FA Cup 4th Round - Southampton 2 Blackpool 1

 

Big Willy Style

FA Cup 4^th Round and a visit of Blackpool who for the afternoon are swapping their seaside town for ours. I wonder if any of their fans will go and check out Weston Shore whilst they’re here?

Most of the talk on social media around Saints this week has not been about this game but has instead been about the transfer window and they seemingly never-ending quest for a player who can actually put the ball in the net with some regularity. Having brought Janny B back from his loan spell at Villa, we recruited another defender this week in the shape of James Bree from Nathan Jones former club, Luton Town.  Bree is primarily a right back who can also operate on the right of a three-man defence, so it seems that this hybrid system that we are failing to master at the moment, is here to stay.  Bree was out of contract at the end of the season, so the signing for £750 grand is pretty low risk.  It does raise a question about the other right backs in our squad. We don’t really need cover for the rest of this season because we have KWP and we also have Ainsley Maitland-Niles, even with Tino Livramento still being injured. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is to cover the fact that KWP will probably be off in the summer, regardless of what division we will be playing in next season.

Like ourselves, Blackpool are struggling in their respective division, which is of course the Championship.  Up until a couple of weeks ago they were managed by ex-Skate manager Michael Appleton but he was sacked and they have appointed managerial stalwart Mick McCarthy who despite having been around forever, remains very likable for the neutral. It’s actually McCarthy‘s first game in charge of Blackpool because last weeks’ league game was off so he will be looking to make an impression today.

With the Newcastle semi-final on the horizon next Tuesday, it will be interesting to see how close to the first team line-up Nathan Jones goes. I cannot imagine that he will not take the opportunity to play the likes of Joe Aribo and others who haven’t played much recently. Maybe there will be an opportunity for one of the B team youngsters like Jimmy Jay Morgan or Dominic Ballard that you could also make arguments for the likes of Sekou Mara and Mislav Orsic to start.

Talking of Jimmy Jay Morgan, he made some headlines during the week by turning down the offer of his first full professional contract. On the one hand, he said that he wanted to play first team football which is understandable but on the other hand, it was said that Arsenal was his preferred choice of club where he will 100% be further down the pecking order that he is here. I can think of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe who have come through the Arsenal Academy to 1st team level and every other youngster like Martinelli or Saliba have been brought in. However, if I was a young striker scoring every week for the B team and I was watching Saints strikers totally failing to hit the net, I’d be pretty frustrated as well. Wait it out kid, you will certainly get a chance.

In the event, Jones spring a surprise leaving out JWP.  There are starts for Perraud, Mara, Orsic and Romeo Lavia.  ABK has returned from injury and the only player on show that is probably guaranteed to start against Newcastle is Lyanco.  Captain for the day is Big Willy.

Away we go in Blackpool are sitting off and inviting Saints to have possession and we’re nt used to that so initially we don’t look like we know what to do.  Eventually we work an opening for Orsic about 25 yards out they clips it with his right foot just wide of the left-hand post. Decent start.

There’s a bit of an incident after 10 minutes when the ball gets rolled to the Blackpool goalkeeper to clear and Mara goes to close him down but for some reason he launches a double footed dropkick in an attempt to block the clearance. The keeper clears the ball and then makes out that Mara has made contact with him. Embarrassingly, Premier League referee Craig Pawson decides to book Mara I assume for leaving the pitch without permission.  Fucking goalkeeper was a disgrace however and thankfully makes a full recovery.

Lavia picks up the ball in midfield and pings it over the full back to where Edozie chests it down and Hamilton barges into the back of him to give us a free kick. With no JWP starting, Orsic and Perraud stand over the ball and with the angle naturally favouring the left footer, it’s no surprise that Orsic dummies taking it and Perraud absolutely lashes it, straight through the wall straight into the bottom corner of the net. Get in.

"I'm Going to Belt the Shit Out of It Mislav"

Having taken the lead, Saints of course can’t do things the easy way and Lavia gets dispossessed on the edge of the Blackpool penalty and Blackpool spring a break on us.  Poveda breaks up the left hand side and knocks the ball into Yates, who just has AMN in front of him and his side footed effort is acrobatically turned away in Big Willy Style.

With the corner survived, the half plays out in similar fashion as before. Lavia and Aribo are bossing the midfield and Saints are looking pretty competent and comfortable.  Most of Saints attacking play is coming through Edozie and he takes on and beats two players as he makes his way to the penalty area before laying the ball back to the edge of the box dead central where Elyounoussi smashes it but it hits a defender.

Half time and no changes in personnel but as we’re winning and playing reasonably, there of course is a tactical change because with the greatest of respect, why not?  Aribo seems to have pushed further forward so now it’s just Lavia as the sole defensive midfielder.  We then switch off big style as Blackpool play a long ball down the line and we are all over the place and for some reason, waiting for a free kick with ABK is on the deck. The ball looks like it’s running out for a throw and everybody fucking stops but there is no flag and Yates puts Poveda clean through and with just Big Willy to beat he tries to chip and no one chips Big Willy.  The ball goes back to Poveda who has the whole goal to aim at and a Big Willy coming straight at him, deliberately and accurately passes it into the Northam End.

Our first real attack of the half starts with Perraud out of the left.  He darts infield, plays a 1-2 with Mara and smashes it past the keeper to make it 2-0.  Nice goal to be fair but I can’t imagine Mick McCarthy will be terribly happy with the defending and lack of pressure on the ball.

With it now 2-0, it’s safe to bring on Theo Walcott who replaces Orsic. Immediately Aribo proves he’s still out there by driving forward from midfield and after a 1-2 with Edozie, his shot is blocked for a corner.  It’s looking comfortable for us out there and then of course, it isn’t as we give the ball away in midfield, Bowler goes past Lavia and a simple ball square by Yates finds Patino who scores with ease which is what tends to happen when you leave a player completely unmarked on the penalty spot.  Now this is a lot more difficult than it should’ve been.

Saints and into panic mode with the odd break forward out of the shambles and from one of these Walcott runs at the defence with all the conviction of a 34-year-old with cheese for hamstrings and his eventual shot hits a defender and a flicks up in the air and comes down on top of the goal. Surprisingly, he hasn’t injured himself.

We have totally lost control of the game in midfield with Elyounoussi and Aribo now not helping helping out Lavia at all so to correct this, Jones makes three like for like subs which don’t, with the greatest of respect, actually correct anything at all on the face of it.  Diallo is on for Lavia and there’s two charges upfront with Edozie and Mara being replaced by Adam Armstrong and Che Adams.

Diallo immediately gives away free kick 35 yards out because we are so good at defending them and for some reason there is a load of handbags.  In comes the free kick, ABK heads out for a corner and up comes the goalkeeper. Over it comes and another corner… and another one which is headed goalwards and caught and claimed by Big Willy who lays on the ground and like any 41 year old, he’s gonna take a while to get up.  Final whistle.

