Premier League Match 9 - Southampton 2 Burnley 2

 

The Point At Which We Should Have Kicked On

Following on from our win against Leeds last week, another home game and this time against the football purists of Burnley in what will doubtlessly be a footballing classic. Every year I say the same thing about Burnley and usually it’s born out of the frustration of them always beating us, usually because we don’t do the basics and allow them to score crap goals. Last year however, when no one was watching, we beat them home and away so let’s have some more of that today please.

I touched on it earlier but all you have to do against Burnley really is make sure that you don’t let in any crap goals. You have to compete for everything and do the basics. They are not going to carve you open with brilliant football so you have to defend properly and take your chances when they come. It’s not as if Burnley only smash the ball forward but there will be a lot of that, usually towards Chris Wood and whatever striker is posted up with him. If they do pick up the second balls that they do try and play a bit but as soon as it goes out to the wide players it’s just delivered into the box and this seasons it’s delivered by Dwight McNeil or new signing Max Cornet who unusually for a Burnley first team player, is from overseas.

Sean Dyche is still the manager of course, still gargling with gravel and still absolutely synonymous with Burnley and is the single biggest reason why they stay up every year. If you think Tony Pulis at Stoke and Sam Allardyce at Bolton and what happened to those clubs once the manager that was synonymous with them, moved elsewhere. There is lots to like about Burnley in that they really are underdogs in the Premier League. Every year they managed to stay up though it does seem to be getting closer and closer over the last few years but I would still have money on them staying up this year even though they haven’t won as yet. They will certainly see today as a big chance to get their first win.

For Saints, this is a massive opportunity to build on last weeks win and move to 6 points from this little run a five games where we have to be picking up points. It will be interesting to see if Ralph changes much given the style of football the Burnley play but I’d be surprised if the starting line-up is much different from last week.  Ralph is of course, £20 grand out of pocket after his brush with the FA disciplinary committee for telling the truth about Mike Dean.  It really is absolute fucking bullshit that he’s been fined for stating that fact. For starters, Mike Dean sent off Jan Bednarek at Old Trafford and that got overturned. The FA need to make an example of someone and it’s much easier to make an example of the manager of Southampton and it is the managers of Manchester City or Liverpool. At least that’s over and we can wait until the next time that we have Mike Dean anywhere near us. I contacted Mike Dean for comment on the case and I just got an automated email back which said, “Soft Southern Bastards“.

It's a warm day and St Mary’s is looking fine.  There are a few Burnley fans at the other end of the ground but it’s clear that a lot of tickets have been returned.  Time for the brass band and what sound like an out of time drummer.  Maybe it’s the acoustics and an echo playing havoc with my hearing…. I’ve been trying to digest the team news for the past 45 minutes…. Theo Walcott in for Djenepo… nope, can’t get my head round it.  We have 5 wide men and if I was putting them in order right now it would be Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Redmond, Djenepo, Walcott.

Burnley are basically playing 4-5-1 and we are struggling to get on the ball and feed the strikers in the opening exchanges but then Livramento bursts forward and plays it ahead of Walcott who goes to shoot but gets tackled by Taylor and the ball runs through harmlessly to Pope.

Back to the struggle and with Saints still struggling to get a foothold in midfield, Burnley bypass it and Wood battles for the ball and it goes out of the right hand side where McNeil slings it into the middle and Cornet runs off the back of Livramento and heads down and in off the post. Fucking hell…. simple goal to concede because no one has gone with the runner. Shit.  In a game where we had to do the basics defensively, this is not a good start.

As we approach the half-hour Romeu slings in across from the right hand side and there seems no danger as Elyounoussi goes up for the header but he makes good contact and Pope is beaten and it flicks off the far post and goes wide.  From the goal-kick, in the 25^th minute, Nick Pope is wasting time already.  Why the fuck referees (Chris Kavanagh) don’t just book goalkeepers in the first half for wasting time, I do not know.  When Pope eventually decides to take the goal-kick, there is more carnage as Wood wins the header and it goes out to McNeil on the right-hand side and his return pass sees Wood hit a good effort that McCarthy saves well down low.

Suddenly it’s all Saints as Broja flicks one out to Redmond on the left hand side and he plays a superb cross to pick out Walcott right on the edge of the penalty area in the middle. Walcott brings it down and it’s on his good right foot but it skews it wide horribly. Absolutely crap finish.  I mean, what’s the fucking point?

Yeah - I Don't Understand Either

Unperturbed, Livramento feeds Broja down the right and the big man runs at Tarkowski and twists and turns past him before smashing over a cross and Nathan Redmond is all on his won, this side of the back post, 2 yards out and side foots it wide of an open goal. Un-fucking-believable.

And it gets worse… but in a different way as Perraud finds Romeu who against switches right to Livramento, who cuts inside Taylor and hits one left footed and it comes off the inside of the far post and comes out again. For fuck‘s sake. We’re never gonna score.  We recover possession though and Redmond wins corner.

Nathan Redmond is the Poundshop JWP when it comes to dead ball delivery but over it comes and at fucking last, Livramento runs in and meets it and heads it down it down and it bounces up and over Pope and into the roof for the net. Get in.  Might be half time already if you hadn’t been wasting time for the past 20 minutes you twat.

Anyway, now it’s half time.  I wonder if this is going to be one of those occasions where Ralph hooks a player at half time.  My money is on Walcott not reappearing but no, he’s back and we’re unchanged.  Burnley have gone 4-4-2 with Cornet up front with wood and McNeil switching to the left.

