Pick That Out
FA Cup third round and our recent form in the league has at
least given us the option of taking this game seriously. That said, I’m really
not expecting very many regular first-team players in the side today for the
visit of Championship side Huddersfield Town.
Huddersfield were of course in the Premier League last season and when David Wegner was the manager, they kind of had a chance of repeating the previous seasons' heroics and staying up. For whatever reason, they got rid of Wagner and appointed a German guy Jan Siewert who looked like he had been plucked off the street with absolutely no football experience whatsoever. Siewert was completely fucking useless and couldn’t have been more out of his depth if he was nailed to the bottom of the North Sea… and relegation was nailed on from that moment as they barely picked up another win. This season of the Championship started in a similar vein and so they changed the manager again and got in Danny Cowley who had done relatively well in the lower divisions. Given time, Cowley will probably prove to be a decent appointment but they are fighting against relegation again this season so I will not be at all surprised if they aren’t playing many of their first-team players either.
If we’re going to go with the second string side then I hope we do it properly and we see some youngsters like Will Smallbone, Callum Slattery, Kayne Ramsey and not just the obvious ones who will play today like Oriol Romeu, Maya Yoshida and Angus Gunn.
One player who I severely hope we don’t see today is Danny Ings who, because he scored against media darlings Tottenham, has now caught the attention of the mainstream media and being touted for an England call-up. Of course, Danny thoroughly deserves to be called up by England but let’s be realistic here. He is at best going to take the squad place of someone like Callum Wilson and be about the fifth choice. Kane is the first choice and even though he is injured, Abraham will be the preferred replacement and that’s before you even consider Rashford playing as a central striker. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been playing pretty well for the last four or five games and he is the sort of player that will get a call up before Danny does. Of course, we need him so I think it would be in everyone’s best interest for him not to get called up.
Huddersfield were of course in the Premier League last season and when David Wegner was the manager, they kind of had a chance of repeating the previous seasons' heroics and staying up. For whatever reason, they got rid of Wagner and appointed a German guy Jan Siewert who looked like he had been plucked off the street with absolutely no football experience whatsoever. Siewert was completely fucking useless and couldn’t have been more out of his depth if he was nailed to the bottom of the North Sea… and relegation was nailed on from that moment as they barely picked up another win. This season of the Championship started in a similar vein and so they changed the manager again and got in Danny Cowley who had done relatively well in the lower divisions. Given time, Cowley will probably prove to be a decent appointment but they are fighting against relegation again this season so I will not be at all surprised if they aren’t playing many of their first-team players either.
If we’re going to go with the second string side then I hope we do it properly and we see some youngsters like Will Smallbone, Callum Slattery, Kayne Ramsey and not just the obvious ones who will play today like Oriol Romeu, Maya Yoshida and Angus Gunn.
One player who I severely hope we don’t see today is Danny Ings who, because he scored against media darlings Tottenham, has now caught the attention of the mainstream media and being touted for an England call-up. Of course, Danny thoroughly deserves to be called up by England but let’s be realistic here. He is at best going to take the squad place of someone like Callum Wilson and be about the fifth choice. Kane is the first choice and even though he is injured, Abraham will be the preferred replacement and that’s before you even consider Rashford playing as a central striker. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been playing pretty well for the last four or five games and he is the sort of player that will get a call up before Danny does. Of course, we need him so I think it would be in everyone’s best interest for him not to get called up.
Team news and we have debut’s for Smallbone and Jake Vokins
with JWP being the only first-team regular.
Angus Gunn is in goal for the first time since 9-0 and the rest of the
side is players who are regularly on the Premier League sides bench like Romeu,
Vestergaard, Yoshida and Adams. Kevin
Danso has been shoe-horned in at right-back and surprisingly, Boufal’s table
has allowed his victim to play from the start today. Huddersfield have Fraizer Campbell playing –
the same Fraizer Campbell who won a full England cap, basically because he came
through the Manchester United academy.
Away we go and it’s kind of flat but a bit of patience
required because you’re not going to get a free-flowing performance from a
scratch side. We’ve lined up in the now
usual 4-2-2-2 formation with Smallbone on the right-wing and Danso at right-back so there are two players out of position for starters. On the left, JWP creates the first chance
with a lung-busting break, gets to edge of the area and slides in Adams and is this
it?.... nope… a virtual backpass.
