Premier League Match 19 - Southampton 1 Tottenham 1

 

Just a Free-kick Merchant

If this game is been played a couple of months ago, then Spurs at home would’ve been one we were expecting to win.

Nuno Espirito Santo was the manager and didn’t appear to have the slightest fucking clue about what he was doing. Needless to say, time moved on and Daniel Teflon Levy, fresh from his recent triumphs of appointing José Mourinho, trying to join the European Super League and appointing Nuno, sacked him and managed to appoint Antonio Conte which was a bit of a major disappointment because he is universally held to be an excellent manager with a great track record everywhere he’s been.

Spurs haven’t lost since Conte took over but they still somehow seem to be finding their way under the new coach. Some players have come in from the cold like Matt Doherty, Ben Davies and even Dele Alli who many had forgotten was even a footballer. Harry Kane has shown signs of life over the last few weeks but he really shouldn’t be playing today because somehow he got away with an ‘out of control’ studs up lunge into the middle of Andy Robertson’s shin against Liverpool last week. Any other player would’ve been sent off for that and what was a classic case of the England captain been able to get away with murder. Anyone remember Alan Shearer volleying Neil Lennon‘s head down the touchline when he was England captain.

I certainly think that we can give Spurs a good game today. Conte hasn’t had chance to sign any new players I said earlier so they still have the likes of the dodgy Eric Dier and Davinson Sanchez at the back. I haven’t been over impressed with Emerson Royal since he arrived in the summer and Reguilon is the sort of defender who can’t actually defend. Our former skipper Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is in midfield and Dele Alli is actually in the side along with Harry Kane and Son Heung Min, who of course. scored four times the last time we played at St Mary’s.  That front three of Spurs has three of the biggest and most frequent divers in the league.

What Ralph would pick today was a bit of an unknown because it’s only 48 hours since we played against West Ham and none of the Covid related absentees would be available today. As it turned out, there was a sharp intake of breath as he named what looked like the sort of team you would name in the Second round of the League Cup away at a League 2 side. Three at the back with Yan Valery augmenting Salisu and Bednarek.  KWP and Perraud at full-backs with Livramento nursing a knock.  A midfield three of JWP, Diallo and Stuart Armstrong, giving Romeu a rest and what looked like a forward line of Adam Armstrong and wait for it….. Shane Long. Okay, it’s nearly 2022 and Shane Long is still getting a game in the Premier League.

It’s a scrappy opening 10 minutes but Saints get into their stride, mainly through being very quick to press Spurs and they don’t like it.  We also look decent going forward with Valery joining in from the back before feeding KWP and his cross into the area is flicked wide by Shane Long.  10 years ago, he still would have missed.  Anyhow, water is wet and Shane is offside.

The first threat from Spurs comes from a familiar source (remember the home defeat last year) as we allow Kane to turn in midfield and spray a ball left to Reguilon.  KWP gets near him and Reguilon reverts to his default (see Spurs away last year) and hits the deck. All the Spurs players are round the ref, presumably asking for a red card, led of course by Kane but Anthony Taylor is happy with the yellow. From the resulting free-kick, Son chips in and Ben Davies heads home but is clearly offside.

24 minutes and we win a throw on the left hand side and you know what this means, it’s time for Salisu to attempt a long throw again, which has become a ‘feature’ of our last few games.  Again, it doesn’t really go very far but this time, Dele Alli half clears it out to JWP who absolutely smashes it, cutting across it with his right boot and it swerves away, past Lloris and into the net.  What a strike that is, 1-0.  All hail the God of Middling to Average Length throws.  Nice for Dele to get his first assist in about two years.

Saints keep up with the aggressive pressing and the ball is bouncing around on the right side and Emerson Royal knocks it past Salisu, who clatters into him and gives the referee not much option but to book him especially as he’s got away with a couple already.  Again, the Spurs player goes down like he needs a stretcher and oxygen but he’s fine once the card comes out. Taylor seems to have had enough of us getting close to the Tottenham players for a while because when Harry Kane miss controls the next ball, under pressure from Bednarek, it’s another free-kick for not very much and Ralph has thrown his toys out on the side of the pitch and earned himself a yellow card.

We seem to doze off from a free-kick and Son is clean through. Salisu tries to win the ball but takes him out. Clear penalty and referee has no option but to give him a second yellow and send him off. Fucks sake. There was no need to make the tackle there because Son’s touch was heavy and it was just going to run through to Fraser.  Harry Kane has ballooned a penalty at St Mary‘s before but this time he absolutely creams it and Fraser goes the wrong way. Interestingly, Fraser went the different way to the way he has gone in every penalty he is faced into penalty shoot-out this season.   It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d gone his usual way to be honest.

Well That's Not Good News

From the kick off you can see that we've gone 4-4-1 with Valery at centre back.  OK then.... please get to half time.  From the kick-off the, ball goes towards Long but Reguilon clatters into him.  Possibly an accident but probably not and it’s about the third incident he’s been involved in but the referee is not interested in that one at all.  Half time and 10 men for the whole of the second half.  It’s going to be a long one.

Conte is clearly agreeing with me a Reguilon and he’s off at half time to be replaced by Matt Doherty.  This is going to be a case of just getting through ten minutes at a time without conceding and then almost immediately, Harry Winks clips a ball over the defence and Kane is in, takes a touch and bang, smashes it past Forster into the corner of the net. Brilliant finish. Fuck.  A good 30 seconds passes before it flashes up on the screen and there is a VAR check for offside.   Oh look, some knobhead in the Spurs end has thrown a flare on the pitch… and it’s been disallowed. I hope you’ve got another flare mate. Fucking idiot.

Dele Alli has done nothing except be a wanker and he’s off to be replaced with Lucas Moura, making Spurs even more of a threat.  A cross comes in from the right hand side and Doherty goes up for it with Forster and somehow, the ball ends up in the net.  What the fuck has happened there? Free-kick, foul on the keeper, obviously.  Looks a bit soft but that gets given on every ground so complin when it goes against you but don’t be surprised.

Doherty is proving to be a threat coming off the left wing and Forster has to make a block at the near post from the Spurs sub.  On 70 minutes it’s time for one of our own as Broja replaces Shane Long who is knackered.  To be fair, he’s had a really good game and it’s good that he got a standing ovation as he went off with his name being chanted.  There seemed to be an element of ‘goodbye’ about it as he applauded all four sides of the ground.  Time goes on and we get to the last ten without any further alarms and the hard-working Adam Armstrong is replaced with Nathan Redmond.

All the action is up our end of the pitch though as Lucas fools everyone by playing an airshot but then recovers to dig out a cross which gets cleared the the edge of the box, Davies smashes it but KWP throws himself at it to head it away.  Superb committed defending and that must have hurt.

Usually when a game is tight, you know that you’re going to get one chance at the end but when you only have 10 men, will you get that chance.  Yes and it’s down to one man army Armando Broja as he beats Davies to the ball, then takes it off Dier and cuts in from the right.  He hits it but Sanchez has got across and it deflects off him and over the bar.  Such a shame that he couldn’t have let Sanchez slide past like he did with Duffy against Brighton.  Five minutes extra to go.

