Premier League Match 25 - Southampton 2 Everton 0

 

La La-La-La Shane Long

Everton arrive at St Mary‘s today, still in a spot of bother near the foot of the table. They are not in any serious danger of going down but the fact that they are even in the conversation is a crushing indictment of how badly they have got everything wrong since the money arrived about five years ago.  Oh how they crowed when Ronald Koeman joined them… since then they’ve gone through David Unsworth, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafa Benitez.

Ah Rafa, Liverpool legend.  It was always the case that once they hit a bad run, his job is going to be become virtually untenable and so it proved with him being sacked a month ago. In came Frank Lampard Media Darling for his second Premier League job and during the transfer window he addressed Everton‘s problems at centre back and full back and defensive midfield by signing Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek to play in front of those problem areas.  If you were being harsh, you could draw parallels with Frank’s playing career in that he only worried about his position didn’t give a bollocks about what was going on behind him.

Everton have shown signs of life in home games, with wins against Brentford (FA Cup) and Leeds.  In the one away game since Frank’s arrival, they got comfortably beaten 3-1 by a very poor Newcastle side.  Hopefully he won’t have worked out a strategy for playing away games yet.  They do of course have players who have hurt us in the past like Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison but I see none of the steel in defence or midfield that has characterized the Everton sies of the past.  Richarlison is of course a big fucking baby.  He was the start of the lockdown games, providing his very own blood-curdling death screams every time he got fouled, which weren’t drowned out by opposition fans.  They have got rid of Lucas Little Shit Digne, who Rafa decided to get shot of about a week before Rafa himself got fired.  They don’t appear to have a serviceable replacement so we may see one of right footed centre back Ben Godfrey or right footed Jonjoe Kenny at left back today.

Overall, from boardroom to manager to pitch, they have been an utter shambles for five years.

It’s been a bit of a strange week as a Saints fan. We love a moan when we beat Tottenham and draw with Manchester United and all the media coverage is about the two big clubs. However, we did get some decent coverage as people are now beginning to sit up and take notice of how well things are going but that can draw out the moaning as well because Martin Semmens went on 5 Live and talked about our model which like it or lump it, is giving players a platform, developing them and then allowing them to move on. I guess the key from a fans point of view, is to hope that the club becomes one that in time, players do not want to move on from. I guess there is hope when you look at the players who have moved on in the last year or so and none of them have done anything at their new, supposedly greener pastures. Danny Ings can’t get in the team at Aston Villa, Ryan Bertrand has been injured all season at Leicester and Jannik Vestergaard has become a bit of a joke figure at the same club. It’s almost looks as if playing well inside Ralph and Saints well drilled system is not a guarantee that you can do it for a club that is maybe not as well set up or where there is more pressure.

Back to her today and only one change in our team with Tino back in the side and KWP switched to left back because the very unfortunate Perraud has lost his place through having Covid. Would’ve been interesting to see who would’ve been in the team had everybody have been available. Everton‘s lineup was of course a bit unpredictable with Lampard being newly installed but they have gone with the same line-up that they had the beat Leeds 3-0 at Goodison last week.  That was at Goodison though, this isn’t and we are much better than Leeds at the moment.  On paper it really doesn’t look great with the likes of Holgate, Iwobi and Kenny in the side. Two players who have been a problem for us in recent years are present and available there in the form of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison.  I had managed to get fucking soaked on my way to the ground but by the time 3 o’clock rolls around the rain has given way to dry weather and a driving wind, a reminder of storm Eunice which battered the south coast yesterday.

Everton win the toss and change ends so we are attacking the Chapel End in the first half and it soon is becomes apparent why because Everton wanted the wind and they start the better of the two sides putting us under pressure from the start. Pressure is the key word and they are pressurising us on the ball and we can’t get out of our own half. On three minutes across comes over from Everton’s right, hits Romeu on the arm in a manner that leaves you in no doubt that it’s hit his arm and van de Beek tries a shot from the rebound which goes well wide. Andy Madley is not interested and given a penalty but of course Everton surround him and there is a VAR check.

“Hi Stockley Park, Richarlison is crying, can you check the penalty shout for me?”
“Woof, woof”
“Er.. hello Stockley Park – is there enough to overturn my decision?”
“Woof, woof, woof”
“There seems to be some interference on the line”
“No mate, there’s none but I’ve won a bet with Big Mikey Dean”
“What?”
“He said that I wouldn’t take the piss out of your brother being Hashtag Dog Nonce”
“Very funny guys… meanwhile, penalty for Frank Lampard’s Everton or not?”
“Who’s appealing?”
“Richarlison”
“No then – he’s a dick”
“That’s what I thought – play on”

Everton are having all the play and we’re not causing any problems to the slightly weak looking defence but the first time we get the ball forward at all, Elyounoussi knocks it, Holgate makes a mess of it and Adams puts Broja away, powering through on the left hand side but the angle’s against him and Pickford makes a decent save with this feet.

