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A trip to the London Stadium Dildo Bowl for the
last match of the season against West Ham. West Ham have had a fantastic season
so far, finally reaping the benefits of being gifted a 60,000 capacity stadium
to play in. Ain’t it funny how life works? It looks like they’re going to
qualify for the Europa league for next season, having for quite a while looking
like they might gatecrash the Champions League party. No one, including me,
gave David Moyes a prayer of being successful when he went there because David
Moyes has not been great over the past decade or so but fair play to him. The man has proven many people wrong,
including the Dildo Brothers and Karren Brady, who sacked him not so long ago.
It will be really interesting to see what happens with West Ham next
season. Part of the reason they have
done well this year is genuinely because fans haven’t been in the ground and
the unrest that is always at simmering point between the fans and the Dildo Brothers,
has been largely confined to social media. If they fall back into the pack next
year then it is a very uneasy truce and it will all kick off again, which will
probably mean the owners taking that out on David Moyes.
A bit like the surprising success of David Moyes, has been surprising success of
Jesse Lingard, on-loan from Manchester United. It’s remarkable what being
appreciated actually does for a player. It will be interesting to see if they
can hang onto Declan Rice in the summer as he is certainly the sort of player
the vast majority of the Super League 6 could do with. If someone puts £80
million on the table then I can’t see the Dildo Brothers turning it down (cue
fan unrest). Up front against us today will be Michail Antonio, once upon a
time on-loan with us but we decided not to sign him and he punishes us every
time he plays against us, when he turns into the best centre forward in modern
football. Elsewhere there are big horrible players like Soucek and Ogbonna and
some really energetic full-backs in Coufal and Cresswell. Fabianski in goal is
always decent and they have threat from the wings in Benrahma and Bowen, who
they signed from Championship sides. Overall, a very good side and we are
always crap against them.
A win today could take us as high as 12th, whereas an infinitely
more likely defeat, will probably leave us 16th. This won’t have any bearing on next season in
terms of momentum or anything like that but it will have an effect in terms of
money and how much is available to use in the transfer market in the summer.
Names of possible targets are already being touted about but you only have to
think a tiny bit to work out which rumours are likely to be bollocks. First of all, look at the positions we need to
recruit in – full-backs, winger, striker being the main areas. Also think about
our policy of recruiting relatively young. Hence, when we are linked with a 29-year-old high-wage
central midfielder, it is unlikely to happen, though if a good player becomes
available at an affordable price, I guess it might. The fact that we have signed Theo Walcott may
signal a shift in the previous policy. Ralph
also made a worrying statement this week about the possibility of signing
Takumi Minamino permanently. Fuck, no. When I say we need a winger, I mean we
need a decent one, not one who is no better than the other average wingers that
we already have.
Team news is in and it’s a fucking weird one. McCarthy is in goal after his
disaster against Leeds, despite it being Forster‘s turn as far as I’m aware. Bednarek
has come back in for Stephens and Diallo has replaced Walcott with Armstrong
moving to the wing. Nathan Tella is on the bench and Che Adams is injured and
their places have gone to Redmond and Minamino. Say no more. Trepidation.
10,000 West Ham fans in the ground and fucking
bubbles everywhere. I hope that in these
Covid times that no one has been manually creating those.
West Ham on the attack straight away and the cross headed away and then Saints
break through Armstrong. Armstrong makes
loads of ground before swapping passes with Ings and putting Minamino clean
through. His first touch takes it out left and as Fabianski comes, he dinks it
over him and it drops about a foot wide.
Bollocks.
More Saints pressure as Diallo chips a lovely
diagonal ball over to KWP who takes it inside Cresswell and shoots as Fabianski
comes out and it hits him and rolls wide. No flag and it’s a corner. A replay proves it would’ve been offside had he
scored but because he didn’t score, we get a corner.
