Premier League Match 20 - Southampton 0 Aston Villa 1

Looks like the Black Armband Cost Us

It’s all been a bit doom and gloom after the Arsenal league game, mainly because of the way we didn’t do anything in the second half.  One interesting development since then has been that Jake Vokins, who started the Arsenal game was immediately shipped out on loan to Sunderland which personally I think it’s a good thing for his development but it flies against the stated club policy of not loaning players out. I have to say I was a little bit surprised, like I was when Callum Slattery was loaned out, bearing in mind how few players we have got at the moment. We’re in a pandemic, in an injury crisis, in a fixture pile up, stating we’re not loaning players out and yet we’ve loaned out the B Team captain and a player who started the last game.

In normal circumstances, one would assume that we had an incoming player and the name of Ainsley Maitland-Niles keeps on coming up. Despite never being more than a bit part player at Arsenal, he has managed to play two or three times for England this season and whilst I don’t think he’s good enough for that, he has certainly done enough to suggest he can certainly do a job for Saints this season. As I write, as the Villa game approaches, there has been no more movement on that front.

Villa have been doing well this season and currently sit just above us in the league and fair play to them. They are an entertaining side and very good going forward, lead of course by Jack Grealish who has now broken into the England side despite Gareth Southgate clearly not wanting to put me him in. They are however still relatively ropey at the back and do let in a lot of goals so if we can find something in attack today than it should be a good game. Dean Smith has done remarkably well to turn things around the season having only just avoided relegation last season thanks in part to goal line technology not being switched on in one game.  They’ve bought well and strengthened where they needed to strengthen.  We’ve won the last three games that we’ve played against Villa but this is now a good Villa side who are very settled. Call me cynical if you like but they had a couple of games called off earlier in the season for Covid outbreaks in the camp but when they came back and actually did play again, they had every single player available. Funny that. It’s not exactly been like us playing with loads of kids in the team.

Ralph’s press conference before the game revealed that Oriol Romeu would be available and of course Ryan Bertrand would be coming back from suspension. The key today is for Saints to defend properly. If we do that then there is no reason why we shouldn’t expect to win this game given the fact that Villa do tend to cough up goals, including the four they coughed up against us earlier in the season when we won comfortably, despite the eventual 4-3 scoreline, courtesy of two Villa goals after the 94th minute.

Team news and all three of JWP, Diallo and Romeu are starting.  The assumption is that Diallo will be at right back because Valery is left out.  Nathan Redmond has been rewarded for his complete nothing substitute appearance against Arsenal with a starting place ahead of Adams who is I assume, rested.

It looks like JWP is playing up right back and Redmond is right up front with Ings. JWP’s first real involvement in that position is to take a throw-in which he gets back from Redmond and feeds into Ings who brilliantly turns past Douglas Luiz with a Bergkampesque flick, tees up Armstrong who shoots. Matt Cash, he who should have been sent off when we won at Villa Park for handball, dives in front of the ball and saves it with his with a palm of his hand.  Lee Mason doesn’t give it of course so it’s going to VAR and the goon on duty is Mike Dean.  They show the replay, hits his hand, hand away from body, hand moving towards the ball, made his silhouette bigger…. No penalty.  Fuck off.  Raging.

I kind of lose the next ten minutes raging at the non-decision.  The commentators start waffling about it deflecting off his thigh first so it can’t be a penalty.  Horseshit. Meanwhile, back on the pitch, Villa produce a decent bit of played on the left with Matt Targett taking a quick throw into Grealish. The ball gets fed in to Watkins, who produces a nice drag turn to earn himself a yard against Stephens and his low short is well saved by McCarthy.

40 minutes gone and post-penalty shout, it’s been an ok half.  Saints have dominated it up until the final third which is of course the bit that matters most.  Villa have done very little but here we go, a big switch from Luiz to Targett,  Targett clips one over to Grealish who has got in behind JWP, Grealish crosses it first time left footed and the unmarked Barkley meets it and heads into the net.  Good header, good goal, shit defending. Diallo and Stephens between them of both left Barkley.

Half time and back into the Sky studio for analysis from Keane and Carragher.  They both think it’s a penalty – Carragher can’t see the flick off the thigh and they slow it down and replay it twenty times.  Kelly Cates thinks it’s all funny – that’s good then.

Still angry – second half starts and we go off into a different dimension for 20 mins where nothing happens.  Villa are happy to sit and we don’t have a clue.  No one looks like scoring or playing a decent pass in the final third and it takes an injury to Diallo to change things.  Bizarrely, it’s Moussal Djenepo who comes on and even more bizarrely, he ends up at right back.  Here you go Moussa, you haven’t played for a month and you can’t defend for shit but go and play right back against one of the best players in the country.  Well it’s brave I’ll give him that.  Not long after, Adams is on for Walcott who has done nothing today, apart from his hamstring.

The introduction of Adams in particular has made us look more dangerous.  On 70 minutes, Bertrand sends in a free-kick from the left and Ings plays a great ball through to Adams.  He pokes a shot goalwards and Martinez makes a good save. It’s on Adams left foot but of course he uses the outside of his right to try and scoop it towards goal which probably makes it easier for the keeper.

Over comes the the corner and it gets headed straight up in the air and comes down on top of Martinez who drops the ball and Romeu puts in the net.  Mason’s whistle has already gone so it can’t be reviewed.  Romeu hasn’t fucking touched him but Mason has given a free-kick.  Absurd.

83 minutes and some nice play across the pitch before Bertrand and Ings combine.  Villa defend and Mings pokes it out to Redmond who has a free hit from 16 yards but he launches it over the bar.  It was going over anyway but it flicked off of someone so we get a corner.  JWP at the near post, Bednarek flick header, good reaction save by Martinez, bounces down, Adams has a swing, Stephens hits it and it’s blocked on the line by Matt Cash who doesn’t use his arm this time and Villa scramble the ball away.  It’s not fucking happening is it?  Oh look, could be another injury as Romeu is off to be replaced by Jankewitz, whose agent rubs his hands together with glee.

92 minutes on and Saints are doing their best to make something happen. Jankewitz plays a good ball into Adams who holds it up and Bertrand shoots, Martinez saves and Ings gets there first and scores the rebound. YEAAAAAAAAHHHHH…… Instantly, the fucking flag is gone up. And off we go to Mike Dean World again and it’s dotted lines from the fucking armpit again and a diagonal line which doesn;t line up with the edge of the penalty area.... before we get the final inevitable decision.  I learn that it’s measured from the bottom of the shirt now.  Absurd. Fuck off.  The End.

