Russell Martin - The Rise and Fall

 

We'll Always Have Wembley

It has seemed to be a case of when, rather than if, with regards to Russell Martin being sacked as manager of Southampton.  Any doubt over him being sacked probably left town after forty seconds of the game against Spurs at St Mary’s. If you wondered what a final straw looks like – that was it.  Before kick off, the Spurs game, had all the ingredients of a classic Russell Martin Premier League game.

Strange team selection with a player parachuted into the starting XI from absolutely nowhere – check
Some weird tactical set up – check
The best player from last week left out - check.  

The final damning thing that we saw against Spurs was the players not looking interested and looking for all the world like they were not playing for their manager anymore.  Whether they meant that to be the case or not we will never know.  There were no outward, shows of dissent towards Martin, probably because our players are the biggest bunch of soft arses that have ever been gathered together in one Premier League squad. The extent of our collective nastiness is that our captain, anointed by Russell, had a little pull on someone’s hair.

The last manager we had who was in anyway popular at any time, was Ralph Hasenhuttl and it’s always difficult to part ways with a manager who has done well at some point in the past. They go on a bad run and because you have memories of them doing well, you hope that they can turn it round but there comes to a point when it becomes hope rather than expectation. Ralph won 4 games out of his last 26, which compares favourably to Russell’s 1 game out of 16, but when you’re posting those kind of numbers, there is really only one way it’s going to go.

Like Ralph, Russell had credit in the bank from last season. He inherited an absolute shambles after our relegation of 22/23.  In the Championship he completely changed the style of play, rebuilt the squad and the bottom line is that at the end of the season we got promoted. Yes, that season wasn’t without issues but via the play-offs we achieved seasons aim of being back in the top flight,

So, back to last season and three wins and a draw out of the opening four games, then the first bump and four defeats in a row, including thrashings by Sunderland and Leicester. Twenty-two league games later with sixteen wins and six draws and we were in the automatic promotion places before getting a nosebleed and falling away, not being anywhere other than in fourth place for the final fourteen games of the season.  87 goals scored meant the games were always entertaining but the 63 conceded showed that there would be problems in the event of promotion.  Much was made throughout last season about our style of play, especially when it went a bit wrong and we gave away goals through trying to pass out from our goalkeeper. In the Championship, we got away with a lot because at the end of the day our players were generally better, than whoever we were up against. 

The bottom line is that it is about results and the playoffs brought more of them with West Brom being despatched over two legs including a remarkable game at St Mary’s that of course got us to Wembley and Leeds.  The win in that game and us getting promoted and the fact that we all had a brilliant day at Wembley, is the only thing that makes his departure in any way, difficult to process.  It was after all, only seven months ago that we did a number on Leeds United for the third time that season. I have frequently said that the day at Wembley was the best day that I have ever had as a supporter of Southampton FC and I go right back to the mid-70s. If you are old enough to have gone to the FA Cup final in 1976, then you are lucky enough to have witnessed the one game in our history that beats that playoff final. 

Farke-ing Great Day

So, on a wave of emotion, Russell vowed that we weren’t going to change at all for the Premier League and we would keep the same style.  Within a few games, it began to seem quite foolhardy to go into the season expecting to be able to play the same way and for it to turn out well.

Having won the playoff final and semi-finals by being pragmatic, Russell went into this season with the same mindset and thought that we could somehow be cleverer than anyone else.  Because of the adaptation to win the playoff games against West Brom and Leeds, I was optimistic that he would learn on the job in the Premier League.

In the first three games of the season we had the most bizarre tactical set up with two strikers playing on the wings and no one in the middle. There was no way that this way of playing was ever going to score any goals because there was never any player in the penalty area.  The wingers never got in there and nor did the midfielders.  Our lack of attacking threat and the problems we have playing out from the back, was shown in the very first game when we had an hour against a Newcastle team with ten men, gave a goal away and then lost 1-0. We should undoubtedly have won this game.  The next two were a pathetic performance against Nottingham Forest at home with no shots and then Brentford where we gave away two goals and scored with our first shot on target in the 91st minute.

An international break and then signs of life were shown against Manchester United when we played well for half an hour, missed a penalty and then gave up.  Ipswich at home saw us throw two points in the bin in the 95th minute by not defending a corner and falling victim of a horrible deflection.  One point from the opening five games and at least five points left out there.  The signs of life in the last two games took us to Bournemouth away and Russell really made an mess of things when we again sent the team out with no striker because he was scared of what Bournemouth had and were beaten pathetically by 3-1.  'Bravery' is one of his buzzwords but there was none of that on display here. Three down at half time, he abandoned his plan for the game and we got a goal back and then passed it about for forty minutes, creating nothing, when the attitude should have been to put Bournemouth under pressure, get another one and make it interesting.  Instead of that we turned down chances to put the ball in the box and went back to the goalkeeper.

Arsenal away saw us take the lead but then not adapt at all and give away a goal straight away and we also got our first taste of dodgy VAR decisions as Arsenal ran out 3-1 winners. For me, the nadir was Leicester at home. Two up and cruising he made a series of diabolical substitutions with every single one making us worse and playing into Leicester’s hands and that, combined with some more crap from VAR meant we threw that game in the bin and ultimately lost in the last minute. This was an absolute rabbit in the headlights performance from Russell where as far as things we can control was concerned (not the VAR), it was all on him.  For me, he probably should have gone after this game but the dodgy VAR call kind of meant it wasn't 'entirely' his fault.

A narrow 1-0 defeat at Manchester City seemed like a moral victory and into November and an actual win, at home Everton.  We got over the line by having a bit of luck on our side but no one could really begrudge that.  Next up against Wolves, we absolutely had to capitalise on the fact that we had three points the week before and that Wolves hadn’t won yet. It didn’t help again as we had a perfectly good goal disallowed by VAR but once that happened, we did absolutely nothing, zero shots and slumped to an abysmal defeat.

It was a major surprise that he survived that and was still in the dugout for a 3-2 home defeat against Liverpool where again, we could point at VAR but again we gave goals away.  Then an away draw at Brighton where we could definitely point at VAR but that was as good as it got because after that came a trio of abysmal performances. We had not been thumped by anyone all seasons but we got tanked 5-1 by Chelsea at home which was unsurprising giving the players we had unavailable but no such excuses for a limp, 1-0 defeat away at Aston Villa where once again we didn’t have a shot on target.  Then came Tottenham and the opening few minutes.

This Season in Picture Form

Yes, VAR decisions going against us didn’t help and we may have had a few points more but would it ultimately have made a difference?  We still would have given away all those goals from playing suicide ball at the back and we still would have largely had no goal threat. You’d be hard pressed to find someone to argue that it was suddenly going to change round.  There was a chance it would after the United and Ipswich games and then there was another chance after Everton but those moments weren't grabbed.  It was always a case of a small step forwards, followed by a colossal stride back.

Russell has not been helped by the recruitment in the summer which was simply not good enough especially in attacking areas. However, it has to be remembered that he had a hand in that recruitment, which has basically left us with a bloated squad of Championship level players. On a good day we have six or seven that are good enough for the Premier League bottom half, so any manager would struggle to keep this lot up.  However, as manager you have got to find a way to get the best out of the players at your disposal and when you play in a polarising style and it doesn’t work in terms of results, questions are always going to be asked.

Russell Martin proved himself to be a good manager at Championship level with players who were also good at Championship level. Stepping up to the Premier League is another thing entirely though and like a number of those players, he was found wanting. You can’t always do exactly what you want to do all the time, and when the conditions change, you have to change with them because what works before might not necessarily work now. He never seemed to get that, and we will only know if he’s learned if he lands at another Premier League club. 

At his core, Russell Martin the person, seems like a really decent guy. You only have to look at the work he does through his foundation to give opportunities to disadvantage people to see that. He has decent principles and though of course, this is an opinion not shared by all, personally I love that he wasn't interested in talking about the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he was asked about his presence in the ground.

