Premier League Match 29 - Southampton 1 Wolves 2

 

32 - the Number of Points we need from 9 games

If Saints have any realistic fear of being the worst Premier League team of all time, then they need to get to 12 points from the 9 that they are currently on.  Just the one more win and we will never have a better chance than today, against Wolves.  Of the seventeen teams in the Premier League that are ringfenced by PSR, Wolves are comfortably the worst, residing as they do in 17th place, ten points behind West Ham in 16th and five clear of the team occupying 18th, which of course is the last relegation place. After this game, we have Leicester to play away from home, which is winnable, but this is the game if we want to save our fans from the ignominy of supporting a team that is worse that one with Robbie Savage in it.

The other significant thing about this game is that if we lose it, then Wolves will be 17 points ahead of us and so automatic relegation will come around pretty quickly with that kind of gap and only nine games left after today. We all know it’s going to happen at some point, but it would be good to delay the inevitable as long as possible.

Or would it? Maybe once relegation is confirmed we can start planning in earnest for next season. Maybe we can get answers out of all of the players as to whether they want to be part of the rebuild in the Championship next season or whether they want to move on. I personally will never not find it strange that having been part of a shit Premier League campaign that has ended up with your team getting relegated, you feel you have the entitlement to be a Premier League player.  There is only really Aaron Ramsdale out of our squad who could legitimately make a case for himself.  Others will move on of course and I’d be very surprised if we have any of Aaron, KWP, THB or Tyler Dibling in our ranks at the start of next season. The rebuild is of course the remit of Johannes Spors, our new technical director, appointed around a month ago and he gave his first interview this week and came across as very confident in his own ability and made it abundantly clear that he would be in charge of all football related matters, including the appointment of managers and recruiting of players. As is always the case with these types of appointments, they always sound great before they have started and the merits or otherwise of the person in question can only be judged further down the line he did make it abundantly clear however that we almost expect to be promoted next season. Good start.

The future of Ivan Juric will be a talking point from now until either the end of the season or until he gets sacked. Personally, I find it hard to imagine him staying past the point of relegation being confirmed but you never know. Last week he picked a team that didn’t get battered at Anfield but this week is a different assignment because we have to win this game against Wolves, so playing without a striker is not really an option in my book playing with a striker would of course mean one less body in midfield which means the weaknesses of Will Smallbone, who will doubtless be selected, are more likely to be exposed.

Wolves chances of exposing anything in our defence have been weakened by the absence of Matheus Cunha, who is the only player raising their squad above the levels of the three crap teams who will ultimately get relegated. His ability has put him firmly in the bracket of someone who could play for a Champions League level club. His ability to lose his shit and get sent off has however put him in the bracket of being a complete fucking liability. His second red card of the season, earned a few weeks ago against Bournemouth, for a punch, a kick and then a head-butt at a Bournemouth player, means he won’t be bothering us this afternoon.  Wolves still have threats of course but these are severely diminished without the main man.

Wolves did look to be serious contenders for relegation earlier on in the season under Gary O’Neil, and in fact got their first win of the season against us, thanks in the main to two absolutely shambolic VAR decisions. Ryan Manning‘s goal was disallowed for an arbitrary 50-50 challenge which could’ve been given either way, after the decision on the pitch had gone in our favour.  We all know that a decision overturn doesn’t often happen and the on field decision usually carries a lot of weight, like it did half an hour later when two Wolves fouls in the buildup were not given before Cunha smashed one in the top corner from thirty yards. 

The fact that they are not in the relegation shake up is down to Cunha and their new manager bounce which they got when they sacked O’Neil and appointed Vitor Pereira. One of the first things that Pereira did when he joined was to strip Mario Lemina of the captaincy. You remember him, old #TonicLikeLemonade, who in his time at Saints was much more concerned with his social media than with actually putting any effort in. A horrific example of the modern footballer. #TonicLikeWarmPiss was an occasional hashtag I liked to use.

All eyes on the team news to see if Ivan perseveres with the back four that we had last week to reasonably decent effect at Liverpool… and of course he doesn’t. Wanker.  Looks like it’s a back five again and there’s no striker on the pitch. What’s the fucking point of this guy?  What’s the fucking point in turning up to watch this shit? And it will be shit, almost certainly, but the annoying thing about being a committed football fan is that there’s always just this off chance that it might work despite all logic screaming at you that it is not going to happen. For fuck‘s sake.  Smallbone is injured again and Bednarek hasn’t recovered from his concussion – maybe he’ll wake up thinking he’s Paolo Maldini.

It looks like Matty Fernandes is playing as a false nine and he drops into midfield to start the first move and ends up with the ball on the wing.  He plays it into Sugawara doing what he does best, which is attacking and he fires it over from the byline low, and Sulemana has a tap in but plays a fucking air shot, and so the ball bounces off his standing leg and goes away from the open goal, which is six yards in front of him.

Unperturbed Saints to keep attacking with Big Les driving into the penalty area before flicking it out to Sulemana on the left and his low cross into the box deflects out as far as Aribo who sends up a fucking balloon, high into the Northam.

Wolves have been crap so far, but they get a bit possession in our half for the first time with Doherty passing the ball out wide to Bellegarde, who under no pressure whatsoever from Manning, slings in across and Strand Larson is completely free ahead of the dozing ABK and flicks a header past Ramsdale who is wrong footed, and that’s 1-0 from their first visit into our half.  Hilarious.

The rest of the first half is wank.  There is no fight to get back in it and it highlights the glaringly fucking obvious problem of not having a striker on the pitch, as Fernandes comes deep to try and pick the ball up and then realises that he’s actually the farthest forward and so has to try and hang onto it until he inevitably loses it with neither Dibling nor Sulemana making a run to help him out.  Ivan waves his arms about but yet again, it’s fucking shit.

Having shown some promising attacking at the start of the half, Sugawara has to do some defending late on and he’s predictably shite, gazing up at the sky with no idea where anything is, whilst Ait-Nouri has seen where the ball has landed and goes forward before cracking a shot into the side netting.

Make Others Look Bad By Putting Effort In, Get Substituted

Half time in the latest Juric masterclass and let’s see what the inevitable halftime substitution is.  As the players come out there is the unmistakeable figure of Tall Paul waiting to come on, so Juric is basically admitting that he fucked it up with the original team selection yet again and now realises that we do actually need a striker on the pitch after all.  Unbelievably, the player he has chosen to take off is Fernandes, who has probably been the best of a rotten bunch in the first half and there is a very audible and prolonged “you don’t know what you’re doing“, raining down from the Northam. The second half starts, and Ramsdale pumps a ball up the middle towards Tall Paul, who doesn’t jump, and he’s beaten easily in the air. The ball is flicked on couple of passes and Strand Larson picks it up on the edge of the box and drills it through THB‘s legs and it flicks off him and goes right into the corner past Ramsdale. Once again, it’s so shit and yet another simple goal.  There are people still returning from the concourse after halftime and quite a few are just turning round and going straight downstairs again because having another pint of beer, having a piss or going home are all looking like more attractive options than watching this shit.

Having not covered himself in glory with the second Wolves goal, Tall Paul then gets involved where he should, and holds the ball up before flicking it away to Dibling on the right and the youngster seems to have come alive as he drives forward and puts a nicely weighted ball in front of Sugawara, who smashes it  and Sa is forced to make a decent save and tips it over the bar.  The comeback is on! In comes the corner from Manning and Tall Paul rises at the back post and heads it goalwards and a combination of Sa and the post keeps it out.  Two efforts on goal will probably make the end of season highlights DVD.

The Wolves central defenders had a free ride in the first half with no one pressing them and they still managed to look shit when they were knocking the ball around and they look even more shit when pressed, even when it’s the very slow Tall Paul press, lumbering around after them but the amiable giant gets a foot in which leads to Sulemana playing it through to Dibling, who takes on a couple of players on the edge of the box before his shot is blocked away for another corner. Manning swings in again and Dibling gets himself free about six yards out, but heading is not the strongest part of his game and it flies over the bar.

Archer is on for Sugawara, because what we need on the pitch is a player who really doesn’t give a shit.  After passing up these opportunities it was obvious that Wolves would get another one and they do as Les tries to play a ball into Archer who really does not look interested in the slightest and as a result, a defender walks in front of him and takes the ball. Wolves build down the left and Gomes ends up with a free shot from the edge of the box which he places wide.

With KWP now switched to the left, he picks up the ball and sets off on a diagonal run across the box and thinks about shooting abouthe same number of times he’s thought about signing a contract extension and true to form, he doesn’t do it and eventually loses the ball which allows Wolves to break quickly and that’s far too quick for Joe Aribo, who is towing not only a caravan, but also a full sized trailer and an articulated lorry.  Luckily for us, they make a complete bollocks of it and Sarabia tries to go round Ramsdale and that’s never happening and we get away with it.

Twenty to go and Tall Paul tries again, holding the ball up and spinning it out to Dibling on the right hand side and he attacks the box, hits it with his left foot and it flies past Sa and bounces out off the post and there is Tall Paul to run in the rebound.  That happens in the first half and we have no striker following in.

