Premier League Match 26 - Southampton 2 Norwich City 0

 

Unleash The Thunderbastard

Lettuce begin (in-joke)

Norwich at St Mary‘s on a Friday night. Fucking ridiculous day of the week for a game, again illustrating the total contempt that match going fans are held in by the Premier League and the television companies, in this case, Sky.  Norwich to Southampton is not an easy journey by car or by train so to move it to a Friday night 8 o’clock kick-off is an absolute disgrace, especially for those travelling from East Anglia.

It’s not as if Norwich fans haven’t had enough to moan about this season. It’s been another one where after getting promoted at a canter, they will have been hoping that this year it was going to be different, that this year they were not going to be in the bottom three all season but here we are at the end of February with Norwich in danger of getting cut adrift in last place.  This season started with Daniel Farke, who was kept in place until they won their first game away at Brentford and then they got rid of him and appointed Dean Smith, who three days earlier had been sacked by Aston Villa.  Of course, Saints at Carrow Road was Dean Smith’s first game and we gave him the best new manager bounce possible by basically throwing them three points when Alex McCarthy had a day to forget.

Talking of goalkeepers, Smith has had Angus Gunn in goal for the last month or so and he will no doubt be remembering the last time he played at St Mary‘s on Friday night, when we conceded nine in that infamous game that is now Leicester's best selling DVD.  That was his last Premier League outing for the Saints and he never played for us again once that FA Cup run of that year was over, courtesy of The Minge diving over him to win the penalty to knock us out against Tottenham. There’s been a lot of talk about goalkeepers at Saints at the moment with all four of the most senior goalkeepers on our books out of contract at the end of the season. The intention when we signed him, was clearly for Gunn to be our first choice when we reached the summer but it never worked out and there must have been a good reason why Saints were prepared to write off approximately half of the £12 million investment we made in the goalkeeper, first to loan him out to Stoke and finally selling him on to Norwich.

This is the sort of game today that we really should win relatively comfortably because at the end of the day, Norwich aren’t very good but sods law and experience as a Saints fan tells you this the sort of game we will usually make a complete bollocks of, like we did at Carrow Road.  However, if we can’t get a few goals against a team that has Ben Gibson and Grant Hanley as centre backs in front of the goalkeeper then questions will need to be asked.  Billy Gilmour is on loan for season from Chelsea but he has struggled to have any sort of impact, being singled out for criticism from their fans and I suspect that his undoubted talent has being stifled by the shambles around him. Teemu Pukki up front is another who would be a better player in a better team and he has already proved that he can do it in the Premier League despite the deficiencies of the club he plays for.

It’s been all plain sailing on the good ship Southampton since the Everton game so there are no reasons to not put in a good performance tonight. The one advantage of being on the Friday night is there if we win, we will go up into ninth place in the table.  The plain sailing is illustrated by the fact that we have an unchanged team from the Everton game with Romain Perraud returning to the bench after Covid.  There’s a slight mystery in that Nathan Redmond is not on the bench when the only players reported as having knocks are Lyanco, McCarthy and Tella.

Saints are quickly on the front foot with the full backs pushed well forward.  Norwich are actually the first team to show a decent threat with Pukki breaking down our left hand side and his cutback picks out Sargent on the edge of the box and his shot, which was straight at Fraser, was blocked back out to Gilmour, whose goal bound effort  was pushed away by Fraser.

The shocking Norwich defending which we are hoping for doesn’t take long to appear as Brandon Williams, a bullet dodged in the summer, puts Gibson in the shit allowing Broja to nick the ball off him and drive forwards but his mis-hit effort with his left foot was easily saved by Gunn, who simply fell on it.  We fail again to work the keeper particularly hard when after a nice move, KWP who again drills it straight at the goalkeeper who catches it in front of his face

And there’s more as KWP and Broja combine to create a crossing opportunity for Elyounoussi which everyone misses and JWP’s return cross eventually drops for Elyounoussi who copies what had gone before and drills it straight at Gunn who it hits and Norwich clear it.

For fucks sake we are missing some chances here again. Another corner comes in from JWP and it’s right on Che Adams head on the 6 yard line but it slides off his face down and wide for what is hopefully his one bad miss for the week.

All is right with the world a couple of minutes later as  Livramento barrels down the right, gets a bit of a fortunate break to get past Williams and then fires in low cross across the 6 yard line which Gunn, for some reason goes for with his feet. There is carnage as Adams plays an airshot and ends up on the deck but luckily for us, the ball drops with him and he is able to scoop it into the net from a position of lying on his arse. Goal of the month it is not but we will take it.

The Norwich response to going behind is non-existent and we go close again as Fraser’s big boot finds Adams, on to Stuart Armstrong who tees it up for Elyounoussi on the left hand side and he dribbles it across goal and wide of the far post. Half time and this should be dead – should be 3-0 and don and dusted.  I mean, I don’t think Norwich are going to score but until we get the second, like with the Everton game, it will be nervy at some point.

