FA Cup 4th Round - Watford 1 Southampton 1

 

His Hair is Fine....

Watford away in the 4^th Round of the FA Cup in one of the most uninspiring draws of all time.  It’s a team we’ve played many times recently in both the Premier League and the Championship and it’s a team in our own division so in short, it’s boring.  I’m suspecting we will see a much changed side even though we had no mid-week game last week, nor do we have one next week. It’s a bit of shame but that’s the way it is.

One player who would’ve been playing today, if he was fit, was Kamari Doyle.  On the face a bit we had a bit of bad news on Wednesday when it emerged that he was leaving the club and joining Brighton. The reason for him leaving was the Jimmy Jay Morgan one of lack of game time.  Cough-Bullshit-Cough!

If we delve beneath that headline a little bit, we will see that Doyle has been injured for the last four months so I don’t know when exactly he was expecting to play or was in any position to make demands in that regard. He was fit at the very start of the season and he was fit at the tail end of last season, so is he leaving because he didn’t get many minutes in the train wreck that was Ruben Sellers as we got relegated ? What are his prospects of getting more minutes for Brighton in the Premier League than he would get for Saints in the Championship and cup games?  Is it a Premier League thing?  Maybe stick around for a few months and and back yourself and team-mates to get back there.   Maybe it was assurances of game time that he was after? It’s such bullshit isn’t it because laughably, as opposed to that, Doyle has been put in their Under-21 squad, which I guess he knew about when he signed and he probably won’t even be training with the first team, for fuck‘s sake.

It’s always disappointing when someone decides to jump ship but how exactly is Jimmy Jay Morgan getting at that pathway express that is Chelsea?  Nothing plausible in that lot, so that kind of leaves us with good old cash as the reason.   For what it’s worth, I’ve only seen Doyle play a couple of times and he didn’t particularly make an impression and looked miles away from regularly challenging for a first team place. Good luck to him but I think we’ve done alright with the £3 million-ish fee.  Careful what you wish for. (UPDATE: Somewhat spookily, Russell Martin confirmed virtually every word of this when asked about Doyle's move)

Kamari, Modelling the Brighton U21 kit

Moving on and we are of course getting towards the end of the silly season and the transfer window and the rumour has been about KWP moving to Arsenal. There’s no actual quotes or any actual information in any of these reports but Arsenal is the very worst club but one of your players can be linked with because social media for your club will be completely and utterly poisoned until the story goes away, such is the average Arsenal fans keyboard warrior enthusiasm.

To today and the team – just the 9 changes with only Che Adams and THB remaining from the last league game.  Holgate right back, Captain Jack centre back and Jayden Meghoma at left back.  A worrying looking midfield of Charles, Rothwell and Alcaraz and Che being flanked up front by Tyler Dibling and Sekou Mara.  All I know about Watford’s line up is that Wesley Hoedt is playing.

We start the game pretty well and despite all the changes and settle nicely into the pattern of keeping the ball and probing.  However, Watford‘s first break is down our right and over there we have Mason Holgate who is dozing after three minutes and Holgate somewhat clumsily carts over Asprilla on the left-hand corner of the penalty area.   He may well have got a bit of the ball there but it looks clumsy and Michael Salisbury, who is always shit, deems it worth a booking.  Lumley just has Tyler Dibling as his one-man wall and two seconds later he’s looking rather stupid as the freekick is smashed by Martins, low at the near post and Lumley does a possible impression of someone doing the ‘salmon’ in wriggling across his goal without using his hands and ball nestles in the net.  What the fuck was that? The only possible thing I can think of is that Lumley thought it was going wide because it almost look like he pulled his hands away but zero arms goalkeeping is never going to catch on, or catch anything.

Proof That Joe Lumley Has Arms

Saints try and get back into it but every time the ball goes up to Adams, he has the shit kicked out of him by either Hoedt or Pollock.  The latter absolutely trashes through the back of him, which is twice as bad as Holgate’s tackle but it’s not a yellow card this time because, as I may have mentioned, Michael Salisbury is shit.  We are now looking very rattled having conceded the early goal and it’s mainly Watford instigating any action in the penalty areas. A corner from the left is meant by the completely unmarked big bloke with a ponytail who is not Hoedt, and he heads well wide but we are living dangerously here.

It gets no better though as Watford, prompted by the mercurial Hoedt at centre back, spread the ball out to our left and Martins nicely weighted pass picks out the run of Asprilla but THB has gone with him and slides it superbly to prevent the shot coming in. That’s one of our two regular first team as ladies and gentlemen.

We haven’t got a midfield – Shea Charles is doing his bit but has no help from Alcaraz who is constantly giving the ball away and Rothwell, who can’t run, can’t tackle and it’s a bit of mystery what he’s about to be honest.

THB doesn’t have a great moment as he puts a totally free header over the bar from a corner and then he has a shocker on his own penalty area on the next attack as he intercepts the ball into the box but can only present the ball to Bayo, who takes a touch before drilling it across at the far corner but it goes just wide.  Luckily, Lumley didn’t need his arms for that one.

Half-time and we have basically been fucking dreadful. When you have five players out of eleven dropping 2 out of 10 performances, then there is absolutely no way that you are going to put together any sort of coherent performance. Holgate has been fucking embarrassing, as has Rothwell. Alcaraz has clearly forgotten what colour kit he is playing in and then we have the fish brothers – Sekou Mara who is a fish up a tree and Joe Lumley, who dived across the goal like a fish, because a fish has no arms.  I feel a bit sorry for Dibling out on the right,  because he’s relying on his fellow right-sided players, Holgate and Rothwell to link up with him.

