EFL Championship Match 37 - Southampton 1 Middlesbrough 1

The Reverse xG King does it Again

After a ridiculous amount of time without a game, Middlesbrough visit St Marys, trying to do a league double over us, having beaten us at the Riverside during our four game shitshow at the start of the season.

Middlesbrough to me this season have always been a team that are just there. They’re not going to make the playoffs and they are not going to get relegated and to me, having made the playoffs the last year, this season has been a bit of a disappointment under the management of Michael Carrick. I find it hard not to equate Carrick the manager with Carrick the player, who I was more familiar with. He was a classy operator in a disciplined, pedestrian kind of way and that seems to be a case that his team reflects that.

There has been a positive with having a long break in that it has enabled Ryan Fraser and KWP to get fit and there was even some news during the week about Ross Stewart who is apparently back training again. For context, there have been about five hundred sightings of the Loch Ness monster since Stewart last played.

Ross Stewart Mentioned in a Press Conference

In the big picture of this season, we have ten games left and we probably need to win eight of them to have any chance of making the automatic promotion places, bearing in mind the way that Ipswich and Leeds have been churning out results. Leicester City are also above us but they seem to have hit a wall, shit the bed and pissed their trousers.  They continued that today in the early kick off as I arrived at the ground and saw them on the TV in the final minutes of losing to Bristol City.  So, today is therefore a massive chance to catch up with at least one of the teams above us.

Our team has already been announced and it’s a bit strange. Sulemana has been parachuted straight into the starting line-up on the back of some good performances in training and no doubt, a healthy dose of blind faith. I would be very pissed off if I was Sam Edozie.  David Brooks and Jan Bednarek are both suffering from the exertions of playing and midweek Euro playoff for their respective countries and are on the bench, replaced with Jack Stephens and the aforementioned Sulemana. Elsewhere there is a chance for James Bree at left back with the fit again fullback being preferred to Ryan Manning. Let’s fucking do this and give us as a chance.

Our plan from the start appears to be to get it out to Sulemana as often as possible.  The man himself has started again brightly and appears to have a brief of just trying to make things happen. Twelve minutes in and Bree lobs a throw at him and he beats the fullback Ayling to the ball and from right in the corner, he manages to dig out a left foot across into the middle but it goes straight to Jonny Howson who swings a boot at it and send it up into the air and not very clear at all.  It drops to Adam Armstrong who takes a touch and then drills it back across the goal and it arrows into the bottom corner. Brilliant strike and 1-0 up and happy automatic promoition days.

It looks like it’s gonna be two as KWP gets down the right hand side and finds Adam Armstrong again but as he shoots and this time, if flicks off of the closing defender and flies over the bar.

We are looking good but then it stops and our offering for the rest of the first half can be summed up by saying it was slow and shit. Middlesbrough were happy to sit in formation and Saints didn’t inject any pace into things to pull them around and create anything. Every time we looked like we were going to break a line and get to the back four, we just turned round and came backwards.  We all know the plan and the style but we weren’t threatening the Boro defence at all.

We did however nearly concede when the ball was played up to Adams and it was time for him to demonstrate the art of holding the ball up but he just demonstrated how one takes candy from a baby and he lost it pathetically to the defender who was behind him and Middlesbrough broke with Azaz drilling it low past Baz and ping, off the inside of a post and away. Very fortunate.

Half time and not good enough.  Sluggish, lethargic, disjointed – call it what you will.  Even though we were winning, I was feeling slightly bored with the whole affair. We certainly gonna have to be a lot better in the second half so let’s hope Russell can sort it out..

The first team to show anything in the second half was Boro, with the confusingly named Latte Lath breaking through on our right with our absence of players, and shot straight at Baz, which he spilled and there was a bit of pushing and shoving between striker and goalkeeper before the referee blew his whistle and gave us a free kick.  The Boro striker then decided to block the free-kick and earn himself a yellow card.

Sulemana is still causing issues for Ayling at right back and he gets over a low cross which the keeper parries out to Adams, who taps in… offside.  He does look offside to be fair.

A feature of our play before he got moved to right back, was THB chipping the ball over the defence and from one such move he found Adams just at the right of the D with just the goalkeeper to beat and all the defenders gave up. He has to score surely… edge of the seats…  … no conviction in a shit side footed effort at the near post that the keeper easily palmed away.  Fuck me that was garbage.  Che looked to the linesman hoping that the flag would go up but it didn’t so that goes down as a fucking dreadful miss. Pathetic.

KWP finds Sulemana on the right, who tees it up for Stuart Armstrong and the gloriously haired one shoots, deflection, everyone appeals for handball and the ball flies to Adams, six yards out with a virtual open goal and with a swing of his boot he clinically puts it wide of the fucking post. It would be funny if it wasn’t so shit and if an opposition player did that, we would be in hysterics and a chant of “what the fucking hell was that“ would be ringing round the ground. Che’s first reaction was interesting because it was to appeal for a penalty. Just put it in the fucking net and no bother.

