FA Cup Quarter Final - Bournemouth 0 Southampton 3

It's Happening... Maybe!

In a normal season, an FA Cup Quarter-final would find me very enthusiastic about the game and subsequent Wembley semi-final, should we win it.  In times since the money driven decision was made to hold the semi-finals at Wembley, we have had just the one quarter-final, away at Wigan in 2017. Mark Hughes was our newly appointed manager and there was an element of optimism around the place, mainly because we had just got rid of Mauricio Pellegrino, quite possibly our worst manager ever. So why am I not very enthusiastic about this one?

For starters, we have a game against Bournemouth… and they are annoying and more on that later. Then of course we have the issue of there being no fans to watch it, though apparently the semi-finals may be used for test events so there may be some fans present at a potential Wembley semi-final after all. If we had been in our early season form and safe in the Premier League, we would be buzzing about it and 99% sure that we would beat Bournemouth and have a real good go at the semi-final, whoever we were playing against. As we currently stand, the mental state is that if we show up, we should beat Bournemouth and then there’s absolutely no point because we’re going to get smashed by whatever team we play in the semi-final. It has got that depressing recently.

The other quarter-finals are Everton against Manchester City, Chelsea against Sheffield United and Leicester against Manchester United. Five teams who on current form we have not much chance against and one who has absolutely no chance of making it to the semi-final. The FA Cup when you get to the later rounds isn’t about form though, so I guess you only have to look back to 1976 to know that it’s not worth giving up on just yet.

So, Bournemouth are annoying. Local media has been doing its best to try and draw this up as a rivalry but as usual, it’s all from their side. I’ve seen it described by Bournemouth fans as the most important game in their history whereas we were happy with the draw because we were playing the worst ranked side left of the competition, not because we were playing our not-so-fierce local rivals.  In the Eddie Howe years, Bournemouth always treated the FA Cup with complete disrespect and didn’t bother with it, usually getting knocked out in the third round having made 11 changes from previous League game. Regardless of what is said, their season is all about getting promoted back to the Premier League because there have been a few signs that financially, things will not be too great down there if they don’t make it back, either this year or next.  I think that they were still in the playoff positions when they sacked Jason Tindall and the appointment of Jonathan Woodgate is just really odd.

Despite our recent shite form, we should of course win this game. At the end of the day, Bournemouth are a worse version of what they were at the tail end of last season. Players who you would describe as decent have moved on, with the exception of Jefferson Lerma, who is suspended for this game anyway. We should have too much of them but with us playing as we are at the moment, Bournemouth definitely have a decent chance.

In the normal scheme of things, this would be a vitally important game for Ralph’s future but he is pretty safe in the knowledge that this is not a must win game for him personally and it will only come to that way of thinking, should we manage to complete our late run for relegation.  I think nine of our first 11 pick themselves today with the only questions being who will fill the left-wing spot and who will play up front with Che Braveheart McAdams, celebrating his international call up for Scotland, a country he has probably never been to.

After the Brighton game, the subs (Redmond and Djenepo) were called out by Ralph for having no impact so in that respect, it was a bit of a surprise to see them both in the team with  Nathan Tella being dropped to the bench and Takumi Minamino being cup-tied. Bournemouth’s line up contains many of last season’s flops, like Solanke and Billing and … so that’s where Jack Wilshere ended up after advertising himself all over talkSPORT…  “I’m only 29 and I’m as fit as ever”.

Ooh, You're Hard !

After some footage of the Bournemouth Massive holding a flare in the car park is shown, it’s kick-off time and away we go.  I’m just looking for the early signs that point to whether we are going to be shite or not and initial signs are encouraging.  Bournemouth on the other hand – how is Philip Billing a footballer? How has Dominic Solanke got a full England cap?

Bednarek looks up and pings a ball over the top of Rico at left back and KWP is away and bearing down on goal. Instead of shooting which I was screaming out for him to do, he tried to lay across to McAdams having drawn the goalkeeper and it doesn’t reach and it doesn’t need to because Carter-Vickers tries to intervene and pokes it into his own net. Good finish to be fair. Have we got VAR today by the way? This of course is a Championship ground and I was under the impression that the Championship doesn’t use VAR but of course they have the facilities here from last year so VAR is in fact, used. The difference in rules depending on where the ground is, is a fucking joke in this competition. Anyway, up we go and eventually they disallow the goal because a random unspecified part of KWP’s arm is offside when Bednarek pings the ball to him. Another part of the game that we all love dies, as a perfectly good goal is disallowed.

We create another decent chance as Armstrong bursts past some half-arsed defending by Pearson and gets to the line before pulling it back for Ryan Bertrand to shank wide from the edge of the box.  Brilliant by Armstrong, not so great by Bertie.

As has happened a few times this season of course, the disallowed goal seems to knock us out of our stride a bit and Bournemouth put us under a little bit of pressure.  Redmond gives the ball away horribly and it ends up with the highly rated Danjuma. I called him highly rated because he is highly rated in his house but not really anyone else’s.  He tries to take on Bednarek on the outside who does well to stand his ground force him wide and eventually his shot is blocked away comfortably by Forster at the near post. Bournemouth have another opportunity as Cook finds himself inside the penalty area on the right-hand side following the corner and his drilled cross is met first time by Riquelme and his side foot is it wide of the near post. Do you remember when Pompey were going to sign Riquelme, the real one…? That was funny.

With 10 minutes to go before half-time, KWP finds Redmond who turns and finds a space the size of half of Dorset between Bournemouth’s midfield and central defenders and runs at them. Carter-Vickers and Cook back off towards their own goal allowing Redmond to weigh it all up and slide the ball in between Stacey, who obligingly falls over, and Carter-Vickers to Djenepo and he passes it past Begovic into the far corner of the net as easy as you like. Great run, great ball and a great finish, happy days and 1-0 to Ralph for picking the two of them.

1-0 to Ralph's Team Selection

Right on half-time we win a throw-in over on the left-hand side and the Bournemouth defending here is hysterical as the throw is chested on by Armstrong and for some reason, Rico, the Bournemouth left back is over on the right and completely out of the game as Redmond is away with just Cook to beat. Redmond runs diagonally toward the vacant left back area and into the penalty area and all Cook has to do is stay on his feet, stay inbetween Redmond and the goal and force him wide, in the exact same way the Bednarek did with Danjuma earlier on. Instead of doing that though, Cook tries to tackle when completely off-balance and falls over, allowing Redmond to superbly chip the ball over Begovic and into the far top corner. Brilliant finish, hilariously bad defending.

Good Defending Steve

2-0 at half time and you would think that this is done but this is Southampton 2021 we are talking about here. Bournemouth have been shite however and I bet that the guy in the car park with the flare is raging, if he hasn’t had the call from his mum to be home for tea.

The start of the second-half carries on with much the same thing with Bournemouth not really creating much and Saints being relatively comfortable. Jack Wilshere, a player I remember being decent about seven years ago, tries a left footed effort from the edge of the box which ripples the side netting.  Good effort but Forster had it covered anyhow.

Saints completely put the game to bed when Braveheart wins the challenge in the air off a long ball forward and the ball comes back to him off of Armstrong and he gets it on his right foot and drills it from about 20 yards into the corner of the net. Game, set, match, VAR, bollocks. Bournemouth are appealing for a handball against Adams which would be a ridiculous decision and eventually they get lucky again because the ball is flicked off Adams and Armstrong is in an offside position. At least this one is relatively clear to be fair. Regardless of the fact that this was disallowed, it shows the confidence the Che Braveheart McAdams is playing with at the moment.

Having got away with that one, Bournemouth clearly want us to score another, and it doesn’t take long for the coup de grâce to arrive however as Stacey plays a blind ball into midfield from the right back position and JWP sees it and finds Redmond.  It Looks like he tries to tee up Adams but it goes to Armstrong who smacks it against the post and it bounces straight back to Redmond to pass is it into the far corner to make it 3-0, really good finish and we are on our way to Wembley, well, the team are anyway.