93, 94 and one more cross into the box which Kane heads wide under pressure from KWP.  For a second, it looks like we’re going to have one more attack as Broja picks it up on the half way line but the ref blows his whistle to end it.  No one seems that bothered because we’ve got the draw but it’s a bit of a strange way to end it.

Well that feels like a win, no question about it. The team showed how to battle against adversity and sure, we rode our luck a little bit in the second half but considering the players we had out there and considering how much we put into the game, we deserved that bit of luck and we deserve the point at the end. To play an hour against Spurs with 10 men and not get beaten is a pretty solid afternoons work. When you bear in mind that our central defenders were Bednarek and Valery and we had Shane Long up front for 70 minutes and Adam Armstrong playing out of position on the left wing, it’s an excellent and unexpected point.

Shane Long had a really good game upfront in being a constant pain in the arse of the Tottenham defenders, moving them around and occupying the three central defenders that Tottenham had. He of course wasn’t a goal threat because he never is but when Broja came on, we really looked like we might nick it.

The major turning point far as luck was concerned was Kane’s goal being disallowed for offside. In the time between the ball hitting the net and the ball being disallowed for offside I was kind of thinking that we were going to get beat 4 or 5-1. That goal being disallowed was huge as we still had something to hold on to. Spurs will also complain about the challenge by Doherty on Forster which resulted in another disallowed goal. Hard to argue with them really but we all know that any challenge on the goalkeeper is going to be a free-kick.  The bottom line is that Doherty wasn’t looking at the ball and made contact with Forster in mid-air.  It’s always going to be a foul.

Anthony Taylor had what I will call an interesting first half. I have no issue with Salisu’s sending off. The first yellow may look soft in isolation but he’d already got away with two wild lunges at Spurs players, so that first booking was probably as much for totting up as it was for the actual foul which was very soft.  Part of the trouble is the way that Salisu goes into challenges.  He basically steams in so if he doesn’t get the ball, it’s always an opportunity for him to get a yellow card as it will look worse than it is.  It was the perfect yellow card as far as Spurs are concerned – one of theirs makes a colossal meal out of the contact and goes down screaming like a big fucking blouse and then Kane gets in the face of the referee and the yellow card comes out.  When Salisu went in for the second tackle on Son and didn’t get the ball, there was only one outcome.  For once, Son didn’t have to dive as it was a clear foul and was always going to be a red card for a second yellow.

Saints defended very aggressively in the first half and with Tottenham‘s tendency to collapse in a heap at any contact at all, it was always going to be a difficult game for Taylor to referee. However, he did himself no favours for pulling up virtually every challenge that Saints made and then allowing Reguilon to foul at will.   There’s only one reason that Reguilon was substituted at half time and I bet Antonio Conte couldn’t believe that he’d managed to get to half time and have the opportunity to use a substitute.

Yan the Man.  Unexpected to Say the Least

There is not a supporter anywhere who wouldn’t have rolled their eyes when they saw Yan Valery’s name on the team sheet, especially when they realised that he was going to be playing as part of a back three.   After the red card, thought of him playing centre back in a flat back four was quite frankly horrifying but the boy did great, In what was a really impressive showing. Jan Bednarek had his best game for a long, long time today, not giving Kane an inch.

Talking of Kane, have you ever seen a player complain as much to the referee as this guy does? Bruno Fernandes maybe… Just get on with the fucking game and let the referee do his job. Whilst you’re doing that, tell Dele Alli that being an arrogant fucker is all well and good if you are playing well but if you haven’t played well for two years and all you have to show for it is a shit haircut and your career is going absolutely fucking nowhere, then just maybe you’d be better served by just getting on with it, instead of being a prick.

Antonio and Dele Discuss Dodgy Hair Procedures

Back to us – KWP, brilliant today, what a player!  . Perraud did a great job at left back as well considering he had the out of position Adam Armstrong in front of him who did, to be fair, put in a shift.  Oh yeah, JWP… magnificent today, same as against West Ham.  Bloke’s a machine.  If he’s not back to his best then we’ll have the best midfielder in the country when he is

I think everybody would’ve taken a point before the game and certainly, everyone would’ve taken a point when they saw our starting line-up. To actually get that point, having played over an hour with 10 men is an outstanding days work.  Next up is Newcastle. If they are allowed to call the game off because they’ve got a couple of big injuries and a couple of Covid cases, then it’s an absolute joke because we have rested players today in order to play them on Sunday. If the game gets pushed back a month or two then Newcastle will probably have signed a load of players and the injured will be fit again, so when you think of the integrity of the competition, how is it possibly fair they might even consider postponing the game.  As I write I see that their game v Everton tomorrow has been called off.  Outrageous.

One thing I’m proud of as a Saints fan is that we, as far as I know, had 4 players ruled out by Covid yesterday – Lyanco, Stephens, Adams, Tella.  We also had Livramento, Smallbone and McCarthy injured and I have no idea where Djenepo has gone.  No whinging or moaning – get on with it.  Kids on the bench in Small and Simeu, kids in the team in Valery, Shane Long in the team, play the game.  ‘Soft Southerners’ – I don’t think so.

Hopefully those big tough Geordies can take a leaf out of our book on Sunday and actually turn up.

Premier League Match 18 - West Ham 2 Southampton 3

 

Big Jan Loses Players in Both Boxes

Christmas Day happens every year.
Boxing Day happens every year. 
Saints getting beat away at West Ham happens every year.

This year though, the three events are in close proximity and today is our trip to the Almost Totally Free Gifted Stratford Sex Toy Emporium. I think that West Ham’s relative success this season means that we should keep in mind that they were gifted a 60,000 seater stadium.  The protests about moving from Upton Park and the general antagonistic attitude towards their admittedly dodgy owners, have been a bit quieter recently because the team is in Europe and doing well in the Premier League which will keep the Johnny Come Lately's happy.  The hardcore West Ham who have been there a long time, don’t forget however and won't rest until the Dildo Brothers and Alan Sugar's mate, are long gone.

This is the first year that the Hammers look like taking advantage of what they’ve been given and they’ve been in the Champions League places most of the season, though they have fallen foul of injuries with their two central defenders Ogbonna and Zouma being ruled out long-term. This, coupled with injuries to the full-backs Cresswell and Johnson means that they’re not quite as scary a proposition as they were at the start of the season. Our main tormentor in recent years has been Michail Antonio, who has gone off the ball recently but as you know, a game against Southampton is an ideal opportunity to get your form back when you are a striker without a goal in a while. Mind you, I said all this and we played them at home at the start of the season and we got a decent point out of that game and Antonio got himself sent off.

It of course wasn’t certain that this game was going to go ahead today with lots of games being postponed because of Covid cases in various Premier League squads even though there is absolutely no way that every single team that has had a game called off, could not have got a squad of professionals out on the pitch, so you could argue but no game should’ve been called off.  I’m very dubious about some teams who had a load of injuries but they have a couple of cases of Covid and their game gets called off. I’m looking at you Leicester.  Man United would have to have about 30 cases to not be able to put a team out... really?  I see that AFC Wimbledon have kicked off in League 1 about games being called off due to Covid reasons when they've been following the protocols and have few or no cases.  Their virus-ridden opponents today were due to be Portsmouth.
 