So what of the last twenty.  We do fuck all in the first ten as all the Wolves players simultaneously get cramp and go down. Isn’t that strange?  Downes comes on for Les and Gronbaek for Sulemana.  It’s amazing that Sulemana doesn’t fall on his arse as he walks off as that’s been more or less his total contribution today.  Downes adds some energy and Gronbaek adds some lightweight not touching the ball, and we’ve time for one more tactical masterstroke on 92 with Aribo coming off for Jack Stephens.  More abuse from the Northam as a defender comes on but what the fuck, he’s going up front.  Full time and Wolves celebrate like they’ve just stayed up. As if you were ever going to go down anyway lads, for fuck‘s sake.

Despite some spirit being shown in parts of the second half, overall, that was fucking dogshit again. A diabolical starting XI with no striker, and an admission at a half-time with a substitution that tells that he got it completely wrong again. Taking off our best and hardest working midfield player and putting on an actual striker was a classic, and totally deserving of the “you don’t know what you’re doing” raining down from the crowd. Fernandes was playing as the furthest forward of our midfield players so in taking him off, Juric was kind of hinting that Fernandes was the problem, which he clearly fucking wasn’t.  Playing a false 9 with no one running ahead of the ball was the problem, so blame the wingers or blame yourself.  The whole idea of a false 9 is to draw the centre backs out to deal with him but the Wolves defenders just stayed where they were as there was no point in following Fernandes into our half as he had no one to pass it forward to.

One more Defender Next Week I Feel

So let’s talk about the first half, which was for 4-6-0 in possession and 5-5-0 out of possession. All this against a team that is 17th in the League and quite frankly, shit. This Wolves team would not be staying up in any season in the past 20 years, apart from the last two. So, having set up like we were playing Real Madrid, we knocked the ball around a bit and looked relatively sharp on the ball and the first time Wolves got the ball, they scored when two crosses came in under no pressure whatsoever and from the second of those, Strand Larson had a free head because ABK had dozed off. For the rest of the first half we predictably did nothing and it was absolutely fucking dreadful and then the second goal straight away killed the game.

The half-time change saw Tall Paul came on and even having a striker on the pitch as limited as him, makes the team look a lot better because the central defenders are occupied and at least we have someone to play the ball forward to. Who would’ve thought it. Our goal came from Paul picking up the ball spreading it wide and then following in the shot which bounced back to him off a post.  Three goals he has this season, two of them from following in shots.  A striker with a striker’s instinct is a good idea.  It was a bit like the interesting development in the last ten minutes as well, when Flynn Downs came on and all of a sudden we had someone who could run in midfield and looked like something resembling a functioning team again. Who would’ve thought it?

If the final substitution of Ivan Juric’s Saints career is to bring Jack Stephens on up front then that would be a fitting epitaph. He really didn’t look overly impressed with being asked to chase hopeful long balls, pumped forward for a few minutes at the end.

I want Juric gone now. We are now 17 points behind Wolves with nine games left so it’s all over by the shouting so there is absolutely no point in Juric still being here. The bloke is absolutely fucking clueless, never seems to learn and there is just no point in him sticking out the place a moment longer.  Two and a half weeks until the next game – get it done.  The language being used around the club has changed with regards to the relegation “battle” that we are in.  Spors said during the week that he was purely talking about playing in the Championship and in his post-match interview today, Juric categorically said that we will be relegated. No shit Sherlock.

Once again there were some half decent performances out of there by some players with Dibling (second half) and THB probably being the standouts. Sugawara actually wasn’t that bad either but it’s all relative.   There was some awful shite as well with Joe Aribo being particularly off the pace and Kamaldeen Sulemana doing a passable impression of someone playing in a pair of roller skates.  It apparently was Aribo’s 100^th game for Saints today and in some ways that’s an achievement but in others it’s symbolic of how far we’ve fallen.  In recent times in the Premier League we’ve had James Ward-Prowse, Oriol Romeu, Romeo Lavia and Pierre Hojbjerg in Aribo’s position and they are light years ahead of him.  Go back further and you find Steven Davis, Victor Wanyama, Morgan Schneiderlin and even the like of Jordy Clasie.  It shows how far we’ve plummeted. 

It's a gloriously long two weeks and three days before the next game, which is Palace at home.  With it being a home game it certainly promises to be a toxic one in the ground unless there is someone else in charge by then, as opposed to Mr Five-Five-Zero but when have Sports Republic ever done the obvious thing.

Up the Fucking Johannes Spors Saints Rebuild..

Premier League Match 28 - Liverpool 3 Southampton 1

 

Just for a Moment, We Were Better than PSG

I don’t often watch much football if Saints are not involved, but earlier on this week I made an exception and watched PSG versus Liverpool in the Champions League. Research, I thought, into what we would be facing at the weekend. What I saw was PSG having about thirty shots and Liverpool‘s goalkeeper Alisson Becker, saving everything. Truth be told, Liverpool got absolutely battered in this game but they still managed to win which is a bit of a contrast to us this season, where we get absolutely battered every game and it is completely reflected on the scoreboard at the end of the game.

It was thought going into this season, that Liverpool might struggle to maintain the levels achieved under Jurgen Klopp, but Arne Slot has come in and basically made the team better and they will win the league by a long way.  A settled sent back pairing of van Dijk and Konate has definitely helped and the likes of Joe Gomez and Jarrell Quansah are now bench fillers whereas last year they were playing quite a lot. The midfield is usually three out of Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Curtis Jones  and you also have Harvey Elliott, who got the winning goal against PSG, kicking around as well. Up front, there’s a ridiculous selection to be had from Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo, Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz, Federico Chiesa and shit Andy Carroll himself, Darwin Núñez.  Even if they go with some of their fringe first team players like Elliott, Chiesa and Núñez, you know they are going to be just a little bit too good for us to deal with. 

You could argue that with regards to winning the league, they’ve been helped in that by the likes of Manchester City having a relatively poor season but Liverpool have been relentless and totally deserve to be where they are.  They are a perfectly balanced team with the right players in every position and even though there is a chance that big hitters like Trent Alexander Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah, may not be there next season - none of that is going to help us this afternoon, nor is the fact that they have the second leg against PSG in a few days time.  Even if they rest players today, the thought of the Juric defensive man marking system up against these guys at Anfield is fucking terrifying.

If Ivan has a mind to, Saints should be able to put a better team out on the pitch than they have done in the last few weeks. In addition to Aaron Ramsdale, there is an opportunity for Ivan, should he wish to take it, to pick three actual central defenders, namely THB, Bednarek and ABK, as all three are fit and available. There should be no need for Joe Aribo in defence, nor for James Bree anywhere near the pitch.  Ivan could, if he wanted to think straight, have KWP and Wellington as the wingbacks on the correct sides, for some natural width and balance. Ivan also could, if he actually thought about it, have a midfield which actually has some steel in it, as long as Flynn Downes and Lesley Ugochukwu are both starting.  Three out of Mateus Fernandes, Tyler Dibling, Kamaldeen Sulemana and Tall Paul could make up the front line if Ivan deems that to be the best option available. I’m not saying for a second that this lineup would be capable of getting a result, but it would have a better chance.

There has been a lot of noise this week about Ivan Juric not being here next season. The man has been linked with the job is Danny Röhl from Sheffield Wednesday.  On the one hand, these links make a lot of sense because Juric has been shite and Röhl has a connection with us from the past and also has a connection with Johannes Spors, our new technical director who will be choosing the next manager you would’ve thought.  It is also well known that we approached Sheffield Wednesday when Russell Martin got sacked so there is obviously an interest there, even though that happened before Spors was appointed.  For me, none of this is exactly shocking news and it is all pretty likely to happen but on the other hand, it was reported in The Sun.  If you’re going down the road of thinking this is made up though, then ask yourself why would anyone bother to make it up. No one outside of Southampton, cares about Southampton so a story like this is hardly going to be written to drive clicks or newspaper purchases.  It does mean that Juric is going to spend every press conference talking about the possibility of him losing his job but that’s part of the territory when you’ve only won one game in nine and your team is likely to be relegated pretty soon, and also when you’ve lost your last three games, by a combined score of 11-1.

Team news and changes ahoy and it looks like it has to be a back four with KPW, THB, Bednarek and Manning.  The other six names are all midfielders and wingers so no centre forward.  Ah, interesting.  Grönbæk is playing which is weird, considering he’s not been given a minute of any consequence in recent games.  The hoped for Liverpool Reserves has not really materialized.  Tsimikas and Núñez being the only two who don’t often start games.

Away we go and Saints were set up with a back four and a compact four in midfield in front of them. The two farthest forward are Fernande and Grönbæk and they’re not very far forward to all, so out of possession it’s a 4-6-0 and in possession it’s much the same.  Liverpool start knocking the ball about and work the ball over from the left and despite all our compact shape, Curtis Jones still has a free shot from within the penalty area which he pulls wide of the post.

