Premier League Match 18 - Southampton 0 Nottingham Forest 1

 

"Thanks Everyone and I Hope You Enjoyed the Nathan Jones Masterclass"

It’s unusual to get a relegation six pointer in January but this feels like one of them. With the position that both teams find themselves in, 19th and 20th with just one point between them, this should be a game that both teams are looking at as a must win. Forest have an absolutely dismal away record having only scored one goal on their travels all season, whereas Saints are just dismal full stop.

It looked like Forest we’re going to get rid of Steve Cooper a month or so ago but instead of that, they gave him a new contract and backed him.  They backed him of course in the summer with the signing of 22 new players, some of whom were through necessity because they got promoted with a loan army and some because they seem to be playing a very expensive version of Football Manager. They paid some eye-watering sums for some players but the enormous gamble will be vindicated if they somehow manage to stay up. Apparently, Jesse Lingard is on twice as much money as the next highest paid player which seems absurd and he is not the sort of player who I would want in a relegation battle but there you go.

Forest have a decent goalkeeper in Dean Henderson, though he’s probably not as good as his ego tells him he is. The defence is largely the same defence that they had in the Championship and it’s not going to get significantly better adding players like Serge Aurier, who did however, chip in with a goal in their very decent draw with Chelsea last week but as we all know, he is a complete liability.  Up front, Brennan Johnson flatters to deceive and Morgan Gibbs-White generally fails to justify the £25 million outlay they made on him in the summer. Having got the decent result against Chelsea at the weekend however, I expect for us to see this as a game where they can get their away from home campaign up and running.  Basically, they are never going to have a more out of form team to play all season.

No one needs to win this game more than Nathan Jones. He admitted himself at the opportunity that he has at Premier League level can go sour very quickly. He 100% knows that he is under pressure already. At the moment, I see him as a man who has been promoted beyond his capabilities but that’s not his fault. The fault lies with the people that appointed him and their ridiculous rationale for doing so.  However, we are where we are for tonight's game, so we have to get on with it and personally, I of course hope that Jones gets it right today and the players actually show that they are worthy of being called Premier League footballers. If they do that, then we will win because at the end of the day, Forest are not very good and if anything, our need is greater than theirs.

Jones has hopefully been working out over the past three games, who is not worthy of a place in the starting 11. He’s also hopefully been working out that the flat back four is the way to go. We haven’t signed anybody new in the three days since the transfer window opened so we are where we are.  Following this game, we have Palace away in the FA Cup third round, followed by a daunting visit of the Manchester City in the Carabao Cup Quarter-Final. I’d say that it’s highly likely that our soul focus for the season after these three games will be to stay up, so we absolutely have to win today.

Just before the game started, I caught an interview with Jones where he was basically making excuses for himself, pointing at Saints record over calendar year 2022 and saying that he’s not a miracle worker. He sounded really unenthusiastic and defeated which is how Ralph sounded at the end of his four years.  Sounding like that after four games is really not ideal and I felt like I was defeated before I even got to the ground.  As I’ve said countless times before, the manager sets the tone for the playing staff and the performances reflect that. Reading between the lines, I think Jones knows that he doesn’t have what it takes to turn this around.

Team news and early signs are that Jones has learned nothing and it’s three at the back again.  Lyanco’s catastrophe up at Fulham hasn’t cost him his place so Caleta-Car, our Croatian international is still on the bench.  Perraud is back for Maitland-Niles and also back is Romeo Lavia which is of course a good thing.  Annoyingly, Sam Edozie has been left out to accommodate him so we will have no one who can beat a defender, which I would have thought would be useful today.  Joe Aribo has been bombed out after his stroll about against Fulham and in comes Sekou Mara to partner Che.  The club, failing to read the room, have informed us there will be a spectacular light show to raise our spirits before the game.  I use it as the perfect time to go for a piss.

Come on lads, these are shite. We actually look like we might prove it after five minutes as KWP chips the ball over the Forest rear guard and Adams is clean through from the right hand side but with the ball bouncing up to his favourite right foot and loads of time to set himself, he sharts it across and well wide of the far post. Not even close.  There is a collective ‘fucks sake’ around the ground.

One pass down the left-hand side takes out ABK and the ball gets fed across to Yates who miss-hits a shot straight to Johnson he looks miles offside but he isn’t and we get lucky as he leans back and smashes it off the bar and over.  One pass into that big gap behind the wing backs and we are all over the place.  We look an absolute fucking shambles defensively. ABK is still in Qatar and he does not look remotely comfortable on the right side of three. Lyanco looks all over the place as well with his usual mix of three parts passion and one part lunacy.

Despite having three big central defenders in the team we are still crap under a high ball, proven when Forest load of free kick into the penalty area and it pings around a bit before the Gibbs-White scuffs it wide. It’s time for my normal moan about time wasting as Forest then get a corner and Gibbs-White takes fully a minute and a half to take the fucking thing.