He speaks very well and has courage of his convictions. Every time he is interviewed, he comes across well, unless he is being prickly after a defeat. The fact that he speaks well and the fact that he would obviously interview well, will certainly mean that he is not out of work for very long though he is going to have to make bad VAR decisions and substandard players do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to explaining away this season. Russell’s professional pride would’ve been dented but he will be okay for sure.   In all seriousness, I don’t think he’s going to fail upwards like Vincent Kompany did with a similar brand of football, because Kompany had that stellar playing career to fall back on which will always give you managerial opportunities, even if you don’t deserve them. Russell’s achievements last season will get him in the room when clubs are interviewing and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we come across him in the Championship next season. 

In the future, when I look back on the tenure of Russell Martin, what I will think about is the day at Wembley. My dad started me on the path of supporting Saints as soon as I was old enough and he took me to my first ever game, in April 1976. Fast forward 48 years and the old man is 79 years old and I managed to get him a ticket to go to the playoff final and he along with myself and my son had the best day ever.  It would’ve been a great day regardless, but the fact that we won and got the result, elevated it massively. That’s the thing. You can enjoy a game up to a point regardless of the result, but football ultimately is about winning. You can trust the process and think about the long-term all you like, but football is about winning, and 1 win out of 16 is a pretty sure sign that it’s not going to change any time soon.

Russell’s strength is his belief in what he is doing and it’s also ultimately his weakness and his undoing. I admired him in a way for sticking to his guns but it was fanciful to think that it was going to work at the start of the season and it was certainly fanciful in the extreme to think it would work as the defeats and the mistakes and the lack of goal threat continued into the season. The boards respect for him for getting us promoted meant that they didn’t make this decision earlier and the fans respect for the job he did last season, meant that there wasn’t much toxicity inside the ground until the abomination that was the first half against Tottenham.

As a fan, I really wanted it to work for Russell Martin but we have reached the point where it absolutely was obvious that it was not going to and so a parting of the ways was absolutely inevitable.  If we were out of the relegation zone, like Leicester were when they sacked Steve Cooper, I would think it was ridiculous to sack him and even now, it's a shame but 5 points out of 48…. it had to happen. It's happened too late to save this season in all probability.

I mentioned Ralph Hasenhuttl at the start of this as a comparison as a manager who had some success with us but then it went pear-shaped. Ralph at least tried to divert from the style that he preferred, when it became obvious that it wasn’t working anymore. Yes, it didn’t work but at least he tried. Russell Martin never even tried it to change and the small tweaks that he did do were never going to be enough to turn this around. I hope our next manager is not completely wedded to one style of football because you need to be adaptable in the quest for results.

I hate the triumphalism amongst fans, that follows when a manager who did achieve something for us, loses his job.  It’s understandable if a manager has been useless since day one (and we’ve had a few of those) but that’s not in this case.  Many had an agenda against Russell from the start which I never understood, given the utter shambles that had had immediately preceded it.  He used what he had at his disposal last season and got us promoted.  At the end of the day, along with Lawrie McMenemy, Russell Martin is the only Southampton manager to have won a really meaningful game at the national stadium.  Thanks for last season Russell Martin – we will always have Wembley against Leeds - and good luck with whatever you do next.

Carabao Cup 5th Round - Southampton 1 Liverpool 2

 

VAR or no VAR - We Always Seem to be on the Wrong End of It

Carabao Cup quarter-final and Liverpool at home. When the draw was being made and it was all Premier League clubs, I was hoping for Brentford or Crystal Palace, so on paper at least, we had a chance but of course we get bloody Liverpool. There is light at the end of the tunnel however because Arne Slot has promised to rotate a bunch of players, but Chelsea did that against us recently and still won 5-1 so let’s not get too hopeful.

The main interest around this game of course is that Simon Rusk is in caretaker charge following the departure of Russell Martin after the abhorrent shit show that was our 5-0 defeat by Tottenham. What sort of team would we see? What sort of style of play would we see? On the face of it Russell was a popular manager with the players so reactions will be interesting. One thing for sure is that if we are as half arsed on the pitch as we were in the first half against Tottenham, then we are in for a long evening.

Team news and it looks like Rusk has gone into this thinking that he may as well put out the strongest team he can if he’s only here for one week, with the only real absentee being KWP who apparently has a knock. Don’t know where he got that considering he didn’t put a single tackle in on Sunday. Adam Armstrong is suspended because he has booked been booked twice in previous rounds of this illustrious cup competition so Cameron Archer starts up front. Slot has been true to his word and massively rotated there is only really Trent, Mac Allister Gakpo and Núñez from their normal Premier League side. Other than that, it’s reserves like Kelleher, Quansah, Gomez and a few young players.

Away we go and there is a marked difference straight away because there is no playing out from the back. McCarthy is hitting the ball long towards Aribo who has kind of pulled out to the left, if there is no short ball on.  It’s all a bit wayward and inaccurate, not helped by the fact that it is blowing a gale and absolutely pissing down. Liverpool are understandably very disjointed as well and both teams are struggling to put any sort of possession together. We reach 10 minutes and Liverpool began to get some control over the ball and it’s remarkable how passive we look. The players are back in position, but there is no press to speak of.

We are defending deep and manage to create a chance more by luck than judgement as THB smashes a clearance forward and it bypasses seven Liverpool players and go straight to Fernandes in the middle of the pitch who knocks it off to Dibling on the right, who really should make more of this than the tame effort he produces that goes straight to Kelleher.

Darwin Nunez has already been copping stick from the Northam End and “shit Andy Carroll” has rung out several times already but then he gets a bit fortunate as Trent’s driven through ball is sliced by Bednarek and comes down perfectly for Nunez. McCarthy has a good starting position but for no apparent reason he decides to retreat back into his six yard box and then slips on his arse and Nunez isn’t going to miss that even though his finishing is shaky at the best of times. 1-0 and lots of, cupping of the ear to the Northam. Twat, but we’d have all done the same.

Shit Andy Carroll Converts Simple Chance

Liverpool then stroll up the left-hand side through Mac Allister and Gakpo, with us getting nowhere near them and Endo links up with Gakpo to give the ball to Elliot on the edge of the box and with no Saints midfielder or defender player getting anywhere near, he just rolls it into the bottom corner with the aid of a slight deflection off of Manning. Fucking garbage.

There is no reaction and it’s nearly three as we stand off again and allow Liverpool to pass the ball to the edge of penalty area and Trent feeds the ball into Mac Allister, whose low shot is very well saved by McCarthy.  We are so slow and lethargic and gutless.

Halftime and basically that has been a passive load of shit.  Apparently the players all had a day off after Spurs so it’s nice to see them all refreshed.  Wankers - exactly the same fucking thing as against Spurs. Useless. The midfield has been pathetic. I can’t help but be massively disappointed in Flynn Downes. I really hoped when we signed him that he would be a different maker in the midfield this season and would drive the standards of everybody else but he seems to have sunk down to the levels of the likes of Joe Aribo who just seems to accept, when we play the better teams, that he’s not quick enough to do anything in the game so he just strolls about. He kind of maintains his position but he’s basically a training cone. His engagement with opposition players is non-existent. Training cone stuff as they passed it around him.  Downes hasn’t been much better  The pair of them are playing today against two Liverpool kids who are both about 19 so we really should’ve been bullying the fuck out of them but there was nothing in that first half.

We come out for the second half and there is immediately a bit more aggression about the team.  Liverpool have taken off Mac Allister and Trent which helps also.  Bednarek steps into midfield to pick a ball up and finds Fernandes in the centre circle. He attempts to sweep the ball right but it hits Endo in the face and bounces through to Archer in the left-hand channel and he goes directly for goal, getting to the edge of the box, switching it onto his right foot and smashing it past Kelleher and into the far top corner of the net. Brilliant finish and game on.  It doesn’t matter a shit that the assist was slightly fortunate. We will take it.