And I repeat... So, it’s not VAR that’s the problem. It’s Mike Dean and Lee Mason and the bald prick with the flag and now it appears that it’s the rules as well. Both on-field decisions were upheld. Funny that…. well, the penalty was a case of the non-decision being upheld because Lee Mason is fucking useless and didn’t see it. Apparently the penalty wasn’t given because of the deflection off of Cash’s thigh. This is a deflection that is virtually undetectable when the footage is slowed down and reviewed 100 times and the ball does not change direction. He’s moved his hand towards the ball, he’s made himself bigger, it’s hit the palm of his hand. It’s a fucking handball. If it’s not a fucking handball then we might as well do away with the rule altogether and just allow players to catch the ball and fucking run with it. Matt Cash should’ve been sent off at Villa Park for a deliberate handball that stopped Walcott going clean through on goal and the only question about today’s effort was whether it was the should’ve been a yellow or a red card. Mike Dean was on VAR and you can just imagine him sat there thinking “what decision can I give that will make this all about me and make sure that everyone is talking about me and that I’m trending on Twitter after the game“. Well done Mike you fucking arsehole. You strutting peacock all-about-me fucking arsehole.

How Can I Make This All About Me?

Onto the disallowed Danny Ings goal. I didn’t know until today that it’s the end of the sleeve that is where they measure from these days. Another mid season rule tweak to make a complicated rule even more complicated. How that works if you’ve got long sleeves on is anyone’s fucking guess. How can you have a rule that depends on an item of clothing when the size of the item of clothing cannot possibly be standard? What an absolute joke. On commentary they were actually talking about cutting sleeves off and black armbands.  Best League in the World?

If he scored with the part of his body that was deemed to be offside then it would’ve been disallowed for handball without question. Then you have the bald twat of a linesman who flagged for offside for absolutely nothing in the first half and as soon as the ball hits the net stuck his flag up here, meaning that he was convinced that it was offside. Not even fucking Superman with his x-ray vision could’ve seen that so he’s an incompetent fucking prick to go with Lee Mason and Mike Dean. Mason and Dean, what a fucking double act that is. Sounds like a firm of solicitors who are really really shit. We did get the ball in the net on another occasion but Romeu was deemed to have been standing near Martinez with aggressive intent and looking at him in a funny way and so that was given as a foul as well. No one is talking about that one though but Lee Mason deemed that it was a foul so that can’t be reviewed by VAR anyway and even if it was, Mike Dean would’ve just backed up the referee. Lee Mason sees a foul there but he doesn’t see a diving save by a defender in front of the goalkeeper.  Nuno Espirito Santo got fine a few weeks back for calling out Lee Mason.  I hope he gets refunded.

Wanker officials should not divert us from talking about the things that Southampton football club don’t do terribly well. We are turning into a propaganda team. Coming forward we look great until we get to the final third and then we do nothing. Today we had opportunities but only really forced Martinez into any sort of action from about the 70th minute.

Not one out of our forward players looked like they were going to score. Ings and Adams had their moments. The bit of play by Ings which lead up to the penalty shout was absolutely first class and Adams made the team a lot better when he came on. He came on for Walcott who honestly, might as well not have been there, rivalled only by Redmond in regard to not actually contributing anything. In Walcott‘s defence, he does actually at least try and take a player on occasionally whereas Redmond basically either turns around and plays it safe to an unmarked player or he loses the ball if he tries to do anything remotely forward thinking or progressive. He mixes it up a bit by having the occasional shot which are always mis-hit and wouldn’t reach the goal anyway.

Ralph was on a bit of a funny one today. Playing JWP a right back kind of made sense, rather than putting Diallo there but JWP got caught out, losing Grealish which led to the Villa goal. Diallo did not have a great game in midfield and was guilty of continually over hitting passes into the front players. When he went off, no one seem to know what the fuck was going on, least of all Djenepo who went to stand on the left wing and then found himself legging it over to right back against one of the best players in the Premier League. To be fair, this wasn’t actually the problem And I guess it was a bit of a gamble that Ralph thought was worth taking, to get another attacking player on the pitch.

It looks like the injury jinx has struck again. Walcott was holding his hamstring which knowing him, will mean at least a month out and Diallo did not look good either. It appears that Romeu has picked up another injury as well so God only knows what team we are going to be able to put out on the pitch against Manchester United on Tuesday. Hopefully, we manage to get another player in and one who can be pitched straight in. If not then Ralph is going to have to play Yan Valery and JWP is going to have to go into midfield, probably with Alex Jankewitz who maybe might want to hold off on his transfer request.

In my view, both of those decisions should’ve gone in our favour. If they are saying that both of those decisions are correct decisions by the rules then football is becoming an absolute fucking joke. That should be a penalty and that should not be offside. I used to get really angry about football about 20 years ago and I was having flashbacks after today’s game. I was reminded on Twitter about Watford away a couple years ago when that cheating bastard Doucoure punched in a last minute equaliser. That was one of the incidents that hastened the starting of the VAR era. Is it any better now? I’m really not sure is it if decisions like today’s are anything to go by.

Ralph was quite calm and his post match interview and said he didn’t want to get involved in the controversy over the VAR decisions and would leave it to other people. It’s quite admirable that he is able to just stay that calm and that’s his personality. Personally, I think it serves the team better if you go absolutely fucking mental about it and then you’ll get the decision next week. Dean Smith went mental a week or so ago and got sent off when Villa conceded a goal that clearly should’ve been given offside. He gets the decisions this week. Alex Ferguson was never shy about voicing his opinions about perceived refereeing injustices and what always happened after that?

So, three defeats in a row and down to 11th in the league and Manchester United away coming up next and an injury list as long as your arm.  Your arm is the thing that can be used to deem that you’re offside but not that you’ve handled the ball.

Premier League Match 19 - Southampton 1 Arsenal 3

Alex McCarthy Goes Walkabout

Three days after sending the Arsenal crashing out of the FA Cup, we get the chance to beat them again in the Premier League. Somehow, I think this is going to be slightly more difficult. For starters, Mikel Arteta cannot really justify picking a weakened team for this one and secondly, Saints are going to be weaker based on the fact that Ryan Bertrand is suspended and KWP is injured which will mean in all likelihood that we will have two youngsters at right and left back.

