EFL Championship Match 36 - Southampton 4 Sunderland 2

 

The moment Russell Realised What Joe's Best Position Is

Sunderland, remember them? Yes, that’s right… we thought we’re invincible at the start of the season and fully on board HMS Piss The League and then we went to the Stadium of Light, picked Mason Holgate and got drubbed 5-0 and deservedly so. 2-0 down in five minutes and then it got worse. Horrific from start to finish off and today is a chance for revenge.

The fact that our mid-week game against Preston got called off because of a fire within spitting distance of St Mary’s, is not gonna give us many advantages this season because of the fixture congestion which we will no doubt fall foul as a result, but the one good it will give us is that we will be fresher than Sunderland, who played in mid-week when they lost narrowly to Leicester.  They should have had a penalty in the last minute but when Leicester are going for the title, be in in the Premier League or the Championship, you don’t get those decisions against them.   

Sunderland have had a strange season in that they sacked the manager who beat us 5-0, Tony Mowbray, when he was doing pretty well and replaced him with Michael Beale who was an unmitigated disaster and saw Sunderland fall right out of playoff contention. There are certain similarities with Birmingham City who travelled the same road by sacking John Eustace and appointing old squirrel heading himself, Wayne Rooney.  In a strange twist of fate, Birmingham appointed Mowbray to replace Squirrel Head, before Mowbray himself had to be replaced due to ill health. As I said last week when we played Birmingham, get well soon Tony – one of football’s good guys.

Back in September when they hammered us, the main architect was Jack Clarke, whose name has come up a couple of times this season as being linked with Southampton in the summer. Agent bullshit I’m calling on that one because we have three left wingers as it is. Clarke is injured today so in his absence, Sunderland will be hoping for some magic from Jobe Bellingham brother of you know who.

It's got to the stage of the season now where we need to start looking at the results of other teams around the automatic promotion places and the mid-week postponement meant we watched all of Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds put in ropey performances and all managed to win by the odd goal. This means that it’s now eight points between us and Ipswich and second place, which is more or less what it was when we started our long unbeaten run. From that you can see just how little margin for error we have now if we want to make the top two. Sunderland at home is a must win.

Russell Martin made the admission in the week that he was changing the team to accommodate Jack Stephens.  I think this is dumb but there you go, so it’s no surprise today that THB is going to be right back as we break up our proven and effective clean-sheet keeping central defensive partnership.  Flynn Downes has mercifully had no reaction to the Birmingham game and is fit to play with David Brooks keeping his place in the side

Saints start in confident fashion, knocking the ball about and Brooks plays a lovely through ball to Stuart Armstrong who is in behind Seelt, who holds him back but lets go which probably meant that he only got a yellow card when it quite possibly have been red because he made no fucking attempt play the ball whatsoever.  Stuart Attwell is the referee, refereeing in the Championship because he’s been shit in the Premier League, even with the help of VAR.  Why is he suddenly going to be competent because he’s now got to make more decisions?  Anyway, a short free kick from Smallbone to Brooks and chipped to the back post and straight off the training ground, Jobe Bellingham heads it across the face of his own goal, Bednarek powers in a header, the keeper parries it away and Stuart Armstrong stuffs the rebound into the net. Great start, 1-0, we want five.

Sunderland respond by being a shambles, trying to pass the ball out from the back and failing, giving it away to Stephens, who does that Beckenbauer thing in the midfield and we eventually work it out to Stuart Armstrong, whose effort is deflected out for a corner.  Come on lads – these are shite.

Another shite clearance from the Sunderland keeper and Stuart Armstrong produces a superb first time pass to put Adam Armstrong clean through but he goes for it first time and it’s high and handsome and shit to be quite honest. The mackems behind the goal enjoyed it though, Arma being a Geordie and all that.

Sunderland have a bit of possession for the first time and work a decent opening on the left, switched to the right and after a couple of crosses are blocked back to him, Burstow tries to hammer it across from virtually the goal-line and it pings off the near post and flies away to safety.

Normal service is resumed as Sunderland right back Hume gives it away and Adam Armstrong plays it to Stuart Armstrong and onto the overlapping Manning, who pulls a Cruyff turn and gets absolutely totalled by a stupid Chris Rigg sliding tackle for the clearest penalty you’ve ever seen in your life.  However, we have a Premier League ref today….

Stuart Attwell: Hi there Stockleigh Park, it’s Stuart Attwell at Southampton. Hello… hello?
Howard Webb: This is Howard Webb at Stockley Park. What do you fucking want Stuart?
SA: Hi … can you check the penalty shout at Southampton?
HW: No Stuart, fuck off, sort it out yourself
SA: But I can’t… I’ve been in the Prem so long, I’ve forgotten how
HW: Yes Stuart, you were shit and now you’re in the Championship, much like Southampton
SA: But I need the backup
HW: Stuart… you’re in a proper league now.  You have to wipe your own arse.  Put your big boy pants on and make a decision.
SA: Can I come back Howard, please?
HW: No, you were shit, you got demoted, that’s the way it works
SA: But… but… Michael Oliver, Paul Tierney ?
HW: They’re next Stuart
[Howard Webb hangs up]

Penalty. Up steps childhood Newcastle fan Adam Armstrong and slips as he crashes it past the keeper and for some reason there’s a few Sunderland players all moaning at the referee Attwell, but he’s given the goal and Arma is off giving it the big one to the Sunderland fans.  I think they’re complaining about the fact that he may have kicked it twice as he slipped but we haven’t got VAR so it’s a fucking goal isn’t it?

Arma Plays a 1-2 With Himself

Half time and 2-0 and this has been pretty routine so far.  Just need to keep it going and not give them a sniff.  No changes for either team and away we go.

