After the shambles that was Chelsea at home last
week, comes another big London club to St Mary‘s in the form of Arsenal. Until
a couple of weeks ago Arsenal were looking the most likely team to win the 4th Place
Trophy which is the be all and end all for the Super League clubs that are not
Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea.
Why is the Super League relevant – because we can never have one of
these big clubs missing out on the biggest European competition now can we?
Like I said, Arsenal we’re looking like a decent bet but the wheels seem to
have come off with an away defeat at Palace and a home defeat by Brighton last
week not going down too well with the locals, who are the most bipolar fan base
you could possibly get, swinging from “Arteta out” to “Arteta is the second
coming of Pep” and back to “Arteta out” within about three weeks. We have been
on a shit run for longer however so Arsenal will certainly see this as a must
win game to give themselves a chance of overhauling the team that now looks
more likely to get the 4th Place Trophy. The amusing thing is that that team is
Tottenham.
The current Arsenal have a pretty good starting 11 but there is a definite drop
off when you go to the squad players and they will be doing that today. A back four of Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel and
Tierney has been pretty solid this season with Ramsdale in goal. However, both
fullbacks are injured so that means places for Cedric the Twat and last week on
the left was Granit Xhaka, so that weakened their centre of midfield, which was
further weakened by the absence of Thomas Partey. The four most exciting
players they have, compete for three places in the team and they are Odegaard,
Saka, Smith-Rowe and Martinelli. Having binned off Aubameyang earlier on in the
season for the crime of basically being Aubameyang, Arteta has been left with
one striker this year and that is Lacazette who hasn’t scored for months but he
does always score against us. Rumour has it though that he is injured so I
expect to see Eddie Nketiah, who at the moment is looking like one of those
youngsters at a big club that everyone raves about and overhypes on the back of
their first couple of appearances and then really doesn’t amount to much and
ends up not pulling up trees for a team in the bottom half.
There has been some honesty coming out of St Mary‘s this week with lots of
focus on the fact that we just haven’t been at the races. The spotlight has certainly
fallen on a few players who are out of form, mainly Mohammed Salisu and Armando
Broja and I think there will be a bit of a shake up this afternoon. The barely
concealed a message from Ralph was that both of these players have lost their
focus having let rave reviews go to their head In the run of games that we had
against the big clubs just before it all went to shit with the defeats to
Newcastle and Watford. Personally, I would also add Oriol Romeu to the list of
players who have markedly dropped their levels in the last few weeks.
Team news and it looks like 3 at the back but Salisu is not there so we’re
looking at Bednarek, Lyanco and Valery.
Romain Perraud is also back and Broja appears to be up front on his own
with Che on the bench. Arsenal have the
clown Cedric in the side and they’ve replaced Lacazette with Nketiah as widely
forecasted. I’m in the Chapel Arms as I
learn the team and at that precise moment there is much cheering as Brighton
scored in the last minute at Spurs – Arsenal fans. They’re probably “Arteta is God” at the
moment but let’s hope they’re not at the final whistle.
Three at the back immediately looks like a flat
back five as we get pinned back by Arsenal, who build from our left to our right
and Martinelli comes in off the right wing, onto his left foot and hammers a shot
which Fraser gets a strong hand to and keeps out.
We begin to settle into the game and start knocking the ball about to keep
possession. It’s with Valery and he
plays a horribly underhit pass to the Lyanco in the middle and Nketiah knocks
it past our Brazilian-Serbian nutter and is away. He finds Martinelli on the
right who puts a in low cross to Saka at the back post. I have the words “oh fuck off” in my throat
as Saka hits it right footed from about 6 yards and Fraser Forster takes off to
pull off an unbelievable save. Saka
should score - all he has to do is keep it low but he’s given Fraser a chance and
that is a ridiculous save. “England’s No
1” go the Northam End and why not?
Bednarek has taken over from Salisu as the “slightly longer than average” throw-in
merchant but it does produce our first decent chance as it is half cleared as
far as Stuart Armstrong who hits it on the turn but straight Ramsdale who
surprises everybody by just falling on the ball rather than jumping 15 foot in
the air to tip it unnecessarily over the bar.
As the half goes on, it’s all Arsenal possession but not much threat to our
goal, whilst we are not producing anything, struggling to put any passes
together. We don’t seem to trust our ability
to pass through them so Broj is receiving a diet of service which is ranging
from throat height to six foot over his head.
