Premier League Match 30 - Norwich 0 Southampton 3

Oh Yes We're Back.

A trip to an empty Carrow Road for the first game of Project Money-Grab, to play the team currently sitting in last in Premier league.  I heard it said by clueless people, that they were the best team ever to have been bottom of the table. What a load of horse shit, said by people who in the next breath say that this is the worst standard Premier League of all time…. Can’t have it both ways.  We even beat them at St Mary’s for fuck sake and everyone beats us there. I remember thinking that Norwich were the perfect team for us to play – incapable of being defensively disciplined for 90 minutes, not a lot of physical presence up front and being fairly open. I feel that today is more about how we play, rather than how they play.  If we match their work rate, then the quality should show.

Think of Norwich and what do you think of? Personally, I think of Alan Partridge and Grant Holt for some reason. During our ascent of the leagues when we were competing with Norwich who made the same journey as us.  Grant Holt was their talismanic striker in the same way that Sir Rickie Lambert was ours. Whilst Rickie lost weight to play his best football, Grant Holt remained a big fat bastard but he was effective for a short period of time.

I also remember Grant Holt falling over another guy who had a few weight issues as well (and still does) in Luke Shaw and he won a penalty off of Mark Twattenberg at Carrow Road.  Holt missed the resulting penalty and we got a draw out of the game but I didn’t stop Mauricio Pochettino marching across the pitch to have words with Twattenberg after the game. Oh how I hated Mark Twattenberg but in the eyes of many, he was a decent referee who got selected to go to international tournaments, unlike any of the arseholes we’ve got refereeing games at the moment. Today it’s Kevin Friend – oh deep joy.

Of course, Norwich have the legendary Delia Smith and “lets be ‘avin you” when pissed as a fart and all that stuff. Norwich have left themselves a mountain to climb if they want to not get relegated at the end of their first season back in the Premier League and this is a game that they must surely win to have any chance as banking on Coronavirus getting the league voided, didn’t work.  They have taken a few scalps at home but I see them as a bit of a soft touch and we should be confident about getting a result from this game, strange conditions or not.

Norwich don’t have Grant Holt any more but they do have Teemu Pukki who for a while looked like he was going to keep them up single-handedly but his goal return has dried up and we could do with that remaining the case today. Todd Cantwell and Emiliano Buendia have chipped in with a few goals from midfield but just not enough and defensively, fuck me, they still have Grant Hanley in the team. I’m sure there are League 1 sides that he would struggle to get in. Tim Krul is in goal and he has always been decent and I like the look of Max Aarons at right back.  We kicked Cantwell all around the pitch at St.Mary’s and he didn’t react well to it so it’ll be interesting to see if that tactic is used again.

All we have to gauge Saints on is a friendly against Bristol City at St Mary‘s which consisted of three 45 minutes “halves”. Overall, it was as you’d expect with us looking pretty good up front and forcing mistakes in the Bristol City defence but then us throwing in a couple of crap goals to keep them in it. Not that the result is important but we won 3-2 with two early goals from Stuart Armstrong and one from Danny Ings. As for pointers towards the starting line-up, it was interesting to see Michael Obafemi upfront with Ings with Shane Long out injured. Slightly worryingly, Pierre Hojbjerg started at right back so it will be interesting to see who wins the lucky dip to play there against Norwich. With Pierre a right back, Will Smallbone played in midfield and looked very good indeed going forward. I feel that whilst we may get away with him playing at home games and he may provide some good ammunition from strikers in tight games, I am worried that he’s just going to get bullied in away games. The other interesting point also concerned Pierre and that he was not captain, given his contract situation and so JWP deservedly was given the armband.

To the game and the Pick Channel – I have decided on having piped in crowd noise so let’s go.   Our line-up is a solid choice with Hojbjerg in midfield and Valery winning today’s right back tombola.  Michael Obafemi is preferred to Che Adams up front.  Our two extra bench spots are taken by Kevin Danso who is clearly just seeing out his time here and Nathan Tella, who has always looked like a very positive presence in the age group teams.

