Premier League Match 33 - Southampton 0 Bournemouth 1

E-I-E-I-E-I-O Down to the Championship We Go

Due to the fact that we are now at the business end of the season, I, like many other fans I suspect, have been spending fair amount of time looking at the league table and one of the things that keeps coming back to me is, how bad must we be to be nine points behind Bournemouth?

I am not trying to be disrespectful to Bournemouth… too much anyway. The answer is of course that we have been shite for a vast majority of the season. Bournemouth on the other hand, having been managed by Scott Parker and then Gary O’Neil and with the players that they have, should have finished flat last this season but they are not going to and barring a catastrophic collapse, will be in the Premier League next year and fair play to them.  I think we all know who is going to finish flat last.

We actually went above them in the table when we won our last game against Leicester but since then they have picked up wins in six pointers and have also beaten the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham and Fulham who were under performing but Bournemouth still managed to get the points and that’s all that you can ask for. When Saints have played under-performing teams this year like Manchester United with 10 men and when we were 3-1 up with two minutes to go against Arsenal, we didn’t win. When we played any six pointers, we didn’t win either.

When you look at Bournemouth’s squad you can only summarise by saying they have been better than the sum of their parts. There aren’t any individual players that scare you at all but the collective obviously has something about it to have got them to the position that they are in and despite what you may learn from Sky Sports, football is still a team game.  Massive credit must go to O’Neil for the job he has done.

Jack Stephens has been on-loan to Bournemouth this season and after not playing much in the first half of the year, he has got in the team and has largely performed well though I did have a bit of a smile to myself last week when he was getting absolutely battered by Michail Antonio against West Ham. We’ve seen that particular episode many times before.  Jack won’t be playing today of course but there is obviously a discussion of whether he will be with Saints next season or with Bournemouth. There are lots of different ways of looking at it of course but if/when we go down, there is a player who can obviously do a job at Championship level but will he want to?  As far as I’m concerned, he will have earned his opportunity to stay in the Premier League if Bournemouth want to pay the money to sign him.  To be honest, I don’t really think we have missed him as I don’t really think that central defence has been our main problem this season, even with our lack of clean sheets. Even now, with Salisu unlikely to play for the rest of the season, we still have a Polish international, a German international and a Croatian international not to mention a Brazilian Serb lunatic to cover that area.  Next season though, depending on what division we are in and departures that may or may not happen, it’s all up for grabs.

We of course, have to win this one but we’ve been saying that for quite a while, haven’t we? It will be interesting to see the Ruben Selles master plan for this game bearing in mind he said that we absolutely have to win this game in his press conference, in amongst the usual drivel he comes out with. Will he have worked out that we are a better team when our best players are on the pitch and will he have worked out that we need some sort of goal threat which is not going to be provided by the likes of Adam Armstrong or Joe Aribo?

Out of our team , seven of the outfield players pick themselves and it’s just a case of who the other three are. The seven who will definitely play, barring injury are KWP, Bednarek. ABK, Lavia, JWP, Alcaraz (1st half at least) and Walcott. The other three positions are open and who Selles picks in these three positions will largely determine if we are going for it or not. If he goes with Maitland-Niles, Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong then it might be time to stay in the pub.  If however, he goes for Perraud, Sulemana and Adams then at least if we lose we are going down trying.  If Adam Armstrong and Elyounoussi are chosen, then it’s purely for defensive reasons which is not what we need today and it’s not what we ever need to be honest.

With us playing on the Thursday, there were games on Tuesday and Wednesday, the most damaging being Nottingham Forest’s 3-1 win against Brighton which means that as things stand, we are six points adrift so I think we can categorically say that if we don’t win tonight, we are fucked.  So bearing in mind that we are fucked if we don’t win today, what’s the team Ruben?

Shit the bed.... Alex McCarthy is in goal which is 10 games overdue and it’s a bit of a surprise bearing in mind that Bazunu wasn’t actually that bad in the last game against Arsenal. Makes me think that it was decided after the Palace game which in turn makes me think why put him in goal in an away game at Arsenal in a game where we were going to be under loads of pressure and could potentially have let in a lot of goals. Shit management of a young player is all I can think of.  

The rest of the team is basically as it was against Arsenal aside from Caleta-Car playing instead of ABK who is presumably injured. This of course means that Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong are both starting so two players with no attacking output whatsoever. It looks like the 4-3-3 False 9 formation with Moi in midfield alongside Lavia and JWP and Charly Alcaraz as a false 9 with the goal threat being provided by Theo Walcott and the aforementioned Adam Armstrong.  Deadly.

If my mood can be likened to an inflated balloon then I’m currently leaking air and making  farting noises as I fly around the room before limply landing on the ground in a corner. The bench is also interesting with Che Adams make a return alongside Sekou Mara.  Tall Paul is nowhere so we haven’t even got that option. Really good investment in January being borne out once again.

I managed to dodge the rain and get into St Mary‘s and the atmosphere is kind of muted. This team has sucked the life out of everybody this season. I think it comes down to the fact that even if we win, we are still three points in the shit and no one has any faith whatsoever that this team can string two wins together.  We need 4 wins out of the next 6, having only won 6 games all season.  As if?  As the teams come out, it’s pissing down.

Saints start quite well with Bednarek picking up Alcaraz further forward and he slides a good ball into Walcott coming in off the right and he scuffs the shot and Neto gets down easily enough to save. A good positive start with forward passing and a bit of intent.

There’s another chance more by luck than design as Adam Armstrong runs with the ball until he loses it as usual, but the ball bounces back to Perraud and once again, more by luck than design it ends up back with Adam Armstrong who hits it at the near post but again, saved by the keeper.