The Dean Smith half time masterclass produces nothing as the second-half begins in much the same way the first have ended with no noticeable improvement from Norwich. We are still passing the ball round and cutting through them fairly easily.  Livrament gets forward on the right hand side and his cross picks out Elyounoussi at the back post.  Moi can’t get a shot away but eventually finds Stuart Armstrong, whose shot is blocked away by a combination of Hanley and Gunn.

Another chance comes and goes as Broja gets down the right and side and gets to the line and he shows he has learnt from the Everton game by picking out Stuart Armstrong. The man with a magnificent hair can’t pick anyone out though but it eventually get scooped up into the air by a Norwich player and it’s met on the volley by KWP about 10 yards out and guess where he puts it, yes straight at the goalkeeper who doesn’t have to move. For fuck‘s sake

With time running out Dean Smith rolls the dice with a  couple of subs and it seems to injuect some life into them.  The ever-willing Pukki bundles passed a couple of players in the area, forcing Salisu to throw himself in the way - corner.  More threat as the resulting corner is chipped back in from the other side and Hanley heads is well wide. We can’t let a player like him score his second goal of the season against us.

We have some Scotland handbags as we win a free kick on the edge of the box as Adams anticipates the challenge from McClean and goes over but the big build-up for JWP’s free-kick, ends up within firing it over the top of the right hand side of the goal.  Ralph has sensed a slight nervousness about us and we go to 3-at-the-back with quick succession substitutes of  Long and Stephens for Broja and Adams

Norwich then do what they’ve done all game and when trying to build up, lose the ball enabling Armstrong to find Elyounoussi and he advances before smashing it and it looks like it’s nearly going through Gunn’s hands but it flops wide for a corner.  Over it comes from JWP, headed out as far as Romeu and […. Drumroll….] Enter the Thunderbastard and he crashes it into the net from the edge of the box at about 100 miles an hour. It’s not in the corner but the goalkeeper hasn’t got a prayer.

Game well and truly done. Stu off, Moussa on, Moussa controls it out of play, the end.

Overall, that was incredibly similar to the Everton home game last week. The same result and ultimately very comfortable but like against Everton , we needed the second goal from an unlikely source to seal the deal. One of the things that always irritates me about fans is when the ball goes to Oriol Romeu and he is anywhere between 25 and 40 yards out and the crowd shouts “shooooooot”.  No, don’t fucking shoot because someone will have to go and fetch the ball and someone in Row Z will get hit in the face and end up being treated by St John’s Ambulance. What a fucking goal that was.  You can’t strike a ball any better than that. We have turned into a team that misses simple chances but it seems now that with quite a lot of regularity, someone unleashes a thunderbastard and all is well with the world.

Che Can Score From Anywhere

The first goal or straight out of Sunday morning park football with a low cross, a goalkeeper trying to kick it instead of using his hands and an almighty scramble involving air shots and scooping the ball into the net from the prone position.  Che won’t care and nor do I. That goal followed a ridiculous opening to the game where we peppered the Norwich goal without any conviction, firing wide and high but mainly straight at the goalkeeper I don’t think he made one save where he actually had to dive.  Not his fault of course and if you keep the ball out then you’ve done your job.

Ralph was predictably delighted with a win, highlighting again that games like this against teams are expected to beat are often the most difficult ones to win.  There is a truth in that because they are fighting for relegation but of course, the reason they are fighting relegation is because they are not very good. Norwich didn’t even fight that hard to be honest. Too passive and hardly laid a glove on us.  They had a little go for about 10 minutes late in the second half but that was it.  Unfortunately, you can’t see them doing anything other than getting relegated.  Dean Smith was quite magnanimous in defeat – “The best team won” and decrying his sides inability to keep the ball or play through the aggressive press.

The cat is well and truly out of the bag now with the mainstream media, that Saints are playing well and have a well organised and very good football team.   They are noticing that it’s a ‘team’ rather than a bunch of individuals.  It is starting again, just like it did in 2014-2016. You will notice that there will not be a single mainstream media figure who will talk about our players or manager without it being in the context of them moving onto a bigger club. Gary Neville was all about JWP going to a big club today and we’ve already had the same over Ralph. It will also be coming regarding KWP, Tino and Salisu – two of whom were at big clubs before and never got a game. What irritates me is that they assume that it is the endgame of every player to play for a dysfunctional bag of shit like Manchester United or Tottenham. I guess it depends how loudly money talks.

This was an extremely functional win and it sets up next weeks FA Cup tie against West Ham nicely. After that we are back to the league with games against Villa Newcastle Watford and Burnley. There are points to be had if we go into every game with the same attitude that we’ve shown in the last four or five. Quarter-finals of the FA Cup would be nice as well.

Up the fucking Saints.