The near miss seems to change the game, as does Romeu executing a perfect man and ball tackle on Richarlison and Everton suddenly take a step back and Saints begin to find some space with Livramento bursting forward on the right hand side and winning a corner.  Over it comes from JWP and it’s a set piece move that skims across the box about 5 yards out and Tino darts in and meets it and then he gets a good touch on it can only put it straight at Pickford.

The Chelsea Academy strikes again as next as Tino plays lovely ball inside the full back to send Broja away on the right.  He sends Kenny for a hot dog on the byline before making an angle to have a shot with his left foot. Both Elyounoussi and Armstrong are not overly impressed that he didn’t knock the ball back but the bottom line is, he’s a centre forward so I can’t blame him for having a shot.  More carnage from the corner as JWP’s delivery is flicked away as far as Romeu who sends it back in to the unmarked Bednarek, who climbs well and heads it over off the top of the crossbar. He clearly knew that he was already offside.

It’s all us now as Armstrong jinks across the field as only he can, with magnificent hair and all that.  He finds KWP on the left who does what he always does and drives in field between Coleman and Holgate. He tries to knock it through to Elyounoussi but it comes back off of Coleman and KWP goes on as it opens up and drills it at the near post and it beats Pickford, flicks off the post and wide.  Shit.

Half time and 0-0.  No cause for alarm as we have dominated the last 25 minutes or so and the opening will come.  As the teams re-emerge, Fat Frank has taken off Allan who is their only defensively minded midfielder and put on Andre Gomes – Open Season in midfield then with him and van de Beek making up the least imposing midfield outside of Under 12s football.

However, like in the first half, Everton start relatively well and win a corner when Calvert-Lewin’s shot is blocked by Salisu. They work the corner short and van de Beek swings it back in but there are about 4 Everton players offside, including Calvert-Lewin who stoops to nod it into the net and so it proves.

Van de Beek, desperate to prove that he’s not a complete waste of space, has an opportunity to drive forward on the right hand side he doesn’t fancy it in turns back towards his own goal, pursued by Elyounoussi. Holgate knocks it to Keane, who knocks it into Gomes, who is shit.  Elyounoussi nicks the ball off him and Gomes grabs hold of him and holds him down but the referee lets Romeu carry the ball into the penalty area, knock it across to Adams who knocks it one more to Armstrong, who smashes it low into the bottom corner of the net giving Pickford not much chance at all.  Get in – what a player.

Please Stay Fit

Suddenly this game looks very different and there is no reaction from Everton with Saints dominating the ball, building up about 10 yards out for the Everton penalty area and looking for openings. JWP spots one and chips it over the flat defence to meet the run of Adams who instead of blasting it with his left foot, tries to steer in with his right and can only put it straight at Pickford from 5 yards. If Che could take a higher proportion of his chances then he would not be playing for us.  I hope both he and Armando are on ‘left foot only’ finishing practice every training session.

Adams is once again having a great game and is fouled once by Keane and once by Gomes, which is the one that gets given because he is just a walking infringement in human form. JWP of course produces a wonderful ball into the box which is met about 3 yards out by Elyounoussi, who with his eyes shut, manages to head it onto the bar and over. I have a certain amount of sympathy because he was probably distracted by Salisu’s boot being 8 foot off the ground right next to his face.

It’s all Saints now I’m just a case of whether we can find a second goal or not.   It feels like we don’t really need one in all truth.  KWP gives Coleman another reason to retire and burns past him from the left hand side and he goes on past the hopeless training cone that is Gomes and sees his right foot left foot flick off of Holgate and Pickford make yet another smart reaction save.  Andros Townsend and Dele Alli are on for Everton replacing the anonymous Gordon and Iwobi.  It makes no difference to the flow of the game though and KWP attempts exactly the same move next has this time he pisses past Townsend before firing at the near post again and seeing Pickford get down and save well. The England goalkeeper has his critics but he is more or less playing Saints on his own at the moment and is the only reason Everton are still remotely in the game.

With seven minutes left on the clock it’s time for our first change, with Ralph taking off Armando Broja and interestingly, it is Shane Long and not Adam Armstrong who gets the nod off the bench.