The opening twenty minutes of the second half doesn’t see any change of the direction of travel of the game with Saints being a better side and then it’s time for some substitutions. When I say it’s time for some substitutions, I mean we’ve reached the time of the game when substitutions get made by Russell Martin but we didn’t actually need to make any because we are playing pretty well and dominating the game. Change it we do though with Joe Aribo coming on the excellent Will Smallbone and Kamaldeen Sulemana for some reason, coming on for David Brooks meaning that Adam Armstrong switches to the other side. What’s Sam Edozie done to be behind Sulemana in the pecking order?

Sunderland suddenly look like a half decent side and after a cross gets cleared, Sulemana overplays and gets tackled and it gets worked to Mundle who takes a pot shot from the edge of the box and it flicks off of Jack Stephens who’s not closing him down quick enough and flies into the net giving Baz no chance at all. Fuck off.  To be fair, Mundle has deserved that goal as he’s been energetic and their sole threat throughout.

A few minutes later and Saints are still a shambles, giving the ball away and following a rushed clearance from Manning because Bazunu has given him a shit pass, Sunderland recycle it and there’s a couple of headers that THB can’t get away and then Aribo heads are in the wrong direction and Jobe Bellingham picks it up cuts across and curls a ridiculous shot into the top corner. Fuck me. Two substitutions, both given goals away.

Now it’s substitution time to correct the complete bollocks that the first two substitutions have made. James Bree is on for Jack Stephens giving us a balanced back four and Joe Rothwell comes on for the tiring Stuart Armstrong.

Saints break out of defence with THB finding Bree, who sends Adam Armstrong scampering away on the right hand side.  He burrows into the box before firing it across and it deflects out as far as Rothwell on the edge of the box and the substitute almost goes ‘full Huddersfield’ as he absolutely drills it past the keeper into the net. What a strike that is.

Ten minutes plus extras to go and Saints keep piling forward and with Sunderland throwing bodies forward, there’s so much space as Aribo sends Rothwell away at the middle of the pitch and it’s a four and three break.  With 30,000 people shouting ‘fucking hit it’ as he gets to the edge of the box, he doesn’t and plays it to Adam Armstrong, who tries to slide in for Adams but the ball gets half cleared straight out to Rothwell and you know the rest. Drilled into the middle of the net. 4-2, three points baby.

The game is done and the last few minutes have a sense of relief about them.  Sunderland don’t have anything left and Saints are happy just to let it play out.  Stuart Attwell gets something right and blows the final whistle.

It’s amazing how hard we make things for ourselves but at least in games where you finish with the three points, you can look back on it and laugh. We were completely and utterly in control of this game, 2-0 up and cruising until we made a totally unenforced double substitution on the hour mark, removing Smallbone and Brooks and replacing them with your Aribo and Sulemana, which spectacularly destabilised everything and within 10 minutes Sunderland, who had been showing as much life as eleven corpses in a mortuary, scored twice. Luckily, in these days of five substitutions, you can make up for your mistakes, which we did with the arrival of Rothwell for Stuart Armstrong and Bree for Jack Stevens, which of course allowed THB to go back to his proper position.  A balanced team, round pegs in round holes – who’d have thought it?

Now I haven’t been the biggest fan of Joe Rothwell since he started at Saints. I’ve put his goals against Huddersfield down as lightning striking twice within ten minutes but I can see what the issue is now because previously I couldn’t tell what sort of midfielder he was. There were rumours that he was a defensive midfielder, which he most definitely is not. Russell Martin tried to use him as a number eight midfielder alongside Will Smallbone and that wasn’t unmitigated disaster. Today he came on as a direct replacement for Stuart Armstrong as the most advanced of the midfield three and that’s his position, end of discussion.  His carrying of the ball and shooting was first class today and brought him another two goals and rescued us from one of those games where we dominate and I’ll come on the way wondering how the fuck we haven’t won it.

Rothwell playing well in his best position kind of reminded me of one of the unescapable truths of football which is that balance is everything.  If you get the balance right in midfield between attacking and defending then you are sorted and likewise if you get the balance right in defence with everybody playing the correct positions that they are good at, then that is going to serve you well. Don’t overcomplicate it. Having proper full backs on for the last 20 minutes and our two best to central defenders in tandem in the middle of a pitch made us look so much better. It’s not rocket science.

Sulemana Gets Involved

We were treated to half an hour of Kamaldeen Sulemana on the left wing today and he was to be frank, the same as always is. Burns past the fall back on a regular basis and then makes you think that he may as well not a bothered because the final ball or shot is just never there. If I have to watch him cutting off the left and onto his right foot before passing it straight to the keeper one more time, I will scream.  That, combined with another 10 minutes of nothing from Sekou Mara just made me think that we would get more out of Kamaldeen if he played up the middle and bearing in mind we have Fraser, Edozie, Brooks and Adam Armstrong, who all contribute goals and assists from the wing, maybe it’s worth trying Sulomana as a central striker as a back up to Adams. He can’t be worse than Mara and he can’t be less effective than he is on the wing.  He scosred his only goals for us when he played up top, so why not....?

Will Smallbone had a great game in midfield for us today and his partnership with Brooks down the right hand side is really blossoming.  There was a noticeable loss of control when the two of them went off.

The first half saw us deservedly two goals ahead and the second half should’ve been simple and we should’ve equalled the five goals Sunderland football put past us.  Never mind though as three points is what it’s all about.  I can see myself saying that lots between now and the end of the season.

Onwards … and now a bizarrely long break of about three weeks before we play Middlesbrough at home.  We need three points from that one as well, you’ll be surprised to hear.  Up the fucking Saints.