Premier League Match 13 - Liverpool 4 Southampton 0

Ralph Looks Forward to the Next International Break

Anfield, great. This is the first game that we’ve had for a while where we have zero expectations. Come away with a point and it’s amazing, come away with a win and it’s unbelievable and even coming away with a relatively narrow defeat will have some positives in it.

Last year, there were a few chinks in Liverpool’s armour as they had a bit of a hangover season after winning the league by a street in the Covid interrupted season. Last season with no fans, they struggled to live up to the expectations set the year before but this year, they have been back to more or less their best. You still feel that squad wise, they are not as strong as Manchester City or Chelsea but when they get there best 11 on the pitch then there really is no one better. Whilst they have many great players of course, the two main ones are Mo Salah and Virgil Van Dijk and if those two stay fit and playing at a decent level then Liverpool are certainly going to be in the title shake up at the end of the season.

This season, Mo Salah in particular has been absolutely fucking ridiculous.  Even though his goalscoring numbers have always been exceptional, there was also something about him that I didn’t warm to, mainly his tendency to throw myself about also the fact that he could be greedy and at times it look like he couldn’t control the ball and was always chasing his first touch. Somehow, at the age of 29, he seems to have gone up a level this season and has been ridiculous. He has scored a couple of goals this season where he’s had the ball tied to his foot and has just walked around about five players. The guy is on fire so the first thing we have to do today is stop him scoring. Easy.

The main key to today is how difficult we make it for Liverpool to score. The chances are, they will score a goal at some point that you can do absolutely nothing about and you just have to hold your hands up and say, we can do anything about that and fair play. However, what you absolutely have to do is not give them any goals, not give them anything that they don’t have to work for. In other words, don’t do what we did against fucking Norwich last week when we gave away two ridiculously soft goals. The only way to get anything at grounds like this is to defend properly for 90 minutes and don’t give away anything soft and stay in the game long enough which gives you a chance to try and pinch something. Of course, when you get that chance at the other end of the pitch, which I’m sure we will get today, you have to take it and not fuck it up by hitting it straight of the goalkeeper or butchering the final ball.

The shit house van Dijk of course is back this season and he has been feeling his way back in. To be honest, he looks like he is in second gear and will probably only get better as the season goes on. We will have our work cut out to contain the full backs and it will be an excellent examination of the defensive credentials of Tino Livramento and KWP. We have played reasonably well in defeat up here for the last couple of years and it will be nice to go one better and take something tangible way from the game, which would of course leave Jurgen Klopp spewing feathers and generally acting like a dick in front of the TV cameras in his post match interview.  Let it happen.

Ralph is of course a big Jurgen Klopp fan boy and he will want to do well with this challenge of putting himself up against one of the best. Who he uses and when he uses them will be key today.  From his press conference, it appears that Stuart Armstrong has had the Scotland jinx again and come back injured so he will again be missing today but the likes of Redmond, Djenepo and maybe even Jack Stephens will be available. Use your resources Wisely Mr Hasenhuttl and give us a decent chance. Theo Walcott is not part of the plan today I hope.

Klopp won’t be taking us slightly because we have given them hard games in the recent past, so it would be a major surprise if we can get anything out of this game but then, we said that when we played against Manchester City and earlier on in the season we were 10 minutes from getting a point at Chelsea before JWP got sent off.

Team news and ohhhhhhhhhhhhh what the fuck is this?  Three at the back with Lyanco starting with Salisu and Bednarek and … three up front with Broja joining Adams and Armstrong.  Ok then.  Seems that we have a few injuries with Elyounoussi and Diallo nowhere to be seen.  Liverpool are at full strength – Konate partners van Shithouse and Jota is up front with Mane and Salah.  Here we go.

Away we go and an early attack of ours gets broken up and a ball is aimed forward towards Jota.  Bednarek has read it but then gets possessed by the spirit of a bad Under-10s player and misses the ball allowing Jota to go on and eventually have his shot blocked.  As they do, Liverpool swarm all over us and Robertson picks it up, feeds Mane and then loses Romeu with his run.  Now Robertson has it virtually on the goal line about 10 yards from the near post and he just simply rolls it across for Jota to tap into the net.  Fucks sake, 1-0, 2 minutes.

Saints continue with whatever game plan they had and why wouldn’t you when you’ve only been playing it for two minutes.  We have a sniff of an opening as JWP closes down Thiago who underhits the pass back to Allison but the big keeper is quick enough to dive at the feet of JWP and get the ball.  It’s a brief respite though as back up the other end, Bednarek produces a horrible late rake on Mane to concede a free kick and get deservedly booked.  Over it comes and there’s Mane to powerfully head home, down and across from the right hand side.  Offside… just.  Another good chance comes and goes with the next attack a Salah tries his trademark left footed curler from the right hand side but it drops just wide.

The only danger to Liverpool at this stage is complacency and between them, Trent and Konate have a brain-fart as Trent’s throw is never going to reach Konate who backs away and Broja is in and goes barrelling towards goal.  As he reaches the penalty area, Konate, in a desperate attempt to make up for his fuck up, dangles a leg in and a less honest player would have gone down for a pointless penalty appeal in front of The Kop.  As it is, Allison gets out to smother the effort.

Half an hour gone and we’ve actually done ok since the goal but as I begin to think towards half-time… bollocks.  Perraud loses the ball to Alexander-Arnold and then the lightning quick passes take over. Salah, Henderson, Salah again crossing to Jota for another tap in. 2-0.  Replays show that there’s a handball in the buildup when Trent won the original challenge but no point in even asking for that at Anfield.

Now we’re being shat all over and there needs to be a change.  It should be 3-0 but luckily, Jota gets greedy for his hat-trick and gets blocked by Lyanco but we still carry on playing the same way and the next break sees Adams head a cross away and Thiago picks it up ion the edge of the box, moves forward and via a deflection, sees his shot fly into the roof of the net to make it 3-0.  Fuck.  This could now be very ugly.