As far as Saints are concerned, well we know that at Staplewood we have been very diligent with our application of Covid protocols and coincidence or not and I think not, we have had very few isolated cases that have not ended up with seven or eight players having it. I guess that whilst it might be helpful for us to have the odd game called off to give players a rest, we can’t be fairly safe in the knowledge that when we do play, we will have more or less a full squad available apart from the injuries which happen in the course of every season to every club.  Talking of which, it is very encouraging to see Stuart Armstrong back in for training foe this Christmas period, so hopefully he’ll make it back as far as the bench today.  We only win when he plays, after all.

With the Premier League still insisting on two games in three days over the holiday period, every player will be needed and rotating players shouldn’t cause Saints too many problems.  We actually probably only have two players who are absolutely indispensable and they are Salisu and Romeu. Take either of those two out and we are going to struggle to play at the same level but there are solutions for virtually any other player being unavailable.

Having spoken about us being pretty good with the Covid protocols, it turns out we have three players unavailable today because of you know what. With Lyanco, Jack Stephens and Nathan Tella all unavailable. Into the team come Jan Bednarek, Elyounoussi, Walcott and back in goal was Fraser Forster. Big Willy dropped to the bench where there was also a place for Dynel Simeu, The main news as far as West Ham are concerned is that Antonio is on the bench. The rest of the team is more or less as you’d expect with Rice and Soucek in midfield and central defenders Dawson and Diop who definitely can be got at.

If the question was “Who is playing up front with Broja, out of Redmond, Walcott or Elyounoussi?” – the answer was “No one” as it was a 4-1-4-1 formation with Elyououssi and JWP in front of Romeu in midfield.  We started well, very well in fact and on 8 minutes, a long ball on the right is flicked on by Livramento,  JWP brings it down before finding Elyounoussi in midfield he switches it out to KWP on the left and Kyle gets to the edge of the box before playing it back to Elyounoussi who has not been tracked by Rice or Soucek, one touch to control, left footed snap shot, fizzes into the corner of the net giving Fabianski no chance.  Fucking have some of that Dildo Boys, brilliant start.

You’d think it would wake West Ham up but it doesn’t.  Redmond on the right starts the next move, cutting infield and sliding a superbly weighted pass in between the Hammers midfielders to Elyounoussi, who jinks around Dawson as if the carthorse isn’t there but then can only smack the ball straight at Fabianski.

In typical Saints fashion, we carry on having all the decent play and then Bednarek gives the ball away on the right hand side with a sloppy ball across and Vlasic carries it forward, gets round Salisu before Shooting too close to Fraser who saves relatively comfortably.  He doesn’t deal with the corner very comfortably, punching it straight up in the air and still being on the ground when the ball comes down and we are lucky to get away with it.

Half time and 1-0 up and the usual conversations are being had.  West Ham will be better in the 2^nd half, Antonio will come on etc etc and when the players emerge again, Antonio is on and so is Lanzini. Saints defend against a nemesis really well for about 30 seconds until the ball goes near him for the first time.  We concede a corner over on the right hand side, Bowen slings it over, Dawson heads it back and there is Antonio in front of Fraser to head into the net for fuck‘s sake. The annoying thing is it’s exactly the same as against Arsenal a few weeks ago where our defenders do nothing about the striker, in this case Antonio, standing right in front of Fraser and preventing him from getting out to punch the ball. Schoolboy defending of the highest order.

The Winner of "The Most Predictable Event of the Day Award"

We have a bit of a let off as Declan Rice picks up the ball 35 yards out and take aim and it skipped across Fraser and wider the far post by about a foot. No sooner had we recovered from marginally shitting ourselves when a bowl knocked forward by Bednarek finds Broja and he turns past Diop, sees Dawson in front of him and a vast expanse of grass behind him and goes for it.  He runs straight past Dawson who starts bundling him over on the edge of the box but Broja gets inside the box before he is brought crashing down by the clumsy Dawson.  Kevin Friend, your time is now… and he’s given a free kick on the edge of the box it goes up stairs to VAR.

“Hi Big-Six, Craig Pawson at Stockley Park here”
“Alright Craig, what have we got… hang on, why “Big-Six?”
“That’s what you’re saved as in my phone – Big-Six Friend”
“Fair enough mate – well, the evidence is there ha ha – anyhow, this Big Albanian bloke is going nuts”
“He’s got a point mate, foul starts outside”
“Yeah, I gave that”
“Trouble is, he’s still on his feet, in the area, when Donkey Dawson falls into the back of him”
“Ah shit – but West Ham are in the Top 6”
“Yes mate but they’re not ‘Big Six’ are they?
“Good point mate, let’s have a look”
“Penalty isn’t it Kev?”
“Certainly is mate, Southampton might like me more now”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you one day about the Liverpool game at St Mary’s when I didn’t given them two stonewall pens in the first minute”
“Nice one Big-Six, over and out”

Up steps JWP and bang, in the usual corner, low with maximum whippage, giving Fabianski absolutely no chance. Having had all that drama to get back in front again and with Kevin being our friend, Kevin is not our friend two minutes later as Elyounoussi gets brought down in midfield but he allows play to go on and West Ham break, switching the ball out to the right hand side to Bowen he gets his head up and crosses it into the middle to where Benrahma has got himself in space and he sweeps into the net as easily as you like to make it 2-2, rather fittingly one day after Desmond passed away.   It has to be said that it’s another soft goal with our ball-watching and lack of picking up attackers in the penalty area also very similar to the Arsenal game.

There is a certain feeling of inevitability that we will now go on and lose before those thoughts can get too ingrained, KWP breaks up the left and its hauled down by the clumsy Soucek. JWP swings over the free-kick right footed, it’s an absolutely perfect delivery and Bednarek gets up above the defenders of West Ham and heads past Fabianski to ridiculously, put us back in the lead yet again. It’s going to be a long 20 minutes.

It takes about two years but the 20 minutes goes by.  We don’t actually look like conceding and Fraser doesn’t have a shot to save.  West Ham send on Yarmolenko to little effect and we bring on Che for Broja, the talisman with the magnificent hair for Walcott and finally, Ralph gives me a heart attack with the 90^th minute withdrawal of Romeu for Diallo.

Never in doubt. Absolutely brilliant win at one of our graveyard grounds. Totally unexpected but in the end, totally deserved…. and overall, we got a fair shake out of Kevin Friend.

We won the game because we took advantage of our superiority in the first half and the early goal really seem to knock West Ham back.  \The goal we conceded after half time was poor and that’s the second time in consecutive games that we have allowed an opposition striker to stand directly in front of our goalkeeper without any of our defenders doing anything about it. More superb direct play by Armando Broja brought the penalty which, despite what West Ham fans may think, is a clear and obvious penalty and credit where credit is due, it goes down as an excellent bit of refereeing by Kevin Friend who was prepared to change his mind having seen the replay of Dawson falling on Broja in the box, was prepared to change the decision he’d originally given.  Unless it’s changed this season, the rule now states that if the foul continues into the box then it’s a penalty. The only thing I will maybe question is why there was no red card for Dawson. I know it was clumsy as fuck and he didn’t really mean it but since when has being clumsy been a mitigating factor. The bottom line is he made no attempt to play the ball and he brought him down when clean through, so there should be a red card by the letter of the law.

