Premier League Match 31 - West Brom 3 Southampton 0

 

"Over to our Guest Summariser; Jeff Goldblum"

Here we are in the graveyard slot on Monday night at 6 pm for an away game at West Brom. It’s Live on Sky but absolutely no one will be watching apart from fans of West Brom and Southampton. It’s even a bit early to start drinking on a Monday night but “Big” Sam Allardyce is involved so drinking maybe essential, even if it’s gravy direct from the gravy boat.

Every time Big Sam gets sacked / found out, I kind of think that that’s the last we’ll see of him in terms of playing against one of his teams but here we are again, as West Brom pressed the Allardyce button, not long after they had lost to us at St Mary’s.  Under Slaven Bilic, West Brom were only going one way and that was down and Sam was brought in to do his usual rescue act. So far, he has had moderate success. Initially, they picked up the odd result against good sides by parking the bus but as soon as they tried to be remotely expansive in home games, they got absolutely battered. Since about Christmas they have tightened up and are no longer heading for a world record goals conceded total (checks Saints goals conceded column) but as I speak, they are still 10 points adrift of the safety line, so Big Sam’s record of never being relegated is under serious threat.

West Brom showed signs of life in the last game when they achieved a quite ridiculous 5-2 away win Chelsea. They were helped by Thiago Silva getting sent off after about 20 minutes but you still have to do the job and they did, tearing Chelsea a new one. The player who caused the vast majority of the damage was Mateus Pareira, who has much more ability than warrants being in the Championship next season. Other notable players are Sam Johnstone in goal, who has just been called up to the England squad and the big lad upfront, Diagne who is, as you would expect, pivotal to the way that Big Sam likes to play.

Saints only appear to have one issue going into this game and that’s the fitness of Kyle Walker-Peters. If there’s any doubt with KWP then personally, I wouldn’t play him. The reason for that of course is that with last weeks’ win against Burnley, we are virtually safe, especially with Fulham losing again on Saturday in a game which saw Mario Lemina crying as they conceded in the last minute. Mario’s sole aim will be for everyone to think that he is some sort of hero in that he really cares about Fulham, which of course fucking doesn’t. It worked though because three hours later, The Athletic had an article praising his commitment when we all know that Mario’s commitment is to himself and his brand. So, 10 points from the drop zone and with an FA Cup semi-final against Leicester next week, I’d leave KWP out if he’s not 100% fit. Just play the reserve right back… Oh yeah, we don’t have one.

Away we go and quite frankly, we look absolute gash.  KWP might be fit to start but he’s all over the place and with no help coming in from Walcott in front of him, The Baggies are all over us.  We conceded an early freekick as Bednarek steams into the back of Diagne.  We do our usual static high line which Big Sam has obviously seen and West Brom play it down the side for Phillips who cuts in unopposed and drills it at Fraser who pushes it out.  Back it comes from Parreira and Diagne is completely unmarked and heads in.  Great start boys for fuck sake – oh hang on – offside flag up.  Off we go to the Twats at Stockley Park and it looks onside.  Vestergaard’s back leg is playing him on though Diagne’s arm is the furthest point forward so who fucking knows?  There is only one view shown on TV and somehow we get away with it, probably because there’s another West Brom player in the mix.  Offside.  Bullshit in my book.

When we start competing for the ball and actually start trying to play, we don’t look too bad.  KWP picks up a Vestergaard ping in the far corner, mugs off the full back and cuts in before panicking and drilling it near post for Johnstone to block.  A minute later, Redmond hits the deck and appeals for a penalty as Ings dances himself some room and curls a shot wide.  There’s another half chance as Redmond breaks on the right and finds Armstrong who skews a shot wide but Ings keeps it in and plays it across goal to no one.

After that flurry, we revert back to being shite.  Every time West Brom advance they do the old hot knife through butter thing.  Our right side is a disaster and the centre is wide open with JWP and Diallo merely being vaguely present.  West Brom piss through the middle with Parreira easily being allowed to find Diagne and it’s a sitter, which he puts miles high and wide.  A dreadful miss which will have had Big Sam choking on his burger with gravy - lots of gravy.

