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.
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?”
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.
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.
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.
Great write-up as always. Thanks mate!
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