post and luckily for us he manages to be very accurate and hit the far post and it pings across and out. Would be good if someone could actually fucking close him down.

At the other end of the pitch, Lemina then shows we can do as Redmond breaks away down our right and crosses along the top of the penalty area to Armstrong. His touch bounces down and Lemina, striding forward takes a touch before side footing superbly into the far corner of the net. Brilliant finish and despite being a bit of a shambles, maybe we can get something out of this after all.  Game on!

Mario gets changed during the game and posts his goal on Instagram

Then the moment when a clinical side would have equalised. Redmond recycles a corner and chips back in for Yoshida to volley left footed.  He’s only 6 yards out and has a free shot but it flies narrowly over the bar.

You sense that that might be our best chance to get a point disappearing over the bar because we’re still defending horrifically as JWP, now an orthodox right back loses a ball which gets knocked forward and then Bednarek manages to fuck up, kicking the ball against Atsu. The ball runs out for a goalkick…. I mean it’s a good yard over the line but Atsu gets the cross over from Row C of the fucking stand, it gets weakly headed out by Bertrand to the edge of the box. Hayden smashes it goalwards and it flicks off a defender and Angus Gunn makes an incredible save one-handed whilst going the wrong way.  Somehow we are still in this.

Time is running out though and with a couple of minutes to go, a cross is chipped in to our box and Bednarek makes a total bollocks of the header and puts it straight into the centre of the penalty area where it’s headed back in by Ritchie and Pérez neatly deflects it past Gunn for 3-1, game over and a hat-trick.

We still have one more chance with Yoshida again meeting a corner with a header from less than 5 yards but again put it too close to the goalkeeper who saved relatively comfortably. The End.

Maya - Deadly at Our End of the Pitch, not So Much at Theirs

I found this to be a really annoying defeat going to prove a couple of old adages in that you can’t give any team two goal start and you can’t get things completely wrong for 45 minutes and expect to get away with it if you’re team like Southampton.  I feel that Ralph got this one wrong with both the formation and the personnel from the start.  Bringing Jack Stephens into the side wasn’t the worst decision in the world but disrupting the normal back three but moving Bednarek to the left was where the problem lies. This was made worse by the fact that Yan Valery wasn’t playing so having JWP as wingback not only moved him out of his most effective position but also meant you had two players covering our right hand side, one out of position and one in really bad form and good manager like Benitez is going to know that which is why Rondon played primarily done that channel the whole game.  Earlier on in the season, Ralph was praising Stephens communication from the central position of the three so surely a better way would’ve been to play Bednarek right, Stephens central and Yoshida left. Even better you could go in with the attitude of knowing that Stephens is it gonna struggle with every position so you may as well just disrupt the rest of the team as little as possible and play Stephens on the left.

Ralph decided to go for a very attack minded 5-2-3 formation in the first half but Romeu and Hojbjerg got swamped and Sims did absolutely nothing with Redmond and Ings struggling with very little possession. With Stephens and Sims replaced with Lemina and Armstrong, we became the better side instantly and if we’ve been more clinical with our chances then we may have even got out of the game with a point. We are not clinical though so giving someone a 2-0 start as I was going to be majorly difficult to come back from. We were still coughing up chances of the other end in the second half and I never really felt that we were going to get back into it.

You can’t really say it was totally down to the formation - there was some fucking dreadful individual defending out there. You can point fingers at Yoshida and Bednarek for the first goal, at Stephens, Bertrand and Gunn for the second and at Bednarek once again on the third goal. Since when did heading the ball clear to the edge of the box dead central, become a thing. We must’ve done that about four times yesterday and it resulted in the third goal and if it wasn’t for that unbelievable save from Gunn there would’ve been another.

Mario Lemina showed exactly what a class act he can be with his goal and if he fancies it (which is always the case with Mario) then he will be a real asset until the end of the season, perhaps giving us a more mobile, more forward thinking alternative in the centre of the park.