We have a chance in the 5 minutes that remain to get one back but following Adams lovely ball inside Robertson for Tino, Armstrong picks up the cross and scuffs it goalwards, allowing Allison to get down and save easily enough.  The cutting edge of a spoon.  Half time, 3-0, game dead.  In my opinion we need two midfielders on for two of the strikers and we almost get it with Redmond and Tella on for Adams and Bednarek.  Time for the big fightback.

…or not.  It’s nearly 4-0 straight away as Mane aims one at the far top corner and McCarthy gets airborne to push it away.  From the corner which comes in from Alexander-Arnold, it eventually drops to van Shithouse on the edge of the box and he volleys it through McCarthy and in for 4-0.  Fucks sake.

At this point Liverpool declared.  They didn’t need to score any more and they’d had a tough game on Wednesday.  We were done, cooked, stuffed and looking to get out of Anfield without getting annihilated.  Ref could have blown the whistle to be honest and no one would have cared.

Saints did get one more chance to prove how unclinical we are in front of goal as Broja flicked on to send Tella scampering into the Liverpool half and he played a nice ball into Armstrong who drilled it sideways and into Konate and then he couldn’t put the rebound in.  Up until the point that Armstrong hit it sideways, it was a bit like the legendary Josh Sims - Shane Long move.  There you have it.  In order to get something here we had to not give away any soft goal and we failed there.  We also had to take our chances and we failed there as well.

Jota really should have had a hat-trick and made it 5 but he missed a chance on the stretch.  Klopp’s taking the piss now and the man who has never been a first team regular anywhere since he left Saints at 17, Oxlade-Chamberlain comes on for his 200^th sub-60 minute appearance in a row.  Ah well, 4-0 it is and bizarrely, everyone has something to be happy about.

Klopp Congratulates Ox on his 200th Consecutive Part-Time game

In the end, we are certainly happy that we didn’t get beat by any more than 4-0. As a competition that game was over as soon as the second goal went in but the real damage was done before the kick-off and you have to question Ralph’s team selection. Playing three centre backs with is not the issue here. Pushing the full-backs forward caused us endless problems, especially on our right and playing just the two in the centre of midfield and three narrow attackers was mind blowing.

On our right, Livramento had to push up into midfield to support JWP and Romeu and all that meant was that Andy Robertson just went flying past him at regular intervals which dragged Bednarek, lumbering out of the middle. On our left hand side, Perraud went out to engage with Alexander-Arnold which basically meant that Salisu was dragged out to the left back position by Salah who is like greased lightning and the quick exchanging of passes between Alexander-Arnold Henderson and Salah just tore us apart.  When we went to a flat back four the second half, we looked much more solid defensively. In the first half, whenever our fullbacks dropped in to try and cope with the pressure that we were under, it left JWP and Romeu with the whole width of the pitch to cover because the forwards weren’t dropping back in to help.  This meant that Henderson and particularly Thiago, could pick passes at will.

As for the three strikers bollocks, None of the three attackers, Adams, Armstrong and Broja are happy in the wide areas and none of them are particularly good at dropping deep to pick the ball up. We tried those three upfront last week against Norwich and it didn’t fucking work and yet we tried it again today and it still didn’t fucking work. I assume we have practised it during the week but it sure as fuck didn’t look like it. Overall, that formation was a bit of a cluster fuck.

Liverpool are so good going forward. The speed at which they attack and move the ball is mind blowing at times. What is also impressive is that they are always in the right place to pick up any second ball. It’s almost like they know that some of their crossfield passes for example aren’t going to connect but they always get a player over there to pick up the header that the defender makes and so the attack continues and they just have players flying past you the whole time. In addition to that, they also break ridiculously quickly from deep and this is where their midfield excels, passing forward accurately and quickly.  As soon as the second goal went in, we should’ve just been sitting 20 yards deeper but instead we carried on trying to press the ball on the edge of the penalty area and got picked apart which led to the third goal and from that moment on it was damage limitation.

The changes at the start of the second-half were an attempt to address the obvious issues. Bednarek was having a complete shocker so he out of the centre backs, he was always going to be the one who came off. The remodelled back four with Lyanco and Salisu did pretty well in the second half once van Shit Bag had scored the fourth. It has to be said that neither Nathan Tella or Nathan Redmond did a great deal on the wings in terms of attacking play but we did create a few chances which Adam Armstrong battered at the nearest defender. We had no clinical edge whatsoever to our attacking play.

Before this international break, we had three wins and one draw out of four games and we were looking like a half decent side and then we had the international break and Ralph has had two shockers since then. We had all three central midfielders playing against Norwich and then we had all three strikers playing and today we’ve had all three strikers playing again and none of these slight tactical tweaks have worked. Previously, Ralph has used the international break to sort things out when things have been going badly and we’ve come back much better. Because we were doing well before the international break, he’s used this one to overthink it and has fucked things up. If you are constantly saying like he is that he is happy with his squad and the options it gives him, he is basically putting more pressure on himself do not make these mistakes which on the face of it, do not make any sense.

Ralph did admit that he got it wrong in his interview afterwards which was refreshing to hear and hopefully proves that he won’t try the experiments again. The short notice withdrawals from Diallo and Elyounoussi obviously made a difference to his thinking, especially in the wide areas. Redmond has missed a lot of training recently, as has Djenepo, Walcott has been dreadfully out of form, Armstrong is injured and Tella is not completely trusted so who would you play in the wide positions if you wanted to play a formation that demanded it?

It’s not a surprise that we lost at Anfield and it’s not a devastating blow to anything but we as a team (and this is you I’m looking at Ralph), need to learn the lessons from today. We win or we learn. Remember that? Well we lost at Norwich last week and we tried the three main strikers all playing and it was fucking shit and it was fucking shit again today so I do hope that is an experiment that we do not see repeated. We also learned in the second-half that Lyanco is perfectly capable of partnering Salisu in a back four so I hope to see that going forward.