Bournemouth’s first bit of attacking play see them cut through us with Sinesi playing the ball through to Solanke who can always be relied on to miss and McCarthy gets out and spreads himself well but the ball bounces back out Vina who scores comfortably.  Solanke did look offside when the ball came through and so it proves as the lino’s flag goes up straight away but not quick enough to stop a Bournemouth fan lobbing a flare onto the pitch. Muppet.

When play gets going again, Bournemouth try to play out with JWP intercepts and feeds KWP on the right hand side he eventually crosses his left foot and Walcott goes up but in fact it’s a Bournemouth header the balloons the ball goalwards and it bounces off the top of the crossbar. 

We seem to have blown ourselves out now and Bournemouth are dominating possession and we are making Dominic Solanke look like a world-beater by allowing him space to run into and he’s actually seriously quick once he gets moving.  When we get the ball back there is absolutely no movement so we are belting it away and it just comes back. Solanke runs with the ball, plays 1-2 in the penalty area and lashes one narrowly over the bar.

It Doesn't Rain on the Right Hand Side

Perraud picks up what looks like a nasty injury as a Bournemouth player runs across the back of his achilles right in front of the referee who does fuck all.  Perraud plays on for a bit but he has to come off and Maitland-Niles comes on with KWP switching to the left which is going to give us even less width than we are showing already.  There is no one to pass to and the restless crowd is having a go at the defenders which is stupid because they have two choices – keep the ball or cream it upfield for our 5 foot 8 strikers to compete with the Bournemouth centre backs.

Half-time and the last half an hour has been clueless wank. Sideways backwards sideways backwards. As I said, you can’t have a go unless the defenders or midfield players are turning down a forward pass and they never are because there’s no one upfront so there’s no choice but to go sideways and backwards and back to the goalkeeper. It’s painful and it’s shit and a manager who had a fucking clue would sort it out at half-time.

Hold my beer says Ruben and JWP has gone off which can only be one of two things. Either he’s injured or he’s told this clueless fuckwit of a manager to do one. Either way, he has been replaced with Lyanco and we do look like we have gone three at the back with Elyounoussi at right wing back and KWP on the left.  AMN has gone in central midfield.  I cannot imagine anything more horrendous than this in a vital game that you have to win.

We start the second half and we are all over the fucking place. No one has a clue what they should be doing and it looks a matter of time before the unthinkable happens and then it does as Solanke bursts forward again into space and finds Taverner on the right and he cuts inside onto what I assume it is weaker left foot and bobbles a diagonal effort which somehow evades everybody and ends up in the far corner. Fucking hell.

Now we are behind and even the idiot in the polo-neck can see that things are not going well so off come Elyounoussi and Walcott to be replaced with Stuart Armstrong and Che Adams.  In a new development, no one seems to know where the fuck they are supposed to be, especially Charly Alcaraz, who I’m assuming he’s been given a free role because we seem to have four strikers at times now with Adams and Alcaraz up front with Stuart Armstrong on the right and Adam Armstrong on the left. Sulemana comes on with 10 minutes to go to replace Adam Armstrong who amazingly, has had a shocking game.

With Stuart Armstrong pushed up on the right-hand side now and AMN playing right wing-back, we seem to have a one-man midfield now with Romeo Lavia doing the work of three men.  Never worry young man – it will soon be over and you can go somewhere and have a good career.

With Stuart Armstrong leading the way, it appears to pay off as AMN feeds Armstrong on the right hand side and he swerves inside a Bournemouth challenging in the penalty area before knocking the ball square and Adams tees it up for himself before volleying at high into the net. Five minutes to go so maybe just maybe we could sneak the most undeserved win and drag this shitshow on for another week. Oh hang on, we are off to VAR

“Hi, it’s Stockley Park here”
“I can’t believe they fucking equalised mate”
“A bit harsh mate they need this”
“Makes no difference mate, they are shit and even a point won’t be enough for them”
“But they might get the winner now”
“Will they fuck, they are fucking hopeless – please find something to put them out of their misery – it would be the kindest thing”
“I’ll try…. Oh yeah, no worries mate,  I got it…. he’s offside by two millimetres”
“Thank the lord Mike Dean for that, get them gone, flush that turd”
“Put it on the screen now big man, get ready for the stampede for the exits”

Well there’s no VAR in the Championship…

There’s not much time for anything else.  KWP charges right through the middle of the penalty area and wins a corner when the tackle from Kelly comes in. Stu’s corner is headed out and that’s it.  Spineless, gutless wankers.

Well that’s the end of that then. A completely cluelessly inept showing, once again from the moment the team was announced. The idiot basically picked the same team that he picked against Arsenal for completely different assignments. Absolutely horrific to pick Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong from the start and so it proved to no one’s surprise but his.

We were actually okay for the first 10 minutes or so and then what followed was 35 minutes of cluelessly inept bollocks football with no attacking intent, no forward movement and no intensity. Sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, try to go forward give the ball away because it’s one player isolated. No pattern, no cohesion, no strikers. Selles said we were going to concentrate on our 'red zone' threat today - well you totally failed there didn’t you, you useless twat because we didn’t have any red zone threat at all because you played a midfielder out of position again and you played the worst striker I think we’ve ever had at Premier League level.

James, you've gone from Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Romeu and Davis.... to Me.