First action of the second half sees Tarkowski pretending that he’s a cultured central defender and turning out of trouble before playing a horrible ball into midfield which Diallo side foots first time to Broja.  Tarkowski gets across but Broja slows them down and then speeds up to earn a yard before smashing it across Pope into the far corner. Brilliant finish, horrible defending and a goalkeeper who will be taking his goal-kicks much quicker now.

We don’t really even have time to settle on the lead and hit Burnley as they press for an equaliser because we cough one up straight away.  A long ball forward is chested down by Wood, who has easily held off Salisu, to Westwood he lobs it forward first time and Cornet spins away from Bednarek and hits it first time left-footed and it bounces past McCarthy and fuck me, 2-2 and another shit goal from a defensive point of view.

To be honest, Burnley look the more likely to score now and Westwood shoots just wide but it still takes until 78 minutes before Ralph decides there’s no point in leaving Walcott on to be terrible for a further 15 minutes and off he goes to be replaced by Stuart Armstrong.  Whilst Stu increases the goal threat, before he can have an impact, Broja limps off which doesn’t help and on comes Che Adams and I feel our goal threat has now gone down.

Nothing much is happening – we seem to be playing a lopsided three in central midfield with a right winger, which Ralph sorts with a few minutes to go by bringing on Adam Armstrong for Elyounoussi.  Too little too late though.  The end.

He Was Alive When Nick Pope Started his Goal-Kick Routine

Ultimately it was probably a fair result bearing in mind the clear chances created but bloody hell we should’ve won. We only really played for quarter an hour either side of half-time and in that time we scored two goals and created enough chances to win two matches.  If we’d kept somewhere near the level of either side of half-time then we win comfortably but we stopped playing.

We got the goal in the end before half-time in the end to reply to Burnley’s opener but in the five minutes before that we showed why we are never going to win a game comfortably. The miss by Walcott was horrendous considering it was a free shot from the middle of the goal on his good foot from 18 yards. The miss by Redmond was even worse, just absolutely abysmal to miss from that close in. After that of course we had Tino doing Tino things and having a really good effort they hit the inside of the post before he scored with his header.

The start of the second-half brought us the second goal after good play from Diallo and a real strikers instinct from Broja and that should’ve been the key to kick on and win the game but instead of that, the only thing we kicked was ourselves in the bollocks as we let in a goal that Burnley will think was a really good goal and we will think is absolutely shit defending.  It was a standard Burnley goal with a ball put forward in the air to Wood, who held off Salisu before knocking it back to the unmarked Westwood and his chip forward found the unmarked Cornet and I’m not quite sure what Bednarek was doing apart from not being in between the forward and the goal, which is what defending is all about when you boil it down. Good finish but crap defending. We went behind in the first half through more crap defending with Tino losing his man when Cornet was playing on the left wing and allowing him to come inside and have a free header.

Ralph confused me again today. I have no idea why Theo Walcott started the game and he played 75 minutes too long with Stuart Armstrong was only given 15 minutes at the end. I can’t understand either the initial selection, nor the amount of time it took to change it.   The tactics today seemed reactive rather than proactive and in my opinion, Ralph has had better days.  As good as Nathan Redmond was against Leeds last week, he was pretty average today. He did at least stay positive and try and take people on but nothing much really worked. However, he did take the corner that Tino scored from and he should of course have had as assist for Walcott and a goal himself.  

For the last 20 minutes I have to admit that I had kind of settled for a point because our fluency going forward was not there and thought it was more likely that we would concede a third goal to Burnley’s more direct way of playing. Ralph made a tactical switch in the second half which I didn’t understand with any Elyounoussi moving infield which basically meant we had three in the centre midfield and no one out left which in turn meant that most of our attacking play was funnelled down the middle which played into Burnley‘s hands. When Redmond was switched to the left for the last five minutes or so, we looked a bit more balanced but it was too little too late and there was never really a feeling that we would go on and win the game.

I said at the start that we would win the game if we did the basics when defending and we didn’t do that today, plain and simple. Chris Wood is a right handful and though Salisu and Bednarek started fairly well against him in the first half, in the second-half they started to struggle and seem to go into panic mode.

The positives today were the performances of Livramento and Broja, justifying the Chelsea-on-Sea approach to summer recruitment more and more with every passing game.  Broja in particular looks like he’s going to develop into a real focal point for the attack.  You very rarely find a striker who has all of height, pace and a real eye for goal.  We haven’t really had a ‘lead the line’ type striker since Graziano.  Livramento is only 18 – keep reminding yourself because he will make mistakes occasionally, like he did for the first goal today but what he brings to the team more than makes up for it.  Whilst we all feel that KWP is very unlucky to have lost his place in the side, there can be no argument as to who the first choice right back should be right now. 

There was another decent performance from Diallo in midfield as well.  Ralph clearly rates him but Ralph’s ‘go to’ formations have just the two players in central midfield and Romeu and JWP are undroppable when available.  However, we are experimenting on occasions with a 4-3-3  / 4-5-1 line up like we tried to do today with Elyounoussi moving into the middle, so maybe, due to Broja being ideal for the lone front man role, there is a day approaching where we have all three of Romeu, JWP and Diallo in the team.  It also gives the tactical flexibility to drop Romeu into a back three during the game or to have him screening the defence in a 4-1-4-1.

Onwards and it’s another point and another game without defeat so now it’s back to the Carabao Cup and a visit to bloody Chelsea. I’m guessing it will be a chance to scout a few players for our next raid on Chelsea‘s Academy, which given that Broja and Livramento were our two scorers today, would be a good thing. Bring it on. Nothing to lose.

Up the fucking Saints.