With the Greatest of Respect Nathan, The Half Time Change was Mental

Jesus that was hard work. I’m not necessarily talking about Saints finding Blackpool hard work but it was a tough game to watch.  The first half was quite slow paced with Saints pretty much in control throughout and leading through Perraud’s free-kick but not really creating any other chances.  The second half we made more difficult for ourselves when we lost control of the midfield but having gone 2-0 up, we really should’ve coasted through the rest of the game. Instead of that, we contrived to give away a shit goal and then resorted basically to booting it anywhere and let a very limited Blackpool side have a decent shout of getting a replay.

It was a difficult game for Nathan Jones because his focus was very much on Tuesdays game at Newcastle, but the bottom line is that we got through. tThe tactical change in midfield  at half-time didn’t help us and we were worse in the second half as a result. Also feel that the substitutions weren’t really geared to regaining control when Blackpool got the goal back. We were still too light in midfield as two of the substitutions were just like for like subs up front. 

With the greatest of respect, Jones also did his usual and made a twat at himself in the press conference afterwards, saying that the fans wanted us to push forward against Newcastle even when we only had 10 men and we’d probably be out of the tie.  For some reason he felt it necessary to come up with this straw man argument to prove a point that didn’t need proving.  So, you know more about football than the average fan Nathan? Well, with the greatest of respect, it would be slightly fucking worrying if you didn’t.

Today was a game for fringe players to either show why they should be in the team or to prove that the manager is right to not have them in the team. Romain Perraud certainly came into the first category, scoring both goals and making a mockery of the recent decisions by Nathan Jones to leave him out in favour of a hybrid left winger/left wing back which has never really worked. Maybe if we play a proper left back and a proper right back, we might stop so many crosses coming in from the wings. It was also promising performance in midfield by Romeo Lavia who played for a good 85 minutes before coming off. The manager needs confidence that Romeo can get through 90 minutes and I suspect Romeo needs that himself. Lyanco had a decent game at centre back next to the unsurprisingly rusty ABK and we of course had a bit of Big Willy in goal and it was nice for him to be captain for the day and finish on the winning side.

Joe Aribo had a strange match. I thought he was very good in the first half dropping deep to pick up the ball and constantly wanting to be involved but in the second half he seemed to get moved further forward and struggled to get on the ball and he kind of just existed with the game going on around him. Elyounoussi, who was stationed next to him for most of the game was his usual mix of tidy play to keep the ball and moving it sideways or backwards but was the same as he always is when it came to trying to pass the ball forwards. His passes simply never connect and just get intercepted because they are usually so telegraphed and under hit.

With the signing of James Bree, I kind of feel that Ainsley Maitland-Niles should really be packed off back to Arsenal if we can do so. The guy played like he was on something again and really doesn’t look interested.  He does good things at times nut most of the time, it looks like it's all just too much effort for him.  It’s one of the Premier League‘s great mysteries why AMN is still on the books of Arsenal.

Up front saw a slightly disappointing performance by Mislav Orsic who really struggled to get into the game and was wayward with his passing throughout.  Patience is needed thought because he’s having to get used to a different style of football at the age of 30.  Many have failed before and we just have to hope he can adapt though I had hoped to see better today though, against Championship opposition.  Sekou Mara had obviously been told that he should’ve put a tackle in on Emi Martínez when we played Villa the other week and this saw his ridiculous two footed lunge in front of the goalkeeper that got him a yellow card. Other than that, he did his usual and buzzed around but barely got a touch of the ball, always seeming to get there just a little bit too late.  His main contribution was of course though, the short pass back to Perraud for the second goal.

Blackpool and Mick McCarthy have more important fish to fry this season for their fans were excellent and his team worked very hard in his first game so I hope they stay up.  I imagine that Mick will be having a word about bravery in the wall and trying to chip the keeper when clean through.

Through to the 5th round we go, where having played Crystal Palace and Blackpool, we hope to be drawn against another one of the teams that we beat on the route to winning the cup in 1976, so that leaves either Aston Villa or West Brom or Bradford City…. All of whom are out, so I guess that just leaves Manchester United and to be honest, we don’t wanna play those wankers just yet. (UPDATE: We have the winners of Luton and Grimsby at home in what of course, with the greatest of respect to Grimsby, might be the Nathan Jones Welsh Mining Village Derby)

Next up of course is the Carabao Cup Semi-Final second leg against Newcastle. I repeat the words of Kevin Keegan once more “I would love it if we could beat them, love it”.

Carabao Cup Semi Final 1st Leg - Southampton 0 Newcastle 1

But I Didn't Mean to Punch It In The Net

Newcastle at home in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final. I should be excited, so why aren’t I particularly. Maybe it’s because of the all-consuming Premier League and the fact we are bottom of it or maybe it’s the fact that this is a two-legged affair and we are playing against one of the form teams in the country right now.  Maybe it’s because we were so bad in our last game and deep down, I don’t think we have a chance in this as my belief in our players and our manager is at a pretty low point right now.  Due to the change of circumstances at Newcastle, we’re going to this tie as massive underdogs.

Straight after the shitshow against Villa, we got some transfer news with the arrival of a new striker to give us hoping the battle against relegation… no we didn't... we recalled Jan Bednarek from his loan at Aston Villa, where he has played a grand total of about 50 minutes this season. Jan of course spoke before engaging brain when he left, referring to his desire to go and play for a bigger club. Whilst it’s not untrue regarding the size of the two clubs involved, it’s not the sort of thing you say when you are leaving on loan but he said it, it’s done and now he’s back., hopefully with a little bit more humility about himself having totally failed to get into the Villa team on a regular basis. It is not often that a rat returns to a sinking ship.

With the transfer window still in full swing, Nathan Jones gets invited by journalists to comment and at some level, somehow, every time he opens his mouth, he puts both his feet in and make statements which I always find vaguely worrying. This week he has been talking about Janny B and Natty T (okay, I made the last one up).

Bednarek’s recall from Aston Villa on the one hand adds to squad numbers at centre back but on the other hand it’s indicative about the obsession that Jones has with getting as many physically big players in the team as possible. Yes, we let in goals from set pieces but that’s nothing to do with players not being tall enough, it’s to do with players not being good enough and not doing their jobs properly and you have to question whether Bednarek is any better than the centre backs that we have. To be honest, he isn’t.

At the other end of the pitch, Nathan Tella is not being recalled with a slightly weird justification that we already have Adam Armstrong who was good in the Championship. I mean, Adam Armstrong was good in the Championship two years ago whereas Nathan Tella is good in the Championship right now and I know who I would expect to score more goals between now and the end of the season in the Premier League if they played the same number of minutes.