There is still half an hour to go and we could actually be burying this lot but the closest we get to another goal is Armstrong driving into midfield and firing one in with his left foot which forces Begovic into a really good sprawling site to tip it round the past.  Bournemouth can’t handle Armstrong at all, mainly because he wants to break from midfield and they don’t want to chase him.  The man with the magnificent hair is having a magnificent game and he picks up again on the right of midfield near halfway and just drives towards the Bournemouth penalty area, half pursued by Billing and Wilshere before stabbing the ball to Redmond.  There’s a great chance for his hat-trick but he bends it inches wide of the far post.

With time ticking down and both Bednarek and Vestergaard on a yellow card, we have the luxury of being able to take off both of our central defenders in Bournemouth’s Big Derby, with Stephens and Salisu coming on. In the inevitable confusion caused by the reshuffle, Danjuma finds himself free on the left-hand side and it’s a good low shot and Forster gets down well to save.

Bournemouth have another chance straight after that as across comes in from Anthony on the right, Stephens shows his legendary prowess in the air by sitting on the ground and Forster comfortably saves Surridge’s header.

As we reach the 93rd minute, there is one of the most ridiculous challenges I think I’ve ever seen as Salisu cleared the ball and Surridge put in what can only be described as a fucking ice hockey tackle, just slamming into him with his shoulder. He then compounded by kicking the ball away. According to Martin Atkinson though, this is only a yellow card. Ridiculous refereeing, ridiculous challenge. Animal.

And so after that absolutely cowardly assault by Surridge, done so late in the game that he knows no ne can get him back, the game ends and we all love the FA Cup again and we’re on our way to Wembley.  Back in your tiny little box you tinpot wankers. There is one thing I will say about rivalry and that is that even though they are in League 1, Pompey would’ve given us a better game today.

The first thing you have to say about the game is that that we were absolutely dominant, it was easy and simple. We played as well as we had to play to put Bournemouth away and they were absolutely shite, hardly creating a decent chance all game.  It was a good win and it could’ve been even better without VAR of course. The disallowed one in the first half is another one that’s been given offside because his arm is offside which is absolutely absurd and has been well discussed all season. KWP has been deemed offside because he was running forwards and leaning forwards.  I’m looking forward to seeing players trying to run forwards whilst leaning backwards and not pumping their arms.  It’s fucking stupid and this way of interpreting offsides has to change. If you’re going to do it by millimetres and this forensically, then in my opinion you have to use the feet to determine whether it’s offside or not.  That isn’t perfect but it’s better than using a random point on the arm.

Today is a day of course where we got a performance out of Nathan Redmond. Here is a player has always been able to do it but more often than not, doesn’t look like he wants to do it.  There were flashes in the recent game up at Manchester City and today he found the perfect opponents. They left space, were very slow and they didn’t get bodies around the ball which meant that the decision at the end of the move, be it a pass or a shot is made easier. He has always been good in an open field and today he was and deserved his two goals and the assist for Djenepo’s goal. I stand by what I said at the start in the Redmond did not really deserve to start the game today after last week, but Ralph showed faith in him and it paid off against today’s opponents. He of course deserves to start the next game in the Premier League and he now needs to produce it against better opponents. He has now got three goals this season, one in the league against Sheffield United and two in the cup today against Bournemouth. The common denominator with those opponents is that they will both be playing in the Championship next season.

Redmond will take the plaudits and no doubt all the man of the match awards I thought our best player today was Stuart Armstrong, who put in a real 90 minutes of exceptional football. There always seems to be a better chance of end product when we build up down Armstrong’s side. That’s not a slight on the people on the other side but you always feel the Armstrong has the intelligence to deliver at the end. Ibrahima Diallo also had a good game in the centre of midfield. The end product was lacking at times and he demonstrated Hojbjerg-esque standards of shooting but he continually broke up play well and to use a rugby term, broke the lines carrying the ball past the Bournemouth midfield.

Stuart Armstrong Pictured With All Other Players on His Level

That brings me nicely onto Bournemouth and Jack Wilshere it was a decent player about seven years ago. Since he lost the extra yard of pace all those years ago, he is basically built a career on running headlong into the nearest opponent, crashing to the floor and screaming at the referee for a freekick. There was a bit of that today but he is playing for Bournemouth for a reason and that reason is he just hasn’t got the legs to play in the centre of midfield. The crude hack at Diallo in the last 10 minutes, when he just couldn’t be bothered to run back and make a proper challenge, summed him up really.

Another major weakness for Bournemouth today, which dovetailed horribly with the lack of legs in midfield, was the lack of pace in the defence. Carter-Vickers and in particular Steve Cook we’re just lumbering about.  Cook looked like a rhinoceros trying to run through the quicksand and I found his effort to stop Redmond on the second goal particularly amusing. Philip Billing, who allegedly has been playing well this season, just confirmed everything that I’ve ever thought about him, that he is a big donkey who wins the art header but that’s it and as for Solanke upfront…. Liverpool must be pissing themselves laughing that they got £20 million for him.

The referee Martin Atkinson had an interesting game today I thought. If Southampton player pulled back a Bournemouth one, then it was a yellow card and deservedly so. If it happened the other way round, then it was no problem.  Wilshere was allowed to get away with a couple of nasty looking two-footed-ish efforts and the assault by Surridge on Salisu at the end was a red card challenge in itself as the only intent was to hurt the opponent. He then compounded it by kicking the ball away so how that’s not two yellows at least is beyond me. No matter. Bournemouth are back in the little box and can concentrate on not getting promoted, recruiting a proper manager to replace Woodgate and to avoid the impending financial meltdown if they don’t make it back to the Premier League next season.

Saints are now of course the first team through to the semi-final where, if I had to pick a winner from the other games, it will be Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea who join us. By the time that comes around, we have to be safe in the Premier League in order to be able to enjoy the game without this nagging fear in the back of our minds.  That is for another day though.

Today it was job done and a nice comfortable victory. Bring on the international break as we tend to be a little bit better for having a rest. Today is also a big day for Ralph Hasenhuttl. If we lost today then the discontent would be louder but now, he is only the third manager in the 21st-century to take Saints to an FA Cup Semi-final.

UPDATE: Half time in the Leicester v Man United game saw the draw for the semi finals.  Chelsea and Man City had joined us in the semis by this time so of course, we are the team who everyone wanted to play.  I fancied having a crack at Chelsea but Dion Dublin drew us out against Leicester or United, so it was 9-0 heaven which was mentioned within about 30 seconds.  Anyway, our potential opponents played out the second half and Leicester were as good as United were awful so it’s Leicester for us – a team which we know how to beat and certainly not as intimidating as City or Chelsea.  Hopefully, Leicester will think they have one foot in the final already. 

Maybe we can get Wembley to play Leicester's 9-0 DVD on the big screens during the warm up.

Premier League Match 29 - Southampton 1 Brighton 2

 

Saints Demonstrate How Not to Get Stuck In

Brighton at home in what is a huge game as we try and march towards safety and having a relatively relaxing end of the season with just the FA Cup to focus. They win here today will put us on 36 points which Martin Semmens has always said, is the point where you can start planning for next season with regards to recruitment and contract extensions and the like. Brighton are right in the shit, being in a group of three teams currently, who are trying to avoid getting dragged into the third relegation spot, joining Sheffield United and West Brom in the Championship next season. Of the three under threat, Fulham, Newcastle and Brighton, Brighton are the most pleasing on the eye but that doesn’t always matter.

