Premier League Match 30 - Southampton 3 Burnley 2

 

Ings Sends Tarkowski for a Hot Dog (not pictured)

After an international break, what better way to welcome you back to the glitz and glamour of the Premier League than a home game against Burnley. It’s one of those games that you always look out on the fixture list and think, oh yeah, we should be winning that one because Burnley are shit and they’re down at the bottom of the table… and then you remember all the home games we had against Burnley when we have invariably been crap and lost. The legendary Sean Dyche is still their manager and he’s made himself much more likeable during the lockdown by really taking the piss in press conferences and just generally coming across as a decent bloke. That doesn’t mean I like his football teams though, who are in general, horrible.

I mention him every time we play them but Ashley Fuckin’ Barnes… that is all.  Good news for us is that he’s injured so it’s Chris Wood and possible Jay Rodriguez waiting up front with balls raining down on them.  I’ve always liked their centre back pairing of Ben Mee and James Tarkowski and of course they also have the goalkeeper who has been playing for England in the last international break, in Nick Pope.  Pope is probably the best old-style goalkeeper in the Premier League at the moment and what I mean by old style, is a goalkeeper who is good at all the traditional things like shot stopping, commanding the area and actually keeping the ball out of the net. He is horrible with his feet however and this was shown up in the England games.

JWP of course pick up another couple of appearances for England, including starting the home game at San Marino when he scored the first goal and generally put in a very tidy and good performance. He really should’ve been man of the match which ironically went to Jesse Lingard, a player who played totally for himself, having six shots, not scoring any and not passing to better placed teammates on about four occasions.  This gets you man of the match if you haven’t got a fucking clue.  JWP certainly did his cause no harm to be included in the squad for the Euros in the summer but what he did harm was his calf which forced him to miss the third game against Poland and makes him a doubt for this afternoon.

Whilst we fret over our central midfield options, another bonus for the international break was watching Alex Jankewitz play for Switzerland Under 21s against a very strong England side. When I say a strong England side, I’m a course of referring to the standard of players, not the standard of the team, nor the manager – the massively over-promoted Aidy Boothroyd.  Jankewitz stood out and had an excellent game in midfield. Very two footed, a good range of passing and very involved in the attacking play. Maybe in our system, he would better be deployed as a wide player but I would certainly hope that he has given Ralph enough food for thought to give him another go soon.  Che Braveheart scored for Scotland against some fishermen from the North Sea so he should come back full of confidence and our loanee Takumi Minamino scored the all-important first goal in Japan’s difficult qualifier against Mongolia which I understand, was a lot closer than the 14-0 scoreline suggested.

Surprisingly, Minamino scoring that huge goal didn’t guarantee him a start today as he’s on the bench, alongside Che Braveheart McAdams and Moussa Djenepo.  Danny Ings and Theo Walcott both start and Nathan Redmond now has the challenge of doing it against a Premier League side.  Mercifully, JWP is fit to take his place in midfield alongside Diallo.

Away we go and straight away. KWP makes a mistake in midfield and Burnley move the ball on to Wood who produces a low toe poke which forces Fraser into a sprawling save.  Not a great start – come on!  Do we wake up, not really but we do have a shot from Ings which is blocked by Ben Mee, using his arm which wasn’t in a natural position.  Jon Moss is on VAR but he was obviously still at the vending machine so no one looked at it.  It goes in the ‘handballs we haven’t been given penalties for’ file

Pieters attacks down there Burnley left and tries to take on KWP.  He wrestles his way past him and gets the cross over as KWP tries to make the tackle. Play goes on but Pieters has collapsed in a heap in the penalty area and when play eventually breaks we’re off to VAR. In the VAR room, Jon Moss has finished his nack from the vending machine and it now stuffing his first Sunday roast of the day into his face as he tries to do his job.

“Looks like a foul by Walk Kyle Peters, Andre”
“Didn’t see that mate, I just saw a shite cross and a clearance”
“You know the directive Andrew, Big Mikey Dean says we have to forensically look at anything against Southerners”
“Ok Mossy, you going to send it to the TV screen?”
“Trouble is Andre, Burnley Pieters fouls Southampton Peter Kyle-Skywalker before the tackle comes in”
“Tell you what Mossy, we can sort this if you just show the bit after that”
“I like your way of thinking Andre, I don’t call you Andre the fucking Giant for nothing do they?”
“I stride the pitch like a colossus Mossy.”
“Okay Andre, it’s on TV now… oh shit, just dribbled gravy down my t-shirt”
“I have strolled across with great purpose... oh that’s a penalty all day.
Certainly is Andre”
“Well done Mossy, now get back to your dinner.”
“Saints are going to hate you for this Andre”
“No they won’t Mossy, they’ll hate you for not showing me the first bit. They hate me anyway because that offside I gave against Gabbiadini in the EFL Cup Final four years ago”
“Soft southern bastards Andre”
“Soft southern bastards indeed Mossy.”