Jones seems to be very much like Ralph was this season and that he is obsessed with the defensive side of the game and doesn’t seem to have any idea about the other end of the pitch, which is going to be what relegates us if we don’t sort it out.  This is always the justification for Elyounoussi being picked… because he’s a good player when we haven’t got the ball. The fact that he is usually one of the three players in the most advanced positions and he has next to no attacking output doesn’t seem to be an issue for the boy from the Welsh mining village.

Back to today and there is a narrative around Newcastle at the moment that somehow it is their destiny to win a trophy this year. They are building an incredibly good team up there without going down the Galactico route of just throwing ridiculous money every player but getting in players like Bruno Guimaraes, Kieran Trippier and Sven Botman has made a colossal difference and players that were previously there like Joelinton, Sean Longstaff and Callum Wilson, have improved immeasurably as a result of having better players around them. It does have to be said though that Newcastle always struggled to attract the top players but the change in the money circumstance there has certainly encouraged players to overlook the fact that it’s pretty cold out up there and a long way from London or even Manchester.

Because Eddie Howe and Newcastle have undeniably done well this year and Eddie is a fresh faced English manager who sits very well with the media, no one seems to be talking about the whole Saudi Arabia bullshit around Newcastle’s ownership.  To quote Kevin Keegan, former Newcastle manager, I would love it if we beat them, not least because of all the Newcastle fans I’ve been seeing on social media who are already booking hotels and transport for the final.  Saints have to have a siege mentality about this tie. Everyone in the media will be wanting Newcastle to win, maybe because the Saudi regime has been known not to be too tolerant with journalists who don’t toe their particular line. It’s all set up in their favour with the second leg being at St James’s Park so we have to have the attitude of “the whole world is against us, we will fucking show them”.

The team news gives two full debuts, which means there is going to be some sort of element of surprise at least with Mislav Orsic and Charly Alcaraz both starting. Sekou Mara is preferred to Che Adams and Ibrahima Diallo to Romeo Lavia and there is a place on the wing for Moussa Djenepo for some reason.  Newcastle have gone for 100% strength with Callum Wilson picked instead of Alexander Isak. The Geordies that I speak to in the pub are very confident and why wouldn’t they be. I hope to be able to return to the pub and talk to them with an element of smugness after the game has finished but I’m not expecting to be able to.

KWP has lined up on the right with Salisu at left back if we are playing with a four.  The first real attack is from Newcastle with Almiron driving down the seemingly vacant left-hand side of the Saints defence and carrying it almost to the edge of the penalty area before laying it sideways to the unmarked Willock who smashes it at the moon.  Was Salisu supposed to be there ?  Was Orsic supposed to be playing wing-back?  It’s hard to tell but we need to sort it out.

Trippier plays a ball down our left-hand channel again behind Salisu, and Caleta-Car comes out at the centre of the defence to meet Almiron and absolutely fucking trashes him. It’s a clear yellow card and that’s all it is but that doesn’t stop rat faced weasel Sean Longstaff getting in the referees to face and demanding more. Fuck off.  We manage to negotiate the free kick with no danger.

Another Newcastle break, this time down our right hand side this time Willock cuts in and has shot, which Baz saves well down low but in the almighty scramble it pops up off of Salisu and Joelinton controls it and smashes it in the net. Shit.  Oh hang on, the referees disallowed it.  No idea what for.  Maybe a foul on Salisu? This is right in front of me and I have no idea what that’s been disallowed for but we will take it.  Is there VAR today? Longstaff is in the referees face again telling him how to do his job. He is a prick.

Saints are alive and eventually show that we are going to have some sort of threat in this game and we get our first real look at what one of the new boys can do as Trippier gives the ball away in Newcastle’s half and eventually Diallo finds Alcaraz 35 yards out and he takes aim and it’s this swerving dipping effort which Pope very nearly makes a mess off as it bounces off him and goes for corner.

Nothing to See Here

Just before half-time, KWP chips one down the wing and Djenepo goes for it but outcome is not great as Nick Pope throws himself at the ball and Moussa, heads the ball and absolutely smashes into Moussa at the same time.  Pope has clearly got the ball but I guess the question remains with today’s interpretations of the rules, can it be deemed as being dangerous?  Stuart Attwell clearly uses the fact that he'd headed it to bottle making a decision.  It’s not as if he’s put his knee up or anything like that so I guess you can justify it that way but if an outfield player dived into a header like that elsewhere on the pitch, what would happen?  Moussa doesn’t recover though and so he’s off to be replaced by Adam Armstrong to play against the club that let him go when he was a youngster.

No changes at half-time but Saints come out with a bit more energy with Adam Armstrong nicking the ball off the giant Dan Burn on the right but Newcastle win the ball back and break with Almiron driving up our right and his cross along the top of the area is met by Longstaff who shows that whilst he can moan at referees all fucking day, he’s not actually very good footballer and he lashes in miles over the bar.

It looks for all the world that we are about to go behind as Almiron makes way down our left before squaring the ball across the 6 yard line where it takes a very slight deflection off of Lyanco but Joelinton has an open goal from 5 yards and side foots it in truly shit fashion into the Northam End.  He failed that particular test like he failed his drink driving test.  More carnage down out left where Orsic is doing his best as a left-wing back but he’s completely not suited to it. Another Almiron run and cross ends with Botman hitting the side netting on the far side.

Somehow we are still at 0-0 but we have a little spell which starts when Adam Armstrong picks up the ball and runs diagonally across the pitch towards the left-hand side before lashing a shot over the bar.  Orsic and Mara are replaced with Edozie and Adams with Edozie getting the left wing back chalice.  A long punt forward by Newcastle as easily controlled by Salisu and he passes it forward to Alcaraz and he slides a perfect ball, dissecting the Newcastle midfield and defence, to put Adams clean through.  No defender is going to catch him so it’s just Adams against Pope and the most predictable thing in the world happens as Adams kind of scuffs his shot and Pope sticks out a foot and saves it far too easily.

The Net not Rippling Again

Saints have a bit of momentum and are forcing Newcastle into mistakes. KWP is brought down by Willock and JWP curls in the freekick in between the defence and goalkeeper and it drops and Adams spins and hits it but Pope sees it well enough to get down and push it wide. Again, Che hasn’t really hit it.

Howe brings on Saint-Maximin and Isak for Willock and Wilson which makes Newcastle stronger with Saints having been in the ascendency for the last 10 minutes.  Schar brings the ball out for Newcastle and his pass flicks off Edozie and finds Isak on the right wing.  For some reason Caleta-Car is over there and not Salisu and Isak turns him and leaves him for dead before firing across and this time, even Joelinton can’t miss.  Shit.

Saints try to hit back straight away with Adam Armstrong running into a Newcastle defender in the ball bouncing back out to JWP. His cross is flicked on by Adams and hooked back in by Edozie and Adam Armstrong bundles in with a Newcastle defender and somehow the ball ends up in the net. Fuck me we’ve scored.  Looks like an own goal. Hilarious…. Oh here we go again. Fucking VAR, which I must admit, I didn’t realise was even a thing in the Carabao Cup.

