EFL Championship Match 40 - Southampton 2 Coventry City 1

Che Wants the Ball, Cov Players Do Not

In hindsight, the game where we played Coventry away should’ve told us a lot about the end of the season we were going to have. It was in the middle of the unbeaten run and we went there to play a Coventry team that weren’t in the best of form and we were terrible and eventually escaped with a point when we should’ve won comfortably. Ultimately, it was two points dropped.

The Coventry of today are a lot better than what they were back then. Ellis Sims had not scored any goals at that point of the season but in the last few weeks he has been on fire, playing a massive role in firing Coventry to the FA Cup semi-final that they have against Manchester United on Saturday. Hopefully Sims and a few of the others, will have one eye on that game tonight. I somehow doubt that Mark Robins will allow that to be the case though because they are currently seventh in the championship, one place of the playoffs and need to close down on Norwich who are somehow sixth, despite being the most negative, fucking boring team out there. No, I still haven’t forgiven or forgotten the back ten they played with against us at Carrow Road.

All eyes will be on the team selection today and whether Russell Martin will persevere with the Jack Stephens at left back-ish thing and judging by the way he has doubled down on it in the press conferences this week, we will certainly have that again.

But as it turns out, we don’t with Bednarek dropping out of the team and a normal looking back four of Bree, Stephens, THB and KWP with the only question being which side the full- backs will play on. Both Aribo and Smallbone make the cut into midfield and Brooks wins the winger tombola for today.  Nothing against Smallbone but he’s been out of the side the past two matches and has done nothing in his sub appearances to warrant a recall, but he’s in because I expect, Rothwell was so shit against Blackburn.  Having 28 touches in an hour, in a possession-based side, when you are a central midfielder?  What?  Those stats were padded by taking a few corners as well.

Away we go and the referee James Linington sets out his stall early by booking the Coventry right back Latibeaudiere very quickly for pulling back Adam Armstrong and then manages to not book Bree for exactly the same thing on the other side of the pitch a few minutes later. Rather strange.

Shite Decision but So Worth It

Saints start popping the ball about and it’s all looking good until it goes to David Brooks who takes a horrible touch and presents it to Coventry and they go straight down or left with van Ewick who knocks into the box for the overlapping Latibeaudiere and under the softest of challenges from Flynn Downes, he hits the deck and the fucker gives a penalty. That is absolute bullshit on first look but you’ve gotta take the rough with the smooth as a prize for not having fucking VAR ruining every game and even though it looks like for a second that the linesman, who is ideally placed, is going to have a say about whether it was a foul or not, the penalty stands and up steps Haji Wright.  He is taking absolutely fucking ages and the referee has already blown his whistle and the ref eventually starts walking towards him and I think we’re going to get the first ever booking for time wasting when taking a penalty in the 10th minute.  Anyway, with that Wright has decided that he’s had enough of everyone looking at him wondering what the fuck he’s doing and decides to start his run up.   Oh look, he’s doing the wanker stomp with his little stutter steps and he slips and balloons the ball upwards and it bounces off the bar and out. Haaaaaa, wanker!

Joe Aribo has made a storming start of the game, combining well with KWP on the left and he picks up the ball and drives across the penalty area before the ball squirts free to Adam Armstrong who goes down on the challenge but the referee is not interested in that one even though the full-back has clearly had a bit of a pull and it’s more of a penalty than the one Coventry got given.

Though more restricted than in his Man City-esque role, Stephens dives forward to half-way and finds KWP in front of him near the edge of the area and he takes a touch to get it out of his feet and then one more to knock it infield before lashing it with his right foot and it takes a big deflection of someone that flies into the net. Fucking get in. Everyone is appealing -  Coventry are appealing for handball, KWP is celebrating his goal and Che Adams is running off to the corner because the ball has deflected off him and bearing in mind the Adam Armstrong fringe goal from the opening day of the season, I assume he is going to be given that.

His goal or not, Che is now up on confidence and another Aribo inspired move sees Adams take aim from 25 yards and this time it flies narrowly over the bar via a deflection.  Also confident is Big Joe, who then beats three players without moving moving before finding Adams running towards the byline on the left.  He tries to pick out Smallbone but it runs to Bree, whose shot is so bad it goes straight back to Che and even though he finds Smallbone this time and he puts it in the net, the flag is going up against Adams and seeing that he’s right on the goal line, it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t offside.

Coventry aren’t getting anywhere near us as THB splits the lines with a perfect ball through to Brooks and he has to square at to Adam Armstrong but instead of that he takes aim with his right foot and the keeper pushes it past the post easily enough. No matter though as in comes the corner from Bree, headed down by THB and after a right bit of flappage by the keeper and no defender wanting it, Adams manages to bundle it into the net from 6 inches. 2-0, get in.

Che Celebrates His Second Goal, Perhaps

We are the better side for the rest the first half but can’t create a third goal and the only alarm at our end is a horrible dive by van Ewick which gets him a volley of finish Cornish abuse from Jack Stephens.  I doubt he needed a translator to understand the gist as “get up you cheating fucker” is pretty universal.