It’s getting to the last nervous five minutes now where every time Everton get in our half, you are expecting danger but there is no danger when the ball goes to Dele Alli who at the moment is sitting on 100% in terms of giving the ball straight back to us. This time he picks out JWP in midfield and we play a few triangles before Armstrong drives forward in the inside right channel. He calmly rolls the ball to Tino on the right and his first time cross is met by a majestic leaping salmon like player at the far post and headed across Pickford and into the far corner of the net.

From the other end of the ground where I am, there is a celebration which turns to incredulity as we realise that the scorer of the goal is Shane Long, the non-scoring striker who we have brought on basically to chase defenders around. Fucking brilliant.  La la-la-la… la la-la-la Shane Long…

The rest of the game is played out with the St Mary‘s faithful singing the Irishman‘s name. Everton have a few more minutes launching the ball up towards Calvert-Lewin from 50 yards away and that’s it, easy.

The one thing that you never expect to be able to say after a game against Everton was that it was relatively easy or comfortable…. but this really was. Apart from the normal morbid expectation that you always have about a potential late equaliser, when you actually analyse the game, Everton were never going to score. I can’t remember a single shot on target that they had and Fraser Forster didn’t have to make a save. They had a bit of pressure for the first 15 minutes and for 5 minutes after half time but that was it.  Once we scored, the game was up and Andy Madley could have ended it there.  He deserves an assist for that goal because he could easily have brought it back. Elyounoussi won the ball off of Gomes, who then held him down, which was a very obvious offence but Madley let the game flow and Romeu, Adams and Armstrong did the rest.

Allan went off at half-time and Everton‘s midfield went with him. Every loose ball was devoured by JWP or Romeu, which is what made the second half so comfortable after we had scored. Gomes and van de Beek are too lightweight and not defensively disciplined enough to play as deep lying midfielders and as for Dele Alli, well fucking hell, I’d be surprised if he had a single touch that went to an Everton player. So, our two midfielders dominated, helped along the way by Elyounoussi and Armstrong, tucking in to good effect. Though they didn’t score today, our strikers were a real handful for what was basically a very poor and very slow Everton defence. The work that Armando and Che did certainly combined to help Shane Long reap the rewards with his goal. In fact, Shane scoring was probably the only thing that was less likely than an Everton goal but as I’ve said before, Shane doesn’t have many more days in the Sun in him as a Saints player so it’s brilliant when the crowd are all singing his name after an important goal.

"You Dropped Me at the Start of the Season"

It was nice to see Salisu tested by playing against Calvert-Lewin. He found him a right handful as you expect but in the second half he seemed to accept that he wasn’t going to win every header against him but he could make Calvert-Lewin’s job impossible by being all over him like a rash.  Calvert_lewin doesn;t seem to have the intelligence to realise he was getting nowhere and maybe go and play against a full back for a bit... look at Shane Long's goal, he beat Coleman in the air rather than a centre back.  Salisu was helped of course by Bednarek who had his best game for a while.  KWP was excellent again, doesn't matter what side he plays on and Tino was solid though still seems to be feeling his way back a little bit a right back and didn’t seem prepared to take on the Everton full-back Kenny too often. Richarlison is always a player who has caused us nightmares in the past and has always been a threat but today, all it took was a couple a strong tackles and he absolutely disappeared. Again, kudos to the referee who wasn’t about to give Richarlison anything for his diving about.

Our midfield was absolutely top class, both on the creativity side through Armstrong and Elyounoussi and on the defensive solidity side, led by Romeu and JWP.  Playing van de Beek and Gomes against those two was like taking a water pistol to a gun fight.  I do think that people underestimate just how good Romeu and JWP are as a pair.  You expect idiot pundits not to get it but it's a surprise when opposition managers don't seem to get it.

I know Allan was walking a bit of a disciplinary tight rope but in the second half, he might not have got sent off and even if he had, would playing with 10 have been any worse than what they did in that second half with 11? My free advice for Frank Lampard, who I’m sure doesn’t need my advice, is that you can’t set up no defensive midfielders against a decent side when you have that defence.

Anyway, who cares about Everton’s problems.  The Southampton FC well-oiled machine rolls on to a home game against Norwich next Friday at 8pm, which is a fucking stupid day and time to have a football match. We owe them one after they beat us at Carrow Road earlier in the season, which was comfortably our worst result of the season, in a game we contrived to lose by throwing two goals in our own net.  It’s a game that we of course should win if we play well and we certainly will win if we put in a performance like we did today. Whisper it quietly but there are certainly some points to be had in our next 5 games, starting with this one.

Up the fucking Saints.