"If it isn't my mate Stuart Attwell"
"Hi there Andre, how's it going - what about this goal?"
"Well - what do we want to end up with here?"
"Erm... well we want Newcastle to win Andre, Saudi, Sky and all that"
"We do... and everything has been perfect so far"
"So, anything wrong with the goal - did he push him or anything?"
"No mate, listen to this, he's played an airshot and then it's gone in off his hand"
"So, no goal"
"Correct - and the bonus is we don't even have to be bent"
"Why not?"
"Because it's a definite handball and because Southampton are shit and they won't score anyway"

And disallowed, apparently for handball well bollocks!

Lavia is on for Diallo, who is clearly knackered but he has had a decent game. Romeo is not quite up to the pace of the game gives the ball away deep in Newcastle’s half, which allows Saint-Maximin to drive forward from the halfway line and it gets to the edge of the box before Caleta-Car has to do something and unfortunately, he carts him over. No doubt how this is gonna turn out and a second yellow comes out followed by red.  It all gets a bit heated with a couple of Newcastle players getting involved who have nothing to do with the incident.

Now we just have to get to the end of the game only 1-0 down because if we let in a second, we might as well not even bother travelling.  In something I didn’t see happening a few days ago, Jan Bednarek comes on to replace KWP as we attempt to shut it down and gets a sadly predictable round of boos from a section of halfwits who think it’s gonna do us some good by booing your own players.  Guimaraes plays a decent ball through to Isak and this has 2-0 written all over it as he goes round Baz but fortunately, the angle runs out and he hits the side netting.  That might be costly against someone else.

And so we take a 1-0 deficit to the game at St James’s Park in a weeks’ time.  It might be only one goal but that basically means we have to score at least twice to go through and that really doesn’t look very likely at the moment after our second successive home game where we’ve drawn a blank.  Yes we had another goal disallowed by VAR but once again it was a pretty toothless performance in an attacking sense, aside from one decent effort from Adams which was well saved by Pope and one horribly predictable miss by Adams when clean through against the goalkeeper.  If that goes in then we are 1-0 up and the whole complexion of the tie changes but when Alcaraz superbly put him through and I realised it was Che, I kind of knew it wasn’t gonna end up in the net and the bigger problem is that Che knew it as well.  Adam Armstrong of course had a chance and managed to get the ball in the net but it was correctly ruled out for handball.  The handball wouldn’t have happened if he’d taken the original chance instead of playing an airshot.  Again, with Adam and Che, all the industry doesn’t make up for the glaring lack of quality and effectiveness in front of goal.

Goals…. It’s difficult to win games without them.  Attack-wise we were still pretty dismal and part of that is down to the players at Jones’ disposal and part of it is down to Jones being obsessed about the defence and getting the balance wrong. If Mislav Orsic is going to provide some goals and assists in this team, which is surely what he was bought for, then he is considerably less likely to do it having to play wing-back in this hybrid formation that Jones seems to favour at the moment.  I wondered at the time why we were signing a winger when Jones in general doesn’t use them as such.  In addition, essentially playing without a left back meant that Newcastle had most of their attacks down that side and the winning goal (and all their missed chances) came from that side.  The winning goal came because Caleta-Car ended up over on the left, where you don’t want your big centre back, got skinned and that was that.  If we’d had a proper left back instead of Orsic or Edozie, maybe they’d have been there and Duje could have been in the middle.

It’s positive that after the red card we managed to keep it to one, so we do have the slightest chance in the second leg. A second goal would’ve meant it wasn’t even worth travelling.  Having watch the incident again, Caleta-Car may well have given us a chance in that second leg by bringing down Saint-Maximin when he did.

You could not accuse us of not getting stuck in today with all the bookings that we picked up but unfortunately Caleta-Car picked up two of them and you couldn’t argue about either of them. Scything down Almiron after 20 minutes wasn’t the best and dangling his leg out to bring down Saint-Maximin was only going to end one way. In the aftermath, when it was obvious that he was going to be sent off, Jacob Murphy emerged from miles away from behind the proper players to give Duje a push in the chest and not content with that, then waved him off. I hope I’m reading about this in the morning in the context of Duje having flattened the little shit in the tunnel after the game.  It’s notable that the two that have stood out as being dickheads in the Newcastle side are Murphy and Longstaff, who are two of the Newcastle players who aren’t that good and who will doubtless be replaced as soon as the Saudi’s open the wallet again.

"I have Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.  I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you."

Whilst we’re on the subject of arseholes, Nathan Jones interviews go from strength to strength. Do you remember when Jan Poortvliet was the manager and after our fifth successive 3-0 defeat, he said that “we know how to make a goal”. Jones is already at that kind of level of delusion, referring to us as he did as “a good side”. Good sides don’t lose two consecutive home games, scoring nil and barely working the opposition goalkeeper. We played well today in the middle third but unfortunately, games are one and lost in the two penalty areas and good teams have it all going on in all areas of the pitch, not just one.  

Did we play well? I would say we play better than most of the games under Jones but that’s a pretty low bar and if your attack totally fails to fire, I don’t think you can say that you really played well as a team.  There were some positives today. Ibrahima Diallo was everywhere in midfield in a defensive capacity, but his passing was still incredibly ropey. It was a superb full debut for Charly Alcaraz who was always looking to drive forward and always managed to find time to play the ball forward. He simply has to come into the league starting 11 and he adds a bit of devil that all Argentinian players seem to have.

Despite what Nathan Jones thinks, defensively we were a bit all over the place today. KWP barely got a tackle in on the right-hand side and the centre backs all took turns in looking chaotic and we were bailed out by some shocking Newcastle finishing. I do like the fact that we defend more aggressively now and are not pushovers but the other end of the pitch needs sorting out or else it will be all for nothing.

We go into the 2nd Leg needing to score twice which is against the Jones method of trying to win every game 1-0.  With Newcastle not having let in a goal for 10 games, we won't score by sitting back.  An early goal and they might get a little nervous about things.  We have a punchers chance but only i f we actually throw some punches.  The trip to Newcastle is in a weeks time but before that we play Blackpool in the FA Cup 4^th Round. 

Premier League Match 20 - Southampton 0 Aston Villa 1

 

Drone Footage of JWP and Martinez with a Spinless Twat, is Available on Ebay.

Villa at home and the only question today is would we build on our one week of good form or would we sink back into the complete doldrums of looking relegation square in the face? Even though we are bottom of the league, it does feel that the tide is maybe turning but as we all know, it’s very easy for it to become another false dawn. Obviously, we are not going to win every game from here on in, but we do need to preserve this run of decent performances for as long as possible.