With JWP going off at half-time, Selles pulled out the coup de grace by going three at the back.  Three at the back is only an attacking move if the full backs get up the line and get crosses into the box. Begs the question who are we getting crosses in for when all our forward players are 5 foot 8 and by putting Elyounoussi and KWP on the wrong side as the wing backs, you basically have no advantages at all. What I particularly don’t understand about that is the obsession with putting KWP on the left. Elyounoussi has played on the left-hand side of the pitch his entire career.  Also, Moussa Djenepo was on the bench, a player who was given a new contract because he had a couple of decent games at left back.  Djenepo should really have come on when Perraud got injured and if you’re going to wing-backs then he should certainly have come on.  Instead we went to a formation we clearly hadn’t practiced, with players who clearly were uncomfortable playing it.

We were absolutely cluelessly abysmal until the last 15 minutes when Bournemouth started retreating a bit and Stuart Armstrong and Che Adams inspired some sort of intent from the team with Stu putting in more effort in 15 minutes than he had in the whole rest of this season combined. Yes, we were unlucky to have a goal ruled out for VAR but it wouldn’t have made the slightest fucking difference other than to make Bournemouth sweat a little bit more until the end of the season.

Once again, I’m wondering what Sport Republic think of the £30 million worth of goalscorers they purchased in January not even being in the squad. Don’t get me wrong, neither Tall Paul or Orsic have shown anything whatsoever so far but for them not to be on the bench, especially Tall Paul against a team that generally struggles in the air. We had Joe Aribo on the bench for fuck‘s sake.
 
Selles can fuck off and he can fuck off now.  He was brought in to keep us up and he’s failed so he can fuck off.   Like signing a load of young players in the summer, we appointed a rookie young manager and it could’ve been brilliant but the chances are it wasn’t going to be and it’s actually been worse than that. It’s been absolutely fucking shocking after he and Chelsea combined to con us before we realised quite how shit Chelsea were.  

Rasmus Ankersen and Sport Republic must be weighing up what is the most embarrassing right now. Is it more embarrassing to sack another manager that they’ve appointed within a couple of months or is it more embarrassing to keep him. Personally, I’d say it’s more embarrassing to keep him.  The results are no better and it’s a different kind of drivel to Nathan Jones in his press conferences ... but it’s still drivel.  As the great Paul Weller once said:

"And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end
That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names"

Bearing in mind we have been losing virtually every game, I turn up to watch every week thinking they are going to have worked on something different and every week we turn up do the same things, get beat 1-0 or variations of, and that’s it.  The inclusion of Alex McCarthy today of course meant that we didn’t have the capability to pass the ball around at the back because he’s about as good with his feet as a tap dancing elephant. Still, that’s what we tried to do and it was an absolute miracle that we didn’t give anything away at the back because of it. Most of the time it was four or five panicked passes whilst the tackles were flying in, before McCarthy clubbed it out of play on the halfway line. Embarrassing.  It was a bit like how we clearly don’t practice how to play with Tall Paul on the pitch.

Our attacking play if we did get the ball into midfield was absolutely non-existent. No runs in behind, no holding up the ball, no coming short to receive the ball, no quick 1-2’s played with any conviction. No surprise because he picked a shit starting line-up with no focal point centre forward.  What was he saving Che Adams for? Because he was clearly fit enough for the bench, he should have started and come off at half-time if necessary. If you don’t wanna do that then you play Tall Paul or Sekou Mara from the start even though they’re pretty poor options.  Charlie Alcaraz was kind of up front today and he had a terrible game, continually trying too hard and giving the ball away virtually every time he had it.  He clearly didn’t know where he was supposed to be playing, especially in the second half and he’s probably had his head filled with shit since getting substituted at half-time against Arsenal, so probably was very conscious of that.

Ruben Picks the Team

You’re going to make decisions as a manager that not everyone agrees with but it’s especially important if you’re not winning and you’re not scoring any goals and you are going to get relegated, that you can explain why you did what you did and Selles just doesn’t.   He might think he does but he just talks absolute bollocks as justification for the decisions that he makes. He tried to justify the Adam Armstrong selection by saying that he was sharp in training.  I bet there are thousands of players through time that have been good at training but absolutely shit when they step out onto the pitch. Adam Armstrong has stepped onto the pitch 70 times approximately for Saints now and I think we all know how he’s going to perform on the pitch, when it actually matters.  You use the ‘good in training’ line when you are talking about an 18-year-old and why you gave him his debut or something – not a 26 year old who has repeatedly failed at this level.

Southampton, the unflushable turd will now be flushed. Six points behind with just five games left and our goal difference is worse than every other team down there, bar one. A few weeks ago when we had 10 games left, I wrote about how we needed to get 10 points from the four games against the teams in the bottom half of the table. We have now played three of those four games and got precisely zero points from them and not only that, we have scored zero goals. It’s over, it’s done and we’ve managed to have two of the worst managers in our history in the same season so can you be surprised?

So – 4 wins needed out of 5 and Newcastle away up next.

Up the Fucking Useless-Gutless-Spineless-Managed-By-a-Clueless-Twat Saints

Premier League Match 32 - Arsenal 3 Southampton 3

It Was Round About Now, That He Knew He Had Fucked Up

I’m not usually one for looking at stats for years gone by because they are not really relevant to 2023, but it is interesting to look at our record in league matches away at Arsenal in the Premier League and in Division 1 before football was invented in 1992. The last time we won a league game on the red side of North London was the 21st of November 1987 and the time before that was the 15th of April 1968 - Almost exactly 55 years ago.

