Premier League Match 22 - Leicester 1 Southampton 2

Jack Goes Full Shithouse.... and We Love It!

Leicester away and I can’t remember how we got on the last time we played them. Can anyone in the media remember? Of course they can. I did like the way that the Saints media team tried to defuse it this week by poking fun at ourselves about blocking anything to do with “9” on social media accounts. It, of course, hasn’t stopped it being the first thing that anyone has mentioned regarding this game. To be fair, we can’t really complain that much. It is one of those things that is an inevitability and it will be for a years whenever Southampton and Leicester are mentioned in the same sentence. We could win this game today and do the double over them for the next three seasons and all anyone would want to talk about would be the 9-0 so we'd best get used to it.

So, as we can’t beat them, I’m going to join them and talk about it.  I saw an article this week which suggested that the Leicester game wasn’t rock bottom before we started to turn it around and that rock bottom came a few games later. I’m sorry but I'm not having that. Getting beat 9-0 tells you that whatever you’re doing is wrong and you need to radically change it. Sure, we may have a couple more setbacks along the way like we did at home to West Ham at home to Everton but trust me, Leicester at home in 2019 was the low.  People will not be talking about the narrow losses where we played shit in a years’ time.  The 9-0 is the stuff of legend and will be remembered for years.

Without it, we wouldn’t be where we are now because if we had just lost that game one or two-nil then the temptation would’ve been to think that nothing much was wrong but that told Ralph that everything was wrong.  My view is that the Leicester game told him he had to reset but with games coming thick and fast, it wasn't until the international break that he could really work on things, take a step back and clarify what he wanted to do.  In terms of players and working out which ones he trusted, it is interesting to note that five players who played that day have hardly played since in Vestergaard, Yoshida, Romeo, Gunn and Valery.

When they did beat us 9-0, I kind of thought that Leicester were quite respectful about the whole thing until Rat Bastard Vardy went mental at scoring the 9^th though his reaction was more to do with the goading he got about that pathetic bust-up between his wife and the vacuous Colleen Rooney. During the game itself, Jonny Evans apparently was urging his Leicester teammates on to break the record which is fair enough really. In the build-up to today’s game though, it becomes apparent that they are showing all nine goals on the big screens in the stadium, with the commentary, before the kickoff. If that doesn’t serve us extra motivation for our boys today then I don’t know what will.  It’s certainly a bit of a classless dick move from a club who have up until now, prided themselves on the respect and class that they show.

Maybe Playing This Was a Bit of a Dick Move Lads

Ralph‘s team is as we have come to expect over the last few weeks in away games - 4-4-2 with the usual goalkeeper and back four, the usual midfield three of Redmond, Hojbjerg and JWP, augmented on the right with Armstrong and the usual first-choice attack of Long and Ings.  Leicester have the same goalkeeper defence and midfield but they had against us at St Mary‘s but the midfield there shows a couple of changes with Tielemans and Ndidi missing, replaced by Choudhury and Praet.  Praet looks a bit lightweight to me and nowhere near as good as Tielemans and every time I'm seen Chaudhury play, he's just been very average with a liking for a late tackle.  The Leicester manager is of course the ever smug, big shiny set of teeth, Brendan Rodgers.  Still a bit of a dickhead but undoubtedly a very good manager.  I think he's even stopped saying 'great character' in post-match interviews now.

Away we go and Leicester try and play out with us pressing them as we do and after two minutes we’ve already run more and put in more than the three tackles we put in at St.Mary’s.  Barnes then shites himself as World Infamous hatchet man Cedric closes in and passes it 30 yards backwards, straight to Ings who bundles past the clumsy Soyuncu and in on goal, taking an extra touch to get it on his right foot and Schmeichel blocks well and the son of Red-Nosed United Foghorn Peter, blocks the shot from the rebound too.

Saints have settled well and are in the ascendancy when an attack breaks down and Bertrand tags Perez as Leicester break.  Perez takes it quickly over the top and Rat Bastard Vardy is away on the left.  He streaks away and crosses to back post and Praet has made up the ground and scores easily....arse.  Vardy looks offside but no review so I guess he must have been ok.  Bollocks.  We did the tactical foul bit to slow down the break but we forgot to delay the free-kick so they caught us out anyway.  1-0 in approximately 10 minutes so surely on for another 9-0?  Wrong.

Five minutes later and we are sticking to the plan despite being one down and a ball up to Ings which is controlled and given to Long out on the left.  He crosses and it’s left by JWP and Armstrong cuts in and shoots and sees it take a big nick off of Maddison and give Schmeichel no chance.  A deserved goal for the man with magnificent hair.

Jump in the Air If you Have Magnificent Hair

At 1-1 Saints are still the better side though we do have a slight alarm when a Hojbjerg clearance is blocked into Rat Bastard Vardy’s path and he puts it away but the flag is up and VAR quickly confirms this is correct.  As we approach half time, Bertrand crosses, Armstrong bins Maddison (because that’s what happens if you want the ball more) and it finds its way back to Armstrong via Cedric.  Over it comes low from the right and Ings gets in front of the donkey Soyuncu and bounces a shot into the ground and up and over Schmeichel but it flicks off the bar and is cleared for a corner.  Form the corner, Leicester don’t clear it and Ings shot is blocked out to Maddison who takes a shit touch and Ings launches into a snapshot which crashes out off of the bar which Schmeichel without a prayer.  Fuck sake.  Half time and a really good performance so far.  Maybe they’ll show the nine goals again at half time.

The second half starts with us having another great chance as Bertrand swings over a free-kick from the left and Schmeichel and Chilwell combine to get in each others way and totally miss the ball.  It’s kind of hits Stephens who isn’t expecting it and though it goes goalwards, Soyuncu can hack it away.