Around the time that Saints sacked Ralph Hasenhüttl, Villa sacked Steven Gerrard who proved once again the old adage that a great player doth not necessarily a great manager make. See Frank Lampard for details. Whilst Saints took a punt on a lower league manager with no top-level experience, Villa did the opposite and appointed a virtual guarantee of improvement in Unai Emery with all his European Trophy wins on his CV. Oh look…. Villa have now got approximately double the number of points that we’ve got, having accrued 7 in the four games since the World Cup, compared to our 3.

One thing that’s always irritated me slightly about Villa is the fan base, still living off something that happened in 1982. We will hear a song about it today.  Fair enough though, if we’d won the European Cup I’d be singing about it too.  They are historically a huge club and I love Villa Park for the fact that it’s old and traditional and I hope they never move from it.

With a seemingly never-ending quest to sign a player who can add more goals to the team, we were heavily linked with Villa’s Danny Ings last week and let’s just say we’ve gone from hoping he won’t score against us to hoping that we sign him to acknowledging that he has followed the money yet again and gone to West Ham where you would imagine, once all their strikers are fit, he will find himself in exactly the same boat that he was in at Villa. The occasional start plus appearances from the bench. It’s almost like actually playing regular football is too much effort.

Danny Ings Negotiating West Ham Move 

Villa of course have arch-shithouse and World Cup winner Emiliano Martinez in goal and I absolutely 100% support his antics in the World Cup final. I’ve always liked Tyrone Mings, who has his fair share of haters but he has always played well against us. They also have that little Polish basketball player Matty Cash at right back though he is not in the team at the moment and at left back they usually have Lucas Digne who is a horrible little shit. They also have Calum Chambers of course, still grifting his way through his career as a substitute.

Nathan Jones team selection will be interesting. I suspect he will want to keep it as close to the Everton starting 11 as possible though he has made mention of Mohamed Elyounoussi carrying a knock so I’ll be interesting to see who starts there, hopefully there will be a place for either Mislav Orsic or Charly Alcaraz.  In the event, it’s Adam Armstrong who comes in which I guess means that Sam Edozie is going to spend at least part of the game playing wing-back, which will be interesting.

There is some weirdness straight away as we were in a corner on the right and side and it’s not JWP who takes it but Romeo Lavia and the element of surprise extends to Lyanco heading it down but it’s straight at Martinez.  King Shithouse boots it and then ball is eventually played down our right hand side and it runs through to the penalty area and Bazunu comes out in instalments and by the time he eventually decides to 100% go for it, he dives at Ramsey‘s feet and gets enough on the ball for it to never be a penalty despite the big appeal.

Our first attack of any real note sees Lyanco advance at the right hand side and put in a ball very similar to the one they put in for Mara to score against Manchester City, this time he finds Che Adams in front of Martinez and he takes his eye off it and somehow it hits him and bobbles past the keeper and KWP puts in the rebound but the flag is straight up and no complaints from anybody.  Emphatic finish from Che either way.

The first real bit of danger from Villa comes down or left as Bailey plays it square across the penalty area to Ramsey who shoots straight at Baz but the ball bounces clear to Bailey who shows horrendous technique to lash it high into the Chapel End.

With five minutes to go to half-time, Caleta-Car gets in a wrestling match with Watkins about 25 yards out and the referee gives a free kick. Before it can be taken though the ref spots that some utter fucking prick has flown a drone into the ground and it’s currently hovering up by the scoreboard at the Chapel End.  Having pulled both captains towards him, the referee then takes the players off for the most entertaining thing that’s happened in this first half of zero creativity.  The only sad thing is that the players come back on eventually and the game resumes and it’s still shit and we reach half-time goalless and more or less incident-less.

No changes at half-time with Saints surely trying to create more than the ‘next to fuck all’ they created in the first half.  Villa attack with a long ball down the left which Caleta-Car knocks back to Baz, but as Baz goes to clear it, the ball takes a bit of a bubble and he skids it along the ground and straight to a Villa player 35 yards out. One pass to Bailey and luckily, Bailey just dribbles the ball through to the grateful Baz. This game is utter shit.

On the hour mark it’s triple substitution time, which I’m hoping we’re going to use to take a bit of a calculated risk to win the game.  Apparently not though as it’s Che Adams replaced with Mara and Lavia with Elyounoussi, in what amounts to straight swaps.  Romain Perraud has come on for Sam Edozie so there goes our brightest attacking player which means that KWP is moved over to the right hand side.

KWP immediately starts to threaten, once moved to his favourite side and works his way into the box before finding JWP, whose ball across picks out Adam Armstrong on front of the penalty spot and he absolutely has to score but smashes kind of half hits it straight at the goalkeeper.  We pick it up again and get it out to the right hand side again and KWP skins two players before seeing his cross headed back to him.  He puts it back into the mixer and Elyounoussi brings it down and in a crowded penalty area, Adam Armstrong knocks it back to JWP who hits it and it takes a massive deflection before looping over Martinez and going into the net. Fucking get in there.  Celebrate good times, come on!  Meanwhile, Villa are all around the referee and eventually the graphic of doom comes up on the screen that VAR is getting involved.  Luckily, I’m still getting the transcripts.

“Hi there Micky Salisbury, it Hoops at Stockley Park”
“Hoops me old mate, what’s up, I didn’t see anything?”
“Ramsey has hit the deck mate, must have been something?”
“I’m glad you said that mate, cos I’ve just had 10 Villa players in my face and they were very insistent”
“Just having another look…Oh he’s barely touched him Micky and he’s chucked himself on the ground”
“Yeah ok Hoops but they looked very angry”
“Can’t give that mate, it aint clear and obvious error”
“Put it on screen and send me there mate”
“Why, he’s hardly touched him?”
“No one who matters will give a shit if I bin the goal”
“What do you mean?”
“Well Villa are angry and threatening and Saints are Soft Southern Bastards who will just accept it”
“… and?”
“All anyone will remember about today is the fucking drone”
“And you handled that like a fucking boss Mickey”
“Yep, got all the players off for their safety and averted a crisis over Premier League broadcast rights”
“Genius Mickey – will we get a special envelope for that?”
“Yes we will… you with me Hoops?”
“Fuck Yeah!”
“I am the new Big Mikey”
“Steady mate, there’s only one Big Mikey Dean, he’s passed out on the floor in front of the monitor next to me”

Stockley Park is Different Since Mike Dean Went There

And disallowed, apparently for a foul by Elyounoussi. On the first viewing, live and right in front of me, that looks absolutely fucking ridiculously soft.

Villa’s next attack sees Sekou Mara fucking ridiculously barge into the back of a player to give Villa a free kick 40 yards out just to the right of centre. Luiz swings it in and Ollie Watkins gets free to nod past Baz.  Fuck offfffff….. how fucking predictable, a goal from a free kick after a dodgy VAR decision against us. There is a cursory VAR check for offside but of course it isn’t and so 1-0 down with 10 minutes to go.

