Premier League Match 8 - Southampton 1 Chelsea 4

Goal Line Technology Confirms That Gunn is Nowhere Near the Fucking Goal Line

Frank Lampard is the new Chelsea manager in case you didn’t know. You do know this of course because the media love a little bit of Frank Lampard and to be honest, I quite like him as well and I hope he makes a success of the job. The trouble with Frank making a success of the job would be having to put up with Chelsea as one of the top teams again but that’s better than having Liverpool up there. On the subject of Liverpool, it’s interesting that Chelsea got punished for basically, breaches of rules in signing young players and were banned from signing any players for two transfer windows whereas Liverpool can break every tapping out rule in the book a few times and get nothing. Liverpool can also play an unregistered player in a cup game and get fined half of one players’ wages for a week.

Anyway, Chelsea’s transfer ban has been used as a convenient “woe is us’ reason for them to actually blood some of the young players they have at the club rather than loan them out all over the world. Yes the strategy has been shaped a bit by the transfer ban but all it has in fact done is made in Chelsea act like a proper football club and have a squad of promising youngsters mixed with experienced talent. Having said that, Frank has gone above and beyond with Tammy Abraham getting regular games ahead of Olivier Giroud, Mason Mount being a fixture in the midfield and Fiyako Tomori in defence. In addition to that, Callum Hudson-Odoi will no doubt get regular games ahead of the likes of Pedro when he gets fully fit. The reason I’m slightly cynical when people talk of Chelsea just taking their punishment on the chin and moving on us that they were certainly very quick to exploit some sort of wanky loophole that meant they could sign Kovacic for £40 million, having had him on loan last season so they have still spent more than many clubs.

The Chelsea team of this season is very good going forward but a little bit flaky at the back, especially when it comes to physicality and set pieces. It would be a good day for JWP to get everything spot-on.  With another international break after this game it would certainly be nice to go into that with 10 points rather than 7 and 8th or 9th in the table as opposed to 16th. All I really want is for us to give ourselves the best chance of doing that by having round pegs in round holes. Over to you Ralph. The Yan Valery question was asked in the press conference leading up to this game and the noises from the manager were positive about him slotting in to the right back role. That would be a good start.

The only real clunker in the team news is that Sofiane Boufal has been left out and Shane Long starts.  Personally I can’t see any tactical reason for ever preferring Long to Boufal and it’s even more bizarre as Long is stationed in Boufal’s position on the left wing.  Vestergaard is nowhere to be seen with Danso and Stephens on the bench, joined by Alex McCarthy.

Saints actually make a really good start, winning the ball high and put in Chelsea under pressure. Only a minute has gone when the first shot comes in from Redmond which fizzes just over the bar. Promising stuff.

We do appear to have Chelsea slightly rattled which is a cue for Kante to go on a one man fouling spree and as usual he is completely invisible to the referee. Not that Chelsea need any favours off of anyone other than the team they are playing against.

Our limitations however have exposed a few minutes later as a single pass forward on the ground takes out our entire midfield and defence and Abraham is in, cutting inside Yoshida before scuffing are shot that Gunn saves comfortably.

A promising and break up the right hand side it is butchered when JWP passes it straight to the nearest Chelsea defender. One long ball over the top and Abraham is in on goal with Yoshida for company.  With a  bouncing ball and a defender present, Angus Gunn, for no readily apparent reason, comes running out to the far extremities of the penalty area like a fucking pillock and misses everything and Abraham, with crushing predictability gets a foot to the ball and loops it goalwards. From my view directly behind the goal I can see that it’s going to fucking go in and despite Maya’s valiant effort to kick it off the line, the little bleep on the referees watch tells you that we have once again, opened the Gunn cupboard and shot ourselves in the foot.  For fuck’s sake. If you have a defender there then you just shouldn’t fucking be there. Stay on the line and Abraham has got to beat Yoshida and then he’s got a make up his mind what to do and actually work to score a goal. Come running off your line like a prick and not getting there means all the striker has to do is get his foot to it.