A limping Bree is replaced with Sugawara which provides us with more attacking impetus and his first action from the right is to put in a wonderful cross which Archer meets at the near post but he can’t get enough on it to divert it past Kelleher who makes a good sprawling reaction save.  Saints get the ball back out to Sugawara, who burns past Tsimikas before hanging another cross up in the air which Fernandes controls and smashes goalwards but it’s blocked for a corner.  We have impetus for the first time all season but before we can take the corner, we have to wait for the obligatory defender to get off the deck. It’s been a feature of their play that every time there’s any action in Liverpool’s penalty area, one of their defenders goes down and stays there.

Saints are throwing players forward now and consequently leaving gaps and Liverpool exploit one with substitute Jota bringing it forward before finding Chiesa on the right and his cross shot is past McCarthy but cleared off the line by THB for a corner, which we deal with.

Double substitution time by Simon Rusk and it could be called the January 2023 Transfer Window Nightmare Substitution and on come both Tall Paul and Sulemana for Archer and Flynn Downes.  This leaves us with the defensive wall of steel of Aribo and Fernandes in the centre of midfield and the boys who have done so little since they arrived two years ago, are given another opportunity and it nearly works as Manning puts Sulemana away down the left and he hammers over a first time left foot cross and it’s Tall Paul with the side foot and this is the moment, this is what we’ve been waiting for….. and he slips on his arse. Fucking hell.

The final dice roll sees Aribo and Bednarek come off for Lallana and Ben Brereton Dustbin and he too has his chance as Fernandes puts in a cross from the right and the (How the Fuck is he a) Chilean International, meets it with a header at the back post but it kind of plops off his head straight to the goalkeeper…. And he was offside anyway.

Chiesa has not scored to Liverpool yet and he will never have a better chance than what comes next as his first effort is brilliantly cleared off the line of THB and when the rebound comes back to him he blasts the next shot and Sugawara gets his head in the way, more by luck than judgement and it flies off another corner.  The commitment to defend is good to see.

Six extra minutes and the first four of those pass with nothing happening, so it’s time for some anti-Russell Martin football as McCarthy launches it into the sky and Fernandes gets in front of Quansah and is clean through. The Liverpool defender leans all over him and pulls him down and that’s got to be a red card, but no, Simon Hooper waves his arms around and exaggerated fashion and talk of fucking bottling it. Of course, there is no VAR when you need it and that’s the end of that.

Simon Hooper Shites His Pants

The proverbial game of two halves comes to an end with Liverpool, of course, going through to the semi-final. As far as Saints were concerned, the first half was pretty much as bad as it gets but in the second half, no doubt having had a bit of a rocket at half-time was much better in every aspect we put pressure on, we ran a lot more and we created a load of chances.  It was so refreshing to see us actually trying to put pressure on and get a bit of momentum going to get back into the game, rather than passing it around and hoping and not having any shots. We got a goal back and we piled it on as best we could, looking for an equaliser.  We put crosses in the box instead of turning out again and nearly forced a penalty shoot out because of it.

The main talking point of the game is the referee absolutely bottling giving us a free kick on the edge of the box which would’ve led to Liverpool having to play the last minutes with ten men. Up the other end, that’s a red card all day.  The referee said that he didn’t see Quansah’s arm over Fernandes’ shoulder, which sounds like absolute bollocks to me.  It is absolutely a clear foul.  Also, because of the way we were playing because we were putting pressure on and creating chances, there would’ve been a feeling inside the ground that we could’ve actually equalised, unlike earlier this season when there has been no such feeling.  Remember Bournemouth away?  Got back to 3-1 with 40 minutes to go and then didn't have another shot. 

I would be interested to know where the change of tactics came from. Did it come from Simon Rusk alone or did he talk to the players to see what they wanted to do, because it was very different. There was hardly any short goal kicks or passing it back to the goalkeeper once we had possession of the ball. Not every ball went long but we at least mixed it up, as you have to do.

Any positive you say about this game has to be put into the context of the fact that we were playing Liverpool’s reserve team and by the end they were bringing on Academy kids who have barely kicked a ball in first team football before.  Regardless of that though, this game was really about us and our attitude and how we approached it and in the first half there was just too much standing off. In the second half however, we set about it and were much more positive.  Fans will forgive a lot if you are having a go, even if you’re beaten by a better side in the end.

Setting up with a five-man defence really means that the wingbacks have to get forward and join in with the midfield or the midfield will get completely outnumbered.  Manning on the left was joining in whenever he could, but James Bree was not and that pulled the central midfield of Downes and Aribo all over the place in the first half. Neither of them looked particularly up for the challenge either and that first half was a massive disappointment.

With the midfield not providing much in terms of protection, the defence were overworked in the first half and in the main stood up well. All three of THB, Bednarek and Wood had very good moments defensively, possibly because they were relieved of the burden of playing suicide ball around the six-yard line.  You expect some sort of consistency out of THB and Bednarek, but Nathan Wood again had a good game and if there’s any justice in the world with a new manager coming in, will definitely be ahead of Jack Stephens in the pecking order.

Rusk Gets Soggy In The Rain

Alex McCarthy was captain for the day but unfortunately dropped a bit of a bollock with the first goal. He had a good starting position and then for reasons unknown, decided to backpedal into his own penalty area as Nunez came forward. That was the moment where we conceded the goal because Nunez is much more like to fuck it up if put under pressure.  The slip in a penalty area wasn’t the biggest factor in the goal being conceded. Ironically, it was the same part of the penalty area where Tall Paul went over in the second half when he had an open goal to put the ball into. Ironic that three blokes in trainers can do a crossbar challenge at half time and none of them slip over.

The second half was dare I say it, exciting. There was a large element of fortune about the way the ball reached Cameron Archer but that was a brilliant finish and it was so refreshing to see us really push on after we got the goal back. forcing Kelleher to be busy to preserve Liverpool’s advantage.  How many times this season has the opposition keeper not had dirty kit after 90 minutes?  A lot was impetus came with the introduction of Yuki Sugawara in the second half who played high on the right hand side, added energy, got crosses in and showed all the things that he is good at. Miraculously, even Kamaldeen Sulemana showed signs of life as we tried to rescue the game and then there was Tall Paul - shame he slipped on his arse.  We all know that Paul is not the greatest but he causes absolute chaos wherever he is, so we could certainly do worse than find a role for him for the rest of the season.

Onward to Fulham on Sunday and I suspect it will be a packed a few days before then, as the manager search intensifies, or maybe not and maybe it will be Simon Rusk in charge at the weekend. Either way, at least there was a bit of hope from that second half today and up the fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 16 - Southampton 0 Tottenham Hotspur 5

 

It Was a Good Opening 15 Seconds

Today sees a clash between two teams with managers under varying degrees of added pressure. The funny thing is that the team who are 11th in the table, Spurs, are probably much more likely to sack their manager if they lose this game than the team that is flat last. I guess that it’s a question of expectations.

Ange Postecoglou is in his second season as Tottenham manager and the expectations for him would’ve been to qualify for the Champions League for next season, meaning they have to finish in the top four at present they are seven places below that in eleventh place. Saints expectation this season is to finish 17th and we are currently 20th so you could argue that they need the points more than we do to try and make up the gap. However, look a little bit closer and you will see a team on five points who desperately need to win this game.

The fact is that we have a chance today because Spurs are, well Spurs and also because they are dealing with having several injuries to keep players. The regular centre back pairing of Romero and van de Ven are both missing as well as their regular first choice goalkeeper Vicario. The goalkeeper missing is of particular interest because currently in goal for them is Fraser Forster, who was a brilliant goalkeeper for us, then not so good, then injured, then he became decent again before we decided that we preferred Alex McCarthy, and Fraser joined Spurs at the start of the 21/22 season, a season in which we of course kept Gavin Bazunu in goal until almost the point where we were mathematically relegated. I’m not saying that we would’ve stayed up if we had kept Fraser, but we certainly would’ve been a lot closer if we kept the experienced players like Fraser and Oriol Romeu. Regardless of history, I hope Fraser gets a decent welcome today.

