Premier League Match 38 - Southampton 4 Liverpool 4

 

The Premier League is Upside-Down

And so this absolute stinking arsehole of a season draws to an end with the visit of Liverpool to St Mary’s, one of the games I look forward to least every season because you can always trust Liverpool fans to be giving it the big one and you can always trust loads of them to be in the home sections. Today promises to be no different because there are rumours of loads of Saints fans returning their tickets to the portal and then being sold on in a general sale. This promises to be all sorts of fun.

Putting that aside, it should be a game for all 22 players on the pitch to go out and enjoy because neither team has anything whatsoever to play for as neither can change their position in the final table. Liverpool will be fifth and in the Europa league next season and Saints will be fucking last and in the Championship.

Whilst you can safely assume that Jürgen Klopp will be in charge of Liverpool again next season, it has been confirmed that Ruben Sellers won’t be doing the same at Saints.  The reaction to this news has somewhat surprised me, with there seeming to be quite a lot of sympathy for the outgoing manager. I have none.

Not only was he the assistant to the two previous managers, so is therefore the common denominator in the coaching staff for the entire season, he has had more games as manager than anyone, with the best squad and has totally failed in his mission to get us enough points to stay up. That was his only mission by the way - it wasn’t to develop a style of play or an identity or any other such bollocks, trusting the process and all that shit. His mission was solely to win games with the squad at his disposal and he’s failed.

When we had the international break at the end of February, there were 10 games to go and I calculated that he had to win four, draw three and only lose three. In the event we have drawn one and lost eight and that’s before today. To be honest, I include myself as someone who would not have done any worse with these last 10 games and at least my team would’ve gone down attacking and trying to score some goals against the other poor sides.

Let’s also make it clear that he hasn’t been sacked. He has merely reached the end of the contract and we are looking to appoint the next person to do the job, so spare me the hard luck story. He had a glorious opportunity at Premier League club, that his previous record didn’t warrant getting and he has done nothing with it apart from prove how not to do it. Also, I’m sure he’s been handsomely paid for his four months of failing so let’s not feel too sorry for him.

The Selles Retro Kit Will Be in the Saints Megastore for August.

Straight after the Brighton game it was announced that CEO Martin Semmens was leaving, which was kind of the worst kept secret. There was a slightly mealymouthed statement from Sport Republic, which basically implied that Martin‘s presence was stopping them having full control over what goes on so by further implication, they were saying that they weren’t totally responsible for the shambles from the appointment of Nathan Jones onwards. As any casual observer will know, they were fully responsible for everything that happened from the moment Ralph Hasenhuttl walked out the door.

There has been the usual triumphalism over someone who many see as partly responsible leaving.  He is of course partly responsible, but not to the level that Sport Republic would want you to believe.  Semmens, along with Toby Steele and Ralph Hasenhuttl, saw the club through the challenging financial times of Chairman Gao not putting any money in and the Covid affected seasons, whilst keeping us in the Premier League because despite always having one eye on the future and the signing of younger players etc, they never lost sight of the fact that the first team, and it remaining in the Premier League, underpins everything from the youth set up through to the women’s team and everything else besides. Sport Republic in my view, lost sight of that and at that moment became more concerned with it being their show, rather than it being a successful show.

The bottom line is that I feel that like with Ralph Hasenhüttl, time will be kind to Martin Semmens and people, if they don’t think so already, will ultimately judge him as one of the good guys and someone who did a decent job under pretty difficult circumstances. Yes, Semmens was instrumental in bringing Sport Republic to the football club but anyone remember the initial statement about Sport Republic not wanting to get too involved with the day-to-day running of the football club? Let’s ponder that one for a second.  Now they have no one left to blame.

Meanwhile today and one final jarring team selection and we appear to have no striker once again with the only change from the Brighton game being Sulemana starting to instead of Joe Aribo.  Klopp has taken the opportunity to rest virtually everyone with Alisson, Van Dijk, Robertson, Henderson and Gakpo all left out.

Saints start the game relatively confidently, which is a surprise considering how bad we have been, and we’re knocking it around the back and it’s all fairly comfortable McCarthy to Bednarek to Lyanco to Lavia to Diogo Jota, goal.  Fucking hell.  Lavia’s attempted pass to Bednarek perfectly took out McCarthy and gave Jota an open goal. Not a great start.