Liverpool phoned it in for the last half an hour because the job was done and it was perfect for Klopp to be able to bring on his makeweights like professional substitute Oxlade-Chamberlain and our former lone superstar Takumi Minamino.  It was great to see van Shitbag sscore wasn't it?  Was it fuck.  Also, I see some think that his lack of celebration was a nod of respect for us.  Fuck off was it.  No one really celebrates a 4th goal in a drubbing do they?  

Next up is Leicester at home which of course has an interesting mix of memories for everybody but we have to put up a better performance than we did today and we need some points from that and the following Saturday‘s home game against Brighton.

Premier League Match 12 - Norwich 2 Southampton 1

 

McCarthy In Training on Sunday Morning

We have an odd situation today in that we beat Aston Villa in our last game and Dean Smith got sacked as their manager. A few days later, Dean Smith got appointed manager of Norwich who we are playing today. Can we play you every week? Indeed.

I suppose it will be interesting to see if Dean Smith can get a result against us now that he’s been given an immediate second chance to do so. You have to say that the odds are probably against it given that Saints are going pretty well at the moment and Norwich have been showing at their usual Premier League form which has seen Daniel Farke exit the club. They did win last time out against Brentford however, which in a way is a nice way for Farke to go but before that, it had been the usual story as whenever Norwich are in the Premier League, with a consistent run of defeats of varying magnitude. This is the reason of course why they parted company with the former German porn star because basically, they spent a bit of money by their standards and Norwich were heading in exactly the same direction as they did the last time they were in the Premier League and that’s rock bottom and relegated by the end of February.

The one thing that the appointment of Smith does tell you is that Norwich had absolutely no plan.  You get the feeling that they knew Farke was going to leave but by appointing a manager who only got fired himself about a week before they appointed him, you know that they are just winging it, much like Delia Smith with a recipe when she’s been at the cooking sherry. Let’s be Having You.

Norwich may have signed a few players this season but their squad still has an unmistakable “Championship“ look about it. They still have Grant Hanley playing at centre back for example.  Midfielder Todd Cantwell, who is easily one of the better players, has found himself not in the squad this season so there is clearly something gone on behind the scenes there, so I would expect him to have a clean slate and be back in the side today. Tim Krul is a decent keeper, still in and around the Dutch national squad and Teemu Pukki has shown before that he can score at this level if given the right service.

James Ward-Prowse and Tino Livramento pulled out of their respective England squads for the recent international break so it will be interesting to see whether they are fully fit. It’ll also be interesting to see if both Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong come back injury and Covid free from two international games with Scotland as both have fallen foul of one ailment or another on recent trips. 

The good news is that there are no more fucking international breaks until March. England qualified from the Group of Extreme Life, overpowering Albania and San Marino by a combined 15-0. Jan Bednarek and Poland will be in the play-offs, along with Stu and Che’s Scotland. Che Adams had a really good week for Scotland, scoring in both games including one against Denmark where he ran through having been played on side by a big clumsy Danish central defender called Vestergaard.

To be honest I’m expecting us to go with exactly the same team as started against Villa the one assumes that Nathan Redmond will be recovered from Covid and will be in a shout for a starting place, probably ahead of Stuart Armstrong if anyone.  In the event we had a few missing that weren’t necessarily expected from the outside – Stuart Armstrong had again fallen foul of the Scotland curse, Nathan Redmond was still out with Covid / New Baby and there was also no sign of Moussa Djenepo, who had been away with Mali.  Diallo came into midfield which meant no right sided width.  Might have been a good day to try the KWP/Tino combination on the right but not to be.

Three minutes in and Norwich are looking very tentative and we’re buzzing around the edge of their penalty area.  Romeu tries to thread a pass through but it’s cleared and he tries again and finds Armstrong who pokes through to Adams. Che holds off Hanley, works half a yard and passes it into he far corner.  What a fucking start – get in.  Dare I say it – a proper Danny Ings finish

And it all Started So Well

Come on lads, foot to the throat and bury these.  KWP goes flying up the wing, gets past Rashica who seems to foul him but wins the ball.  Norwich advance into the KWP sized hole on the left and Aarons fires over a cross and there is Pukki, darting in front of Salisu to get a header in at the near post.  McCarthy should stop it but doesn’t and can only push it into the net.  Shit.  Ralph is not happy at Martin Atkinson, presumably over the KWP challenge but that’s pretty irrelevant if others do their jobs properly.

Saints crack on and start to dominate the game.  Elyounoussi has a shot blocked and JWP gets a good strike I on goal but unfortunately it’s straight down Krul’s throat.  Dean Smith has recalled My Little Pony Todd Cantwell to the starting line up and the lightweight Canary makes his first contribution when KWP gets down the left and puts over a great cross left-footed, which Diallo is about to head as Cantwell barges into his back.  Martin Atkinson, last seen not giving us a penalty for Kyle Walker’s 100mph body check at Man City, again fucks us and doesn’t give anything and VAR is obviously broken.

A Salisu long ball sends Adams away and he finds Elyounoussi whose shot is deflected wide for a goal kick (fuck sake Martin!!!) and more chances come and go as Armstrong has a shot blocked and then JWP picks out Tino on the right and his beautiful cross is crying out for forwards to throw themselves at it but no one does.  Salisu then tries to unleash a thunderbastard from distance but it picks out Krul as clean as you like.

Cantwell is still in with a shout of being our best attacker as he fannies about on the edge of the box and loses the ball. Diallo produces a classy turn before teeing up Elyounoussi who again saw his shot blocked out to JWP who hammers one just wide.  Fucks sake come on.  Hanley lives up to his billing of being dreadful by doing a little shite dance around the ball on half way and losing it to Diallo.  On goes the ball to Adams who bears down on goal before hitting a half decent shot which Krul saves well.

