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 2nd 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.
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.
“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 90th 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 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.
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