I can’t help but feel that Spurs injury crisis has been overplayed as they still look very strong on paper. Son Heung Min always scores against us or alternatively, he dives to win a penalty.  Dominic Solanke has been signed from Bournemouth and has done relatively well this season without maybe scoring as many goals as he would’ve liked. The creativity is provided by James Maddison (who always scores against us) and/or Dejan Kulusevski, who are both excellent players.  We do have to concentrate on the weaknesses. A few days ago against Rangers in the Europa league, they had Archie Gray playing at Centre back alongside Dragusin.  Excellent young player though Gray is, he is not a central defender so physicality will definitely be the key against him so whoever is playing upfront for us really needs to put themselves about.

A lot has been said about Spurs style, in exactly the same way that a lot has been said about our own style. One similarity that I see is a lack of willingness from both managers to change much in game. There’s a plan at the start of the game and that is it and it never changes with the game situation regardless of whether you are up in the game or down in it. Last week Spurs attacked really well at the start of the game against Chelsea and went 2-0 up but by half time they were losing 3-2 because they didn’t adapt at all.  Saints have done this on several occasions ourselves this season, the most obvious being away at Spurs nearest and dearest neighbours Arsenal where we went up and instead of spending ten minutes taking no chances, we gave the ball away three minutes later in our own half and two passes later it was in our goal.  We also refuse to change when we go behind – just knocking the ball about with no urgency and often having no shots on target.

Postecoglou seems like a genuinely decent guy but he will inevitably become the latest victim of Daniel Levy at some point in the not too distant future.  Levy seems to think that it’s solely the managers responsibility to make some sort of masterpiece out of less ingredients than all the other teams at the top. It will not be at all surprising if getting beaten by Southampton is as usual, seen as the ultimate barometer of failure and he gets sacked if they get beaten today.  Remember Glenn Hoddle.  However, it’s much more likely that they win this one and Ange will be fine.

Saints availability list is looking a little bit stronger this week with the expected returns of Bednarek and Tall Paul. The goalkeeper selection will be interesting this week because apparently Alex McCarthy is fully fit.  Be it Lumley or McCarthy, it will hopefully only be a one-week assignment with Ramsdale being close to fitness again.

Russell Martin had to defend himself this week in a press conference, in particular about his lead footed comments made after the Aston Villa game. He gets quite prickly when he has to face awkward questions though he usually answers them pretty well and is good at coming up with mitigating circumstances, or as some people would call it – blaming someone else.  He again sailed a little bit close to the wind,  implying that people outside of the dressing room don’t really understand and whilst that may be a fair point, people outside the dressing room have the facts on their side which are, five points from fifteen matches and ten goals conceited from mistakes in our own half.  No one has to do much, to present a counter argument to anything Russell Martin is saying. All you need to do is cut a league table out of a newspaper and put it on the desk in front of him.

We haven’t had a game since last Friday so there’s been the best part of nine days to work on this and as the team sheet drops, what do we have? Well, it looks like a back four but fuck me, Kamaldeen Sulemana is playing and it looks like he’s up front with Adam Armstrong. Christ that is shit.  Bednarek is back and Wood is left out meaning that our best from last week has been dropped, which is exactly what happened in the previous game as well.  Spurs have Archie Gray in central defence as predicted and it’s debut for 18-year-old Lukas Bergvall in midfield, so we absolutely have to get at these inexperienced players in those key positions.  Russell says we are all about aggressive intent this week.  Let’s see.

Away we go and fucking hell this looks immediately bad. Spence picks up the ball on the right-hand side and turns away from Downes and just runs directly at the goal into the fucking great big gap in front of our defence. He reaches THB and then slots the ball through and Maddison times his run perfectly and drills it past McCarthy. 34 seconds, 1-0 down, wankers.

Our tactic for the next few minutes is to try and pump the ball over the top of Spence, for Sulemana to run onto and he does pick up the ball a couple of times but it’s all fart and no shit and no ball makes it into the penalty area.  Spurs on the other end are quite happy to put the ball in the box and on 10 minutes, Maddison puts one in there, Bednarek manages to flick it over the top of the covering THB and there is Son at the back post, with no right back in sight, to smash it under McCarthy to make it 2-0. For fucks sake.  We are so slow and nowhere near the pace of the game and it’s absolutely fucking embarrassing. There is a chant of “we want Martin out“ from the Northam End, which is officially the first mass dissent that I’ve heard during a game this season.

Three minutes later and the chant is ringing out again as Son gets down the left, completely unimpeded by KWP, who is busy doing fuck all higher up the pitch. Solanke piles in with Bednarek as the cross comes in and the ball bounces kindly to the alert Kulusevski, who taps it into the net for 3-0 on 14 minutes. What the fuck are we doing?

Nathan Wood is warming up and it’s blatantly obvious that Sulemana is going to be the one who comes off and it’s hard not to feel a little at least a little bit sorry for him as he remonstrates with Matt Gill as he leaves the pitch.  Russell’s nine days of planning to include the winger, being binned after not even a quarter of an hour.

Briefly we show signs of life with Tyler Dibling getting on the ball and beating a couple of players on his own and then puts a perfect cross in with the outside of his left foot and Armstrong meets it and and just heads it straight at where the goalkeeper is standing. It was probably more difficult to do that than it was to actually head it down to try and make him make a save.

We are showing a bit more confidence now, shame we’re already three goals behind and we work the ball to KWP on the right who loses it to Spence. Spence plays it up the line to Son and his pass in the middle finds Sarr, who stumbles his way past a couple of flailing defenders, before poking it past McCarthy for 4-0. 25 minutes gone and full Leicester 9-0 vibes.

It’s nearly five as Maddison (who of course played and scored in that game) puts Son through the middle but this time McCarthy reacts well to tip it over the bar.  We create another chance at the other end as our only two decent outfield players, Dibling and Manning combine and Manning’s low cross into the box is met by Armstrong but of course he puts it wide.

Russell Martin disappears into the bowels of the stadium as we get to the 48th minute to no doubt plan some masterclass for the second half and he probably hears the crowd reaction as Son plays a brilliant ball with the outside of his foot behind the defence with Maddison picking it up on the goal line before allowing Woody to slide past and making himself the slightest of angles before pinging it into the top corner for 5-0. Is the sort of goal that I might have actually applauded if it was down my end of the pitch. 5-0 and fuck off. Gutless fucking wankers.

Honestly Sonny, We Score Against These Every Fucking Time

Saints make no changes at half time but Ange decides to rest Son and brings on Brennan Johnson instead, which is a sure sign that Spurs are going to coast the second half.  The game is done and the second half has a lack of intensity. With Spurs having come down to our intensity level through choice, we create a few half chances with KWP hitting one into the side netting and Dibling smashing one just wide. We even get the ball in the net as Downes crosses and Fernandes scores with a header but was well offside.  Brennan Johnson should make it six for Spurs, but he somehow manages to scoop it up over the bar. I’m not having any of that restored pride shit from the second half because we still basically did fuck all even though Tottenham were playing walking football by this point. Joke.

That word – intensity. Spurs absolutely tore into the game and we sleepwalked into it. They won every tackle, they were quicker, they were more direct, they had more intensity with and without the ball and they have the quality to take advantage of the fact that we were second-best in every single non-negotiable category.  It’s a simple fact that if you have players with less ability than the team that you are up against, you have to outwork them but we just died without trying.  It was, from our point of view, absolutely pathetic and we looked like a collection of players who were not playing for the manager and that I’m afraid that’s virtually always the end of the road.