Having not taken our chances, guess what
happens? West Ham bundle forward through
Antonio who knocks it to Bowen who, unchallenged by the three Saints players
around him manages to get a shot in which he half hits and McCarthy just shoves
it straight back out to Fornals who rams it into the net. Fucks sake, here we
go.
Forward come West Ham again and a cross from the
left is flicked away by Vestergaard towards Redmond in the left back slot. Showing amazing defensive responsibility and under pressure from no one, he
plays a big fucking air shot and Coufal crosses it back in and Fornals, given
about 5 yards of space by Vestergaard, knocks into the net giving McCarthy no
chance at all. Vestergaard was looking at him the whole time but didn’t think
of going close enough to mark him.
Utter shite.
It could be fucking horrible now but it settles
down and McCarthy has one more shot to deal with before half-time which is hit
straight at him and this time he hangs on. Well this is shite and I’m expecting a nice
coast to the finish for the Hammers.
We push forward at the start of the second half with
Armstrong doing all the hard work to win back a ball on the left hand side that
he really shouldn’t have got anywhere near and eventually works a position for
Minamino but he ignored the “Ings tap-in” option in the middle and tries a shot
the near post which Fabianski pushes wide easily enough. The shot at the near post is usually the shot
of someone with no composure.
Dreaming of Anfield
The corner comes in and Bednarek flicks it goalwards but Fabianski takes off to produce a good save and get it away from the goal, unlike the keeper at the other end. Vestergaard hooks it back in but nothing happens and West Ham break on us and Diallo has to take a yellow card for the team in bringing down Lingard.On the hour mark, Ralph decides to make a substitution and surely it’s Redmond coming off but oh no, it’s KWP who has been our best player. Romeu is on and JWP has gone to wing-back. What the fuck is this?
Tella is soon also for Minamino and he immediately produces a burst down the left and feeds a good ball into Ings who tries to spin Ogbonna who shows our defenders how to defend by standing his ground and allowing the ball to run through to the goalkeeper. Get tight to the attackers – who’d have thought it?
We have a good go at conceding another one as Salisu doesn’t seem to realise that Coufal was going to get to the ball first and then he realises and the only option at that point is to boot him into the sky – yellow card. In comes the cross and Soucek is unmarked, 6 yards out, as you’d expect from our defence… but he manages to head it wide.
With 15 minutes to go Redmond decides to the belatedly make some sort of contribution and drifts in from the left wing before teeing up Tella on the edge of the box but his attempted side foot finish is too close Fabianski. Redmond has remembered he’s a footballer for a moment and picks up a chipped cross from JWP on the left hand side, cuts inside the full back and then shanks an abysmally shit effort about 5 yards wide of the near post. It flicks off the very back of the side netting. It’s missed by miles in truth. As said earlier, the shot at the near post is usually the shot of someone with no composure.
Saints do have the ball in the net as Armstrong chips one over the top for Tella to run onto but he looks miles offside so there is very little excitement when the ball hits the net and sure enough, up goes the flag.
West Ham have barely attacked this half but there is time for one more calamity as Bednarek gives the ball away on the halfway line and Fornals chips it forward to Declan Rice. Rice is on the left about 35 yards out and he just jogs to about 10 yards out, outpacing Bednarek who was running in leg-irons, in quicksand with full army pack on his back and Vestergaard realises there might be a problem about half an hour late and tries to dive in front of the ball from about 15 yards away, just after Declan Rice smashed into the net. He went near post but that was ok because he got it on target and our keeper was sat on his arse in the middle of the goal and had dived away from the ball to make it as easy as possible.
Well that was a massive pile of toss. The most predictable defeat of all time.
Talk about going through the motions. Okay so West Ham needed a point to qualify for Europe and we didn’t need anything and they had their fans in and they always beat us. The only hope was that we went out with some point to prove and the players had some personal pride but a lot of these players don’t have personal pride. They just go through the motions, pick up the pay cheques and on to the next. Wankers.
