Put Another Zero on the Contract Mr Semmens!
And so it came to pass that we are safe from
relegation with four games left to play. There have been plenty of seasons
where we have not been safe with four games left to play so I suppose that’s
something. There is no getting away from the fact that we have been shite
throughout the second half of the season and once the season is over, I’ll have
a good look at why that is and why I think that it was always going to be so,
with the squad that we’ve got.
I’ve already started that thing that we do every year, of looking at
the teams that have been relegated and wondering which players we might be able
to pick up. Put it this way, none out of Joachim Andersen, Frank Anguissa or
Matheus Pareira will be playing in the Championship next season. Oli McBurnie probably
will be, if he’s not in prison.
So, tonight may be the chance for Ralph to have a really good look
at some players to see who is going to be useful for next season. Personally, I
hope to see Nathan Tella, Michael Obafemi and Alex Jankewitz today. There is
nothing to lose in playing those three instead of for example, Nathan Redmond,
Theo Walcott and Moussa Djenepo. Yes, it will be nice to win some home games
and get us up the league a bit but ultimately, next season is more important.
More likely though, we will see the perceived best 11 because there is no such
thing as a meaningless end of season game these days until you cannot possibly
move up or down one position, given the prize money at stake and especially
this season.
We are playing Crystal Palace today who have survived again, comfortably. You
won’t catch any of their fans moaning about being safe with 4 games to go and
Roy Hodgson has once again done a decent enough job. It does seem to be a
turning point with Palace this summer with a number of players out of contract
and you do wonder if Roy Hodgson is going to want to carry on, having reached
the ripe old age of 106.
The player we always end up talking about is of course Wilfried Zaha, who
Palace have consistently priced out of a move for the last four years when he’s
been desperate to get away. It looks to me like he hasn’t quite been as good as
are usual this season but as we learnt last week, and have learnt countless
times before, a poor-ish run of form can always be solved by playing against
Southampton. Palace made a very good signing in the summer when they got
Eberechi Eze from Queens Park Rangers and he has shown enough this season to
show that he will be the natural successor to Zaha when he does eventually move
on. It will be interesting to see if Zaha has grown up at all or whether he is
still notoriously easy to wind up. I suspect the latter as people don’t often
grow up much between the ages of 28 and 29.
Other news from around the Saints camp is that we will have approximately
10,000 fans at the home game against Leeds next week and yours truly will be
one of them, having managed to book a ticket without throwing my laptop through
a window, trying to deal with the Southampton ticketing website. Rumour has it
that Martin Semmens is looking for a new hamster to run round in the wheel to
power the site in the summer but there’s not many decent hamsters available in
the £8 to £10 million price bracket that we operate in. Maybe we can get an
unexpected bargain on a Bosman or maybe we could think outside the box and
invest in a bigger hamsterwheel and put Shane Long in it for the last year of
his contract.
Team News and clearly today is not the day to think longer term with the team
selection. The headline news is that Danny Ings is back with Nathan Tella
dropping to the bench and there is also a recall for Minamino in place of
Walcott. Palace have actually picked what looks like a quite entertaining side
for them, containing as it does, Eze, Zaha, Ayew and Benteke. There is none of
the usual McCarthy and McArthur who spend all game kicking people and pulling
them back and not a lot else.
Away we go and the first incident is KWP bringing down Mitchell out on the
wing. In it comes, headed on by Dann towards Benteke. No danger because he is
surrounded by six or seven Saints defenders but they all collectively shite
their pants and the Gods of lucky bounces all conspire to allow Benteke to
somehow accidentally assist himself and then smash it in the net through the
goalkeepers legs. It’s absolutely fucking abysmal defending and Benteke just
bulldozed his way through and for him, that’s a great goal.
To be fair, we react well and begin to play, finding space in midfield and out
wide. On 20, Armstrong breaks through
midfield and Palace show their usual cynical side with Riedewald hauling him
down. We take the free kick and Palace doze off and the ball goes out to
Redmond on the left who crosses it in very average fashion but that doesn’t matter
when you have Danny Ings and he produces a fantastic touch and turn before
passing it into the corner of the net. Behold,
a genius.