No changes at half-time when to be honest, there could’ve been five, and Saints don’t particularly get any better. A corner from the left is headed out but bounces off of Meghoma, back into the danger zone and Martins has a shot which deflects and Lumley can’t get near it as it bounces off the post. We really should be 3-0 down by this point.

63 minutes and it’s substitution time now and here come some proper players with Stuart Armstrong, Ryan Fraser, Will Smallbone and Adam Armstrong all entering the fray. Off go Joe Rothwell, Shea Charles, Che Adams and Tyler Dibling.  Oh look, we’re much better and another fifteen minutes go by before it’s time to throw the sink at it and Sam Amo is on for Jayden Maghoma and so we are going three at the back, Smallbone in midfield and everyone else going for it.

Stuart Armstrong looks in the mood right from his introduction and he bursts away from two players down the left before crossing to the back post which is cleared as far as Holgate of all people, who comes steaming in and brings a half decent save out of Bachmann.

Holgate is playing like a man possessed now, bursting forward and playing like a proper full back and from his next excursion to the edge of the box he goes Full-KWP and tries to jink past a couple of players before being trashed.  For some reason, we allow Alcaraz to take the free kick and we may as well go back to halfway and wait for the goal kick which inevitably follows after he shats it over the bar.

The direction of travel of this game has completely changed round now but we’re running out of time as we reach 90 as Watford get deeper and Saints just pile on the attack. Sekou Mara, now playing in his favoured centre forward position, picks up a ball on the right and decides to make his first contribution of the game by smashing it goalwards and Bachmann pushes it out of the edge of the penalty area.  In comes Stuart Armstrong, checks inside one player and with everyone expecting him to curl it with the inside of his foot towards the far post he reverses it back to the near post and Bachmann has taken a step the wrong way and is therefore completely fucked, as it rips into the net.

There is only one team that looks to win it in the five minutes that remain and we win a corner on the right which is crossed in to the mixer and THB gets up and it’s just inside the post but unfortunately, Bachmann decides to use his arm in very un-Fish like manner and pushes it wide of the post.  The End.

At the end of the day, a draw was the result no one wanted but it was a fair result. Watford should’ve been more than one goal in front at half-time, whereas was we were by far the better team in the last half an hour, especially when we brought on some of the proper players.

That first half was an absolute shit show in general terms where half of the team as individuals were absolutely shit. Of the five mentioned earlier, at least Lumley, Holgate and Alcaraz improved.  Mara had one of those games where you just want to pack him back off to France as soon as possible, taking whatever haircut is necessary on the £10 million that we paid for him. There is no way that any striker in our Under-18s upwards could be as bad as him.  Mara is terrible in the wide areas and he’s not strong enough to play in the centre forward position. He stands at roughly six foot, so he’s not small but the way he plays, it looks like he weighs about six stone – breathe on him and he falls over.

Sekou Having Lost the Ball Again, Having Been Breathed on By a Smaller Player

Mason Holgate in the second half was an absolute beast and was probably our best player and that sums him up. He’s like Ainsley Maitland-Niles in that he is eminently capable of reaching a very high level but he can’t do it consistently. Last year, I had this thing about the lack of people in our squad who could string together three decent games in a row. This is Holgate and this is why his career has not gone anywhere up till now, he just can’t do it consistently and you end up being amazed when he hits a high-level and not surprised when he does the opposite. The boy can play but he’s got a find a consistent level somewhere between the ‘beast’ that he was in the second half and the ‘dogshit’ that he was in the first.

The five subs all made good contributions and upped the energy level. The goal in the end came from the one decent thing that Mara did all game when his shot was parried away by Bachmann and Stuart Armstrong’s finish from the edge of the box, reversing it into the near post, was absolutely brilliant.

So overall it was a bit of a strange game with no one who is not in the regular Championship starting XI, giving any cause to convince the manager to think that they should be. Jack Stephens was ok at centre back but we already know but he’s not good enough to challenge the two incumbents. Mason Holgate had a good half as said earlier but the likes of Joe Rothwell, Sekou Mara and Charly Alcaraz really didn’t do enough.

I’ve seen it said that with the system and the style of play bedded in now, that players should be able to swap into it seamlessly but that’s simply not true.  A number of these players are reserve players for a reason and you can maybe slot in two or three and if not weaken the team at all but if you slot in eight or nine, then there is an inevitable drop off

No doubt those who didn’t set  the world alight today, will be given another chance in the replay and be responsible for us trying to secure a thankless trip to Anfield in the 5^th Round.  It will be a chance to mess up Jurgen Klopp’s retirement party I guess.

The draw today is good for one thing in that it extended the undefeated run. If we get beat up at Anfield then no worries but I feel it was quite important to not get beat today, even with a weakened side.  Bring on Rotherham away at the weekend and a mission to avenge the ridiculous dropped two points at St Mary’s.

Up the Fucking Saints.

EFL Championship Match 28 - Swansea 1 Southampton 3

Wee Man Looks for That Ball He Belted into Row Z

Boxing Day really wasn’t that long ago was it?  Back in the day, the fixture computer used to have two teams play the reverse fixture against each other the following week and part of the problem with that was there everyone remembered who kicked them the previous week, so the second match invariably ended up with all sorts of vendettas being settled.  No such excuses these days but then fixture computer does this. It’s not just us of course because everybody is playing their Boxing Day opponent.