Arteta has predictably taken a lot of flak since Saturday and even though it appears that Aubameyang is still unavailable, they will no doubt be boosted by the return of the likes of Lacazette, Saka and Emile Smith Rowe. Smith Rowe is a youngster who has come to the fore recently and has done really well but as is the way with big clubs, Arsenal have decided to block his path and limit his opportunities by signing Martin Odegaard from Real Madrid. Odegaard is a youngster who was tipped to be the greatest thing since sliced bread when he was 16 and whilst he’s made a few appearances for Real Madrid‘s first team, has never really set the world on fire. Regardless, he won’t be available this evening.

As I said earlier, KWP has picked up a knock to join the list of players on the sidelines. There is a boost in that Nathan Redmond is now fit enough to be on the bench but that’s not going to help us out defensively tonight. It looks like Yan Valery and Jake Vokins will be pressed into action and the two players are pretty similar in that they are pretty good going forward but not so great at the defending part of the job.  I anticipate some hairy moments but hopefully they will be okay. Up until now, Vokins has only ever played against League 1 opposition in the FA Cup whereas Valery’s good games were all as a wing-back as opposed to a full back. It may not sound very different, but it really is. Valery will be okay as long as he concentrates for 95 minutes. It will be an interesting test of the Southampton playbook to see if players can just slot in because they used to playing this way with the B team.

The starting line up is as expected with McCarthy back and Valery and Vokins deputising.  Arsenal have a more recognizable line up but Cedric is in again at left back with Tierney still injured.

It’s important to make a solid start and Bednarek, the one first choice member of our back four, fucks up immediately and gives the ball straight to Xhaka in midfield.  One pass and Lacazette is clean through with just McCarthy to beat but luckily, the returning goalkeeper spreads himself well to block the effort and thanks also to JWP getting back to hack the loose ball away, we get away with it. Not the confident start that the defence would’ve wanted.

30 seconds later and Stephens pings one over to Valery on the right wing and his cross is met by Ings but his header hits Holding and goes wide for a corner.  JWP swings it out towards the penalty spot and it’s met by the unmarked Armstrong who hits a thunderbastard of a half volley into the ground and it’s flying past Leno to put us 1-0 up after 3 minutes.  How many times does that happen?  Big chance missed at one end, straight up the other end, goal.

We still don’t look great. Walcott puts us under pressure by losing the ball on the right-hand side but the eventual shite cross from Pepe is easily gathered by McCarthy. McCarthy then throws out to Bednarek, onto Stephens who is just too casual and takes too long get the ball away and Lacazette gets a foot in and the ball goes straight to Saka.  A quick ball to Xhaka and Xhaka slides it through to Pepe who has got in between Valery and Bednarek and he just rolls it past McCarthy as easily as you like.  Fuck. Eight minutes gone and 1-1.  Ralph  would have enjoyed the goal if we’d scored it  – win the ball high up, two passes, goal.

Arsenal are giving us the hurry up and playing us at our own game and pressing high and we are coughing up possession too easily. Another fuck up, this time by Diallo and we lose the ball on the edge of the box again.  Partey finds Saka on the right hand side, Vokins doesn’t even get close to blocking the cross it’s eventually half cleared away and fucking Cedric comes in and hits on the volley right-footed and this really hasn’t missed the far post by very much.  Maybe if he’d had boots on instead of espadrilles.

Vokins defending is undoubtedly dodgy but his attacking play is decent and when he gets a yard, he puts over a superb cross which Adams meets and heads goalwards but Leno gets airborne smartly to save well.  Vokins then again combines well with Armstrong, giving Armstrong the opportunity to curl one at the far post, only he curls it well outside the far post.

Saints are on top now and break well again thanks to a beautiful flick by Adams and Walcott is away on the right.  There is a simple chipped ball to Adams on and Theo makes a total bollocks of and it goes straight to Leno.   A big boot long and Valery doesn’t head it properly and one pass puts Saka away inside Vokins who is again, in totally the wrong position and McCarthy comes flying out of his penalty area and he’s never gonna get there and Saka walks round him and rolls into the net. There are so many things wrong with this goal from our point of view, where do you fucking start?  I’ll start with Walcott - How many times does that happen?  Big chance missed at one end, straight up the other end, goal.

We look relieved to get in at half time only 2-1 down.  It’s already difficult to see us getting back into this but if we are going to, it’s going to have to be early in the 2nd half.  Also, I’m thinking that we’re going to have to score two to get a point here as there’s no way we’re not conceding in the 2nd half .

The first ten minutes goes by and we’re not creating much until Ings decides to try and dribble past the whole Arsenal team and to be fair, makes a decent fist of it beating three players inside the penalty area before running out of room and typically, the ball comes off him and we don’t even get a corner.

Ralph can see it’s not happening and so the first sub comes just before the hour with Redmond coming on for Vokins, meaning Diallo to left back and Armstrong into the middle.  Why not just put Redmond at left back rather than move two players out of position to accommodate him?

Then the unthinkable happens and Cedric does something good and drills a superb diagonal ball across to Saka who has got away from Diallo and he plays it across the six yard line and even Lacazette can’t miss that and he doesn’t, game over.

Ralph knows the game is up so Walcott is put out of his misery to be replaced by Caleb Watts and somewhat surprisingly, Danny Ings is also off with Dan N’Lundulu coming on.  Fuck all happens really for the rest of the game.  Arsenal just keep a shape and we don’t do anything to try and break them down.  The two young subs have the odd moment and Watts tries to beat Xhaka on the edge of the Arsenal box and runs into him, winning a sympathy free-kick off of Kevin Friend.  JWP steps up but Leno has got all the angles right and see it all the way.

Well that was shit and we absolutely got what we deserved which was fuck all. Scored a great goal but then gifted Arsenal the lead just when it looked like we might possibly get back into it we coughed up the killer third goal. I’m less bothered about the third goal then I am the total lack of inspiration and threat going forward in the second half. There truly was nothing.

The key moment of the game came at 1-1 in the first half when Walcott had a simple pass to make, to chip the ball over to Adams who would’ve been clean through on goal. Walcott’s pass missed its intended target by about 30 yards and Arsenal went straight up our end of the pitch and scored the second goal. Everyone’s fingers pointed at McCarthy and Vokins who were both to blame for the goal but fact is that we should’ve been 2-1 in front. Strikers missing piss easy chances or butchering simple opportunities puts pressure on the defence and when the defence is makeshift, with three out of the regular back four missing, you need to give them all the help you can.

We have kids involved all over the place in our squad at the moment and when that’s the case, more than ever, the big players need to step up. This doesn’t get said often but Danny Ings was poor today as was Theo Walcott and as two of our big players, they have to be better than that. The standouts were Diallo and Armstrong but Armstrong faded badly in the second half but he wasn’t getting much a support from anyone else.  JWP put a shift in but he was unable to do it all on his own, especially when Diallo got moved to left back.