No matter how patchily we played, we were beaten by the better side and Newcastle were decent and  I can only hope for their sake as I said before, that Benitez stays. He won’t win manager of the season of course because that will always go to a Guardiola or a Klopp but he is in the conversation for sure.  The spine of the team is very good with Dubravka, Schar, Lascelles, Hayden, Rondon and Perez. Add to that the hard work on the wings of Almiron and Ritchie and a couple of decent solid full backs and there is a very efficient side there.  Technically not the best but a decent side.  It’s not a disgrace to lose them as St James Park but it’s just disappointing that we only played 45 minutes.

So, work still to do, starting with a trip to Watford in mid-week.  No need to panic but we do need to get this done as soon as possible. Ralph got it wrong today and I’m sure he’ll admit that to himself and will correct it for Watford.  He got it wrong earlier in the season against Cardiff at home and we responded well soon after.  Bring it on.

Premier League Match 33 - Southampton 3 Wolves 1

Fecking Goal Machine !!

It’s a big day in the scheme of things. Win today and I feel that we are virtually there and we can start planning for next season. A win for Cardiff at Burnley, coupled with us not winning would certainly make it a bit squeaky still. The good news is, that Ralph is certainly not going to let up at all until we are over the proverbial line and I can’t imagine he will even when we are over the proverbial line.

A quiet week with the press conference revealing only that Mario Lemina is still injured, so badly that it's restricted him to 15 Instagram posts a day. We have seen the last of him in a Saints shirt I’ll wager.  Great player when he wants to be but there you go.

And then on Friday it was announced that Ralph Krueger was leaving with his contract not being renewed at the end of the season and vice chairman Martin Semmens standing in in the meantime before restructuring commences in the summer. I think that in the main Krueger is done a decent job bearing in mind what a chairman is supposed to do and in particular, what he was supposed to do, increase revenue and look after and implement the culture and philosophy of the football club. Some of the Motivational Hockey Guy shit we could’ve done without but at the end of the day he was a positive force and I would say his only real major failing was leaving Les Reed in place for too long at the start of the season.

There seems to have been a bit of a nasty triumphalism about him leaving which I don’t like. Any change brings with it the possibility of a negative impact and with the club going in the right direction at the moment it has to be at least a slight concern that there may be a negative impact with Ralph Hasenhuttl and maybe the summer uncertainty causing problems with incoming and outgoing transfers. If I had to put money on it, I would say that there won’t be a negative impact but you do have to bear in mind that there’s a bit of doubt before you hang out the flags and start shouting ‘bring back Cortese’ from the rooftops.

Today’s visitors are Wolverhampton Wanderers, fresh from tossing away a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go in the FA Cup semi-final last week. In the main, they have had a brilliant season and deserved to get to the FA Cup final but two late Watford goals meant that the manager, Nuno Espirito Santo had made the school boy error of taking off two of his best players before conceding a last-minute equaliser so he then had to play extra time with a weakened side. It’ll be interesting to see how they react because all their eggs were very much in the FA Cup basket and they really have nothing to play for in the league. Hopefully, they will be in beach mode. They do have some standout players though with Joao Mourinho and Ruben Neves in particular, catching the eye in midfield. The defence, marshalled by Connor Coady has been decent and Raul Jimenez, on loan this season has been signed up for next season for a cost of £30 million quid.

Bloody hell – Ralph is going for it, no Romeu in midfield and Josh Sims from the start.  Cojones.  Danny Ings is back so Shane Goal Machine reverts to the bench.

Away we go and Hojbjerg picks up a Boly header out and chips it down the line to Sims who races into the gap vacated by the central defender and crosses low to wear Redmond, dancing in front of Saiss, gets a foot in and pokes it past Patricio into the roof of the net and fuck me, we are ahead after about a minute and a half.  It’s just like the Mark Hughes days isn’t it not.

We are leaving three players upfront at all times and this is forcing Wolves into mistakes with Boly presenting the ball to Valery and via Ings to Redmond who, full of confidence, tries his luck but it comfortably curled into Patricio’s mid-riff.  Where going to gets difficult is when Wolves get the ball into the three players in midfield who are outnumbering Hojbjerg and JWP. Hojbjerg gives the ball away to Jimenez but Saints get all around him quickly as he takes ages before getting away a shot which Gunn saves easily.