Swansea have more reason the most for not wanting to play their Boxing Day opponent because they got beat 5-0 at St Mary’s.  A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then down in Abertawe, with PE Teacher Michael Duff finally being permanently replaced by Luke Williams. Williams, a former assistant of Russell Martin, is the latest manager tasked with trying to get a result against Russell Martin, who is of course returning to his former club in what’s sure to be an emotional day for him, such is the affection with which he obviously holds his time with the Swans.

In Swansea’s favour of this time is that Saints are entirely different proposition at home than they are away.  Away from home, we of course struggle to kill teams off and I’m sure that we would’ve been working on that this week. This would of course be the ideal time to start with a run of away games coming up now.  Even if we do better than we have in our recent away games, it’s unlikely to be a runaway win like it was at St Mary’s. Whenever you play any team with a bit of new manager bounce, then you really have to score the first goal because the work ethic in these teams is usually pretty strong and giving them a goal start of course will give them something to hang onto. Put it this way, the game will be made a lot easier if we score first.

Saints made a first signing of the transfer window with the arrival of Joe Rothwell on loan from Bournemouth.  I’m not going to lie, part of me is a little bit embarrassed that we are taking players on-loan from fucking Bournemouth, a club which is an embarrassment to the Premier League given but they’ve had all that money through all the seasons in the Premier League and are still playing in a shed.  Regardless of all that, Joe Rothwell is here and adds to the squad in the number eight position primarily.  It’s a little bit strange on the face a bit because it’s not a position that we were obviously weak in, even with Joe Aribo away and doing his thing for Nigeria in the African Nations Cup. Rothwell is our fifth loan signing of the season which leaves us with a bit of a problem if we want to bring in another player because one of the loan signings, assuming any new signing is a loan, won’t be able to sit on the bench on a match day. So bye-bye Mason Holgate.

The mighty Aribo hasn’t seen much action in the Afcon as yet, making a twenty minute substitute appearance in the first game and being an unused sub in the second. Nigeria have four points from two games so far so they are certain of getting through the group so both Joe and for that matter, Tall Paul will be with Nigeria for a while yet.  Nathan Tella is free to play for Leverkusen however.

Team news and no real news as we’re unchanged.  Rothwell is on the bench in place of Meghoma and that’s it.  Russell Martin manages to sit in the correct dugout and here we go. There’s been a lot of talk about which of the two teams was going to dominate possession and it became apparent very, very quickly that it was going to be us.  Down the left with Manning and a lovely floated cross over the back of the defence to Adams who slashes at the volley and it skews of his foot and goes well wide. Yes, it would’ve been goal of the season if he had connected properly but he really should’ve got a bit closer than that.

Down the left again through Manning and a ball into Adams, who flicks it round the corner to Stuart Armstrong.  Stu cuts back past a defender and smashes it goalwards, parried out by Rushworth and Adams has an open goal at the back post.  He’s missed from closer before but not this time. Brilliant goal and a deserved 1-0 lead after six minutes.

The Big Dog Gives It Some

Saints are certainly looking to kill this game off early and Swansea try to play out and we win it back on half-way and Adams once again plays a lovely reserve pass to put Fraser through on the left and his effort is saved by Rushworth, spilled out as far as Adam Armstrong who can only hit the goalkeeper with his follow-up effort.

The next 10 minutes so just a procession with Saints holding onto the ball and looking for openings.  THB gets his head up and chips it over the left of the Swansea defence to Stuart Armstrong, who exchanges passes with Fraser before rolling the ball across about 4 yards out and there is the very distinctive Will Smallbone ghosting into the box to knock it into the net. I mean Stuart Armstrong is fucking miles offside when it takes the pass back from Fraser but the flag stayed down and that’s the beauty of the Championship and everyone can go mental.  Just twenty minutes and we’ve managed to score the mythical second away goal.

We are still not taking the foot off the gas at all and Adam Armstrong manages to almost ball juggle his way through and brings another save out of Rushworth who is then unceremoniously dumped on his ass by Che Adams, playing and acting like the Big Dog again.

Out of literally nowhere, Swansea that attack with Wood playing a decent ball to Ashby who has made his way over to the Manning Chasm.  Fuck knows where Manning is but Bednarek’s over there covering, but Ashby skins him and chucks a ball into the box and an offside looking Jamal Lowe and Baz collide, amidst us shouting for handball and it’s knocked back into the mixer by Cullen and Paterson has a free header from 6 yards.  Bollocks, that is virtually the first time they’ve got into our half.  A quick glance at a replay proves that Lowe is offside and he’s used his arm inadvertently to flick it on, mainly because he completely shat himself when Bazunu came out.   We can’t be happy about us getting away with one of the other end and get pissy about this one however.  With a shrug instead of a long drawn out load of bollocks at Stockley Park, 2-1.

Swansea might of known at this point that they had poked the bear and the bear was not gonna be very happy with Stuart Armstrong taking a pass from Fraser before knocking it back to Flynn Downes who took aim from the edge of the box and pings it into the far corner of the net via a slight deflection off of ex-Skate Jamal Lowe.  Flynn Downes doesn’t celebrate out of respect for Swansea but I forgive him that because it’s a brilliant goal and now we have the two-goal lead that we deserve, again.  Half time.

Celebrate, You Fucker!

