Premier League Match 17 - Southampton 0 West Ham 1

Saints Centre Backs Dealing With Antonio Whilst Shitting Pants

Last week we played a team with shit owners in Newcastle United and today we play a team with in my opinion, even worse owners in West Ham United. At least Mike Ashley hasn’t sold the Newcastle ground to anyone yet, merely tried to rebrand it. Gold and Sullivan, the Dildo Brothers, ably assisted by Karen Brady have sold the soul of West Ham United and in its place, put a corporate mega dome simply because it was cheap. One of the main selling points, such as it were, to the West Ham faithful was that this move would lose the iconic Boleyn ground but it would gain a world-class stadium with world-class facilities and they would build a world-class team with all the extra money they would be making. As it stands, Despite us being shit for pretty much the entire season, a win for Saints puts us above West Ham in the table.

At the moment, Manuel Pellegrini is the manager charged with restoring the glory days that they never had to West Ham and so far he has been found to be severely lacking. At the start of the season they were putting in some performances that were 10/10, mixed in with some average ones but recently it has all been 2/10 and they’ve lost a string of games to clubs who they really should be beating, given that they had the pre-season ambition of challenging the top six.  They are however, definitely capable of putting in the odd committed performance like they did recently when they beat Chelsea 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. We have to be trying to make sure that that sort of performance doesn’t happen and the way you do that is by not giving them any opportunity to build up I had a steam from the first whistle to the last. If we start the game well then we will see how much they fancy it and recently, in the main they just haven’t.

Pellegrini is on the edge of the precipice whereby if you get a bad result against Southampton that seems to be that you don’t have a job the next morning. Will he be victim number three. Sadly, we have to hope so. West Ham are one of the few sides that I have a bit of a soft spot for which is based on the fact that they were very old school and they were always entertaining in the 70s and 80s but now, with their current ownership and the way that the whole ground move came about, I find myself hoping that they get relegated because of the way that club has been run since the Dildo Brothers turned up is symbolic of the Premier League wide problem of the soul being ripped out of football by corporate greed.

The current West Ham squad contains Michail Antonio who was on-loan to us once upon a time and we really should’ve signed him. Last year at St Mary’s it was Felipe Anderson who put in a world class performance as they walked away with three points. This year they have Sebastian Haller upfront who Saints were linked with once upon a time and like the team, he started the season really well but has tailed off massively in the last couple of months and has been a substitute the last few games. The tail off in performances coincided with Lucas Fabianski being injured and they had a goalkeeper called Roberto for about six weeks and he was absolutely fucking useless but he’s now been replaced with David Martin, who to put it politely, is a bit of a goalkeeper journey man who hasn’t really played much for anyone at a decent level but the interesting thing about him is that he is the son of West Ham legend Alvin Martin.

Our line up is a case of ‘as you were’ with the only bummer being that Boufal is not even on the bench.  As the game is about to start, I look at the West Ham line-up in the pitch and I have to say, I have a bit of a sinking feeling.  Antonio is right up front with Haller, meaning that it’s two big, robust centre forwards and we struggle to deal with one.  Noble is in midfield in case the referee needs any help refereeing and he’s helped by Declan Rice and Snodgrass (arsehole but a good player) who is on the right.  They look exactly the kind of side that we will struggle against.  Still, I’ll try to put that out of my mind as the game starts.

Our fast start is anything but – we are virtually in reverse.  The Hammers have the ball in the net on 2 mintes when they win a free kick on the left and the cross is headed in by Rice as easily as you like.  The flag is mercifully up so we get away with it without the need for a VAR check and I wonder how many of the players knew he was offside before they decided to leave him totally unmarked.

On the back foot, second to every challenge and second to every second ball.  West Ham players are stepping towards the ball and we are stepping away from it.  Get into them for fucks sake.  It’s not very scientific from West Ham but you can tell it’s going to work.  Ball in the air, Antonio wins it against Bednarek… ball in the air, Haller wins it against Stephens… ball in the air… bounces… Saints defenders just look at it as Antonio picks up the ball unchallenged.