Brighton are the kings of xG apparently. XG is a relatively newly invented stat which is based on Opta analysing positions on the pitch where goals are scored from. I have no idea whether it takes into account defenders positions or any of the other things like how fast the ball is coming to you or how wet the ground is or anything like that. For example if you get the ball on the penalty spot and the goalkeeper is not in the goal, does that carry a higher xG tariff then if he is.? Answers on a postcard please and all the postcards are going straight in the bin because I don’t fucking care.

I can see with my own eyes that Brighton create chances and can’t score and I don’t need a stat to tell me that. You don’t get given any extra points if your xG is higher than a certain level. I’m sure that being the kings of xG will be a great comfort if they get relegated, playing an amazing amount of pretty football between the two penalty areas if, when they get to the final third they do a possible impression of a jigsaw.. As we know, jigsaws fall to pieces in the box. 

When defending, Brighton cough up chances, usually from set pieces which is strange when you consider how tall some of their defenders are. So, is Graham Potter a good manager, and overrated one or just a bang average one? Is it down to him or is it down to the recruitment in the summer when they signed it Danny Welbeck and Adam Lallana to give them a cutting edge. All this could come back to bite me of course if Lallana creates one half chance and Welbeck smashes it in the net from 35 yards or if Brighton have 3 shots and score 3 goals.

As far as Saints are concerned, the only news post to Manchester City is that it looks like Djenepo might be fit after all and that his body reacts differently to everyone else’s it seems.  From this we can deduce that Moussa is not human and is made from another substance rather than flesh and bone.  Anyway, it appears that someone has put the biscuit man back together again.

Team news is in and Saints has the best line-up that they could possibly have with Forster, KWP and Diallo, all present. Lallana is starting for Brighton and there is one guy who is glad that there are no fans in the ground. His first appearance for Liverpool at St Mary‘s remains the only time I can remember at St Mary’s where the crowd with genuinely hostile and he absolutely shat his pants and did nothing before getting substituted.

Brighton cut through in the first couple of minutes as Lallana puts Maupay away doen the left.  He finds Trossard in the middle and Bednarek does well to block both the first shout and the shot from the rebound.  As usual, we find he may as well not bothered with getting two ball sting-marks on his body as Maupay was clearly offside anyway.  More decelt play from Brighton and Maupay tries from the edge of the penalty area on the left and Forster saves comfortably enough, tipping it for a corner.

Gross puts in the outswinging corner from the right and it’s met powerfully by Lewis Dunk about 15 yards out and it bounces down and in at the post, giving Forster no chance. The replay shows an absolutely pathetic effort by Ryan Bertrand to compete with the Brighton central defender. For fucks sake.  At least try and put him off.  1-0 down and Brighton deserve that to be honest.

Saints have had the wake-up call and come back into the game and look to pin Brighton back a bit. JWP can’t get a cross in so he knocks it short to Armstrong who swings it to the back stick first time. Bertrand gets up and heads it across and via some shite defending by Lewis Dunk, Adams waits and absolutely crashes a volley in at the far post to make it 1-1.  Great finish and 3 in 3 for Che.

Bednarek comes for a challenge and gets it all wrong, missing the ball and we allow the walking streak of piss that is Dan Burn to lumber forward on the left hand side and play the ball across and we’re all over the fucking place as it goes across one more to Gross who has a free shot but shows absolutely no technique or conviction when hitting the shot and Forster sticks out big boot to deflect it wide. We got fucking lucky there. 

There is one more chance for us as the half runs down with Minamino, proving with every game that those two goals were the exceptions rather than the norm, dragging an effort from the edge of the box which Sanchez saved comfortably.

Half-time and 1-1.  On reflection, we started the game poorly and it took about five minutes after Brighton scored before we woke up and had a bit of pressure. To be honest, I’m pleased to be level but we must do better second-half and show a bit more appetite to actually go on and win the game.  Potter is using half-time to change things, bringing on Zeqiri to play at left wing-back, so they are clearly going for a 5-3-2 formation. 

JWP has a decent enough shot comfortably saved by Sanchez as the half gets underway but it’s soon looking a bit worrying as there is suddenly an alarming amount of space around our central midfield players who are now getting bypassed, with Brighton having an extra man in midfield.  Brighton are winning all the second balls and are easily picking their way through. As I think that, Lallana picks it up in between Diallo and JWP and threads a pass through the midfield to Welbeck, who knocks it off first time and Trossard is completely free on the edge of the box and he absolutely buries it. Its fucking depressingly dreadful play by us. Everyone is stood still and Bednarek has totally left Trossard and is about five yards further forward than he needs to be. 

Saints respond reasonably well and a nice bit of play around the edge of the box and Tella is trashed but the ball runs loose to Adams who has a chance very similar to Trossard but instead of hitting the net he hits the goalkeeper. Stuart Atwell, never usually a good referee, then give us another chance by giving us the free-kick because Tella has been fouled and of course, because Adams has fucking missed. The trouble is it is right on the edge of the box and JWP tries to smash it the goalkeeper side and it hits Gross and deflect wide of the far post with the goalkeeper nowhere.  My take from these chances is that Adams has to score the absolute sitter that he has been presented with. 

Off You Come, I'm Going to Send on Someone Who Will Do Fuck All

Time goes on and we are gradually getting worse. There is nothing going on. There is no movement from the forward players and it’s beginning to look like one of those games when we can confidently predict that we can play all fucking night and not score.  We shuffle the deck chairs by bringing on Redmond and Djenepo for Tella and Minamino and it looks like we have finally changed the formation to move Armstrong in field so he can chase the horse that has already bolted and has legged it up Britannia Road and is now bolting up The Avenue heading towards Chilworth.

That change achieves fuck all and with five minutes to go it’s the final substitution with Armstrong coming off to be replaced by Dan N’Lundulu. We should at least see some more attacking intent as we now have a target man now…. Or so you would have thought but nothing happens straight away.

Kick in the nuts time as Lallana was named as man of the match by Danny Murphy as our misery continued, which was not surprising because Murphy was cracking one off over him since the game kicked off. To be fair, the little rat has had a very good game, helped by no one putting in a tackle on him. Boy, did we miss Oriol Romeu for that.  Lallana would have been subbed before the hour mark had Romeu been playing.  In Romeu's absence, has anyone put in a tackle, has anyone get a yellow card, has anyone even get spoken to by the referee?  No - wankers!

90’s up and at fucking last, we put a couple of balls in the box.  Nothing happens from them and there is a half shout for a penalty as KWP gets crowded out in the box. 93 minutes – no urgency, knocking the ball about like we had loads of time left.  This is utter shite. It probably came as a surprise to a few players when Stuart Atwell puts us out of our misery. We could still be playing on Tuesday or Wednesday and we wouldn’t have scored another goal. We were absolutely fucking dog shit.  It totally sums it up that in the 94th minute of 93, the final whistle goes and we are still not attacking with any urgency, we are still pissing around passing the ball about and the whistle goes when the ball is 45 yards out, in our possession and on the ground. It’s not been launched into the mixer for the big lad we’ve sent on for the last eight minutes to compete for. We send him on and then do not cross one ball in his general direction.

We’ve been unlucky in some games this season but let’s be clear – Brighton deserved to win because Brighton were better than us in every department. They had more urgency, they had better shape, they had more heart, they had more bottle…. Oh and despite the xG thing, they took their chances – well, they took enough of them to win at any rate.  Their manager won the manager tactical battle within the game, hands down. He tweaked his formation at half-time and it made them a lot better, they got more bodies forward and still kept tight at the back. We were open in the first half and we carried on being open in the second-half and Brighton took advantage and deservedly so. Diallo and JWP were getting bypassed in midfield and were also not picking up any of the second balls. We clearly needed an extra man in there for that period of time but by the time we did it by moving Armstrong, we were already 2-1 behind.  The substitution that Potter made, bringing on Zeqiri at half-time, had a notable effect where is our substitutes, Redmond and Djenepo did the square root of fuck all.  They didn’t beat a man once, put a cross in, nothing.  What’s the point of being an attacking substitute if you don’t try and make anything happen?  I feel that I’ve said that before.