The second half starts and it’s almost like Saints are trying to manage the game because we seem content to keep possession and we are not particularly stretching the opposition. Swansea to be fair, are pushed higher at the pitch now.   We never look as good when we go passive.  On the hour mark, Russell Martin somewhat inexplicably decides to take off THB and replace him with Captain Jack, which left the departing player looking somewhat bemused. Yes he had picked up a yellow card earlier in the game taking one for the team but the chances of him getting a second yellow were nearly zero, bearing in mind he was just cruising through this game.

It looks like it’s going to be 4-1 as Adam Armstrong gets put through by Adams and goes round the keeper like prime Brazilian Ronaldo… but this time the flag does go up.  Armstrong then showed his new Pirlo-esque creativity, clipping a lovely ball over everybody to Ryan Fraser coming in from the left but the Wee Man gets it all wrong and half-volley’s it miles over, as if he was wearing those wellies that got put on his car roof last week.

More substitutions with Adams and Stuart Armstrong being replaced with Mara and Rothwell.  It was at this moment that it all went to shit with Saints playing the ball around the defence and Baz knocking it to Captain Jack, who tried to find Bednarek and instead of that passed it into open grass in the middle of a penalty area and Paterson picked it up and drilled it across from a narrow angle and somehow, Swansea sub Yates managed to hit the post from about an inch out. Well played Jack for fucks sake.

Captain Jack then compounds this by playing an absolute shit, waist-high ball into Smallbone in midfield and once again we lose it to Patino who gets tackled in the penalty area and Paterson again, hammers in a shot and Bazunu reacts superbly to tip it onto the post.  Well played Jack for fucks sake.

Yanick Bolasie has come on and despite being 34 now, he still has some tricks up his sleeve and a cross from our left causes absolute havoc and sees Joe Allen’s shot blocked by Bednarek. How the fuck has it come to this?  In comes a cross from our right and Stephens is doing a Harry Maguire and is marking the guy Bednarek is marking, completely leaving Manning with two and Bolasie gets up and Bazunu again does brilliantly to block again.

In keeping with us being shambolic, the referee is completely losing the plot now. Jay Fulton obviously fancies himself as a little bit of an enforcer in the Swansea midfield, a bit like Roy Keane but with no ability, blatantly trips Adams in the penalty area which should give us a spot kick but the ref does nothing despite looking straight at it.  He’s also quite happy in allowing Harry Darling and Joe Allen to trash through Ryan Fraser in separate incidents. As injury time ticks down Swansea have one more attack with Bolasie blazing high, wide and handsome and that’s your lot.

Sometimes it’s really hard not to have a memory like a goldfish and literally only remember the last twenty minutes of football that you’ve watched or whatever, and forget everything that’s gone before it.  The goldfish memory will only remember Southampton being fucking dreadful, basically inviting a very limited opposition to score by basically, giving the ball away every opportunity and playing like eleven strangers.  Luckily for the non-goldfish, we had the first hour of the game where we were quite simply brilliant and having said at the start that it wouldn’t be a repeat of the 5-0 scoreline at St Mary‘s, no one could ‘ve really said it was unjustified if we were 5-0 up at half-time.

Make no mistake, for the first half of this game we absolutely murdered Swansea and the ridiculousness of it was that after 40 minutes, the score was 2-1. Che Adams should’ve scored after about four minutes with a volley that he had a lot of time to set himself up for that he slashed wide but once he tapped in the first, we completely dominated but only had Smallbone’s 20th minute tap-in to show for it.  Our offside goal was cancelled out by Swansea’s offside and handball goal and ridiculously, the scoring was completed just before half-time with Flynn Downes effort.

Captain Jack is Confused as To Why He Passed it There

I don’t think Russell Martin covered himself in glory with the substitutions. Bringing on Jack Stephens in the hour mark was the catalyst for everything to go to shit with THB having been immaculate as usual, aside from the yellow card he picked up. Stephens passing was erratic and his marking was of the ball watching variety which invited Swansea onto us and the raggedness that he brought onto the pitch, permeated through the rest of the team.   Why did Bednarek move from left centre-back to the right when Stephens naturally plays that side?   Though Russell Martin appears to have a bit of a blindspot regarding the man he made club captain, the evidence presented today leaves no doubt that he is a significant downgrade on Bednarek and THB, who are Premier League level centre backs.  We are where we are in the league because we got the defence sorted out when the THB and Bednarek partnership came together consistently, so not fucking with it would be my advice.

Joe Rothwell came on for his debut and gave the ball away a few times and didn’t really look like he knew where he was supposed to be playing in the system and that didn’t help either. Sekou Mara came on for Che Adams and it’s difficult for a striker when the team is already playing badly and you’re not the sort to make something happen on your own by being strong and getting us up the park.  Mara has been ok recently when the team has been on top but if we're not on top, he isn't the sort to help turn things around.

The bottom line is that we won the game, we scored three goals away from home the first time this season and we have gone second in the league. There is also a small fact that everyone keeps going on about that we are now 21 games unbeaten in all competitions and 20 in the league which is a club record for the professional era. The only club record that remains now it’s 24 games unbeaten from the Invincibles of 1897. Rumour has it that the 1897 team will be doing a lap of honour around St Mary‘s if we break that record.

Will Ghosts In

There were some brilliant performances out there in the first half today.  KWP, THB, Downes, Fraser, Adam Armstrong to name but a few but the pick of the bunch for me was Will Smallbone, who had what was probably his best game in the Saints shirt. Having lost his place to Joe Aribo recently and reclaimed it because of the AFCON, it must’ve been slightly galling for him to see Joe Rothwell come in to add more competition to that area of the pitch but though Rothwell didn’t pull up any trees on his debut, his arrival may well have had something to do with Smallbone putting in that performance today. Sky Sports for once got it right and named him man of the match.