A few minutes later and Gunn has the ball at his feet and tries to chip it to Valery who is being marked by Marcus Alonso. Unsurprisingly, Alonso wins the header and then Bednarek tries to cushion the ball down to Romeu (as opposed to heading it as far as possible) but instead gives it straight to Jorginho, 30 yards from goal. Jorginho to Willian and on to Mount and he’s clean through and Gunn once again makes himself as small as he possibly can and Mount stuffs the ball into the net. What’s the fucking point? 2-0.

We now look like we’re going to get absolutely fucking annihilated as Chelsea’s young guns look like they’re ready to stuff us for five or six. We clear one attack as far as Shane Long who puts Chelsea straight back on the attack with a  one touch layoff that bisects out defenders and eventually we get away with it as Mason Mount puts it wide.

On the half hour something totally unexpected happens as Valery takes a throw-in to Redmond and gets the ball back and then takes on five Chelsea players, getting to the by-line before squaring for that man Danny Ings to knock past Kepa and into the net to give us a completely unexpected lifeline.  Though it’s a brilliant goal, it’s kind of hard to get excited given the shambles that has preceded it.  It’s a slightly weird feeling.

We can’t possibly, can we? A ball over the top find Redmond on the left but he can’t get his foot round it and can only hit it into the side netting. Remember that question I asked about 10 seconds ago, the answer is, of course we fucking can’t.  We allow Chelsea to build up down the left, a simple ball across and Kante has about half a fucking hour to take aim and shoot. He gets a bit lucky as it flies off the only Saints player anywhere near him who is Hojbjerg but it’s in the net for a rare goal that wasn’t remotely Angus Gunn’s fault. This one is down to a lack of pressing and a slightly naive mistake by Valery who went and pressed the wrong guy further up the pitch which allowed a simple chip over the top to the guy he should’ve been marking.

Just before half-time we do actually have a chance to get another goal back as Danny Ings pounces on some shit play in the Chelsea defence and dinks over the keeper but Jorginho has got back to clear it with him in front of the goal.

Half-time and at least six of the players have been absolutely fucking dreadful so I am expecting at least two substitutions at half-time but instead of that we get none and the same team takes the field for the second half. My thoughts that we would come out fired up to try and get a goal back and put them under pressure was completely dashed after about five minutes of aimless wondering about and allowing Chelsea to be as comfortable as they liked. Willian walked through the midfield and put Hudson-Odoi clean through on goal but Gunn pulled off a decent save as the young England winger try to slot the ball past him.

With nothing much happening because Chelsea don’t need another goal after all, Ralph’s first sub is to take off Long and the loss one sub who got dug out for doing nothing last week, is mitigated by the appearance of another with Obafemi coming on. Sofiane Boufal must wonder what the fucking hell he’s done wrong or are we not trying to win this game anymore? Fucking mental.

Fuck all continues to happen until the two players who should’ve come on at half-time, Adams and Boufal rise from the bench in the 80th minute to replace Redmond, who has had one of the worst games I’ve ever seen him have and Danny Ings who at least has continued his goalscoring run.

Meanwhile, two of Chelsea subs, the admittedly very expensive Pulisic and Batshuayi combine and the latter scored easily give the scoreline a more realistic look. Wank.  I could write more about the second half but the players and the manager couldn’t be arsed so why should I?

And breathe…

That was absolutely fucking shit. The second half was back to the good old days of Pellegrino and Hughes where we settled for a defeat at half time and at times it looked like we weren’t even trying. We were just strolling around letting Chelsea have the ball and they were delighted because they didn’t need another goal. Absolutely fucking pitiful.

One of the things I hate most is when fans or fuck off home early but today I can’t blame anybody for leaving early because most of the players fucked off at half-time. At least those fans who fucked off early were making some sort of statement. The ones that just sit there going “we played alright“ or “the fans should just support the team“ can get right in the fucking bin today with that attitude. I don’t care who the opposition is, that performance today was robbing people out of their money. Football is fucking expensive so unless you’re one of the lucky few who can afford everything easily, you should be getting angry about what you’ve just seen.  I don’t think anyone cares too much about getting beaten by a better team after 95 minutes of 100% effort and if I get that then I’ll clap the players off the pitch cos they deserve it. Didn’t get that today. Absolutely fucking dreadful second-half and a complete waste of everybody’s time and money.