Half time and we really should be a couple of goals in front.  didn’t I say that in our last two games?  Against Viall and Watford though, we were in front at half time but not here.  I can’t believe Dean Smith won’t change things around in the second half and we really have to stay on the front foot and keep going.  As the teams emerge, Smith has taken off our best attacker in Cantwell and replaced him with Sargeant, who is I think, a striker.

OK, this is different.  Norwich have gone to what looks like a 4-4-2 with Sargeant up with Pukki and we are struggling a bit. Diallo gives the ball away in midfield and Rashica thankfully drills it straight at McCarthy.  Normann then finds time to come forward from midfield and hammer a shot just wide.  After 15 minutes of nothing, we need a change and Ralph makes one, bringing on Broja in place of Elyounoussi who I feel is a bit unfortunate to go off.  This leaves us with no wingers and Adams and Armstrong are pushed right and left respectively with Broja up the middle.

Another ten minutes of very little and another change and this one is mindblowing as Ralph takes off our in form striker Che Adams… and puts Theo Walcott on, whose last good form for Saints was in 2006.  It still looks like a 4-3-3 though and it still isn’t working with both Broja and Walcott struggling to contribute anything much.

Pukki bulldozes his way though for a shot at the near post which McCarthy saves comfortably enough before Ralph completes a hat-trick of questionable substitutions, bringing on Lyanco for Romeu.  I guess this is to get the full backs further forward again as they’ve stopped.  Why take Romeu off though when Diallo is clearly struggling?

Ten to go and Rashica gets a cross in without much pressure from the clearly knackered Livramento and Bednarek heads it out for a corner.  Over it comes from our right and there’s Hanley at the back post, unmarked (by Lyanco) to head it down and over the falling tree that is McCarthy.  Oh for fucks sake, that’s as soft as you like. Utter bollocks.

We wake up now but Norwich have of course got something to hang on to now and we spend a lot of the remaining time going sideways and backwards.  On 90 we create our one opening as JWP slings in a cross from the right and up goes Walcott, meets it on the edge of the box and heads it down and wide.  Bollocks.

Well what a result that is, in a bad way.

Great first half followed by an absolutely dogshit second half. What’s more, like against Watford in our last away game, we should have been out of sight at half time but we managed to throw a goal in to go in level and then somehow not score again when we were on top for the following 35 minutes. In the second half, Norwich upped their game and despite a couple of tactical reshuffles, we didn’t cope and eventually, without having to work very hard for it, Norwich were gifted the winner as we threw another goal in our own net.

It’s never nice to call out individuals but if your goalkeeper makes two horrendous mistakes in the same game, then the chances are that you will not be getting anything out of the game. The game is decided ultimately in both penalty areas and we were not clinical enough in the first half and we threw away two horrendous goals. Not only did McCarthy get beaten twice at his near post from two pretty soft headers, he also was flapping at corners and generally, dropping a 2 out of 10 performance.

He is certainly not the only reason that we didn’t come away with anything today amongst the players. The second-half performances by virtually everyone on the pitch, were not good enough and the substitutions and tactical switches by Ralph were absolutely fucking baffling at best.

Shane Look On Knowing He Could do Better than Walcott

We have an in-form striker who are scored five goals in his last six games including international football and he gets dragged on the hour mark and replaced with Theo Walcott who is absolutely stealing a living as a footballer at the moment.  Theo has no confidence and just never does anything that comes off. He doesn’t beat players, he doesn’t get shots on target, he doesn’t make tackles, he doesn’t do anything. Again, I’m left asking myself what an earth Nathan Tella has done to be behind Walcott in the pecking order. Even Shane Long would’ve been a better choice off of the bench.

It’s not Theo's fault he gets put on the pitch though, that one is 100% on Ralph. The deployment of Diallo on the right hand side (ish) was very strange and though he had a good first half, helped by Tino bombing up the wing providing width - in the second-half he had an absolute shocker but was left on for the full 90 minutes. Armando Broja was the first sub used and he came on for Elyonoussi which unsurprisingly, considering he was the only winger on the pitch, meant we had no width so we went to a narrow 4-3-3 formation.  It is actually hard to remember Broja touching the ball in 35 minutes that he was on the pitch. The final roll of the dice was to go to 3 at the back to try and get Tino and KWP back into play further up the wings and that did at least give us a little bit more pressure on the Norwich goal but too little too late. Dean Smith basically took the tactics that served Villa better in the second half in our last game and this time it got him the result. They still didn’t create much but when they did, we obligingly made it very easy for them. We let Grant Hanley score the winning goal for fuck’s sake, a player who is definitely in the conversation when you talk about the worst current Premier League player.

The good news is that having lost away from home to the team at the foot of the table, our next game is away at Liverpool. Liverpool have of course just smashed Arsenal 4-0 at home so that’s gonna be a whole load of fun.

Premier League Match 11 - Southampton 1 Aston Villa 0

 

Pick the Fucking Bones Out of That!

Aston Villa are going to take the Premier League by storm this season. They have rolled back the years to 1982 and are going to be challenging for the top four.  That’s clearly what Danny Ings thought anyway.  Remember when he was only going to leave to go to a Champions League club? I know Villa are historically a huge club but Ings has got about three or four years of his career left so what happened historically doesn’t really enter into it. I really wasn’t going to write a rant about Danny Ings but then there was that interview in The Telegraph where he basically said that he had he only ever saw Southampton as a one contract thing. Fuck off – you’re not a Sadio Mane, playing in a lesser league abroad, trying to prove yourself at Southampton and move to a big club – you were a ‘back from the dead’ injury prone player, born in Winchester and raised in Netley.

