Premier League Match 3 - Leicester City 1 Southampton 2

 

Air Che

A trip to Leicester and a chance to cash in on the momentum created by the last 20 minutes and the comeback against Leeds. We last played here not long ago, in fact the last away game of last season when we got smashed 4–1 in a game which neatly ended Jon Moss’ visible refereeing career, with him demonstrating that he doesn’t know the fucking rules regarding who to give the ball back to when the game is stopped. At least we won’t have Jon Moss to blame today, unless he’s on VAR duty of course.

Leicester have bigger expectations than they used to have, which comes with the territory of winning two major trophies in the last seven years and qualifying for Europe on three or four occasions. Consequently, a draw and a defeat from the first two games was not what the doctor ordered and the natives are already getting a little bit restless. The person copping most of the angst is of course the manager Mr Brendan Rodgers, famous for shopping at the Saints Megastore many times in the past.  He used Rickie Lambert as the loss leader so he could sign Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren when he was at Liverpool and after he lost his job there, he has more recently, hilariously, brought in Ryan Bertrand and Jannik Vestergaard, who have been injured and out-of-favour respectively for the whole of last season and the start of this.

The recent two seem to be contributing factors to the fact that Leicester haven’t signed a single player this summer and are in some sort of financial difficulty as far as FFP is concerned. The only transfer rumours involving Leicester have been outgoing ones and though Kasper Schmeichel was probably nearing the end of his career, his departure has left a bit of a hole with Danny Ward not stepping up to the plate of us far. There are also big issues with touted moves away for Wesley Fofana (Chelsea), James Maddison (Newcastle) and Youri Tielemans (Arsenal). Meanwhile, Leicester are being linked with Alex McCarthy and Jan Bednarek. These jokes write themselves.

Regardless of any difficulty, Leicester can still put a very good team out on the pitch and will cause us problems, especially James Maddison who always seems to completely run the game whenever we play against them. There is certainly a job for Romeo Lavia to do against him today. They of course also have the now 35-year-old shit house Jaime Vardy who, if the Match of the Day highlights of the game against Arsenal are anything to go by, still likes a dive when there’s no one near him.  As he gets older and slower, expect that even more.

There have been a couple of rumours about incoming players for Saints this week and a lot of chat about our formation. Many people seem to be frothing at the mouth and demanding we start the game with a 4-2-2-2 formation, to which I wonder who they are going to play at left back. Moussa isn’t even really a wing back, let alone a left back in a flat back four and Yan Valery isn’t getting on the pitch any time soon, even though it seems very obvious to put him on the right and KWP on the left.

Having said that, the team news is very interesting with what looks like a back four with Moussa at left back.  Bravery, in the extreme. That aside, the talking point is that Che Adams is not playing after being massively influential in last weeks’ comeback. I assume this is because he apparently has only trained once during the week but to my mind, last week demonstrated how important he is, so get him on the pitch from the start.  Maybe though, this is part of the five subs theory and it getting more like rugby union where we have starters and finishers as opposed to a first 11 and a bench. Sekou Mara is starting, as are Adam Armstrong and Joe Aribo, for their contributions last week but by that logic, Elyounoussi should be nowhere near the starting line-up…. but there he is.

An interesting pointer on the bench is that Theo Walcott is back from the dead and on there but there is no place for Nathan Redmond.  I assume this is because Ralph knows that no one is going to come in and take Theo off our hands but someone might take Redmond before the end of the transfer window.

Leicester’s player-power issues see wantaway players Youri Tielemans only on the bench and Wesley Fofana nowhere. How these fuckers have the nerve to collect their wages is beyond me.  Whilst player power is fucking dreadful, it can be forgiven in one way when it happens to Brendan Rodgers, so it’s amusing when Brendan’s players go ‘Full Lallana’.

Away we go and the first significant action is Vardy running into the left channel and when ABK becomes favourite in the footrace, the shithouse kicks his foot into ABK and hits the deck appealing for a penalty.  Not the first appeal that’s gone against the Vardy family in the past month.