A decent effort follows from Armstrong as Walcott takes a break from contributing nothing to break forward and find him infield but Johnstone reads the shot and claws it away with one for the cameras.  They look so ropey when we attack with any purpose but not as ropey as we do when they attack and guess what happened next?

Fraser clears a ball off the deck to half way and O’Shea wins a free header.  Forward it goes to Diagne who wins a free header and knocks it to Maitland-Niles who is unmarked.  He rolls it to Parreira who is also unmarked and right in front of goal and Fraser comes out and trashes him.  No VAR bullshit is getting us out of that one – down the middle it goes, 1-0.

Fraser Decides It's Time Someone Actually Got Close to a Player.  Misjudges It.

Saints work hard in possession to try and get back into the game for about a minute and then Danny Ings gets involved, turns back towards our own goal on the right and plays the ball straight to Diagne.  He’s off and curls a beautiful ball across the goal and there’s Phillips at the back post who has come in off the right and he bundles it high into the net at the back post.  Fucks sake. Taxi for Bertrand to get him back – that’s your man who just scored.

The rest of the first half is shit as we settle for only being 2-0 down at half time.  We achieve that which feels to me like a bit of a result.  No one wants to do the basics like running and pressing and passing the ball to a team mate quickly, not to mention the old ‘mark the opposition players’ thing.  The only question should be, how many of these useless arseholes get subbed at half time?  Two? Maybe three?

None is the answer as the same 11 come out.  West Brom have clearly decide to try and hold their advantage and not give us anything so of course, we have a bit more possession.  We do draw the Baggies out and attack on the break but KWP takes too long and chooses the wrong option and the promising break ends with Armstrong drilling a 30 yarder with his wrong foot, straight at Johnstone.

With the Baggies now playing on the break, we then concede the shittiest goal since the last one as Johnstone boots it downfield, it’s headed down by Bednarek, one pass and Robinson is clean through with Vestergaard isolated and on the turn, bang, 3-0, absolute shit.

There are 20 minutes left and we still haven’t made any subs.  West Brom have made two and they’re 3-0 up.  Finally there’s movement on the bench after 76 minutes of unadulterated shite and it’s a predictable one with Adams coming on for Walcott.    Adams at least makes a bit of an impression as Redmond puts him away on the right-hand side it cuts into the area and drills a cross-shot and it flashes just wide of the far post. That’s our best effort on goal to be honest. 

87 minutes and it’s time for some game changing subs with Tella and Djenepo coming on for Ings and KWP.  Djenepo is at right back but he doesn’t care and he lines up Townshend who trashes him with a very tired looking challenge and it’s a clear penalty.  It’s that kind of day though as up steps JWP and he goes for his usual corner with the usual whip and Johnstone gets across well to save.  He moved a fucking mile but they can’t be bothered to look at it, which is good because it means that the end comes quicker.

Absolute dogshit.

I feel that it’s going to be pretty hard to express in words how absolutely fucking dreadful that was. I mean, it had no redeeming features whatsoever. Did we put in effort? no. Were we unlucky? no. Did the score flatter West Brom? no. Do we have an injury crisis? No. Did a bunch of decisions go against us? No.

Let’s start with Ralph. Ralph picked the team that he thought was his best side and in all likelihood was going to be the team that started the FA Cup semi-final next week.  Today, that team was fucking dreadful from the first minute. You could certainly tell from the opening five that we were going to lose and it didn’t get any better and yet it took until the 75th minute for Ralph to try and change anything significant.  It’s not like he has no options on the bench any more. Allardyce actually made his subs first and they were 3-0 up for fuck sake. When the subs did came, it was just the usual suspects and we learned nothing.  For me, there was a massive problem today, same as in the first half against Burnley, with the Diallo and JWP midfield pairing. The two of them just do not defend and the centre backs are then exposed because the gaps between the lines are too big.  In short, in modern parlance, Romeu is a 6, Hojbjerg was a 6, JWP and Diallo are both 8s.  Last season and for most of this, a combination of a 6 and an 8 in central midfield has worked pretty well for us.  This combination just doesn’t work at the moment.  They both try and push forward, we lose the ball, then there are huge gaps and the slow central defenders are exposed.  Diallo has not been the same player since his injury but it’s this version of Diallo that we have at the moment.  Also, because they are not getting much protection from in front of them, the defence tends to naturally drift back towards our own goal, making the problem worse.