The warning signs were there in the first half whenever Brighton got the ball down and played. They found it too easy to find the gaps in front of our central defenders and in the wider areas but we got away with it with our equaliser and went in at half-time level. 

So many players has shocking games. That was JWP‘s worst game for a while. Diallo started well and then faded horribly. Armstrong had a decent first half and then disappeared. Minamino and Tella did nothing and Adams scored, missed a sitter and then just gave the ball away constantly. The back four was all over the place, especially Bednarek who kept passing the ball behind whoever he was trying to pass to which meant we didn’t actually go anywhere with our attacks when Brighton were sitting back in the last 10 minutes.

A problem throughout the day was a lack of movement up front and Danny Ings was really missed. So many times we tried to force a pass in the final third and ended up giving the ball away or usually, there was no one to pass to so we turned around and just went backwards again.  

There seem to be no realisation that time was running out. We should’ve been absolutely throwing the fucking sink at it for the last 20 minutes. Our period of attacking urgency literally lasted two minutes and it was the 91st and 92nd minute. That was atrocious. Is that down to the manager or is that down to the players? Personally, I put most of that on the players, many of whom seemed heartless and gutless today. You can be the best tactically drilled team in the world but at the end of the day, when you cross that white line you’ve got to have heart and guts and a little bit of in-game intelligence and we were lacking in all those departments today. 

Ralph isn’t blameless in all this – not by a long chalk but in a perverse way, I enjoyed his post-match interview.  There was no sugar-coating, no platitudes, no excuses – it was the worst performance of the season and just not good enough.  He also said that the subs made us worse - he's right, they added neither energy or intent.  He definitely knows that there is a problem and that’s the first step towards fixing it. He gave them every chance to succeed today by resting six players for the City game and the players let him down.  We all know that we have to be at 100% in order to win games in the Premier League and we were nowhere near that today.  If you are marking players out of 10, no one gets more than a 6.

We’ve got a week off from the league now with a trip to Bournemouth on Saturday.  I’m not remotely enthusiastic about it I’m sure that will change by the time it comes round. We still only have 33 points and we are still looking over our shoulders and what other teams are doing behind us. If you had to pick one of today’s teams to get relegated it would be us because Brighton, as I said, were so much better than us, in every single department. This was a thoroughly depressing game and we got what we deserved out of it… fuck all.

Premier League Match 28 - Manchester City 5 Southampton 2

Bertrand, Bednarek, Vestergaard and Salisu React to a Loose Ball

Football media likes things like losing runs or runs of games without a win. Of course, we won a game last week so maybe now they will be talking about a run of consecutive wins or a run of games without defeat.  Unfortunately, some bastard saw fit to give us Manchester City away, straight after our first win in what felt like ages. This game has been brought forward from the end of the season because City are in the Carabao Cup Final. I wonder whose idea that was? I’d rather play them nearer the end of the season when they’ve already won the league and will have one eye on other competitions.

City are of course, going to win the league this year by a mile and were on 21 consecutive wins until they played their voodoo game in the fixture list, Manchester United at home and they lost 2-0 to a team that have been very underwhelming over the last few weeks. It’s a strange season so why not Southampton winning today and adding one to City’s losing run. Ha ha fucking hah.

One obvious reason why we will struggle is because it looks like Ralph is not going to risk the players have just come back from injury so that probably means KWP and Diallo left on the bench, meaning that we will be makeshift at right back and makeshift in midfield. Another obvious reason is that City are a wounded animal after the defeat to United. Another reason is that City have about 15 players who didn’t play against United, who would comfortably get in our first 11. That’s why they could rest their whole starting 11 from their last game and still put a team out which would probably qualify for Europe in its own right.

I’m not gonna criticise City or Pep about the money as that’s boring. He is a fantastic manager who gets the team to play in a fantastically entertaining way. This year he has added a bit of pragmatism to their game as well. What I mean by that is that the defence is decent this year. A lot of that is down to the acquisition of Ruben Dias but also down to the resurgence of John Stones and over the course of the season, Stones has gone from being behind the likes of Tyrone Mings and Michael Keane in the England pecking order to be the first named defender on the team sheet.

The media were very boring when they interviewed Pep as he was asked about Manchester United beaten us 9-0 and how many City were going to beat us by. He said 18-0 and he was clearly joking but of course the clip went out edited in such a way that it made it look like he wasn’t joking. I guarantee there will be someone somewhere who buys this. Also, there will be people tuning in expecting to see another massacre.

So, take your place behind the settee for a 6 o’clock kick-off. Hopefully I won’t be making my usual joke about getting fucked live on TV before the 9pm watershed.

The 11 names on the Saints team sheet don’t make any sense. Are we playing the normal formation with Bednarek right back and Jack Stephens in midfield or are we playing five at the back with Stephens at right back?  On Sky, they put the graphic up which looks like pure bollocks because Ryan Bertrand is it right back, Salisu left back and Jack Stephens in midfield. Surely not. City have got… well it doesn’t matter what the fuck City have got. City have got 11 world-class players on the pitch and another 9 on the bench.

Away we go and bloody hell, Bertrand is at right back. Even more surprising is that we start the game really well and dominate possession. This is absurd.  A graphic goes up after 10 minutes and we’ve had 75% possession.  Jannik’s tried the left footed ping over the top to marauding right back Bertie and it’s weird but it’s good.  Stephens has nicked a couple of balls in midfield and Salisu is an uncompromising presence at left back.

And then City put an attack together.  Gündoğan flights a diagonal over our defence and Bertrand has lost Zinchenko.  He knocks it first time back to Foden whose first-time shot is pushed out by McCarthy and De Bruyne rams it into the net off the crossbar. Fuck. One attack, one goal.

We keep possession well after the restart and look sharp in attack, none more so than Nathan Redmond who is taking players on and looking threatening and after one of his runs, he tries to curl one in at the far post and Ederson pushes it wide for a corner. Over comes the corner from JWP, met strongly by Vestergaard, Ederson claws it out and as Vestergaard goes for the rebound, Laporte produces some sort of wrestling take down and fat Jon Moss has given us a penalty. No way that’s getting overturned and up steps JWP to pass it down the middle of the goal whilst Ederson dived out of the way. Get in.

JWP Dispatches a Poor Penalty

At 1-1 we still play with great confidence and are playing out well from the back. McCarthy has allegedly been picked today because he is better with his feet than Forster and that particular nugget comes back to bite us as Salisu knocks it back to him and the ball rolls under his foot and Foden is about to stick it into an empty net when McCarthy absolutely trashes him. Foden gets up and tries to play on and no penalty is awarded. The ball goes dead and we’re off to VAR.

“Hi Mossy – Andy Madley, brother of Bobby Madley, at Stockley Park here”
“Give me a chance to get my breath back man, I’m knackered”
“Looking at the penalty shout for Foden Mossy”
“Fucked if I know, I was in the City half blowing out of my arse and waiting for a taxi”
“Looks like a clear pen to me, keeper’s got none of it and taken his ankle”
“Ah shit.  That’s gonna make me look bad.  Is there any doubt?”
“Well I’ve got this one angle where you can’t see that he doesn’t get any of the ball”
“I like what you’re thinking Andy…”
“It’s horrific though – clear penalty all day”
“Oh Andy, they’re gonna win anyway.. just leave it, be a mate! 
“Really?  He’s proper cleaned him out”
“Your brother Bobby would have done it for me – he was a proper ref from the Mike Dean School of Centre of Attention Refereeing”
“Ok Mossy for fuck’s sake… sending it to screen now… you know they’re gonna go nuts in the media cos this is against the big team”
“I’d rather keep my reputation – have you got any food?”