I know we position ourselves as the club that players, usually from abroad, come and play for before moving on to bigger and better things but Danny was a hometown boy and that was a card he played quite often. Of course, he was very good for us and we were incredibly good for him bearing in mind he had spent the previous two years before he joined us, on the treatment table at Anfield. His first season for us was very hit and miss because of injuries and so was his third season but he still decided to follow his plan and piss off.  Yes, it was annoying to see Villa fans giving it the big one about how big they were when they signed him but you have to remember that the average loud mouth arsehole on Twitter is not a barometer for the whole fan base.  It is however amusing, that come the first meeting between the teams since Ings slithered away, Saints are higher in the league, albeit just by one place and are putting together a decent run, whereas Villa have lost four in a row.

When Villa were getting smashed 4-1 at home by West Ham last week, Ings was mysteriously absent. The implication was that there was some sort of injury but no specifics were divulged so personally, I would be very surprised if he plays against us tonight. I didn’t know that snakes had hamstrings and calf muscles but it appears that they do and they are a little bit fragile. Who knew?

Since their return to the Premier League, Villa had a pandemic and goal-line technology assisted survival in the first season and then did reasonably well last season, based in the main on their one outstanding player, Jack Grealish who has subsequently been sold. They would’ve done even better last season if Grealish hadn’t have been injured for a couple of months at the end of the season but their record last season with and without their star man was quite stark in its contrast. This year, Dean Smith has had to reinvent the way they play because everything used to go through the departed one. They won a couple of games at the start but now seem to be struggling with all of the bits and pieces players that they bought to fill the void, not pulling up any trees. Leon Bailey has been injured a lot, Ings has been middling to average and Emi Buendia has been looking like what it is, a former Norwich player.

Elsewhere, former saint Matty Targett was excellent last year but it turns out that this was mainly because he had a lot of space because he had Grealish playing in front of him and the other team were justifiably more worried about him. Now he has a normal player in front of him, he is suddenly getting found out.

Dean Smith meanwhile is a bit of a smug twat, a bit like Brendan Rodgers but without the track record to back it up. He also has this habit of being ridiculously one-eyed when it comes to decisions for and against his team. He will be missing Ezri Konsa this week who was deservedly sent off for bringing down a striker when he was last man and he should be without Courtney Hause as well, who got away with a flying forearm smash earlier on in the same move. All Smith could shit on about afterwards though was how the referee got the decision wrong. Hause not being sent off was “down to the referees interpretation”, whereas the Konsa one was apparently wrong and therefore not down to the referees interpretation. Prick.  Also bear in mind that he would have undoubtedly got sacked if they have been relegated in their first season back in the Premier League, which they undoubtedly would’ve been without Sheffield United having a perfectly legal goal ruled out because the goal line technology wasn’t turned on, which therefore gifted Villa an extra two points.

The current Villa side, as mentioned earlier are struggling a bit and Dean Smith seemed to panic last week and dropped his captain, Tyrone Mings but because of the red card last week, we can expect him to play today. He always plays pretty well against us to be fair though he is prone to the odd clanger. Elsewhere, it would certainly suit us if Douglas Luiz is not playing as he is one of their better players but he was another, alongside Ings, who was mysteriously missing last week.

After the win at Watford, Saints team selection will be interesting. Maybe exactly the same side or maybe Armando Broja will be fit and it’ll be interesting to see who gets chosen at left back. In the event, Broja is back on the bench and KWP is at left back.  In fact, it’s the same team as against Watford with one exception.  Nathan Redmond has the dreaded Cov and so in comes Stuart Armstrong.  Villa have Mings back as predicted and partnered by Tuanzebe.  Cash hasn’t handled anything yet and Targett is at left back.  Elsewhere, Luiz is still missing so they have the ironically named Marvelous Nakamba in midfield. And as if we didn’t know already, Danny Ings has slithered off to the treatment room

Two minutes in and our start is typified by a loose ball and a 50-50 which JWP steams into and wins.  He hoists it skywards to where Che Adams puts Cash under pressure. For once, Cash doesn’t catch it but instead turns his back on it and it bounces off of his arse and Adam Armstrong absolutely smashes it first time on the half volley from 25 yards with his left foot and it flies past Martinez before he can even move. What a fucking hit son. 1-0, fucking come on and “Are you watching Danny Ings?”.

To be fair, the Villa reposte of “Danny Ings, he left cos you’re shit” was quite amusing but it’s better to be shit and 1-0 up than shit and 1-0 down.  Villa try to do something about it with Salisu giving away a free kick about 30 yards out and when the delivery is headed back out, McGinn lashes it narrowly over the bar.

Villa are now pressing us quite well and we are trying to play our way our defence and it all looks good, if a little hurried, until JWP gets pushed off the ball and Villa quickly work another opening for Buendia on the edge of the box but he doesn’t get anything on his shot and McCarthy easily falls on it.  If there’s one player in the Villa side used to long losing streaks it’s Buendia.

At the other end, Saints have already won a couple of corners and the delivery has not been great but this time, JWP swings it in from the left hand side, it gets flicked on and there is Stuart Armstrong on his own at the back post but with very little conviction, he waves the leg at it and sends it high into the Northam end. Not living up to his song of scoring worldies all the time.

Tino has started quietly but he comes to life and pisses past El Ghazi on the halfway line who just cynically hacks him down, giving him a deserved booking from Andy Madley. Five minutes later and Tino goes past him again and El Ghazi piles in with an identical foul. A few Saints players remonstrate with the referee who does fuck all. That is an absolute fucking joke.  How can the two outcomes be different.  A different player and it’s a yellow, in the second half it’s a second yellow and a red.  Joke refereeing.

This Is The One That Wasn't Given As a Yellow Card

Typically, in this situation when you know that the player who should be off the pitch is going to score and it looks like it might happen as he goes past Livramento on the right hand side, cuts in and as the whole goal opens up for him to shoot at, he smashes it high into the Chapel End. Wanker.  There was no danger to anyone in the Chapel because they’re used to Shane Long in the warm-up shooting drill.

