Premier League Match 19 - Chelsea 0 Southampton 2

Ridiculous Confidence, Ridiculous Goal.

It seems like we’ve been thrashed every time we played Chelsea recently so the Boxing Day that game at Stamford Bridge doesn’t really offer a great deal of hope of getting any more points. This is especially the case when you consider that we are playing Crystal Palace at home in two days time and even though our away form is better than our home form and the fact that Chelsea have lost a couple of dodgy games at home recently, the Palace game is going to be seen as our best chance of getting points out of these two games. Consequently, I would be surprised if Danny Ings isn’t playing today and the news from mid-week was that Shane Long was carrying a knock as well.

Chelsea have had a very strange season and at times have looked absolutely brilliant but they have shown an Achilles heel when teams defend deep against them as they seem to have very little idea of how to break them down. This is almost certainly how we will try and approach today’s game so let’s hope that they don’t find any answers. It can’t be denied though that Frank Lampard has done well with the players at his disposal. He wasn’t able to sign anybody in the summer, if you conveniently ignore, Kovacic for £40 million and Pulisic finally arriving having cost over £50 million in the middle of last season. Lampard has blooded the likes of Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori, Reece James, Callum Hudson-Odoi, and horrible little skate bastard, Mason Mount. Tammy Abraham is the top goalscorer this season but just recently he’s began go off the boil a little bit.  If Abraham plays then it means that Giroud doesn’t so that’s fine with me.

The win against Villa certainly seems to have put a spring in the step of Ralph Hasenhuttl and he now has the air of a man totally at ease with what he is doing which wasn’t always the case earlier on in the season.  He knows it’s going to be a tough game but he exudes quiet confidence so it will be interesting to see how much rotation there is in the squad.  The team news lands and as I expected, Danny Ings is on the bench and with Long not being fit, both Michael Obafemi and Che Adams are in the starting 11. The rest of the team is exactly how you would expect it to be with Stuart Armstrong on the right-hand side. Chelsea have somewhat surprisingly gone with three central defenders with it having been the bedrock of a very impressive win away at Tottenham a few days ago. Somehow, I don’t think we carry the same attacking threat as Tottenham do.  Mason Mount has been left on the bench so we’ll have to wait to tell the Skate Bastard how much we like him.

An even start but we put ourselves under pressure when Hojbjerg produces his now regular ‘shite ball’ in the first few minutes to Hudson-Odoi who hits it and Bednarek gets the block in to deflect it for a corner.  We don’t mark to well when it comes over and Tomori’s free header is straight at McCarthy.

We settle well into the game, defending in numbers and trying to quickly play through Chelsea when we win the ball.  On the half-hour, Hudson-Odoi is dispossessed by Stephens and Armstrong is away on the right.  A ball inside to Hojbjerg who gets it right and finds Obafemi, who has hardly touched the ball up til now but Tomori dives in and misses it, completely selling himself and Zouma backs off and the youngster drifts into the centre, ignores Adams waiting for a pass and pings one left-footed, past Kepa and nestling into the top corner.  Fuck me, what a ridiculous goal.  Irish jig celebration as well.

Twenty minutes are gone and we start shithousing, taking an age over throw-ins and free kicks, etc.  Cue much anger from Chelsea fanboys who of course, probably grew up watching Mourinho park the bus.  Fuck off.  The referee seems to get caught up in it though and our Shithouser in Chief, Ryan Bertrand, picks up a booking on 29 minutes for timewasting.

Chelsea are exerting some pressure but don’t have a clue what to do when they get to the edge of the area. There is one minor alarm when Willian’s corner is inadvertently flicked on by Armstrong’s magnificent hair and McCarthy takes off and pushes it away even though it was going wide anyway. Half time and Frank doesn’t look happy.  They’ve done nothing to be fair and Chelsea managers get sacked for less than 45 minutes without winning.  Saints have just got to do more of the same but no doubt the second half will be more difficult.  The tactics of defending narrow and just letting Azpilicueta and Emerson cross aimless shit into the box is working so far.

Oh, looky here…. It’s the little Skate twat.  Please don’t let him change the game Saints…. and he  immediately makes a difference, wriggling into the box and picking out Abraham who shoots into the side netting. Abraham always looks like he’s about to cry whenever he misses a chance.

Cheer Up Tammy!

If anyone was worried that we were just going to sit on the lead they these fears were banished when a Hojbjerg ball was beautifully dummied by Obafemi to send Redmond away on the left.  Rudiger ambles over and Redders leaves him for dead before driving to the line and picking out Adams at the back post.  It’s going to be his first goal for Saints until the sliding and desperate Tomori gets a toe to it and just deflects it.  Adams has the “I’m never going to score another goal in my life” look on his face.

Another quick break and via Bertrand and Adams, Redmond is away again down the left-hand side and though his attempted cross is just a bit too far in front of Hojbjerg and runs for a goal kick, it again it illustrates how good we are on the break when we play directly and at pace.

Anything good from Chelsea is coming from a little Skate Bastard and he wins a corner off of Cedric who for once is actually getting close enough to his player to block crosses and put tackles in. We switch off a bit at the corner there and Hudson-Odoi takes aim from the edge of the box and curls it just over the bar with McCarthy not remotely worried.