Clearly Got the Ball Ref!

Fuck me, we’ve got away with it.  We carry on and JWP takes aim from 35 yards and Ederson has to tip it over the bar.  Back come City though and having got away with the McCarthy shambles, we carry on being brave on the ball and trying to play out of defence until Che Adams picks up the ball on the right back spot.  He thinks he's Steven Gerrard and tries to ping a cross field ball to Salisu at left back but he's more Steven Gerrard's shit twin brother and he shanks it horribly straight to Mahrez about 25 yards out.  He dances round two flailing defenders before working it onto his left foot and you know what happens then. Fucks sake.

Still, it looks like we’re going to get into half-time just one behind and we can come out and have a go in the second half but then some marvellous play between De Bruyne and Mahrez sees our nemesis dancing to the penalty area whilst Vestergaard and Stephens watch and Mahrez shoots, McCarthy makes a good fingertip save to tip it onto the post but it bounces out to where Gündoğan reacts whilst our defenders do the Mannequin Challenge and he has a tap in for 3-1. Oh dear. Fucked before the watershed again.

That third goal has killed it as a contest.  Now we just have to stay in it and see if we can nick the next goal.  Another problem is that Moussa Djenepo as you know, is made of biscuits so when he was limping around at the end of the first half, it was pretty short odds that he was going to come out for the second half and sure enough, he doesn’t and is replaced by Nathan Tella.

The start of the second-half is fucking horrible. We are completely open and it’s just a case of how long City will take to score. Doesn’t take long and once again they get a helping hand from us as we try and pass the ball out of defence and Salisu just presents the ball straight to Fernandinho. He knocks it wide to Foden and in it comes to Mahrez on the edge of the box and our defenders seem transfixed and are all playing monoliths again as Mahrez does what he does and works a bit of space and with the left foot that you know he’s going to use, curls into the corner of the net. It was predictable and it was shit with no defenders reacting and McCarthy didn’t move his feet to get far enough across his goal to prevent what was a very simple finish. Could we try defending for the rest of the game please?

It’s reached that point of the game when you think that we might get absolutely fucking hammered because there’s still 40 minutes to go but out of nowhere, JWP picks up a defensive header from Dias, Redmond back heels to Armstrong, who crashes a pass into Che Adams but it drops nicely for him to ram into the net to make it 4-2. It’s a bizarre game.  

Maybe if we get the next one... back come City and Gündoğan runs off of Stephens who is looking somewhat bewildered and hardly raising a jog.  He finds Foden on the edge of the box who knocks it off to De Bruyne who dances through Bednarek with a contender for the nutmeg files and then, from the edge of the box passes it into the net whilst McCarthy dives over it. Dog shit.

That’s it for the Stephens experiment and off he goes to be replaced with Diallo and Watts comes on for Armstrong. I suspect that one player has been removed because he isn’t playing very well and one is being removed to rest him for the game on Sunday.  The difference with having a proper central midfielder on is instant and we look more solid.  There are still chances for City of course as Salisu gets caught dawdling and Ferran Torres drags a shot wide when he really should’ve scored.

Then, shock of shocks JWP bursts through from midfield on the left hand side and finds Adams who looks up and beautifully curls a shot around Ederson and in at the far post but unfortunately, the comeback is only on for about half a second because the flag is straight up and it was clearly offside.  Both teams settle for what they have in the last few minutes as Jon Moss manages one more breath to blow his whistle to end the game.

Overall, to be honest, I think it’s a case of job done.  We got through the game, KWP and Diallo will be available for the Brighton game and we didn’t get smashed by too many. Ok, letting in five is never good but as we all know, we are capable of doing much worse than that. We did pick up our obligatory injury however with The Biscuitman having to go off at half-time.  

It made me laugh throughout the game when the commentators, Martin Tyler and Andy Hinchcliffe kept assuming we were doing some sort of clever inverted full-back thing because they incorrectly thought that Mohammed Salisu right-footed. We all know that the reason we lined up a defence like that is because Bednarek and Stephens are absolutely horrible at right back and Salisu, with his natural pace, would probably do a better job at left back. Bertrand was OK at right back but he did get caught out a couple of times, looking over the wrong shoulder, getting drawn infield and stuff like that.

Jack Stephens in midfield is something that a lot of people have been calling for, for a long time, with the logic being that he’s not a fantastic defender but the best part of his game is his passing and confidence on the ball.  Today showed that there is a world of difference between passing the ball from central defence when usually you have quite a lot of space and maybe one striker to worry about, and passing it from the centre of midfield where there are tackles flying in and you have to do everything quicker. You have to pass the ball quicker and you have to get it out your head up quicker. He tried his best and he won a few tackles but the difference when Diallo came on in the second-half was enormous.  A not to be repeated experiment, I feel.

I’ve seen it said that City only played well for a small portion of the game and they still scored five goals.  I think that doesn’t do us credit because I don’t think we actually let them play too well but the difference is that they are so clinical when they get to the final third, especially if you have given the ball away and they hit you on the transition. They always pick the right option and they always get a shot on target.  We played high-risk football and it might have worked but you can't gift wrap goals against a team like that.  They really didn't have to work too hard for any of their goals - the 3rd one perhaps being the only one where they did it all themselves.

Alex McCarthy made a few decent saves but overall, didn’t make the most of his surprise recall. In the first half he made a couple of saves, got a bit unlucky with the first and third goals.  One the third he made a very good save that wasn’t seen by anybody on the commentary, to deflect the ball onto the post before Gündoğan scored.  Sandwiched in between that though was the horrible mis-control which gave the ball to Foden and I am still not entirely sure how on earth we got away with not giving away a penalty for that incident. The two goals in the second half were not great from the goalkeeping point of view with Alex not getting across the goal quick enough for the fourth goal and producing a horrible chocolate wrist effort for the fifth.

Going forward, Nathan Redmond was really good in the first half and showed the difference between when he wants to do it and when he doesn’t.   In the second half he reverted to type a bit however.  It’s good for Che Adams to get another goal and it was also lovely finish for the one that was ruled offside. I do hope that Redmond’s improved first half showing doesn’t mean that Nathan Tella misses out at the weekend because he again was lively when he came on for the second half.

Graeme's a Wanker, Isn't He?

It was nice to see Pep give us lots of plaudits for the way we played and the fact that we made them suffer for the opening part of the game.  Pep's actual quotes are as follows... “We faced the most brilliant and the best team we have faced in this stadium in the competition.  The first 15, 20 minutes, they were just exceptional. Big compliments for Southampton, the way they play is fantastic – it’s a joy to watch, it’s a present for the spectators [...] That’s why I like the Premier League – you play games like today, so difficult, so tough. Today, Manchester City won [due to] the quality of the players we have on the pitch, the players up front made the difference." 

Ralph’s take on things was that we basically could’ve gone there and defended the shit out of it and lost anyway. He’s not that bothered and to be honest, I’m not either.

Welcome to Miserable Old Fucker World

One person who is bothered though is Graeme Souness. The bitter old fucker is still on Sky, still talking shit, still hating Saints for some reason, still trying to be edgy and just coming over as a miserable twat. JWP is not a regular penalty taker but he stepped up against probably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League and scored and he did it by putting the ball exactly where he wanted to put it. In Graeme’s Miserable Old Fucker World though, it’s a poor penalty. Fuck off!. To my mind, JWP knows that Ederson has seen his penalty from the Sheffield United game and he’s got that correct because Ederson has gone that way.  Souness then crapped on about us playing into City’s hands. Yeah, like it’s really a level playing field Graeme. We’ve given City more problems than most teams over the past two seasons so calm yourself down, you miserable old goat.
  
Next up is a huge game at home to Brighton on Sunday. KWP will be playing, Diallo will be playing, Big Fraser will be playing and we will be decent. Bring it on.