It doesn’t get any better does it?.... and five minutes later it got worse again as Trent pulls out a superb reverse pass into Firmino’s feet and he dances away from the floundering Bednarek and Lyanco before drilling the ball through the hologram for 2-0. At this point I’m setting a target - if Liverpool are three or four goals ahead at half-time, I might actually think about going home.

As often been the case in the second half of the season, the resurgence was started by Charly Alcaraz, dancing in from the right wing, past a couple of players before playing a 1-2 on the edge of the box with Sulemana and then rolling the ball across to where JWP comes in and side foots it past Kelleher into the far corner of the net.  A nice moment and will probably be his last game for the club.  Not that it matters but 'game on'.

It’s now becoming a really weird game and you can tell that Liverpool aren’t that bothered either and Firmino dawdles in possession on the halfway line and gets robbed by Lavia.   On it goes to Walcott and he plays a lovely ball in between Tsimikas and Gomez and Sulemana sweeps it into the net through the Liverpool goalkeeping hologram that is Kelleher.

2-2 at half-time and it’s been very entertaining in a crap kind of way.

The start of the second half has even more bizarre shit going on. Liverpool lose the ball halfway inside our half and Sulemana bundles past Fabinho and he’s away. He basically runs in a straight line with all the retreating Liverpool defenders and none of them bothered to go and close him down at all so he gets to the edge of the box and just passes it into the net. The Minge at Spurs won goal of the season for a goal like that a few years ago and it’s a great finish but it is abysmally unaware defending.

Klopp has now decided that it’s getting embarrassing so he brings on all his good players with Henderson, Diaz, Gakpo and Elliot all coming on in one go. Selles responds with Lavia and Elyounoussi going off to be replaced with Stuart and Adam Armstrong.  Two of the subs combine straight away as Henderson passes the ball straight to Adam Armstrong on the left wing behind the right back and he just sprints forward, gets to the edge of the box and then fires it across Kelleher and comfortably inside the far post. This is a weird fucking day, 4-2.

Did I say that Liverpool have got a good players on the pitch now? Of course they have and they get to work with Henderson chipping a ball over the defence to be met with a superb volleyed cross by Trent and it flies across between goalkeeper and defender and there is Gakpo at the back post to run it into the net. What a goal that is, 4-3.

Before we can really get going again, the ball goes out to the left hand side where Diaz clearly handles it to keep it in play but the ref gives nothing and one pass from Diaz later and Jota is clean through with KWP absent, assumed talking to his agent, and he rams a shot into he roof of the net and now it’s 4-4.  We are all around the referee but he clearly can’t be arsed to go to VAR for the very obvious handball and so on we go.

Tino Livramento has been ready to come on since the score was 4-2 and now he's finally on in place of Theo Walcott.  We send on Dom Ballard for Sulemana and the final substitution is made in the 87th minute and it’s a pretty symbolic one with JWP going off to a standing ovation to be replaced by Sam Amo-Ameyaw.  We are now kind of playing a 5-2-3 formation with Bree as the right sided centre back and KWP at left back but not bothering with any actual defending.

Born in 2006 FFS!

Liverpool immediately have a chance to win it with Salah’s 347^th attempt to score which hits the post ans in reply, Amo-Ameyaw picks up the ball in midfield and twists past three Liverpool players before finding KWP on the left and he cuts in and curls a shot towards the top corner but unfortunately, Kelleher makes his one contribution to the game by taking off and tipping it over the bar. With JWP gone, Stuart Armstrong takes the resulting corner and scuffs it across the box about 3 foot off the ground and it’s volleyed clear, bringing the season to a close.

Well that game was absolutely fucking mad and at the end of it, I’m just pleased that it was entertaining compared to what it could’ve been like, bearing in mind everything that has gone on this season. For 15 minutes it did look like it was going to be absolutely horrific, with a mass exodus at half-time with us having gifted Liverpool 2-0 lead.  With it being Lavia who gave the first goal away, it probably helped keep everyone’s negativity in check – imagine if that had been Bednarek or Elyounoussi giving that away.

The moment the game changed was with JWP’s goal, superbly set up by Charly Alcaraz. Sulemana then gave us a reminder of why we signed him with his two goal blast either side of half-time and it looked like being one of those fucking weird miracles when Adam Armstrong came off the bench and Henderson passed the ball to him, allowing him to run through and score.  Having brought on all their proper players just before that goal, Liverpool then went into overdrive and scored twice in a minute as we made some ‘standing ovation’ substitutions that radically weakened the midfield in particular.