Redmond this finding all sorts of space out on the left because ex-skate Joel
Ward can’t be bothered to get out there quickly enough. Armstrong finds
Minamino and Saints eventually work the ball out to Redmond on the left and he
cuts inside tries a curler for the far post and Guaita tips it wide.
From the corner the ball ends up with Adams is in an identical position that
Redmond just had and he goes for the same effort and once again, Guaita gets
down to save it well. Has being within 17 miles of Portsmouth turned Joel Ward
into a League one defender again?
From the next Palace attack, Redmond does what he does best and clatters into
the back of a player in clumsy fashion. Over it comes, headed out and then Zaha
picks up in the box and Redmond does exactly the same thing again and runs into
the back of him. Hundred percent nailed on penalty and there is no VAR review
that’s going to save us from that even though it looks like Zaha has played for
it. Sky stick a graphic up on the screen as Milivojević is about to take it,
showing that he puts every single one the same side. Let’s hope that Fraser is
aware of that. Up comes Milivojević..... and Fraser has obviously researched it
because he goes that way and saves it comfortably. But we’re off to fucking VAR.
“Who’s there at Stockley Park?”
“It’s Simon Hooper mate”
“Where’s Mossy? – he does all the Southampton games”
“Couldn’t make it, this is a rearranged fixture, he had dinner booked”
“Fair enough mate – any problems with the save”
“Well… he’s off his line a bit”
“You sure – keeper is a big scary looking fucker, I’m not telling him”
“Front foot definitely off the line”
“Back foot?”
“Nah, that’s fine”
“Leave it then – what are the rules nowadays Hoops?”
“Fucked if I know Madders”
Right on half-time, Armstrong picks the ball up off of Eze, who has obviously been attending the Wilf Zaha diving school and as Redmond breaks towards the edge of the box, Ayew pulls him down cynically and it’s a free kick right on the edge of the D. Up steps JWP to hopefully make the Palace fans cry… and he curls it about a foot wide of his favourite corner. Guaita was absolutely nowhere.
Salisu is on for Bednarek as we start the second half and a minute or so in, we win a corner on the right. JWP picks out Armstrong again with a short one and his attempted shot takes it towards the back post. Stevo Carlos slides in and misses it but there’s Che Adams who bundles it into the net with the outside of his right boot from a ridiculous angle. Get in!
It can’t be going well for long, without us attempting to fuck it all up and Salisu knocks it back to Stevo Carlos and in true ‘Jannik versus Leicester’ fashion, he lets the ball go under his foot and Benteke is clean through but luckily, it’s the shit Benteke and he just smashes it wide or did Stevo Carlos recover.
We are still finding space in the Palace midfield with finding JWP in said space. All the armchair experts who don’t watch properly would then have been surprised to see JWP take out the Palace midfield with a lovely ball through to Adams who produced the same to Ings. A little toe poke later on it’s in the net and we are winning 3-1 and we might get a draw now. Superb goal. A brilliant finish and the substitution board with number 9 on it is up already before the ball has even hit the net. This man is a difference maker and we have to keep him.
On comes Adama Obafemi. I thought it was quite noticeable when he came on as a sub against Liverpool, that Michael has certainly been working on his top half whilst he was injured and now looks even more top-heavy than before.
In truth, not a lot happened in the last 15 minutes. We have settled for a 3-1 win and Palace have settled for a 3-1 defeat. It gets a bit feisty when JWP snaps into a couple of tackles and Kouyate loses his shit for reasons unknown. The last few minutes is a celebration of Wilf Zaha as he once again loses his shit and starts mouthing off at JWP he just stands there and laughs at him. What else can you do with Wilf, he is genuinely funny.
Well that was a nice win and to cap it all, we played pretty well and it was a really decent game of football... entertaining no less. The lads did well, well most of them anyway.