With five minutes to go we eventually put Adam Armstrong out of his misery and remove the third centre-back, with Caleta-Car going off and we bring on Mislav Orsic and Moussa Djenepo.  Elyounoussi puts Djenepo away down the left-hand side and he cuts in onto his right foot before hitting a shot which was going over anyway but Martinez pushes it wide to make sure.  And that’s your lot.

For now, I’m going to focus on the things that we as a club could affect. Today we played a Villa side who were really not that great, in fact they were pretty shit, with absolutely zero creativity in their team, exactly the same as us. We lost because we cannot defend set pieces and we know this and yet we still give away stupid fucking needless free-kicks and put ourselves under pressure and it’s fucking embarrassing. We also lost because we had absolutely zero creativity and zero attacking threat. We have too many players who have absolutely zero quality on the ball and today we had a manager with absolutely zero bravery. At 0-0 with an hour gone he made a triple substitution which was basically two like-for-likes with Elyounoussi coming on for Lavia and Sekou Mara coming on for Che Adams. I say like-for-like but in fact they are massive fucking downgrades. He also brought on Perraud for Edozie so basically, we went more defensive as he had been our only promising attacking outlets. The change gave us energy and did put KWP over on the correct wing and like last week at Everton, he immediately sets up the goal, which of course, ended up not being a goal, courtesy of the fucking cretin in the middle.  

Of the subs, Elyounoussi’s contribution was to commit the fateful very soft foul to chalk off our goal and Mara did the Anthony Gordon and brainlessly gave away a free-kick which led directly to the winning goal.  If Jones had wanted to go for the win then Orsic and Alcaraz would have come on with half an hour to go but in the end, Orsic got 5 minutes and Alcaraz got zero.  Adam Armstrong, who had been completely useless with the ball, stayed on the pitch until the 85th minute when Jones thought it was time to give the Croatian international Orsic, who we bought because he scores goals, a go.  At least he got 5 minutes because Alcaraz, who may have provided some creativity and thrust, didn’t even get off the bench. Before he started making the substitutions which didn’t work, Jones changed the shape at half-time so JWP moved back from his number 10 role into midfield, thus neutering our creativity even more. It was not a great day for the manager who now has five defeats out of six in the Premier League and I don’t give a shit if Nathan counts the Liverpool game or not.

Michael Salisbury… Having given the goal, it has to be a clear and obvious error to overturn it and if that’s a clear and obvious error then we may as well fucking give up and go home. Elyounoussi makes the slightest contact with his heel and Ramsey collapses like he has been fucking shot. The referee then gets surrounded by Villa players and shites his pants.  How a professional referee can go to a monitor, look at that and decide that it’s definitely clearly and obviously a foul is absolutely fucking beyond me, especially when you consider that the guidelines this season are that if at all possible you go with the on-field decision.  As soon as he went to the monitor, we all knew it was going to happen though didn’t we? And we all knew that we would end up losing 1-0. Jacob Ramsey’s Match of the Day interview was interesting in that he basically questioned whether it was enough contact to go down but then said that he thought it was enough, so he went down. What this means is that he basically decided to put himself on the deck which in my book means it’s not a foul. If an opposition player puts you on the deck then it’s a foul but if you put yourself there, then it’s one of those dive things. The VAR referee Simon Hooper should’ve had the strength to say no this isn’t a foul but he bottled it and gave it to the referee and the referee had been surrounded by angry Villa players and jogged over to the monitor with the smell of his own shite in his nostrils and a cloud of flies around him.

So, the manager was shit and the referee was shit.  Now for the rest of the players.

Baz had a difficult game in goal, no doubt hindered by the injury he seemed to be carrying which prevented him kicking the ball properly.   He hardly had anything to do in fairness but still managed to look very shaky.  Of the defenders, I thought Lyanco was our man of the match by a long way but then he lost his man for the winner.  Caleta-Car and Salisu were solid enough.  KWP was average on the left but was a different player when moved to the correct side.  Edozie made a decent fist of it when he ended up playing at wing-back but playing him there negates what he’s good at and lessens the minimal attacking threat we have anyway.

JWP struggle to get into the game further forward and our midfield basically died when Lavia went off. Diallo is one of those who works hard and he did a lot of good defensive work today but when he’s got the ball it’s an absolute fucking lottery as to what he’s gonna do with it.  He can’t hit long passes out to the full backs and too many of the 10-yard balls go astray as well. Basically, he isn’t good enough.  Today the same could almost be said for Che Adams who held the ball up well but again provided nothing where it actually mattered.  The one chance he had, he managed to fall over the ball and it was offside anyway.

Where's the creativity? Where are the goals going to come from in that line up?  Ok you have 3 centre backs so not them unless it's from a set-piece.  Out wide you have KWP on the wrong side which inhibits him and Edozie on the other but he's having to keep his eye on playing wing-back as opposed to being a winger so that inhibits him.  Two defensive midfielders in Diallo and Lavia, one who gets a nosebleed when he tries to attempt a forward pass and one who is not going to get into the opposition box.  Then you have JWP who got moved deeper at half time.  That leaves us with Che Adams and Adam Armstrong.  Then you have the subs - Elyounoussi, selected because he can defend spaces but offers very little in attack and Sekou Mara, who is substitute for a reason.

After the optimism brought by three wins in a row, this game comes and brings with it a major downer and a realisation once again that we are really up against it. The balloon has been punctured somewhat today with what is basically another pretty poor performance, again with no goals and not much prospect of any. We weren’t just aimlessly kicking the ball away like in the Nottingham Forest game but we were giving the ball away the hell of a lot, looking like we didn’t have much idea.  Ten-ish days left of the transfer window – get some more goals in this side or we are going down.  It’s that simple.

Back to the cups now with the Carabao Cup Semi-Final first leg against Newcastle, where if we turn up and play like we did today, we might as well not bother going for the second leg at all.

Premier League Match 19 - Everton 1 Southampton 2

First Win Here in the 21st Century Ya Fuckers !!!

Wins in the cups are all very nice but it’s now time to stop pissing around and get some results in the league. Nathan Jones has to prove that he can win games against teams from the bottom half of the Premier League, starting with Everton today.

Make no mistake, Everton are a piss poor football team and our only rivals when it comes to most out-of-form club in the Premier League. Their manager Frank Lampard is really hanging on by a thread, having done the usual and failing to get any sort of tune out of Everton.  They sailed pretty close to the relegations rocks last year and Lampard got some credit for getting them out of it, but this year it looks a different story.  Last year, they had Shithouse Richarlison up front who though not prolific, scored enough goals and gave them a presence which kept them out of trouble. They replaced him with Neil Maupay, who is about 25% of the player, though he is a shithouse of similar standard but that’s as far as it goes.  I guess that Everton and Lampard thought that Dominic Calvert-Lewin would get back to his best this season but he hasn’t been near it, troubled again by the injuries that seem to be ever-present.  Everton are going to struggle to buy the way out of it as well because of the FFP restrictions placed on them after many years of spending beyond their means to not get very far.