This was the ideal game to bring on Alex Jankewitz at half-time for Diallo because the game was already going south and he couldn’t possibly have been any worse (as long as he stayed on the pitch). We might have actually found out if there was a genuine option for central midfield there but as it was, we learned nothing.  “We lose or we learn” – apparently.

Is there a possibility that teams have totally sussed out how we’re going to play because there is never any variation in it? Same formation, same style of play and if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work.  Remember, the comeback against Burnley was an anomaly – when we go behind we usually have nothing in reply. If you look at West Brom‘s last two games, they played five at the back against Chelsea and though they were admittedly helped by the early red card, they won the game. Against us, they decided to set up differently and they won the game – we clearly weren’t sure how they were going to play at the start whereas they knew everything about us. We go in to every game with the same formation and the same way of playing. I’ve no doubt that there were minor tweaks made along the way in the game today but today needed more than minor tweaks. We were getting fucking hammered, even before they scored, so moving someone 5 yards this way or 5 yards that way at half time really wasn’t going to make any difference. Like against Burnley, the front six players were completely lightweight. Admittedly we don’t have a lot of options but we got away with it against Burnley but we didn’t get away with it today because West Brom stayed on it for the entire 90 minutes.

Look around the team – so may players were awful.  KWP played like a fish up a tree and defensively was horrific for the first half at least. Ryan Bertrand has turned into the player most likely to bottle out of any challenge.  Bednarek has been shot since the Man United 9-0.  Going forward - we were pathetic, either choosing the wrong option, being too slow to play the pass and basically not being committed enough to score a goal. No one was really busting a gut to score and that’s what pissed me off the most. It was like the Brighton home game where we showed absolutely no urgency to score a goal when behind.  Redmond was favourite for a goal after a rebound, but the defender wanted it more and guess who got the ball?  Ings just kept on trying to work a position rather than shoot and Walcott… bloody hell.  Che Adams has been dropped when playing well and because Redmond had a good game against Bournemouth and a half decent one against Burnley, Adams is still on the bench.  I’d maybe excuse Armstrong, Forster and Vestergaard today but the rest of the starting XI were dreadful.

We got incredibly lucky to get away with a VAR decision after about three minutes which we apparently got away with because they didn’t have a camera at the right angle or some such complete bollocks. Even if they had had a camera, Diagne’s his arm may well have been beyond Vestergaard‘s foot so it may well have been disallowed anyway but it looked perfectly okay and it’s the sort of goal that should stand. The penalty we gave away was an absolute clusterfuck - Fraser kicked it, two free headers and an unmarked player in the box and Fraser carts him over. The second goal goes down as an assist for Danny Ings but our scramble defence once we gave the ball away was non-existent with Bertand not matching the run of man Phillips who scored the goal. The third goal came because we had nothing in the centre of midfield and West Brom were allowed to stroll through and set up Robinson for an easy finish.

The players clearly had one eye on next week and to be honest, if it was down to me, there would be a few not playing next week, namely Redmond and Walcott. Diallo and Bertrand would also be under threat if we had any other option. Adams (missed by a whisker) and Djenepo (won a penalty) did more in their cameos today than either Redmond or Walcott managed.

The ironic thing is that all will be forgiven if we manage to win next week but I would say that the chances of that happening are very slim. Leicester are not in great form themselves but their form is considerably better than ours and as we are certain to go into it with virtually the same team as we had tonight, we are going to get absolutely smashed in midfield and we could well end up just hoping to keep the score down. It was absolutely pathetic today and it’s the sort of performance that makes you feel that way.

West Brom are incredibly unlikely to stay up. They probably know that but it didn’t stop them playing with a spirit and urgency that was far too much for our gutless wankers today. They totally deserved to win and if they kept their foot on the gas throughout the second half they probably would’ve won by more. Fair play to them and fair play to Big Sam. I bet he’s chowing down on an extra-large gravy boat full of the good stuff as we speak.

Next week it’s the FA Cup semi-final against Leicester at Wembley and won’t that be fun. Up the fucking Saints.