We of course let in another soft goal which I wasn’t terribly happy about as there seem to be a foul in midfield at the start of the attack but once West Ham attacked, we were all over the place and it was ball-watching at its finest as Benrahma equalised. Chief ball-watcher Bednarek, having lost his man at our end, made up for it though by losing his man at the other end of the pitch and getting his head to JWP’s free kick and from then on, somewhat surprisingly, we never really looked in trouble.

Ralph and Bubbles - Before He Popped Them

Ralph had a good day with a tweak in the formation to 4-1-4-1 with Elyounoussi playing in central midfield, which seemed to nullify West Ham really well and allowed us to give them a lot of problems when we went forward. Fraser Forster had a decent game in goal, a few flappy moments and that punch straight up in the air wasn’t great but the challenge for Fraser has got to be to play well enough that he cannot get dropped when McCarthy gets fit, which  he is more than capable of doing. The defending seemed to be a lot more aggressive today with Salisu who in particular, incredibly tight on the West Ham attacking players. It was vital that this continued in the second half when Antonio came on and despite him scoring straight away, for the rest of the second-half we handled our usual nemesis pretty well.

JWP had an excellent game in the centre of midfield, which was marshalled well by Oriol Romeu. Nathan Redmond had some good moments on the right wing and the only real, if expected, average performance was from Theo Walcott. 

Armando Broja. I think I’m going to tell myself between now and the end of the season that we have absolutely no chance of signing this guy next season. This is just to soften the disappointment if we don’t actually get him for at least another year.  I do think that there is a decent chance we can get him on-loan for a second season but it really would be worth taking a punt on a permanent deal, even if it’s the only signing we make in the summer. We cannot afford to try and cheapskate with the strikers in the summer. If Broja is the striker we want and he will cost all of our budget, then pay it.  Maybe another Chelsea buy-back clause incoming.

Finally, Stuart Armstrong was on the pitch for two minutes and even though he hardly touched the ball, we won. Coincidence? I think not.

It’s ironic in a way that Spurs are at next. Ralph mention today that it certainly helped us having our game against Brentford called off for Covid reasons.  Of course, that was Brentford that had a problem and not us. Spurs have engineered themselves a break, maybe, allegedly, to allow Antonio Conte to get his ideas across. They are playing better now than they have any point this season so it’s not gonna be easy but if we get everything right with selection and tactics, there is no reason why we can’t see in a very happy New Year with another win.

Up the fucking Saints. Brilliant win today.

Premier League Match 17 - Crystal Palace 2 Southampton 2

 

Armando Making Friends at Palace

With not much optimism after all line defeat at Arsenal, we head back to London to play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, always one of the more boisterous grounds to visit.

Palace of had a bit of a transformation this season. Gone is the pragmatic, dull as fuck football played on the Roy Hodgson and in has come Patrick Viera to change the style somewhat. He has had limited success in that Wilfried Manbaby Zaha is now no longer their only threat but it has to be said that the results have been largely the same as if Hodgson had stayed. I imagine though, but if you ask any Palace fan, there will be much happier with the direction they’re heading at the moment.

Like us with Armando Broja and Tino Livramento, they’ve got a couple of decent players out of the Chelsea academy, one on loan and the other permanently.  Their loan is Conor Gallagher, who has been getting a lot of attention recently, breaking into the England squad and it’s playing this game off the back of scoring two goals at the weekend against Everton.  The permanent signing is Marc Guehi, who joined to form a centre back pairing, usually with Joakim Andersen, who managed to look decent last season playing for dismally shit Fulham team that got relegated. Other signings this season include Odsonne Edouard from Celtic, who we were linked with briefly, but having scored two goals on his debut, he has more or less completely failed to do anything since.

Saints striker injury nightmare was dominating most peoples thoughts in the build up to the teams being announced and come an hour before kick-off, Armando Broja was fit and it looks like he’s going to be partnered with Nathan Tella. There is a bit of a surprise on the wing with Will Smallbone coming in for his first start since the ACL injury over a year ago. This might seem like a bit of a wild stab in the dark but let’s face it, no one has really played in those wide areas and set the world alight for us this season so there is a place up for grabs there if he does well.  As requested by yours truly on every platform that allows me to sound off, the centre back pairing is completely changed from the Arsenal fiasco and in come Salisu and Lyanco and with Oriol Romeu back from suspension, we have a much stronger looking spine to the team.

Saints started brightly as usual.  After an early Romeu drive which narrowly clears the bar, we then get the ball down in the Palace corner on the left wing through Tella who knocks it back to JWP, who turns and knocks all the way back to Salisu. Salisu eventually tries to knock it into Romeu in midfield but it’s under hit and Will Hughes piles in and wins the ball as clean as you like with Edouard spreading the play out to Zaha on the left wing. Because we’ve turned the ball over, neither of our full-backs are in position and Zaha simply advances to the edge of the box, steps inside Lyanco and smashes it past Caballero at the near post. Fucks sake, wankers!

We need to work our way back into it but that process doesn’t start particularly well until Broja nicks the ball off Kouyate and barrels forward with the Palace midfielder towing a caravan.  Broja finds Smallbone on the left hand side and he tries a very optimistic shot off balance with his left foot and it slices away horribly into the crowd.

It should really be 2-0 straight after that as Palace easily cut through us on our right and Zaha is beyond Livramento and crossing into the box to where Edouard has a free shot but maybe these kind of sitters are easier when you’re playing in Scotland and he barely makes any connection at all and it dribbles wide for a goal-kick in pathetic fashion. Whilst we could all laugh at shite like that, it is just a matter of time at the moment unless we sort ourselves out. Similar to the first goal against Arsenal on Saturday, we tried to press high up the pitch but didn’t get anywhere near, so we ended up both not winning the ball and not being in the right position defensively.

Lyanco starts a Saints attack with a break up the middle of the pitch and a nice ball in to Broja and we ping a couple of passes between Tella and Smallbone before Broja picks it up again and gets fouled by Hughes about 2 yards outside the D. Hughes is complaining and even though the replay shows there’s not much of a touch, you try staying on your feet when you’re at full pelt and someone kicks your knee.  Up steps JWP and I don’t know about you… but my expectations are not as high as they were at the start of last season with these free kicks but up he steps and it’s an absolute belter over the wall and ripping away into the top left-hand corner as we look at it, away from the flailing arm of Jack Butland.  What a fucking goal. Get in!

He's Back!

Now can we actually go on and carry on taking the game to Palace. It does look like we have the press sorted out now, with Tella seemingly leading from the front and not allowing Palace any time and players like Tomkins and Guehi need time. Eventually Tomkins leathers the ball out under pressure, Salisu heads it down and Conor Gallagher picks up but he wants too much time as well and KWP gets a toe in and knocks it infield to Broja about 40 yards out. As he does, he just turns and head directly for goal, one touch and bang curling away from Butland and speeding into the corner of the net. 2-1, fucking brilliant goal again. Sign him up.