Russell and Matt Gill Come Up With a Cunning Plan Involving Sulemana

Russell’s tactical cunning plan that Baldrick would have been proud of, lasted all of fourteen minutes as we were three down and so off went Sulemana.  Russ had spent nine days thinking he was going to be the difference maker and that's a problem in itself.  Nine days of planning, out the window after 14 minutes most of the talk afterwards is going to be about the manager of course but fuck me, some of our players. McCarthy actually did okay in goal. He maybe could’ve stopped, the second goal from Son that was drilled underneath him, but otherwise he didn’t have much chance with anything. Ryan Manning was by far our best player and probably the only one who looked like he gave a shit for the entire time that he was on the pitch of and of course he got substituted in the second half.   If Ryan Manning is your best player then you are in trouble.  Tyler Dibling was again left to carry the attack completely on his own, usually with absolutely no support from anybody.

KWP was an absolute fucking disaster. I don’t think he put a tackle in all game because it’s hard to put a tackle in when you are twenty yards from the player you are supposed to be marking.  The space he was allowing Son to have was ridiculous. It was like he was playing as a wingback, when he was in a back four.  You have to defend when you are a full back in a four and he just didn’t. If he thinks he’s going to get a move to a top half Premier League side like Spurs, he is absolutely dreaming with performances like that. When you compare him to the likes of Spence, Udogie and Porro - he was absolutely nowhere near.

Bednarek and THB were all over the fucking place in the first half and didn’t seem to be communicating with each other and allowed ridiculous amount of space for any player who drifted into the area. They weren’t helped by our midfield however with Flynn Downes again being deployed too far forward, being asked to press from the front but also play as a number six which is just not possible.   He ended up drifting too far forward ahead of the ball and so every time Spurs got it he was out of position and no one else was doing the job in front of the defence. We lost virtually every game in the Championship when he wasn’t playing at number six so why Russell Martin thinks he can play further forward in the Premier League, with no nominated number 6 behind him is totally fucking beyond me.  The midfield was not help at all by Joe Aribo because it was just too fast a pace for him to play in.  He barely touched the ball and when he did he invariably got ran off it

Up front, Adam Armstrong was predictably fucking useless. The guy barely moves most of the time. The fact that he has the captains’ armband when he basically spends most of the game standing on the halfway line doing nothing, is absolutely ridiculous. He had a few efforts in the general direction of the goal, putting one header straight at Fraser Forster and putting everything else well off target. He simply isn’t good enough and especially when he’s deployed as a lone striker, which is what he was when we took Sulemana off.  The masterplan at the start of the game was to have him playing as split strikers with Sulemana, which is an attacking plan we’ve tried before this season and we’ve never scored.  Nice one Russell.

Russell Spots a Shit Banner in the Crowd

… and goodbye Russell.  As said, there were the first very obvious chants against Russell Martin today and clearly someone important was listening.  An hour or so later, he was the boss no more as Saints released a very lengthy statement, which had certainly been written in advance,  probably from when the third goal went in, detailing that he was leaving and how hard the decision it had been and going a great length to point out the mitigating circumstances such as the chasm between the Championship and the Premier League.  As goodbye statements go from professional football clubs sacking their manager, it was pretty good.  I got the immediate impression that they clearly didn’t want to do it but the road had clearly run out.  Well at least the Spurs fans chanting 'sacked in the morning' were wrong.

To be honest, it had to happen. Five points from sixteen games and conceding five in consecutive home games. No one survives that. There’s not a team in professional football in any division in any country where the manager survives with that record. No one survives when the players appear to be not playing for the manager either and that first half performance was that in abundance.  No one survives the crowd turning en-masse either.  A number of the players were a disgrace today but they'll live to be crap another day.  They should feel guilty after their efforts today but they won't.  Today was very much a final straw and I'll write about Russell Martin another time.

It’s too late of course and we are going down, but we have the Under 21s manager Simon Rusk in charge for the cup game against Liverpool on Wednesday. I’m sure that the nine months he had in charge of Stockport in the National League or stand him in good stead. Good luck to him. With the collection of players that we have, he is certainly going to need it.

The King is Dead, Long Live the Caretaker King and Up the Fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 15 - Aston Villa 1 Southampton 0

Joe's Not In His Goal Again

Villa Park is the ground that brings back great memories for me as it was the ground in 2003 where we won an FA Cup semi-final before they rebuilt Wembley and ruined all FA Cup semi-finals by putting them in the National Stadium. For me, it’s one of the best grounds in the country, given, that it is old and traditional. Still, it’s not a time to daydream back to 2003, but time to focus on the Premier League 2024/25 and Southampton’s place in it which as we all know, is currently rock bottom.

Under Unai Emery, Villa started the season on fire, were very close to the top of the league and had a remarkable start of the Champions League campaign, beating Bayern Munich. They seem to have hit a bit of a wall recently and were tumbling down the table until they arrested the descent by beating Brentford during the week, whilst Saints were getting soundly beaten by Chelsea. Villa have a very big squad so should handle the upcoming Christmas rush pretty well given that the Champions League is on hold for a while. Saints on the other hand, not so much.

Villa’s standout player for me this season, has been Morgan Rogers, who they signed from Middlesbrough. Considering we spent last season in the Championship and our coaching and recruitment staff clearly knew everything about the Championship, I find it somewhat annoying that we weren’t even linked to a player like that, who moved for a relatively modest amount of money (£8m rising to £15m) and has stepped up to the Premier League and even the Champions League, with no problem whatsoever. It’s especially galling that he was a Manchester City youngster so Jason Wilcox would have known all about him but of course, Wilcox was gone by the time Villa signed him.  He tends to play just behind Ollie Watkins up front, who a few years ago they also signed from the Championship, when he moved there from Brentford. Now he’s scoring goals for England in the Euros semi-final. Meanwhile, we signed Ben Brereton Diaz.

The good news is that after, the triple suspension against Chelsea, Tyler Dibling, Flynn Downs and THB will be back today, with Captain Jack of course going in the other direction. The Chelsea defeat seems to have sucked any remaining optimism out of the Saints fanbase and personally, I am expecting absolutely nothing out of this game.

Some storm with a silly name is battering the UK today and Everton vs Liverpool has been called off.  No such luck further South however and Villa Park is on.  Team news and I look at the eleven names and I see five that shouldn’t be on a Premier League team sheet. Once again we have squeezed in another defender and as a result of that, Joe Aribo is left out, which is ridiculous given that he was by far our best player on Wednesday.

Saints make a reasonably positive start with Fernandes picking up the ball on the edge of the box and having a dig and it deflects wide to KWP on the left and he sets it up for Manning to drill goal but it hits Carlos on the heel and deflects away without Martinez being tested.

The wind is quickly proving to be a bit of a problem but it’s not the reason that we fanny around with the ball in the left back area and an Archer panic clearance bounces straight across the top of the penalty area to Morgan Rogers, who shoots and it’s deflected and with Lumley completely wrong footed, we are grateful that it goes wide of the post.

We make a massive opportunity at one end the pitch but it ends when Archer’s cross is deflected up in the air to Martinez and Villa break to the other end and Duran is put through and he’s in a foot race with Lumley, who goes old school and dives at the strikers feet with his hands and comes up with part of the ball at least. Really good goalkeeping to be fair. ,

Another chance, or rather another opening that should lead to a chance, goes begging as we win the ball high up and the ball is poked through to Downes who has an absolute nosebleed when he realise he’s clean through and instead of shooting from the edge of the box, he tries to cut inside the last defender and the defenders gets a bit of it with the ball squirting off to Archer, who smacks it against the nearest defender.

