Premier League Match 25 - Leeds United 3 Southampton 0

 

Andre the Giant Realises That he's Not a Giant After All

Due to the Shrewsbury cup game getting postponed, we haven’t played against Leeds yet this season but the time is come to take them on at Elland Road and as we all know, the best time to go to Elland Road is when there are no Leeds fans in it. I’m only half joking.

Leeds are of course managed by Marcelo Bielsa who is held up by managers like Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino as being one of the legends of the game and someone they aspire to be like. He does seem to be overpraised in some quarters and that provokes a bemused reaction in a lot of people.  I always say you can only judge your manager by how well he does with the resources that he’s got at his disposal. Leeds are having the season that they are having with a lot of the players that were with them in the Championship. Bielsa has got Patrick Bamford looking like a proper Premier League striker which is a miracle in itself. Also, Leeds are in their first season in the top flight and Bielsa has looked at the squad of players that he’s got available and obviously thought “well we can’t grind out results because the players that I have I’m not good enough for that so we’re just going to fucking go for it“. I expect he thought this in Spanish however.

I love the fact that they dare to be different. Why shouldn’t they go against the establish norm?  Why does every newly promoted side have to and try and bore their way to safety in their first season in the top flight?  I know that Leeds are a huge club but they’ve been crap for the last 20 years and have been pissing around in the Championship and League 1 so he’s going to achieve his target of staying up and he’s going to do it by playing entertaining football. Who would you rather watch? Leeds or West Brom under Allardyce.

Thinking of the ex-England manager makes me think of the current one. If Bielsa was in charge of the current England squad he would look at the players and realise that all our good players are in the attacking half of the pitch so he’d just fucking go for it, as opposed to Gareth Southgate who will play his 7-0-3 formation and bore the shit out of us, with us no doubt going out on penalties after a 0-0 draw in the Quarter Final.

On paper it does seem to be a good time to play Leeds because they have had a couple of injuries to important players and they have seem to be running on empty a bit for the last few weeks, much like ourselves with the high energy style of football taking its toll as you would expect for the game every three days.

Not gonna lie… there’s a bit of a ‘What the fuck?’ moment when the team news comes in and Ings, Minamino and Djenepo are all out with Adams, Armstrong and Tella selected.  It’s a full debut for Tella so more trees – hurrah!  Spot the goal threat in the starting line-up… Adams and Redmond up front.  To be fair, we moan when players looked knackered and we have a few more fit now and this is our second game in 4 days so I guess the plan is to win the game in the 2^nd half with the subs.

There is an early chance of five minutes gone as the very clumsy looking Cooper bundles over Adams on the right wing. Much has been made at the start of the game of Leeds vulnerability to set pieces so this is a really good chance and JWP crosses it, Vestergaard gets himself free, meets it and we are all waiting for the net to bulge as it goes wide. Really should’ve scored there.

Already we are seeing that the pitch is a fucking joke and it just keeps giving way under players feet and it looks like a shit version of Celebrity Ice Skating. The right back area of the Leeds half is ridiculous.  Redmond runs at the Leeds defence but slips over and loses the ball.  Leeds then lose the ball twice in quick succession as players try and stand up and Romeu finds Nathan Tella who runs direct at goal, swerving past Cooper as if he wasn’t there and the whole thing opens up and he hits it straight to the Leeds keeper Meslier, who looks about 14. This Leeds defence is absolute shit but we’ve had two chances and not taken either of them.

Leeds have started to cause a few problems with Raphinha swapping wings with Harrison to cause problems wherever.  He dances past Salisu who dives in but more by luck than judgement, doesn’t make contact and we get away with it as he cuts it back to the edge of the box to where Tyler Roberts launches it into orbit.

It’s a good end to end game now and Vestergaard picks up the ball from Redmond in the middle of the pitch and pings a lovely ball over the top to wear Bertrand is untracked and suddenly he’s clean through on goal but no one gets too excited because you know that it’s hit his arm and he hits it straight at the goalkeeper anyway.

It’s still mostly Saints and JWP intercepts a ball in midfield from Ayling and Tella gets to run at Llorente, Leeds new centre back. Tella leaves him for dead and goes crashing to the ground and Andre Marriner gives a penalty. At fucking last. They then start to show replays of course and you can see straight away that is not as clear-cut as we thought and so we’re off to the VAR room again. On VAR today we have Kevin Friend.