From the moment that we didn’t score in the first 20 minutes, you knew what was coming next. When the first West Ham goal went in, you knew what was coming next and the second half was just played out with West Ham keeping us arms length and you just knew there was going to be a third goal. The lack of basic defending and lack of commitment to keeping the ball out of the net was fucking embarrassing. The first goal came from a half hit shot but McCarthy served it up on a plate to Fornals. The second goal was dreadful from Redmond who just waved his leg at it and played an airshot and then Vestergaard was marking space where the ball came back into the box and wasn’t helped by there being no midfielder present either as Fornals had ten yards of space in our penalty area. The third goal is us giving up to allow Rice to just walk it to within about 10 yards and smash into the net. Vestergaard had an absolutely diabolical game, defending like he did back in a bad old days in his first season. He kept backing off, he kept leaving his man. It was fucking pathetic. Bednarek was no better, McCarthy no better. KWP was better… substituted.
I’m beginning to think that Ralph picks the team out of a hat. He certainly doesn’t do it based on the previous recent performances because if he did that, Forster, Tella and Stephens would’ve started and McCarthy, Bednarek, Redmond and Minamino wouldn’t have. For the second game running, the substitutions were again completely fucking bizarre. KWP had been by far our best player but he gets substituted, apparently because Ralph wanted JWP to play on the right to put some crosses in. Why not stick him on the fucking right wing then? I fully appreciate that we do not see everything that goes on, on the training ground and managers see a lot more than I do with regards to how to tactically change a game but some things just don’t make any fucking sense and that was one of them. The explanation was straight out of the Claude Puel Big Book of Bollocks as well.
Whilst we’re on tactics, the hybrid defence. The hybrid defence is bollocks. It’s a hybrid alright – 3 at the back with the ball and fucking wandering about wherever, without the ball. Wthout athleticism and concentration, it's always going to be risky. – might be ok with the right players but look at the 3rd goal. With the right back up the pitch like he’s supposed to be, Bednarek has to get over to the right to cover. He’s too slow to cover that ground so it won’t work – Stephens is quicker but he wasn't playing. The hybrid attack (so to speak) relied on JWP to cover the whole wing which is not his game and on the left, it relied on a player who only plays well against Championship sides. I fully expect the hybrid defence to be in the bin when we sign a proper left back.
After the generally pathetic second half of the season and the pathetic surrender today, I feel now more than ever that Ralph will be on quite a short leash at the start of next season. If we are crap in the first 10 games, they’re going to be some serious questions asked at board level, especially if the squad is revamped in the summer.
On that score, I am terrified we are going to try and sign Minamino. Please let it not be true. The guy tries his best and he never gives up but he just hasn’t got it and I hope that’s the last time I see him in a Saints shirt. I’ve said all I’m gonna say about Nathan Redmond (until I do an end of season review anyway) but that moment today when he was standing there with his hands on his hips, not paying any attention and then getting caught offside by 10 yards, kind of sums him up. That and the face he pulls where he drags another shot one of the goal from 6 yards, when he looks like he thinks he’s been really unlucky or robbed in some way. No mate, just shit.
On the positive side, it was good to see Oriol Romeu back fit and we clearly need him to be up to speed by the start of next season, which I am sure he will be. That is more or less the only positive for today.
Today was another blank, when we didn’t create much in front of goal. If we don’t have both Ings and Adams on the pitch then the drop-off is massive. The only time it hasn’t been a massive drop-off this season was when Theo Walcott played up front but for some reason, he hasn’t been played up front since he got back from injury.
Overall it was an absolutely dreadful performance to finish the season off but as I said, entirely predictable.
Thank Christ the season is over. We eventually finished 15th but finishing below such crap as Newcastle and Crystal Palace is not good. With all due respect, we should be finishing above those teams regardless. Given the squad we have I’d say we’re about 3 places worse off than we should be.
There is a big summer ahead and we need to get it right, or else we are going to be next years Sheffield United.
Thank Fuck It's Over. Roll on next Season with the fans back.
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