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.