We play out the rest of the first half looking the better side and all is well as we reach the break.  The key to this is surely staying on the front foot as Palace’s defence really doesn’t look great.  We’ve also handled Gallagher pretty well.  Palace start the second half of the ascendancy though and Saints have of a couple of chances to clear the first attack but neither Redmond’s balloon clearance up in the air or Romeu’s off balance header do the job and eventually the ball gets nodded over Salisu to Edouard who sees his first shot hit Big Willy in the chest and his second effort clawed away by the 40-year-old Saints legend in the making.

Palace send on Benteke and to the surprise of most it’s not in place of Edouard but in place of Kouyate so they now have two massive great units up front.  It doesn’t have a direct effect but maybe we were panicking as a ball came into the box and bobbled around.  It clearly hits Edouard on the hand but he gets the shot away which is saved by Caballero and Ayew rams it into the net on the rebound from a narrow angle. Surely that’s going up to VAR because it’s clearly his hand and both JWP and Salisu are in Mr Hooper‘s face about it. Check over. Goal given.  Really???  I clearly don’t know the rules any more.  I thought a handball in the build-up, deliberate or not, wasn’t allowed.  The curse of the ‘bad streak’ has struck again – it’s Jordan Ayew’s first goal in the Premier League since Wilf Zaha was last not a prick… fuckin’ years ago.

Substitution time is here and unsurprisingly, it’s Smallbone and Broja, two making their way back from injury, that are replaced with Moussa Djenepo and Shane Long.  I bet Palace are shitting it now! Nathan Tella is next to get hooked and on comes Theo Walcott.  He was probably at Arsenal with Vieira about 20 years ago.

Neither team really looks like winning it to be honest.  Ex-Skate Ward throws in a cross, which Big Willy claws away from under the bar and when it comes back in, the ex-Skate puts up a balloon and hits Row Z.  For us, Walcott and Redmond create an opening for Djenepo who fools all the defenders with some snazzy footwork where he tries to do five things at once but as usual, fools himself and leaves the ball behind.  Goal kick, what the fuck was that?

As the game winds down, Redmond makes most telling contribution of the game by running with the ball stopping, suckering Zaha into making a stupid challenge and the man baby gets booked.  Djenepo manages not not fall over the ball long enough to pick up a ball from JWP on the edge of the box and tees it up for Romeu to take a touch and then swing a wildly optimistic left boot at it and send it over the bar. At least we are still some sort of threat to their goal.  Not enough though and game over with a decent point.

Well if you’d offered me a draw at two minutes after the game started then I would’ve snapped your hand off. It was a deserved point at the end of the day but it’s hard to make a case that we deserved to win it despite being ahead at half-time. The good news was that we survived the appalling start and scored two absolute quality goals in the first half through JWP and Broja. The second half was always going to be a struggle because Palace were always going to come back into it and it’s just a shame that the second goal happened the way it did. Apparently, if Edouard had scored, it would have been disallowed for handball but because Big Willy saved it and Ayew put in the rebound, it counts. It’s fucking absurd.  So, the is the message to the goalkeeper is that if you think the striker has handled it accidentally, then just let the shot go in? It’s fucking stupid.  It’s not as if we have a chance to clear it after the save and it’s not as if it’s a new phase of play, or some such bullshit.

Should Have Just Let The First Shot In, Willy

Let’s rewind back to the first goal for Palace which was unbelievable from our point of view. There we were attacking down the left wing and right in the corner, from where we should’ve been looking to cross the ball and other create a chance or win a corner or something but instead of that, we turn round and play all the way back into midfield, back to the central defenders back into midfield where we lose the fucking ball with our full backs ahead of the ball and two passes later we are 1-0 down. I mean, I can understand when you’re trying to attack and suddenly you have two banks of four in front of you and nowhere to go that you turn round and keep the ball but not from where we had it. Play the percentages, get it in the box for fuck‘s sake, we have a 6 foot 4 centre forward in there.  People talk about progressing the ball these days – Palace didn’t need to progress the ball for the first 50 yards because we did it for them in what was a virtual carbon copy of the goal we let in against Palace on the opening day of last season.  Romeu losing it in midfield, Zaha scores.

Will Hughes won the challenge on Romeu to set up the Palace goal and Palace will moan that Hughes challenge on Broja was not a foul.  It was a fucking foul because he kicked his knee and he’s moving quickly so shut up you little rat faced twat and get on with the game. What a free-kick though? Absolute textbook and it’s about time he got one of those again. I love the second goal as well. The much-hyped Gallagher getting tackled by KWP and the ball going to Broja, who again showed what a threat he can be just by being direct. Two paces and bang, pick it out.  Direct is good.

It was refreshing to see Wilf Zaha not being as big a tit as he normally is though there was one nice one moment where Lyanco clattered him and then just ignored him when Zaha started to spit the dummy. Talking of Lyanco, he and Salisu looked like a much better partnership on the clown show we had at the weekend, so I hope they stay in the team going forward.  Big Willy did little pretty well in goal. He had very little protection on either goal but made some decent saves when he needed to.  I also like the fact that his distribution is good and when he kicks it long it’s much more likely to go to a Saints player that is when either of the usual incumbents are in goal.

So, Big Willy was decent and so was Willy Smallbone, who did well in the first half before understandably fading in the second.   What surprised me about him was the number of headers he wins to keep attacks alive. As I said at the start, no one has really shown much in those wide positions this season so there is an opportunity for him and he didn’t do any worse than anyone else has done so let’s hope he gets another go.

A major plus today was Nathan Tella up front who is beginning to look a lot more confident, even though he hasn’t scored yet. The constant harrying and pressing of the defence was very good and should’ve resulted in James Tomkins being sent off but I’m not gonna criticise the referee Simon Hooper, who I thought had a very good game.

Today showed that we have a few out injured at the moment with the three subs that we brought on being Theo Walcott, Shane Long and Moussa Djenepo. Djenepo in particular, looked like he had never played football before and Walcott barely touched the ball. To play the last 20 minutes with those three in the forward line means that hanging on for a draw was really the only option.

Personally I think it was a pretty good day for Ralph with Smallbone justifying his inclusion, the two centre backs doing a decent job and the two strikers looking a threat throughout. Hopefully, taking Broja and Tella her off means that they will be fit for the weekend against Brentford, who have been given a nice mid-week off by the Covid cases in the Manchester United camp. Any other team has probably got to have about 10 cases before they get a game called off but Manchester United have probably only got one. I have no evidence of this of course but we live in a world these days where you don’t need to have any evidence to declare something as a fact.

17 points now from 17 games – a win on Saturday and we reach the half way points target with one game to spare.  That has to be the aim for Saturday….. and it’s just been called off so that’s it until after Christmas.  It’s annoying because maybe we would have left Broja and Tella on today and had a better chance of winning in the last 20 minutes.

As it stands now, our next game is West Ham away on Boxing Day which like Arsenal and Everton away, is pretty much a guaranteed defeat.  Bring it on.  Up the fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 16 - Arsenal 3 Southampton 0

 

I Predict Saints Will Be Shite and Lose Easily

Apparently we’ve not won away Arsenal in the league in 26 attempts. That’s a good record isn’t it? We do of course have a couple of League Cup wins in recent times which were secured with goals by the likes of Ryan Bertrand, Jordy Clasie and Nathaniel Clyne. Against a full-strength Arsenal at Highbury or at the Emirates? Forget it.

