Premier League Match 30 - Southampton 1 Manchester City 4

Oh for the Times When We Didn't Give Grealish Half the Pitch to Himself

Manchester City at home is not the sort of game you want at the best of times and these certainly aren’t the best of times. Nine games to save ourselves in the Premier League and to take advantage of everyone else down the bottom of the table being shit as well. The trouble is that no matter how bad all the other teams near the bottom are, Saints are showing absolutely no capacity to catch any of them.

We need to talk about last week. If I was the sort, Southampton FC would’ve had me punching the wall every day since the West Ham game. I still can’t get over how incredibly shit that was. I have a major downer on Ruben Selles, or Ralf Little right now and it was great to hear his press conference where he didn’t give me any more confidence but just gave me more ammunition.

When asked about Charly Alcaraz he said that we sometimes need him to come on after an hour to change the shape of the game. No shit Sherlock. He has to come on after an hour because you’ve totally fucked it up by setting us up with no attacking intent whatsoever with some of the more shit players in our squad being preferred to him. After an hour you realise that it’s all gone to shit and we are 1-0 down and we are never going to fucking score so you have to put on one of our better players who should absolutely be starting every single fucking game, regardless of the opposition. Here’s a novel thought, maybe pick your best fucking players and try to win the game.

Still, Selles should be happy today because having set up not to attack against West Ham, he now has a genuine game where we have to sit up to keep it tight because Manchester City are in town. Makes no fucking difference what we do in this game because no doubt the one after, we will play Crystal Palace at home and he will shit himself again. After what will be an inevitable defeat today, we will just have eight games left and maybe, just maybe he will set us up in a way that might actually allow us to have a chance of scoring a fucking goal.

What can you say about City that hasn’t been said already. They are quite simply a ridiculously talented group of players with a brilliant manager but it’s a brilliant manager who fucked up the last time they came to St Mary’s when he rotated badly for the Carabao cup game and got beaten by a team managed by Nathan Jones.  It was probably one of the most surreal moments of recent seasons. Kyle Walker was at centre back for the first time in his career, Kalvin Phillips was selected to actually play football and Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland were left out. I can’t see Pep making the same mistake again especially as City are still eight points behind Arsenal and moving into the territory where they have to win more or less every game between now and the end of the season to have a chance of retaining the Premier League title. Pep’s team selections are always interesting and there is a reason why the term “Pep Roulette“ has come into being and everyone knows what it means.

One player not subject to the roulette at the moment is Jack Grealish who has made the left wing spot his own and he’s producing in terms of goals and assists at a level not previously seen of him in a Manchester City shirt. Haaland was injured recently but they bought in World Cup winner Julian Alvarez so they didn’t really miss him much.  However, if I could pick one player who I hope he’s not in the starting line-up then it would be Riyad Mahrez.

After last weeks’ shambles, I have no real idea what Ruben Selles will pick for his Saints lineup but seeing as he just copies Ralph and Ralph had success with 4-2-2-2 against Manchester City I would assume it’s going to be that and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it’s the same line-up as last week. With Che Adams still unavailable with his injury picked up on Scotland duty, Selles basically has a choice of picking Tall Paul or one of the Chuckle Brothers.  My money is on him thinking that Paul won’t press the defenders particularly well and he’ll go with one of the other two clowns. I’ve course expect our non-goalscoring, non-shooting, non-crossing, non-dribbling, non-assisting creative midfielder Mohamed Elyounoussi to be in the team.

Meanwhile, on Friday night, Burnley were promoted back to the Premier League which is interesting for all sorts of reasons. One reason is that we should be looking to emulate them next season and bounce straight back but the way they have done it by completely changing the philosophy of the club and employing a bright young manager who has done it all in the game as a player. Secondly of course, one of their main players this season has been Nathan Tella who we loaned out to them. He has contributed goals and assists all over the place. I’m not going to rewrite history here and say that we definitely should’ve kept him but when you think about who we’ve had playing in that left-wing position this season, it’s a little bit ridiculous. Not only that, we have signed two players in the transfer window in Sulemana and Orsic, who played that position when we could’ve recalled Tella in January, who certainly wouldn’t have been any worse.