Premier League Match 27 - Sheffield United 0 Southampton 2

 

Unleash the Thunderbastard

There was a point where I didn’t think we would even be having a conversation about whether a game was a must win game or not but here we are. This is what tends to happen if you have 8 defeats out of 9 or 1 point out of 27.

The mitigating factors have been well documented but all that stops now. There are no excuses left. Today we are playing the team at the bottom of the league, who have been there all season, they have had two days less rest than us and their injuries are much worse than ours.

We’ve had some positive news with both Kyle Walker-Peters and Ibrahima Diallo being back in full training along with Takumi Minamino. Sheffield United on the other hand have only two central defenders left because the rest are all injured and they had another one sent off on Wednesday night.

I’ve seen it mentioned that this is more like a “must not lose” game. Bullshit. We are playing a team who are demonstrably crap and all the cards are stacked in our favour and as long as we match them for work rate and all those intangibles like heart and guts, we have to be winning this game. As mentioned, they are light in defence and even though they are all fit, they don’t have a striker worthy of the name at Premier League level. No excuses.

Team news is in and this proves that we have no excuses with KWP, Diallo and Minamino all starting.  Nathan Tella also selected with Redmond and Djenepo on the bench so the only question was would it be Minamino or Tella up front with Danny Ings.  For the Blades, the shite forward lottery has been won by McGoldrick and Brewster and their back three is all players who wouldn’t be playing there normally.

Saints start well and are on the front foot and immediately win a couple of free kicks over on the left hand side because Tella is too fast for their defenders and they keep bringing him down. There are about eight minutes gone and Bertrand swings in a free-kick from the left hand side and it’s pretty uneventful but in the aftermath Danny Ings is sat on the ground and this doesn’t look good. After a brief examination from the physios, the rolling fingers gesture is out and Ings is off to be replaced by Che Adams.

The ball begins bouncing off our forward players and it looks like it’s going to be a day where we struggle to score but the ball over the top to Tella is on and Diallo picks up the ball about 30 yards from our goal, gets his head up and pings a big diagonal over the top into the path of Tella, who controls and streaks past Ampadu who clumsily carts him over in the penalty area. There seems to be a slight delay whilst Paul Tierney catches up with play and gives a penalty.  Quick VAR check and no, Ampadu has got nowhere near the ball and up steps JWP with this full free-kick routine and whips it into the bottom left hand corner, giving Ramsdale absolutely no chance.  We’ve scored a goal!

Free-Kick, Penalty, Easy.

The Blades get a free-kick about 40 yards out on the left hand side which gives us a chance to practice our high-line-statues-pray-for-offside method of defending free kicks. John Fleck puts a great ball in to be fair and it goes all the way across to Bryan at the far post who heads it down using his nose and up and over the bar but our master plan has worked again and he’s offside.

To be fair to Sheffield United, they are playing some decent stuff through midfield and are actually finding quite a lot of room in our defence and another good ball comes over from the right and side which McGoldrick controls and pokes goal-wards, forcing Forster into a decent save low down but once again, it’s offside. They have a shout for a penalty just after this but when you see the replay, Bogle has made what can only be described as an embarrassing cheating pathetic fucker of a dive to try and con the referee. When are we going to start booking players for this?

We approach half time and we are totally in control, passing the ball around at the back waiting for the half-time whistle, until JWP plays it into midfield to Diallo who plays one of the worst passes that I’ve ever seen, straight to Brewster who plays McGoldrick in. The master marksman advances and is clean through on Forster, who he knows is 6 foot 7 tall and so trying to chip him was probably the dumbest option he could possibly have taken.  Cheers for the catching practice. So, we get away with it and go into the break 1-0 up.

It’s been a decent enough first half and I’m happy that we are leading. Diallo has struggled a little bit in the centre of midfield but in my opinion we need to keep him on and for him to play through it because if we take him off then we are having to pull players out of position to cover yet again. If we keep playing the ball to Tella and he keeps running into the space behind the defence then we are likely to get more free kicks and maybe even a red card for someone because the Sheffield United defenders just can’t handle him.

Saints first attack of the second-half sees Armstrong drive forward from midfield get to the edge of the penalty area and then feed right to KWP. His low cross finds Adams beyond the back post. Adams tries to hit it across goal and Ramsdale makes a decent save and Baldock clears it as far as Lundstram.  The danger looks over but he tries to chip the ball forward and succeeds only in hitting Bertrand’s head with it. As the ball loops up Armstrong reacts well and chest it into the path of Adams who from the edge of the box, hits an absolute thunderbastard of a shot on the half volley, screaming into the near post top corner, giving Ramsdale absolutely no chance. What a fucking goal! Honestly, he has played like a Make-a-Wish competition winner since he’s come on but that is a fucking brilliant goal.  Get in!

Suddenly the game has become quite easy. Sheffield United are pushing forward but without any quality and it leaves us with huge amounts of space on the break. Nathan Tella is the first one to have a go, left footed from the edge of the box and it’s a good effort destined for the bottom corner but fair play to Ramsdale, he gets across and makes a decent save.

Armstrong on the left hand side plays a cute ball outside the full back to the overlapping Bertrand and his cross along the 6 yard line is met by Minamino who, given his previous performances in a Saints shirt, you expect to bulge the net but he hits it rather disappointingly wide of the near post.  It’s nearly a Stuart Armstrong wonderland as he cuts across from the left wing and works a shooting position before cutting it back towards the post and narrowly wide.

Sheffield United are still trying to play and the ball goes to Bogel the Dive, who rather than do anything with it, decides to take another shit dive.  It is literally right in front of the referee who sees it, waves play on and we break again through Minamino. His ball puts Adams through on the right and side and he has a clear run to the goal but he ignores Armstrong inside him and he doesn’t really show much conviction with his shot and Ramsdale blocks again.

Redmond is on for Tella now and again we break up a Blades attack and create an almost identical chance. This time it’s Redmond who cuts in from the right hand side and with Armstrong, Adams and Minamino in support, he hits a tame effort at  the goalkeeper which again Ramsdale saves comfortably.

With just 30 seconds left, Fleck goes straight through the back of Adams and we have a little handbags punch-up in which McBurnie decides it’s a good idea to take on Vestergaard.  They both get booked and Fleck gets booked and away we go with a free kick.  The Blades have one more attack, get in on our right and cross it and big Fraser sticks a boot to it. As it lands on the edge of the box McBurnie decides to go for a dive under a challenge from Djenepo and we break again through Armstrong, who again finds Redmond and a defender falls over in front of him but still manages to stop him.

We won a game. This is not a drill. Southampton FC have won a league game.

Don’t get me wrong, none of this matters but if we weren’t in the situation that we are in and you look at this game in isolation, we should’ve won it about 5-0. We didn’t win it 5-0 because we butchered a series of chances in the second-half, either playing a shite final ball, drilling it straight at the goalkeeper or picking the wrong man to pass to. Sticking the ball in the net is the most difficult part of the game but bloody hell, we do nothing if not prove that sticking the ball in the net is the most difficult part of the game.

Nathan Tella: So Fast He Doesn't Touch the Ground

First mention today must go to Ralph because I thought that starting line-up was absolutely perfect. Personally I would have played Minamino upfront and Tella on the wing but playing Tella as a striker with his pace, was exactly the right thing to do and was proven by the amount of times he was fouled, including for the penalty in the first half. Tella had a superb game I thought, especially in the first half.  His only thought was to run in behind them or to play the ball into the space behind the Sheffield United defenders and turn them round and make them do something.... like panic and give penalties away. For that alone he deserves an extended run in the team and it’s something that is probably likely to happen, given Danny Ings injury.

When Danny got injured, it was exactly the right thing to do to put Adams on because of his record against Sheffield United and with it being his former club and all that. Adams played the first half like he was a competition winner but what a fucking goal that was, absolutely smashing the shit out of it. Brilliant.  You can’t hit a ball better than that.