A harmless ball gets played down our left and Bednarek and Manning both go for it with no calling whatsoever and clatter into each other. Bednarek has clearly come off the worst and after a lengthy stoppage, is off to be replaced by ABK.  The stoppage seems to throw Liverpool off a bit and a long punt forward by Ramsdale is chased by Sulemana and Trent shins it off a corner.  In it comes from Smallbone, met by THB and straight at Alisson.  The excitement is that we have actually had an effort on goal.  When Saints get on the ball in midfield, we actually look quite decent and work the ball out to Sulemana against Trent and another corner.  This time it’s headed clear and teed up by Grønbæk for Fernandes to have an effort from 25 yards, which is decent and once again is straight at Alison.

It’s clearly obvious that Ramsdale is going to have to have a great game today and he starts off well, throwing himself at Trent’s feet as he burrows his way into the six yard box. Liverpool create a few chances but nothing clear cut and Núñez heads over because that’s what he does.  He’s not great again a few minutes later when he has time on the edge of the box to turn and hit it, but Ramsdale falls on it easily.

We are still playing some good stuff when we go forward and Dibling awakens from the nap he’s been having for the past three games and finds Fernandes, before Matty puts a great cross curling in between defender and goalkeeper, into an area where we could really do with having a striker, but instead of that, we’ve got all 5 foot 9 of Grønbæk, who can’t get his head to it.

Manning takes a throw on the left and sends Smallbone off towards goal and he has not been tracked by the dozing Liverpool defenders. Van Dijk tries to shield it back to Alisson but two of the world’s best players make an almighty bollocks of it and run into each other, with Fernandes trying to disrupt. Anyway, the ball bounces out to Smallbone who has no route to pass it to anybody or to shoot, but he unlocks Blad Genius Mode and goes through Alisson’s legs and into the unguarded net. Fuck me ragged, we are winning.  PSG 0 Southampton 1.  Get in.

Saints have a spring in the step as the game restarts and KWP brings the ball away down the right, taking it past Darwin Núñez, who just takes a big kick at him and catches him somewhere around the knee. KWP reacts and there’s a little bit of handbags and referee Lewis Smith brandishes the yellow card at the complete fucking idiot. Why isn’t that a red? Oh, hang on a minute, we are off to VAR.

Hi Lewis, it’s Matt at Stockleigh Park
Hi Matt, how you doing?
Shitting myself mate… only done three Prem Games before
Me too mate, this is my seventh
I’ve been fast-tracked by Howard
So have I mate, because all the experienced refs are shit
Anyway, we have a potential red card for Núñez
Why?
Because it’s deliberate and he’s just booted him high, nowhere near the ball
Don’t do this to me Matt…
OK, calm down, what’s the problem….?
It’s 60,000 plastic Scousers at Anfield and Slot blamed a ref for costing them the league last week.  It’s only my seventh game.
Do you want to have a look at it on the screen?
No… just clear it please
Ok mate, no worries.

Nothing to See Here

Half time and 15 minutes of relative ecstasy despite a standard refereeing/VAR nonsense at Anfield.  We are so fucking back, baby!!!  I’m sure that Liverpool and Slot will respect the irresistible force that they are up against today and just accept defeat… or maybe not. As the teams come out for the second half, it’s pretty obvious that Slot was not very impressed with Liverpool‘s first half and Tsimikas, Jones and Szoboszlai are replaced with Robertson Mac Allister and Elliott. They are so shit scared of the mighty Southampton that they have to bring on their Argentinian World Cup winner.

Liverpool start the second half with ridiculous intensity and our first touch of the ball is to deflect it away from a corner. In it comes, missed by everybody and knocked back to Elliott who drives in an angled shots through a crowd of players and Ramsdale reacts ridiculously to push it around the post.

It’s just the start though with Liverpool seemingly intent on getting the ball out to Luis Diaz on the left at every opportunity. He gets his head down and takes on KWP on the outside beats him and lays it back from the goal line and Darwin fucking Núñez beats ABK to the cross and knocks it into the net first time. There you go. Wanker.  Shouldn’t even be on the pitch.

Liverpool continue to put us on a ridiculous amount of pressure and Diaz is determined to make a difference and blasts in another shot which Ramsdale manages to beat away. The ball goes pinging about our penalty area, no one takes command and drops down towards the penalty spot and Núñez collapses to the ground under pressure from Smallbone and the referee points to the fucking spot on the combined appeal of the crowd, as well as van Dijk and Mac Allister who are standing right next to him. Soft as fuck. We are off to VAR again and this will be utterly pointless. Saints players or surrounding the referee, whilst Núñez writhes on the ground like he has actually been fouled. Cheating bastard.

Hi Lewis, Stockleigh Park Creche Here Again
Clear foul isn’t it mate?
Yeah, renowned hardman Smallbone has absolutely ploughed through the back of him there
That’s what I thought. Hard-man assassin.  He’s Irish, like Roy Keane
Do you want to look at the screen?
No mate, what good can come of that?  I’m shaking Matty…
Why’s that?
Virgil shouted at me.  Gonna ask for his shirt later.

Mo Salah with the penalty after the pointless VAR review.  Up he steps and bang, Ramsdale goes the right way but it has ripped past him into the top corner. Great pen to be fair but fuck off.

Hard Man Big No 9, Folds Under Pressure from Hatchet Man Smallbone

In order to stem the tide, Ivan goes to the bench and brings on Sugawara and Archer in place of Dibling and Grönbæk.  KWP has been pushed forward on the right.  Saints do get a little bit of momentum again and Smallbone plays Archer away down the right wing and this will probably offside eventually, but he bears down on the Liverpool goal from an angle and hammers in a shot that Alison has to beat away.

Another Liverpool attack is incoming though and some pretty shaky defending by Smallbone and ABK allows Diaz to pick up the ball on the left and cross it back into the middle, but he’s made the mistake of putting it on Salah’s right foot and he slices it wide from 8 yards out. He only scores penalties and gifts against us.

Twenty to go and Smallbone is replaced by Lallana who gets a decent welcome from the Liverpool fans who used to watch him on the bench and in videos from the treatment room. Part of the reason that Salah has been acquired is the performance of Ryan Manning and he is given some time off with ten to go as he and Big Les are replaced with Joe Aribo and Tall Paul. We actually have two strikers on the pitch.

Before our new strike force can set about rescuing the game, we have to deal with a big long diagonal ball from right to left and it’s Sugawara against Diaz and Sugawara has himself in the correct position and then shits himself as he always does when he’s trying to defend and sticks an elbow out to keep the ball away from Diaz before absolutely losing his head and knocking it past Ramsdale out towards the penalty spot, meaning THB has to slam into a tackle to clear the ball for throw. We are off to VAR again and this is absolutely pointless because there’s no way this is not gonna be given us a penalty.

Hi Lewis – easy one for you
I didn’t give this one, was too far away
No matter – that’s what I’m here for – gonna send you to the screen as it’ll be good experience for you
I will stride across like Howard taught me… ah yes, thrown his arm at the ball… ha ha
Hilarious isn’t it?
Yes mate, proper shit, deserved penalty for being shit.

Salah again and he smashes it into the opposite top corner this time so it’s two penalties today to cover up the fact that he hasn’t had particularly good game whereas at St Mary’s, he had a penalty, also given away by Sugawara handball and the gift from McCarthy going walkabout. For fuck‘s sake.

Saints are still showing great spirit to go about trying to get another goal and Lallana and Sulemana get the ball out to KWP on the left and as he goes into the penalty area he’s clearly held back by Quansah and we appeal for a penalty but there’s absolutely no fucking point And we don’t get a free kick either because the referee has decided not to give anything. Quansah is of course a centre back it right back and this gives Sulemana all the encouragement he needs to absolutely piss past him and fire over a brilliant cross but despite having two strikers on the pitch, neither of them gamble to connect with the ball that flies across the 6 yard line.  The end.

Well, the first thing to do is to say well done to the boys for getting out of Anfield without getting humiliated. Like the games away against Arsenal and Manchester City from earlier on this season, when we knew we’re going to be up against it from the first minute to the last, we applied ourselves pretty well.  Ultimately though, none of that can totally make up for the difference in class over 95 minutes.  For the first half in particular we were excellent today as the team stayed compact and frustrated Liverpool which ultimately meant us taking the lead, but the key moment was the non-sending off of Darwin Núñez., which the referee absolutely bottled.  I note with interest that he didn’t get sent to the monitor to review that one, like he did with the second penalty.  So, not only did Liverpool have eleven men for the second half, it was of course Núñez who scored the equaliser and it was him that got hatcheted down for the penalty. If you want to argue about whether he should’ve been sent off or not, then imagine if that had been Ryan Manning aiming a massive kick at Mo Salah.   What do you think the decision would’ve been?

Runs 60 Yards to Do This to Away Fans of Team With 9 Points.  Twat.