The 1987 victory was courtesy of a goal by Rodney Wallace with our team including the likes of John Burridge, Jimmy Case, Andy Townsend and Glen Cockerill. Chris Nicholl was the manager against George Graham's Gunners, and the Gunners team that day included Steve Williams, one of our legends from the early 80s.  It also included some players who would win the first division title a couple of years later in John Lukic, Tony Adams, David O’Leary, David Rocastle, Michael Thomas, Alan Smith and Nigel Winterburn.

The aforementioned George Graham was an Arsenal player in the 1968 in our 3-0 win under Ted Bates, which came with goals from Terry Paine, Mick Judd and Joe Kirkup. The Gunners team also included future manager Terry Neill.

My combined team from the 68 and 87 line ups is

Eric Martin, Joe Kirkup. Derek Statham, John McGrath, Kevin Moore, Jimmy Case, Glenn Cockerill, Terry Paine, Mick Channon, Rod Wallace, John Sydenham

This team would give our current team a right pasting, even though a couple of them are no longer with us and some others are in their 80s. Mr Polo-Neck wouldn’t pick that team however because it’s got far too many attacking players on it. Channon and Wallace would be on the bench for starters, replaced by Jimmy Melia and Graham Baker.

Rodney - Ruben would have him on the Bench.

Our overall top-flight record on the red side of North London is won 2, lost 28 with 15 draws. You can safely say that history is not on our side. Of more relevance is that Southampton 2023 are shite.

Well it was fun researching that but now we have to get back to the non-fun of Southampton 2023. Zero expectation going into this one of course after writing another chapter of the Shitshow Manual on Saturday. I have no idea what the odds are on us winning this game but it must be about 200-1 if it was being realistic. I have no idea how many false nines we are going to have today but I’m sure that Selles has a master plan in the works that mean that we will move off the bottom of the table by the time everyone else plays on Saturday. Sarcasm doesn’t usually show up too well in print but I think I’ve managed it.

The Arsenal team of today is a scary proposition. When they had a good start of the season, everyone assumed it would just fizzle out but here they are, still top of the league as we get to the last seven or eight games. Manchester City have closed the gap in recent weeks so Arsenal will not be leaving anything out there today. They more or less always play a 4-3-3 formation with Gabriel Jesus leading the line and the twin threats of Saka and Martinelli on either side.

A further goal threat is provided by Odegaard who arrives from midfield in exactly the same way that Eberechi Eze did for Crystal Palace at the weekend. Of course, if we deal with that in the same way that we didn’t deal with Eze, then we are in for a bad evening. More goal threat is provided by their to holding midfielders Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey who both strike a mean long-range effort. The defence is solid apart from the one obvious weak link which, due to the absence through injury of William Saliba, sees Rob Holding and his hair transplant getting a game. He is very average and wouldn’t even be a guaranteed starter in our team so that’s the one we have to target, preferably with a striker on the pitch. Wouldn’t it be just like us to give him a nice comfortable afternoon.

Again I’m wondering what the fuck Ruben Selles is going to do today. This game would normally be one that would be happy to accept getting nothing in but as we still need to give staying up a shot, we are now in the position where we have to try and win this game. His press conference the day before the game was the usual drivel, none of it suggesting that he was going to adopt a different approach that might actually score a fucking goal. I am so done with him. I saw it with Nathan Jones after three games and I’m seeing it with Selles already

To the team selection and it’s happened again.  More absolute fucking madness with the one random player being brought into the starting line-up, courtesy of winning the ‘Make-a-Wish’ Squad Player Raffle.  Today it’s Adam Armstrong replacing last week’s’ winner, Joe Aribo.  Armstrong of course, has been scoring loads of goals for the B Team and looking sharp when he has played in cameo appearances.  Big horrible lie there - he has done fuck all. The rest of the team is more or less as you would expect, with Elyounoussi coming back in for Sulemana because his defending is interpreted as being better.  Well that line-up will chase everything and should be disciplined but come on?

Saints kick-off and the ball gets launched down the right hand side where Arsenal win it and keep possession and knock it back to Ramsdale.  Ramsdale takes his time before trying to play a straight ‘eye of the needle’ pass into Zinchenko in midfield, which is read by Alcaraz, who takes a touch and finds a yard of space before firing past Ramsdale and into the far corner. What a fucking start that is. What a gift.

Arsenal are really all over the place with the nerves of the occasion for them and 10 minutes in and Arsenal try and play around the halfway line but Thomas Partey gives the ball away and Elyounoussi knocks it forward to Alcaraz, who takes it in his stride and waits for Walcott’s run on the right hand side in behind Gabriel before releasing the ball at exactly the right time for Theo to roll it into the net. What the fuck is going on here?  Two fucking nil.

Goal-Assist-Substituted

You know that Arsenal are coming back with Odegaard feeding Saka down the right wing and he lines up Perraud before beating him easily and pulling the cross back to where Martinelli volleys it into the net to make it 2-1. Shite. Too easy by far.

Saints are still attacking though with Perraud’s cross from the left being headed goalwards by Elyounoussi and fumbled by Ramsdale before Alcaraz hooks a shot back in forcing Ramsdale into a half decent save this time. The goalkeeper really is all over the shop, as are the usually reliable Gabriel and Zinchenko, who are not helping out Rob Holding’s hair transplant at all.

Zinchenko booms a ball up the left-hand side miles up in the air and Bednarek goes to head it and Martinelli deliberately makes a back for him with no intention of competing for the ball. Bednarek goes over the top of him and lands on his shoulder/head. Absolutely fucking vile cowards challenge by Martinelli but Simon Hooper sees fit just to give a free kick, as the motionless Bednarek lies on the ground. This is endangering another player, pure and simple but fuck all is done. Bednarek eventually gets back to his feet and he’s forced to be substituted. He doesn’t want to go but he has to and it’s only when Caleta-Car comes on as a sub that he seems to accept it. Two minutes later Martinelli takes on KWP who pulls him back and KWP of course gets booked. Should’ve picked him up and dropped him on his fucking head as that’s fine apparently.