Team news and I don’t know what this is.  None of the strikers are playing so I assume it’s Walcott up front on his own. ABK is back to partner Bednarek and Maitland-Niles is starting so KWP is on the left so there’s not a single left footed player on the pitch for us.  Sulemana has come in for Stuart Armstrong.  City’s line up is basically every player I would not want to be playing.  Mahrez, Haaland and Grealish up front… fuck.  De Bruyne, Rodri and Gündoğan in midfield… fuck.  Full strength, 100%, not fucking about.

Away we go and hang on… we’re not playing with anyone up front.  It’s kind of 4-3-3 with Alcaraz as a false 9, Sulemana and Walcott on the wings and Elyounoussi as a false midfielder.  Well, it’s different, I’ll give him that.

Saints are trying to press City which is all well and good but City are so good in possession that they played through it and spring onto the attack with us nowhere. Mahrez brings the ball down their right-hand side having been freed by Stones. His ball into the middle finds Gündoğan who knocks on to the totally free Grealish on the left-hand side and his first time effort is well pushed away by Baz. Hot knife, meet butter.

Gündoğan tries a volley from the edge of the box which is blocked and spins out for a corner.  Mahrez tries to play the corner quickly to de Bruyne on the edge of the box but Sulemana reads it, toes it on and is sprinting away at the city goal from 70 yards. He turns on the burners and gets to the edge of the box and with Ake stopping him getting onto his right foot he takes an absolutely shit touch off his standing leg, giving Ederson the chance to dive in and clear the ball.

Saints have another half chance with Elyounoussi and KWP doing good work on the left hand side before Sulemana’s cross is cleared back out to Elyounoussi and his cross in towards Alcaraz floats over his head and drifts wide. Would’ve been a great cross for Tall Paul.  The ball in was very similar to the one Paul hit the bar with at West Ham.

Half an hour and so far so good but it’s shit-yer-pants time as city break once again down our right with the de Bruyne playing a ridiculous pass without looking to Grealish.  The cross deflects up in the air and Haaland gets up early and above everybody but can only head wide.

Having survived Haaland getting a rare touch of the ball and not scoring, Saints are still creating openings at the City end of the pitch and Lavia sorts his feet out and finds Sulemana on the left and his cross into the channel between the defenders and the goalkeeper is decent but we don’t have a striker on the pitch so no one is throwing themselves at it.

Having not woken up to the danger down out right hand side, again City attack down there with Grealish finding de Bruyne and the initial cross is headed out back to Grealish, back to de Bruyne and his right footed in-swinging cross lands on the 6 yard line and Haaland has a simple task of nodding it into the net because the defenders have lost him and the goalkeeper has done nothing.  6 yards out Baz – you have to be punching that.

Half-time and that goal before half-time is a real kick in the bollocks cause we’ve actually played quite well and don’t really deserve to be behind but behind we are and now we have to do something.  I’m pondering the irony of de Bruyne and Elyounoussi producing two very similar in-swinging crosses from the left with the right foot and City having a striker in the box and us having a small-ish midfield player.

As the second half starts it looks like Sulemana has been pushed up alongside Alcaraz,  with Walcott and Elyounoussi filling in right and left midfield.   I wonder if’s it’s two strikers or two false 9’s.  Either way it’s a midfielder and a non-scoring winger as our two most forward players.  Two minutes into the second half and we still haven’t fixed the issues down our right hand side as Grealish again finds loads of space before the ball breaks to Gündoğan, who curls just wide of the far post when he really should’ve scored.

It’s definition of madness time again as we once more give Grealish half the fucking pitch to himself, when Haaland flicks the ball inside to de Bruyne, who of course plays the perfect way to pass to Grealish, who is clean through against Baz who pulls off a decent save from his first effort but is unfortunate to see it go straight back to Grealish, who rams it into the net.  2-0, game over.

Yeah, Alright mate.

Oh look it’s happened again - another ball down our right for Grealish.  He doesn’t need to shoot this time and he just chips it to the back post where Erling Haaland takes off and despite the ball being behind him he manages to crash a scissor volley into the net.  Fucking ridiculous goal.