With that he’s off to be replaced with David Brooks.  Almost as predictably, Fraser is on for Sulemana. Brooks first contribution is to get down the left and fire a cross over which the keeper palms out straight to Adam Armstrong he just has to smash into the net but instead decides to side foot it a defender and it bounces back into the pile of bodies on the six yard line and Middlesbrough get away with it, big boot forward and Stephens is distinctly second favourite but makes enough ground on Jones to superbly block it away for a corner.

Time ticks by with Boro really not offering much but the nerves are shredded now.  It’s the sods law thing about missing chances and only being one up.  With five to go, we give an outing to Sekou Mara’s latest barnet with Adam Armstrong going off.  Strange that Rothwell is still unused.  There’s some pressure from Boro with a couple of important blocks in defence and a flap by Baz which he gets away with.

More Lethal Saints Sitter Technique

We have a chance to put it to bed as Brooks gets away and finds Smallbone.  A ball into Wee Man and his shot is blocked out to Smallbone but a no-conviction shinner is not required and over the bar it goes.

90 minutes are up in comes a cross from our left and there is Latte Lath, unmarked in the middle and he easily heads it into the net.  I can;t even get angry about it, such was the predictable nature of it.  Four minutes to go to play with some attacking urgency and Aribo and Edozie are on and we huff and puff and do show more urgency but nothing much happens. It feels like a defeat – it really does.  Only ourselves to blame though.

Whenever I thought about the 10 games that we’ve got in the task ahead of us, one phrase has always come to mind and it was “no margin for error“. Missing an open goal from 6 yards is an error. Being clean through with just a goalkeeper to beat with every defender having stopped and not having a fucking clue what to do – that’s another error.  What is it with Adams - the Reverse xG King.  The more difficult the chance, the more likely he is to score.  Gets the ball five yards out and it's lottery time.  What I don't get is how he looked so lost when the ball came to him on the first miss.  Surely as a striker, you train every day on 1v1 finishes against a keeper.  Surely you know what you're going to do when picking the ball up on the edge of the box, what finish you are going to go for?  He looked completely lacking in conviction and lacking in basically knowing how to approach it.  You can’t afford that sort of shit if you are hoping to achieve something as a team. Che Adams wasn’t alone. Adam Armstrong should’ve scored in the second half and so should Will Smallbone.

We created those four glorious chances to win the game despite a very lethargic performance seemingly lacking in attacking intent or urgency. There was very little intent to go forward at any time, especially in the first half when we were 1-0 up. We allowed Middlesbrough just to maintain the shape and didn’t stretch them and didn’t have a shot on target other than the goal that we did score, which was a brilliant finish by Adam Armstrong but came pretty much purely because of a horrible missed kick by a Middlesbrough defender. We got lucky in the first half when a dreadful lack of hold-up play by Che, gifted a chance which they smacked against the post.

So, all of this leading to the point at which we threw two points in the bin with an unmarked player in the middle and a free header. Shite.

And How Predictable Was That?

I did ponder whether having three weeks was a good thing for Russell Martin and he sprung a bit of a surprise from the start with Sulemana being selected. He’s great in training apparently.   If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that, when a player is selected out of the blue, then I would be a rich man.   Doing well in training means precisely dick, other than the fact that you can do something when no pressure is on.  Kamaldeen did okay to be fair but once more, nothing at the end of it. All of our wingers have moments in a game, like Kamaldeen did today but the other wingers chip in with an occasional goal.  He’d still be behind Fraser, Edozie, Brooks and Adam Armstrong in my pecking order.

The back four looked decidedly makeshift, with Bednarek being left out after his exertions for Poland a few days ago, which meant that Stephens started but at least we had proper full backs and KWP and Bree. Bree had an absolute mare in the first half with every Middlesbrough attack coming down his side and if it was Ryan Manning, then he would’ve been getting absolutely slaughtered for it. He improved in the second half but it highlighted again that it’s still a problem position for us.  Not as much of a problem as centre forward but a problem nonetheless.

Substitutions or lack thereof was rather strange. Whilst we were struggling to kill the game off, we have a midfielder on the bench in Joe Rothwell who has proved beyond reasonable doubt that he’s got a goal in him. Stuart Armstrong was blowing out of his arse from the 70th minute onwards but substitution not made, even in the panic having conceded the late goal and having four minutes to play with some attacking intent. I have a feeling that there was an element of worrying about the next game and forgetting to worry about the one we were playing.  We did get to see Mara’s latest hairstyle for ten minutes after our leading goalscorer was taken off.  Adams and Mara are our two Number 9’s.  Let that sink in when you’re pondering how good we could be with a proper number 9.

Russell Martin bemoaned our lack of ruthlessness in both boxes and you can’t argue with that of course, especially in the attacking sense.  The goal we let in was pathetic as three of our players failed to close down the cross and KWP lost his man in the middle.  

In the evening, Leeds dropped points as well.  It could have and should have been a good day but we fucked it up.  Ipswich, who won today, grinding out a 1-0 win at Blackburn, are next up on Monday and we quite simply have to win if we want to get back on track with any chance of automatic promotion.  A draw or a defeat and it will pretty much be a canter to the end of the season playing glorified friendlies. A win and it will feel like it’s all back on.  Such is the life of a football fan.

Up the fucking Saints