We also have to mention Gavin Bazunu who though probably could’ve done better with the Swansea goal by mullering the Skate Bastard, pulled off two outstanding saves in the second half to preserve the win and everyone’s sanity because if we dropped any points today having been that dominant in the first half, I think several people including myself would’ve been having all sorts of anger management issues after the game.

Next up is the FA Cup 4^th Round uninspiring trip to Watford where I expect a few players will be rested but with the confidence we are showing at the moment, we should have enough to get ourselves into the hat for Round of 16, as thankfully no one calls it.  This team will not want to be beaten in the FA Cup and with no midweek games before or after the Watford game, there’s no real reason to take it easy. Bring it on.

Up the fucking 21 games unbeaten Saints.

EFL Championship Match 27 - Southampton 4 Sheffield Wednesday 0

Che Makes Himself Even More Popular in the Blue Half of Sheffield

Having had the best part of a two-week break from the Championship, we go again today with the visit of Sheffield Wednesday as the first round of fixtures repeats itself. In the opening game of the season, we have course had James Ward-Prowse and Nathan Tella in our ranks and we struggled to a 2-1 win at Hillsborough, courtesy of a late goal by Che Adams, added to an earlier goal off of Adam Armstrong‘s face.

Lots has happened since then: the aforementioned Ward-Prowse and Tella have both left and neither are playing in the upcoming AFCON, despite one of them declaring for Nigeria with that in mind. Saints have added the likes of Flynn Downes, Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Ryan Fraser to the team but more importantly, have become a proper team in the image of the manager Russell Martin and what is it now? 19 games unbeaten in all competitions.

Russell Martin had been nominated for Championship Manager of the Month for December but he didn't win it because Leicester got one more point and because it's Leicester.  No one should give a shit because who needs external validation for a 19 match unbeaten run - all the validation anyone needs is there in the league table.

Lots is also happened at Sheffield Wednesday who after 10 or so games, mainly defeats, fired the useless Xisco Munoz and replaced him with a manager who we know well in Danny Rohl, who was of course Ralph Hasenhuttl’s assistant at St Mary’s when he first arrived. A few weeks ago I was questioning why Rohl took what looked like a dead duck of a job at Wednesday but he has breathed new life into them and they are now showing the form of a mid-table side, despite still being in the bottom three courtesy of the Munoz start to the season. They have been picking up a few results recently against teams they would’ve been hopeful beforehand of picking up points against, but today is different for them as they are (cringe) playing one of the big boys of the division. Today’s result doesn’t define this season for them, it’s a bit of a free hit but it could make the difference between being just one point adrift in the relegation zone or being about seven if other results don’t go their way.

I was recently asked about players who played for both clubs and all I could come up with was David Hirst and Carlton Palmer from the 90s.  The most recent is Lloyd Isgrove – remember him?  Tiny winger who was never going to make it here, now at the age of 31, playing for Sholing.  He even had a spell at Portsmouth but never actually kicked a ball for them.  We have our own tiny winger now and he's a bit of an upgrade.

The transfer window has the course been open for nearly a couple of weeks and all Saints have done a sign a youngster from Ireland, Joe O'Brien Whitmarsh, who will go into the U21 squad, who had  game last night, with Sam Amo playing 45 minutes but interestingly, Tyler Dibling wasn’t in the squad so maybe we can expect some involvement from him this afternoon.

The Saints line-up was exactly as expected with Wee Man confirmed as the starting left winger.  Che Adams was restored to the centre forward slot with no shoehorning of Captain Jack into the side.  If anyone was wondering what Danny Rohl was going to pull at the start of this game then they got their answer straight away as four Sheffield Wednesday players flew in to the press as we passed the ball around until KWP knocked a ball to Baz and he took a horrific touch that Che Adams would have winced at and the ball went loose. Windass was taken by surprise and chested it down before Bednarek hoofed it off for a corner…. and we kind of got away with it.  This could be a difficult game if Wednesday keep this up. We don’t defend the corner particularly well either and Wednesday win a couple of headers before a looping effort at goal drops wide.

When Saints begin to play, Sheffield Wednesday drop-off and challenge us to break them down. THB chips are lovely ball over the defence for KWP on the right and his first time cross is met on the edge of the box by Ryan Fraser who volleys it down and into the ground and it’s actually going on target but he’s headed off the line by a defender. Oh, here we fucking go. The goalkeeper is wasting time for fuck‘s sake - with ten minutes gone.

Sheffield Wednesday are trying to play out from the goalkeeper but not really because if the ball goes to the big centre half Diaby, or back to the goalkeeper they just leather it up the pitch and we invariably pick up again.  Che Adams has an effort from 40 yards because he thinks he’s Pele or something. And he isn’t.

Half an hour gone and from an innocuous throw on the right, KWP hurls it down the line to where Adam Armstrong is on the move. He hooks across first time but Diaby has it covered, or rather, he does an impression of a crap ballet dancer and gets his feet all wrong, presenting the ball to Che Adams who dummies past the one remaining defender and buries it past Dawson who has absolutely no chance.  Off he goes, goading the massed ranks of Sheffield Wednesday supporters who were given him a hard time about having played for Sheffield United about 10 years ago.