We are chasing shadows as Snodgrass finds Antonio and his cross is met by Fornals but his effort screws wide.  Bertrand then dawdles in possession and loses the ball to Snodgrass and West Ham work it out to their left.  It’s a bit of a shocker that Cedric doesn’t stop the cross coming into the box and it’s absolute carnage with bodies everywhere, Bertrand in the thick of it and mass appeals for a penalty.  I can’t tell even though it’s right in front of me but I wouldn’t be surprised given it was Bertrand’s mistake and he probably wanted to make up for it.  VAR says…. No penalty.  Be patient Hammers – it’s coming as sure as death and taxes… just a matter of time.

Saints attacking efforts are barely worth a mention.  Static forwards and midfielders not even managing simple square passes without threatening to give it away.  Some are worse than others with the worst culprits being Redmond and Hojbjerg who clearly have colour blindness gien the amount of times they just give it away.  Redders is having a shocker, usually running with the ball with his head down until he loses it.  

The inevitable happens as Antonio breaks into space on our left and beats Bednarek as easily as Messi would beat Vestergaard.  He cuts it back to Snodgrass and his cross is cushioned down by Fornals and Haller shanks it and gets a bit lucky as it finds the bottom corner.  I can’t even get annoyed about it as it’s so richly deserved.  Bednarek gets beaten and from then on it’s three unmarked players.

We manage to get to half time just the 1-0 down which is a bit of an achievement but we’ve been shit.  Relegation 6-pointer and we haven’t even got near to them.  They’re too big, too fast, too powerful and we are powder puff and barely giving them a game.  Garbage.

Redmond has been put out of his misery at the start of the second half and Romeu is on in his place.  If nothing else at least we’ll compete.  We appear to have gone 4-3-3 with “Slow Boy 3” in midfield and Shane on the right, Moussa on the left.

There is no discernable difference as West Ham look for the second goal which they know will put this to bed.  Another simple ball up to the forwards and an unchallenged header inside and Fornals rockets one at the top corner but Macca takes off and it’s a brilliant save as he tips it over the bar at full stretch.

More shite powder puff defending as Antonio charges and Stephens and Bednarek shite their shorts.  On he bundles and smashes it into the corner of the net.  Great finish…oh and hang on, another VAR check… one replay on the scoreboard proves that he’s actually handled it twice so once more, we have got away with some absolutely rank defending.

Djenepo is strating to make a difference on the left and puts over a cross and Ings produces a bit of skill which is quite out of keeping with the rest of the Saints performance and swivels and smashes a shot over the keeper and onto the bar.  As it bounces down Long is offside but he misses anyway.

It’s Ings or no-one for us as usual as Romeu charges forward and plays Danny in and he goes on and sees this shot beat the keeper but smack against the post.  Interestingly, this one was proved to be onside so it would have counted had it gone in and if my Auntie had a dick she’s be my Uncle.

Another chance goes as Romeu strides forwad again and finds Djenepo.  There’s a bit of a tangle with Fredericks and the ball goes to Rice, Ings nicks it off him and smashes it into the top corner but the ref has blown this time for a foul by Djenepo.  This should have gone to VAR because it barely looked anything and later replays proved that.  Fuck sake.

West Ham are still ridiculously dangerous when they go forward and all they have to do is cross it into the mixer from anywhere.  Antonio puts it over and Haller meets it superbly and heads down and McCarthy produces another ridiculous save to claw it out of the bottom corner.

As Pelligrini decides to protect what he has and bring on defenders and defensive midfielders, Saints get another chance as we build our best move of the match down the right and via Cedric and Armstrong, the ball reaches the skipper on the far side but his finish is in keeping with the rest of his performance.  There is time for one last half shout for a penalty as Adams goes down having taken too long to pull the trigger and that’s it.  Another depressing and totally deserved defeat.

Well that was a semi-decent last 10 minutes. You can’t just turn up and play for 10 minutes and expect to get anything in a Premier League game. That was simply not good enough. Where do you fucking start? Let’s start with the positives. Alex McCarthy was brilliant and without him and VAR of course, we would have been three or four goals behind and completely dead.  McCarthy is the only real reason that we were still in the game at all and the fact that it was only 1-0 is the only reason we put any pressure on their goal at the end of the game because Pellegrini went on the defensive and allowed us to get near their goal. That said, Danny Ings had another decent game being our entire goal threat, being really unlucky with that shot that hit the bar and of course hitting the post when onside/offside and also smashing one in the top corner after he Djenepo foul. Other than that, it is fairly slim pickings when you’re looking for players that did okay. Shane Long did his usual without ever looking like a goal threat and Djenepo had some moments in the second half when he wasn’t diving about ridiculously.