Saints are still there more threatening side with KWP on the left hand side in particular, showing up well. He feeds inside to Stuart Armstrong who tees up JWP on his right foot from the edge of the box and the skipper hits it well but Martinez sees it all the way and takes off to tip it around the post.

The corner is headed out by Mings and we eventually give it to Tino who is on the left. Tino absolutely burns past Cash who surprisingly, doesn’t use his hands at all. Tino’s ball across sees Che set up Romeu on the edge of the box but he tries to be too deliberate and side foots it narrowly over the bar.

The last action of the first half and it’s El Ghazi time again as he tries to burst into the penalty area from the left wing and dives like a motherfucker. Andy Madley is looking straight at it and again does the square root of fuck all. How is this fucker still on the pitch?

Half-time and 1-0.  We should be more then one up and they should have 10 men.  It’s hard to imagine Villa being as bad in the second half.  Villa have changed their formation at half time with the so far, disappointing Leon Bailey being pushed upfront alongside Watkins and Saints don’t seem to be adapting to this at all. Tino loses the ball as we try to go forward and that eventually ends with McGinn getting over across from the left-hand side which is headed over by the shit house El Ghazi.  Wake up!

Isn’t it ironic that the shitbag who most definitely should not be still on the pitch, is Villa’s most dangerous player and after a decent build up, he takes aim from the edge of the box but it straight down McCarthy’s throat and he easily shovels it over the bar.

It’s only 10 minutes into the second-half at Ralph has seen enough of us surrendering the initiative and off comes Stuart Armstrong to be replaced by Lyanco and we go to a back three. Saints are still living off scraps at the other end but from one of the scraps, JWP crosses in a free-kick and Adams gets a really good contact on the header and it’s heading towards the top corner but Martinez is a very good goalkeeper and takes off to tip it over the bar.

The half meanders on.  Villa are in the ascendancy in the main but we’re keeping them at arms length.  For all Villa’s huffing and puffing they are not creating any clear openings and Watkins, who I have decided this completely overrated, drags a really shite effort wide from inside the penalty area. The opening had been created by Lyanco and Bednarek having communication issues and both leaving the ball to eachother.

Seven fucking minutes of stoppage time. Piss off. With Broja on for Adam Armstrong, we are doing a better job at holding the ball up as we reach the 90 minute mark. Tino takes a throw to Adams who has the ball in the corner until Mings kicks him in the stomach. The linesman who is 5 yards away and Madley who is 10 yards away both totally failed to see it. It’s fucking ridiculous.  One final Villa attack and Lyanco cleans up and shimmies his way out of defence and that’s it, 3 wins out of 4.  5 defeats in a row for Danny’s Champions League chasing outfit.

Similarly to Watford last week, I find myself wishing that we could put teams away in the first half. We really should’ve done it last week and we really should’ve done it today as well. As it was, we were subjected to a slightly agonising second-half where we barely created anything going forward and just seemed to be under pressure for all 52 minutes of it.  When you look at it in the cold light of day however, once the game is over and you’ve won it, Villa didn’t test Alex McCarthy at all and it was all pretty unscientific, slinging the ball in to the box. They tried hard but ultimately, we have got a defence these days.

After the first 10 minutes, when it looked like it was not going well in the second half, Ralph made a tactical change, replacing the unlucky Stuart Armstrong with Lyanco and everyone’s favourite Serbian Brazilian did a good job in between Bednarek and Salisu.  KWP had another good game at left back though wasn’t as prepared to use his left foot as he was against Watford. Tino in truth, struggled for most of the game and wasn’t bursting forward as much as he usually does. He is going to have games where he struggles a bit which comes from the territory of only being 18. If you expect him to perform brilliantly or at the level that he has been performing in every match, you’re just not being realistic.

JWP and Ori Laugh at the Incompetence

JWP and Romeu in particular, were superb in the first half and it was due to their industry that we created so many chances that really should’ve seen the game won by half-time. I also really enjoyed the first half performances of Stuart Armstrong and Elyounoussi, two intelligent technical footballers who can do a bit of everything.

Our strikers have been one of the issues this season but over the last few weeks, all of them have popped up with a goal and today’s effort from Adam Armstrong was just a brilliant instinctive finish. As the ball dropped, Arma was in the right place and that is an absolutely brilliant strike on the half-volley, giving Martinez no time to set himself, to even think about making a save.  Che Adams had a dodgy first 20 minutes but grew into the game and was unlucky not to score with that header in the second half.

Ralph comes out of this came with a lot of credit. He made the early substitution as detailed above and at the end of the day we kept a clean sheet and won the game so you can’t argue with it. Bringing on Diallo for Elyounoussi certainly helped close the game down as well in the second half.

Today we have to talk about the referee Andy Madley. Like players, referees over the course of 90 minutes can get some things right and some things wrong. Andy Madley got everything wrong. He gave corners when it should’ve been goal kicks, he didn’t give free kicks when people got kicked in the stomach and then of course there was his three card trick with Anwar El Ghazi. Booked for hacking down Tino after 10 minutes with no attempt at going for the ball, let off for hacking down Tino again in identical fashion 10 minutes later and then throwing a massive embarrassing dive to try and win a penalty. El Ghazi can fuck off but Madley can fuck off as well. We have form of course with his shit brother, Bobby Madley who was generally a horrific referee when he refereed our games. It’s hard to believe the Bobby has got a rival for the title of worst referee in his family. Fucking useless.

Are you watching Danny Ings? Your shortcut to the Champions League looks more likely to take you into the Championship at the moment, being only three points above the bottom three having played a game more. It’s wishful thinking to think that Villa will go down but it’s amusing at the same time. They weren’t great and the jungle drums seem to be beating for the head of Dean Smith who is of course the manager who brought Danny to the club. Who knows what players a new manager might bring in or prefer?  By the way, your direct replacement in the Saints No 9 shirt scored a thunderbastard tonight.