After the substitution, Saints settle down and play some nice football in the Arsenal half before the ball finds Alcaraz on the edge of the box who gets dumped by Gabriel. It looks like a foul but of course we’re not getting given that and Arsenal break with Odegaard putting Saka away on the right-hand side. His delayed pass finds Gabriel Jesus running through but Baz makes a good block out for a corner. In comes the corner from Saka and it’s flicked goalward by White’s header and it’s over Baz and dropping in before Alcaraz gets back to head it off the line.

Half-time and winning. Never saw that happening.  Need to stay positive and make sure we give Arsenal’s dodgy defence something to think about in the second half.  There have been many games recently where I wanted the manager to make substitutions at half-time and he hasn’t done so and today is the opposite so of course, he does and of course, he takes off our best attacking player Charly Alcaraz.  What the fuck?  Absolutely everything we have done has gone through that guy.  So we're just gonna let Arsenal's dodgy defence have a free ride... fuck off!  It is very clear from sending Lyanco on that Selles is going to try and sit and hold this for the entire second half.  We’ve been good today because after the Ramsdale gift, we have posed some sort of attacking threat but we’re gonna end up with a flat back five now so the attacking threat's gonna disappear with just Adam Armstrong upfront, who has been absolutely hopeless so far.

The first 15 of the second half is just Arsenal camped in our half and trying to pick their way through.  We eventually decide to go forward with Lyanco starting it with a nice ball down the right hand side for KWP to find Walcott. Eventually it finds its way back to KWP who wins a corner.  In comes the corner from JWP, flicked on by ABK and there at the back post, to head in a goal Nathan jones would have been proud of, was Caleta-Car.  3-1 from our first foray into their half after half time.  The lesson should be – keep posing a threat.

JWP-ABK-DCC

With 20 minutes to go, though it’s still 3-1, it’s all Arsenal now.  Martinelli takes time off from dropping defenders on their head to clip in a lovely ball over the top of the defence which is met by Gabriel Jesus, who takes time off from diving any time the ball goes anywhere near him, to side foot the ball the over the bar.

Selles makes another couple of changes with Adam Armstrong being put out of his misery and the clearly tiring Walcott being replaced by Tall Paul, who goes up for on his own, and Sulemana, who takes Theo’s position on the right of what is now a 5-4-1 formation. It all goes pretty well for another 15 minutes or so with Arsenal sending on Trossard and Nketiah but Saints are still standing up well and then comes another substitution and it’s Romeo Lavia going off to be replaced by Ibrahima Diallo with the clock on 88 minutes.

Three minutes later and it’s 3-3. Martin Odegaard picks up the ball on the right-hand side and cuts across the top of the penalty area before curling in a shot with his left foot into the far corner, which gives Baz no chance at all.  Within a minute Trossard forces a ball into the penalty area to Gabriel Jesus, who lays it back to Nelson, whose shot his parried into the middle of the goal by Baz and there is Saka to knock it into the net for 3-3.

Needless to say there’s only one team looking like winning it and Trossard picks up a ball from Nelson, fakes to shoot before finally shooting from the edge of the ‘D’ and hitting the bar and seeing it fly over.

Every time the ball goes into the mixer it’s absolute carnage, usually ending with Gabriel Jesus throwing himself to the floor and whilst he was still on the ground and praying for a penalty that he was never going to get, the ball broke to Nelson who shot was deflected just wide courtesy of superb defending by JWP.

Another ball into the mixer by Trossard is brought down by Saka and goes free and once again, Gabriel Jesus hits the deck because he’s a cheating fucker and Saints get it away.  Sulemana has a sprint to the loose ball and after getting blocked American Football style by Odegaard, and then shoved out of the way by Nelson, Simon Hooper is in full ‘Arsenal comeback’ mode so he’s not going to give us anything.

The last Arsenal effort it’s from Thomas Partey, who true to form, doesn’t wait for anyone’s permission before he smashes one in there and over the bar from 30 yards.

And we survive…. But we’ve really lost and so have Arsenal.

What a game that was for the neutral but for fans of Saints and Arsenal, a draw does pretty much fuck all for anyone. Being in the position that we are in in the league and being the position that we were in on 88 minutes, we absolutely had to win that game but the substitution when Lavia went off and replaced with Diallo, gave us one extra player, to add to Elyounoussi and Tall Paul who are of absolutely no use whatsoever and it seemed to tip the balance and Arsenal got their two goals.

We are such a weird team. We have some truly excellent individual players and this will probably be borne out when they join other decent Premier League teams for next season. Unfortunately, we are going down with a manager who so negative and some utterly shit players who just kill you. It was really noticeable today that with it being a high-quality game against high-quality opposition, our shit players didn’t touch the ball.  Adam Armstrong must’ve touched the ball about five times all game, similarly Elyounoussi and Diallo and Tall Paul were basically training cones for Arsenal to pass around.