Wolves are on top but only really look dangerous from set pieces which are devilishly swung in by Joao Moutinho. We get away with one or two without ever looking confident but another corner is swung over and there is Willy Boly to thump in a free header who got away from his marker and met the ball just in front of our three centre backs who were nicely lined up marking their zones along the edge of the 6 yard box and generally not doing anything. Fuck it!

I don’t know what Ralph has done but we always used to be this side that responded to setbacks by immediately creating another one for ourselves. Strange shit is going on and virtually from the kick-off it goes back to Bednarek who knocks it forward to Sims, into Ings and he slotted through to Redmond who dinks the keeper and a minute and a half after conceding, we are 2-1 up.

The game should be over in the next few minutes as Ruben Neves give the ball straight to Sims who has a choice between shooting and playing Ings through for an open goal and he doesn’t do either and the ball dribbles apologetically wide to the left. A minute later and Wolves are trying to play out of defence but JWP wins a tackle, passes to Ings who put Sims through again with just the keeper to beat and this time he totally fucks up even more and it goes wide of the other post.

That’s the last significant action of what has been a very strange first half. Wolves have looked a very good side but we should be winning 4-1.

The start of the second-half is fairly even with Wolves having the majority of the ball and Saints being content to defend deep and try and hit them on the break. After 15 minutes or so though we are beginning to creak so it’s time to bolster things somewhat with Romeu coming on for Sims. Danny Ings has got through another hour without getting injured so it’s time to be happy with this contribution for the day and on comes Shane Goal Machine Long.

It takes a while for these changes to have the desired affect as Wolves have a couple of chances… well I call them chances in the loosest way as Jota’s spin and lash ended up in row Z near the corner flag and then Jimenez does even better with a free volley from 8 yards which he belts out for a throw-in. The latter chance had resulted from a classic bit of non-communication between Yoshida and Vestergaard which resulted in Maya just heading the ball straight up in the air.

Redmond is again the man to get us on the front foot as he sprints past two players before winning a corner. The corner is delivered by JWP and Vestergaard gets bundled over. In the chaos that followed, Yoshida tries an overhead kick which gets blocked back to him and he manages to poke it goalwards a second time whilst sitting on his arse. Shane Long is loitering in his normal position of offside and turns it into the net first time past Patricio only this time he is not offside as Traore has dozed off on the post and not pushed out at all. 3-1 and Shane scores for the second game in a row - Goal Machine.

Wolves are a big side and are really dangerous when they get a corner at the other end but they are fucking hopeless at defending corners. In comes another from JWP, carnage, Romeu shoots and Yoshida connects from point blank range only to see Patricio pull off a fabulous save. The ball falls to Vestergaard who tries to dribble past couple of players in a tight space with predictable comedic results. Vestergaard was actually clipped by one of the Wolves players but if he had gone down it would’ve looked so bloody awkward that there was no way he would’ve been given a penalty by fat John Moss who was probably 40 yards away.

Ten to go and Stephens is on for Valery, who has been carrying a knock for the last five minutes so I guess Ralph trusts Jack not to throw two goals in the time that remains. There is no danger of having any extra injury time when John Moss is referee so with the bunter about to have a heart attack, he blows the final whistle.

Get in, another three points towards the target and to make things even more fabulous, Cardiff lost away at Burnley. Apparently they got given a penalty which was then over ruled so imagine Colin Wanker throwing another absolute shit fit as we speak. Brighton also continued their plummet towards the danger zone with a very closely fought 0-5 home defeat by fucking Bournemouth. Admittedly, three of the goals were after arch knobhead Anthony Knockaert had got sent off for the most ridiculous late challenge. You could argue that the late challenge was against Adam Smith so he probably deserved it but Knockaert will miss the season defining game at the Amex between Brighton and Cardiff on Wednesday. Can they both lose?

