FA Cup 3rd Round - Crystal Palace 1 Southampton 2

 

The Magic and Miracle of the FA Cup

After our depressing couple of weeks in the league, maybe the FA Cup will be a respite. It doesn’t help that we’ve been drawn away at Selhurst Park for our annual cup meeting with Crystal Palace. Palace are of course another Premier League side, managed by a Premier League legend. Patrick Vieira’s legend was of course built up as one of the main men in the all conquering Arsenal team under Arsène Wenger.  He also won a World Cup with France of course, as well as playing for Manchester City, Juventus and AC Milan. He took that experience of the Premier League and the top leagues in Europe and began a managerial career which it has included a stint as manager of Nice in the French top division, before taking the Crystal Palace job. Whilst there have been a few bumps in the road, it has to be said that he has made Palace considerably better to the extent that this season, they are very unlikely to be anywhere near the bottom three. All that top level experience…. you see where I’m going with this.

I have not been able to shake off the misery that was inflicted on Wednesday night by Nathan Jones. His simplistic view of football boiled that game down to a mistake by Lyanco and a miss by Che Adams. He doesn’t seem to see the 94 minutes of spirit crushing shit football that we played. Since the game I’ve been thinking more about Sport Republic and their decision to hire Jones. Apparently they weren’t even there on Wednesday night so no one even witnessed the misery that Jones has inflicted on us. If Ankersenn is a football man, like he allegedly is then I fail to see how you could watch that game and be even remotely happy with any of it. The fact that no one was even there is a bit like taking a massive shit in the corner of a room and then leaving it. Turn up and watch what you’ve created, you fuckers.

"I Am Looking Forward to Squinting Into the Floodlights" 

On the other side of the coin, the transfer window saw our first signing in Mislav Orsic, a Croatian attacking midfielder/winger. Whilst he looks brilliant on his YouTube highlight reel (hello Agustin Delgado) the facts are these. The highest level of football has ever played is the Croatian league where there are basically two teams, Hajduk Split and Dinamo Zagreb who we signed him from. At age 30, there is obviously a question mark but he went to the World Cup with Croatia, scored a brilliant goal to win the 3^rd place playoff, depatched a penalty in the shoot-out win against Brazil and also had another assist in a group game.  He only doesn’t start for the national team because he plays the same position as Ivan Perisic.  He obviously has something about him. The mystery is that Nathan Jones is a manager whose past record shows that he doesn’t really want to play with wingers.  I find myself in a strange position of hoping that players are being signed for whoever is next in the hot seat. I imagine that if Jones had his way, the first player through the door would be a 7 foot four centre forward like Shaquille O’Neal or Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Saints fanbase seems to be pretty united in thinking that Jones has to go already and whilst this is on one hand quite ridiculous after so few games, it is very indicative of just how shit things are looking.  I of course want us to win today but there will be a definite consolation if we get knocked out and put in another shit performance.  Maybe we could have a goal from open play today or maybe even a shot on target. I’m fully expecting Jakim Andersen and Mark Guehi to be heading the ball a lot.

It's another day when I look at the 11 players on the team sheet and have no idea – could be 3 at the back, could be 4.  Palace have gone strong and as far as I can see, it’s just Eze who I would expect to be playing who is on the bench.  Our mate Wilf is playing and as the game starts, it’s apparent that he is directly up against Lyanco, who is right back in a flat 4.  It’s 4-2-3-1 by the look of it, Caleta-Car and Salisu in the middle, JWP and AMN in midfield with Arma, Aribo and Edozie behind Adams.

Zaha clearly fancies his chances against Lyanco and runs at him straight away, cutting onto his right foot before seeing his shot flick off of Caleta-Car and over.  It’s the only excitement of the opening 15 minutes as it’s a shit game with neither team particularly interested in keeping the ball down.

There’s a bit of pinball on the left-hand side as both teams take it in turns to welly it up in the air and one Salisu clearance drops into midfield to the scrote Will Hughes.  He knocks it forward to Zaha who flicks around the corner and Edouard, who gets a lucky bounce to bundle past Caleta-Car and as he reaches the edge of the box he shoots… straight through Bazunu and into the net.  Oh the shock. 1-0 down.

We respond by still being shit and it should be 2-0 to them straight away as Zaha’s flick sends Olise away down the left-hand side and he crosses low along a 6 yard line to wear Jordan Ayew comes flying in and luckily for us, proves how shit it is by hitting the bar from 6 yards. Honestly, we are fucking rubbish.

The attacking play that we legendarily put together against Nottingham Forest comes to the fore again as we attempt a straight hoof up the pitch towards Che, miles over his head and  straight through to Guaita in the Palace goal.  This is a cue for the travelling 3000 to start a chorus of “Nathan Jones, your football is shit“. It’s seriously impressive to be that bad that you get a whole away end who are in the main intent on having a good day out, chanting that.

Nathan Argues with 3000 People Who Think His Football is Shit

Saints win a free kick on the left hand side and as usual, it’s Edozie Taking players on before getting cynically tripped by Ayew. It’s not a great angle for JWP but who can blame him for having a shot and it’s going in but Guaita punches it away. We have actually had a shot on target klaxon.

On the half hour there is the rare occurrence of Joe Aribo actually running with the ball down the left-hand side before he cynically raked by Skate bastard Joel Ward. Absolutely disgusting tackle which he only gets a yellow card for.  I’m not just saying this because he’s Skate bastard but that is the sort of challenge that should be a red card, nowhere near the ball and dangerous.