We do have a foray up the left hand side and Elyounoussi gets brought
down on the left wing by clumsy-assed challenge by Ben White enabling JWP to
line-up the free-kick. Over it comes and Broja’s goalbound flick deflects wide.
Over comes the corner, headed out and Perraud, in line with today’s brief being
“don’t fuck up at all” just hooks it back over his own head. Time stands still
for everybody except Elyounoussi, who keeps the ball in at the goal-line,
knocks it across into an area and Bednarek is still up in the box and he swings
his left foot at it and it flies, via Ramsdale’s glove, into the roof of the
net. 1-0. Unexpected goal klaxon.
Stung into action and just before half-time, Arsenal win a free kick on the left hand side just outside the penalty area. Cedric is over it, undoubtedly to produce one of his phenomenal crosses that they gave him a four year contract for. Up steps Arsenal’s free-kick specialist and with all the big guys up in the box he decides to smash it 15 foot up in the air and it flies over everybody and harmlessly out for a goal-kick and much ridicule. Phenomenal.
Half-time and this is strange. We haven’t played any football in possession but we are somehow winning. Arsenal haven’t really looked a threat since the ridiculous Forster save so all is good. I can’t imagine they won’t create anything in the second half and we need to limit that by keeping the ball better.
However, as the second half starts it’s pretty obvious that Saints are going to sit back and try and shithouse this game 1-0. There is no pressing high to try and win the ball up the pitch and as soon as we lose it, we are dropping back into shape which is basically 5-4-40 yards-Armando. Arsenal are creating openings without looking particularly threatening with Nketiah flicking wide from a phenomenal Cedric cross and then Saka cutting across the top of the box from the right and curling wide of the far post with his left foot.
On the hour, Arteta has decided that he doesn’t need Cedric and his particular brand of phenomenal any more and takes him off and brings on Emile Smith Rowe. I can see that Arteta is borrowing from the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer playbook and just lobbing on strikers in the hope that something happens. No tactics just lots of strikers. To prove the point, Nicolas Pepe comes on for the left back Tavarez. The same Nicolas Pepe who less we forget, cost £72 million quid. He immediately gets involved hooking a Xhaka cross wide. It’s another chance but one that never really look like ending up as a goal.
They do get close a few minutes later though as Saka gets across in which causes a bit of panic and the ball drops to Smith Rowe to hit goalwards and it’s virtually behind Forster when he takes off and pushes it wide of the post in once again, quite brilliant fashion.
It’s now Arsenal against Forster with the excellent Odegaard picking a pass through to Saka and he drills it at The Wall at the near post and you ain’t fucking scoring from there mate. In the carnage that follows the ball come back in and it’s cleared by Valery and eventually Odegaard picks up on the edge of the box and tries to catch Forster out of the near post but puts it wide.
Ralph makes two changes with Long on for Broja and Redmond on for Armstrong but there is still no support for the striker. Long is now hurtling around on his own up front and Redmond is playing a very disciplined right midfield role and as we are obviously quite happy with our plan of shithousing til the final whistle.
Six minutes to go and Granit Xhaka takes time out from berating everyone and lines one up on the edge of the box which is blocked by JWP, who then tries to set Saints going on the break but Xhaka blocks it, probably with his hand and it drops down and Xhaka goes for the far corner but Fraser takes off again and pushes it round the post. Was probably going wide but you can’t leave those.
As we go past 90 minutes we actually have a goal threat as Elyounoussi once again gets trashed by the clumsy Ben White on the left hand corner of the penalty area. JWP is always going to shoot, mainly because there is absolutely no one in the box and the rest of our team is in our own half but Ramsdale reads his effort at the near post and keeps it out. The next time Ramsdale has the ball, he is hunted down by Shane Long it’s the biggest cheer of the day for block of the clearance. The End.
What a win that is. Fraser Forster will get all the headlines but there was a lot more to it than that. In an ideal world, Ralph does not want the team to play the way we played today as he wants us to press high at the pitch and win the ball in the opposition half but today it completely went against those principles as we dropped off and defended with a defensive line not far from the edge of our own penalty area. The reward for going against what he normally believes in is that we got a clean sheet and three points.
Arteta couldn’t really handle it. His post-match interview was bullshit at it’s finest. “Anyone who saw the game would think Arsenal won the game”. Did the big 1-0 to Southampton on the scoreboard not give the game away Mikel? You don’t win many games with a zero next to your team at the final whistle. There was a lack of personality about Arsenal and little cutting edge. Nketiah was non-existent up front and Martinelli and Saka flitted in and out. Odegaard played with the urgency required and Pepe was lively when he came on, as he should be for a player who cost £72 million. What today proved to me was just how far Arsenal, Spurs and United are behind the other three. The joke is that United will probably still get 4th place this season and they’ve been shite all season.