Our first real attack is created by Elyounoussi who wins the ball off of the donkey Amartey and clips a ball over the defence for Mara to run onto.  He looks offside but as you have to do, he takes it on and slots a great finish past Ward and into the corner, only to see the flag instantly raised.  Look at what you could have won.  To be fair, it’s not even close.

Barnes tries to take on KWP and a tangle of legs means a Leicester free kick from wide on the left.  I’m not sure what Maddison intended with his delivery but whatever it was, Bazunu punched it clear easily enough.  We stay solid until a shit sideways pass from Lavia, presents the ball to Barnes who drives forward and shanks it well wide.  Poor effort considering it’s on his strong left side.  The rest of the first half is somewhat of a nonentity.

The second half starts and Salisu brings down Perez on the right-hand side in slightly clumsy fashion to give Leicester a free-kick in shooting range.  Up steps Maddison and bends it round the wall and it beats Baz’ dive and skims in at the near post.  Fuck.  Looks like Baz got the wall wrong as you shouldn’t get beaten from there like that.  Never mind, we only really start playing when we go behind, don’t we lads.

On the hour mark the first sub with Che Adams on for Mara and immediately there’s a change as Che bring down a long ball whilst holding off Evans and gets us playing from higher up the pitch.  The gets fed to KWP and his deep cross is met beyond the back stick by Aribo and his side-footed cross hits Castagne’s arm, away from his body.  Nothing given and we eventually win a corner. Off to VAR we go.

Hi, it’s Mikey Salisbury at the King Power here.

Did you call yourself “Mikey”?

Sure did…

You can’t do that – there’s only one “Mikey” and it’s Big Mikey Dean.  He's sat on his throne in front of the big telly, using Jon Moss as a footstool.

Fair enough - I'll never be Mikey... What can I be then?

You can be plain old Michael – no one goes “Full Mikey” unless it’s the big man.

OK – Southampton have made a very polite enquiry for handball.. and they said please!

What no swearing or spitting?

No

Fuck ‘em then… you know what Big Mikey says?

What’s that?

Soft Southern Bastards

Oh ok....

Michael my friend, I’ve had a look and it hits his hand, which is away from his body

That’s a penalty then?

No Michael – Soft Southern Bastards remember?

What is the handball law now anyway?

Fucked if I know Michael – play on!

In comes the JWP corner and ABK meets it and we all go up…. And then we all go down as again as it doesn’t go goalwards and gets cleared.  Saints have upped the pressure now and are looking threatening and it’s long throw time from the left and Sali winds one up.  In it comes towards ABK and he deftly lays it back and Adams has peeled off into space and confidently knocks it past the keeper.  TRAINING GROUND SET PIECE MOVE KLAXON!!!  Come on, we can fucking win this.

With that aim in mind we make an Armstrong substitution with Stuart replacing Adam and the new Armstrong is soon involved as we break with Adams giving his the opportunity to send Aribo running through and round the keeper and hitting the deck.  He’s almost apologising as he gets up but that’s a dive and a deserved booking.  My only question is how Vardy got away with that one earlier.

Saints are by miles the better side now with JWP winning the ball off of Ndidi and Tielemans in midfield and getting us going.  Elyounoussi spreads it to KWP and we revisit the Tottenham Hotspur stadium from last year as KWP rolls it back, JWP crosses it first time and there is Che to get parallel to the ground about four feet up and acrobatically scissor-volley it into the net.

There is still six minutes left of the 90 and then the board goes up with a big number fucking 6 on it.  The Saints Brains Trust have another sub ready and it’s Lyanco, so I assume we’re going to a back three but no, Lyanco is in midfield and piling into everything and everyone and smashing the ball miles.  This is hilarious but penny for the thoughts of Romeu and Diallo.

There are no alarms, even when Dewsbury-Hall appeals for a penalty after a perfectly timed ABK challenge.  Get up you wanker. There are 95 minutes on the clock when Dewsbury-Hall brainlessly barges into KWP in our right back slot and gives us a free kick which we are going to take fucking ages over.  That’s it, the game is won. 40 seconds are going to have elapsed before we take it and we are just gonna smash it absolutely miles.  This we do and create another chance as Stuart Armstrong doesn’t give it up and hooks the ball back and Che swivels and gets away another shot which hits the post and bounces away.  That would have been perfect but never mind.  Full time.