It Was Round About Now That Lyanco Realised ... He'd Fucked Up

I guess his time wasting means that there’s less time for Lyanco to add to his catastrophe reel but there’s still enough.  We are just knocking it around at the back, as we do before we launch it at a passing aeroplane, but Lyanco gets the ball back from JWP and loses concentration and plays Salisu a hospital pass allowing Brennan Johnson to sprint away and cross it and Awoniyi can’t miss.  I just sit back and roll my eyes back into my head.  I could yell a stream of obscenities but what's the point? He doesn’t mean to be shit, he can’t help it.  However, that’s a criminal goal to concede to a team who have just doubled their away goals for the season.

We win a free kick about 30 yards out to give us an opportunity to get straight back in it but JWP seems confused by a Forest defender running back to the goal line to mark the post where he was obviously going to aim it, and he floats it harmlessly over the bar.

Five minutes later and I’m already getting the feeling that we are not scoring today, again. It’s going to follow a pattern of the other games under Jones as we continue to whoosh the ball aimlessly up the pitch. None of the midfielders want the ball, no one is running and none of the centre backs are good enough to pick out a player with a longer ball, so we just give it away, launching it up to 5 foot 9 Che Adams, against the likes of Wily Boly, who is fucking massive.  It’s diabolical and I would not argue with anyone who chooses to go home at this stage. 35 minutes gone and I think we are fucked.

Elyounoussi gives the ball away and Forest play it over to the left where ABK piles into the Forest player and gets injured.  Christ he's a soft lad.  He had a golden opportunity to smash through Nathan Jones who was stood on the touchline right next to where the incident happened and I’m not happy with ABK for not doing that. On a serious note, he has been injured and a couple of minutes later we bring on Caleta-Car to take his place.  More on that later.

Half-time and that was absolute wank.   The name of Ian Branfoot floats into my mind.  Yep, this is the same.  Honestly, I would be making the remaining four substitutions at half-time. Apart from KWP, who has been excellent, you could take off any of the other outfield nine and pick any four replacements and it wouldn’t make us any worse because we couldn’t possibly be any worse. Because it’s Nathan Jones however, he makes absolutely no changes whatsoever at half-time. And so we start the second half with the same team that was absolutely fucking useless in the first.

Caleta-Car then shows that he’s been possessed by the Lyanco virus by getting caught with a ball and Awoyini tries to float it over Baz from 35 yards but he’s not good enough to do that and it sails into the crowd.

We are getting to the stage now where we celebrate winning a bastard corner because we know we have absolutely no chance of scoring from open play. The stewards are put on red alert when we actually win two in a row in case someone passes out in the excitement.  The excitement kind of reminds me I’m still alive from the second one as Caleta-Car heads over the bar.

Jones’ idea of changing things up takes the piss by bringing on two players who have only been shite since he arrived and on come Aribo and Adam Armstrong, as if those two Championship level players are gonna make any difference at all.  Sekou Mara is put out of his misery and Romeo Lavia is saved for another day.  Sam Edozie is also on for Perraud but he’s been stationed at left-wing back and still Stuart Armstrong sits on his hands. There is absolutely nothing happening. Forest are content just sit deep and play on the break and head away all our long ball shite and we have absolutely no clue how to do anything.  Stuart Armstrong finally comes on and is the barest flicker of excitement but unless KWP has the ball, absolutely nothing is happening.

93 minutes and the 15,000 or so who are left in the ground at the stage see Edozie win a free kick about 40 yards out. In it comes from JWP and Elyounoussi gives our performance the finish it deserves by heading it miles wide off the top of his head. Final whistle.

With boos ringing out around the ground, I cannot believe the brass neck of Nathan Jones to get out on the pitch and applaud the fans. Fuck off you prick.  Nathan Jones has to go and he has to go now. For those of you too young to know or too young to remember, that was Ian Branfoot football at its worst and Branfoot was twice the manager that Nathan Jones is. At least he had a plan.

Guess Who's Back.... Back Again!

I remember a game in December 1993 against Ipswich at home when a crowd of 9000-ish, watched Saints lose 1-0 to Ipswich in an evening game, in what turned out to be Ian Branfoot’s last game in charge. Today felt incredibly similar to that with the same sort of toxic atmosphere. It was worse in 1993 because crowds weren’t as dumbed down as they are now, but everything was similar from the football on the pitch coming to the desperate opposition that we lost to.  That is one that’s always on the shortlist whenever anyone asks me to think about the worst Saints performances I’ve ever seen.  Today is up there as well but it’s worse in a way because Branfoot was sacked the next day, whereas Nathan Jones won’t be.