Ridiculously, today was almost a run-of-the-mill victory. There was almost an expectancy to win and we turned up and did the job. Of course it is not as simple as that. I think that Ralph Hasenhuttl must have special trousers because he has balls the size of watermelons. Matching up three strikers against Wolves back three and therefore conceding a player in midfield was an incredibly bold move but it paid off within a minute and a half of the start of the game. Not only that, it continued to give Wolves defensive nightmares throughout the first half to such a degree that we should’ve been about three goals in front by half-time. Sure, we conceded a lot of possession in midfield but the five defensive players held firm and apart from their goal which was a bog standard header from a corner, but didn’t create too much to worry Angus Gunn in goal. By the time Ralph did bring Romeu to stiffen up the midfield, Wolves had had enough and the semi-final defeat they had last week seemed to come back to haunt them a little bit in that it all got a little bit too difficult and they just wanted the season to end….. and what is going on when Shane long comes off the bench, scores and puts in what you could describe as the perfect cameo performance. Goal machine.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Your Player of the Season

Talking of goal machines, Nathan Redmond was brilliant today, totally deserving his two goals in yet another man of the match performance. Both goals were great with the dinked finish for the second goal being the better team goal due to the contribution of Sims and Ings but the first goal is a superb strikers goal nipping in front of the defender at the near post to meet across coming in from Sims. Fabulous goal.

The two that had the toughest job today were Hojbjerg and JWP who had to compete against the very decent Wolves midfield three of Dendoncker, Moutinho and Neves. Personally, I think if you’re going to play only two central midfielders then it needs to be Hojbjerg and Romeu but you can trust JWP to put tackles in now where is you couldn’t last year and he’s also much more disciplined positionally.

Unsung heroes today were our full backs. Bertrand and Valery knew they were going to have to do a little bit more defending than usual today because of the lack of numbers in midfield but when they needed to, they dropped alongside the centre backs and got in touch with Vestergaard on the left and Bednarek on the right to mean that Wolves hardly had a shot of note. This is a marked contrast to the Wolves wing-backs who basically left their back three on their own when they were clearly struggling against our three strikers.

Talking of whom, Ings is slowly getting back to his best and hopefully can stay fit to the end of the season and if Sims had finished either one of the two clear-cut chances that he had straight after we went 2-1 in front then he would’ve been rivalling Redmond for man of the match. Sims won’t be a first choice player just yet but playing those three is another tactical ploy that Ralph can use. The player I feel sorry for is Stuart Armstrong who has seen JWP overtake him in the pecking order and now it appears that Sims is ahead of him regarding one of the wide roles if we decide to play that way.

Next up is Newcastle and Watford Away And with us on 36 points, it should be the target to get four points from these two games and get to 40. We won’t need 40 to stay up because with the best will in the world Cardiff are getting 37 at an absolute maximum. After a decent win at Leicester last week Newcastle are safe so hopefully they will be on the beach and we should have a decent chance of exercising the ghost of the absolutely fucking abysmal 3-0 defeat we suffered there last year.

After the players and Ralph are done the celebrations at both ends of the pitch, it was great to be walking out of the ground and looking around and seeing smiles on everyone’s faces. Long may it continue. If we had persevered with Mark Hughes or if not got the appointment right after we sacked him then we would be right down where Cardiff are, if not worse. As it is, we can actually plan for another season. Barring a complete collapse, it’s about looking upwards and climbing a few places up the table to win as much prize money towards next years warchest as possible. And there’s always next season under Ralph to look forward to.

In the week where Ralph Krueger left the club, it’s a case of “The Ralph is dead, long live the Ralph”

Premier League Match 32 - Southampton 1 Liverpool 3

5 Letters - Starts With C, Ends in S.

I’m sure we’ve had a home game on a Friday night before but I can’t remember when it was. It’s a stupid time to play football but this is where we are these days. The only thing that is apprising about this is that we are at home as usually it’s not the big club’s who have to travel when the traffic is at its most horrendous.