The second half starts With an amusing incident as van Ewick, goes in late on Baz, who picks the ball up and he crashes into the keeper and hits the deck.  Everyone has a lot of sympathy for him when after a couple of minutes, it become apparent that he isn’t getting up and so off he goes to be replaced by Tavares.  Off you go you embarrassing little twat.

A decent start for us again with a massive crossfield ball from THB out to Adam Armstrong, who cuts in before floating one towards the back post, which Collins helps on its way.  Arma has another decent chance as Smallbone finds him on the left but having made room, he pulls out the scuffer and straight at Collins.

Smallbone is having a good game with the ball and it has to be three as he combines with Brooks and Bree to tee up Che, but his effort hits Collins and bounces out.  Che manages to set up Brooks but his effort is placed casually off target when he should have leathered it.

That’s Brooks last contribution and he’s off to be replaced by Wee Man but here come Coventry with substitute Tavares on the right, cutting in and seeing his shot deflected by KWP and landing on the roof of the net. It’s all Coventry all of a sudden now with the ball worked out wide and Tavares slings in and Bidwell is right at the back post completely unmarked and scores easily. He’s run off the back of Adam Armstrong and James Bree has not reacted whatsoever in exactly the same way that he didn’t react to the ball being put over his head against Ipswich.  Bollocks.

Probably as punishment, Arma is off to be replaced with not Edozie or Sulemana… but Sekou Mara.  What the actual? Saints now have a job on their hands and Aribo does well to head down to Adams, who holds off the defender like a player of his size and strength should be able to do, and gets a shot in but straight at the keeper from a difficult angle.

More subs and it’s a triple with Stu Armstrong, Rothwell and Charles on for Aribo, Smallbone and Adams.  All three have been decent in their way but the first two have been severely blowing for the past ten minutes and Smallbone in particular was running in treacle when attempting to get back from 40 yards ahead of the ball. We end up with a rather bizarre tactical switch with Mara staying on the right hand side and Stuart Armstrong playing at centre forward.

Ellis Sims has not been the expected threat at all but turns up on the left hand side and it’s the first time I’ve really seen him all game but he cuts inside Captain Jack and drills it straight at Baz  Coventry are looking slightly more dangerous side as the extra minutes tick away and Wright repeats what Sims had just done, cutting in from the left and crossing it straight into Baz’ midriff. It’s always a relief when Baz catches one but even he would’ve struggled not to save that.  The End.

Well we got there in the end. The second half in particular wasn’t pretty but we did just enough in the first half to get over the line.  In truth, apart from their goal, Coventry didn’t forced Baz into any sort of meaningful save so looking back, it was actually quite comfortable.  Sure didn’t feel like that at the time though but the inevitable equaliser didn’t happen this time.

Coventry, like the first game against this season, didn’t look that great. The great Ellis Sims revival that has been gathering place since Christmas turned out to be nothing. Big donkey basically he doesn’t have much of a first touch and it’s just a big unit.  Coventry should have a course taken the lead in the first half with the penalty , which on later viewing, was as soft as I thought at the time. One thing I’ve noticed about referees in the Championship is that they don’t tend to give penalties unless they’re obvious. This wasn’t obvious.  Anyway, it was worth it to see Haji Wright make a tit of himself. Twat.

Saints took over for the rest of the first half and then the KWP / Adams goal happened.  Some debate over who will get the goal but we had a stroke of luck because it came off of Che’s arm.  The second was down to some shocking Coventry defending and goalkeeping at the corner.  No one wanted the ball as much as Che did basically.  We should’ve scored more in the first half and at the start of the second half but Armstrong and Brooks contrived to butcher opportunities that we should’ve done better with.

Once more we stepped off gas a little bit in the middle of the second half and Coventry scored a very easy goal.  Adam Armstrong let his man go and stick ball in the net unopposed but Bree didn’t help either. Having been done twice in the Ipswich game by drifting infield and letting the ball sail over his head, it was disappointing to see him marking no one and getting done again and the sad thing is, after having a few good games before Christmas he is now looking a little bit more like the liability he was last season and at the start of this.  He does some good things but you just can’t be that unaware of what’s behind you.

Check Your Shoulder Breezy

The first hour of the game was dominated by Joe Aribo it was absolutely superb in midfield. So strong and deceptive and I would imagine, a complete nightmare to play against. His partnership with Smallbone in midfield is not ideal because neither of them are particularly quick at getting around the park, to put it politely, but out of the two, Joe has a much higher ceiling and will only get better the more he plays.  He did die on his arse on about 70 minutes and he needs to get his fitness levels up to enable him to pay the full 90.

There were some strange substitutions today.  Mara gave another baffling performance on the wing, basically just strolling about but even he must have been confused at watching Stuart Armstrong trying to play as a striker for probably the first time in his life.  Not an experiment I'm wanting to be repeated.

So, back to winning ways and out of habit, we all had a look at how Leeds and Leicester got on with a draw and a defeat coming their way respectively. (Ipswich only drew at home to Watford the night after).  This does two things in that it just leaves that little bit of hope and it can also make you very angry about the points we’ve pissed away in the last few weeks.

Nothing can be done about that now though and all we can do is turn up on Saturday and support the lads against Watford. Up the fucking Saints.