Penalty. Oh do fuck off! We see a replay of the whole incident and there is a clear foul by Pieters on KWP before the tackle. The KWP tackle is of course a foul and as Marriner has only been shown that bit, you can’t blame him for giving it. Up steps Chris Wood to belt the living shit out of it, straight down the middle and 1-0 down. Fuck.

The numb sensation from being 1-0 down to this shit, turns into a full blown coma as a big whoosh forward is well dealt with by Bednarek and ends up back with Ben Mee, who produces another big fucking whoosh forward and Bednarek gets bullied out of the way by Wood and he knocks it down to Vydra, who has lost KWP and he smashes it early and Forster doesn’t have time to adjust and it’s two fucking nil now.

What a load of fucking shit. How can you expect to win any game against Burnley if you don’t compete with them physically and win your tackles in your headers. It’s not as if we haven’t had two weeks to prepare for this game and they’re doing anything unusual. We fucking knew what was coming but we haven’t dealt with it at all. An absolute classic Route 1 goal there. Smashed up the park from the centre half, headed down by the big bastard up front and his partner smashes it in the net. Brutal simplicity. You’d have to admire it if it wasn’t so fucking annoying.

It is not long after this that I throw the “we’re not gonna score if we play all fucking night“ declaration but we are back in the game on a half hour as JWP slides a ball infield to Ings who turns it round the corner to the 3^rd man run of Armstrong, who lashes it past Pope from the edge of the box to make it 2-1.  He’s marvellous, isn’t he? Great player, great hair.

From the depths of despair to a glimmer of hope, which becomes ever brighter as we build up again.  KWP plays the ball along the line towards Redmond who steps over it and it finds its way towards Danny Ings. Ben Mee is favourite but for some reason he lets it go and Ings gets himself in between Mee and the ball and he’s away. He bores into the penalty area and Tarkowski throws himself in front of the ball with such force that he looks like he might have given himself whiplash as Danny cuts back and slides the ball through Pope’s legs to make it 2-2. Brilliant goal, brilliant composure.  I’m in shock – we’ve managed to come back and not cave in.

It’s all Saints for the rest of the half and it’s a bit of a shame when the half time whistle goes.  If that half of football doesn’t encapsulate supporting Saints, then I don’t know what does – apart from losing 9-0 of course.  No changes at half time and the second half starts in much the same pattern as the first half ended with Saints looking the more likely.  When we get it down and pass it quickly and positively, Burnley can’t live with our movement.

Good work by Redmond in midfield send us away and via Armstrong, Ings and Redmond again, the ball ends up with JWP who on the edge of the box and he smashes against the bar and it bounces down, Ings follows up with a header which is headed off the line by Tarkowski.  Andre the Giant checks his watch but nothing and a replay confirms that that particular technology is working fine because it has no involvement from a PGMOL employee.

Armstrong has a dig from the edge of the box which flicks off of Mee and Pope takes off to his right to pull off an unbelievable one-handed save with a ridiculously strong wrist to keep the scores level.

On, on and Walcott brings the ball forward and finds Danny Ings who makes space for himself and hammers it towards the goal but Pope once again pulls off another ridiculous save but Saints get lucky as the ball stays in play with Walcott. If there is one player you’re not expecting to show any composure, it’s Theo Walcott but he gets his head up and chips the ball over the defence and the goalkeeper for Redmond at the back stick to acrobatically volley it into the net. Brilliant finish, brilliant pass. Get in.

Redders Does It In the Premier League

Burnley have gone into launch mode again and are throwing a few more forward now which means that there are opportunities on the break. We clear a corner and Walcott bursts forward over halfway. He has both Redmond and Armstrong on his right but instead of choosing either of those options, he chooses the absolute shit option of trying to check back which allows the player pursuing him to nick the ball and the chance has gone. Fuck sake.

It’s not just Theo though who has a momentary shocker though as Pope is closed down by Redmond and totally shanks his kick into the middle of the park to Danny Ings but the man who was usually got such a good touch, sees it bounce away from him and knocks it too far and once again the chance has gone.

It’s Fraser time and there’s a reminder that Burnley are still in this.  Firstly, the big man comes out of his area to get the ball away, in a manner that he would never have done two years ago but the danger isn’t over as KWP gets run off the ball and a couple of passes give Wood the ball on the edge of the box and tries a curler to the back post and Big Fraser takes off and claws it away.

With 15 minutes to go, it’s sub time and on the face of it, it’s quite a strange one with Salisu coming on for Stuart Armstrong and us going to a back three. This immediately signals a turnaround in the game and suddenly Burnley are putting us under all sorts of pressure. It’s not particularly scientific as you would expect but the ball is spending a lot of time in and around our penalty area.