The recruitment of Conor Coady and James Tarkowski at the start of the season suggested that they would be stronger this season and indeed, they beat us at St Mary‘s in one of Ralph‘s more clueless games earlier on in the season. Under Ralph we played a few teams at a low ebb earlier on in the season and every time, we were passive at the start of the game and allowed them to play the way into the game and we ultimately lost. We absolutely cannot afford to do that today because if there’s one crowd guaranteed to turn against their team if things are not going well, then it’s Everton. So, Saints need to be at it from the first whistle like we were against Manchester City in the week.

The City game obviously gave everybody a massive lift at Saints and a further lift was provided the following day with Rasmus Ankersen and Martin Semmens being interviewed by Radio Solent, which if nothing else, at least told us a little bit about Sport Republic and the way they see things. It also confirmed what we all suspected, which was the Rasmus Ankersen is responsible for the recruitment at this moment in time.  It will be interesting to see the level of involvement of Mislav Orsic and maybe even Charly Alcaraz today. The only thing I really disagreed with with the answers from Rasmus, was the assertion that the Championship is the 6th biggest league in Europe, as justification of Nathan Joneses managerial experience.  The financial side of the league is completely irrelevant and there is no way that the Championship is a better standard of football than somewhere like the Dutch or the Portuguese league. I would say the Championship is on par with the top divisions in countries like Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. After all, we’ve just signed a player from the Croatian league and we’re more excited about him than we would be about a player from the Championship.

The City game of course saw some exceptional performances by players who don’t usually get in the starting line-up so will be interesting to see if the likes of Djenepo, Mara, Adam Armstrong and Diallo stay in the team this afternoon.  It’s stating the obvious but we cannot go back to our tactics of launching the ball like we did on our last league game because that will be playing into Everton’s hands.  Everton are a huge great physical team so we need to compete with them on that front and try and play when we can.

There were empty seats in the directors box today because Everton‘s board have been advised that there is a safety risk if they turn up.  The story is that one of the female board members was put in a headlock by a fan at the last game.  Nobody has a picture of it or a video of it but apparently it happened.  Hmmmm, sounds like bullshit.  Reports also emerge as the game kicks off that Everton fans have done their usual and put on a nice firework display outside the Saints team hotel last night. Fuck me lads, could anything be more tinpot if it tried? You really need to try and keep our players awake to give yourself a better chance? We are bottom of the fucking league and have lost 6 in a row. 

After a frenetic opening a few minutes, the first real incident of any note sees Onana pick out Mykolenko on the left hand side and his ball behind the defence is controlled by Demarai Gray, who runs out of angle before lifting over the bar.

Saints build up and down the left-hand side through Edozie, who plays it across the top of the penalty area to JWP who decides against shooting and instead shifts it on one more to the right to Elyounoussi who hammers it across and sees it deflect of the undercarriage of Mykolenko, bounce down, fly over Pickford, over Che Adams and narrowly wide of the post.  In comes the corner from JWP and Salisu meets it well 12 yards out but it’s straight at Pickford who short-arm jabs it away.

There is not a lot of quality with what’s going on but an decent amount of effort. Lyanco sets off on a diagonal run across the pitch from right back, at no point looking like he knows what he’s going to do with it but he’s right out on the left wing by the time he loses it.  A mad-bastard swipe to try and stop the attack misses when Everton tried to counter but immediately, Diallo wins the ball back and sets off, gets the ball back from Edozie and I’m sure he has images in his mind of curling the ball into the top corner of the net but instead his effort is closer to the top corner of the Gwladys Street end.

On the half hour, Demarai Gray takes on KWP out on our left but KWP sticks to his task well but concedes the corner.  Over comes the corner from Gray and Onana, all 7 foot 6 of him has a relatively simple task of head it into the net. Bollocks.  Who the fuck had him then?  Saints defenders are kind of looking at each other with Salisu and Elyounoussi looking the most sheepish.

It nearly gets worse as Salisu plays Diallo a hospital pass in midfield and he is clattered and loses it in the ball goes to Alex Iwobi, who attacks the Saints box before trying a curler from 20 yards which goes closer than Diallo’s effort but a couple of feet wide is the same as a couple of miles wide.

Caleta-Car’s clearance finds its way to Che Adams, who holds off his defender and flicks it round the corner to send Edozie scampering away down the left.   He gets his head up and finds JWP on the edge of the box and his first-time side footed effort is arrowing into the bottom corner but Pickford gets down and one of his little T-Rex arms is just long enough to push the ball onto the post. Great move, great save by the angry little bastard.

Half time and though we’re behind, I don’t feel that we’ve been too bad.  We need to compete more with their physicality.  Just because Onana is fucking huge, there is nothing to say we can’t smash into the bastard.  Everton seriously have nothing else so we just need to believe in ourselves.  One goal and this will turn.

Tactics Frank

As we come out for the second half it looks like Saints have had a little bit of a reshuffle without making any substitutions. KWP has gone to right back and all the centre backs have moved over one with Salisu now occupying the left back birth. We also seem to have pushed Romeo Lavia a bit further forward.  Whilst Everton are working out the changes that have been made the ball goes to KWP the right-hand side just inside the Everton half and he picks out Adams with a lovely ball and he knocks it inside deliberately to meet the run of JWP.  The main man skips past the sliding Godfrey before rolling it past the angry little bastard in goal into the corner of the net. Get in there you fucker. 1-1.

Booooooo go the Everton fans.  You can hear it straight away but the crowd are now giving it some to the Everton players. After a mistake by Salisu, Iwobi tees up Demarai Gray who tries one from 30 yards with a straight down Baz’ throat.  They do go close with the next opportunity is Diallo tried to play too much and gifts the ball to Godfrey.  He picks out Calvert-Lewin, who takes time off from thinking about his next modelling assignment and shit clobber wardrobe that makes him look like a twat, and shoots from the edge of the box and like Elyounoussi’s first half effort, it hits Salisu, bounces down, loops up over Baz, hits the bar and drops down, as everyone of us of a Saints persuasion collectively shites their pants.

The youngsters races are run as Sam Edozie and Romeo Lavia are both replaced with Adam Armstrong and fresh off the plane from Argentina, Charly Alcaraz.  Alcaraz’ first involvement is a decent pass square to pick out JWP about 35 yards out and he screams in another shot which is on target but Pickford gets down together well and hold in those little arms of his.