Selles has had a couple of subs waiting to come on and it’s Djenepo and Mara, so I can’t really contain my excitement.  Within a few minutes, something weird as fuck happens as Mara starts the move midfield with a ball going out to Djenepo on the left hand side and he stumbles past one challenge from Walker, and another from Bernardo, tackles his way past a third from Gündoğan before getting his head up and knocking it to Mara to pass it low into the net. Really good goal.  Funny what having a striker on the pitch can do.

City are annoyed however, and they go straight up our end of the pitch and pick their way through the crowded central area on the edge of the box with de Bruyne planning a one-two with Álvarez and he is about to pull the trigger when KWP comes scything in and takes him out.  Clearest penalty you ever will see. With Haaland off the pitch and unable to claim an inevitable hat-trick, it falls to World Cup winning Julian Alvarez to smash the penalty down the middle. 4-1.

It should be 5-1 from another rapier like City break which sees de Bruyne pick up the ball, get to the by-line and pull it back to Bernardo Silva but he manages to hit Bednarek with the shot.  The End.

Ultimately this game doesn’t make the slightest difference to the bigger picture of whether we stay up or not.  We got comfortably beaten in the end but that’s expected and at least we didn’t disgrace ourselves.  The opening 44 minutes were actually pretty good and we contained City pretty well, whilst having a bit of attacking intent ourselves, not much but a bit. Ruben Selles did actually try to do something different and whilst it’s not what I would’ve done, playing without a recognised striker did the job it was intended to do in stopping Manchester City dominating possession.  The downside of course was that we had openings in the first half as well with a couple of balls across the goal but of course, we didn’t have a striker in the box.  The big chance fell to Sulemana with his break from the halfway line but it was all rather predictable that come the moment when he actually had to shoot, he would fail to do that.

The goal before half-time was really shit timing from our point of view but it was a simple header for Haaland from a ridiculously good cross by De Bruyne. How a centre forward can head the ball from 6 yards out is the question that the defenders and particularly Bazunu should be asking themselves. Selles made a tactical switch at half-time we went 4-4-2 but whilst you would have expected it to shore up the wide areas, the opposite happened. Walcott dropping deeper should’ve course meant that he was helping out Maitland-Niles with Grealish on the left hand side but both of them deserted their post one too many times and if you continually give a player of Grealish’s quality, half the pitch to himself, he will eventually make you pay and it was a great save by Bazunu in the first place but Grealish buried the rebound. Down that side again for the third goal with Grealish finding Erling Haaland for his ridiculous acrobatic finish.

Ruben‘s second substitution was to bring on Djenepo and Mara supply upfront and against all odds the two of them combined for our goal with Djenepo tackling his way past three players before finding Mara for a cool finish. What I don’t want is for anyone to think that these two should start the next game. Substitutes at best.

Our goal just seemed to irritate City as they kicked straight off went straight up our end and won the penalty in a clear case of “you might have scored but we can score whenever we like”.

There were some good individual performances out there, the main one defensively from Jan Bednarek who has certainly turned a corner in the last few weeks. ABK looked a little bit rusty and whilst the full backs, particularly KWP, played well in the first half. AMN was just not bothered about defending in the second half. The guy can do it when he wants to but there was a large period of the second half we clearly didn’t want to.

There were decent performances in midfield from JWP and Lavia though they lost a bit of energy as the second half went on and we have to of course hope the Lavia injury doesn’t keep him out for any of the more important games coming up. I of course felt sorry for Charly Alcaraz, who was our most forward player. It’s an absolute fucking shambles that we are using a midfielder, who doesn’t speak English, in his first season in the Premier League, as a striker. Elsewhere, Walcott was non-existent and Elyounoussi was the same.

No point in dwelling on this game, it’s all about the next two home games. Win against Palace and Bournemouth and we still miraculously have a chance of staying up. Four points will drag it on more in hope than expectation and any less than that will mean we are completely fucked.

"Trust the Process"

Another press conference after the game and more worrying comments from Selles.  We were solid apparently - errr, no we weren't.  We will continue playing this way - errr, it's not working.  The most worrying take out is that he seems to have a lack of realisation about the situation we are in.  There is no time to mould a team, no time to Trust the Fucking Process or to Convert Potential into Excellence.  Look at the fucking league table? It’s about results – everything else can wait.  False 9, false manager perhaps.  8 games to go Ruben, tick tock.