So having scored the equaliser, Núñez then collapses like a motherfucker under pressure from renowned hard man Will Smallbone, who barely touches him but down goes the shitbag, feigning injury after crumbling in on himself.  It’s fucking embarrassing but the young referee Lewis Smith, completely played to the crowd and points to the spot and of course, VAR isn’t going to overturn it because there is the slightest contact? There’s no forward motion from Smallbone, but Núñez just brushes against him and collapses. Same as it’s always been at Anfield both before and after VAR.

Lewis Smith Shites His Pants

Liverpool upped their game in the second half with Arne Slot having made his displeasure at their first half performance abundantly clear with making three substitutions at halftime.   We basically didn’t get a kick in the second half until we had gone past the ninety-minute stage and then we had a couple of moments. The third goal was down to a substitution that we had made where Sugawara was entrusted to play right back in a back four and in his usual manner, he totally lost all composure when put under pressure and gave away a stupid handball to gift Liverpool their third.  Playing Sugawara behind KWP during that period of the game was a balls by Juric but overall he got his tactics right today. I’ll admit I couldn’t understand the logic of the 4-6-0 formation that we played but it did the job in that first half, especially.  We got penned in when Liverpool upped the pace however. 

A number of players had decent games today with Ryan Manning being an excellent in the first half against Salah, and there were committed displays from KWP, THB and ABK, in front of the ever-impressive Ramsdale. The much maligned, often by me, Will Smallbone had an excellent first half as well, crowned by the goal. The reason he had a good game was because the rest of the team was set up in such a way that it masked his deficiencies because he didn’t get caught in open space with no players around him it’s almost as if the team was set up to get the best out of the players that we have.  Too little too late but that was decent.

It was a slightly better day for the manager today. Our two false strikers, Grønbæk and Fernandes both had good moments and both worked hard to keep the team compact but ultimately, we still let in three goals even though only one of them was from open play. I severely question whether you can play this formation in a home game but I suspect that is what Ivan is going to try next.  We of course played with a back for today and didn’t do the man for man marking thing which has been an unmitigated disaster. I guess we’ll never know but I wonder if Juric decided to abandon it himself and change the shape or was it under pressure from the players who must have been thinking after the Chelsea game, that the Juric method of defending is absolute shit.  It’s amazing how your back line can look more structured if your players aren’t following their man all over the pitch.

Just the ten games left now and focus shifts onto what will be the mathematical relegation game. Lose at home to Wolves next week and we will be most of the way there.  We have to put all our eggs in the basket of beating Wolves though, or else Derby‘s record is still going to be a problem.  Can Juric pick a team to go out and win a game.  Tune in next week.

Premier League Match 27 - Chelsea 4 Southampton 0

A Contender for 'Picture To Sum Up a Season'

After the win against Ipswich, we looked at the three incoming home games of Burnley in the cup, Bournemouth and Brighton as a chance to build some momentum before Chelsea away and Liverpool away came along. We have built some momentum in that we have got worse in every single game. If Burnley was light brown shit that will come off your clothes in the washing machine, Bournemouth was dark brown which will always leave a mark no matter how many times you wash it and Brighton was a black sticky tar shit where you just throw clothes on the bonfire.

Chelsea away today it is. Chelsea have been shit as well in terms of their results recently. Not to the level of our good selves of course but it’s all about expectations having spent billions of Todd Boehly‘s money and flouting PSR rules as Amortisation FC, I don’t expect they were expecting to have three defeat in a row at any point, but here we are with an FA Cup and Premier League defeat at Brighton and a Premier League defeat at Aston Villa as their last three results.  Earlier on in the season, Chelsea looked set to establish themselves as the main challengers to Liverpool for the title but no sooner had that position being established, they shat the bed.  To be fair to the manager Enzo Maresca, he did say that it was too early for them and he has been proved right. This bit of insight doesn’t stop me having a smug little grin about Maresca because he was a smug twat last year when he was leading Leicester to the Championship title and he just has that aura about him.  He will probably be getting sacked in the summer I would imagine, such as the way at Chelsea.  Both he and their fans have recently been bleating about the injuries they have but do me a fucking favour - you spent a billion and in the last game against Villa they were forced to play a £50 million winger in Pedro Neto, as a striker.  Cry me a fucking river.  They still have the mics of Jaden Sancho, Tosin Adarabiyo, Robert Sanchez and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall on their bench against Villa, so excuse me if I’m not feeling too sorry for them.

So after three defeat in a row, they will of course be looking to put all that right against today’s visitors who are hapless Southampton. It’s been interesting to see what adjective every journalist has been putting before Southampton when they talk about us. I’ve seen hapless, hopeless, struggling and my personal favourite “completely fucking useless”… Oh, that was me. Chris Sutton made a little joke about our fans looking forward to having a day out in Norwich next season. He’s a funny lad is Chris…. Nice to provide humour to those who don’t usually have any.

Chelsea‘s main threats are basically everyone but in particular it’s Cole Palmer, who has gone off the boil a little bit recently but he would’ve been given an ego boost by every FPL manager triple captaining him for this week.  There’s a small matter of their two £100 million plus midfielders in Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo to deal with and it can’t really be an injury crisis at Chelsea if Reece James is fit, which he currently is.

They of course annihilated us 5-1 earlier on this season at St Mary’s in a game that is best remembered for the captain Jack hair pull on Marc Cucurella.  With Bednarek being injured on Saturday there is a good chance that Captain Jack makes a return to the starting line-up today though we are hearing that THB is fit as well. I can’t really see Joe Aribo playing in defence today because we have no Big Les available for the midfield as he can’t play against his parent club.  If Ivan Aribo and Smallbone in midfield, then I think I might have an early night.

With a mixture of anticipation and dread, I take the team news and Will Smallbone is playing again, alongside Flynn Downs I assume. The back three is a shit right back in James Bree, an unfit central defender in Bella-Karavan and a midfielder in Joe Aribo. There are three central defenders on the bench, namely Jack Stephens, THB and Nathan Wood.  Surely you could’ve got two half games out of them and then put Aribo in midfield?  Is that too obvious? Elsewhere, Tall Paul is our striker which is a bit like being put in solitary confinement as he won’t see another Saints player.

Saints surprisingly actually start the game reasonably well and Chelsea‘s fans are getting very nervous every time their goalkeeper Jorgensen has the ball because he has to play out of course and no one looks particularly confident. From one such attempt to play out, Jimmy Champo gets a foot in and Smallbone picks up the ball and slides it through for Tall Paul to swing a leg at it and smash it into orbit.  If the Matthew Harding stand wasn’t fucking huge, it would’ve been bouncing down the road.

There’s a warning straight after as Enzo Fernandez place a simple straight pass through to Cole Palmer and you would be laughing if you didn’t know what a good player he is, as he puts it well wide.   It almost looked like he’s booted that into his standing foot.

The warning is not heeded though as ABK tussles with Neto and the ball bounces away to Sugawara who is facing our own goal.  For reasons that I can’t work out he just smashes it aimlessly back towards our goal and it bounces away off of Jimmy Champo and falls to Enzo Fernandez in midfield, who slides a lovely ball through the defence to Cole Palmer who is on the penalty spot with just Ramsdale to beat but it’s Rambo to the rescue again and deflects his effort wide for a corner. From the corner, it’s easily flicked on by Tosin and Nkunku has wrestled his way past the most half arsed of half arsed challenges by Smallbone and nods into the net from a yard out. Pathetic.

Whilst it’s still only one we have a chance and Sulemana gets on the ball after some decent buildup playing involving Downes Fernandes and KWP and has a run at Gusto at right back and absolutely pisses past him before standing up an excellent cross into the middle.  Because of his size, Tall Paul has a tendency to look half asleep but when we actually give him some service and there’s a cross to attack, he comes alive and leaps and powers the header goalwards but Jorgensen reacts well to claw it out. Good cross good header and a decent save.

After that brief respite, now we can get back to the normal business of Chelsea just pissing through our defence and Enzo Fernandez again puts Cole Palmer through coming in from the right hand side and on his trusty left foot he rolls it wider the far post. How the fuck we are only one down is beyond me.  The man for man marking system that we haven’t changed has makeshift central defender Aribo picking up Cole Palmer, so it really isn’t surprising how that one’s going.  This isn’t Joe Aribo’s fault.

Though we’ve ridden our luck so far, it’s about to run out and Downes pass forward is intercepted by Cucurella.  On to Nkunku it goes and then to Neto who has a free shot from about eight yards and absolutely thunders it past Ramsdale at his near post but a free shot from eight yards is always gonna end up in the net.  Where the fuck was the defence?

We are now in collapse-mode and Neto clips a free kick into the box from the left and it’s a meat and potatoes cross but it floats over a Tall Paul‘s head and Levi Colwill meets it to powerfully headed down past Ramsdale.  Three fucking nil and here we go again.

Yuki Finding Out That Being Able to Defend Even a Little Bit, Might be Useful

We get to half time without any more suicidal defending and the tactical master that is Juric decides to bring on a centre back and remove of the makeshift players he’s got there currently.  Off comes Jimmy Champo for THB.