There was always going to be one really good chance for Burnley and so it came as McNeil slung in a left footed cross from the right and it avoided everybody apart from Chris Woodward stolen in behind Bednarek and he met it with his head from 5 yards but luckily, Fraser prove the value of being fucking massive in goal and got himself in the way.  The reply shows that Bednarek had hold of Wood’s shirt for at least part of that move… never a penalty ref… would I be spitting feathers if we didn’t get given that?  Yes.

The three minutes of injury time tick by so slowly whilst we continue to take the wrong option and don’t dribble for the corner and don’t keep the ball and don’t fucking score when we have the chance. Adams is on for Ings to give us some fresh legs upfront and he should wrap the game up as we produce a good break and Adams is clean through from the halfway line, but he does what all good Scottish centre forwards do and looks very composed until the last moment before getting to the goalkeeper and pissing all over his own deep fried Mars bar by shanking it wide.  Imagine if that had been to win the game or rescue a point.

Mercifully, Andre the Giant has had enough and so on the final whistle, we move up to 36 points. Thank fuck for that.

Well that was the very definition of making extremely hard work of it. We have so much more ability in our team than Burnley but of course to win the game, you have to match them other things that they are good at.  Their style of football might not be pretty but it is relatively effective, especially if the opposition don’t stand up to it. We didn’t stand up to it in the first half an hour and deserved to be 2-0 down. The penalty given against KWP is another one for questionable use a VAR. There is no doubt that KWP trashed Pieters but as you could clearly see from the television pictures, Andre Mariner was not shown the build up to the foul in which Peters pulled KWP back. It’s Jon Moss on VAR and I guess that we shouldn’t be surprised anymore.

The second goal was just garbage from our point of view and perfectly illustrated us not doing the basics with Bednarek not putting up any sort of challenge against Wood and Vydra taking the goal well. At this point I saw no way back for us but back we came with some great work between Ings and Armstrong and then level before half-time when Ben Mee, usually so reliable, totally made a bollocks of that ball into the channel allowing Ings to do what he does best. The second-half was pretty average initially but then we took over with JWP hitting the bar and Pope producing  two world-class saves against Armstrong and Ings but from the second save, Walcott played his one intelligent ball of the match and picked out Redmond at the back post who finished really well.

From that point on we then proceeded to make every wrong decision and every bad finish that we possibly could and so we arrived at the last 15 minutes with Ralph going to 3 at the back having introduced Salisu, dropping 10 metres and Burley just launching ball after ball into the penalty area. Fair play though, we stood up, won our headers and did what was needed.  There was the close-range header from Wood but that was about it.

In the opening half-hour we looked very lightweight.  We don’t have a lot of what you would call physical players anyway but with Romeu injured and Adams on the bench, the whole front six looked very light and we didn’t compete.  We actually managed to make them look good in midfield with JWP and Diallo not at the races. The difference when the two in the centre midfield started to get a grip was massive and we managed to play through Burnley on a number of occasions after that, as I said earlier, with a bit more care with the final ball and decision-making, we really could’ve made the game very comfortable, even from 2-0 down.

After the Bournemouth game, Ralph called for Nathan Redmond step up and do it in a Premier League game and today was another good day for him, scoring the winning goal and generally being a lot more positive. Walcott was Walcott – extremely positive intent and forward running, totally butchering a 2 v 1 opportunity but then showing great compsure to tee up Redmond for the winner.  The most consistent player and the one most likely to find the right pass was once again, Stuart Armstrong.

Danny Ings gave food for thought for the merchants who want him out of the club in the summer because he won’t sign a new contract as yet. Without spending at least £30 million quid, we’re not gonna find anyone remotely as good as him and we’re not gonna spend £30 million quid on one player this summer. We would be better off keeping him for the final year of his contract and hoping that he signs somewhere along the line and shouldn’t even remotely consider selling him this summer, unless we get a ridiculous offer.

The relief for Ralph was obvious at the end and he did make the point that it was a deserved win, which it was, based on number of shots etc. He did say on one interview that our decision-making in the final third was good. It was up to a point but if it has been good all game would’ve won about 7-2.  One thing I find interesting about today was that Wood obviously decided that Bednarek was less dominant in the air than Vestergaard so he played down that channel. It remains a mystery to me, bearing in mind that Bednarek is perfectly adept at playing on the left, why we didn’t swap the central defenders over or why Vestergaard didn’t just stay with Wood and Bednarek fill in the other side. It seems a very very basic thing but I guess the Southampton playbook has other ideas.

I think you have to remember bearing in mind today’s opposition, is that Burnley before this game had the same amount of points as us by finding a way to win and draw matches. It’s never pretty but they get the job done and they won’t get relegated this season. It wasn’t a perfect performance from us today but we got the job done, got three points and onto the next as we go from Allar-Dyche to Allardyce.

"Two nil And We Fooked It Up"