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.