I was impressed in the main with the defending today and certainly the commitment. KWP and Perraud both played pretty well up against Arsenal’s best two players and even though both were on a yellow card from the first half, managed to stay disciplined throughout the second. All four centre backs used did well. Bednarek showed previously unseen qualities of fight and leadership after the disgraceful cowards challenge by Martinelli which went totally unpunished by the referee. He wanted to stay on and it was good to see him getting involved talking to the defenders during a break of play in the second half.   ABK was always there and had another good game, whilst Caleta-Car and Lyanco both got to the pace of the game straight away and played with aggression which was needed. Compare and contrast with Ibrahima Diallo it came on and didn’t have a clue what day it was and aside from one buccaneering stampede down the right hand side, Tall Paul was fucking hopeless.

Theo Walcott was impressive on the right hand side on his return to the Emirates and JWP and Lavia were excellent in the centre of midfield and of course it was when Lavia was substituted that it all went to shit.

A word for referee Simon Hooper, who has previously been one of my favourite referees.  On the plus side, he didn't buy any of the multiple dives by Gabriel Jesus and previously, he has not bowed to any of Bruno Fernandes ridiculous shit at Old Trafford.  However, he and his team got very caught up in the Arsenal narrative at times today.  The amount of injury time was a joke.  The first half injury time can be justified due to Martinelli dropping Bednarek on his head but 8 minutes at the end?  Really?  During that 8 minutes he totally forgot that Arsenal can commit fouls as well and NFL blocking is not a thing in our football over here.  As for the Bednarek fall - if that's not endangering a player then I don't know what is.

Tommy Cooper Makes the Lead Disappear - Just Like That!

It was a bizarre game for Ruben Selles.  We played well and a 3-3 draw at Arsenal is a decent result on the face of it.  I do feel that Ramsdale throwing us a goal so early was the only thing that made it a good starting formation.  The starting line-up was strange and the inclusion of Adam Armstrong, like the inclusion of Joe Aribo against Palace, was mind blowing.  The substitution at half-time to remove Charly Alcaraz was fucking mental again. He was by far our best player in the first half, scoring one, setting up another one, clearing one Arsenal effort off the line but he was taken off to enable us to go five at the back and Adam Armstrong who had barely touched the ball was left on. With that all of our attacking play disappeared for the first 20 minutes in the second half until we scored from the first corner that we won on the first attack that we had in the second half.  3-1 up and all was well and Arsenal were fizzled out but then he took Lavia off and brought on Diallo which was a dick move for two reasons – a vastly inferior player and any new player has to be instantly up to speed.  Unless Lavia was dead on his feet, leave him on.

For a brief period of time on the real-time table, we were off the bottom but it wasn’t to last and whilst a point at Arsenal is never a bad point, we had to win this in the same way that we had to win the away game of Manchester United against 10 men. I’ve said this loads of times this season, but we of course have to follow up this decent performance and result against one of the big boys, with beating Bournemouth on Thursday and once again the onus is on the manager to pick a team to go out and win that game.

It does look like we’ve handed at the Premier League title to Manchester City but I don’t really care about that. Today will probably prove to be a bit of a gurgle as we disappear down the plug hole and into the Championship though it does give hope that we can go to places like Newcastle and have a chance of getting something up there.  None of that of course will mean anything if we don’t beat Bournemouth and Fulham in our next two home games.

Up the fucking Saints

Premier League Match 31 - Southampton 0 Crystal Palace 2

 

Saints Voice Panel Address Sport Republic

Here we go again at St.Mary’s in a game that we have to win.  It’s not about the performance, the potential or the process or any other such shit - it is about the result, plain and simple and the result has to be at Southampton win, otherwise our chances of being in the Championship next season go up to about 95%. If Ruben Selles is not looking at the league table and working this out for himself, then he is the only person who isn’t.

Ruben’s seeming lack of appreciation of the situation, which is borne out in both his team selections and the way the team performs on the pitch, almost had me pondering one day last week that he had been given a free pass for the Club to be relegated and for him to have a go at bringing the club back next season.  If however, we go down with the whimper that we have displayed so far, then he is the last person I would want to be masterminding trying to win over half of the games to get us promoted next season.

Today we faced a Palace side who were one of the nine teams in the bottom half of the league who were threatened by relegation a few weeks ago.  They were 12th and we were 20th but there was only four points between us. Now there is 10 points and Palace are not remotely threatened by relegation at all. I don’t think anyone saw such an upturn when Palace appointed Roy Hodgson to succeed Patrick Viera but here we are with Hodgson having masterminded two wins out of two so far. Not only that, the goals have been flowing and not only that, they’ve been flowing without Wilfried Zaha.  In Zaha‘s absence, the creativity in the side has been provided by Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze who have proved what excellent players they are. Apparently, we were in the mix to sign these players when they left their previous clubs but didn’t pursue it, probably because they thought about attacking first, rather than defending.

The weakness in his Palace side is the full backs, with the slots usually being filled by Joel Ward and Tyrick Mitchell who can both be got it. If we are to win this game then we absolutely have to give these to a hard time.  Their 5-1 win at Leeds last week will have I’m sure, sent Ruben Selles into a tailspin, which will probably be reflected in his line-up this afternoon. I wonder how many players we are going to pick for their defensive qualities?

After the game against West Ham where he basically picked 11 players because what they could do against the ball, I am not holding out much hope. Basically, if Che Adams is unfit to return then in my opinion, Paul Onuachu actually has to play…. But I bet he doesn’t. I also hope that Selles doesn’t buy into the fact that Mara and Djenepo were half decent off the bench last week. It’s laughable to see some people big up Djenepo’s case, saying he deserves to start as if one stumbling run past three players makes up for 3 1/2 years of utter shit. However, if you ask me if you would prefer Djenepo or Elyounoussi in the team, then I would go for the Mali magician every time. That’s where we are right now. We are so fucking dismal as an attacking team that I am calling for Moussa Djenepo to start ahead of someone else.