Before we get going there is a minutes silence for the Covid victims and then we had the taking of the knee by all players for the Black Lives Matter initiative. Incredibly powerful stuff all round.... and if you don’t like football using its platform for this, then I suggest you go elsewhere and worship at the altar of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins (to name but three)

Away we go and Norwich are on the front foot and they really look like they want it, as you would expect and we are all over the place. We all know that Valery is going to be a weak link at right back and you just hope he starts the game solidly but he doesn’t and ends up giving the ball away, forcing Armstrong to wrestle Pukki down and give away free kick on the edge of the box.  Kevin Friend really should have booked him for that.  Over it comes from Buendia, Valery flicks it on like a boss and it drops in the box and Danny Ings produces a brilliant bit defensive work to prevent Trybull scoring at the back post. Another three corners follow in succession which we defend in not-too-convincing fashion before we finally get in their half.

We make the first really decent chance though as JWP switches the ball out to Armstrong who is on the left. He takes a touch past the defender before clipping across into the middle, where Ings throws himself at it and it either comes off of Danny’s head or off of the Norwich defender but Krul has to change direction smartly to drop on it on the line.

Norwich are going to give us chances and there is absolutely no question about it. They are trying to play the ball out of defence against our high press but they in no way have the ability to do this so we keep winning the ball back near their goal. The only frustration is that we haven’t done anything with it but the tide is certainly turning and we are now looking the better side. Ings steals the ball on the halfway line and sets off towards goal and it takes a last-ditch tackles by Aarons which sees the ball loop up fortunately for Norwich, to their goalkeeper.

Valery is having a fucking nightmare in defence for us and he continues this by shielding a ball out perfectly and conceding a corner. For fuck‘s sake.  At the other end of the pitch he’s doing okay and his persistence wins a corner. JWP has obviously been working on variations on the training ground as he pulls it back to the penalty spot where it’s met first time by Armstrong who connects well and the ball flies through a ruck of players but Krul gets down well to make a decent save.

Norwich try to play out of defence with a ball up to Pukki’s feet Jack Stephens nips into win it and turns into Franz Beckenbauer, slaloming his way up the pitch and it all opens up on the edge of the box and you think he’s going to shoot but he slides it left to Danny Ings who gives the keeper the eyes but manages to hit the crossbar right next to the near post. In all truth, it’s a bad miss and Stephens will be thinking that he should’ve hit it himself.  Great play by Jack though.

We look like the only team this likely to get a goal but frustratingly, the final pass or cross always goes astray.  Half time and we really have to be in these as they are absolutely shit. All we need is just to be a little bit more clinical and this game is absolutely there for the taking.

Two minutes into the second half and all is well with the world, football is back and we love it, regardless of fans in the ground or not…. because we’ve scored.  It starts with a throw in by Bertrand, Obafemi and Redmond compete for the ball well and Armstrong gets a slightly fortunate poke on the ball through to Danny Ings right foot on the edge of the box and he absolutely does the rest, curling/smashing it past Krul who has no chance at all and into the far side of the net to make it 1-0. The King of the Scummers is alive and well.

What have Norwich got? – not a lot as five minutes later we break out a defence with Redmond carrying it forward before finding Ings. A pass to the right to Armstrong who bundles past three half-arsed non-challenges before hitting it left footed low into the bottom corner of the net. 2-0 and two goals in eight minutes at the start of the second half and that really should be enough.

Saints can now continue with a game plan of sitting deep and allowing Norwich to attack, which they are not capable of doing and then we can play on the break. We give away a corner after a Bednarek mistake which he makes up for and then the plan to play on the break really should work as Redmond sends Obafemi away and he is one-on-one with the last defender but he dithers instead of passing it square to Armstrong and though the ball does eventually deflect to JWP, his effort is comfortably cleared from in front of the goal.

The first substitution happens on the hour mark with Norwich deciding that wearing both a hairband and an alice band is too much when you’re putting in zero effort and losing 2-0 and so Cantwell is off. We didn’t even have to kick him to bits for him to be rubbish this time.

We are playing superbly at the moment and knocking the ball around brilliantly around the edge in Norwich is box with JWP having another shot blocked at the end of the six or seven man passing move.  Our only danger is from our own right back as he again fails to clear a long clearance which results in Norwich picking up the ball and Pukki gets the shot away from the penalty spot which is superbly blocked by Bednarek.   From the resulting corner, Norwich do actually get the ball in the net but it’s a very very obvious offside.