Ralph has got some major thinking to do over the next couple of weeks but he is very limited in what he can do with the squad that we have got. It is becoming painfully clear that we didn’t do enough restructuring of the playing staff in the summer. Of course we are hamstrung by all the shit players we’ve got on expensive contracts who we ended up loaning out what we are left with - the current first team squad is woefully deficient in a number of areas.  It’s amazing that we got rid of all the shit players out on loan and what we have left is the better ones?  What an amazing job we’ve done with recruitment the past few years.  Apparently Ross Wilson is going to take the Rangers job – I’ll drive the overrated prick there myself.  Even Elyounoussi looks good in the Scottish League.

The most obvious thing Ralph can do is to change the fucking goalkeeper. I’m getting incredibly bored and irritated with watching Angus Gunn throw goals in his net game after game. The first 20 minutes of this game was actually fairly even and if anything, we were the better side until Gunn decides to go fucking walk about again chasing a ball that he is never going to get. Central defenders must be in two minds now wondering where the fucking hell he is going to turn up next. He then compounds the error on goal number 2 by chipping the ball into the midfield area. Even if it goes to one of our midfielders they are going to be facing the wrong way with Chelsea midfielders putting them under pressure. He carried on doing this in the second half as well. What the fuck is that about? The wanky chip into midfield led to the second goal and the second goal was the end of the game as far as we were concerned. Sure we got one go back thanks to some individual brilliance on the right hand side by Yan Valery and a smart finish by Danny Ings but the third goal, from yet another move started by another catastrophic mistake by ourselves, killed it completely and Ralph and Frank may as well have shaken hands at half time and called the whole fucking thing off and saved us all the bother of watching that utter shit.

Virtually every area failed to function today. In defence, Yoshida was very average all game and Bednarek had a mare. Hojbjerg and Romeu cannot be faulted for effort but the passing at times bordered on the diabolical. On the wings, Shane Long ran about and was a nuisance and what a shock that is. This being used in mitigation for someone who is basically a dreadful footballer with no talent, is about three years past its sell by date now. If Shane Long is the answer then what the actual fuck is the question?  Nathan Redmond on the other wing might as well have been sat next to me in the crowd for all that he did.   He had a good opening 45 seconds and then disappeared.  The only players who really did anything positive at any point were Valery and Danny Ings and Valery was questionable defensively. Bertrand and Hojbjerg had their moments but other than that, it was utter bollocks. Oh and I’ve left the worst till last, JWP who added absolutely nothing of note either attacking or defending. Even when he’s playing badly you can rely on the set pieces so the story goes. No you fucking can.... that one from right on the edge of the box when we were 3-1 down which is just floated aimlessly two feet over the bar. The keeper wasn’t even nervous and just watched it go.  Give Callum Slattery a go.

Ralph again has to take a massive share of the blame for the way we gave up in the second half. His job was to send that team out for the second half of the rocket up its arse to play for pride and for the badge and for the fans in the stadium who pay their money but that clearly didn’t happen. He very clearly sent the message that he was not bothered about anything other than avoiding a thrashing by saving bringing on Boufal and Adams until the 80th minute. Give me one good reason why Obafemi was brought on first?

Chelsea were decent and are going to develop into a very good side. They didn’t have to get out of second gear today as we basically gift wrapped the game for them but the young players in their side all look very good indeed. They will get found out defensively by better teams than us and it’s strange, even though we lost 4-1, if we had managed to keep it mistake free at the back then there was certainly something in this game for us. No chance to find out though due to that defensive shit show.

International break thank Christ, so we don’t have to worry about this shit from other two weeks. On my way home tonight over the Itchen Bridge, I was doing that old thing and tried to find three teams that are worse than us. It shouldn’t be that way this season but it really looks like that is the way that it is going to be. I am currently pinning my hopes on Norwich, Watford and Sheffield United. This may be an over dramatisation but that was the performance today, of a team only heading one way.