Anyway, fuck Arsenal and the other Super Leaguers. We have to talk about Fraser Forster who was absolutely world-class today with a string of very good saves and two in particular that were ridiculous. The difference between the Fraser we have now and the one that lost all his confidence when Pellegrino was in charge is amazing. The change in goalkeeper coaching has obviously had a huge impact on his game and it does make you wonder what on earth Dave Watson and Kelvin Davis were doing back then. The main criticism of Fraser was that he never got off his line and whilst he didn’t really have to do that today because we were defending so deep, there’s been a massive improvement there. Today it was all about is sheer presence and agility. The save from Smith Rowe in the second half was all down to his foot movement and the save from Saka in the first half was all about agility and quick reaction.
The timeline of the goalkeeper situation at Saints seems to be bizarre. At the start of the season, both first choice goalkeepers were out of contract at the end of the season. Alex McCarthy was picked as first choice and there were soon stories that he had signed a new contract. The club didn’t announce it though and he then loses form and then gets publicly called unprofessional by the manager after the Brighton game. Fraser comes in and with a couple of exceptions, has been superb and talk starts of a new contract for him. Then there are McCarthy contract rumours again and certain information on websites that seems to prove that McCarthy has indeed been offered a new contract – still no announcement though. We really don’t want to have both of these goalkeepers on “first choice goalkeeper” salaries on our books next season but it appears that the one we have chosen to offer the contract to, is no longer the one that we want.
It’s not going to be a great day for fan reaction if Fraser Forster leaves at the end of the season and Alex McCarthy is our first-choice goalkeeper going forward. It’s also not going to be a great day for the accountants if McCarthy has a whopping new contract for three years and is a back-up, either to Fraser or to a new incoming goalkeeper. It’s also not going to be a good day for the accountants if we’ve offered McCarthy a contract and then we try and get out of it somehow. To be continued…
Defensively, it was a major change today of course to go with a back three and the three chosen in the main did a great job. Yan Valery again showed great promise in that position and aside from one mistake when he gifted the ball to Nketiah in the first half, had a very solid game, keeping Martinelli particularly quiet in the second-half. Jan Bednarek has been inconsistent at best this season but seem to revel in playing in a back three and also found time to get up the other end of the pitch and score the winner. It was interesting to hear him say afterwards that he has been trying to stay in the opposition penalty area for longer this season and that has so far seen him score 4 goals.
Then we have Lyanco, our latest cult hero. The guy is clearly an absolute fucking lunatic but his role is to defend and it’s clear that he absolutely loves defending. Though not the tallest, he has a tremendous spring to get off the ground and his infectious attitude is absolutely inspiring to those around him. Whether it’s fist pumping the crowd or congratulating every player around him for good bits of defending, he is the leader at the back that we have been lacking somewhat. He also has a bit of mongrel about him and is a bit of a shithouse and it’s great to see. It’s all about character. I don’t reckon there is any way that we would have lost 6-0 last week with him in the side.
I have a feeling that Ramadan played a part in Salisu not being selected today so be interesting to see if we stick with this back three going forward or whether Salisu comes back once the fast is over, probably at the expense of Valery.
At the end of the day the result is all that matters but we achieved it on the back of 26% possession which is clearly not sustainable. All we needed to do today was not capitulate like last week and put in some type of performance that showed that we cared. We did that and managed to win as a bonus. Basically, there was no desire to string passes together on the ground today and it was all about the shape without possession which meant that on numerous occasions, Broja was up front on his own had absolutely no support. The closest to him was supposed to be Elyounoussi and Armstrong but most of the time they were forming a midfield four with JWP and Romeu. We didn’t seem to trust ourselves to play through Arsenal but after the Chelsea game last week, who can blame us for being a bit more Dyche with our approach to the game.
Talking of Dyche, our next game is on Thursday night against Burnley, only Dyche won’t be there because he has ridiculously, been sacked by the new Burnley ownership who following their relegation this season, will oversee a plummet down the leagues and probable financial ruin. We have to back up the result today with performance that puts another nail in the coffin. Bring it on. Up the fucking Saints.
Nice review Glen. Does t really tell the story but 3 points from Arsenal & Chelsea; not too bad!
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