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.