And We're Back....

"Hey Les, Let's Leave This Semmens Guy With a Load of Shit to Sort Out"

And we’re back in the room.

The room in question is of course, the room with the television in it as all match going fans are to become what they loathe... an armchair supporter.

I’m in the camp that thinks it’s too soon to be starting but starting we are, so we have to make the best of it. Football without fans is nothing. This is a phrase that you will have heard many times before and it is very true but sadly, the game has been inexorably moving away from the fans since 1992. We can’t have football how we want it, which is to have fans in the stadium, so we have the choice of matches behind close doors or nothing at all. The financial implications of not playing mean that we were always going to get these ‘ghost’ games if it was at all possible and our old friends the Germans, have proved that it is possible. I’ve watched a couple of games in the Bundesliga and they have been largely very dull and soulless experiences but to be honest, I find any game of football that I don’t have a vested interest, a difficult thing to watch. Fans in the ground would help in that regard I guess but I would still not be that interested.

The reason for that is that wouldn’t necessarily consider myself to be a football lover any more. I love my club and everything to do with Southampton FC but I couldn’t give a rats arse about any other club or in particular, the Premier League brand. The fact is, that when I am watching any of these ghost games involving Saints on TV, like I have watched countless other games involving Saints on TV, I will be shouting and screaming at the telly and I will be going nuts when we score and knocking beer over and I will be swearing very loudly at the referee in exactly the same way as I would be when there was a crowd in the stadium. It’s Southampton FC and we are back, so let’s make the most of it. So, where we before we went away?

Before everything ground to a halt we had been making very hard work of getting over the line regarding being safe for next season. We are currently seven points above the relegation zone and whilst the bottom six are considered to be the clubs in danger, we are next in line and with nine games left, it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility for Saints to make a spectacular late bid for relegation. In fact, with the season being as messed up as it is, it would be a typically Saints thing to do. Those within the club are talking about winning the last nine games and catapulting ourselves up the league but I guarantee you, all they really care about is winning the two games that will make us safe for next season.

We have no idea how playing behind closed doors will affect us, as opposed to any other club. I guess there may be a bigger likelihood of surprise results and I’ll be interested to see how the referees react to not having 60,000 home fans influencing their decisions at the big grounds. A lot of people seem to have jumped on the very lazy bandwagon that having no fans at St Mary’s will somehow help us, the logic being that the fans or somehow at fault for us being crap at home and the players feel under pressure to perform. I am completely calling bullshit on that one.

We can’t win home games because of the way the team is set up and the players we have. We can only play one way and our attacking threat totally relies on having space for the likes of Shane Long and Nathan Redmond to run into. Team sit deep when they come to St Mary‘s and we generally, do not have a clue. We don’t have the clever quick incisive passing to pick our way through deep set teams and we don’t have the option to go over the top. We have been generally, pretty awful at home ever since Ronald Koeman left 4 years ago and in my view, this is down mainly to not having a traditional big number nine target man which we have tried to do without since Graziano Pelle left. I’m sure that you don’t necessarily need a Pelle or Lambert type striker but we have had four successive managers who are yet to unlock a way of Saints being any good at their home ground.

People keep going on about the new normal but the second that things started to gather pace regarding the Premier League starting up again, the new normal became very much like the old fucking normal with Pierre Hojbjerg ill-advisedly liking a tweet that was touting him for a move to Tottenham. I can’t be bothered to get annoyed about it anymore as it seems that he’s likely to be off at the end of the season, whenever that may be – it’s not a foregone conclusion but it is the most likely outcome. Ralph sounds like he has reached the same conclusion, basically saying that it is unlikely that you can be the club captain and be in the last year of your contract. Martin Semmens joined in this debate as well basically saying that whilst Pierre’s attitude remains excellent, he sees himself at a higher level. To be honest, that is absolutely fair enough. As long as his commitment is 100% towards Saints whilst he is here, then I really have no problem with him. Whether any fan thinks he’s good enough to get the big move that he wants, is irrelevant really. I feel that there will be a cut-off point, depending on when transfer windows are and he will sign a new contract with us if the big move doesn’t materialise.

It was good news with Ralph Hasenhuttl committing to a four-year contract. On the one hand this is great news for the club because it gives us and him a bit of stability and you would think that he wouldn’t sign it unless there was some sort of undertaking from the owners to providing with the finance to improve the squad and do more than just tread water which is basically what we’ve done this season. On the other hand, if someone is offering me approximately £24 million quid for four years work and I knew that I’m going to get paid that even if I’m crap and get sacked after six months, then I’m hardly going to turn it down.