After the fabulous win at Brighton at the weekend, it has been relatively quiet but today we have to solve the conundrum of what to do without Danny Ings who of course it’s technically on loan from Liverpool so he will not be able to play tonight. When I say technically - that is all it is. When he got injured last time they seem to be a narrative that we had some sort of get-out clause but I’m pretty sure the loan was just an accounting trick. I do wonder what has happened with Mario Lemina. I did expect him to play some sort of role against Brighton and it wouldn’t be a surprise to me if he re-emerged for this game as it’s another shop-window game against a huge club with the game being on the telly. To be fair, he had been playing pretty well this season until the injury which has restricted him to 15 Instagram posts per day.

Oh Liverpool. The history, the fans, the fast paced beautiful football. What a bunch of wankers you are. It is quite something that usually you would want the team that had won the league for 30 years to win it and break the status quo but this is Liverpool. Normally, you wouldn’t want Manchester City, a club funded by a country, to be winning everything but I’d honestly take Manchester City to win absolutely everything rather than Liverpool win anything at all. Can’t stand them. Part of it is growing up in the 70s and 80s when they won everything but that was all a very long time ago. Now it’s down to the way the club behaves, the manager, the fans and their superiority complex but mainly, in the media saturation age that we live in, it’s their over-presence in said media.  Everything has to be about them in some way.  Ralph Hasenhuttl– The Alpine Klopp…. Fuck off!

As recently as last Sunday, Sky put Jamie Carragher the most dyed in the wool Liverpool fan you could ever find, as co-commentator for their game against Tottenham. It’s not Jamie‘s fault but it seems to be lost on the powers that be that not everyone wants Liverpool to win. When it was Leicester chasing the title then fair enough, 99% of the country was behind them but this is very different. Needless to say, Jamie nearly shat himself with excitement when Liverpool scored the winner.  This game is on Sky tonight, Carragher is on commentary and I’m glad I’m in the ground so I don’t have to listen to him.

Again we have to talk about our former players with Virgil Van Dijk returning. Virgil has of course become the best defender in the world since he left Southampton for a world record fee for a defender. Sadio Mané is the guy scoring the vast majority of their goals at the moment but it is nice to be able to look at the spectacular failure of Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren in their attempts to get anywhere near the first team at Anfield.  There seems to be some confusion amongst Liverpool fans as to why we boo ‘all’ our ex-players when they rewarded us some handsomely when they bought them.  It’s this simple – Lovren, Lallana, Van Dijk went on strike, Lambert, Clyne and Mané didn’t.  The first group get booed, the second never did.

If I look at Liverpool generally then they have a very good defence and goalkeeper, a very dangerous attack and a very iffy midfield. Midfield of course is our strong area and if we are going to get anything out of this game then this is where we need to make it count. I’m fully expecting Ralph to play a variation of the 5-3-2 formation with Armstrong and Redmond the furthest forward and not do what Hughes did at Anfield which was to pathetically play Vestergaard and Hoedt 1v1 against Salah and Mane with crushingly predictable results. The last few games against Liverpool have been a shambles from Southampton point of view in that we have been out of the game after about 20 minutes so pretty much anything will be an improvement on that.

Shane Long is starting.  OK.  Vestergaard is back with Armstrong being unlucky to miss out and Ings has been replaced with Shane Long.  Did I say that Shane Long was starting?  Shane... starting.  OK.  Liverpool look ridiculously strong and even their midfield looks decent with Fabinho in with Wijnaldum and Keita.  Lovren is on the bench and Lallana is nowhere to be seen.  Is he injured or has he bottled it again? They are dressed in purple.

After five minutes of chasing the ball around as the purple helmets kept to themselves, we finally get hold of it and Vestergaard finds himself in midfield. He passes to Ryan Bertrand who chips it across and Hojbjberg has run untracked from midfield. He flicks it on with his head and a Saints player takes it down with one touch and buries it. Fucking hell, SHAAAAAAAAANE. St Mary’s absolutely erupts with a mixture of jubilation and possibly laughter. Six minutes gone, 1-0 up and probably 89 minutes to hang on.

It appears that we have them slightly rattled. The next big chance is ours as Trent Alexander Arnold has his clearance blocked by Redmond. Redmond sends Bertrand away down the wing and he fires over a low first time cross. It is perfect for Long and all he has to do is connect but we get an air shot. It was really too much to ask. If there was a football God or if karma was a thing, then van Dijk would’ve sliced his subsequent clearance into his own net instead of narrowly over the bar.