What a fucking win that is.

Recognize this Ayoze?

I am raising a middle-finger on each hand - one for Brendan and one for Jamie Vardy.  If I had a third middle-finger, I'd raise it for the Daily Mail and their “players not playing for the manager” narrative. Another comeback and this time for the win. Everything about this win was absolutely perfect.  Not only was it against a good side and a good manager (despite what the more entitled Leicester fans think right now), it’s also a win in this opening run of five games that we really didn’t expect, which takes a bit of pressure off the forthcoming home games against Man United and Chelsea.

There were lots of similarities with the Leeds game last week in that we were okay without being fantastic, certainly from an attacking point of view, until Leicester scored and then we made some substitutions.  Today, it was Che Adams who came off the bench, scored two great goals and generally put in a superb centre forward performance, unsettling the defenders and causing no end of problems... and he pulled out the 'Ayoze Perez' celebration when he scored the winner. If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind over whether we should keep Che or not, then it was surely banished today.  Che will get the headlines but there were many other worthwhile recipients as well.

Shit, He's a Unit, Better Dive...

Armel Bella-Kotchap was brilliant.  Not only did he set up the first goal but he did his job with the minimum of fuss and imposed himself on the Leicester strikers from the start.  There was no standing off and letting the strikers dictate like we did at Spurs.  A couple of the opposition of course, Vardy and Dewsbury-Hall resorted to diving and complaining about perfectly fair tackles from the big man. The right foot - left foot partnership with Salisu looks like it’s here to stay. They will undoubtedly have rash moment due to inexperience, but our defence looked so much better today, restricting Leicester to basically zero chances from open play.

If someone has suggested to you a week ago that Moussa Djenepo could play left back in the back four, then you would’ve been ringing up the men in white coats to take that person away but Moussa was brilliant today. Defensively solid, which is a first and he posed a threat going forward.  I also love the way he's developed the confidence to cross it with his left foot.  Neither the defending or the left foot are natural to him but he’s working to improve and really concentrating and he deserves all the plaudits he’s getting.

Elsewhere, the partnership of JWP and Romeo Lavia in midfield is showing real promise. Sekou Mara did okay upfront for an hour and the only real issues were in the other attacking positions where Adam Armstrong and Elyounoussi in particular struggled to affect the game much. Joe Aribo again showed some marvellous touches but managing to get booked for diving, in a game where Jamie Vardy is playing, takes some doing.  No argument with Joe‘s booking however, just a bit of an issue with how Vardy can kick a defender and hit the deck claiming a penalty.

Referee Michael Salisbury was okay in truth.  I thought we should have had a penalty but who knows what the handball is these days and on another penalty shout, he totally fell for Dewsbury-Hall pretending to be injured after he had barged over ABK in the Leicester penalty area.

It’s another feather in the cap for Ralph and another one for the new Brains Trust coaching team around him on the side of the pitch. To see Ruben Selles and Richard Kitzbichler involved in the discussions before the ultimately successful substitutions gives you as a Saints fan, a warm feeling inside that already after three games, we are seeing the benefit of replacing the coaching staff.  It won’t always work like that but so far so good. When even mad shit like Moussa at left back and Lyanco in midfield is working, then you just have to roll with it as long as you can. There seemed to be a lot of different formations at play out there today as well with 4-2-2-2, 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 all getting a run out at various points.  Of course, there was the long throw routine straight off the training ground as well.

Karma Bites Brendan on the Arse

It seems somewhat childish to end what was a brilliant day for Southampton, with a dig at Leicester but as it’s Brendan Rodgers I think it’s justified.  There are few people in the game who I find as annoying as Brendan and whilst you should never revel in the misfortune of others, with Brendan it is entirely justified.

Remember this from 2014.

“I have absolutely no sympathy for Southampton.  They have a choice as a club, they don’t have to sell, they had that choice.  Maybe Southampton’s objectives have changed.  They were on course to be a Champions League Club I believe but obviously that has changed.  It’s the nature of it.  The players will want to compete at the highest level they possibly can”

Remember this as all your best players get picked off, you smug twat.