I do however like the sound of the iBook (or whatever the hell it’s called) that Ralph has been working on to give a blueprint for how the teams at all levels of the club should play. This will give us a clear philosophy going forward. Lack of a clear philosophy is what is always a problem when managers’ change and they bring their own philosophies and sign a load of players who don’t fit when the next manager invariably rolls around. We allegedly had this in the early days of Les Reed but we allowed Claude Puel in particular, to do his own thing and that was the start of the struggle.

Also signing a new contract is Shane Long and based on his performances this year, it is well deserved. Two years seems the right amount of time for a player who will be 35 at the end of it and relies on his pace. I do wonder if we would’ve been so keen to offer him a new contract if Che Adams had not been such a monumental flop so far? We all love Shane for his work ethic and we all know that he is somewhat limited. In an attacking sense, he’s great when the opponents leave a bit of space in behind but not great when they defend deep, which brings us back to the earlier point about our attacking struggles at home over the last four years.  As far as pressing defenders is concerned though, he is excellent and that’s one of Ralph’s big requirements.

Now the Shane Long contract is sorted, attention will move towards the players who have one year left and rumour has it that both Ryan Bertrand and Oriol Romeu will be offered new deals. Pre-coronavirus, I expected Ryan Bertrand see out the last year of his contract and leave on a free but I have renewed hope that he will sign another deal. I guess Oriol’s situation will be informed by whether Hojbjerg stays or not. Losing both of them at the same time wouldn’t be good.

Martin Semmens and Ralph have some serious work to do for the next few months regarding the contract situation of all the players whose deals expire at the end of 2022.  It’s a long list including McCarthy, Stephens, Bednarek, Armstrong, JWP and Danny Ings from the current 1^st team squad.

It has, on the face of it, been a decent start by Semmens to be fair. One deal which is looking more inspired / hilarious by the minute is the £5 million that he managed to get for Cedric back in January as it now appears he is going to leave Arsenal on June 30, without even having played a game. Whilst that is not entirely Cedric’s fault, it is amusing that his main contribution to Arsenal has been on social media for it seems like every day has been “Cedric in an Arsenal shirt” day. It just adds to the overall impression of him being a bit of a bell end and it makes that deal, from Arsenal’s point of view, seem even more ridiculous as they’ve basically just handed us £5 million quid for nothing.  However, the Cedric deal would be eclipsed if Semmens manages to get £26 million for Vestergaard as has been rumoured.  Pull that one off and we should build him a statue next to Ted.

The first batch of fixtures have been published and we are starting where we left off with a trip to Norwich, then a home game against Arsenal before a trip to Watford. The Norwich and Watford games are both on the free to air Sky Pick channel, which I have never heard of until now. The Arsenal game is on the usual Sky subscription channel which I guess, the club will provide some sort of access to for season ticket holders.

As Project Restart was taking shape (why not call it Project Money Grab – much more accurate) and all the teams down the bottom, especially Brighton and Villa, were objecting to restarting and citing integrity issues. It has always made me laugh whenever anyone has talked about the integrity of the competition.  The competition doesn’t have much integrity at the best of times as far as being fair is concerned but now we’re getting a rule change half way through.   This may sound ridiculous but one thing that is fair in the Premier League is that both teams have 11 players and whilst that’s still the case, we have a rule change to allow nine players on the bench and you can make up to 5 substitutions. Who is that going to benefit exactly? Yes, the big clubs with the big squads who will now have a choice of 20 superstars to choose from whilst the rest of us will have to make do with an extra couple of youth team players on the bench. I was actually quite disappointed that Saints weren’t one of the clubs that objected to it.

To me, this is a completely unnecessary rule change and can go in the bin along with the shambles in the FA Cup this season whereby different games in the same competition have different rules with some having VAR and some not. Mind you, that is a different level shambles when you can have the first game played with VAR and a replay played without it.  Different rules have of course been applied to League 1 & 2 which have been ended and ‘points per game’ used to decide the final tables.  Meanwhile, the Championship and the Premier League are playing on.  Integrity… fuck off.  Money, money , money.

Anyway – we’re back and it’ll make life more interesting for the next few weeks.  Liverpool will win the league and it won’t hurt because it’s been in the bag for so long and Saints will hopefully and quickly get the necessary points so relegation is not an issue to concern us.  We need to be one of the clubs that adapts quickly to the strangeness of empty ground and a win at an empty Carrow Road on Friday would go a long way towards making sure that this strangest of seasons ends well.