The reserve full backs weren’t too bad. Valery in particular can be quite pleased with his performance, not fucking up anything really badly defensively and at least trying to make things happen at the other end of the pitch. He is no KWP of course but he did ok. Vokins put in a couple of very good crosses but his defending is awful. He never gets close enough to the player to make a tackle and his awareness of where the player is, is non-existent. I’m not blaming him because he’s a youngster who is not quite ready to play in the first team yet, at Premier League level. Maybe he will be over time but he’s not good enough to be our second choice left back at the moment. We have been very fortunate that Ryan Bertrand is so consistent and very rarely injured or suspended.  Bednarek had a relatively solid game after the first 30 seconds and so did Stephens but his one mistake cost us when he got caught in possession which led to the Arsenal equaliser in the first half.

Ralph tried to freshen it up by bringing on substitutes relatively early and both N’Lundulu and Watts at least tried to make something happen and put themselves about. Nathan Redmond on the other hand was a complete fucking waste of time. What’s the point of coming on as a substitute in a forward position if you’re just going to turn round and jog back towards your own goal and not take on your full back once in 35 minutes. Bellerin was on a yellow card as well so he’s hardly going to be diving in with a tackle. It’s not good enough just to occupy an area on the pitch and not try and make anything happen. It’s not a fucking training session. He should be coming on thinking “I’m going to rescue this game”, I’m gonna make a difference, I’m going to get myself in the team next week” but instead we got “I’m going to play it safe and jog about”. Fucks sake.  I totally get that coming back from injury isn’t easy and you need to feel your way back but surely after 5-10 minutes you really should be trying to influence things.

Our league season is in danger of slipping away at the moment and fizzling out into nothing much. Playing two games a week is going to kill us with the squad we’ve got and especially with the injuries that we’ve got at the moment. We play in a very high intensity way and it’s no coincidence that our only league win recently was against Liverpool when we had the best part of two weeks to prepare, when the Shrewsbury game got called off.  We need to add to the squad before the window closes but whether this will be possible given the finances – who knows?

Ralph Ponders the Impact of His Most Senior Substitute

To put in it in perspective, Arsenal are better today and they played with a lot more intensity that Saturday and had their better players on the pitch. They are still a massive club despite their poor season and if they turn up, they can afford to have a couple missing.  Bukayo Saka is some player and he’s only just started – left footed, plays on the right, good on his right foot as well.  It’s shame that Gareth Southgate will doubtless mis-manage him for England.

It wasn't mentioned on commentary because we’re not a big club but we are currently missing Vestergaard and Romeu from the first XI and today we were missing Bertrand and KWP.  On top of that, we’re missing back up players like Djenepo, Smallbone, Tella and Salisu.  It all adds up – not only are they missing, it means that some don’t get the rest they need and have to play every minute and we looked tired today. We even made Cedric look good for fuck sake.

Saturday’s game against Villa he suddenly looking very difficult. They are a team that we usually beat but they are still in decent form and above us in the league at the moment so it’s going to be a tough one. Hopefully a few players can get fit again by Saturday and hopefully Ralph delivered the rocket that some of them deserved after tonight’s non-performance and it’ll better at the weekend. Up the fucking Saints.

FA Cup 4th Round - Southampton 1 Arsenal 0

One Ex-Spurs, One Ex-Arsenal, Two Saints

Four days later and we’re back on the FA Cup trail once more to play the cup holders Arsenal at St Mary‘s. Memories come flooding back of a particularly grim FA Cup experience at home to the Gunners when under Claude Puel, we put out the worst 11 we could possibly put out and got beat 5-0. Lloyd Isgrove played. It was that bad.  A Mr T. Walcott scored a hat-trick for the Gunners.

Most of the interest today will centre on whether both teams will put a first choice 11 out today or whether they will rotate with Tuesdays league game in mind. I’d be surprised if Arsenal rotate too much because at the end of the day, it was winning the cup that gave Arteta a bit of grace this season when things were not going very well. However, on the other hand, things are picked up in the league for Arsenal so maybe they will want to prioritise that to try make a late run into the European places. I just hope that Cedric is playing.  As for us – we don’t have much choice so I’m more or less expecting us to line up as if this was a league game.

With everyone in the media pushing the Danny Ings contract situation at the moment, it was a bit of a change to see another first-team player linked away with Ryan Bertrand being linked with a move to, surprise surprise, Arsenal. Isn’t it strange how these rumours spring up just before we are about to play whoever the player has been linked with?  Happened with Hojbjerg last season when we played Spurs.  Ryan is available today before his suspension for the league game so he will definitely be in the side and speculation as to whether he would happily go to Arsenal and play second fiddle to Tierney can wait for another day.

It's BT Sport today with the dream commentary duo of Ian Darke Skate Bastard and Martin Keown Arsenal Legend.  This is going to be as impartial as it gets.  Get ready with your NineNilBingo cards.  The teams are in and with the exception of Fraser Forster in goal, we have the full side out, whereas Arsenal have hit the rotate button.  Elneny in midfield and Pepe and Willian and Nketiah are in the side instead of Partey, Saka, Lacazette and Aubameyang.  The crowning glory of the Arsenal side is that Tierney is out and fucking InstaCedric is at left back.  He’s shit at right back, let alone left back.  Still, it will be good to see him trying to justify that 4 year contract he’s got and it’s that old Phil Neville thing – being crap in multiple positions does not make you versatile.

Away we go and the first incident of the game is Gabriel trying to shield the ball from Ings and kind of slapping him in the face.  Darke and Keown think he’s just protecting the ball but I don’t really see how you do that by putting your hand in someone’s face.  Anyway, we move on and win a corner on the right.  JWP takes it and either by accident or design, slices across the ball and produces an inswinger from the right and it nearly catches Leno out who suddenly shites himself and gets nowhere near it as it hits the bar at the near post.

There a brief chance of something really nasty happening as Willian gets down the right.  He looks offside but we carry on as you do and the ball eventually finds Cedric coming in from the left.  I swear I’m going to kick the TV in if that twat scores but he hits it at the moon and then sure enough, it’s offside.  Arsenal have another chance a couple of minutes later as Pepe chips in a free kick from our right and we all play statues, allowing Martinelli to spring the trap but luckily, he plays an airshot and the ball just plops to Fraser.  We really have to look at how we defend free-kicks from wide areas as it’s just a matter of time.

