Premier League Match 8 - Southampton 1 Leeds United 0

 

Redmond Gets It Right

After what feels like about fifth international break in the season, we are back in the room and back in the Premier League with a home game against Dirty Leeds United to give them their full name. The international break itself had some involvement of our players with JWP receiving a deserved and belated call up to the England squad and he performed well in the game against Andorra, with the performance featuring him missing a penalty and scoring the rebound which of course, goes down as a goal from open play. Get in.  Of course, he didn’t play in the more difficult of the two games when we went back to the tried and tested and instead of replacing the injured Kalvin Phillips with either JWP or Jordan Henderson, Southgate decided to shoehorn another attacking midfielder into the team and it really didn’t work.  JWP should have come on of course in the second game when England needed a goal but Southgate thought Henderson was the better bet.

Elsewhere, Moi Elyounoussi scored a couple of goals for Norway which again proved that he is one of our better bets in the number 10 positions. Armando Broja scored again for Albania and there were good wins for Che Adams with Scotland and Jan Bednarek with Poland. The only real bummer is that it appears that Adams has picked up an injury playing for Scotland, which will rule him out of today’s game.

One thing I noticed in the analysis of these England games was that JWP’s contribution gets completely ignored. Phil McNulty of the BBC didn’t even mention him regarding the Andorra game and instead focused on Tammy Abraham (who was shite, apart from scoring).  When Phil came to write up the two games as a whole and reflect on how certain players did, his opinion on JWP was again conspicuous by its absence.

To today and the big question about Dirty Leeds is, are they suffering from second season syndrome? They do not appear to have been as intense as they were last season and of course, as is only natural, teams know what they are up against now. They have won one game which of course is one more than us.  Today they seem to have availability issue with both Raphinha and Bamford struggling due to international travel times and injury respectively.  As mentioned previously, Kalvin Phillips has been injured and it’ll be interesting to see if he comes back into the side today. His replacement at international level was of course JWP who is suspended today after his red card at Chelsea.

Ralph of course made mention of Mike Dean in his post-match interview at Stamford Bridge, something along the lines of Dean having been involved in three of our players being sent off in recent history. Now this is a fact that somehow, the FA have deemed worthy of a disrepute charge. If anyone is reading this who follows any of the big six, a disrepute charge is what managers of the other 14 get if they make a negative comment about a referee or now it seems, even if they state facts. I have to admit though that Ralph did state as soon as it went to VAR and it was Mike Dean on VAR, we knew we were completely fucked. I might be paraphrasing a little bit there.  Jurgen Klopp can have a rant about how many penalties Man United get and Pep Guardiola can go nuts at officials from his technical area in every game they are not winning comfortably and nothing gets done.  It’s of course easier to make an example of the Southampton manager, rather than provoke a media led shitstorm by punishing a big club.

Disrepute charge aside, Ralph has other more important things to worry about today. For me he has to pick a team to go out and win a game and that needs wingers who are a goal threat.  The only two strikers we have available really are Adam Armstrong and Broja so you would think that those two have to start. If one doesn’t start then you wonder if it’ll be Redmond or Walcott.  Personally I’d prefer to see Stuart Armstrong and the in-form Elyounoussi on the wings.  It’s a pretty low bar but he’s looked the best of a bad bunch so far.

I get the team news in the usual place, at the end of the Itchen Bridge on my way to the ground.  Redmond and Broja up front with Djenepo and Elyounoussi on the wings.  Ok, I can live with that.  Leeds do in fact have Raphinha, Bamford and Phillips all missing so it really is a great chance today.  Their bench has no one notable on it at all whereas ours has an 88 cap international striker, oh yes.

Here we go… we really need to win this.  Leeds look all over the place – I know Bielsa is a bit revolutionary with his tactics but it looks like they have 5 at the back, 3 up front with one just behind and one poor fucker trying to cover the entire midfield on his own.  Unsurprisingly, it’s all us and Redmond cuts in from the left, exchanges passes Djenepo and hits it at the near post which forces Meslier to push it wide.  Redmond is on corners and his first one is met with a glancing head a buy Broja which goes just wide of the far post.  The next corner from the same side is again met by Broja and Elyounoussi came flying out in at the back post like Superman, only Superman wouldn’t have missed the fucking ball and somehow it went wide.

Explain How This Doesn't Go In

Bloody hell - these are there for the taking.  Livramento goes galloping forward from right back and set up a crossing opportunity for Elyounoussi, which is headed out and Livramento gets in quickly again to win the ball on the edge of the box before taking a wildly optimistic swing with his left foot and sends it into orbit.

Leeds have not made a good start. The absence of Kalvin Phillips is really noticeable and the poor bastard on his own in the centre of midfield is disappearing up his own arse trying to be in 4 places at once.  This means that Redmond can drop off of Broja and pick up the ball, turn and do what he likes with it.  All this is good but we haven’t scored yet.

It’s going to be one of those games where we only cause ourselves problems. Leeds haven’t got anything much but we get a warning when Djenepo gives the ball away it allows a Leeds break down the right hand side through Daniel James, a couple of passes and eventually he gets the ball back and fires over a cross which is easily caught by McCarthy.

Half time and it’s strange one.  We’ve been the better side but we don’t particularly look like scoring.  They are struggling with Broja and Redmond but we are struggling to create clear chances.  Elyounoussi has looked lively and Djenepo very average.  The defence looks untroubled with Salisu mopping up everything.