To the shock of no one, Saints immediately looked tighter but the Chelsea chances still keep coming and Cole Palmer keeps on sending them into orbit higher above the crossbar.  The game goes into a bit of a holding pattern as Chelsea know they’ve won and Saints just want to not get humiliated.  KWP goes down and is replaced by Manning on the hour mark and Tall Paul is replaced with Dibling, which means that Ivan now has us playing with a false nine.  Maresca takes the chance to give some minutes to kids and those who never play, with Dewsbury-Hall and a kid called Tyrick George replacing Sancho and Neto.

Chelsea sub George has a decent chance as Fernandes gets caught with a ball in the middle of the Chelsea half and the youngster loses his head at the last moment and smashes it high into the stands  We actually venture into Chelsea‘s half and have a corner which is cleared out as far as Ryan Manning who tries a ridiculously speculative shot from 30 yards, scuffs it straight to a Chelsea player and they fly forward, with us mainly jogging back.  Gusto finds substitute George, who gets to the line and pulls it back for fucking Cucurella to take a touch, get a mirror out, adjust his hair, flick a v-sign at Jack Stephens and then still have time to easily score the fourth. Ivan sent on Archer for Downes with ten to go so he could no doubt have a look at the Fernandes – Smallbone wall of steel in midfield in preparation for Liverpool away.  It was as awesome as you’d expect and the game cringed to the end, with just gallows humour from the very loud away section to entertain everyone.

Another Contender for the 'Picture To Sum Up a Season'

Well, in an amazingly unpredictable turn of events that no one saw coming, that was fucking shit, inept, apathetic, half-arsed and any negative adjective that springs to mind. Nine losses out of ten for Ivan the Terrible now and let’s not confuse the issue by saying that the players are bad, which they undoubtedly are. Ivan Juric is shit and the players, crap though most of them are, are not running for him we are worse organised defensively than we were under Russell Martin and unbelievably, he’s even managed to make the attacking play worse.  The random selections of out of position players are now just fucking crazy and he is adding absolutely nothing apart from evermore increasingly being the lightning rod for everyone’s dissatisfaction which means that some of it at least doesn’t land at Sport Republic’s door. There are nineteen other teams in the Premier League who don’t play this defensive system, and they are all higher up the table than us.  Funny that.

We actually weren’t bad today until the first goal went in, but when it went in it had a massive deflating effect on everyone, probably because it was from such a predictable source, as Smallbone’s piss weak defending at a corner allowed Nkunku to head in from two yards. After that, we had the header from Tall Paul after good work from Sulemana, which was clawed out by their goalkeeper and when the second goal soon followed and that was another absolute classic with Flynn Downs giving the ball away and then James Bree deciding not to defend, but to make a forward run ahead of the ball when we’ve already lost it.   Great instincts Jimbo – a makeshift three-man defence and you do a runner.  Yes it was Downes to played a shit pass but it shouldn’t be the case that when a midfielder plays a shit pass, there is no defence behind him.

The third was dreadful defending from a set piece, with Tall Paul missing a header and various other players not bothering to mark anyone and once again, Aaron Ramsdale was completely exposed. The second half was marginally better defensively because Chelsea didn’t need to score any more goals and because we bought on THB, which certainly strengthened things somewhat. It’s amazing what happens when you play defenders in defence.  We still let in a fourth though as that dick Cucurella was left unmarked by the non-defending Sugawara and had acres in our penalty area, to pick his spot.

The most damning thing for Juric is the lack of running from players. Echoes of the Spurs home game which finally did for Russell Martin.  There was one amazing incident in the second half where Aribo and Fernandes attacked down the left got to the edge of the penalty area and then we lost the ball and one pass and Chelsea were three on three at the other end which kind of made it look like we only had five outfield players on the pitch. Players aren’t running and players aren’t thinking. No one cuts off passing lanes, probably because everybody is trying to mark their own player so it stands the reason that one long ball is gonna present a situation where we are in the shit. It’s absurd on so many levels.

So, Ivan the Terrible picked his terrible team and rather predictably there were absolutely no changes to the style of defending from the weekend which we always suspected would be the case because there wasn’t much time, but then why say you’re gonna do it if you’re clearly not going to.  We had the same mishmash of misfits in defence and Smallbone in midfield, contributing nothing to the defensive effort and on top of that, Sugawara, possibly the worst defensive fullback we’ve had since Lee Todd - who could’ve predicted that that wasn’t going to work against the team chasing a Champions League spot.

Ramsdale did his best as usual and kept the score down but without quite the heroics of Saturday and ABK did a decent job despite his obvious lack of fitness. Sulemana had a couple of threatening moments where he looked like he might actually turn some of the fart into actual shit but aside from that and THB‘s contribution to the second half, we were fucking awful, with Sugawara, Smallbone and Bree being comfortably the deepest out of their depth.

It was lucky for us that Cole Palmer somehow managed to continue his vein of poor form because if he had been even at 70% of his best level, this would’ve been about 7-0.  I wonder if Ivan congratulated Joe Aribo as his man (Palmer) didn’t score.  As it was, Chelsea settled for four and we allowed that smug bastard Maresca to put on three untried kids before the end of the game. Fucking embarrassing.

Eleven games to go now and eleven days before the next one, which should be used to get Ivan Juric on a one-way ticket back to Croatia and to install Simon Rusk as caretaker manager for the rest of the season.  I feel that at least then the players would put some effort in and the disillusionment that they are obviously feeling with Ivan the Terrible in charge can at least be put aside for the end of season running and give something to the fans in the form of a couple of decent performances in the remaining games.

I watched this game on TNT Sports and all you could hear was the Saints fans, who were truly magnificent in their gallows humour and noise. The downside was that I had to listen to Rio Ferdinand adding absolutely nothing to the commentary, so I now feel more stupid than I was at the start of the game and have lost some brain cells.  I do wonder if these broadcasters ever listen back to the commentators and give them some sort of performance review because if they do, Rio will be looking for another job at the end of the season.

Eleven glorious days off before we have to deal with this shit again and eleven games to go.

Premier League Match 26 - Southampton 0 Brighton 4

Rambo Takes On The World

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Saints were winning at Ipswich and Brighton were getting beaten 7-0 by Nottingham Forest. Back then, I was looking ahead and looking forward to this game as a potential three points. Since then of course, we have lost pathetically to both Burnley and Bournemouth and Brighton have beaten Chelsea twice. Maybe we are not the team in form that I thought we were going to be.

Prior to those two wins against Chelsea, I was beginning to think that the cracks were beginning to appear in the Brighton model. This model of course was very similar to our own in the mid 2010s, when we bought relatively unknown players from Europe and then sold them on for loads of money, replacing them with more relatively unknown players who stepped into their shoes. It couldn’t last forever of course and with a large dollop of Wesley Hoedt, Mario Lemina and Guido Carrillo, our successful era gradually went down the pan.

Brighton have had to replace managers at regular intervals as Roberto De Zerbi went off to Valencia and before him, Graham Potter went off to Chelsea. Their latest hire is Fabian Hertzeler who is the managing in the Premier League at the ridiculously young age of 31. He has been maintaining the status quo for Brighton this season so far, or so it seems from the outside, but the only time I really paid attention to him was when we visited the Amex earlier on in the season when he was a big fucking baby, having failed to beat the bottom team in the league. It’s a very low bar of course but it was probably one of our best performances of the season and we deserved to win that game and but for a mental VAR decision, we probably would have. You remember the one, where Adam Armstrong was interfering with the goalkeeper from 15 yards away just a few weeks before Mateta threw Aaron Ramsdale into a post from an offside position, and wasn’t interfering.

The main thing in that first game that seemed to boil the piss of the Brighton manager, was the fact that Flynn Downes was not sent off before he scored the equalising goal. He got annoyed about it because all of his histrionics on the bench waving imaginary cards around, didn’t amount to anything other than making him look like a complete twat. Thankfully, it looks like the impasse between our soon to be departing manager and Flynn has now been resolved and we can expect to see him back in the squad this afternoon. I expect he’ll be given an ABK brief and watch from the bench for the next five games.

Having got the selection completely wrong last week it will be interesting to see whether the supply teacher gets it right at this time. Brighton have plenty of strength in that central midfield area so he has to get that area of the team right today as opposed to what he did last week. There is a very real possibility that Joe Aribo will start in a back three, given the dodgy performance by Nathan Wood last week and THB still not being ready to come back.

Brighton have some dangerous players in Mitoma and Minteh but they have questionable defenders and are definitely nowhere near on a level with the Bournemouth side we played last week. Having already got a point against these this season, achieved with Joe Lumley in goal, we should certainly looking to be getting something out of this game. It’s about giving the long-suffering Saints home supporters the odd good day between now and the end of the season before we drop back into the Championship.

1.45 comes around and it’s time to see what we are faced with this week – not from the opposition but from the brain of Ivan. Looks like Joe Aribo is starting at centre back and that Fernandes is in the midfield two, unless of course it’s a back four, but I doubt that. Cameron Archer starts ahead of Tall Paul, having done absolutely nothing in his admittedly short sub appearances under the supply teacher. Flynn Downes has made it as far as the bench but I’d put money on him watching 95 minutes as some sort of punishment.