Today’s assignment is made more difficult by suspensions to two of our definite first team starters with both Oriol Romeu and Mohammed Salisu missing this one. In addition, it’s not expected that Jan Bednarek will be fit so the only two centre backs standing are Lyanco and Jack Stephens, who is himself coming back off of a three-month injury absence. All in all, this is not one that I am expecting to get anything from so anything will be a bonus. Oh and of course, it’s Big Willy time.

Arsenal started the league campaign terribly and lost the first three games and were bottom of the league but then the fixture list got kind for them and they beat a few sides that they were expected to beat and now comes the levelling off period.  They are what they are, a 7th to 10th place team at Premier League level. This of course is not enough for Arsenal and though Mikel Arteta and his team have shown signs of improvement, you do wonder if the patience is going to be there to allow him to think long term. They certainly have some promising youngsters with the Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard and Smith-Rowe. Thomas Partey makes a difference now he’s fit in midfield but the major problem at the moment seems to be the form of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang who has a combination of not being arsed and getting old. Defensively they have two new regulars in Tomiyasu and Ben White, who is starting to prove something like his worth.  Tierney and Gabriel are decent but in every game I see Gabriel play, he either gets sent off or should get sent off. Aaron Ramsdale was proved to be a major upgrade in goal which is surprising given he has been relegated in the last two seasons that he has played at Premier League level. Hopefully he can show his Bournemouth or Sheffield United form today.  The shock is that neither Cedric or Calum Chambers get much of a look in.

The teams are in and Saints have more changes than expected. Big Willy is in goal, the centre backs are the fit again Bednarek and Stephens. This means that Lyanco is on the bench which I think is very harsh., Diallo is as expected, in for Romeu and there’s a change upfront with Che Adams injured and Adam Armstrong taking his place. The first thing that strikes me about our forwards is that there is a lot of pace there so we should be able to cause Arsenal a few problems with neither Ben White or Gabriel being the quickest. The thing that worries me is that our spine is missing and without Salisu, Romeu, Lyanco and Adams, we are a bit short physically and it strikes me as a team of nice footballers, without any bastards. This is a thing that Arsenal themselves have been accused of on many occasions.  Arsenal have no Aubameyang – dropped for disciplinary reasons.  Fair play to the manager for not putting up with that shit, even though the player is on an eye watering amount per week.

Here we go and Saints start well with a decent passing move out of defence with KWP finding Redmond with a crossfield ball and he in turn finds Tella who skips past Tomiyasu and drives to the edge of the box before scuffing one along the ground from 20 yards that Ramsdale just picks up.  Typical Saints move, lots of nice fart and no shit at the end.

We are dominating physically against Arsenal and winning possession with ease.  A Bednarek challenge set up another attack on the left hand side with KWP combining with Tella to free Adam Armstrong in the box and he cuts outside of Ben White before firing an effort at the near post, which Ramsdale does well to get down and save.

A ball over the top finds KWP bearing down on the box on the left hand side and Saka just runs straight through the back of him and that’s a clear foul right on the edge which brings the Arsenal man a yellow card. From the free-kick which is to the left of centre, JWP decides not to go for his favourite corner and goes for the far side top corner and gets too much on it and it flies over the bar

Ramsdale takes the goal-kick and gets of all back off Gabriel.  He takes a ropey touch and Broja nearly nips in but he gets it away to Ben White. 15 seconds later – 1-0 to Arsenal for fuck‘s sake. Arsenals passing frees Saka on the right hand side and Bednarek doesn’t come across so Saka gets his head up and cuts it back to the penalty spot and there is Lacazette with the freedom of North London, to pass it first time into the net, giving Big Willy not an earthly. When the ball hits the net, we have seven outfield players in the box and not one of them is marking a player.

Five minutes later it’s 2-0 as a cross comes in from the right hand side and Tierney somewhat fortuitously spoons it back into the box where it flips up in the air and Odegaard is completely unmarked to head the ball in the net. This is another defensive disaster with Bednarek and Stephens leaving it to each other to clear it and Diallo totally leaving Odegaard to run into the box for a free header. Pathetic and game over after 25 minutes.

Big Willy, having not touched the ball yet, is in the game straight after that and he creates his own work for himself by scuffing a clearance into midfield which is eventually played through to Saka who is clear on goal but Big Willy makes himself even bigger and stands up well to block the effort.

Things calm down a bit for the next 10 minutes but then get worse as Adam Armstrong pulls up and he has to go off.  Surely it’s Shane Long time but no, Elyounoussi is summoned.

Half-time and to be honest the referee may as well blow the final whistle now because there is no way on earth we’re getting anything out of this.  Maybe if we had senior players who were demanding more from certain individuals then we may have a chance… but we don’t and we haven’t.

The second-half starts with Arsenal having all the play and winning an early corner. The corner comes in and Big Willy has a big flap at it, misses and Gabriel bundles it into the net.  Luckily, the flag goes up for offside. It looks like he’s only offside because Caballero has come flying out and missed the ball, meaning that there are not two Saints players between Gabriel and the goal. Anyway, Martinelli wins a corner on the left hand side off of Livramento which has actually come off the Arsenal man but there you go. In comes the corner and in an almost carbon copy Caballero comes for it, gets nowhere near it and Gabriel gets above a half arsed jump from Bednarek and heads into the net. 3-0 and can we go home now? I mean it probably wasn’t a corner and it was probably a foul by Lacazette but it doesn’t really matter.

Willy Get There? No Willy Won't

It’s nearly four after some pathetic defending in the centre of Saints defence as Jack Stephens basically passes the ball to Martinelli and his right foot curling effort strikes the post before Odegaard smashes the rebound goalwards, which hits KWP and deflects wide.

Saka is next to have a go as he cuts in from the right hand side and despite the presence of about four defender around him, he casually strokes a shot goalwards, which hits the far post and out again.

And it gets worse again as Broja lamps off to be replaced by Lyanco and we change the formation.  With Arsenal not being bothered any more, we create a chance as Redmond picks up a ball deep inside the Arsenal box and cleverly find space to get the shot away which is actually straight out Ramsdale but he manages to make it look like a world-class save by flying in the air flapping his arms around and pushing over the bar.

We have another effort as the game dies down with Stephens doing well to intercept a ball that was intended for Martinelli and he fizzes it in to Tella, who again doesn’t catch the shock cleanly and though it’s on target, Ramsdale gets down easily enough to push it wide.  The end, thank fuck.

Well that was pretty shit and inevitable from the moment the Arsenal scored their first goal with their first attack. In the time before that, we had managed to create openings and have chances without scoring, as usual. Once Arsenal went ahead and especially when they added the second goal, there was never any chance of us scoring even once, let alone scoring enough goals to get a point. The third goal was a foul in my opinion but I can’t be bothered to get too annoyed about it because it really had no relevance to the game whatsoever. So, a shit day at the office it looks like all three of our main strikers are now injured with Armstrong and Broja going off today, which is going to leave us with an anxious wait to the next game where Shane Long may well be in the team.