Half an hour gone and Liverpool and Liverpool haven't looks like scoring and they get a linesman assisted equaliser which seems to have happened a hell of a lot this season. The original ball to the right hand side to Salah finds the Egyptian looking absolutely miles offside but the fat twat with the flag doesn’t raise it. Salah crosses, we half clear it, and it comes from the other side and Salah tries to win a penalty with a horrendous dive. When he realizes that he is not going to get a penalty he is up again. The cross comes back in from Alexander Arnold and it looks like Bednarek is going to head it clear that he does what can only be described as a Stephens and gets under it and Keita, all 5 foot nothing of him scores with a header at the back post which Gunn really should’ve kept out. Bollocks. Yes the move should’ve been stopped at source by linesman’s flag but we have got to defend better than that.

The rest of the half is like the start of the game with Liverpool having possession and us dropping deep and soaking it up.  We are relatively comfortable and reach the break level and the opening 10 of the second half is fairly even but you can see that Liverpool’s pressure is beginning to tell and we start looking a bit tired all of a sudden.  With Liverpool ramping up the pressure, Yoshida goes from one of those horrible slide tackles where he is nowhere near the ball and over goes Mané. The referee has decided rightly or wrongly that Mané has dived but then doesn’t book him? What the fuck is that all about?  For what it’s worth, I’ve seen it about 4 times and if you watch it thinking ‘dive’ then it looks like a dive.  If you watch it thinking ‘foul’ then it looks like a clear foul.  Two things are undeniable, we got a bit lucky and the referee is shit.

The hour mark sees the clearly tiring Long replaced with Sims which is a bit of a surprise and Liverpool bring on Henderson and Milner for Alexander-Arnold and Wijnaldum.  There is more fucking bizarre officiating from the fat twat lino and Paul Tierney when van Dijk mistimes a header and falls over JWP.  The linesman flagged for a foul (by one or the other) and the ref waved play on, thus indicating that it wasn’t a foul by either.  The flag goes down and the ball goes to Sims and van Dijk is pretending to be injured so the lino flags again and Tierney stops the game and gives Liverpool a free kick.  This isn’t a situation where he’s stopped it for an injury and Liverpool are to give us the ball back.  He’s just given them a free kick.  Why?... because he’s a clueless fucker.  Surprisingly, van Dijk is ok.  5 letter word, starts with C, ends in S.

Saints have gone into shithouse mode and are wasting time at every opportunity.  Ryan Bertrand is chief shithouse but even with all this – time is passing very slowly.  I look up, hoping for it to be 89 minutes but it’s on 79 but Saints have a corner after Redmond has a dart at Matip so you never know.  In it comes – another corner the other side.  In it comes, Sims on the edge of the box helps it on and it’s cleared as Henderson finds Salah.  Oh fuck.  He’s still got about 60 yards to go but we’ve over committed and only got one back.  Bertrand is backing off and you know that Salah is not going to pass it. If you try and tackle him he’s either going to skip past you or dive and get you sent off. On he goes – take him out for fucks sake!!! – bang, goal, fuck off!  Cue Liverpool fans to sing for three minutes and all the Plastic Scousers in the home ares to give themselves away. 5 letter word, starts with C, ends in S.

Ralph chucks on a couple more subs in desperation with Austin and Armstrong coming on for Vestergaard and Romeu. This gives us nothing going forward and just leaves us open at the back and the excellent Firmino (by far Liverpool’s best player today) does brilliantly down the right hand side before crossing into the middle where Henderson arrives and puts the game beyond any doubt at all. Bollocks.  Look they’ve brought a flare. 5 letter word, starts with C, ends in S.  Talking of that, there is time for some top trolling by Klopp when he brings on Lovren for the last few minutes.  It’s nearly gardening season again Dejan.