Once more into the breach my friends. It’s shit or bust time.

Team news and oh my lord.  We have made just one change for the Manchester City game.  In one respect it’s good news because Elyounoussi has been left out but that is massively balanced out and then some by the fact that Joe Aribo has been picked instead. Anyone got the slightest fucking idea why? Has he torn it up in some B team games or has he been brilliant in cameos off the bench? I don’t think so. Is Aribo going to add urgency to the team? I really don’t think so. It’s amazing that he’s managed to leave Elyounoussi out of the team and make it worse.  Unless Aribo is playing right up front then we have no strikers again.

The game starts horrifically as Alcaraz hits a ball back towards Bazunu who then decides not to chase it and Maitland-Niles assumes that it’s going to go out on the left hand side but Jordan Ayew keeps running and keeps it in. Ayew cuts in and shoots and it’s deflected to the edge of the box where Cheik Doucoure smashes over the bar. Great start lads, really alert and on it.

Saints eventually start to play and win a corner on the left which JWP rolls into the near post, Walcott comes short and superbly passes the ball into the path of Aribo who lashes it miles over the bar with his favoured left foot. Great corner move with shit execution at the end.

Palace aren’t really offering much at all but the first time they put anything together the ball is chipped over the top to Michael Olise but he does look miles offside as he goes around the goalkeeper easily and scores.  Up goes the flag and no harm done.

Saints are the better side without looking amazing and certainly without testing the goalkeeper.  Walcott gets down the right hand side and slings over a cross. As usual, we don’t really have anyone attacking the ball in the middle but Sulemana comes in from the wider area and Ward has to head it for a corner.   In it comes from JWP more conventionally this time, it’s cleared out to the right hand side of the box where Alcaraz tries a ridiculous volley which is on target but easily caught by Johnstone.

Some more decent build-up sees Walcott hold the ball up for Alcaraz and though he gets run off at the ball, it drops to Sulemana who perfectly picks out Walcott’s run on the right hand side and Theo smashes it over the fucking bar. We’re not gonna have any clearer openings than that.

The last 20 minutes of the first half were played at almost a testimonial pace.  It was hard for Saints to get anything going in an attack because basically there was no one in the middle up front.  Alcaraz was always running into that area and Aribo was jogging up the inside left channel but neither were showing short and so most of the attacks broke down or we had to go backwards.  Considering this is a game we have to win, we cannot afford to have 20 minute spells where we do absolutely fuck all.

Half-time and though Palace have been absolutely there for the taking, we have not done enough.  There is no tempo to our attacks and no real urgency in our play.  No changes at half time though and as is usually the case when you change nothing, nothing much different happens.  Palace have clearly upped the tempo as Hodgson, whilst sucking on a Werther’s Original, has recognized that we are the easiest 3 points imaginable if they step it up.

Ten minutes in and Palace build up their right hand side with Olise finding Eze. He drills it across field to Ayew who controls easily and then just as easily beats the flat-footed Maitland-Niles' completely half-arsed challenge before crossing it into the middle and it all goes tits up because Bazunu just flaps the cross down and Eze has continued his run and is completely unmarked and knocks into an empty net.  Fucks sake. Pathetic.  Ayew’s cross was going nowhere until Bazunu touched it and Eze had not been tracked as he ran into the box by our midfield. We have 35 minutes to score 2 goals.

FPL: Goal - Eze, Assist - Maitland-Niles, Bazunu

Selles brings on Tall Paul and Djenepo in place of the ineffective Walcott and Aribo and we are now 4–2-3-1.  I would call Aribo sluggish but slugs move faster than that.

Palace look much more likely than us and nearly score again courtesy of an incredibly casual bit of defending by Bednarek, who assumes that the ball is going to roll out of play and allows Ward to get his foot to it and pass it across the 6 yard line but luckily no one was running in.

It’s a short-lived reprieve though as Doucoure again easily finds Eze in space about 35 yards out and he skips round Djenepo before drilling a diagonal shot into the far corner giving Baz no chance at all. Two-nil, season over.

We do have a bit of a defiant gurgle as we disappear down the plug hole and the urgency that we should’ve had from the first whistle is now present and it all stems from an Argentinian kid who we signed in January.  Djenepo finds Alcaraz in the inside right channel and he takes aim and smashes a shot past Johnstone and it pings off the inside of the post and comes out.  Two minutes later, a cross into the mixer from Maitland-Niles sees Alcaraz challenge Joel Ward in the air and has the ball bounces off Ward’s back, Alcaraz tries a volley which narrowly flies over the bar. Another shot comes in this little bit of excitement as ABK ventures out from the back and decides to have a go and brings a full-length save out of Johnstone. It’s a decent effort but no goalkeeper should really be beaten from there.  More pressure as Sulemana crosses the ball in at Tall Paul’s knee-height but it deflects up in the air and Onuachu from a standing start, gets his head to it but can only head it straight at the goalkeeper.

With Saints doing all the attacking and actually putting a team under a bit of pressure, the Polo-Neck Prick decides to take off the main player responsible for the resurgence.  Fucking twat.  It was very difficult to not treat the Family Stand to some NSFW language.  Alcaraz and Sulemana off, Stuart Armstrong and Edozie on.  I fucking give up.  Selles is a fucking idiot.