Danny Models Villa's New Kit

As for our other former player, Matt Targett again showed his recent form, which was largely terrible. It was almost like he had his boots on the wrong feet the way kept slicing the ball out of play. It’s not so easy when you haven’t got one of the best midfielders in the Premier League playing in front of you for the opposition to worry about.

As I write, Dean Smith has been relieved of his duties which is always a shame, no matter what you think of a manager. It seems to happen quite often that losing to Southampton is seen as the final straw. It happened to Chris Wilder last season and it’s happened to Dean Smith this season.  Nothing comes close to Glenn Hoddle walking out on us and joining Spurs and then getting sacked the day after losing to us the following season.  For what it’s worth, I think the sacking of Smith is harsh bearing in mind that he had to completely remodel the way his team played at very short notice just before the season started. Sure, they have spent some money but they recouped just as much for the sale of Grealish, so I think it’s a very harsh sacking and I’m glad that we don’t operate in that manner anymore. Whilst I never liked Dean Smith much, the Villa fans see him in much the same way as we saw Nigel Adkins, so good luck to him in the future.  They were mid-table in the Championship when he took over and he leaves them in a much better state.

Three wins are four and a trip to Carrow Road and Norwich up next.  Just to be different, they have sacked their manager before they play us so Farke’s off and who knows who’ll be locking horns with Ralph in a couple of weeks.  Maybe Delia Smith knows?  Or maybe she’s pissed again.

Premier League Match 10 - Watford 0 Southampton 1

 

Happy Days!

A trip to Watford and Vicarage Road and a definite chance to get our first away win since what feels like, the dawn of time. Hopefully the positives from a good performance at Chelsea and mid-week will not be lost and it will be interesting to see if any of the star performers from that game find their way into the starting line-up today. The bad news is that Armando Broja is injured, so there will need to be some rejigging of the attack. The obvious replacement is Che Adams, bursting with confidence after scoring from six inches on Tuesday,

Watford are of course a ridiculous club. They yo-yo between the Premier League and the Championship and have at least two managers every season. They have just appointed Claudio Ranieri in place of the previous guy who got sacked despite Watford not being in the relegation zone.  I have no idea who the previous manager was because I don’t even bother to learn who they are now. I have heard of Ranieri though of course and he is a genuinely nice guy who presided over one of the genuine miracles of modern sport when Leicester won the league under him in 2016. There’s a few referees bank accounts I’d like to check from that season, not to mention betting patterns but as that investigation will never happen… fair play to Claudio.

One of the things that used to stay constant with Watford was Troy Deeney as their centre forward and captain but even he’s gone now and their new focal point is Josh King who we were linked with once upon a time but thankfully, if rumours are to be believed, he wanted too much money.  He’s got a hat-trick last week as Watford smashed Everton 5-2 but personally, I don’t think too much can be read into that because Everton were clearly playing to get rid of Rafa Benitez as their manager and any team that makes Josh King look like a world beater seriously cannot have been trying that hard. Ben Foster has earned a recall to the starting 11 which means he’ll have slightly less time to make videos for his You Tube Channel.

In the event it’s only KWP who has played himself into the starting line-up as he is preferred to Romain Perraud to play against the dangerous Ismaila Sarr. From the 11 names we look to have gone back to the 4-2-2-2 formation because both Adams and Adam Armstrong are included. Redmond and Elyounoussi are on the wings and JWP comes back into the team in place of Diallo. I do wonder where the goals are going to come from. Of the front four, Armstrong and Elyounoussi have one goal each this season, one more than Redmond and Adams.

Saints kick-off and attack down left-hand side where courtesy of a couple of deflections, we find a crossing position for Redmond and his cross is met by the sliding Cathcart and it momentarily looks like it’s going to be the quickest own goal in history but Foster does well to drop onto it.  Cathcart was the defender who blarted the ball against Shane Long for his 7 second goal a couple of years ago.

Saints are by far the better side in the opening portion of the game and we are finding a ridiculous amount of space down the left-hand side where Ngakia is not getting anywhere near either KWP or Redmond.  Originating from that side, there’s a scramble in the box, Romeu has a shot blocked before Adam Armstrong fires wide from the edge of the box.

Adam Armstrong has the next chance as well and this really should be a goal as KWP gets down the left superbly, unhindered by Watford defenders and pings over a cross with his left foot and Armstrong meets it at the back post and should try and cushion it back across the goal into the far side put instead of that, heads over the bar.

You would expect the Watford fans to try and wake their team up but there’s nothing.  On 20 minutes, Saints play the ball forward to Adam Armstrong who spins and runs at the Watford defenders on the edge of the penalty area.  He passes infield to Adams but it looks behind him so Che moves to the ball, then kind of pirouettes around it then casually, with no back lift, strokes into the far top corner giving Foster absolutely no chance. That is an outrageously brilliant goal.  There was no anticipation from the fans as he moved away from the goal…. Then he does that.

Che Silences the Doubters

Watford are proving themselves to be somewhat limited and this is illustrated by the next attack as Foster claims are JWP corner and immediately skims a drop-kick into the path of King on the left wing and he fires the cross over to Sarr on the right, who squeezes a shot in between McCarthy and the near post but there is KWP back on the line to block it with his arse. There is a horrible moment whilst the referee is checking his watch … don’t beep you bastard… to see if it’s gone over the line but thankfully, it hasn’t.

Having had that scare we go straight up the other end and Adam Armstrong picks up the ball and gets into the box on the right and hammers over a cross which is met by Che Adams, 3 yards out with an open goal. To be fair, it’s one of those that’s at a height where you don’t know whether to head it or kick it but how on earth he’s managed to bounce that down off a part of his face and up and over the bar is beyond me completely.  We are going to have some serious contenders in the Match of the Day Miss of the Month.