Just Let Him Have It Lads

Firmly in the ridiculously bad category were the central defenders. Jack Stephens recent improvement has been notable but today, old Jack was back. Michael Antonio is the perfect striker to exploit every weakness that Stephens just got. Good in the air, strong and quick. It wasn’t just Stephens today as Bednarek was fucking dreadful and played like he had concrete boots on. Both of them absolutely shat their pants every time Antonio went anywhere near them. Letting the ball bounce and waiting for the opposition striker to pick the ball up - that is fucking scandalous. A few years ago, I was coaching my sons Under-10s team not to let the ball bounce if at all possible. An active team goes towards the ball and wins the challenge. A passive team just sits off and let the other team have it. We were passive and for a team with the ability level that we have got, that is just not good enough.

Options?  Well Danso is nowhere despite being both quick and strong. Yoshida and Vestergaard were our defensive options on the bench and both of those would’ve been completely fucking useless against Antonio and Haller for different reasons.

Cedric wasn’t a complete liability in the first half but in the second half he resorted to type with a collection of aimless crosses into the West Ham box and lightweight defending. Bertrand was ok in the first half when he was playing behind Redmond but in the second half he didn’t get forward at all. In the centre of midfield, JWP and Hojbjerg in particular, were fucking dreadful, continually losing the ball and allowing 47-year-old Mark Noble to stroll through the game. We didn’t win a tackle in there, we didn’t win a header in there and we didn’t win any second balls.  It is an absolute miracle that we only lost 1-0. Nathan Redmond got hauled off at half-time and deservedly so having produced his 2019/20 party pieces which are mainly running aimlessly with the ball until he gets tackled or attempting some ridiculous overambitious ball as a last resort that just loses the ball. He seems to only release the ball as an absolute last resort. There is no clever movement and no 1-2’s to go round a player at speed.  Ings and Long don’t play as a pair up front, frequently static and/or miles apart from each other.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with Ralph’s interview after the game where he talked about the fact that West Ham play long and that stopped us being able to win balls in their half which blunted our attacking play. So that basically means that if every time we play against a team that doesn’t piss around with the ball in defence, we are never going to score. I’ve thought this for a long time and it’s a massive problem that we have absolutely no way of playing through teams when we have possession. There is no clever movement and there is no one to play a defence splitting ball. We started moving for the last 10 minutes but as already said,  just playing for 10 minutes at the end of the game isn’t going to dig you out of the shit that you created for yourself.  Again I question what the fuck we are coaching these guys to do when we have the ball.  Maybe the coaching is shit but just maybe our two ex-goalkeepers and video analyst first team coaches are brilliant and the players are uncoachable… just maybe, we have shit coaches and shit players.

After the two home wins against two worst sides in the division, it was back to usual today with a lacklustre shite performance. We totally deserve to lose and we totally deserve to be where we are in the league. I’d like to be an optimistic about two or three players arriving in January who are going to come into the first team and make a difference but with the way the club is run, I really cannot see it.  Next week’s game against Aston Villa at Villa Park is absolutely huge for the rest of the season. Lose that and we will be in the bottom three going into the Christmas period and I will be surprised if we can find a way out of it.

Today, I watched the game and we were so bad that for the whole of the second half, I was just watching in a kind of coma, not really reacting to anything that was going on. It kind of just happened in front of me. Even when we were knocking on the door in the last 10 minutes, I never had any real anticipation that we were going to get back into it. It just seemed inevitable the either West Ham were going to score again or that we were never going to score. Did the players think that with the seven points that we’ve got recently that they had reached their target for this little period of games? It certainly looked a bit like that. There was no fire, no blood and thunder and on top of all that, there was very little ability on show.

We have to remember that despite the occasional signs of life that we do see, this is one shit squad of players and performances like today are not really a bad substandard performance, they are a normal performance for the standard of players that we have got in the squad at the moment. If we play a team that is not completely dreadful then this is what we get from this group of players. They don’t raise their game or perform above themselves - this is their level. Depressing isn’t it? Happy fucking Christmas.