Leeds start the second-half well with Harrison at least making Saints think a bit, running at the defence and finding some space on the edge of the box, only to see his shot blocked by Salisu and flick over the bar.   Leeds are playing with a little bit more confidence now but lose the ball on the edge of our penalty area to Diallo who sends Djenepo away on the left with Leeds having seven players in front of the ball.  Djenepo plays forward to send Redmond away and all Redmond has to do is get his head up at the right time, which he does and squares it to Broja who lifts it over the keeper into the roof for the net as the desperate lunge of Cooper cleans him out.  Great move and a great goal on his full debut.  Dirty Leeds and Broja is limping a bit but I’m sure he won’t care too much.

Moi Makes Sure Armando Gets Injured

Ralph makes a change he was going to make anyway before the go with Djenepo coming off and being replaced with Stuart Armstrong.  Moussa does not look happy in a ‘sit straight down and don’t shake the managers hand’ kind of way.  This change means Moi going over the left hand side with Stu’s Magnificent Hair on the right.  Saints suddenly look a completely different proposition with the Diallo carrying the ball forward, exchanging passes with Redmond who tees up Elyounoussi to step in off the left and curl it about a foot wide of the far post.  I was right behind it and I thought it was in… and then I had to sit down.

Having climbed the mountain of actually scoring a goal, Saints have another go at shooting themselves in the foot and it’s the otherwise magnificent Salisu who makes two fuck-ups in quick succession. First of all, an intended diagonal pass to Livramento only gets about four foot off the ground and is intercepted and banged forward and then, when faced with the impending imposing presence of 5 foot 3 Daniel James, he misjudged the header and allows James to get in in between him and McCarthy but luckily, James showed why so many people was shocked that Leeds paid £25 million for him and put it well wide.

Redmond is carrying on having a good game and actually backs himself, beats the full back down the right hand side before firing over a cross which Elyounoussi heads down and Broja can’t quite get on the end of.  Moi does however keep the ball in and make his way across the top of the penalty area before being absolutely cleaned out.  Dirty Leeds.  It’s a freekick in prime JWP territory but of course he’s not here so instead it falls to Redmond and this is just too much to ask for isn’t it?  Sure enough, he hits the wall.

Into the last 15 and Saints still look the more likely to score and a long diagonal from Salisu is picked up by Broja who holds off a defender.  There is an opportunity for a second to knock it to Redmond but this boy is a striker so he takes a couple of touches before having a shot himself and it flies over the bar. Having been injured in scoring the goal, it’s now time for the Slough Albanian to have a rest and oddly, it’s not Adam Armstrong that comes on to replace him but Theo Walcott.

There are no alarms in the last few minutes or the five extras, aside from the fact that we are finishing a Premier League game with Redmond and Walcott up front and before the game, that would have been alarming.  Fittingly, the last touch belongs to Salisu as he launches a free kick forward and the ref has had enough.

Get in. Believe it or not, even though it was only one goal, it was relatively comfortable. We deserved to win that and we deserve to win it more comfortably then we eventually did.
Our problems going forward we are still evident but if you keep it tight at the back you only need one goal to win a game and that’s what we did. We had just the one nervy moment at the back when Salisu made his double fuck-up in an otherwise imperious display but other than that, Leeds never really threatened our goal at all.

Whilst the team selection once again it did raise a few eyebrows, Ralph got more right than wrong today. The only selection that didn’t really work was Djenepo who added very little but did play a major part in the goal just before he got taken off. Nathan Redmond overall had a very good game. It didn’t all come off but he was positive from the start and he had the intent to make things happen and that didn’t change or game. When he plays like that he is 100% worth a place in the team but he can’t go back to being the player who has frustrated the shit out of us for most of the last five years who usually takes the safe option.

Armando Broja proved what many of us have suspected all along in that he is a real talent and he just needs to find consistency and he’s only going to get that with regular games. If we are going to play with a lone striker then he is the best bet given he is the quick, he’s also the biggest of our three strikers and in addition to that, he has a real confidence in front of goal. That goal will be massive for him on what was his full Premier League debut and it will also be massive for Nathan Redmond as long as he takes the confidence of providing the assist into future games.

Elyounoussi had a really good game on the both wings and plays with real intelligence and can you tell that I’m pleased that Stuart Armstrong is back. I’ve said it 100 times before but he is such an intelligent footballer and uses the ball so well. Ibrahima Diallo did a really good job in place of JWP and the defence had a real balance to it with Perraud restored to the left hand side.  Another clean sheet for the totally remodelled defence.

The whole back 4 were excellent with Salisu being man of the match in my book, just for being a massive imposing bastard. He is going to be some player. Then you have Livramento as well and I have to keep reminding myself that the boy is only 18. He is a ridiculous talent. Alex McCarthy was playing as well though I’m sure he will look back on this at the end of his career as probably the easiest clean sheet he ever kept.

The caveat on the team and individual performance today is that Leeds were crap. They seemed to have no attacking intent, nor any idea how to progress the ball up the pitch to get their attackers in the game. Gone was the energy of last season when they just swarmed over us. We got them on a good day because of the absence of about five players which included their three best for players in Kalvin Phillips, Raphinha and Patrick Bamford. They looked very average but it doesn’t matter at the end of the day because we had to put them away and we did and now we can go into the next game against Burnley know that win that and the start of the season won’t look bad at all. With Watford, Villa and Norwich following on after that, there is a chance to build some real momentum now we’ve got this game out of the way.

Ralph felt no need to criticise the referee after the game.  Why would he do that when Mike Dean (and Jon Moss and Martyn Atkinson) was elsewhere.

These 3 Points are dedicated to Mike Dean, PGMOL and the FA