Two minutes gone and Big Les smashes into a challenge in midfield and Ayari does a somersault which even though it didn’t look that bad, is going to result in a yellow card and certainly does. This could be a problem as our problem midfield area now contains a very attack minded Fernandes and Les on a booking.

We are doing the man marking thing again and five minutes in and it’s already looking terrifying. Just a quick pass forward and a one touch layoff and it’s wide open, just like Bournemouth last week and similarly, this isn’t going to end well. Aribo‘s man assignment is clearly Rutter and after a protracted fight for the ball, the Brighton man gets a shot in from the edge of the six yard box which is saved by Ramsdale. Early signs not good because there was absolutely no cover once Rutter had got away from Aribo.

With our defending already looking suspect, it’s not ideal when Bednarek goes down injured and to a very strange huge roar from the crowd, on comes Armel Bella-Kotchap for his first game for us for about two years. Even as he jogs onto the pitch, he looks like he’s towing a caravan, so this is going to be interesting as he tries to man mark Joao Pedro as he drops deep into midfield.

Rutter spins past Aribo again and drives towards the penalty area and Joe just hauls him down in very deliberate fashion. Free kick on the edge of the box and Baleba’s effort deflects off Dibling in the wall and bounces down and up over the bar with Ramsdale on the other side of the goal. More good luck.

We are really pushing our luck and the defence is creaking to fuck yet again a minute later as Joao Pedro picks it up on the left with ABK not close enough, he fancies his chances in a race against Armel and his caravan and just runs at him towards goal with ABK busting a gut to keep up to the edge of the penalty area where he sticks his arm out and gives Joao Pedro a little push which sends him crashing to the ground. Looks like a penalty to me but not today and can’t help but feel that we’ve got a little bit fortunate there, again.

Brighton should take the lead straight after that as Hinshelwood gets in a cross in from the right and Mitoma, totally unhindered by his man marker Jimmy Champo, connects with the ball and passes it wide of the open goal from about 6 yards.

So, we have luck and we have Aaron Ramsdale and another chance as one ball takes out Welington and yet again a Brighton attacker is clean through but down the other side this time as Minteh finds himself completely free and bearing down on Ramsdale but he takes a slightly heavy touch and stumbles and Ramsdale comes flying out to claim. Excellent goalkeeping.

So, having had five good chances to score already, a Brighton clearance comes down with snow on it about 40 yards from our goal and ABK is not tight enough to Joao Pedro who brings it down to Rutter. Aribo is not close enough to him and then luck runs out as ABK toe ends the ball through to Joao Pedro, who runs into the thirty yards of space and dinks over Ramsdale who has absolutely no chance. Well, you can’t say it’s not been coming, can you? I wonder if Ivan was surprised? I guess so as he’s done nothing to tighten things up. Fucking garbage.

We then have one of those attack things and win a corner as Lamptey puts it out of play. We play it short to Dibling and Fernandes has a couple of blocked shots before it goes back out to Welington on the right and his cross is overhit and heading for the top corner in but Verbruggen gets airborne and claws it out of the top corner. A shot on target, albeit an accident.

Johannes Spors Wondering What the Fuck He Is Watching

Half time. Fucking hell that was grim. Lucky to be only one down but no real prospect of this being anything other than another dull defeat. Ivan changes it up with … yeah, nothing and away we go again. Saints look to have a relative spring of their step with Big Les finding Fernandes in midfield and he slips it through to Archer who puts it away well but there’s no excitement because the flag has already gone up and we are off to VAR for a cursory check.

“Hi there Stockley Park – check Archer goal for offside please”
“Has the lino given it?”
“Yep – flag went up straight away”
“Well it’s offside then innit?”
“How do you know?”
“Well, one, it’s Archer, who is offside or grovelling in the dirt after a defender has breathed on him and two, lino’s never put their flag up straight away unless it’s fucking obvious”
“Do you want to draw lines”
“No, can’t be arsed and this gets our average response time down”

Well that didn’t take long, so clearly quite easily offside.

We’re only a second away from another defensive calamity though, as from the freekick for the offside, Webster just chips it forward to wear Minteh and Rutter have a two on two situation on the edge of our box. I’ve never seen anything like this in my fucking life as Minteh turns it around the corner first time which takes his marker KWP out of the game. Aribo is between Rutter and the ball, but he falls over and the ball squirts to Minteh who squares it for Rutter to put it into an empty net with Ramsdale stranded.

Our response is to all get pulled out of defence again and Gomez’s threads a ball through our midfield to Minteh, who has once again got away from KWP and as he fakes to shoot both KWP and Ramsdale go sliding out for a hotdog but as Minteh is about to roll it into an empty net, Ramsdale somehow gets a finger to it to disrupt and KWP clears the half hit effort.

There’s a rare bit of respite as we actually have an attack as Dibling and Ugochukwu combine to get the ball out to Sulemana on the left and Mr. All Fart No Shit cuts on his right foot before hitting a back pass two for Verbruggen to fall on, which is at least on target.

Brighton of course know how to piss through our team at will now and a ball from Mitoma up to Joao Pedro‘s feet is turned around the corner and Mitoma is away from the flailing Jimmy Champo and clean through from halfway and he accelerates away and he chips over the advancing Ramsdale as well for three. It’s so shit it's fucking embarrassing.

Ivan goes to his bench and takes off Big Les who was undoubtedly being hindered by his early yellow card and after last week’s disaster, he’s decided to give Will Smallbone another go. Will immediately gives the ball away in midfield and Baleba breaks and Will produces his average speed to get back and Baleba swats him away before smashing the ball straight at Ramsdale who once again keeps the score down.

Just to prove we can let a different type of goal, a corner comes here from our right and no one really goes for it and all of our defenders are under the ball with Smallbone and Aribo leaving it to each other and it bounces about eight yards out and full back Hinshelwood just places it into the net giving Ramsdale no chance at all. Fucking hopeless. 4-0, ten minutes to go and to quote Bob Marley, it’s Exodus.

More passive shite to follow with Fernandes and Smallbone matching Vieira and Petit in the Great Premier League defensive midfield patnerships, as Minteh gets given another glorious chance to open his account as Baleba slides him through and he gets to the edge of the box before smashing it and once again Ramsdale is the only thing standing between us and getting absolutely fucking annihilated.

The still time for another chance with Baleba once more trundling through the middle. He can trundle through the middle because he is of course supposed to be marked by one of our midfield players. Another free shot and another brilliant save by Ramsdale and pushed onto the post.

Fucking hell.

Hurzeler‘s post-game interview basically started with 'we outworked them'. Yep. So basically what he’s saying is the just by beating us at the minimum requirement of hard work, it was fucking easy. Fair play to the Brighton man as he was comprehensively the winner in the battle of the managers today, not that it was really a battle. Pull the defenders all over the pitch and piss through the open space motorway down the middle. Juric was at least honest in that he said that they were miles better than us and he later came out with the gem that he has decided that the man for man system doesn’t work for us. Well done mate, the rest of us worked out a couple of months ago you fucking idiot.

It Was At This Precise Moment, That He Knew He Had Fucked Up

I’m not quite sure because there is so much shit to wade through but I’m pretty sure that even though we have lost games by more than that this season, today was the most inept performance of the season and that’s in a season that included letting in five goals in the first half at home in one game. Let this address the scoreline first - it was only four because Aaron Ramsdale was brilliant and without him it could easily have been double that I really hope he gets a move to a decent club in the summer. His performance in that game was up there with the best goalkeeper performances I’ve ever seen from a Saints goalkeeper. We’re talking Antii Niemi and Peter Shilton levels of goalkeeping there. I’d like to shake his hand and then apologise for the absolute shit show that he has joined. Russell Martin must have done a great sales job on the club for him and I bet Ramsdale signed, then turned up on day one and thought “what the fuck have I done”

So, our defensive system, the signature tactic of Ivan Juric. Man for man with all three central defenders all tightly marking their players wherever they go. Bournemouth pissed through it last week by keeping hold of the ball and their forwards dropping deep bringing the defenders with them or by running at defenders and committing them. Brighton pissed through it at will, simply by dragging players away and then speeding up the passing for a couple of seconds and knocking the ball off first time. That was all it took and then they were clean through with our half of the pitch to run into. So simple but yet our caretaker supply teacher persists with it game after game. On top of that, we are playing a back three with the championship level full-back, a player who hardly kicked a ball for two years and a midfielder who is not the most athletic. If you could’ve put a pound on Saints playing a large proportion of a Premier League match with a back three of Aribo, ABK and James Bree, then you’d probably have about 20 grand to spend on something other than watching this shit week in, week out.