We have clearly rattled Leicester but not taken advantage yet and it’s comedy time as Ricardo takes a throw in an Choudhury manages to almost let it bounce over his head and can only head to Armstrong who puts Long through.  Shane is through and is this the moment the seasons' duck ends… no.... but he does get carthorsed over by Soyuncu and Lee Mason has actually given us a penalty.  Soyuncu is moaning – no idea why, you’ve just trashed him mate you flat-footed donkey.  Oh hang on… possible offside… well, it’s Shane isn't it so of course, it’s going to be offside.  JWP has the ball and is waiting for the pen but no, offside.  It’s one of those really tight ones where you see the image and the lines and can’t tell whose line is whose.  Bollocks.  No real injustice, just bollocks.

Leicester do have the ball in our net again on 65 as Iheanacho cleverly turns in from in front of McCarthy but it is clearly offside this time and the lino has his flag up anyway but then, 10 minutes later, there is a goal that actually counts.  Stephens clears and it’s head up by Adams (on for Long).  A 1-2 with Redders and Adams puts Ings through – this isn’t offside and The King of the Scummers goes on, pokes it through Schmeichel’s legs via his heel and in it rolls…. 2-1 to the mighty Saints.

Sometimes It's Worth a Booking

The last 5 minutes are chaos.  Firstly Adams produces a superb backheel to take out two defenders and Redmond is through with Ings for support and just Soyuncu for company.  Redmond draws the defender and squares it but it’s just a fraction behind Ings who digs out a first-time effort and gives the keeper the chance to make a really good save to push it wide.  Fuck… Redders ball wasn't good enough and Danny should probably have taken a touch.  Of course, having failed to make it 3-1, Leicester have chances and sub Gray plays a 1-2 with Rat Bastard and sees his shot blocked by McCarthy and then the big man is at it again to block Iheanacho as he breaks in from the other side.

Time is running out and Maddison collapses under an Adams challenge to win a free-kick about 30 yards out.  In it comes and Evans bullets a header into the net but once again he looks offside…. Please VAR God…. Yessssss!

Get the fuck in there. What an amazing and deserved win that is. We were the better side more or less from the first whistle to the last and dominated every aspect of the game you could possibly hope to dominate. The only injustice is that it was only a one-goal win in the end. Danny Ings getting the winning goal will, of course, mean that he is the man of the match in the eyes of people who don’t watch and think about what they are watching. Ings this season has been all about one chance and one goal and basically a very high conversion rate. Today he missed four or five chances but kept going and got the one that mattered. It is hard to pick a man of the match when everyone from McCarthy right through to Shane was excellent and Che Adams also did really well when he came on for Shane in the last 10 minutes. Oh yes, football is a team and a squad game – who would have thought.  Gun to my head - if I was going to pick a man of the match then I would pick Shane Long. Soyuncu at the heart of the Leicester defence has picked up many plaudits but today, Shane made him look like a lower league hacker. He might have played well against all sorts of strikers in the first half of the season but he clearly couldn’t handle Shane and when you add The King of the Scummers into the mix as well then he had an absolute shocker and if it wasn’t for Lee Mason being partially blind, he would’ve been booked at least once for persistent fouling.

It’s another game where people will be talking about VAR. Shane got put through which led to the (non) penalty but as soon as it went to VAR and as soon as it involved Shane and an offside, I knew it was going to be offside so there was barely any time to get excited. In the end, it was one of those ones that was offside by the width of fuck all. Leicester had the ball in the net four times overall. The offsides against Rat Bastard and Iheanacho were spotted by the linesman and all VAR did was confirm that the decision was correct. Evans header was missed by the linesman and he was the furthest offside of all the decisions. It didn’t seem to be any review of the Leicester goal when Pérez put Rat Bastard Vardy through on the wing. To the naked eye he looked a long way offside but there you go, who cares when you win.

Before the Shane Long penalty incident, we should’ve been out of sight with Ings hitting the bar twice within a minute and the King of the Scummers also missing when clean through in opening 10 minutes. It was ridiculous how good we were in midfield with JWP and Armstrong, in particular, standing out in an area where we got completely and utterly trashed at St Mary‘s.

It was awesome and Ralph was awesome in the way he handled the predictable line of questioning after the game where the interviewer was trying to make it all about revenge for the 9-0 game. Ralph’s comments were all about showing that we are a good team and showing how much we have improved but everyone has to have an angle, don’t they? Like I said at the start, we could be Leicester the next five times we played them and still, the first question will be about the 9-0.  The only nine that anyone should be talking about is our number nine who is now up to 14 Premier League goals for the season.

As for Leicester, I guess Johnny Evans wasn’t looking for any sort of record today and I wonder if the club shop sold any 9-0 DVDs in the immediate aftermath of the game after they put the advert for it on the big screen before the game?. Elsewhere, it’s remarkable how quickly Leicester went to using the ball over the top to Vardy. It’s a legitimate tactic of course because Rat Bastard is so good when played into space, as proved by the first goal but they didn’t seem to have the confidence to play too much through midfield where Saints once again were excellent.

We have now shot up to 28 points and 12th place, only behind Everton and Arsenal on goal difference and eight points ahead of our other South Coast neighbours who occupy the last relegation place.  I’ll keep looking at how many points we are ahead of the last relegation place rather than looking up the table and I suggest everyone else does the same to keep everyone’s feet firmly on the ground.  Today isn’t about league tables though, it’s about the journey and saying “ok, we were shit three months ago but we’re not now”.

Next up is a home game against one of the better sides of the division, Wolves. We’re going to that with absolutely nothing to fear and long may we keep this brilliant run of form going. Bring it on.