All Aboard The Ralph Ex.... fuck!
Opening day of the season and we get into it with much optimism. Pre-season appears to have gone very well, the results are good and Ralph Hasenhuttl is at the helm the whole season.
Transfer deadline day had a couple of bits of news with an incoming centre back in it, Kevin Danso from Augsburg. He played against us in a friendly at the beginning of last season when we got hammered and were shite but he must have been impressed. I was impressed... it was the game that told me never to go to another pre-season friendly, ever. I don’t know too much about him other than the obvious which is that he is an absolute unit. Reports say that he has a turn of pace and is dominant in the air so it all sounds good. It appears that we have signed him in the way that we signed Danny Ings in that it’s a loan deal to be finalised at the end of the season. It sounds like Danso lived in England as a youngster so with any luck, will not have any of the usual problems settling in. Fingers crossed he is the man to sort out one remaining problem area of our team.
Squeezing through the exit door on deadline day was Charlie Austin. Charlie had had a few good moments in his Saints career, a little run of goals under Claude at the start of that season and a similar little run under Pellegrino which was curtailed by a hamstring injury at home to Huddersfield. Since that moment, he has never been the same player, looking unfit and reluctant to run at any pace faster than a jog, probably fearing another hamstring tear. In some games he looked like the rough diamond former non-league Jamie Vardy type player who we thought we’d signed but in other games he resembled a hologram or a man staggering through an empty bar in search of a kebab shop at two in the morning. The Premier League is not made for players like Charlie Austin any more. For starters, you need to have two upfront with the other one being the player who is happy to do all the running. He will do well at West Brom if he has this kind of set up and good luck to him. I wish him well but I am glad that we have finally got him off the books.
So, Burnley away and if there’s one thing you know for sure is that you’re going to be facing 4-4-2 with two massive units up front, most likely Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes who will have no doubt spent the summer perfecting his bulldog licking piss off a stinging nettle face which he saves up specifically for the linesman. They’ve made a couple of decent signings on the face of it with Jay Rodriguez and Danny Drinkwater being the two that stand out. The manager is of course unchanged so it will be Sean Allardyche in the opposite dugout to Ralph.
The first team sheet of the season and what the fuck? I just don’t get it we now have six central defenders on the books and Jack Stephens is easily sixth in that list and yet there he is in the starting lineup. A central defender who cannot head the ball and cannot win any aerial challenge against a team who are going to play exactly that way. I just don’t get it. Alongside him are the expected Bednarek and Vestergaard with Bertrand and Valery in the fullback positions. News also emerged that Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg had been taken ill on the journey up to Burnley so he was only fit to be a substitute so Oriol Romeu started alongside JWP in midfield. The front three of Adams, Ings and Redmond was all present and correct. Not overly confident I have to say. The start of the football season has been greeted by the weather gods having a laugh up-and-down the country but particularly in Burnley where it is pissing down and blowing a gale.
How are we go and we create a really decent chance with JWP switching the ball from left to right out to Valery and his cross along the 6 yard line was met at the back post by Adams who went with the wrong foot And can only hit the side netting. Decent opening though.
Out first defensive test was when the ball was played over the top and Stephens was casually taking his time until he decided to fall on his arse for no readily apparent reason, allowing Barnes to cross for Wood to score. No alarm though cos the linesman’s flag had gone up as soon as Barnes had moved towards the ball but this season of course, we have VAR. Barnes had a minute to decide whether to go into full puce rage face or not but the picture showed that he was indeed offside from the original pass so Stephens completely got out of jail there so that’s one defender who will certainly be in favour of VAR.
Che Adams then gets away with a bit of a naughty one on Ben Mee as he leaves a bit in the Burnley defender. VAR again and it looks grim on the pictures, especially when slowed down but nothing doing and no red card.
Just before half-time Redmond chased an over hit ball into the corner and managed to take on and beat Lowton and work his way back to the top edge of the box before firing a shot that Pope had to tip over the bar. Brilliant effort from a player who looks to be carrying last seasons form into this term.
Not a bad first half and 0-0.
The second half starts quite well with ex-Saint Jack Cork continuing to be allowed to foul at will, trashing Ings on the edge of the box and not getting booked again. JWP...