Of Ivan Juric’s other decisions today. Well., starting Joe Aribo in a back three was a 100% disaster and proves again that there’s a world of difference between ‘filling in’ at the end of a game in a strange position, and starting a game there. Bringing Cameron Archer in to play up top was another failure but not a disaster because it wouldn’t have mattered who played up top with the defending we were doing. We are however going to have to invent a new standard for the word lightweight. I struggle to remember a forward that we’ve ever had who is as lightweight as Cameron Archer. If we are to use boxing definitions, he’s not just lightweight he’s one of the several levels beneath that so that could be featherweight, bantamweight, flyweight or straw weight. Archer had one good moment when he took that pass from Fernandes and scored but at the end of the day, it was a shit moment because he was looking right across the line and was obviously off side. Other than that it was the usual lack of determination to get to the ball and falling over when breathed upon and not winning any free-kicks. The long awaited performance of Armel Bella-Karavan was exactly what we expected it to be. Fair play to him for lasting 80 minutes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player blowing out of his arse as much as that since the days of Terry Hurlock just before he retired.

I know that Hurzeler has got better players at his disposal and their club is run considerably better than ours is but in our dugout you have a manager with a long playing career in Italian football and a full Croatian International, who has also managed in Serie A for a number of years, getting completely outwitted by a manager who is barely out of fucking school and never played the game to any decent level.

Shall I Change Anything Mid-Game? Nah!

Some fans won’t understand why there’s any criticism of the manager as he has a pile of shit to work with and I get that. However, I’m seeing nothing from him at all and I want the possibility that there is even the slightest chance that Ivan Juric will be in charge next season, completely removed. Personally, I would put Simon Rusk in charge for the rest of the season and with it and also, I would announce that this is just to get to the end of the season and we will reassess in the summer. We are so shit it is unreal and though he has shit tools to work with, I don’t think this manager would get a tune out of anybody. Another stubborn one trick pony who refuses to change a thing, either in-game or from week to week, despite overwhelming evidence of what he is doing is never going to work. Pure definition of madness. A Caretaker supply teacher manager. He’s basically Ruben Selles without the nice clothes. It probably won’t happen because Dragon Solak was backing him on national media only three weeks ago but one win out of nine would get most managers sacked and the fact is that we’ve actually got worse. After the West Ham game there seem to be some semblance of a plan and a sense that things might get better but since he’s established his signature tactics on the team, it’s just got worse and worse.

Chelsea away on Tuesday sure no doubt to be a chance for the out of form Cole Palmer to fire himself back to the top of the Premier League goal scoring charts. Juric has promised to change his defensive system but let’s see just how much he can do to undo the shit habits he’s instilled in the three days between the games. I am not hopeful.

12 games to go and this shit will be over

Premier League Match 25 - Southampton 1 Bournemouth 3

Man for Man Marking, Until It Isn't

Bournemouth makes their way east to visit St Mary’s for the biggest game of their season. It’s not our biggest game of the season but everyone knows that. I maybe could’ve understood their fans getting over excited about it a few years ago because they were never anywhere close to us in terms of league position, but times have certainly changed this year in particular.  The chasm between them and us is still huge because they are miles better than us. Bournemouth are currently sixth in the division and can have realistic hopes of qualifying for Europe next year and maybe even sneaking into the Champions League. Saints on the other hand, are shite.

Saints journey into the abyss has been well documented but how did Bournemouth, complete with their 11,000 capacity shed, get to the stage where they can be sixth in the Premier League?   They have undoubtedly recruited well and made good decisions over a period of time but another factor is timing.  The first time they got promoted, they broke all the new FFP rules and all they got was a small fine once they were in the Premier League. This was no doubt paid off by the mysterious Maxim Demin, a Russian ‘businessman’ chap who was their owner at a time when mysterious Russian ‘businessmen’ chaps passed the fit and proper person’s test for football club owners and no one really cared where the money came from.

Eddie Howe eventually got them relegated and then they hilariously gave the manager‘s job to the walking teeth and suntan that is Jason Tindall, they took five minutes to realise that was an error and wrote off the rest of the season under Jonathan Woodgate.  They then appointed Scott Parker and his cardigan, who got them promoted again.  They realised quickly that Parker was shite in the Premier League and was trying to get himself sacked, and so appointed Gary O’Neil who managed to keep them up, before they, in a move reminding me of us ruthlessly swapping Adkins for Pochettino, appointed Andoni Iraola, who after a shaky start has emerged as one of the best managers in the Premier League. They stayed up last season and now are amongst the 17 clubs ring fenced by the current PSR rules. Timing.

I admit this all sounds a little bit bitter and twisted but fair play to them for being as good as they are. I’m only providing a bit of historical context and none of the above matters right now and no one really cares. They are where they are this season on merit and it should be appreciated just how good they have been. Manager of the season will of course be Arne Slot, but if the award was actually for what you achieve with the resources you have, then Andoni Iraola, along with Nuno Espirito Santo would be 100% in the running.  Currently, Bournemouth have a team that is the envy of virtually every club who didn’t apply to join the European Super League and a couple who did, cough Man United and Spurs.  A perfect blend of youth and experience with pace and power all over the pitch, all overseen by the aforementioned Iraola. You would normally expect them to be picked apart in the summer and they might lose one or two, but it won’t be anywhere near as bad as it has been in the past for teams who have overachieved their stature, due to the aforementioned PSR restrictions.  Timing… Pre-PSR, you would expect them to struggle to hold onto Sememyo, Kluivert, Adams, Kerkez, Huijsen and Zabarnyi, as well as Iraola of course.

Is it a derby? Boring question asked every time we play them… still no.  I will be interested to see if there is any heightening of the security around the newly reconfigured away end at St Mary’s. I would be very surprised if there is.  There will be for Pompey at home next season.  

It’s a sad state of affairs at the moment. Previously, a home game against Bournemouth would’ve been seen as a real opportunity to get three points against the team who are going to be down near the bottom with us.  However, I see this now as a game where we might get something out of it if absolutely everything goes our way but equally, we could well get absolutely battered. A lot of course depends on which Saints team turns up.

Ivan Juric’s press conference this week yielded the information that THB was not going to be fit, which means Juric has to make a decision as to who the third central defender is going to be alongside Jimmy Champo and Bednarek. It will be interesting to see if he thought last weeks shambles was a success in that regard. Personally I want to see Welington at left-wing back. The Flynn Downes situation has not repaired itself when it has had a week to do so, which implies to me there is one, if not two grown men on either side of this argument acting like complete fucking dickheads. There was also a very large hint that Tall Paul would be in the side today, which will hopefully mean more of a midfield three and Paul upfront with Sulemana or Dibling. We could play a back four… which we should do, but we won’t.

Bournemouth have had a lot of injuries this season and as a result at the moment are playing Lewis Cook at right back. There are not many weaknesses for us to attack but if you had to pick one then that would be it. For us to win this, Sulemana has to run him ragged and also has to have some sort of end product to either assist or score a couple of goals. Kepa is a strange goalkeeper as well, capable of looking like one of the best in the world one week and then looking like Bambi with gloves on the following week. We have to hope we get him on a bad day.

The game against Bournemouth at their shed, earlier on in the season was the first time when I really thought Russell Martin was losing the plot. It was a great day, containing as it did, being mocked by the Bournemouth manager and players after the game when they quite rightly pointed out that they’d rather have chances than possession and that they knew we would doze off and give them a goal at some point. It was the start of us becoming a laughing stock. A win today would go a long way to at least stopping that talk, and then Champions League qualifying form until the end of the season and we might stay up… ha ha ha.

So, anyway, I’ve just parked the car and I’m just sat in the car listening to the radio, waiting for the team news and here’s Adam Blackmore reading out the names and he reads out with Smallbone starting alongside Aribo in midfield.  Passers by might have been slightly confused to hear me shout ‘fuck off’ at very loud volume but such as the life of being a Saints fan at the moment. Yes indeed, Will has been picked in a two-man midfield with Joe Aribo, a combination which never worked when we tried it in the Championship last season and once again I find myself clinging to the faintest of hope that maybe it will work today.  Maybe Fernandes will play deeper so the lack of running, tracking and pressing won’t be such an issue, but deep down, I know it fucking won’t work. Tall Paul is in the side and the spare central defender, as in the totally unnecessary one, is Nathan Wood.

With the Bournemouth fans over to my left as I sit in the Chapel, it’s amusing watching people come in and have absolutely no fucking idea where they are supposed to be sitting. Oh, that would be the away fans in the home end phenomenon, last seen at home to Newcastle.

Bournemouth, as you expect look the more confident as the game starts but the first time Saints get the ball, Sulemana takes on Lewis Cook and gets absolutely trashed and that’s a yellow card for the makeshift right back. Well at least that gives us something to go for.

Another ten minutes go by Kerkez bundles past Tall Paul on the left before his cross is cleared out. Bournemouth pick the ball up and it goes wide left to Christie, who curls it in with his left foot and there is Outtara, in between Bednarek and Wood to head the ball into an empty net from six yards. Three central defenders, one centre forward and he’s managed to get away from all of them. Fucking pathetic and 1-0. This could get really ugly really quickly.