Predictably, the momentum is killed, the balloon is punctured, the boat is holed beneath the water line and the Selles substitutions have taken the pressure off and handed the initiative back to Palace.  As it begins to calm down again and Palace gain a measure of control you see another issue. Tall Paul comes short for the ball when we’ve got it in midfield and everyone’s got so used to there not being anyone there, they just go sideways and backwards.  It’s fucking abysmal.  Either that or the midfielders have decided Paul is shit and they’re not going to give him the ball.

Palace should score again with Olise teeing up Ayew but he smashes it into the Palace fans of the Northam.   ABK picks of a booking for hauling down Olise and from the free kick, Olise smashes it across Baz and it clipped the outside of the post.

Man in Polo-Neck Wonders Why We're Shit

Earlier on, I used the phrase ‘shit or bust’, which kind of means that one side of the equation is good and the other side is bad.  Well not after today. We are officially bust and that was fucking shit. I’m trying not to get angry about it anymore and just find it funny, and it is funny.

We are laughably, pathetically bad. Manager, players, the works. Laughably, pathetically bad. Palace were bad too, especially in the first half but once they scored, due to yet another questionable bit of goalkeeping by Gavin Bazunu, we were absolutely fucking dead. Palace had enough about them to score a second goal and at that point the referee might as well have blown his whistle. We actually played with a little bit of urgency five minutes after the second goal went in and had a few shots but then the architect of our urgency, Charly Alcaraz was substituted, of course he was.   Can’t have Saints playing with any momentum can we.  Ruben Selles is a fucking idiot.

That in fact, was confirmed before the game when the only change he made from the Manchester City game was to leave out Elyounoussi, which was a good move but then he replaced him with fucking Joe Aribo. When your team needs a bit of urgency, the last thing you need is Joe Aribo who is the most casual, laid-back player we have ever had and I’m including Matthew Le Tissier in that.  The difference of course was that Le Tissier was brilliant and he could get away with being casual because he would do something brilliant to win you the game. Joe Aribo is really not going to do that and once the pace of any game that he plays in, has gone above pre-season friendly pace, then guy just hasn’t got it. The great Aribo experiment lasted until the hour mark when both he and Theo Walcott were taken off.  Theo has unfortunately had his two decent games for the season and he once again added very little after the first 20 minutes.

We were actually okay for the first 15 minutes with Sulemana to the fore. We created a few openings down the left-hand side where predictably, Joel Ward was struggling but it soon fizzled out and our strike force of box-to-box midfielder Alcaraz and lying-on-a-deckchair-casual-as-fuck midfielder Aribo didn’t threaten to give Sam Johnstone anything to do.

Afterwards, Selles said that picking an actual striker wouldn’t have made a difference, which is a prick thing to say when you haven’t scored.  After the first 15 minutes we had no one up front for the midfielders to try and pass to, so we of course went sideways and backwards.  In the second half when we did have a striker on, the midfield had stopped looking to pass the ball forward so even when Onuachu came short for a pass on the floor, it never came.

Selles has conned us all with the two victories he got in his first three games. Hindsight shows that they were against a desperately poor Chelsea side and a desperately poor Leicester side who are going to be joining us in the Championship next season unless there’s some sort of miracle in the Midlands.  It’s unlikely as they’ve appointed Dean Smith, in a move that on the face of it, is nearly as bad as our managerial appointments this season.

More madness was that in this game, a game that we had to win, a game that we had to be on the front foot and attacking, he picked KWP on the left, on his wrong side just to accommodate Ainsley Maitland-Niles who couldn’t have been less arsed if he tried.   Perraud can attack and he can score and you’ll always get more out of KWP on the right.  Everyone knows this and so does Selles so we can only assume he wasn’t interested in attacking.  So, aside from giving Aribo a run for his money as the most casual lackadaisical player on the pitch, AMN’s attempt at defending on the first goal was particularly shit.  His fucking nightmare started in the first minute when he didn’t bother to go and chase a ball that he thought was rolling out for a throw and Jordan Ayew put his foot down and kept it in. Absolute fucking joke. Mercifully, Maitland-Niles can’t play next week against Arsenal.

I can’t mention the first goal without talking about Bazunu again.  He has to come out of the side.  I would argue that it is doing him more long-term damage to be left in the side at this point.  Last three games have seen him at fault on goals in all three and today’s effort was pathetic again, just palming it down into the middle of the penalty area.  I know that McCarthy has hardly played all season but get him in the side now, for Bazunu’s long term benefit.  Bazunu isn’t “Angus Gunn” bad, but he needs to come out of the side now.

So who played well? I thought ABK had a decent game and Romeo Lavia did his best when he wasn't losing Eze but virtually everyone else was shit.  Selles eventually threw on Tall Paul but as has become customary, we didn’t put one cross on his head and the only effort he managed on goal was from a shin-high cross that a Palace defender booted straight up in the air. Basically, we have absolutely no idea.  You wouldn’t think it would be too difficult to practice what to do if Paul is on the pitch.  Long balls up to his chest and crosses into the box.  You don’t need coaching badges or a fucking Playbook to work that out.

We are like the monster in your nightmares that won’t fucking die at the moment, or like that troublesome turd that just won’t fucking flush. Shit results for Everton, Forest, Leeds and Leicester mean that the gap is still only four points, so there will still be those looking at the league table thinking that we can get out of it. We are not going to get out of it. We are fucking shit. I would be perfectly happy if Ruben Selles decides that this management lark is not for him and went back to being everyone’s friend as one of the coaches. Put someone else in charge for the rest of the season and get a proper manager in for the Championship.

The thought of having this joker in charge next season is horrendous to be quite honest but do you trust Sport Republic to make the right decision?  League leaders Arsenal away on Friday.  Up the fucking Saints.