Got to mention the big man Fraser Forster today who didn’t have the most to do but did everything he had to do really well. The difference in this guy to when he was last in the team is ridiculous. It’s really strange to see him arriving on-screen to get involved in the play when it’s only just in our half sometimes. He’s doing weird shit like heading the ball out of play in a left back position 30 yards outside the penalty area and stuff like that. A couple of years ago he would still have been nailed to the goal-line but he is now affecting the game. He even ran 40 yards out of his goal to get involved in the punch-up at the end.

The return of KWP was absolutely huge for the balance the side and Bednarek and Vestergaard both benefited from having our first choice back 4 in place for the first time in quite a while. Diallo made a difference in midfield and I was pleased that Ralph kept him on even though he had a couple of dodgy moments, especially that ball he gave away at the end of the first half but he’s rusty and he’ll be much better for getting through the game. It doesn’t matter if he plays in the next game against Manchester City or not but it was definitely the right thing to leave him on today because if we had taken him off, we would’ve been pulling Armstrong in from the wing to stick him in central midfield and disrupting things.

Takumi Minamino is a strange player. There is obvious quality in him which is shown in previous games as well as today but he has the ability to look like a 17-year-old playing his first ever game a professional level where he does some really dumb naive things or panics and just kicks it anywhere.

Sheffield United will be going down this year, of that there is absolutely no doubt. The reason they are going down is not because they don’t play nice football because they do. Through midfield they were actually not too bad but their strikers are absolute fucking dog shit and this isn’t news.  McGoldrick had some decent touches but he can’t run, Brewster is a big unit and put himself about but he just gives up and stops running and then can’t be bothered. For £25 million he is absolutely pathetic. Mousset is shite and just kicks the ball randomly out of play and Billy Sharp is 47. I’ve left of the best till last in Oli McBurnie who is a fucking arsehole. It’s alright being an arsehole if you’re a good player but he’s got the double whammy of being an arsehole and being absolutely fucking shit. He’s in the conversation for the most out of his depth Premier League player that I’ve ever seen and how this guy steals a living as a Premier League footballer is totally beyond me. You could see that the Saints players thought he was an arsehole as well and they were queuing up to try and get him to do something stupid to get sent off in the last couple of minutes.

Anyway, our chances of joining Sheffield United in the Championship next season look a bit further away now as 33 points looks a hell of a lot better than 30 and as I write, we are now 10 points clear of the relegation zone. One more win should just about do it. You’ll be hard pressed to have much optimism about picking up that win in our next game which happens to be Manchester City away who, assuming they beat Manchester United (update: they lost), will be looking for their 23rd consecutive win in a row (update: not now). Having won today, we will at least be able to shrug our shoulders regardless of the result on Wednesday. It’s a great feeling to win a game. Up the fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 26 - Everton 1 Southampton 0

 

8 minutes and.... Shit!

A trip to Goodison Park where we always do really well (Cough!, Cough! Bullshit!), to play Everton. You could say we do well there if your idea of doing well is having our last win in 1997. I went to that game, I was 28 at the time and I’m now 52. Goodison Park hasn’t changed since then though and it’s one of the ever declining number of proper, traditional football grounds that are left.

What has changed this season at Everton, is on the pitch with Carlo Ancelotti getting in the players that he wants to get in and he has done a very good job. It’s an interesting parallel with Saints at the moment. Ancelotti has had to do without his first choice full-backs in Lucas Digne and Séamus Coleman at various times this season and he too has put central defenders in the wide positions with Ben Godfrey and Mason Holgate forced to stand in. The difference is that he has found a way to subtly tweak the formation, play the four defenders narrow and find a way to win games. It helps of course if you have the resources that Everton Ihave got to buy players like Godfrey for £25 million, mind you, he was rubbish when he played at SMS earlier this season.  Everton have been somewhat patchy this season but you can’t help but admire the manager and know that they are completely going in the right direction with him in charge.

Elsewhere on the pitch they have one of our arch nemeses in Richarlison, who is a complete and utter bastard but he always scores against us and always plays well, even if the rest of the Everton team doesn’t at times. When we played at the start the season at St Mary‘s and the media were full of James Rodriguez and his impact, we dealt with it superbly and won the game relatively comfortably, mainly through making James do the defensive side of the game, which he couldn’t be bothered with. We also saw Jannik Vestergaard completely nullify Dominic Calvert-Lewin and we’re going to need a similar performance today. I go into this game with very low expectations.

When it rains it certainly pours. It’s a sort of downpour at the moment where you don’t just get a little bit wet and are left wondering whether you actually need to change any of your clothes or not. It’s the kind of downpour where you are walking along the side of the road and a bastard great lorry goes through a fucking great puddle which is next to you that you haven’t seen, and instantly you are as wet as you could possibly be. That’s how fucking wet we are getting at the moment with everything that is going wrong.  I am of course referring to the news that Oriol Romeu has had his ankle broken, in no small part by the pitch at Elland Road on Tuesday. He is one player that we certainly cannot afford to lose but lose him we have and we now need to get on with it. The one remaining option to partner JWP in midfield is a course Alex Jankewitz , who last played at Old Trafford when….  you know the drill. If he plays today, there will be a massive collective intake of breath as he goes in for his first tackle.

Personally, I hope Jankewitz is playing and we are not trying to shoehorn Armstrong into the centre of midfield. That in my opinion would not be good. I’m torn between Bednarek playing at right back or putting Kayne Ramsay in there. The thought of Bednarek trying to stop Lucas Digne’s runs forward it’s not a particularly appealing one. We have another issue in that Takumi Minamino is also injured though this is just a tight hamstring so he shouldn’t be out for too long. Hopefully this means that Nathan Tella continues in the team and then it’s just a case of Redmond or Adams to partner Danny Ings upfront. I’d go for Adams any day, and twice on a Monday, though neither are great at the moment.

The eventual team news and is a bit of a surprise and the headline is that Fraser Forster starting in goal. It’s a really odd situation because he deserves a run in the team but at the same time, Alex McCarthy doesn’t really deserve to be dropped. He played well at Leeds and single-handedly kept us in the game.  Maybe he could have done better on the 3^rd goal but basically, JWP ducked in the wall which would have meant he saw it late.  Elsewhere, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, Stuart Armstrong is in the centre of midfield. Saints record with Stuart Armstrong in the centre of midfield is played 110 minutes, scored none, conceded 11. Hopefully he’s been working at when to run forward and when to sit, during the week. Infuriatingly, Ralph has picked the wrong Nathan and Nathan Tella has been dropped and Nathan Redmond has been put in his spot on the wing. The silver lining of that is that Che Adams is restored alongside Danny Ings up front.  Despite getting a new contract this week, Kayne Ramsay is still on the bench with Jan Bednarek one assumes, looking after right back duties which is okay because they just have Lucas Digne and Richarlison playing down that side. Everton are at full strength apart from Seamus Coleman being missing and James Rodriguez is nowhere to be seen either with his place taken by Gylfi Sigurdsson who as you know, always fucking scores against us. Optimism is running somewhere between nil and zero.

It’s a kind of nothing opening five minutes with the only action in the penalty area being Fraser showing his new found ability to get off his line as he slides out, hands first and takes the ball off the feet of Sigurdsson.  Great old school goalkeeping.  Unfortunately, the next time he’s called into action is on the 8 minute mark as Pickford launches one up to Calvert-Lewin, who beats Salisu in the air and then wins the second header.  It drops to Sigurdsson who plays it through to Richarlison and he skips around the keeper and scores.  For fucks sake.

Salisu is clearly rattled and the next ball up gets knocked down to Calvert-Lewin and Salisu tries to kick his head off. He wins the ball but that’s always going to be a free-kick.  Over it comes and a powerful header by Richarlison which is superbly saved down low by Forster but he’s well offside as our usual thing of standing in a line on the edge of a penalty area and hoping they get caught offside, works well.