The first Arsenal goal was a really good goal from their point of view but there was some horrible ball-watching when the ball finally did come into the box. The second goal was absolutely shit defending by the centre back pairing who are basically watching the ball bobble around and almost expecting the other one to deal with it as Odegaard headed it into the net. The one thing I will definitely criticise Ralph for today was the choosing of that centre back pairing. Both had been injured and Lyanco didn’t deserve to get dropped. Taking Lyanco out meant that we had one less bastard as I said at the start of the game and Bednarek and Stephens as a pairing were just too passive and were not difficult to play against in any way shape or form.  Let’s not sugar coat it here – they were terrible.

Where I struggle to criticise Ralph is that the team was set up well and was causing Arsenal problems and this is a pattern that happens most weeks. We start well and are usually the better side for a period of the game. It’s not Ralph’s fault that we don’t score and it’s not his fault that the defenders are ball watching or not getting across into the right position. Like I said, he picked those two defenders which I think is an issue but I’m coming round the way of thinking that the majority of our problems are the players that we can put out on the pitch just not being good enough.

There were a couple of players out there today who had quite a lot to gain by putting in decent performances and cementing their places in the team going forward. Adam Armstrong did very little before he got injured, Armando Broja had one of those games where he looked like he couldn’t be bothered. Nathan Redmond provided very, very little going forward and Elyounoussi was the same when he came on. Ibrahima Diallo had a kind of nothing game and KWP and Tino found it difficult to get forward much, probably because they had one eye on the car crash in central defence.  Big Willy did okay for his first game aside from being a bit flappy on corners. You could say that he should have been stronger on the third goal but he was trying to get the ball and was impeded and also, weak defending by Bednarek didn’t help.

It’s another one to write off as an expected result. It’s now 27 years since we won on the red side of North London so we have to write it off and say, no damage done. The bigger concern is the fixtures ahead, starting with palace away on Wednesday and Brentford at home at the weekend. The positives are that both Salisu and Romeu will be available and let’s hope that a couple of the strikers can also make recoveries. Oh yes, an appearance by Stuart Armstrong will be most welcome.

It’s not sour grapes but Arsenal weren’t even that good. A better, more ruthless team than us would’ve been one or two up before Arsenal got playing and then it’s a different game. We were ideal opposition for Arsenal to play given that they had lost three out of their last four games and we didn’t really provide any sort of challenge to them. In fact, we were very, very similar to what Arsenal get criticised for being when they are playing badly. Too lightweight, too many nice footballers at the senior players not stepping up to the plate. When you look at it, our senior players today were Bednarek Stephens, Redmond and JWP and all four were poor / average. Sure, we had a few shots and Ramsdale made a few saves for the cameras but did anyone seriously think we were going to score at any point?  Arsenal hit the inside of the post twice so it could’ve quite easily ended up being even worse. There was a quality issue at both ends of the pitch today for Saints and you are not going to win many games if you’ve got both of those things going on. As the great Nigel Atkins, Forever a Saint always said, draw a line under it and move on.

Premier League Match 15 - Southampton 1 Brighton 1

 

Elyounoussi's Understanding of the Offside Rule Needs Work

Brighton at St Mary‘s in like against Leicester on Wednesday… it’s still fucking cold.

Brighton have been slightly strange this season, starting well and winning a few games against teams they would hope to be beating and then then a small minority of supporters seemed to get up their own arses and start getting annoyed when they failed to win a few games and started hovering around mid-table having previously been around the top four. From working in Brighton for eight years I picked up that they have quite a few fans of London based big clubs, who have Brighton as their second team. Win a few games and then suddenly think they’re entitled to win every week. Get a grip.

Brighton are managed by the excellent Graham Potter who is working miracles in my book, with the squad that he has available to him. They try and play the right way and will not be in any danger of getting relegated this season, which, despite a section of their fans delusions of grandeur, is what their endgame is all about. They sign one or two players every summer to try and improve but they still haven’t found that striker who was going to get nearly 20 goals for them, which of course is the most difficult thing to get if you haven’t got a big budget. A decent side overall but one we should certainly be looking to beat at St Mary‘s.

Jan Bednarek has joined the injury list for Saints which should mean a first start at home for Lyanco, with Jack Stephens only recently returned from injury. It’ll be interesting to see who gets the nod up front today and on the wings. I would anticipate Elyounoussi coming back in but it also wouldn’t surprise me if he persevered with Tella and Redmond.

Ralph celebrates three years in charge at St Mary‘s which makes him our longest serving manager since Chris Nicholl. I have a feeling that a lot of Ralph’s legacy is going to be swayed by what happens between now and the end of the season.

The teams are in and the major news for us is that we have a strike partnership of Che Adams and Armando Broja which I don’t think we’ve tried before and should be interesting. Tella and Redmond both get the places on the wings and other than that, the team is exactly as expected with Lyanco coming in for Bednarek. There is movement on the bench with Walcott coming in and Djenepo dropping out, Jack Stephens makes an appearance and there is no Fraser, with Harry Lewis, Who has never been trusted to play a single minute in the Premier League, being the sub keeper. Lallana is missing for Brighton which is a bit of a shame for them because he is one of their more creative players and also a shame for us because we will have to find another hate figure.

Saints have an early break out of defence with Adams sending Broja away and you’re confident that he’s going to at least work the goalkeeper and he gets to the edge of the box on the right and blasts it and hits Sanchez. The rebound goes out to Adams on the edge of the box in the middle he basically has a free shot from just behind the penalty spot and hits the goalkeeper again. To be honest it’s two poor efforts and we really should be one up.

Dan Burn has a moment of thinking he is a cultured centre half instead of a 6 foot 7 stick and tries to pass his way out of defence but instead finds Redmond who in turn finds Broja in the box and he twists and turns past Duffy before firing in a shot from a narrow angle which Sanchez kicks away for a corner

We are still only 10 minutes in and we have a shout for a penalty as Tella goes over but it’s a very well timed challenge by Duffy. The corner is cleared out and eventually Lyanco tries to turn and shoot from the edge of the box, which would’ve brought the house down, but unfortunately it flicks off vertically challenged defender Lamptey and flies over the bar into the Northam. From the resulting corner, Romeu heads across and Livramento tries to cushion a volley into the top corner of the net but unfortunately, all he finds is the top corner of the away section.

Brighton have their first attack on the quarter of an hour mark with Lyanco seemingly heading a ball out for a corner but everyone stops and the ball doesn’t go out. Brighton regain possession and via an air shot by Tella, the ball finds its way to Mwepu on the edge of the box and his lame effort was easily pushed aside by McCarthy.

Back up the other end and the ball is with Sanchez the Brighton goalkeeper and he skids a shit low-level kick into the midfield where it’s headed forward by Lyanco and then on by Redmond into the path of Broja, who sends Duffy for a hot dog before sliding it into the net with the outside of his right foot. Brilliant finish.

Hot Dog for Duffy!

Half time comes with Saints comfortably the better side and we win this if Ralph manages to keep on top of the changes that Potter will no doubt make to the Brighton shape.  Scoring a second goal would clearly help as well.

We have a glorious chance at the start of the second-half with Redmond winning the ball on the right hand side. He sends Livramento away and Tino gets his head up and pulls it back to his former Chelsea academy team make Broja who, having showed excellent finishing earlier, shows the absolute opposite by scuffing his chance across goal and dribbling wide of the far post.