As you’d expect, Saints are in the main looking the more cohesive out of the two sides and Adams makes a chance which is all his own work as he picks the ball up on the half way line out to the right and bullies past Cedric before knocking it past the static and hopelessly off balance Gabriel.  “FUCKING HIT IT!!” yells everyone on the sofa and he does but it’s too close to Leno who gets down well and gets a strong hand on it.  Bollocks.  What a goal that would have been.

Onwards and Arsenal are pissing about on their right, trying to play out but Elneny isn’t good enough for that and gets dispossessed by Armstrong.  His hair is fine and he finds JWP who I expect to shoot but he moves it on to KWP who goes to fire in a cross low and it goes through Cedric’s legs, hits something and yessssss, in it goes under the keeper.  It has a very ‘own goal’ feel to it and the replay confirms that Gabriel has very kindly diverted it under Leno and given him no chance.  The Cup holders are behind.

Saints are flying now and work another really good chance with KWP again giving Cedric nightmares and his cross is volleyed by Ings but deflected wide for a corner which comes to nothing much.  Cedric compounds his uselessness by appearing 5 yards behind every other Arsenal defender and allowing Walcott to put Holding under pressure.  It looks like it’s a corner but the ref strangely gives a goal-kick.  There is still time for the tight shirted boy band wannabe wanker to make a difference at the other end by demonstrating his phenomenal crossing.  With pinpoint accuracy, he twice picks out Nketiah at the back post, if only Nketiah had been on a very large pogo stick 30 yards up in the air.

Half time and we’ve been very good.  There is the nagging feeling that Arsenal can only get better and they will be sending the cavalry on at some point and we probably need a second goal.  I’m just imagining those goons on Arsenal Fan TV giving it loads about everything.

I thought that £72 million Pepe was supposed to be a bit of a flyer, so it’s a bit of a shock when Diallo runs him off the ball.  Actually it’s not a shock at all – Diallo is superb and reads the game ridiculously well and Pepe doesn’t exactly looked blessed with football intelligence.

We go all Route 1 as Fraser smashes a clearance over everyone and Ings is clean through.  He hits it early and it beats Leno, hits the post, hits Leno and dribbles wide of the post.  It’s given offside and bizarrely, the ref appears to give a goal kick… and it doesn’t look offside on the replay.  Well at least we all know what’s going on as the Arsenal cavalry arrives with Partey and Saka on for Martinelli and Elneny.

Arsenal are immediately energised and Holding has a chance and lashes it over the bar after a corner.  Saints are getting pinned back a bit now but the pressure is eased as Cedric goes all Under-12s park football and gets pulled for a foul throw for the second match running.  Cock.
We are digging in now and only offering sporadic attacks – Armstrong, Adams and Ings combine to give Walcott the chance to make it safe but it’s miles over.
 
The scares are getting more frequent now and even Pepe plays a good ball into Nketiah and his attempted toe poke finish deflects off of Stephens and is on target but doesn’t get past the big boot of Fraser and wide it goes.  From the corner there’s a half hearted shout for handball against KWP which is never going to be given.  The thing about this one is that it illustrates how crap the rule was at the start of the season when it would have been a penalty.  Meanwhile, Arsenal make their last change with Lacazette coming on for Bellerin which means that Cedric can go and be shite over the other side.

It’s time for Saints changes and N’Lundulu and Long come on for Adams and Ings.  Something strange happens and Long is looking like the Long from before this season as he’s looking a pest.  He attacks on the left side and gets inside of the box and it looks like a blatant dive as the ball runs out of play but when they show the replay Holding has clearly clipped him and that should be a penalty and unbelievably, there is no penalty and we get a corner.  One thing for sure is that Holding was nowhere near the ball so if it’s not a foul then it’s a goal-kick so that is absolutely fucking mental.  It was slightly surreal and I thought I must have imagined it.  Shane keeps up the good work by wasting some time in the corner with JWP and generally delaying things and being a shithouse.

90 minutes are up and there’s only three to be added on.  There is some pressure coming on us but not too bad and just the one chance as Nketiah takes a wild swing at a ball in the box and smashes it over.  The End.  Get In.

Darke and Keown sound suitably pained at the final whistle.  To be fair, Keown has been ok in terms of being partisan as he clearly rates us and Ralph and is not shy of saying so – as opposed to a commentator like Carragher and Neville who only commentate on their own team.  Keown did however come out with a classic, calling our injured player Romario instead of Romeu.  Darke of course, being the Skate that he is, found a way to get the 9-0 in there even though it was a) in 2019 and it’s now 2021, b) against a different team and c) in a different competition.

A thoroughly professional and well ground out result from the boys today. Totally deserving of the result for the way they approached it and Arsenal quite frankly never really looked like scoring.  Straight up I have to mention that Ralph prioritised the game that was in front of him and Arteta prioritised the one that’s coming on Tuesday night. The trouble now for Arteta is now that if Saints again beat Arsenal on Tuesday night then he looks a right prick. There are so many examples through time of clubs rotating in players because they’re thinking of the second game and they end up losing both.

Again it was a performance built on everyone doing their job and everyone playing to something approaching their full potential. Some were better than others of course with the standouts for me being Bednarek, Diallo KWP and JWP.  No one was bad though - even the substitutes and even Shane Long who put in his best cameo of the season, working hard, being a shit house and he should’ve had a penalty for the clumsy foul by Holding.

How the fucking hell the referee can give a corner after the penalty incident with Shane Long is totally beyond me and if it goes to VAR, which I assume it did, then how can it not be given as a penalty given that there was contact and Holding was nowhere near the ball? Mind you he gave a corner to Arsenal when Nketiah punched a ball onto Bednarek and out of play so I’m not surprised by anything anymore. Anyway, we don’t need to worry about that because we are through the 5th Round for an away game at Wolves.

His Throw-In Technique was Dodgy Even When We Had Him

And what of Cedric. Well he was absolutely gash as you knew he was going to be. Crosses sailing 40 yards over everyone’s head and out of play on the other side and he topped it all off with a foul throw for the second game running. This is some achievement bearing in mind that there are about two foul throws given across the whole of the Premier League per season usually. Arsenal however have been winning that stat this season though, having committed seven foul throws.  Hilarious. We didn’t score a back post header but maybe we can save that for Tuesday.

It’s a different game on Tuesday of course and Arsenal will have a different line-up which will include the likes of Aubameyang, Smith-Rowe, Lacazette, Saka and Partey from the start. The pressure is now right on Arsenal though so maybe we can go out and enjoy and win that game and make Arteta look a bit stupid for not really trying to win this one and thinking he could beat us with his reserves.  We’re not a bad side you know.