Saints are flying now with KWP dribbling through a bunch of Sheffield Wednesday defenders before drilling in a diagonal shot which Dawson gets down well to push wide for about our tenth corner of the first half.  It comes to nothing like the previous nine.  Just before half-time and after a prolonged period of build-up, Adam Armstrong tries his luck from the right-hand side of the penalty area and it’s a decent effort but a couple of foot wide. Saints definitely looks determined to push on and put this going to bed but for now, it’s half-time.

No changes for Saints but Wednesday throw on a couple and show a bit at the start the second half with Bannon finding Gassama and then Fletcher, one of the subs, drives one hard and low and Baz saves easily enough.

Normal service is resumed with Smallbone breaking away on the right and his cross perfectly picks out Adam Armstrong who forgets how to control the football so has to settle for teeing up Che Adams who forgets that the goal is not thirty foot high as he lashes it into the Chapel End.  If the Chapel Stand hadn’t have been there, that ball would have landed somewhere near St Mary’s Church.

..And This One Wasn't Off My Face

Wednesday are now taking a few more risks but Saints break, which Diaby could stop but instead he makes another mistake and Adams sends Stuart Armstrong galloping away in the inside left channel and he gets his head up and finds Adam Armstrong in the middle with no one anywhere near him and unlike against Norwich last week, he picks his spot inbetween the goalkeeper and the post and the covering defender can only help into the net. 2-0 and you would think, game over.

We’re not concentrating from the kick off and Wednesday soon have another break and Flynn Downes gets back in trademark fashion and trashes Gassama on the edge of the box to pick up a yellow card, again. Windass smashes it from within the ‘D’ and it’s through the wall but straight at Baz he pushes it away comfortably enough.

Wednesday’s attacks get more sporardic and they end up in trouble from the next one as there is a quite brilliant ball out of defence by Bednarek to send Che Adams away and he plays it on to Ryan Fraser and his cross to the back post is met by Adam Armstrong but superbly cleared off the line by Bernard, to keep the score down.

It doesn’t take long though as KWP finds Smallbone, who flights a lovely ball over the left back for Adam Armstrong who drives forward, gets to the edge of the box before picking out a pass to Ryan Fraser running in and the Wee Man doesn’t have to adjust his wee legs stride pattern and just rolls into the net past Dawson. Brilliant goal, brilliant finish.

Wee Man's Gonna Get Yer

3-0 up and why not, it’s substitution time with Mara and Alcaraz coming on for Che Adams at Stuart Armstrong.  As they come on I’m thinking of how much of a luxury it is to have two Under 21 internationals from France and Argentina on the bench to bring on when the game is already dead.

Wednesday to be fair are still trying to play out from the back Will Vaulks tries and loses it to KWP.  He swaps passes with Alcaraz before having a little dart at the left back and then finds Fraser on the edge of the box and he pulls out a no-look reverse pass to send Adam Armstrong away, head up, low cross, Mara open goal, 4-0. Another brilliant goal.

In amongst the last of a flurry of subs in the last five minutes is Tyler Dibling’s league debut coming on for the Wee Man on the left wing.  First touch and he nutmegs a defender and sees his shot spin away for a corner.  He has a shuffling running style reminiscent of one of our greats of yesteryear… but maybe that’s just a conspiracy theory.

Hey Danny - At Least It Wasn't "Nein"

It’s becoming a routine now. One nil up at half-time, a couple of scary moments and then wear them out and bury them in the second half.  Sheffield Wednesday came with what looked like a game plan for the first five minutes and they pressed us aggressively with four players and from that they created glorious chance for themselves that we managed to get away with it, but then they seem to lose their bravery and just retreated back into their own half.  At various times they tried to press again but for me they kind of half-arsed it between both approaches and ended up not being great at either.  Once the first goal went in there was really only one winner to this game and the second half played out in exactly the same way as the second half’s against Blackburn, Swansea and Walsall have played out.

I thought Wednesdays physical approach was going to cause us problems in the first half, especially as the referee didn’t seem particularly interested in doing anything about it but eventually they couldn’t get near enough and their heads certainly went down when the second goal went in from Adam Armstrong.

And that’s what we have to start really, with Adam Armstrong. I still don’t see it sometimes and the first torch is often lacking and he gets knocked off the ball too easily but a goal and three assists in one game and nothing was off his arse or off his face today. What a performance that was.  The two passes for the two goals in the second half were brilliant in their simplicity. It seems to be such a difficult thing for a lot of players to do, actually pick out  team mate with a cross but the balls in to Sekou Mara and Ryan Fraser were a played in exactly the right direction and be played with the exact correct amount of pace to make the finish relatively simple. The assist for Che Adams, as mentioned earlier, was down to him being switched on from the throw whilst others were watching.  Oh yes, and he scored as well, with a finish that was placed past the goalkeeper into the corner, rather than just smashed in the general direction of the goal.

What I loved about our second half was that we were ruthless. Sheffield Wednesday had a couple of weak players in their defence. The left back was terrible and the big centre half couldn’t get near enough for anyone to use his physicality because he was too slow and he didn’t want the ball at his feet at all and we ruthlessly exposed that.

Ryan Fraser put in a ridiculous amount of work on the left wing and translated his effective twenty-minute cameo appearances into ninety of effective dangerous wing play, popping up all over the park and generally giving the Wednesday defenders nightmares. His involvement in the build up for second Mara‘s goal was quite exceptional and he again showed marvellous composure to finish his chance which he could easily have lashed at.