Huddersfield don’t really commit any players forward but
they don’t need to as Vestergaard gives the ball away in midfield, one pass and
Campbell is running at the goal. Yoshida
back off and backs off and eventually, Campbell is in the penalty area and
luckily, he lashes it into the empty Chapel Stand. Yoshida is backing off so far he’s almost
like Toby Alderweireld backing out of the stadium. I mean, you can back off to a point but he
was well inside the penalty area when he hit that.
Smallbone creates a decent chance for himself but his left
footed shot is closer to the passing Flybe jet than it is to the goal and a
rather pedestrian first half is coming to a close when Vestergaard comes forward
from the defence, finds Smallbone with a good ball forward and the youngster lays
it off first time and Shane is though and surprisingly, he scores like a proper
striker… oh, hang on, fucking VAR check.
The world stops turning, civilizations rise and fall, Donald Trump
starts a War and then we finally get the VAR verdict and it’s offside by the
smallest margin. To be honest, as soon
as the VAR check started I knew it was going to be offside because it was Shane
and Shane is always offside.
Half time and it’s been dull. The two young lads have both done ok but the
play is too slow and Hudderfield are keeping in shape and not being stretched
too much. The game could do with a goal
and within 3 minutes of the restart we get one and JWP finds Danso on the wing
and the big man lumbers past Bacuna and digs out a great cross which swirls to
the back post, Shane knocks it to the penalty spot and there’s Will Smallbone
to lash it into the net. Well done
nipper – bloody great finish that was.
Huddersfield players are appealing for VAR to rule that Danso’s cross
had gone out – fuck off.
You would think that Huddersfield would come out a bit more
now and go for it but they don’t and we’re still very comfortable. Cedric is on for Danso who appears to have a
knock and the new man has to do something that doesn’t come naturally to him
and defend when our left side is all at sea and the cross is headed out to
Grant by Yoshida and Cedric has to get his boyband features in the way of
Grant’s shot.
85 gone and nothing much happening…. Armstrong and Obafemi
are on for Smallbone and Boufal but the icing on the cake is provided after Adams
cleverly created space and knocked the ball out to Vokins who ran at the
Huddersfield right-back Simpson (probably the worst player ever to win the Premier Lieague) and tried his luck, seeing his shot flick off
Simpson and then fly over the keeper and go in off the bar. It’s lovely to see the second youngster get
in on the act and a nice way to end the game.
Well it wasn’t a game that will live long in the memory and
all you can say about it is that it was a job well done. We won the game, no
one got injured, two youngsters made their debuts and both scored and a load of
first-team squad players who had not been regulars, all got a good amount of
time on the pitch.
In the first half, it was quite easy to see why some players had not been playing in the Premier League. Oriol Romeu didn’t have what you would call a bad game but he just took too long to pass the ball and a lot of our moves, or potential moves forward were cut off at source because he just took too long to play the ball at times. The second half was better and all the players tried to play the ball a little bit quicker with the tone being sat just before half-time by Smallbone’s first time pass through to Shane Long who of course, was narrowly offside. More of the use of VAR later on.
Once Smallbone’s goal went in at the start of the second-half then the game was virtually done as Huddersfield basically just turned up and lost. They offered very very little in terms of attack and their game play, despite a couple of substitutions, did not get any more attacking as the game went on.
We had all been wondering why Jake Vokins was not given a chance when Ryan Bertrand was out suspended. Today I think we saw why he maybe hasn’t been given a chance but also, we saw that there is a lot to work with. On the plus side, he is very good going forward which was illustrated by his goal, which admittedly did owe a little bit to the fortunate deflection of the Huddersfield defender but it was brilliant to see that hit the net. His starting position seemed to be wrong I lot of the time and there were many occasions when we were passing of all along the back four and normally the next pass will be out to the left-back but the left-back was stationed 40 yards further forward so eventually, we had to turn on play the ball back the other way. The other problem he’s going to have going forward is that he is physically quite small so there is going to have to be a lot of time spent in the gym in order to be a truly effective regular at Premier League level. Overall, I can totally see why Ralph has not thrown him in at the deep end in the Premier League as yet.