There is another chance straight away as Romeu picks up a shit clearance from Foster and feeds Redmond who in turn feeds KWP and his cross into the box is cleared but it’s interesting that Adams is taken down by Troost-Ekong but there doesn’t appear to be any sort of VAR review to see whether it’s a penalty or not. Again, we win the ball back through Salisu, then Redmond finds Adam Armstrong who again tries his favourite curler into the far corner and is only a foot wide.

Another easier chance comes before half time as KWP again pisses past Ngakia on our left before pulling it back to Armstrong about 10 yards out but it’s a lazy waft of the left foot that shats it over the bar.

Half time, 1-0, it should be at least three.  I’m taking in the surroundings.  This is my first visit to here in person for a long time and the ground has changed completely. We are at the Vicarage Road end of the ground in the left-hand corner and just off to my left is a Sensory room and a line of wheelchair users in front of it. The design of the stadium is not the best though because that corner has no roof on it so if it rains, the guys in the wheelchairs are going to get wet. It’s pissing down.

The second-half starts in much the way the first half ended with a Redmond cross, Elyounoussi heads down and Adam Armstrong connects sweetly on the half volley.  It’s one of those one’s where you expect the keeper not to move and it to nestle in the far corner but no, this is Southampton and it flies wide.

Watford do finally build up a bit of steam but Saints are standing firm and restricting them to long shots and Kucka is never going to beat McCarthy from there, skiddy pitch or not due to the continual pissing rain.

Can we please put this fucking game to bed?  Armstrong jinks past a couple of players in the box before seeing his shot deflected narrowly wide with Foster going completely the wrong way.  Fucks sake – Arma can’t buy a goal at the moment.

As we hit 70 minutes it’s time for the first change with Elyounoussi, who has had a quiet match replaced with Stuart Armstrong and so we get a rendition of the Yaya / Kolo chant, reworded for our Armstrong brothers (sort of).  The next sub is a bit of a surprise with JWP coming off to be replaced by Diallo. 

The next 15 minutes kind of drift by before the inevitable pressure at the end.  Honestly, it will be ridiculous if we don’t win this.  Watford are ramping it up to try and earn an unlikely point and Sissoko bursts past Romeu and when the cross comes in, substitute Fletcher turns and shoots and McCarthy has to plunge into his right to push a it away from the bottom corner. It’s ridiculous that Watford are still in this game at all.

Romeu does look knackered but it’s still a major surprise when Lyanco comes on to replace him. Bringing on Lyanco seems like a very good move but why not take off Redmond or one of the strikers. This leaves us with a central midfield of Diallo and Stuart Armstrong who becomes our third captain of the day.  We defend for the last few minutes and get there.

And it’s over and thank Christ for that.  My word we make heavy weather of putting poor teams away. It really should have been simple and we really should have been out of sight at half-time but the chances we miss are ridiculous. We had one shot on target all game that got through to the goalkeeper and that went in.  Other than that, Foster only had to drop on Cathcart’s attempted own goal in the first 30 seconds.  There will not be much footage of us making Foster work on the Go-Pro, though there will be more than if he’d stuck the Go-Pro up his arse, which was a popular request from our fans throughout the second half.  Actually, there won't be any because the Premier League won't let him use any game footage, which is a shame.

Today’s winning goal by Che Adams is an absolutely brilliant goal which came out of nowhere but then he misses a simple one later on, Adam Armstrong misses a simple one and we end up indebted to a good save from Alex McCarthy in the 90th minute to preserve the three points.

Fair play though, we got to the final whistle which in one sense means that we managed the game well but it certainly didn’t feel like it for the last 15 minutes. The substitution of JWP was a surprise though with him being on a yellow card, may be an explanation. Bringing on Lyanco for the last six or seven minutes was a good idea but taking off Romeu seemed really strange.  Ralph said afterwards that he can’t remember many times as Saints manager when we have had a comfortable last 15 minutes having already won the game and today was certainly another one to add to the list.

Sarr is About to Dive Again

The standout performance today was by Kyle Walker-Peters who was absolutely superb on the left, constantly causing Ngakia endless problems at right back for Watford with his willingness to go both inside and out and there was better delivery with his left foot today. I’m guessing that he knows that he’s going to have to work on his left foot crossing in order to stay in the team. Next to him, Salisu again was excellent.

It was a good win but there’s still more to come - Elyounoussi and Redmond both worked really hard but didn’t have the final piece of creativity needed on many occasions. If Nathan Redmond could play a pass with the right weight, he would be near the England squad. Every ball is either under hit and gets intercepted or over hit and runs out of play. He did some really good things in build ups, combining with KWP etc but when it comes to the final ball, it wasn’t there today and that was frustrating. Adam Armstrong again worked his nuts off and was very unlucky with a couple of shots and Che did what he always does, scored the worldie but missed the sitter. JWP was playing in a slightly different way to how he normally does in that he seemed to be playing as a third centre back when we were in possession.

We apparently haven’t won an away game for 17 games before this so that’s one particular monkey off our back. Watford were pretty basic opponents, so this was an ideal opportunity but given that they would’ve been on a high after their big win at Goodison last week, it was nice to get the three points. They were a strange set of fans as we barely heard a peep out of them for the entire 94 minutes. Dickhead of the day is the Watford winger Ismaila Sarr. I tend to lose patience pretty quickly if the only trick a player has when he’s up against a good defender is throwing himself to the floor. He didn’t seem to defend much either, judging by how exposed the right back was.

It’s interesting that today’s win took us above Aston Villa in the league table who are our next opponents on Friday when they visit St Mary‘s. Danny Ings may have only seen us as a one contract thing so it would certainly be nice if our upward trajectory is maintained next week and Villa’s one in the opposite direction, carries on as well.