Tyler Dibling has been quiet but diligent so far and does some good defending to see the ball out for a goal kick when hassled by Rogers.  Lumley plays suicide ball giving it to Wood who is all of 6 yards out, who gives it back to him and Lumley shites his shorts and tries to find KWP in exactly the same way that he did it against Chelsea and to the shock of no one, in exactly the same way that he did against Chelsea he gets tackled and Villa have the ball ten yards out and we’re diving in all over the place and we get lucky as Lumley dives at Duran’s feet again and the follow-up shot from McGinn is deflected up in the air by KWP and Lumley catches it. We are a fucking nightmare, honestly.

Lumley boots the next one long and it goes through Martinez. One long ball from the right back area and Wood holds off Duran with THB behind him but THB, instead of launching the ball into the crowd, decides to take a touch and Duran nicks it off him, advances on goal and from the edge of the penalty area with Lumley out of position and flapping like a budgie, curls it into the net very, very easily. Absolute fucking rubbish and you can’t help but think that everyone was unsettled by the incident that happened just before.  Shite.

We’ve killed ourselves again and nothing much happens before half time when Russell decides that we don’t need all these Championship players on the pitch and so Bree is replaced by last weeks’ man of the match Joe Aribo.  Saints immediately look better but Villa are looking to kill the game off with Digne’s cross causing absolute havoc before we break with Archer nodding the ball down to Dibling just outside our penalty area and he just takes off through the middle of the pitch and he eventually slips the ball left to Archer, who takes a terrible touch away from the goal and his eventual effort is easily blocked.

Not long after that, Archer (and not invisible captain Armstrong) is replaced by Sam Amo, who is a welcome addition because he has got the nod ahead of the Chuckle Brothers. The first time Sam Amo gets the ball, he jinks away from Digne and puts in a lovely cross with his left foot, which is just in front of Armstrong, but it at least makes Martinez work.

Time running out and we take off Flynn Downes to stop him getting sent off and we decide to play with one less anyway and bring on Ben Brereton Diaz, which as we all know, is a complete waste of time. We get lucky again as a long ball comes in from the Villa right and Watkins, for some reason decides not to head it, but let it run across him and the chance disappears,

Digne puts Watkins away on the left and he’s got the whole pitch to run into and pull it back to Ross Barkley, but Nathan Wood chucks himself in the way and deflects it away from goal. Good defending by the big man.

Not Today Ollie

As time runs out there is our usual lack of urgency and cutting edge.  We are having good possession in the Villa half, but we are doing absolutely fuck all with it and then we give the ball away with seven players ahead of the ball and Rogers breaks again and feeds Watkins.  The England man has options but decides to go it alone and Nathan Wood again, backs himself and puts in a brilliant tackle.

Russell responds by taking off another Championship player in Manning and replacing him with fuck knows what in Sulemana and there’s another mighty scramble in our penalty area as Villa has four players queued up to score but it ends with McGinn hitting a shot straight at Lumley, who is already on the ground. Shambles.

93, 94 and we win a free kick as Sam Amo gets brought down by Rogers.  Winning a free kick should be enough for Saints fans to start doing a conga round Villa Park, such has been how shite we’ve been.  Joe Lumley is up in the box and Fernandes chips sit into the mixer and it’s nodded out.  Sulemana puts it back in there but that’s the end of that.  Wank. Again.

To summarise Saints performance Jeff, “They had most of the possession, didn’t do anything with it, gave away a shit goal, did nothing and lost”. Let’s not kid ourselves that Villa were an amazing side as they were average at best and we proved how average they were at times, with our domination of the ball but who got the three points at the end of the game?

At the start of the game I looked at our eleven and saw five players who are never good enough to be Premier League footballers right now.  Ironically, one of them was our man of the match today, with Nathan Wood proving the Jack Stephens will not be missed in the slightest. Wood was absolutely heroic in his defending especially at the end of the game. He looks like he absolutely loves defending and unlike previous games where he has looked a bit lightweight, today he looked like an absolute unit and was prepared to throw himself into any situation to keep the ball away from our goal, showing great skill on 1v1 defending as well. It’s an excellent, example of a player waiting for their chance and then absolutely taking it when given the opportunity. 

The lack of Premier League quality in our team is there for all to see, especially up front. The forwards were not helped today by tactical tinkering that saw Archer playing off the left and Dibling through the middle. At the start of the second half we put Dibling to his more natural right-wing berth and Archer went in the middle with Adam Armstrong out left. It was better but it was still shit. Archer and Armstrong were completely useless for the entire game and Dibling had a bit of an off day which absolutely can be excused. He was however, at the heart of anything decent that we did going forward, in the second half, which wasn’t much.

Adam Armstrong was born offside. He comes from a place in the north called Offside, which is a little hamlet in between the villages of Shittouch and Nobrain. There was one move in the second half where Dibling had to hold onto the ball because Armstrong was offside and though Tyler held off the Villla players for a couple of seconds, Armstrong never got back in an on-side position at any point to enable him to be passed to, Eventually Tyler had to pass it and the flag went up. Absolutely fucking brainless. Elsewhere in attack, Cameron Archer was terrible on his return to Villa Park, barely getting in touch of the ball and when he did just handing it straight back to whichever Villa defender was nearest to him.  Our options off the bench where the Chuckle Brothers, who didn’t get much time but predictably, BBD and Sulemana had enough time to show that they are shit but not enough time to show that they can do anything remotely decent.  One positive from today was that Sam Amo was used before them and he put in the best cross of the day straight after coming on. We’ve got to the point where we are so bad in attack that we celebrate when someone puts in a decent cross.  Zero shots on target.  Zero.  Our xG was 0.34... which is basically fuck all and it was a flatline from the 15th minute.

Bloke Calculating our XG Went to the Pub on 67 minutes

What the fuck are we doing in midfield? Why is Flynn Downs playing as a number eight? Yes, he runs harder than Fernandes but Fernandes is much more suitable and creative to play further forward and Downes is much more suitable for anchoring the midfield which is what he’s done his entire career. It’s fucking dumb and it makes no sense.  It’s probably because Fernandes is better at keeping possession, which is of course more important than having any creativity further up the pitch.

Five defenders again. We started a Premier league game with both Bree and Manning in the team.  This was through choice.  THB made the mistake the cost us the goal but we didn’t need five defenders today and at half time we corrected it and looked better, even though Ryan Manning playing at left back in a back four in the Premier League is something that should just never happen. Aribo came on at half time and immediately showed that he should’ve been starting.

Russell Martin bemoaned the fact that we didn’t have any shots with the possession that we had - that’s your job, isn’t it, mate? Find a way to get the ball to the centre forward in a position where he can have a shot.  All this possession in the middle third with ten opposition players behind the ball doesn’t fucking work does it? It’s the same old shit that has been pointed out countless times this season.

Russell Martin came into the club when we were at a low point and did a brilliant job in giving us an identity, winning games in the Championship and ultimately getting us promoted.  The play off final was my best day as a Saints fan of over 50 years standing and basically, I loved Russell Martin for what he did for us that day and going to that game with my son and my Dad was the best day ever.  However, the longer this goes on, the more that goodwill is disappearing. I don’t expect a team that wins all the time but I do expect a team that looks like it has a clue.  We are once again a laughing stock. You could hear the Villa fans getting excited every time we had a goal kick and that’s fucking ridiculous. They get excited because they know they’re likely to have a shot of goal in the next minute when we’ve got a goal kick.  That’s insane.  A goal kick means that the attack is over, not that the next one is just about to start.  Villa rested Ollie Watkins against us, Chelsea rested Nicolas Jackson against us – teams now feel that they don’t need their best striker and can rest him against us.  Bournemouth’s manager and players were taking the piss out of us openly earlier in the season.  Laughing stock.

Russell also said something amazingly dumb after the game when he pointed out that we played out, lost the ball and got away with it and then Lumley kicked it long, the crowd cheered but thirty seconds later it was in our goal.  He’s being a disingenuous fucker because he’s failing to point out the goal came about because THB tried to play too much football when he was last man and fucked it up. Many fans have been saying that he was blaming the fans for the goal going in. He wasn’t but he is saying that fans don’t know what they’re talking about and that’s not a good thing to be implying either, even if you think it’s true.  Russell talks frequently about the players being brave and him being proud of them.  I tell you what, fans travelling to the Midlands in yesterday’s weather is brave and I’m proud of the 3000 who made the trip to support the bag of shite that he puts out there.