FA Cup 3rd Round - Southampton 2 Shrewsbury 0

 

There's a New Dan In Town

Time for the game that should’ve been paid a week ago that looked for a while like it wasn’t going to be played at all… yes, it’s the FA Cup 3rd Round at home to Shrewsbury Town. We have picked up quite a few plaudits for not insisting that we got a bye when Shrewsbury pulled out of the first game after a number of their players and staff went down with Covid. Hopefully, our generosity will not extend to getting beat today. A home tie against Arsenal awaits the winners on Saturday.

Needless to say I don’t know very much about Shrewsbury or any of their players. I know that Steve Cotterill is the manager and he was painfully funny when he was manager of that lock down the road a few years ago. However, it appears that Cotterill has been in intensive care with Covid and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody so I hope he makes a full recovery soon.  He is apparently improving but let’s just help his recovery by giving him one less thing to worry about by knocking his team out of the FA Cup this evening.

It’s been a guessing game as to who the hell will play for us today given the amount of injuries that we’ve got and the natural desire to rest a few players against lower league opposition. In the event, as expected, we mix-and-match with Fraser Forster in goal – we put Fraser in goal when we’re playing supposedly weaker sides like Shrewsbury and Liverpool. Both regular centre backs are present and the second string fullbacks in Yan Valery and Jake Vokins. It’s an interesting one for Vokins because Ryan Bertrand is suspended for the Arsenal league game which is coming up a week today, so he needs to prove that he’s up to it. The regular central midfielders are there today in JWP and Diallo but on the wings we have two academy boys making full debits in Kegs Chauke and Caleb Watts, midfield players from South Africa and Australia respectively. Up front it’s a full debut for Dan N’Lundulu and Shane Long gets to practice the timing of his runs.

Away we go and we appear to only be playing 3 at the back because Vokins is so far forward he’s halfway down Brittania Road.  However, he returns in time to get a shot in which forces keeper Sarkic to shovel over the bar.

It’s the first effort before 20 minutes and JWP pings it forward from the centre circle to where Caleb Watts has made a good run into the penalty area. He controls it with his shoulder before it’s half cleared and it drops to Dan N’Lundulu who takes it round one defender and fires it back across into the far side of the net as the keeper watches on. Shrewsbury are appealing for handball against Watts and I haven’t got a fucking clue whether VAR are applies for this game or not until the screen pops up saying “VAR check no handball”. Happy days, 1-0.

It takes half an hour for Shrewsbury to do anything as we don’t deal with a bouncing ball in the middle of the pitch and Udo finds Whalley who fires it well over the bar. The next action is Shrewsbury winning a corner which is half cleared and it works its way out a Whalley again, who this time gets his curled effort below the crossbar but Fraser is easily equal to it and it’s offside anyway.

Half time and the young lads have done well.  N’Lundulu has told the ref to fuck off as well so he’s learning.  Chauke and Watts in particular have shown up well and so far so good.  It’s not been particularly flowing but it was never going to be.

The second half starts and Shrewsbury are just sitting back and waiting for us to make a mistake and then trying to break which they do down the right hand side through Chapman who looks a little bit like a fat Charlie Austin and the comparison doesn’t end there as he launches the shot over the bar.  Saints are doing most of the attacking without creating very much but a shot from Valery wins a corner which is taken by JWP, flicked on by Shane Long and Stephens knocks it goalwards but unfortunately it’s straight at the keeper who parries it away.

There's a glorious chance to score after a rare Shewsbury attack as Long leads the break with Chauke.  It's 2 on one and all the two of them have to do is manage one pass but Shane predictably underhits it and Chauke get tackled by the only Shrewsbury outfield player in their half.  Shane's pass was crap and Kegs didn't make a good enough angle.

We get with about 2 centimetres of scoring again when JWP picks out Vokins on the left and his pull back is met by Watts and blocked by a combination of goalkeeper and defender and the ball looks like it’s going to go into the net but a defender gets a boot to it with about 95% of the ball over the line.
We’ve got to the 70th minute before the subs start with Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong on for Long and Chauke and a few minutes after, Alex Jankewitz is on for Watts.  The youngsters have been promising whereas the old man has been poor again.

Saints produce a lovely move down the left hand side to find Vokins and he slides Adams clean through against the goalkeeper. He skips around the keeper to the left but for some reason doesn’t want to roll into the empty net with his left foot and switches it back onto his right and allows a Shrewsbury defender to get back and clear it. The ball pops up to Jankewitz who has followed the move into the box but his shot is also blocked for a corner.

90, 91, 92 and Shrewsbury don’t remotely look like scoring.  Diallo picks up the ball and runs and gets upended on the left hand side of the penalty area. It is in that mythical area called JWP territory and the main man sends the free kick fizzing over the wall and in at the near post despite Sarkic getting a touch so at least he can say he has let in a JWP free kick in identical fashion to David de Gea.

Guess Where This Is Going?

Another sub as barely 17 year old Ryan Finnigan comes on for Diallo and there is a chance to score another as Jankewitz does well to find Valery on the right hand side and he should hit first time but takes a touch and gets tackled and the game ends with N’Lundulu trying to score goal of the season from the edge of the box and instead hitting Row Z.  It's pissing down and no one can be arsed to get the ball so the game ends.

Well it wasn’t pretty but the job got done and we are through to the next round which is all that really matters, and deservedly so. I couldn’t quite work out what Shrewsbury‘s game plan was as they never really opened up and tried to attack at any point, even as they started running out of time. I felt certain from about 50 minutes that we were going to win 1-0 but the second goal was a nice bit of icing on the cake, seeing as it was another brilliant free kick from JWP.

It’s great for Big Dan to get a goal and some of his play in the first half in particular was really good though he did fade in the second half. He is interesting in that he is a big unit but he doesn’t really play like it. It’s not as if he’s holding the play up and bringing others into play like Graziano Pelle. He almost seemed to play as a number 10 at times and his first touch was sometimes very good and sometimes very, very bad. Still, he did okay and he was better than his partner up front who did at least manage not to get caught offside.

The pick of the kids was Caleb Watts who looked totally unfazed by first-team football, wasn’t afraid to get stuck in and look to have a really good touch about him. He had a lot of confidence in his own ability and I think he will go up the pecking order a little bit based on that.  Kegs Chauke found a little bit more difficult but he too showed some nice touches and wasn’t afraid to get stuck in, launching one player up in the air to get booked. It would have been nice if Long’s pass had got to him in the second-half to see what he did one-on-one with the keeper but alas, not to be. The other youngster we saw briefly was Alex Jankewitz and you can see why there have been some very positive reviews of him even though he only played a few minutes. He had a swagger about him and a lovely touch. All promising stuff.