The 60 minutes we had been relatively comfortable defensively where even if we lost the first challenge then someone was always sweeping up behind to pick up the loose ball and in general things are working pretty well... but quicker than you can say “massive fucking hoof up in the air“, Vestergaard is under it and makes a right bollocks of a huge punt forward and Barnes is away and in on goal, smashes it early and it goes straight through Angus Gunn’s legs and into the net for 1-0. Fuck off. To be fair, he has taken it absolutely brilliantly but it’s a disaster for Vestergaard and it’s almost as bad from the goalkeeper.
We respond to the setback by completely going to shit with McNeil finding space down our right and whipping over a really good ball behind the defence and there is Ashley Barnes, totally unmarked, to side foot into the net, 2-0, game over. Old habits die hard. Five defenders and we allow the cross to come in and no one thinks to mark the fucking massive 6 foot 3 centre forward. Dogshit.
Just pride to play for now lads and five minutes later, another aerial challenge to win and Vestergaard half wins it and flops the ball down towards Bertrand who gets caught on his heels. Gudmundsson gets the ball of him and marches on unopposed into the penalty area to slide past the unprotected goalkeeper. Absolutely wank.
We’ve made three subs with Obafemi, Boufal and Hojbjerg all coming on but it’s all pointless as the game has gone. Optimism bubble deflated a tad.
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter how well coached you are, how good your pre-season was, how good your manager is, or how good your tactics are, if you go 1-0 behind to a shit goal, a certain amount of it is going to come down to good old-fashioned heart and guts which cannot be coached as you either have it in your make up or you don’t. We didn’t have heart or guts in the face of adversity today, we just gave up.
For an hour so we did pretty well against the predictable aerial bombardment in the wind and pissing rain but once we went behind it all went to shit and all things that have been serving is relatively well until that point, just when out the window.
To be honest I don’t think that three at the back was the problem as I believe it’s the right thing to do to pick up the knockdowns off of the huge strikers that Burnley have. The problem appeared to be only having two in midfield which enabled Burnley more often than not to retain possession after they launched the ball forward.
With is having such an emphasis on pressing the ball and winning it high up, Burnley away in the wind the pissing rain was always going to be very tough for us and I felt that a point was always going to be the maximum we were going to get today. We were well on course for that and looking the better side until Vestergaard’s ridiculous misjudgement which gifted then the first goal. Fair play to Barnes as he took it excellently but you couldn’t get a more typical goal in a Burnley versus Saints game if you tried. Massive hoof up in the air, mistake by one of our defenders and Ashley Barnes scores. When you play three at the back, the idea it’s the 2 to pick up and want to go spare, so how the fuck Ashley Barnes can be left on his own to score the second goal is absolutely criminal. Fingers have to be pointed at Vestergaard again who was in the vicinity but not marking the striker. Goal 3 also came down that channel with Vestergaard nodding the ball down to Bertrand who didn’t want to win it as much as Gudmundsson did and he strolled on and scored easily. Not enough basic desire from the goalkeeper and defenders to keep the ball out of the fucking net.
It was a bad day. Every little thing seem to play into Burnley’s hands today and none of this is their fault of course. Hojbjerg not being able to start was huge for us and even the fucking weather, with wind and pissing rain suited them a lot more than it did us. I sound a bit like Juergen Klopp there. Ralph sounded totally pissed off in his post match press conference and so he should. Not a great day for the big man.
You can argue whether we played the ‘right’ way or not but as I’ve said on many occasions, I would rather watch my team trying to play the right way and getting beat, rather than watch a team that just sends it long at every opportunity. It’s nothing new as it’s exactly what Wimbledon were doing in the 90s and Stoke were doing under Tony Pulis a few years ago. Sooner or later for whatever reason, usually a need to ‘push on’, you have to change your identity a little bit, like Stoke tried to do under Mark Hughes (ironically) and then you find the players you have can’t do it and you end up getting relegated. The funny thing is that a lot of noise has been made by Saints saying that they wanna be horrible to play against and I guess we probably were for an hour but after that we were very very easy to play against as we couldn’t cope with the most basic football tactics ever invented. Again it’s old fashioned but you have to fight for your right to play your football.
So, one game and zero points and next up… Liverpool at home. Tremendous.
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