It now gets to the territory of saying that we should have put this to bed by now and Armstrong works it brilliantly out from the right-back position, past a couple of players and finds Redmond who gives and goes and Armstrong puts Redmond away and he's clean through but he shoots lamely at Kepa and Redders known he really shouldn’t have given the keeper any chance there.

Ings is on for Obafemi on 70 and goes into a kind of No.10 role leaving Adams up front on his own.  The guy might not be able to score but he’s working so hard (sounds familiar!) and the hard work from him and the rest of the boys pays off when Saints start playing Barcelona football in the Chelsea half and it’s fucking marvellous because they can’t get near us as we come from the left, and via JWP, work it back to the defenders, with Stephens goes on the little run and finding Armstrong.  The 1-2 king flicks the ball to Ings who backheels it back to him and Armstrong bursts forward and into the middle and chips over the last defender and Redmond gets in before Kepa to knock it into the net.  Brilliant team goal and totally deserved.  We’ve been so much better than them it is quite ridiculous. Kepa looks like he’s about to cry. He looks about 12.

Romeu is on to give us practice at defending free-kicks and one he gives away on the edge of the box is taken by the Skate but it’s straight down McCarthy‘s throat and he just shovelled it over the bar as easy as you like.  There’s a couple of routine balls into the mixer as those in blue flood out of the stadium into the Boxing Day night and McCarthy catches them with ease, flattening Bednarek in the process which gives us a chance to do some more shithouse time-wasting.  It’s great.  Final whistle.

Get in. I fucking love it. There is nothing better than playing on the away ground against one of the big six and beating them and in this case, not only beating them but absolutely dicking them. They could not have complained if we had won 4-0. A comfortable clean sheet combined with having virtually all of the decent chances. I have absolutely nothing to complain about as they were all brilliant, even Cedric... and I don’t say that lightly.

Going through the team, McCarthy was just calm excellence and whenever he got called upon he did everything with a minimum of fuss.  The was one minor stop-go-no man's land moment which led to nothing but otherwise faultless. The back four defended brilliantly as a unit with Cedric and Bertrand tucking in to make a narrow four around the width of the penalty area and this was made possible by the hard work of Armstrong and Redmond to drop in and almost make it a back six at times. Chelsea had absolutely no idea how to play against us which is why they created next to nothing. Whilst the fullbacks did the jobs well, the central defenders were just superb, not giving Tammy Abraham a sniff apart from once right at the start of the second half when we were still getting used to Chelsea‘s new shape. West Ham game aside, Jack Stephens has been an absolute revelation since he came back into the side and Jan Bednarek is now getting back the consistency that he had at the tail end of last season.

The midfield two of Hojbjerg and JWP were absolutely everywhere forming a very effective shield in front of the defenders but also breaking forward with purpose. The amount of ground that JWP covers is absolutely ridiculous and it shows that he must’ve spent a hell of a lot of time working on his fitness and stamina because there is no way he could have done that a couple of years ago.  Redmond’s goal will hopefully get him playing with a bit more confidence from now on and he was much better today.  He clearly fancied himself against Azpilicueta and that belief showed.  The man of the match was on the other wing though as Armstrong showed that as a wide midfield player, you don’t have to be the quickest or have the most tricks, you just have to be a really intelligent footballer who chooses the right options all the time and of course, you have to have great hair.  Saints have been static going forward so often this season but Armstrong today gave a lesson in pass and move.  Just watch his contribution to the second goal - draws a defender, passes to Ings, runs into space, picks up the return ball which has bypassed a second defender.  Simple.

Look at that Magnificent Hair.

Upfront, Adams and Obafemi worked incredibly hard to try and make anything out the possession that they had with Obafemi’s goal being a tribute to the ridiculous amount of confidence that this guy plays with. The game will have done Che Adams a lot of good because he played the Shane Long role really well, working incredibly hard for the team.  The goals will come if he keeps working hard.

Ralph, of course, got everything spot-on which is becoming the norm again. He did a really good interview after the game where he admitted that he had lost his way a little bit around the time we lost 9-0. It takes a big man to admit that and you won’t get many managers admitting they have made mistakes. He certainly seems to have got his mojo back which can only be a good thing and again we should thank the board for sticking with him because many wouldn’t have done.  He also made mention of the fact that we only have one left-back and one fit right back which was no doubt a nudge to the board, if they needed one, with January approaching.

Mason Mount.  Now, of course, he gave it the ‘all ears’ celebration when he scored at St Mary’s so let’s remember that and wonder which he enjoyed most out of today’s defeat and us smashing his beloved Skates 4-0 in their own back yard.  Have it you little twat.

Didn't Enjoy This One As Much Did You?  You Little Twat.

At the halfway stage in the league which is where we are now, we have shot up to 14th in the table going above West Ham, Bournemouth and Brighton. I have to admit that a few weeks ago I didn’t think we’d be above any of those sides so to be there now is decent but we have to make sure we don’t drop back.

In two days it’s Crystal Palace at home as mentioned earlier. Palace is a side that is usually very tricky to play against for us and will certainly put to the test our one main problem that we have because they will sit deep and try and soak up pressure and we have to find a way around that which we always struggle to do.  Patience will be key for players and fans.  That’s for Saturday though - for now, enjoy this fantastic Boxing Day win when we put the aristocrats of Chelsea firmly in their place… and we did it by resting our best striker.  Ralph obviously looked at the opposition and decided that we didn’t need him.

It was fucking brilliant.