And what about that fourth goal? Win it back high, pass, pass, pass, reverse no-look pass, head up, pick him out, tap-in.  Love it.  It won't win goal of the season because those competitions can never look past a 25-yarder, in the same way that Manager of the Month awards don't look past the obvious.  Leicester lost today by the way. 

There were great performances all over the pitch to be honest and I’ll pick out a few.  THB and Bednarek are a Premier League ready centre back pairing and should we go up, that’ll be one position we don’t need to look at in terms of first team starters.  KWP again proved that he’s the best full-back in the league and seems to be playing at a faster pace than anyone else on his side of the pitch.  Flynn Downes again did his job effectively and won the couple of tackles that he had to make to stop potential Wednesday counters including a couple of efforts involving steaming in from half a pitch away and clearing everything out.  Marvellous.

Thinking About Counter Attacking Are You?

So, 19 unbeaten in the league and 20 overall and equalling the club record in the professional era.  We briefly went second for half an hour until Ipswich beat Sunderland but we are severely putting the pressure on now.  The team tasked with stopping us next is Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium.  Our away form and more specifically, the lack of goals scored on the road is the one thing that we haven’t fixed as the season has gone on so far so with a number of away games coming up, now would be a good time.  Over to you Russell.

Up the fucking Saints

FA Cup 3rd Round - Southampton 4 Walsall 0

Sekou Thanks Wee Man for Presenting Him with Yet Another Chance

The last time we played Walsall was our last game in League 1 in May 2011 when a 3-1 win was secured with goals from Guly do Prado, David “back from the dead“ Connolly and Alex “off to be a professional substitute for the rest of my career “ Oxlade-Chamberlain.  It was a great atmosphere that day and today won’t be like that, such is the dilution of the FA Cup these days.

‘When I were a lad’ in the 1970’s, winning the FA Cup was on par with winning the old Division 1.  People like to point at the year that Manchester United didn’t enter as when it started losing it’s shine and whilst I’m always up for blaming United for everything, for me it started the decline in importance when the Champions League and Premier League began offering absurd prize money.  You get about £4 million for winning the FA Cup, roughly the same amount for finishing two places higher in the Premier League.  When clubs would rather finish in the Top 4 than win the FA Cup, you have a problem.

Of course, today is third round of the FA Cup and our entrance into the competition. Walsall have got through two rounds already beating Sheppey United of Isthmian League South East Division in the first round and Alfreton Town of the National League North in the second round. Having dispatched a team from level eight of the football league pyramid and a team from level six, they now get to take on a level two side and Southampton.  The question is, will we be a level two side, or will we be a team of under 18s? Rumour has it that we can expect the likes of Sam Amo-Ameyaw and Tyler Dibling to make an appearance.

Walsall are mid table in League 2 and so it should be the type of game where we can rest a few players and still put out a team strong enough to win it relatively comfortably and get into the fourth round. I kind of think it will be interesting to play a bottom half Premier League team in the FA Cup at some point to see where we’re at, but we’d probably get two weakened sides in that scenario, so there’s probably not much point in hoping for that. Let’s just take it as it comes, starting with Walsall. After all, we’ve done pretty well as a level two side in the FA Cup in the past. Football has changed a little bit since then, sonny.

And to prove that, nine changes from the Norwich game with only THB and Jack Stephens remaining. Sam Amo and Jayden Meghoma start, with fringe players like Mara, Holgate, Smallbone, Alcaraz, Lumley, Charles and Fraser everywhere else.  Flynn Downes is on the bench with a commode and a big space all round him.  The youth on the bench is Cameron Bragg and Tyler Dibling.

Away we go and Saints are straight on it.  Five minutes in and THB lifts the ball over the defence and Ryan Fraser has made a superb run away from the full back and behind the centre back and he controls it and smashes it past the keeper for 1-0. Easy as you like, clinical.

Fraser was showing everybody the way with his intelligent running off the ball and he sends Meghoma away on the left and his superb cross is headed over the bar by Mara in slightly shit fashion.  Fraser again starts the next attack in the centre of the pitch and spreads the ball out of Sam Amo on the right and after taking on his man he knocks it back to Fraser, whose shot is blocked and pops up for Mara six yards out, surely…. Open goal… Row Z… Fucking hell.  Not clinical.

There was a minor scare as Knowles got a cross over from the right hand, which was met by Hutchison in the middle, forcing Lumley to push it up and over the bar but the offside flag was already raised.  Lumley has made a good start of the game to be fair with his ability to play out from the back being notable. He wasn’t to know this was offside either.

Charly, Stop Pissing About

Charly Alcaraz has had an interesting 20 minutes or so where he’s obviously decided that playing in this game against these opponents were somewhat beneath him and he was trying to showboat and nutmeg people and all he was doing is giving the ball away. However, he got one pass right to play in in Smallbone at the edge of the box and the languid one sidefooted an effort which was easy for the goalkeeper.

As we approached half time, Fraser again went past his full back on the left before crossing into the middle and the ball bounced down again for Will Languid and he smashed it over the bar. Alcaraz then tested out the keeper from range, which he spilt and Mara couldn’t quite get to the rebound in time.

The half time talk was surely about ‘one more goal’ but no one listened and we came out and were shit.  Holgate took a throw across the top of our own penalty area and Jack Stephens electing to play a blind pass towards Meghoma which was intercepted by Knowles and then smashed over the bar.