Another free kick given away to give Everton another go and this time they try and fake delay it and Digne whips it in, Holgate is free at the back and nods it across and Keane nods it in.  Everton celebrate whilst we look in hope at the linesman and up we go to VAR and Holgate is clearly offside so we breathe again as it’s disallowed.

The game is so shit that it’s only set pieces that threaten the goal.  We get one as Holgate hauls down Ings in the right back spot on the edge of the box.  JWP swings it in and Calvert-Lewin takes responsibility and heads at wide of his near post.  Over comes to corner and Djenepo picks it up on the right wing makes an absolute mug of Doucoure along the line, then knocks it through Digne’s legs and Adams just crashes it straight at Salisu and it hits him and drops to Pickford.

Ings clips a ball through to Adams who rolls around Godfrey who as hold of him momentarily so it should be a free-kick on the edge of the box but he lets go and then falls over in front of Adams who goes over him, in exactly the same way that Calvert-Lewin fell over a prone Alexander-Arnold last week and got given a penalty. There is never any question that we are going to get given a penalty.

Half time is here and though we are one down, it hasn’t been as bad as expected.  Armstrong has been very good in central midfield and has ensured that we are solid.  It’s just a shame we got done by what is a basic Route 1 goal.

I’m sure that at half time, Ralph didn’t say, “Give them a load more free kicks in our half because they’ll score from one in a minute” but Redmond obviously heard that and gives away a stupid foul  In it comes and the offside trap doesn’t work and Keane heads goalward and we scramble it out as far as Godfrey who sees his gold bound shot cleared by Vestergaard.

The excitement only rises above ‘dead’ when we get a corner which Salisu heads well wide and the half bores on.  We haven’t caved in, but we are offering no threat at all.  With 30 to go it’s substitution time and we’re all waiting to see what’s going to happen… and we’re all expecting Redmond to come off… but it’s not him who comes off it’s Salisu who to be replaced by Nathan Tella. That’s a bit fucking weird and it means that Djenepo is going to right back to play against Richarlison and Digne.  This will end well.  Fifteen minutes later, N’Lundulu is on for Adams.

Nothing really happens until the 86th minute.  Tella picks up the ball in midfield and spins past Doucoure before feeding Armstrong who beat a defender before finding Tella again and getting the ball back and the space opens up on the right hand side for Djenepo. Armstrong rolls it into his path and Djenepo has a free shot of goal on the angle and side foots it a foot wide of the far post with the Flailing Midget Armed T-Rex in goal, nowhere near it.  Brilliant build up and a poor finish.

With two minutes to go, Redmond is finally put out of his misery and replaced with Caleb Watts and there is still time to win another corner on the left.  In it comes from JWP, scrambled half clear and Djenepo’s shot is block and it eventually breaks to Vestergaard who slips as he hits it left-footed and Pickford, by now in full flappy Tigger mode, manages to get in the way

We have been playing with a bit of urgency for the last 5 minutes and now there is 94 minutes on the clock and we chuck one in the mixer which Pickford flaps out and we win another corner.  Fraser is up and it comes again and Everton half clear again and then clear Tella’s return into the box and that’s it as far as Martin Atkinson is concerned and lo and behold, we’ve fucking lost again.

Bizarrely, in truth, it is probably a result I would’ve taken before the first whistle but Everton weren’t great. They scored their goal and apart from the last couple of minutes it was relatively comfortable for them after that.  It was a shite game with just one chance which came from build up play, as opposed to a Route 1 ball or a set piece.

I will admit that I was completely wrong about Stuart Armstrong as he was easily man of the match playing in the centre of midfield.  He remained fairly disciplined throughout but still found time to be the most likely source of a goal with his determined running forward and general intelligence. We did miss him further up the pitch though which is not surprising because the wide men chosen just didn’t do it and more on that later.

I’ve seen a lot of rubbish written and heard a lot of rubbish said about Danny Ings over the past few weeks, stuff like that he’s not trying because he wants to move etc. Utter bullshit.  He may want to move but for me, it’s remarkable that he puts in the performances that he does given the lack of help he is given from the other three forward players around him and the lack of service he gets.

Che Adams is in a downward spiral at the moment and just doesn’t look like getting out of it. There is the odd good bit of play but in the main, he is very easily handled by whatever defender he is up against. Having done nothing as a striker over the past few weeks, Nathan Redmond got given yet another chance in his previously favourite position of left-wing and showed a couple of half decent half breaks around the half way line but when it came to doing anything in the final third, you can forget it.  He also gave the ball away countless times either with careless passes or just nothing tackles that let in the Everton player walk away with the ball.  On the other wing,  Moussa Djenepo produced one brilliant run along the goal line in the first half and he showed a decent sense of adventure when he got moved to right back for the last 20 minutes of the game, when we were chasing it.  Also, he really should’ve scored though with that one chance that Armstrong and Tella carved out for him. 

Ask yourself the question, if you were Danny Ings, would you sign another contract for us at the moment? I wouldn’t. It’s no wonder we don’t score any goals when Ings frequently finds himself out wide trying to create something because others can’t and when he puts across in the box, None of the other three are making any runs at all and are basically playing statues.

We got done on the goal because Salisu, was playing on the left-hand side which meant he came up against Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Everyone knows this season that DCL has been untouchable in the air against everybody apart from Vestergaard. I didn’t think of this until the goal went in but not having Vestergaard in the left-hand channel was a mistake. He wasn’t there because we were fucking around playing Bednarek at right back which in turn meant that Salisu, in his second Premier League game, was marking a striker, the type of which he will never have come up against before. Salisu will learn but he got battered by DCL for the goal and our old mate Richarlison skipped round the keeper and scored.

Another Standard Digne Moment

Richarlison is a crying little bitch. A very good player but a nasty player he’s quite happy to leave his foot in but he is a crying little fucking baby if there is any contact from any opposition player. It’s fucking embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as Lucas Digne who is right out there with Andy Robertson in the “opposition left backs who need a damn good fucking slap” stakes.  Another snide little shitbag of a player and similar to his dreadful tackle on KWP at St Mary‘s, he produced another one today on Djenepo which unbelievably, Martin Atkinson didn’t even think warranted a yellow card.  He also has perfected the 'Yell of Death' when barely touch which is particularly effective in these empty grounds.  When he doesnt get the free kick after the Yell of Death, he is straight back up again.

For me, Ralph’s big decisions had a mixed success. Fraser Forster did well in goal and should get a run of games now. Bednarek at right back was better than it was against Leeds but we need everything we can in an attacking sense and he offers nothing on the right hand side which is of course, not his fault. As said, Stuart Armstrong did well but was needed further forward. Armstrong had a decent game but the bottom line is that we still lost and maybe Alex Jankewitz would’ve had a good game in midfield and then Armstrong could’ve been used further forward. I’m probably going to be accused of jumping on the bandwagon but how on earth can Nathan Redmond be appalling for 88 minutes before he gets taken off. Tella did more as a sub today than Redmond has done all season.  The substitution which brought on Tella and took off Salisu and meant Djenepo was at right back, was slightly random and completely alarming at the time but to be fair, that one actually worked quite well because Everton weren’t that interesting in attacking at that point and he therefore didn’t have to do much defending. 

So, it’s one point from nine games now which of course is fucking appalling but as usual, the sun will rise tomorrow and we have another game coming up and it’s Sheffield United away from home. Having lost this game today, we absolutely have to be looking to win this game on Saturday because the one after that is Manchester City and we’re not fucking winning that one. There is a good chance that KWP, Minamino and Diallo will be back for that game and we have to hope that they are and also that they make a difference and we come home with three points.

Up the fucking Saints!