Onward with this depressing shit show to Tottenham at St Mary’s Next Sunday. Spurs are in a bit of a crisis themselves but not as big as ours. It’s a clash between two teams who you want to play against when you have a rut to get out of. I bet they get out of theirs. Mind you – guess which manager is more likely to get sacked if they lose? 

Up the fucking boring depressing Saints.

Premier League Match 14 - Southampton 1 Chelsea 5

 

Count the Twats in this Photograph

What we have here is a meeting between Southampton, with not many good Premier League players and most of them being unavailable, and Chelsea who have about forty Premier League quality players, some of whom haven’t even been given a squad number. Such as life in the Premier League and it would be totally unfair if we didn’t have such a rigorous Financial Fair Play System and VAR to level the playing fields between the haves and they have nots.  My mum always told me not to be sarcastic.

Chelsea have surprised many this season with Enzo Maresca moulding a team together that at this moment in time, is looking like the second-best team in the country behind Liverpool. The players that were ruthlessly discarded at the start of the season, seem to have been discarded correctly and on the pitch, Chelsea are firing despite every transfer window seeming to be a shambolic scattergun monopoly money effort by Todd Boehly.  Not that Chelsea fans care where the money comes from.  There seems something essentially wrong about the huge fees and eight-year deals and amortisation and all that but they haven’t broken any rules that anyone could enforce and that’s the key.  Every time a new rule is brought in, find a way round it.

Leading the way for the Blues this season has of course been Cole Palmer who has gone from being a bit-part player with Manchester City to the future of English International football in just over a year.  Chelsea would appear to have found the centre forward they have been missing for years as well in Nicolas Jackson who, although he misses a lot, scores enough to keep him near the top of the goalscoring charts in the Premier League, so you can’t really knock it.

The midfield looks to be very strong with usually two out of £100 million Caicedo, £100 million Enzo Fernandez and £50 million Romeo Lavia being chosen. Romeo Lavia of course left Saints a year and a half ago with endless potential and a seemingly suspect attitude towards putting in the work to stay fit. After virtually a year out with the yet another injury, he has at times this year kept out Enzo Fernandez, an Argentinian World Cup winner.

By contrast, in midfield today, Saints have anyone who can stand up and vaguely play that position because of suspensions to Flynn Downes and injuries to Adam Lallana and ineligibility of Lesley Ugochukwu who cannot play against his parent club. The three in there today are most likely to be Aribo, Fernandes and AN Other.  Our defence is also going to be decidedly makeshift as well with both starting central defenders, THB and Bednarek being out. Jack Stephens is likely to be partnering out of position fullbacks in the back three today, in front of our fourth-choice goalkeeper.  Yes, the comparison between Saints and Chelsea is plainly ridiculous.

Yes, we shouldn’t have a fucking prayer of doing anything today and even if we do, we’ve still got to get past VAR. The shambles of our last three games has been gathering some interest nationally but no one outside of Southampton really cares and there is one thing you can guarantee, we won’t get given a soft decision today, so it’s just as well that apologies and acknowledgement from PGMOL and sympathy from virtually every national media pundit are worth more than Premier League points.  Oh sorry mum, there goes that sarcasm again.

What I’ve enjoyed in particular about the VAR shambles is the way people have fallen over themselves to justify why Arsenal’s goal against us got given and our goal against Brighton got ruled out. Just fuck off. You’re not fooling anybody.

Back to today and the Chelsea team sheet is as interesting as ours. They’ve made seven changes, but their team still looks very strong, as you would expect as they’ve spent billions on their squad. We look positively mid-table Championship but here we go. Lumley keeps his place in goal and there are starts for Nathan Wood, James Bree, Ryan Manning and Ryan Fraser. Our midfield looks our strongest area with Aribo and Fernandes but they are up against £200 million worth. My first reaction was to think that Maresca is being incredibly arrogant with changing all these players from his usual first choice, but when you see that some of the players bought in are the likes of Madueke, Nkunku and Joao Felix, then I guess all that he is doing is picking a team that he thinks is strong enough to win the game.

We look half decent in the opening five minutes and cause a few problems but the first time Chelsea get our half they win a corner which is swung in from the left by Enzo and Disasi gets up ahead of a really wet, limp attempt at a punch by Lumley and nods into the net at the near post. The word pathetic doesn’t even do that justice.  Lumley is saying that Cucurella fouled him and there’s a suggestion of a nudge but not enough. The only chance of getting that is throwing yourself on the ground.

Saints look unaffected and go forward with Manning finding KWP who puts in Archer behind Gusto. Archers finds KWP again, who manages to spin past Enzo’s weak challenge before knocking into the middle where Aribo has arrived, just like he did against Leicester and easily knocks in the pullback for 1-1.  Get in!  Some proper half-arsed Chelsea defending and we need to look to keep taking advantage of their makeshift defence and new keeper.

Joe Shuts Up the Chelsea Fans Until Our Next Disaster

Before we have any chance to start enjoying it and revelling in the Chelsea fans silence, Lumley has the ball five yards outside his penalty area and knocks a ball out to KWP and it’s fucking suicide-ball again as Chelsea swarm him and Madueke nicks the ball and passes it past Lumley to Nkunku and with Lumley floundering around twenty yards from goal, he rolls into the empty net. Once again, pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover it.

No, The Goalkeeper Isn't Supposed to be There

Lumley then has to have a few minutes of people cheering every time he actually clears the ball but he’s called into serious action as Joao Felix spreads the ball from left to right and Cole Palmer is through and Lumley dives the wrong way but the ball hits his outstretched hand and bounces off a post for a corner. Danger, not over of course as Palmer swings it in and it’s another bombscare as Tosin gets up and his header bounces off the bar.

And then the game dies as a contest as Chelsea cut us open and Felix finds Madueke, who runs at Manning who doesn’t get close enough and the Chelsea and England man easily passes it into the far corner.  A really good finish but again, really easy and 3-1

We are still gamely having a go and Archer picks up the ball on the left and wins a corner.  Bree trots over to take it, but before he does so, there is a scuffle between Stephens and Cucarella and the Spanish hairnet model is rolling around like he’s been shot. Players surround Stephens and the stricken Spaniard who clearly is not injured at all and then the referee gets involved and we are off to VAR.

Tony, Tony, Stockley Park here, this is urgent

What is it?

Hair pull on Cucurella by Stephens

I don’t believe it mate – he’s the captain and everything

We know… however, do you remember the last time someone pulled Cucurella’s hair

Yeah, that Romero thug at Spurs threw him on the ground and Big Mikey Dean ignored it because he was allegedly on the gear in the VAR room

That’s the one, anyway, this is a red card now, as it should have been then.

So Stephens knew this was a red and did it anyway

Sure did

What a twat, red card it is then.

It’s all change and we moved to a back four with KWP at right back and an amazing centre back pairing of James Bree and Nathan Wood, which you wouldn’t even put out in the Carabao Cup.  Another Chelsea corner on the left, another in swinger another absolute bomb scare from Lumley and the ball lands with Tosin to crack it against the post and somehow we get to halftime without any further damage.  This is fucking miserable, and the only consolation is that we can no longer lose this game 9-0 because we have already scored. There are however, with the rain and the red card and the fact it’s an evening game, undeniable parallels to that infamous Leicester home game.

The ten men are doing considerably better than the eleven did at the start of the second half after we survive the opening thirty seconds when Felix has a free header at the back post and somehow puts it wide.  Fernandes and Archer combine to send Aribo away down the left and his low cross is met by Fernandes from six yards, but his effort hits Jorgenson‘s foot and is cleared away.  He really has to score there.
 