As our attempt give away ago hadn’t worked, we decided to try and improve with repetition and this time Mason Holgate presented the ball straight to the Earing who ran in on Lumley and managed to get closer to the corner flag than the goal with an attempt that could only be described as dreadful.

Having fucked about for far too long, it was time to put the game to bed.  Starting with Lumley and via Stephens, the ball went to Alcaraz on the left hand side breaking into the Walsall half.  Charly finds Fraser and he rolls it into the penalty spot where Mara takes a touch, turns and smashes into the roof of the net.  About fucking time. Really good finish it has to be said.  The Wee Man is clearly on a mission today and combines with Alcaraz to present another chance to Will Languid to sidefoot wide of the post, again.

Saints shuffled with THB going off, Holgate moving to centre back, Charles to right back and Che Adams coming on upfront and Mara dropping into midfield. With the aid of a deflection, Smallbone picks up the ball in midfield, finds Alcaraz, onto Fraser who just rolls it across the keeper right footed into the far corner of the net. Another superb finish for the Wee Man

Are we going to score every time we attack?  Yes we are as Alcaraz again turns provider, this time feeding Che Adams on the left and he bundles past a defender, like a Big Dog is supposed to do, before slotting it past the keeper left footed and a desperate defender on the line couldn’t keep it out.  4-0

It was then time for a couple more of the kids to come on with Dibling coming on Mara and Bragg on for Sam Amo.  Dibling in particular looked determined to make an impression coming in from the right hand side and making a yard before hitting the outside of the near post.  Bragg slotted into midfield as if he’d always played there. We made a chance for a Wee Man hat-trick in the last couple of minutes as Adams bundled through a couple of tackles to play him in but he could only pick out the goalkeeper.  As the final whistle went on a comfortable victory, it was noticeable but Ryan Fraser was absolutely fucked, having not stopped running for 90 minutes.

Well that was pretty comfortable in the end against very limited opponents. They were enthusiastic but didn’t have a single thing in the front half of the pitch, which at times was just as well because they had a couple of fantastic chances either side of half-time, presented to them by our defenders with horrible mistakes being made by Jack Stephens and Mason Holgate but at the end of the day we got away with it so it doesn’t matter.

The best player on the pitch by a country mile was Wee Man Ryan Fraser and his two goals and one assist do him justice because he was excellent throughout and set a brilliant example for any experienced player, chosen to play in this type of game. This role model thing is not something anyone expected from Fraser when he signed from Newcastle, given his previous reputation so fair play to him.  Other fringe first team players included Will Smallbone who was neat and tidy enough but on the occasions where he managed to break into the Walsall penalty area, he didn’t manage to get a single shot on target.  Charly had a great second half when he decided to play properly instead of trying to take the piss. He no doubt got a half-time bollocking and both of those two really have a lot to play for with Joe Aribo missing from the first team for the next three or four weeks.

Mason Holgate proved that he is worth keeping around if no solution can be found to send him back to Everton because he is a solid enough right back and with only KWP and Ryan Manning fit at the moment, it would be somewhat foolish to allow him to go back to Everton with no replacement being bought in.  He actaully looks better at right back than Jack Stephens does, not that that would get him in the team ahead of the captain.  If Holgate does go, the next in line at full-back is Jayden Meghoma, who was probably the pick of the young players who played today though not tested defensively.  He played with great confidence and some lovely crosses into the box with his left foot.

Sam Amo found it quite difficult on the right wing they did occasionally have the beating of his defender. It must’ve been slightly frustrating for him because of vast majority of our play was going down the left-hand side where Fraser was absolutely on fire. The same fate also befell Tyler Dibling when he came on because he was playing as the right sided number eight and then the right winger and again, all the play was going down the left-hand side. The fourth youngster was Cam Bragg, who came on in the defensive midfield position which is absolutely ideal when you are 4-0 up because you’re gonna get lots of touches of the ball and he did everything with a minimum of fuss and just keep the ball moving in what was a nice gentle first team introduction for him.

Joe Lumley Celebrates His Debut

Joe Lumley made his debut in goal and did pretty well, dealing well with everything he had to deal with like daisy cutter shots or back passes. He looks decent with his feet which maybe explains why he is the second-choice goalkeeper this season and not Lead Legs McCarthy who as I said last week, is great at taking corners in the warm-ups but that’s about it.  It’s not as if Lumley is inexperienced as he is only about 75 league appearances behind McCarthy over his career.  I doubt his wages are anywhere near either.

I was today looking for an answer to the question that is Sekou Mara. What is he? Is he any good? Is there anything there? Is he worth persevering with? After watching that display today, the answer to all of those questions for me is still “I don’t know“. There were some bad misses, terrible touches, some bad decisions and the fact that he kept on getting caught repeatedly on his heels and was clearly getting very frustrated but then he scored a really good goal which was a nicely taken finish. I would say that the finish shows that there maybe is something there but weather he has enough to make it as a Championship level forward, I think the jury is very much out still.

It was an ideal day for Russell Martin. He rested who he needed to rest and some youngsters got minutes and we won the game and no matter what your aspirations for the season, whether you’re prioritising the league or not, it’s always nice to sit in front of the TV and watch the draw for the next round. I watched in on Monday night and we got possibly the most piss-boring draw imaginable – Watford away.

Just Five Wins to Go

Anyway, that’s for another day and next week it’s back to Championship action with the visit of Sheffield Wednesday who were shit and then they got a new manager and now they’re not so shit. Up the fucking Saints.