From about 40 yards out and out wide, JWP curls in the freekick and it’s in a good area and all the Saints players run towards it and Joel Ward, the aforementioned Skate bastard, decides to duck and it bounces once and Guaita has not covered the flight of the free-kick at all and so it nettles in the net. What a fucking weird goal but we will take it.  Thanks very much Joel.

We get to half-time without too many alarms as Palace try and hit back. I think we could all done with AMN’s flick header not being so near to Baz’s right hand post but the good news was, despite being absolute shit for the majority of the first half we get in at 1-1.

The second half starts and something weird happened in that we are now trying to play football.  Palace have a corner which is headed out by Caleta-Car and Perraud send Edozie scampering away at the right hand side he gets to the edge of the penalty area before tries to pick out Adam Armstrong but puts it behind him.  Regardless, it was promising and showed a bit of intent. However, we do have to worry about Palace breaking on us and the ball eventually finds its way out to Zaha on the left hand side.  His shot is blocked by Lyanco before Olise drills it straight at Baz.

On the hour mark we make a substitution with Mara coming on for Adams in what seemed entirely pre-planned.  There is some more decent play on the left-hand side between Aribo and Edozie and AMN is was given the chance to clip a cross into the box which Adam Armstrong flicks his head at and Guaita is forced into a save away to his left. What the fuck is this? We’re actually playing some decent stuff.

Palace have the ball out on the right and Joakim Andersen plays it back to Guaita who is 10 yards outside his penalty area. He takes what can only be described as an abysmally shit touch and gets the ball stuck under his feet allowing Adam Armstrong to get close and then the keeper smacks it off Armstrong and it lands perfectly for the striker to walk into the penalty area and roll it into the net. Fucking hell, we are winning and that’s two completely ridiculous goals that Palace have thrown us.

We Laugh in the Face of Your Long Ball Shit

Palace, who have been really poor since half time put in a bit of effort with Zaha busting past Lyanco on the left hand side but under the slightest of contact from our floundering Serbian Brazilian nightmare, Zaha hits the deck but to be fair he doesn’t really appeal and that’s never going to get given.

KWP has come on so we’ve now gone to the four of the back to try and deal with Zaha down the left wing. Palace have brought on Eze and the two of the combine and Zaha shot again deflects off of Lyanco and loops wide.

Another break out of defence sees JWP find AMN in midfield and a lovely chip over the top sends Mara away and even though we strongly suspect he’s offside, which he is, and he will probably miss, which he does, it again is another confusing episode where we are actually playing football rather than just smashing it up into the floodlights.  It’s almost as if the players know we are better when we pass it.

And with that, the referees had enough and we are through to the fourth round. I never saw that coming.

Bloody hell we won a game but what a strange game.  For the first 20 to 25 minutes we were embarrassingly bad again and Palace took the lead and should’ve scored a second but managed to hit the bar from 6 yards. After we had the gift of the freekick which Joel Ward gets the assist for by leaving it and letting it bounce into the net. In the second half we were relatively decent for most of it without showing any quality and were given another gift by the goalkeeper playing silly bastards and getting tackled by Adam Armstrong. It was a really good bit of pressing and luckily today, it was the one time out of 100 where it pays off.

So we had those two massive bits of luck and other than that I think I remember one shot on target from Armstrong’s flicked header.  We tried to play more football than we did against Forest but that is not exactly difficult, so it just leaves me confused as to why the fuck we played prehistoric football on Wednesday and at least tried to play today. I do wonder if some home truths have been said in the direction of the manager during the week.  Maybe by the players or maybe by the owners.

Not Today Wilf

Jones said in his interview after the game that it had been a tough week and today I think the bottom line is that he has got out of jail with a get out of jail free card being thrown to him by the opposition.  We once again proved that we are much better with a back four and there was an unexpected success right back where Lyanco did a pretty good job against Zaha.  Sure, he got turned inside out a couple of times but that’s gonna happen to everybody and it happened to KWP when he came on for the last 10 minutes.  Lyanco stays in the team because we are a team of soft buggers. He is one of the few with a bit of grunt in his game but of course he is calamity prone so it’s swings and roundabouts. Gavin Bazunu had a relatively quiet game but the goal we conceded didn’t look fantastic and seemed to go right through him.

Duje Caleta-Car had a decent game today and he too has a bit of nasty in him. He is uncomplicated as a defender but that is the sort of performance that I think will keep him in the team with ABK out injured.

In midfield, JWP again did the business when needed. He got caught on the ball a couple of times because there was absolutely no one to pass to and but again he showed his value as a player and captain. Che had another ridiculously tough afternoon upfront competing for scraps with two massive centre backs but it’s Adam Armstrong‘s day with his first goal in fucking ages.

I did notice a touch of humility about Jones in one of his interviews, saying that he too was like Adam Armstrong, decent in the Championship but trying to prove himself in the Premier League. Today’s win and winning goal doesn’t really change my opinion on either of those quests. The players worked incredibly hard today so that’s one thing. They aren’t phoning it in to get rid of the manager.  Jones decided to argue with the assertion that his football is shit, saying that we have to be an up-tempo team so we are going to give the ball away on occasions.  Fuck me!  Deluded.  Why was the ball up in the floodlights for all of Wednesday and 25 minutes of today?

It almost seems like an incidental detail with all the stuff going on around the manager but the 4^th Round draw was made and we got League 1 Blackpool at home, which of course, is another golden chance to progress.

Next up is Manchester City in the Carabao Cup and of course we would be favourites to lose that game whoever was the manager. Ralph always used to do pretty well in these games against City and it’ll be interesting to see if Nathan Jones has got anything that might cause Pep Guardiola any anxieties. It is a bit like taking a pea shooter to a gunfight.