Smallbone looked calm and composed throughout, though it did seem that he is not suited for playing wide in a 4-2-2-2. When he wandered infield, like he did for his goal, then he looks a different player. He had a good game without tearing up any trees and I think he, like Vokins, can be very happy with his debut. He seems to be a player who is all about his end product and he certainly showed that today but though he is extremely promising, he has a long way to go to be in regular contention for the first team.
We can’t mention the end product without talking about our forwards. The thought of a Danny Ings absence from the first team came into horrific focus today. Both Long and Adams worked hard but there really wasn’t a lot to strike fear into opposition defenders. This was a real chance for Adams to get off the mark in the Saints shirt but apart from one time when he hit the goalkeeper, he never really looked like doing so. Shane was unlucky with the VAR shout. Because they can’t have VAR at every ground in the FA Cup 3rd Round, they should not be having it at any game in the 3rd Round. Just having it at Premier League grounds makes a mockery of the FA Cup because basically, games in the same competition are being played under different sets of rules. More bollocks thinking from the powers that be over VAR.
So, into the hat for the fourth round and it was interesting to see the Pompey made it through into the hat as well. Personally, I don’t want to play them again as I want them to stew on the 4-0 home defeat for a few years at least. Still, the draw is on Monday - lightning can’t strike twice in one season, can it?
In the first half, it was quite easy to see why some players had not been playing in the Premier League. Oriol Romeu didn’t have what you would call a bad game but he just took too long to pass the ball and a lot of our moves, or potential moves forward were cut off at source because he just took too long to play the ball at times. The second half was better and all the players tried to play the ball a little bit quicker with the tone being sat just before half-time by Smallbone’s first time pass through to Shane Long who of course, was narrowly offside. More of the use of VAR later on.
Once Smallbone’s goal went in at the start of the second-half then the game was virtually done as Huddersfield basically just turned up and lost. They offered very very little in terms of attack and their game play, despite a couple of substitutions, did not get any more attacking as the game went on.
We had all been wondering why Jake Vokins was not given a chance when Ryan Bertrand was out suspended. Today I think we saw why he maybe hasn’t been given a chance but also, we saw that there is a lot to work with. On the plus side, he is very good going forward which was illustrated by his goal, which admittedly did owe a little bit to the fortunate deflection of the Huddersfield defender but it was brilliant to see that hit the net. His starting position seemed to be wrong I lot of the time and there were many occasions when we were passing of all along the back four and normally the next pass will be out to the left-back but the left-back was stationed 40 yards further forward so eventually, we had to turn on play the ball back the other way. The other problem he’s going to have going forward is that he is physically quite small so there is going to have to be a lot of time spent in the gym in order to be a truly effective regular at Premier League level. Overall, I can totally see why Ralph has not thrown him in at the deep end in the Premier League as yet.
Smallbone looked calm and composed throughout, though it did seem that he is not suited for playing wide in a 4-2-2-2. When he wandered infield, like he did for his goal, then he looks a different player. He had a good game without tearing up any trees and I think he, like Vokins, can be very happy with his debut. He seems to be a player who is all about his end product and he certainly showed that today but though he is extremely promising, he has a long way to go to be in regular contention for the first team.
We can’t mention the end product without talking about our forwards. The thought of a Danny Ings absence from the first team came into horrific focus today. Both Long and Adams worked hard but there really wasn’t a lot to strike fear into opposition defenders. This was a real chance for Adams to get off the mark in the Saints shirt but apart from one time when he hit the goalkeeper, he never really looked like doing so. Shane was unlucky with the VAR shout. Because they can’t have VAR at every ground in the FA Cup 3rd Round, they should not be having it at any game in the 3rd Round. Just having it at Premier League grounds makes a mockery of the FA Cup because basically, games in the same competition are being played under different sets of rules. More bollocks thinking from the powers that be over VAR.
So, into the hat for the fourth round and it was interesting to see the Pompey made it through into the hat as well. Personally, I don’t want to play them again as I want them to stew on the 4-0 home defeat for a few years at least. Still, the draw is on Monday - lightning can’t strike twice in one season, can it?
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