Bollocks. Disappointing but at the end of the day, head held high. We did alright. We competed really well for 80 minutes but the bottom line is that they are on a completely different level to us and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. This is a very good Liverpool side and to be honest, the fact that they are anywhere near Manchester City tells you all you need to know on that score.  They didn’t need any help from the officials but they got it anyway - with the offside in the build up to the equaliser and as with the game at Manchester United, it’s all the little decisions they get that either stop your attacks or enable them to pour forward with the bizarre van Dijk, JWP incident illustrating this perfectly.   Paul Tierney was ably supported by the fat useless linesman who failed to flag Salah offside in the build-up to the 1^st goal.  An interesting thing that emerged afterwards was that even though it was offside, VAR would still have given the goal as the offside was too far back in the play and we had chances to clear it.  OK, I get that you can’t go back too far but it was the same attack.  We got one touch on the ball after the offside and that was a half header by Valery.  Are they saying that if Valery had nodded it out for a corner we would then have got the offside decision?  Utter bullshit.

It’s funny, I was quite disappointed when I left the ground and I kind of thought at the time that we hadn’t done particularly well but I think I was projecting my disappointment at the fact that we did not put a dent in their title challenge. They are fucking wankers and it would’ve been beautiful but never mind, it was always a long shot. Being hyper-critical, some players that have been playing well recently, didn’t really do it today with Bednarek in particular having a game he will want to forget. Many a defender will have my nightmares against Sadio Mané and Bednarek is just the latest of a long line. He will feel that he could’ve done better on the first goal and from then on looked fairly awkward but he will come again I’m sure. Hojbjerg and Romeu were brilliant in the first half but in the second, they got over run a bit despite digging in strongly. JWP wasn’t great today and Redmond had a game where he looked good in flashes but flattered to deceive a bit. Long had a good first half but faded badly in the second until substituted. Sims didn’t do much when he came on and maybe in hindsight, Austin or Gallagher would have been a better bet though Austin was crap when he came on. I thought this the last time we played Liverpool that van Dijk is superb and he just strolls through the game but we just let him.  We never really put him under any pressure. Why don’t we have a try knocking him about a bit. Austin had a couple of opportunities late in the game but just didn’t do it. At least if Gallagher would come on then he would’ve actually had to compete against someone in the air.

The defending wasn’t great today on the first two goals though Vestergaard and Yoshida in particular had good games.  As I’ve said before, the first goal should’ve been stopped at source by the lino’s flag but we had chances to clear it and didn’t manage it and ended with Bednarek getting out jumped by a midget. The second goal is a goal that we have let in too many times where we have an attack or a corner it gets cleared and the other team go straight up our end of the pitch and score. It happened in the last home game against Tottenham and it happened again today. The third goal was irrelevant because we had taken a defender off at this point and will chasing the game and a good sides more often than not, will punish you.

Some good context was given after the game by Ryan Bertrand who basically pointed out that Southampton are now a team and give anybody a game and feel like they have a chance in every game. This is a seismic shift to what we have seen pre-Ralph and certainly a change from the last few games against Liverpool where we’ve been dead after 20 minutes.

Now we’re back in 5 letter word territory - the amount of away fans in the home areas does my fucking head in. About ten rows down from where I was sitting, in the Family section, was a kid of about 15 or 16 who actually had his Liverpool shirt held above his head when the third goal went in. I’m kind of glad that he wasn’t directly in front of me. The stewarding in the main is pretty hopeless. They rely on the fact that Saints fans know but if they kick off and slap a couple of Plastic Scousers, then they are probably going to get banned from the ground. Nothing winds up football supporters more than away fans being in the home end. Everybody has done it on occasions, I even did it at Fratton Park once but you don’t wear your colours and you don’t make any fucking noise.  I guess the problem is that the stewards are not trained and they probably get paid very little so they are probably thinking why the fuck should I pile in there and potentially get a slap myself. With the money in football these days at Premier League level, this shouldn’t happen.  Also – any Saints fan who has enabled an away fan to get in the home end should have their season ticket withdrawn for a few games or something.

On the walk back to the car I had to listen to a lot of Liverpool fans with southern accents, tunelessly singing “Mo Salah flying down the wing”. It just reinforced my attitude that I want anyone other than Liverpool to win the league.  Five letter word, starts with C, ends with S.