Once we went behind today to the latest Lyanco calamity, we were never going to score. I knew it at the time and safest bet anyone could’ve had would be that we would not have a shot on target for the rest of the game.  We will not win a single game for the rest of the season playing like that, let alone have any chance of staying up. No one wants to ball who is ahead of it and none of the defenders can hit an accurate long diagonal, so the ball just gets pumped aimlessly forward towards Che Adams or even more pointlessly, towards Sekou Mara.  It’s brainless and it’s shit and it’s down to Nathan Jones.

Bazunu didn’t have to do anything other than pick the ball out of the net after the colossal fuck up. Out of the back three, both ABK and Lyanco were dreadful and another damning indictment of Nathan Jones is that when ABK went off injured, he was off the pitch for about three minutes whilst Caleta-Car got ready.   He ran on into the back three and had to turn around and signal to Jones if he was supposed to go into the middle or to the right. Surely you fucking tell him before he goes on when you are stood next to him.

Romeo Lavia was rusty but at least tried to get on the ball and our two number 8’s, JWP and Elyounoussi were both shit. The odd bit of decent play but never enough and the two of them are too static. KWP had an excellent game (in contrast with the rest) at right wing back and you can tell that he really tried his heart out for 90 minutes – could have done with more end product but it’s hard to get assists in a team that is never going to score from open play.  Romain Perraud offered next to nothing on the left hand side and was replaced with Sam Edozie who unless he was injured, really should’ve started.

Sekou Mara proved once again that he is nowhere near ready to start games in the Premier League and Che had one of his shit games but again he’s having to scrap for every little single bit of possession he can possibly get.

Sport Republic have a definite decision to make and as unpalatable as that may be from a cost point of view, it has to be made. We are 100% getting relegated with Nathan Jones in charge because the guy has proven already but he does not have the aptitude to be a manager for this team in the Premier League.  He is trying to play a style of football that went out with the dinosaurs, we don’t have the players to play that way and the idiot appears to be completely incapable of realising that.  Still, I managed to get hold of the infamous metrics that were used to appoint Jones.  I wondered what the questions were if Jones was the answer and now I know.

Sport Republic Manager Selection Metrics Revealed

Also, there is absolutely no player who is playing better as a result of Jones being in charge. Everyone is worse, the team performance is worse and there is still absolutely no suggestion whatsoever but things are going to head in the right direction soon. However you may want to dress it up and however Jones may want to dress it up, we were fucking shite today and I know everyone goes on about the defending and yes, we gave away another stupid goal, or to be more precise, the central defender who was picked again by Jones after having an absolute calamity on Saturday, gave away another stupid goal.  We were playing Nottingham Forest who themselves are completely and utterly desperate as a team. They didn’t have to break sweat.  I think their goalkeeper had to punch one ball – other than that he had fuck all to do.

Today once more highlighted squad deficiencies – so many shit or ‘not good enough yet’ players. I had a think today about who would be captain if JWP wasn’t and I couldn’t think of a single player, such is the dearth of leadership in the side. 

We are looking at this transfer window to somehow save us.  What a laugh that is - if we don’t change the manager then we are getting relegated and in an ideal world we would change him now because if there’s any attacking player anywhere in the world who is thinking of joining Southampton with Nathan Jones in charge, I would seriously advise against it.  Any potential new midfielder recruits would take one look at today and say ‘fuck that’ because 90 minutes of watching the ball being launched over your head whilst you do shuttle runs, is not fun.

Lots of people are jumping on Jones’ post-match interview with Adam Blackmore. Highlighting the fact he is from a Welsh mining village was fucking strange and Jones is right about one thing, we did have a lot of attacking players on the pitch but he’s being disingenuous. We had absolutely no plan, no idea and just shoving a load of attacking players on the pitch does not mean you are some sort of visionary with a great plan of how to win a football match against dismal deep lying opposition. This is the Premier League and there has to be more to it than that. I could put a team out on the pitch that maybe looked good on paper and so could thousands of other fans. There has to be more from that or else you are just a complete fraud like Nathan Jones is. As things stand, we are so fucked it is unbelievable.

We have Palace way in the cup and then Manchester City at home in the Carabao Cup and once we’ve lost both of those, we have the next defining game of the season away at Everton, who are the only team in the league who could possibly claim to be as shit as we are. Frank Lampard is on his way out there and it’s just a matter of time. Hopefully he’s still in charge by the time we get there but I absolutely guarantee that if Nathan Jones is in charge of Saints, Frank will get the win he needs to carry on for a few more games at least.

In 1991, we sacked Ian Branfoot and appointed Alan Ball and we survived. All is not lost but we need a decent transfer window and a new manager or else we are 100% in the Championship next season. As fans, all we can do for now is sit back and hope that Sport Republic do the right thing.  Don’t hold your breath as all they seem to have done so far is gamble and lose.