“Hi Kev – can you check the penalty, looks like a foul”
“Do you know my nickname Andre?”
“No Kev I don’t”
“They call me ‘Kevin Friend of the Big Six’”
“They call me ‘Andre the Fucking Giant’ Kev”
“Say no more – I know I’m Friend of the Big Six but Leeds are bigger than Saints so I’ll put it on screen for you to look at”
“OK Kev… I’ll purposely stride over like a colossus… roll the clip”
“You’ve given it haven’t you”
“Yep”
“There’s contact there isn’t there?”
“Yep”
“So is it a clear an obvious error”
“Erm…. Might be”
“Would you change your mind if it was Bruno Fernandes who'd been fouled?”
“Nope”
“But it’s not is it, it’s some kid for Southampton”
“Fuck ‘em – free kick to Leeds”

And what a surprise, no penalty. So, after weeks of VAR just backing out the referees decisions or non-decisions, be they right or wrong, we now have one get completely overturned. Fucking great.  We compound this by trying to concede a goal as we win a free kick over on the left hand side and Bertrand under hits it and it’s headed away and one pass later and Raphinha is clean through and he is the only player and our half apart from McCarthy.  He heads towards goal tries to cut across to the middle and a fucking train appears, slides in and wins the ball with quite possibly the best timed to tackle that you will ever see. Even Kevin Bastard Friend can’t find a penalty on that one.  Take a bow Oriol Romeu.

As we approach half-time Armstrong has the ball in the centre of the pitch and gets fouled. JWP takes a quick one to Adams and it’s similar to the one at Manchester United where Adams has peeled off the side and no one is watching him and he sticks in the net and all our players around Andre Marriner because he’s blown his whistle just before the ball has hit the net saying that he didn’t blow his whistle for JWP to take the freekick. He’s showing all the players the whistle to show that he is in charge. Fuck off.  Quick free kicks are usually allowed but not today.

Ralph is clearly not happy at half time.  Bottom line though is that it’s two correct decisions but as I’ve said, usually we only get wrong decisions.  No changes in personnel at half time and we start the second half well with Adams showing good strength by the goal line and laying it back to Redmond who creams it straight at the keeper.

And then it happens as Helder Costa picks up the ball in the centre of midfield and has time to pass it between Romeu and Armstrong and also in between Vestergaard and Bednarek, direct to Bamford who still has a lot to do but he takes it first time as Vestergaard comes across and it’s through his legs and into the far corner. For fucks sake.

Leads have swap Raphinha back over to Bednarek’s wing and it’s beginning to look horrible as he leaves the out of position centre back for dead before crossing to the edge of the box and Tyler Roberts puts another one wide that he really should’ve scored.  Then Dallas has a run down the same wing and he decides to cut across the edge of the penalty area with no one get in tackle in and manages to lay into the path of Bamford who has a clear shot but luckily he smashes it straight to McCarthy who makes a decent save and makes another one from the follow-up. We are clearly not bothering with defending in the second half. It’s a novel tactic to use as a Plan B but I don’t think it’s going to work particularly well.

Still, we persist with another chance stemming from Salisu giving the ball away and it goes from Bamford to Alioski to Raphinha And his pull back is met in the middle by Bamford and McCarthy has to do more heroics this time with his feet to keep the score at 1-0.

Thanks to Alex, we are still in this game. Ings and Minamino have come on for Tella and Redmond and we go close with JWP’s corner from the right hand side been thumped goalwards by the head of Vestergaard and Bamford is in front of Meslier to smash it over the bar.   Twenty to go and trouble is afoot, namely Oriol Romeu’s foot and he’s gone down and you know that if Ori stays down then it’s serious and he is going to have to be substituted.  I’m looking at Ralph thinking “don’t you dare… “, but he does and brings on Djenepo which means Armstrong going back to the centre of midfield. Might as well switch the TV off now because it’s before the 9pm watershed we’re going to get fucked.

Sure enough about five minutes later in an attack down our left hand side see Costa advance unchallenged, play it across to Dallas on the edge of the ‘D’ and he takes a touch invoking his inner child on the playground and toe punts it into the net past McCarthy to make it 2-0, game over.

Look at Our Midfield Chasing him Back.

Our token effort at getting back into the game extends to Bednarek looking very awkward down the right wing and with the subtlety of a natural full back, he smashes the ball across which nearly kills Adams as it hits him in the chest and bounces to Meslier.   He bowls it out and Costa is running at the Saints defence, halted only by a crude challenge by Djenepo which earns him a yellow card. Well he has taken Romeu’s place after all. The freekick is about 25 yards out and up steps Raphinha and puts it in the corner. JWP doesn’t cover himself in glory in the wall by ducking under it that meant that McCarthy didn’t see it until late which made his job all the more difficult.  Even so, he will probably feel that he should’ve saved it. We’ve fucking done it again and completely caved in.

Pathetic gutless wankers.

Well here we are again. Once more we have felt aggrieved at refereeing decisions and then completely given up. That’s not the full story but that’s part of it.

To summarise: Leeds were shit in the first half and we didn’t score.  We were shit in the 2^nd half and they scored 3.