The fullbacks, Valey and Vokins are basically both wingers.  In exactly the same way as he did in the FA Cup 3rd Round last year, Vokins always seems to be about 20 yards further forward than where he should be. Quite often he was standing behind the opposition full back when our the central midfield had the ball and they couldn’t pass to him because he hadn’t made an angle. It is definitely something he needs to work on. Defensively, he kind of settles for being in the vicinity rather than actually making a challenge and after watching that today, it would worry me slightly if he was pitched in when Bertrand is suspended. I suspect that we won’t have much of a choice however. Yan Valery on the right hand side was pretty good going forward, always wanting to drive at defenders although the final ball didn’t come off on a number of occasions. For me, he showed that he has something to offer, probably as a winger rather than a full back. Defensively he didn’t have anything to do but he got through 90 minutes and had a decent enough game.

The only other moment worth mentioning really, concerned Che Adams who needs a goal and it is slightly worrying when you go round the goalkeeper and have an open goal to roll it into, and don’t trust your left foot to do it. We need other strikers, other than Danny Ings, to be finding the net.
Almost forgot that I’ve left the best till last. Ibrahima Diallo was brilliant again. This boy has a fantastic attitude and he has the ability to match. He’s going to be a very good player and he already is to be honest. When you think that some people was saying in the summer that we should get Mario Lemina back in the squad.  Instead of that waster, we have a player with as much ability but a determination and an attitude to get the best out of it, be it against Liverpool or against Shrewsbury.  Oh and his social media doesn’t make him look like a bell end either – no rapping videos or LemsLife documentary.  If Diallo starts making You Tube videos called “IbraLife” or whatever, they we’ll have to have words.

Next it’s two games against Arsenal, just when they have begun to start playing well again.  Saturday in the FA Cup and then Tuesday in the league.  Of course, The Arse are the current FA Cup holders.  Cedric was in their side for the last league game so hopefully will get to see him – no doubt his social media will be full off “The Hero Returns” or somesuch tight shirt no socks boyband bollocks.   Even if Cedric is playing, it’ll still be two hard games. The right to left diagonal should be out in force.
Job done tonight with a glimpse of the future it was bright and bring on the 4th Round.

Premier League Match 18 - Leicester City 2 Southampton 0

 

5 and Stephens on his shirt but it's still Bednarek.

A trip to the King Power to play Leicester City in a game of Nine Nil bingo. It doesn’t matter that we beat them up here last time out and it doesn’t matter that we won two out of the last three games against them. What matters to the world is that they beat us 9-0. Everybody knows it and everybody will keep mentioning it. Nothing we can do about that.

We’ve had what amounts to a couple of weeks off because our FA Cup game against Shrewsbury was postponed due to the Covid outbreak in the Shrewsbury camp. It looked likely for a while that we might be given a bye through to the next round but everyone has co-operated and this game is next week. What it does mean is that we have had plenty of rest since the Liverpool game which should stand us in good stead today against one of the best sides in the division.

When you think of Leicester’s team, the first thing you think of is Rat Bastard Vardy upfront who I can’t help but like, despite him being the aforementioned Rat Bastard. The tackle he put in on Virgil Van Dijk at St Mary‘s a few years ago led to a series of unfortunate events, culminating in Liverpool winning the Champions League and the Premier League and their fand being even more unbearable. Mr Vardy has a lot to answer for. Elsewhere, they have what is for me one of the best midfield threes in the country in Ndidi, Tielemans and Maddison and the defence this year has featured young Frenchman Wesley Fofana. He arrived for £30 million in the summer along with Thomas Castagne for £20 million but this was offset by the sale of Ben Chilwell for £50 million to Chelsea. I feel that Leicester have got the better of that particular deal. All of this has been overseen by the man with great character and even greater teeth, Mr Brendan Rodgers, steadily rebuilding his reputation having gained a reputation for being a complete arse from his stint as Liverpool manager. I personally will never forgive him for buying Rickie Lambert from us and ruining the end of his career.

So, I can’t help but like Leicester. They are a similar sized club to ourselves and they had the ridiculous premier League win in 2016, a year in the Champions League and are now are in the Europa League again and they have taken advantage of all of this and built a squad which has quite a lot of depth and should be able to maintain a decent level of performance throughout the season. They are a good club for us to aspire to be like. They do have one major advantage over us though and that is of course the owner who is prepared to put a few quid into the club and actually have a presence around the place from time to time.

You would think that the 13 days that we’ve had since our last game would enable a few more of our players to get fit but it looks like Vestergaard, Redmond and Djenepo are still out and it’s been revealed that Danny Ings has been self-isolating for 10 days after testing positive for Covid around about the time we played Liverpool. I can’t help it feel there’s a bit of mind games going on here and Ralph acknowledged that he was back in training on Friday so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he features today. Adams, Romeu and McCarthy should all be back after missing the Liverpool game.

… or so I thought.  In the event, Romeu is nowhere to be seen, nor is Ings and Redmond, who has not had a reported long term injury, is still missing, meaning that we are playing Will Smallbone on the left, with Diallo retaining his place after his excellent performance against Liverpool.  It’s Theo and Che up front with McCarthy back for Forster.  The bench… oh man!  Forster and Long and then 7 kids…. Valery, N’Lundulu, Vokins and then it’s some who’ve never even been close up until now like Will Ferry, Kegs Chauke, Allan Tchaptchet and Caleb Watts.  Leicester have a bench full of internationals like Soyuncu and Under.

Saints start relatively positively with KWP prominent and Adams causing mild panic with a driving run which is eventually snuffed out near the goal line.  We don’t create any real chances though and then we make a bollocks of playing out from the back with Stephens gifting the ball to Leicester 25 yards out and Albrighton passes across to Vardy who steps over it and Barnes shot is parried away well by McCarthy

Another Leicester attack he’s broken up with a good sliding tackle by Bertrand and we move up the pitch through JWP who finds Diallo and he gets goal side of Ndidi and is away. Ndidi pulls him back right for the referee Stuart Atwell, who does absolutely fuck all and Leicester attack again, over comes the cross, Vardy takes a big air shot, possibly down to the ploughed field that he is playing on and Bednarek smacks it clear up to Walcott.  Theo loses it and Albrighton chucks it into the mixer and once again we half clear it. Tielemans picks it up and threads a straight ball through to Maddison who rolls Stephens who has got too tight and smashes it high into the near top corner. Bollocks. Even though it all stems from a shit piece of refereeing, we had 3 chances to clear it so that isn’t getting disallowed.