As expected, Potter doesn’t hang about with making changes with a striker on for a midfielder with Aaron Connolly on for Pascal Gross on 55.  Solly March is on for overrated midget Tariq Lamptey a few minutes later.  Brighton launch a good break down the right by through March, who leaves Romeu and KWP behind him before feeding into Connolly and he finds Maupay who has a free shot at McCarthy but luckily for us, hits the goalkeepers foot.  Good save.

From the 70^th minute through to the 80^th, we are not good.  In fact, we’re horrible and really not handling things particularly well.  We’re kicking it anywhere and not building attacks and if you didn’t know, you’d think it was the 90^th minute and not the 80^th.

Broja is off to be replaced by Adam Armstrong and time is running out and we’re almost there.  Saints have pinned Brighton in their own corner and Redmond gives them a free pass by brainlessly barging through the back of Trossard. Trossard doesn’t look particularly happy with life and is clearly in a lot of pain.  There is a long delay whilst he gets loaded onto a stretcher, given oxygen and taken off – A certain Saints club legend is probably wondering if he’s had a Covid Vaccine or not, ignoring the fact that he’s obviously done something quite serious to his arm. Once the game gets going again, the board goes up to signal there are still 10 minutes to go. 10 minutes to go against 10 men and 1-0 up. What could possibly go wrong?

Whilst the injury break is happening, Tella is replaced with Elyounoussi.  We win a corner and send the centre backs up and then play it short, fuck about it with it and Elyounoussi loses it and has to drag someone down a concede a yellow card so our defenders can get back.  A lack of joined up thinking somewhat.  The Brighton 10 are now like men possessed but we’re comfortably keeping them at bay until Brighton attack on the right hand side, caused by Romeu giving the ball away.  The cross misses everyone and ends up with the Livramento having a chance to clear it but he tries to run it out and gets tackled and ends up giving Brighton a free kick. The free-kick gets cut curled in, two Brighton players go for it and it ends up with McCarthy.  That should be a fucking great warning with a big flashing light on the top.

Saints still don’t learn the lessons though and the next attack is broken up by JWP and he gets put under pressure and tries to find Romeu with a pass into midfield which doesn’t reach and Bissouma picks up and drive forwards before Romeu trashes him on the edge of the D. The free-kick from Moder is shit and straight into the wall but it bounces back out to him and he hits a speculative volley goalwards which is controlled by Maupay who turns and smashes it into the net. We all look across to the linesman but there is no flag and VAR is not going to save us. It’s at the other end of the pitch so I can’t see it clearly, but the jungle drums are soon telling us that JWP was back on the line for some reason and that is why Maupay was onside. Maupay doesn’t want to celebrate with his own fans, he just wants to go and goad the Saints fans like the little prick he is.

Saints have a little flurry of intent for the couple of minutes that remain but all to no avail and so we have managed to fucking draw again. For fucks sake.

Have you ever seen a more nonsensical, boneheaded, fucking clueless way to not win a game?  It is actually amazing that we got to the last minute before conceding a goal after we had played the last 20 minutes like there was 30 seconds to go, aimlessly kicking the fucking ball anywhere and not worrying about building any attacks whatsoever. Having done that for 20 minutes, we then decide to try and run the ball out of our own penalty area, fuck it up and end conceding a goal against a 10 man team, who weren’t very good with 11 players and it was their best attacker who had gone off.

We had no intention to attack at all for the last 20 minutes and we were completely brainless. That corner routine in the 90^th minute was amazing.  Our captain had an absolute brain fart in the last few minutes, firstly playing a shocking pass across the top of the penalty area and then breaking rank and going back on the goal line to play everybody on side in what led to the equalising goal.  It turns out that McCarthy wanted a player back on the goal line because he was injured and more on that later.

Yet more points dropped – despite the stats on shots on target being the same, we really should have won. Of course, it was par for the course that we should’ve been out of sight with bad misses by Broja and Adams. Brighton for their part, stayed in the game, dealt with the adversity of Trossard’s injury and then took advantage of Saints gifting them a way back into the game.

For me, today’s capitulation is mainly down to the players. Unless Ralph told them not to attack for the last 20 minutes then this is down on the players making brain-dead decisions on the pitch.  Ralph has gone in heavy on Alex McCarthy who was injured but stayed on the pitch. However, with Harry Lewis on the bench you have to wonder if a regular keeper with one leg is actually a worse option. Lewis is 23 and has never played a minute for Saints in the league and even looks dreadful in the warm-ups. Put it this way, if our next fixture (Arsenal away) rolls around and neither McCarthy nor Forster are available then we won’t be getting anything out of that game unless we sign an emergency goalkeeper. There is definitely a few question marks over Ralph throwing McCarthy under the bus, namely that Lyanco was taking goal kicks in the first half so they obviously knew McCarthy had a problem at half-time. One assumes that they would’ve told McCarthy to signal if it got worse. McCarthy for his part, should have just gone down and got the train to run to make sure everyone knew what was going on.  I have a feeling that if Fraser had been on the bench, then a substitution would’ve been made.

An additional legacy problem from this game is that both Romeu and Salisu will be suspended for Arsenal, which one assumes would mean a chance for Jack Stephens and Ibrahima Diallo.

I did like the strike partnership of Che Adams and Armando Broja despite their missed chances. Broja‘s goal was absolute class. The reason he scored that is because he had a bit of composure and didn’t just blast it when he had a sight of goal which is exactly what Adam Armstrong would’ve done and the effort would’ve been blocked.

In the Team to Stay I Reckon

On the wings, both Redmond and Tella put in decent performances with Redmond proving better on the right-hand side again but in defence, it’s clear that Tino is knackered and probably needs to be rested for a couple of games. It makes no sense to leave him in at the moment when we have both KWP and Perraud fit and available. Lyanco played well but is a little bit rash in some of the challenges he goes in for and it sometimes seems to be flailing into challenges, but he deserves another chance which he will undoubtedly get now with Salisu being suspended and Bednarek being injured.

And the stats keep coming. 71 points dropped from winning positions in Ralph’s three years which apparently is loads more than anyone else in that time. We seem to be dropping them for different reasons these days. Last season it was because we didn’t have the players to bring on and everyone was knackered. This season it seems to be because despite having a better squad and more energy, we don’t have a clue how to see games out once we get in front.  Still, the points dropped stats is only relevant if you pair it with the amount of games you’ve gone ahead in.  If you’re never ahead then you’re points dropped from winning positions will be zero.

Up to 16 points in the league. For a while this season we weren’t dropping too many points against teams that we should’ve beaten but the recent games against Norwich and Brighton should’ve been six points and we have only managed one. Arsenal away up next is a difficult but not impossible assignment and there is more pressure on now than normally would be to go and get something at the Emirates.

Post Script – as I write we have signed Willy Caballero on loan for the rest of the season – time for some Big Willy and Free Willy jokes.  Yes I am that childish.  He was a free agent after leaving Chelsea at the end of last season and has been training with AFC Wimbledon to keep fit.  So we now not only look after Chelsea’s youngsters but the Chelsea Pensioners as well.  Considering we found ourselves right in the shit, this is a good solution.