There is another minor heart attack moment as Onana swings in the cross from the left wing and Baz goes out for what should be a simple claim but somehow, he flaps at it and it hits Godfrey at the back post and goes wide.  Fucking hell Baz.

All game Everton have been hitting the deck and staying there pretending to be injured, in the hope of getting a free kick and Demarai Gray tries it again in a challenge with Che Adams for the referee having none of it and Saints break through Adams, who spreads play out wide to KWP on the right hand side and though his cross is headed out Adams picks it u again and Anthony Gordon bundles into the back of him.  Anthony Gordon was clearly last in the queue when they dished out brains.  This is 25 yards out on the left-hand side and you would say, the perfect position.  Everton line up the wall and as JWP draws back his right foot to shoot, Mykolenko decides to try and head towards the post and all that does is completely confuse Pickford and the ball flies over the wall, over Mykolenko and into the net whilst Pickford stands there looking round the other side of the wall.

It was at this precise moment... that Pickford realised he was Fucked.

Jones throws on three subs to try and shut the game down with Perraud, Maitland-Niles and Mara coming on.  Perraud’s first contribution is to get absolutely skinned by Anthony Gordon down the right-hand side and his cross is volleyed goalwards by Tarkowski but Alcaraz repays the first part of his transfer fee by blocking the ball with his head for a corner. The corner is headed out by Salisu and Gordon feels the presence of AMN about 5 yards away from him so throws himself to the ground like the absolute little prick that he is.  The end.

Fucking hell, we’ve only gone and won at Goodison Park for the first time since 1997. Finally, we played the opposition and not the ground or the atmosphere. Everton have been shit for years but we have always contrived to find a way to fuck the game up but today we got over the line and again, like on Wednesday against City, I never really felt that Everton were gonna get back into it once we went in front.

I thought we played pretty well for the first 20 minutes. We were passing the ball and standing up well to Everton‘s physicality which at the end of the day, is all that they’ve got. For the second part of the first-half we allowed them and Amadou Onana in particular to boss the game in a physical sense and even though we didn’t play particularly well for the 20 minutes leading up to half-time, we still came in at the break having created more openings and more chances than they had, we just let in a shit goal through people not doing their jobs properly at the corner.

The goal of the start of the second half totally turned the game in our favour.  The crowd started getting on Everton’s backs and we started to play football again. You could say that the first goal came from long ball football and in a sense it did, but not in the shit long-ball football sense, where the ball is just smashed aimlessly up the park. KWP picked out Adams with that long pass and he knocked it down to JWP who did the rest. Superb football.

I thought we were comfortable in the second half and very unlikely to not get at least a point but the absolutely brain-dead challenge by Anthony Gordon on Adams gave JWP the chance to add another free-kick to his total and pick that one out Jordan Pickford.  The fact that it was against a goalkeeper who will have trained against him in the past is even more sweet. Pickford might be an arsehole but he is a good goalkeeper and without him, Everton would be more fucked than they already are.

Again there were great scenes of togetherness at the final whistle between Nathan Jones and the players and I’ll repeat what I said at the end of the Manchester City game, it shows that the players are buying into whatever is he selling them and that can only be a good thing. If JWP is making sure that the manager gets his moment with the fans then that means the skipper in OK with the new manager which is good enough for me really, for now.

It’s another brilliant day for the man from the Welsh Mining Village and another game towards changing the perception which had been set in his first few matches. We tried to play football the right way. Okay, it wasn’t always effective, but the intent was there and there weren’t many hopeful punts forward.  I have to admit that I was surprised by some of the team selection. I expected Adams to play ahead of Mara because of the physicality of the opposition but I was slightly surprised that Edozie was included even though he has done well in recent games.  I couldn’t understand the Elyounoussi selection but then I realised that Jones always wants the option of going to 3 at the back and Elyounoussi got picked because he can play at right wing-back allegedly so we can switch to that formation without burning a substitution. Personally, I think his lack of pace means that he isn’t an option there.  Jones is happy to make a substitution to go to 3 at the back in the second half but in the first half he wants to players to be more flexible. The half-time switch that he made to move Salisu to left back and KWP to the right hand side, paid dividend straight away with KWP’s ball up to Adams being more accurate than it probably would’ve been off of his left foot.

The substitutions worked again with Lavia and Edozie being taken off at the right time and it was great to see Charly Alcaraz getting given a half an hour even though he spent most of his time slipping over.  I thought that virtually all the players put in decent performances. Baz had a couple of ropey moments ago but had no chance with the header that beat him. The back line again featured a massive performance by Caleta-Car and Lyanco had another really good game dealing with the aerial threat that Everton posed.  Lyanco and Salisu played full-back on their respective sides for part of the game and all was good.

A Male Model and a Big Bastard Beast of a Defender

Then of course we have JWP who is entering Matt le Tiss territory for being the person you know is gonna show up when the chips are really down. A superbly taken first goal followed by a standard freekick second goal. I say standard which is ridiculous because it’s only standard for him and 99% of players couldn’t do that. I’m not a religious man but there must be some explanation for JWP.  When Alan Ball took over as Saints manager, the first thing he did was to put le Tissier, our best player, in his best position and take away any defensive responsibility he had.  Nathan Jones has done roughly the same thing with our current best player and he's now free to do what he’s best at.

I also thought Che Adams had a good game upfront, battling away with three Everton centre backs for most of it. He knocked the ball off for JWP’s equaliser and he was the one barged in the back by Anthony Gordon to win the free-kick that we won the game from.

Everton are pretty one-dimensional and if you stand up to their physicality then they really haven’t got a lot else.  They scored from a corner but I never felt like they were going to score from open play as they don’t have the creativity.  When your best passer is the goalkeeper, you are struggling. They have Onana who is just a massively powerful big unit in midfield but other than him there were no threats. I guess that Anthony Gordon was brought on to provide that threat but all he did was give away the free-kick that meant that Everton lost the game instead of drawing it. Even without Gordon on the pitch, Everton are dreadful for pretending to be hurt after every challenge – Demarai Gray, Alex Iwobi, Dominic Calvert-Lewin – fucking get up.

It’s a sad situation going on there at a historic football club but it’s rotten to the core with shocking decisions having been made repeatedly for years. I like Frank Lampard and I’m sure he’s going to have a long successful career in the media after this managerial stint comes to an end, which may well be pretty soon.  Saying after the game that he didn’t think it was a tactical game in the 2^nd half was weird.  Saints changed tactics at half time and scored straight away.  Maybe you should pay attention after all, Frank?

What a difference a week makes down here. A slightly sketchy win against Palace followed by two excellent wins against Manchester City and Everton. No time to take the foot off the gas though because after all this with two of those games being in the cup, we are still bottom of the league but now it’s only on goal difference. The club is looking upwardly mobile now and we have to keep this going now to force our way above is the likes of Everton, Bournemouth, Leeds and Leicester and West Ham, who are all heading in the other direction.