We started really well when Leeds were poor and should’ve been 2-0 up with Vestergaard missing a header he really should’ve got on target and Nathan Tella blasting straight at the goalkeeper when clean through. We then had the Tella penalty incident which I think we can all guess, would never have been overturned in a million years if it was Manchester United or one of the other big boys. The referee has given it and there is contact. Personally, I don’t think it’s a penalty and the right decision was reached. Fuck the right decision though. We don’t seem to get the right decision until it’s against us. Then we had a free-kick incident just before half-time when again, technically, Andre Marriner is correct but you are allowed to take a quick free-kick anywhere else on the pitch and it’s absolutely fine. Where is the line?

As soon as we came out in the second-half we didn’t seem to have any interest in defending properly and that led to the first goal where we didn’t seem to sense any danger. Even Vestergaard at the last didn’t seem to realise that Bamford was about to shoot.  What happened after that hinged on a shit substitution by Ralph. Romeu going down injured with 20 minutes to go is not ideal but it was only 1-0 at that time so stay in the fucking game. Alex Jankewitz is on the bench and even Jack Stephens in midfield would’ve been a better option. Moussa Djenepo on and Stuart Armstrong to number 6 was always going to be a disaster because Stuart Armstrong is an absolute disaster as a number 6.  When did we try it last? Oh yes, the last time we tried it was in a 9-0 defeat.  Watch the replay of the second goal from behind the goal - Dallas scores and you can just about see Armstrong coming into shot. It’s not Armstrong‘s fault, as that is not his position in the same way that Bednarek isn’t a fucking right back but he’s having to play there following the absolute dereliction of duty that was the January transfer window.

The second goal summed us up. Minamino had the ball in a good crossing position with players in the box (one of whom was Armstrong who as a number 6, shouldn’t have been there) and he just crosses it aimlessly to fucking no one. Leeds break on us, pass, pass, pass, goal. Dog shit. The third goal was just the brown icing on a very shit cake.

I’ve seen people saying that the pitch was shit and that Leeds were more used to it than we were but that just comes down to in-game intelligence. Patrick Bamford (who irritated me by being a really nice, well spoken, intelligent bloke, who I wanted to hate) talked at the end of the game about how Leeds decided that they were getting themselves into trouble in the first half because of the pitch so they played it longer from about the half hour mark onwards. They adapted – maybe it was via Bielsa but it sounded like they worked it out themselves.  I’m increasingly comikng to the opinion that Saints are very well drilled and know what to do until they have to start thinking for themselves and thinking on their feet when we don’t have any fucking answers. Mind you, the best tactics in the world don’t come into it if the players have no heart and we have a few out there who certainly seem to have no heart and we have quite a few out there showing questionable amounts of ability at the moment.

As said, the main problem in this game was that we didn’t score in the 30 minutes when Leeds were poor and we didn’t really look likely to score.   Ralph maybe thought we could win the game with Ings and Minamino in the second half but we had no goal threat on the pitch to take advantage of Leeds being shite in the first half.  As far as I remember, Nathan Tella was the only forward player to get a shot on target. Nathan Redmond was shite again when it came to the business end of the pitch which is the bit that matters when you’re a striker and didn’t look remotely like scoring or creating anything.  I loved the way he looked absolutely gutted when he came off, like he felt like he’s done ok.

Every defender in the Premier League knows that Che Adams only has one foot.  His left foot is only there to stop him walking round in fucking circles. He works hard and he bullies defenders but the fanciful notion I had that he would score more than 10 goals this season, is looking decidedly misplaced.

Minamino - well we know you can finish but can you do anything else? Aside from the goal which was a brilliant finish, he was shite against Chelsea and he was shite again today when he came on, barely completing a pass.  Play him as a striker or nothing.

Nathan Tella was good – him on one wing and Armstrong on the other is the way to go.

Defensively, in the second-half we were fucking awful because the midfield and the wide players weren’t offering much protection. Bednarek got completely violated by Raphinha in the second half and I said earlier, that comes down to us trying to go through the whole season with just one right back. On the other side, Bertrand looked very half paced in the second half especially and Vestergaard and Salisu were just exposed.

Ralph’s interview after the game was interesting in that he said we gave up. That could be down to the manager having lost the players but I don’t buy that – if that was the case we would be terrible from the start of every game.  I think it’s more from the weak mentality of the players. He also made a valid point about Leeds having better 1 v 1 ability than us and this is true, also meaning that we had to play as a compact team when defending, which we clearly didn’t do in the second half.  This is partly on the players for not following instructions but also partly on that substitution, which as I said, absolutely killed us. 

Big decision time coming up for Ralph because if Romeu is out for the next game against Everton, with Diallo still out I assume, he has to find another central midfielder and if he picks Armstrong there, we might as well not even bother turning up.  I guess we’ll all be praying that Alex Jankewitz lasts longer than last time – maybe he could have done with the last 20 minutes today.

Are we all looking over our shoulders yet?  Well we should be.  They way we are playing at the moment doesn’t look like getting us any points any time soon.  Fulham, who are 3^rd from bottom are 8 points behind us.