As long as we keep the ball away from our right back then we are doing fine with another flowing move coming soon after starting off with Armstrong on the left hand side, multiple passes out to the right and then back to Armstrong in the middle and he dug out a shot from under his feet which had Krul scrambling away to give us another corner.

It’s another chance a moment later as JWP clips of all down the left and Obafemi is away and onside, played on by Norwich defender in the middle who is about 20 yards behind everybody else. It’s a 2v1 break but Obafemi again completely butchers it by not getting his head up and playing in Danny Ings for what would’ve been a simple goal.   Ings such a lovely bloke he just smiles about it. I would’ve been going absolutely fucking mental.

Just a couple of minutes later and Michael gets another chance as we break away down the right and this time he gets his head up picks up Redmond, who waltzes around the last defender and plants it into the far corner for 3-0.  It’s remarkable what happens when you pass the ball.

For the last 10 minutes, Ralph goes substitution mad with first Smallbone and Adams on for Armstrong and Obafemi. Next up a debut for Nathan Tella who comes on for Ings and with just a couple to go, Boufal and KWP come on for Redmond and Valery.  Of the subs, Adams looked more lively than usual and Tella showed that he wasn;t afraid to put himself about and he had a half chance just before the final whistle but didn’t get hold of it.

Nice one.  A completely deserved win and the only mystery is how we didn’t win by more.  We can have absolutely no complaints though, given the strange situation that the players find themselves in and the rustiness they must have had. They went out there and they beat what was in front of them, which is all you can do.   What was in front of them was absolutely fucking crap. If I was in Norwich fan, I would probably be inbred but I would also be absolutely furious.  It’s fine for a team not to be good enough but it’s not fine to have had three months thinking about it, to then come out and not look like the team who had the most to play for given their situation. They did alright for the first 10 minutes which was more down to us being poor than them doing anything spectacular but after that they were absolutely abysmal.  Todd Cantwell looked like My Little Pony with his alice band and hairband set.  If you look like that and you don’t want to get rinsed for it then you really have to be a special player.  Daniel Farke had the look of a condemned man at the end - actually he had the look of a retired porn star like he usually does.

Daniel Farke - "We're fucked"

One comment that I made when Ralph signed a new contract and we were talking about our somewhat traditional piss poor start to the season, was that at least we had the same manager going into this new season so there should be no continuity issue.  Boy did it show. The players looked fit and very well prepared and everyone knew exactly what they were doing.  Ralph and the staff must take huge credit for this. Leading the way with a central midfield pair of JWP and Hojbjerg. Many fans have written Hojbjerg off because after all, he hasn’t signed a new contract yet so he is therefore the antichrist and everything he does is absolute shit.  Newsflash - he is a very good player and deserves more respect and we’ll have a tough job finding a replacement if/when he goes. The pair of them absolutely bossed the centre of the park today and JWP might’ve worn the armband but we had two captains in there.  

Elsewhere, Armstrong started dreadfully but played a major part in the first two goals and was great in the second half and likewise, Redmond had a quiet first half before terrorising Norwich in the second. Up front, Danny Ings looked as sharp as if he’d never been away, scoring one and he would’ve had another one had Michael Obafemi got his head up.  Obafemi did some really good things upfront but his decision-making was shocking, butchering two easy goals before finally getting it right on the third attempt.  It’s perfectly ok for someone else to score.  He is young as he will learn and the minutes he will get in the remaining games will help him.  At the moment he’s a bit like a young Shane Long – all pace and not a lot of brain, chasing things after the fact rather than making intelligent runs.

In defence, the three players who you knew were going to be solid, were solid and Valery did okay going forward but was an absolute fucking nightmare every time the ball went near him in a defensive capacity. Kyle Walker-Peters must be fucking dreadful in training or we have already decided that we are not going to buy him.

Overall, it was a perfect first game back for Saints which all but dispels any lingering doubt about our ability to stay in this division for next season. Norwich, if they weren’t anyway, are completely fucked.  As for the experience of watching a game on TV without fans being in the stadium. I went to the crowd noise on option as I said and overall, it was decent. It helps that we won of course but I think I can live with this for the rest of the season.

Next up is Arsenal at home which is, given their post-restart performances so far in defeats against Manchester City and Brighton, a decent opportunity for three points. We can certainly approach it with no fear after today’s result. Bring it on.