If you want proof as to why Danny Ings is completely irreplaceable to a club like us then look at that first goal. He turns a very average cross into a goal with a combination of perceptive movement, a great first touch and an instinct as to what was required to put the ball in the net. He did all this without looking at the goal once. It’s brilliant and that’s before we get to the second goal which was a superbly timed run and a simple economical finish. It will be a sad day if he goes and a slightly fucking terrifying one as well. He once again proved that we should not sell in the summer regardless of the fact that he is coming into the last year of his contract. I’d rather lose him for nothing at the end of next season then to take a lowball offer from some twat like Daniel Levy.
With Ings being on fire, Che Adams ignited again and once again prove that he can score the difficult ones. How on earth he managed to manoeuvre that ball into the net from that angle, with his right foot, I still haven’t quite worked out. That was a brilliant finish and the pass through for Danny’s second goal was superbly weighted.
Elsewhere, JWP and Armstrong were superb in midfield, with JWP snapping into every tackle and getting under the skin of the Palace players as usual. They really have a problem with him and it really is quite pathetic. Wilfried Zaha was obviously trying to keep it under wraps and he didn’t react to JWP kicking him in the first half but when we got to the 85th minute it was just too much to bear and the toys came out the pram like the petulant little manbaby that he is. Armstrong just had too much energy and too much close control for Palace’s somewhat limited central midfield and constantly broke through and set our attacks going. You don’t get many players in central midfield who run with the ball as well as Armstrong does. It’s certainly an option if we find ourselves without Oriol Romeu again next season. On the wings, Nathan Redmond was the usual mixed bag of decent stuff, stupid fouls and a lack of willingness to take on the full back. It was the fouls today that did my head in. Three times today he just ran over the back of a Palace players legs and gave fouls away, the third of which being for the penalty that we gave away before half-time. It’s just fucking brainless. Sure, Zaha bought it but that’s not exactly a surprise is it?
Minamino did nothing to suggest he is ever going to be a success in the Premier League. Too lightweight, not quick enough and with not enough strength to hold off an opponent or a trick to beat a player. His passing is usually ok but not today and it’s amazing that he stayed on for 90 minutes. There are rumours that we pay less for his loan the more he plays and it’s performances like tonight to make you think of that might be true because he was crap. Liverpool had their pants pulled down there and they have passed some of that on to us. Think about it – we enquired about taking their 3rd choice right back on loan, they said no and offered us someone they really didn’t want.
Defensively, we were a bit mixed. Benteke‘s goal was garbage from about five players. Benteke wanted the ball more than all of them and surprise surprise, he ended up with a ball and smashed in the opening goal. Palace’s threat after that was somewhat limited with the main danger of course being the penalty we conceded and the freekick that was given against Vestergaard on the edge of the box when Zaha dived over fresh air. Fraser Forster‘s save from the Milivojević penalty was absolutely key to this game panning out the way did. It was quite amusing to see the graphic showing that he always put his penalty the same side and it really wasn’t much of a surprise when Fraser saved it.
It was good to see Mohammad Salisu get another 45 minutes in which he alternated between left-sided centre back and left back. It did slightly give me the shits with Jack Stephens marking Benteke when he switched to centre back but in the main he did ok, apart of course, from that one that he let roll under his foot and gave us all a heart-attack.
Palace were like they always are. Not fully committing to the Burnley way of playing but kind of half doing it, trying to get the ball to Zaha whenever possible but also not being shy of the big boom up to Benteke. They just seemed to be lacking in pace all about the park and it always felt like there was a lot more space than there usually is in Premier League games.
It was a good day for Ralph, with the end result being that we shot up three places in the league, proving that it was right to go with his perceived strongest side because every place is worth a shitload of money, especially when considered in the context of what our transfer budgets are likely to be in the summer.
Next up is another home game against already relegated Fulham which, should we get a positive result in that, will see us in with a shout of finishing possibly as high as 13th at the end of the season. The win today would’ve put a spring in everyone’s step again and with a fully fit Danny Ings, we can look forward to any game with a bit of optimism. Bring it on.
Up the fucking Saints.
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