There wasn’t a lot of defending going on today, particularly from Liverpool.  Liverpool fans and media have a habit of talking up everything associated with their club but some of the squad players are fucking dreadful in the context of playing for a club with designs on winning trophies. Joe Gomez and Joël Matip are definitely in that category but I expected the midfield of Jones, Fabinho and Milner to be a lot better than it was. There’s a lot of hype around the young Liverpool goalkeeper but Kelleher gave a hologram, zero-presence Gunn-like performance.  He looked like a child in goal.

Playing Sulemana at the middle worked really well and Charlie Alcaraz had a superb game breaking from midfield to join him. Having said that no one really defended, the exception for us was Lyanco who was everywhere and I really hope he stays for next season.  Bednarek and Bree were both okay and KWP stopped Salah from scoring but that was more by luck that judgement.  Most of the time, Salah had the whole side of the pitch to himself as KWP seem determined to do something in attack in what will probably be his last appearance for the club.  He very nearly managed it as well with the effort at 4-4, which produced the only save that Kelleher actually made.

So to the standing ovations and a lot of players were substituted who are probably playing their last games for us.  Romeo Lavia was the first to go, with an injury.  He of course didn’t start the game great giving Liverpool their first goal but he again showed what he was about in the midfield battle.  He recovered well to have a hand in setting up our second goal and whilst he’s not the finished article yet, you would assume that his last game in red and white has been played.

Mohamed Elyounoussi was next to go. Not my favourite player by any stretch of the imagination and he gave a typical performance, working hard defensively but offering very little when we had possession.  He won’t be missed as a player though he is obviously well-liked by the other players.  The interesting bit about his substitution was Jordan Henderson getting annoyed about the amount of time he was taking to get off the pitch and then he calmed down when he realised it was his last game.

Theo Walcott was next and as I said before, a player who has been surprisingly good this season and who you feel could definitely have done a job next year, certainly ahead of the likes of some of the wide players that we are likely to still be saddled with next year.  He had announced pre-game that this was his last game for Saints so let’s hope he’s got something decent lined up.  The fact that he got back in the team this season is a testament both to his work ethic and desire to do well for the club but also an indictment of others playing in those wide areas who have just not done it.

Prowsey Has Had Enough of This Shit

The 87th minute saw the substitution of James Ward-Prowse, who of course has been here since he was eight years old but that time is surely now coming to an end.  He never get substituted, let’s face it and it wouldn’t surprise me if a deal has already been agreed with another club.  I also get the feeling that he wouldn’t necessarily have wanted to be substituted and looked a bit sheepish when departing the scene.

It’s also of course, the last time we will see Ruben Selles as our manager and today does nothing to change my opinion of him as a potential football manager.  You could say that he managed the second half pretty well and put the wishes of individual players head of what you would normally do in a match situation, so fair play to him for that.  You could also say that it also points again at him of being too soft and too friendly for top-level management.

Other subplots today include the brilliant performance of Kamaldeen Sulemana and his two goals.  These two goals to have to put into the context of Liverpool‘s lack of defending specifically Kelleher diving over the ball on the first goal and the hilariously bad defending by Joe Gomez on the second.  It’s worked well as a shop window for Sulemana though and he has less chance of being a Championship footballer next season as a result and we have a better chance of getting our money back. 

I was pleased to see Sam Amo-Ameyaw given 10 minutes at the end and he looked really good in his cameo.  When I got home I looked it up and realised that he is only 16 and hasn’t signed a professional contract yet so whilst showing him the pathway can be seen as a positive, drawing attention to him at the point where we are about to drop down a division, might not have been the smartest move.

I suspect that life is going to come at us pretty fast over the next week or so. It wouldn’t surprise me if Russell Martin is announced in the next day or so and I’m also sure that Saints would like to get some of the higher earners of the books as soon as possible. The make-up of the Championship is complete now and we know the other 23 teams we are competing against to try and get a seat back at the top table.  Now it’s all done and finally over, I’m quite looking forward to being away from the Premier League Bullshit for a while.  The novelty will wear thin pretty quickly however so we need to hit it hard next season.

Bring it on and Up the Fucking Saints.