After that minor scare, Chelsea step it up and we are not getting anywhere because we haven’t got the ball.  Ryan Fraser and Adam Armstrong are done on the hour mark and replaced with the Chuckle Brothers of Sulemana and Brereton Diaz.  Archer follows to be replaced by Sugawara, which means BBD can go and be useless in another position. We then have a pitch invader who stewards half-heartedly chase around the pitch for a bit and when he eventually fucks off to go and receive his banning order from the ground, our concentration goes with him.  Chelsea come forward with Enzo running through our non-midfield and sending and Nkunku through and he bundles it past the goalkeeper and Palmer rolls it into an empty net.  How long to go?  Too fucking long and Sulemana gives the ball away once more and Gusto finds Sancho on the right and it’s too easy for him to drill it past Lumley at his near post and 5-1.

Chelsea don’t need to score any more so they don’t and thank fuck that’s over. All that’s left is to walk back to the car and oh good, it’s fucking pissing down. Miserable.

Well, we got the beating that we were expecting to get and with the team we were able to put out, no one should be in the slightest bit surprised. We would’ve lost anyway even if we kept eleven players on the pitch for the whole game and it’s worth remembering that we were 3-1 down already, before Jack Stephens did his thing.

Jack Stephens is the captain of the club and in a weakened team, therefore has to step up to the mark and lead by word and deed.  To do what he did is absolutely unforgivable and shows the mentality of a player who should not be the captain and if Russell Martin was a strong leader, he would be stripped of the captaincy during the four-game ban that he now has.  Of course didn’t pull Cucurella‘s hair hard enough to send him spinning into a vortex of pain on the St Mary’s turf but as everyone knows, Cucurella is going to make a meal of it and even if he doesn’t, what the fuck have you gained by tugging on his hair?  Basically, with VAR, you are always going to get sent off so you might as well have smacked him in the face and broken his fucking nose. Getting sent off in that manner he has let down absolutely everyone - the manager, the fans and most of all, his fellow players who then had to play an hour against one of the best teams in the country, with ten men. I’m not gonna be too critical of the players on the pitch in the second half because they had to make up for Captain Idiot, which made performing well that much harder.

Stephens should of course be stripped to the captaincy, and he should be fined two weeks wages. He clearly isn’t captain material. He’s managed to get himself sent off twice this season already, has already missed five games and is now going to miss another four. Let’s not forget that he got sent off for a stupid reckless tackle against Man United and then called the referee and assistant what all the fans were calling him today.  When you add into that the fact that as we all know, he isn’t a particularly good player and his performance in the opening half an hour was non-existent, there’s not really very much in his favour.  James Bree and Nathan Wood played reasonably well today and deserve the minutes on the pitch that Stephens would get in the future.

In the defence there were some decent individual performances from the likes of the aforementioned Bree, Wood, Ryan Manning and KWP, though as a unit, they were all over the fucking place but that wasn’t necessarily solely their fault.  In midfield, both Joe Aribo especially, and Ryan Fraser, were pretty good when they had the ball but neither of them picked up Chelsea players when we didn’t have possession, so Chelsea could always get out of defence and then Matty Fernandes was left more or less on his own trying to stem the side before they got to our back four. With players as good as Chelsea have got, it is a recipe for disaster if the midfield doesn’t track players and makes it too easy for them to get the ball to the likes of Palmer and Mudueke.

Flappity Flap, Bombscare, Goal

Joe Lumley - no goalkeeping, just vibes.  He had a decent game against Brighton, but it was always gonna come crashing down today. He’s basically a League One level goalkeeper and though he made some good saves in the second half, the damage was done with his incredibly wet attempt at a punch for the first goal and heaven only knows what the fuck he was trying to do with the second goal. His non-existence on corners was absolutely frightening and makes you realise how much better Alex McCarthy is as a goalkeeper, certainly in that regard. At least he has some presence when the ball gets crossed into the box and hopefully, he’s fit enough to start against Villa.

In the first half I thought we had acquitted ourselves pretty well and we caused them problems, only to be let down a couple of times by having no quality on the ball into the box. The one occasion that was different being the brilliance of KWP to set up Joe Aribo’s goal. Adam Armstrong, Ryan Fraser and Ryan Manning often found themselves in wide areas and the delivery was 100% picking out a Chelsea player. We did cause them a few problems in the first half until Chelsea upped a gear and just dominated possession and didn’t let us build many attacks at all but then, we got tired as we only had ten.

Russell Martin came out with the brave and proud of the players bullshit and highlighted the positives and I guess he has to do that because we have another game in three days.  He can rightly be proud of the effort of the remaining ten.  He dodged the Stephens questions with the catch-all “no one will be more disappointed than Jack”.  Really?  Will Jack be more disappointed than anyone who came to watch, or the rest of his teammates who then had to play against one of the best teams in the country with ten players?  Behind closed doors, he has got to tear a strip off of Stephens and it would be ironic if Stephens moment of fucking stupidity is what gets Russell Martin sacked given that he is the player that Russell has put the most faith in, despite not really deserving it.

A familiar moan about Russell today is that.he has got to realise that players as limited as we had on the pitch today are not capable of making the right decisions as to where to play the short quick passes out of our own penalty area. They are not good enough and they will make bad decisions. You've heard that phrase about polishing a turd, well we're not even polishing it, we are telling the turd that it's Brazil 1970 and sending it out on the pitch.  We got away with a few in the second half so it could have been even worse, in particular when Lumley knocked one absolutely suicidal ball to Nathan Wood that there was absolutely no need to play.  The noise around Russell Martin is only going to intensify after this defeat. It won’t be 100% because of the weakened team we had to put out and because of Stephens doing what he did, but we’ve given away yet another stupid goal, where the goalkeeper has felt empowered, to play a suicide ball to a player on the edge of our own penalty area in a central position. Maybe the players are too scared to go against the managers wishes but if I was the goalkeeper and the player wanted a ball in that position like KWP did, then I would be telling him to fuck off to be honest, and not giving him the ball there, because the risk against the reward is just not worth it. Lose the ball there and it’s a goal against you, every fucking time and every opposition team is going to be looking for it now. Lose the ball in a wide area and at least you have a chance of defending what comes next. Is it that the players are not good enough to make correct decisions or is it because they are scared to make decisions?  

No one could be surprised if Russell Martin was relieved of his duties simply on results alone.  There has been quite a lot of talk about whether Russell Martin is doing what’s best for Saints or doing what’s best for his career, but I think he’s getting to the stage now where it will actually be quite damaging for him because we are making high profile mistakes in virtually every game and it’s not going to go unnoticed. This will stick to him in the future.  We talk about Vincent Kompany failing upwards when he played a similar style at Burnley and he got relegated and ended up with the Bayern Munich job.  The difference is that Kompany had a stellar playing career to fall back on and that always guarantees you managerial opportunities, even if your team gets relegated.

I’ve said in the past we need to have someone better lined up if we decide to pull the trigger on Russell Martin. Graham Potter is still out there and if that feels too ambitious, then Danny Rohl at Sheffield Wednesday would surely be interested. I really do hope that Sports Republic are sounding out these people, because it would be a dereliction of duty to not be doing so. Personally, I am not happy about us being a laughing stock and that is what we are in danger of becoming if we keep on giving these stupid goals away.  From the outside, we seem to be shrugging our shoulders and accepting that that’s okay. It isn’t.

Aston Villa away on Saturday and tonight, they ended their recent poor run with a comfortable home win against Brentford. We will at least have Flynn Downes, THB and Tyler Dibling available for that game, as well as Jan Bednarek and Tall Paul, which will make us immeasurably stronger. I would be very, very tempted to put Alex McCarthy back in goal as long as he can stand up.  Another bonus of course is that Jack Stephens won’t be able to play because he’s a fucking irresponsible idiot.

Up the fucking Saints