There are a few complaints to the referee when the goal goes in so Atwell knows he’s fucked up and his next action is to book Diallo for ironically, pulling back a Leicester player.  Saints create their best chance of the day with a good move building up the left hand side with JWP sliding the ball through the defence to Bertrand who has made a great run forward.  With no options in the middle, he steadies himself, takes aim and smashes it goalwards and Schmeichel, somewhat fortunately manages to get something on it and see it loop over the bar.

Half time and the only real difference is that we haven’t had the breaks and one bad bit of defending.  It’s hard to see how we change it around too much though.

Saints start the second half on the attack with Armstrong bundling through the middle and eventually feeding it left to Smallbone who tries to curl one into the far corner but Schmeichel gets a good hand to it and the rebound hits Walcott and goes out for a goal kick before he can sort his feet out.  Diallo then pulls back Maddison again and probably should get a second yellow but Atwell, as I may have mentioned, is a shite referee.

Smallbone goes down after a tackle and it doesn’t look great but he’s up and back on for a minute or so before going down again.  N’Lundulu is the man coming on with Walcott dropping back.  A few minutes later and Che Adams is off to be replaced with Shane Long.

Saints are pushing up now and leaving in a few gaps and allowing Leicester to create some chances. Following good work by Barnes and Justin on the left hand side, the cross comes in from Barnes and Vardy has got in between Stephens and Bertrand, neither of whom are bothering to mark him but Rat Bastard heads over the bar.

Back come Saints through KWP who passes it on to N’Lundulu and Armstrong, who comes infield and smashes it against the bar. The ball has gone straight up in the air and it’s coming down on top of Shane Long and Johnny Evans just shoves him the ground. Even Atwell has to give that as a penalty.  Yes – he’s blown almost instantly but then he’s looked across and you know what’s coming. Because it’s Shane, you just fucking know he’s going to be offside and sure enough that is what’s given. It’s somewhat amusing in a black humour kind of way that when they show the replay, Shane is in an offside position the entire time, never once getting back behind a defender in the whole time that Armstrong was dribbling across the pitch and getting ready to shoot.

At the other end, Bednarek snuffs out an attack and then gives Bertrand a hospital ball which allows Leicester to cross it and Barnes meets it at the far post and it’s going in but Bednarek makes up for his error by getting back and heading off the line.

Saints are really open now, committing players forward with Walcott feeding KWP on the right hand side and his cross is headed away allowing Leicester to break through Justin who advances virtually unopposed to the edge of the area before feeding Rat Bastard, who jinks past the last defender and then smashes it and McCarthy pulls off and off an excellent save to keep it at 1-0.

Valery is on for Diallo who has been in non-tackle mode for about 40 minutes now and on 92, we try and attack again but Jack Stephens passes it straight to a Leicester player in midfield and two passes later Barnes is completely through on goal and he sits McCarthy down and scores easily.

Ah fuck it. The second goal makes it a little bit more comprehensive than it really was but the bottom line is, Leicester deserved to win the game. If we had been incredibly fortunate, we might have got a goal and come away from that game with a draw but it would have been undeserved as we looked incredibly blunt in attack. We had the first half chance from Bertrand which was saved and the second-half, the curler from Smallbone and the shot from Armstrong which pinged off the bar for. For about a second I thought we had a penalty but then hope turn to resigned acceptance when I realise it was Shane Long who was fouled and he would therefore by definition, be 5 yards offside. Maybe when Shane gets a little bit more experience, he will learn to time his runs better.

We were behind at half-time basically because we made a defensive mistake. The move that led to the goal was started by Stuart Atwell, comfortably, despite some amazing competition, the worst referee in the Premier League.  He failed to spot the most obvious pull by Ndidi on Diallo. That said, we still have plenty of opportunity to do something about the move before Maddison rolled around Stephens and smashed into the net. It was dreadful defending by Stephens and there is no getting away from that.  It’s not picking a scapegoat, it’s just stating a fact. Jack is like Maya Yoshida in that he’s a good backup player and he is capable of two or three decent performances but there is a concentration issue if he has to play more than two or three games and there is always a shocker of a performance just around the corner. The second goal doesn’t matter, coming as it did in the 94th minute but it was the same player giving the ball away again.

We had the cutting edge of a spoon today. This is a problem that we have when Danny Ings doesn’t play. We don’t have another player who you would trust to score if an opportunity presented itself. Adams, Long, Walcott, Armstrong… they are all just as likely to miss than hit the target. We played the last 20 minutes with Shane Long and Dan N’Lundulu up front. We know that Shane isn’t going to score and Dan spent most of his time trying to link play up outside of the penalty area. He showed some nice touches to be fair but we had next to no goal threat.

There were some good performances from the likes of McCarthy and Bednarek. Bednarek made a couple of mistakes but made up for them with his customary determination to do so. I thought Ryan Bertrand had a decent game out on the left flank and JWP and Diallo were strong in the centre of midfield. Diallo was quiet second-half because he knew that one more foul and he was going to get sent off. Two identical fouls, booked for one, not for the other and can be grateful for the fact that Atwell as a shit referee. Will Smallbone and Armstrong both had their moments in the wide areas but Smallbone it now emerges has done his ACL so he’s going to be out for 6 months at least. 

Questions have to be asked about the medical staff at the side of the pitch on match days.  In the last few weeks we’ve sent Adams back on after his boot in the head, which led to him missing a game a week later and now we’ve sent a young kid back on with an ACL injury.  It’s not a good look.

I agree with Ralph when he says that the team did as well as they could do, given the players that we had available. When you look at the roll call of players missing then it is no wonder. Vestergaard, Romeu, Redmond, Djenepo, Ings. Add into that Salisu the Myth and Tella. Leicester are very good side with a very strong squad and so it is no disgrace to go up there and get beat. Like I said, on another day with a bit more luck we might of nicked a point but the defeat was deserved.

Skate and Twat

Today's game was brought to us by BT Sport which meant we had Steve MacManaman as a co-commentator.  A classic commentator who knows nothing of teams from outside the top 6. Stephens has a big fucking number 5 on his back with his name written above it but he's still Bednarek to McManaman.  Still he thought Atwell refereed the game well - fucking idiot.

No time to moan about it though because we have a quick turnaround with the Shrewsbury game being arranged for Tuesday. I imagine that we are going to see quite a few of the youngsters who were on the bench today which will make it interesting in its own right. Up the fucking Saints.