Barely two minutes later and Bournemouth build down our left, with Cook’s pass infield being intercepted by Bednarek, who turns and shanks the clearance out as far as Kluivert about thirty yards out.  A touch left to Christie who smashes it into the corner of the net from the edge of the box. Ah, that’ll be the fat lady singing for this particular game then.  Wankers.

Don't Close Him Down Then, Let Him Shoot

With that, Juric makes a tactical switch and Sulemana is moved over to the right hand side so we don’t even have the entertainment of him running at Lewis Cook anymore. Another break from midfield inspired by Christie and Kluivert gets in ahead of Wood, but Bednarek rescues the situation. Fernandes is trying his best in midfield and he spins past three players before flying forward and finding KWP whose low cross towards Tall Paul is cleared by the Zabarnyi.

Semenyo decides it’s his turn to terrorise us and turns past Jimmy Champo who falls over in slapstick fashion. Because out man-to-man defensive system has gone to shit with that action, Smallbone tries to cover and Semenyo chops past him and Smallbone dives on his face leaving Outtara with a free shot at Ramsdale, which he blocks from an angle.

Half time and that was absolutely fucking shit. A normal manager would be changing the formation now and making a couple of substitutions. We do get the second part at least, with Welington and Wood being taken off for Big Les and Sugawara.   KWP has gone to the left-hand side and Big Les has joined Smallbone in midfield, with Aribo dropping into the back three.

KWP tries to make a difference at the start of the second half but his cross is blocked back out to Smallbone who passes the ball across the pitch straight to Kluivert, who is not wearing a red and white shirt.  Off he goes, bursting through the middle and finding Semenyo on the left and he dances past Aribo, Bree and then Sugawara and smashes it and Ramsdale pulls off a brilliant save to knock it over the bar.

Over comes to the corner and an unmarked near post header by Christie and Ramsdale claws it out of the top corner. Another brilliant save.  We try and take advantage with Dibling picking up the ball in midfield and he turns past three players before finding Tall Paul who falls over the fucking ball.  Great feet from Tyler and drunk giraffe feet from Paul.  All part of the plan though and we eventually win it back through Aribo who gives it to Tall Paul who this time, doesn’t fall over but pokes a pass to Sulemana, one touch, bang, goal, where the fuck did that come from?  Great strike.

No One Knows How This Happened

The arrogant gloating from the Bournemouth fans to my left has gone a bit quiet now. There are ten minutes of normal time to go and we are flying forward.  Bournemouth have clearly taken their foot off the gas and are now struggling to put it back on.  We try and help them as Huijsen puts in a cross from the left and via Bednarek’s sliced 50p-head attempted clearance that goes sideways, KWP tries to head back to Ramsdale but loops it over him and Rambo has to take off again to push it over the bar.

Normal service is resumed as Scott puts Semenyo through, who knocks it to Tavernier, who cuts inside KWP before absolutely drilling it past Ramsdale to make it 3-1 and give the scoreline what it deserves. Oh well, ten minutes of being half decent, but that’s all folks. Game over.

We tried hard for the last fifteen of the game, but we are so limited. Fernandes is trying his best in particular but the game has gone. We are not good enough and that’s all there is to it.  Aribo and Sulemana are given a few minutes off, with Manning and Archer somewhat pointlessly coming on in their place and all there’s left to do is to listen to the Bournemouth fans singing songs about us. They definitely have more songs about us than they have about themselves and I think they have more songs about us than we’ve got about ourselves.  Enjoy it while it lasts boys.

Well, what a 100% predictable pile of shit that was. Depressingly inevitable in every way it was always likely to happen anyway but then came that team news. Oh my God.  The pathetic booing of Will Smallbone as he got substituted tells you that he is the latest in a long line of Saints scapegoats but let’s get this right, he is what he is and it is not his fault he gets picked to play from the start today. That is 100% on the manager.  I’m not having Ivan‘s excuse that Lesley needed a rest. Bullshit. If you’re going to make a decision to play Smallbone from the start then own it and don’t pretend like you had no other choice.  The fact that Smallbone was on a lot of the set pieces tells you that this had been planned for most of this week. As I’ve already said, it’s not Will’s fault that he is just not good enough to be a Premier League player in a team like ours. He’s not bad when we are on the ball and he did some good things today when we were trying to build up but that game was predictably lost in the first 20 minutes with him and Joe Aribo totally failing to get to grips with the Bournemouth midfield and therefore providing no cover whatsoever for the defenders behind them, who admittedly didn’t do themselves any favours either. So when you have only two central midfielders and one of them is an absolute liability when you haven’t got the ball, and he other isn’t great either, it is going to be absolute carnage.

You end up with the situation that we had today where Tyler Adams is completely free to orchestrate everything from the base of the midfield and Justin Kluivert is completely free and Bournemouth can find the spare man at will.  Most of the time that was Ryan Christie and two superb bits of wquality from him decided the game in the first half.  We tried our man to man marking thing with Bree on Senenyo, Bednarek on Ouattara and Wood on shuttle runs between where he should be and where he was, disappearing up his own arse not knowing where he was supposed to be.

So, three central defenders and yet Outtara is completely free about 10 yards out to nod the first goal into the net.  Three at the back quite often means that no one takes responsibility because they’re all waiting for one of the others to do it.   This is if they haven;t been dragged out of the defence to follow their man.  The man Bednarek is supposed to be marking scores the goal but the first thing he does is turn around and try and blame Nathan Wood, who is admittedly not marking anyone.

Bednarek tried to take some responsibility for the second goal and went out into Wood’s channel to go and clear the ball but he unfortunately shanked it right back into the middle of the pitch to Kluivert and one pass later Christie smashes the second goal into the net. That’s Christie who was supposed to be picked up by one of our midfielders. Honestly, it’s absolutely criminal.

Bournemouth switched off after the second goal and we got to halftime just the two adrift because of this. We didn’t do a thing to suggest that we were going to get back into it. Our one route to anything positive was down the left-hand side where Sulemana had been hacked down by Cook in the first couple of minutes to earn the Bournemouth man a booking. In the event of the second goal going in, Juric swapped Sulemana to the other side where he was completely ineffective and Cook was allowed to play the rest of the first half with no fear of accidentally getting a second yellow.

The opening half an hour of the second half was completely shit as well with nothing much happening aside from Ramsdale pulling out two ridiculous saves to keep it at two. Once we took Smallbone off and partnered Fernandes with big Les, we suddenly looked like a functioning team again with Sulamana out on the left and he duly scored his first goal of the season out of absolutely nowhere to make us think just for a second that we might get back into the game.

Ramsdale Knows He Just has 14 More Games of This Shit

Though they were a bit panicky for a few minutes after our goal, all it did however was make Bournemouth realise that they had to wake up, which they did and it didn’t take long for Tavernier to blast in the third goal that finished everything off.

For the second week in a row, Ivan Juric did himself absolutely no favours. Playing with a back three in this manner is consistently killing us. We concede an average of three goals a game and we don’t really create much going forward. I can only be envious of the way Bournemouth set up with all of the areas of their team working in unison to attack or defend, depending on the situation in front of them. There is no doubt in my mind that Bournemouth could’ve won the game much more comfortably than they did today.  Bournemouth are basically a very very good side and we are not. We are shit. We have some shit players and we have a shit manager not a great combination.  Two of our better players, Tyler Dibling and Big Les were left out of the team today and instead of that we had the likes of Nathan Wood, Will Smallbone and Jimmy Champo shoehorned into Ivan’s one and only way of playing.  If there has been a worse back three in Premier League history than Wood, Bednarek and Bree, then I would be absolutely amazed.

It was almost like he’d not given a single thought to the threats Bournemouth were going to provide.  One v One defending against a team with players who will run at you at every opportunity.  Yeah, that’ll work well.  Unathletic midfielders against quick technical midfielders – great idea genius.  If Iraola was going to pick a system and a way of playing to play against, then what Juric put out there against him was it.

Bournemouth were predictably excellent and apart from the right back, who is only playing there out of absolute necessity, have the correct player in every single position and they all know exactly what they are doing. One thing I didn’t appreciate before the game was the fact that the front four Bournemouth players are all capable of taking all the player and beating them.  They virtually never turn back which meant that our man for man defensive model was always going to struggle. Semenyo gets the ball for example and even if he has a player in front of him, he just takes them on.  If he beats a player then that means a defender has to leave their man to come to you and then you have the choice of taking on the second player who is scrambling, or playing a 1-2 with the newly free player.  The amount of last-ditch tackles our defenders have to make is crazy. Traditionally, the way to play three at the back is to have two players marking and one spare to sweep up behind. If everyone is marking someone, which is our system, then you need a midfield player to drop in or a full-back to cover around and we just don’t have that.

Ivan Admits That Our Midfield Didn't Work

Juric admitted that the midfield pairing we had out there didn’t work. No shit Sherlock. I thought he was paid money to know what might and what will definitely be shit. He trotted out the usual bollocks about it looking good in training but there are two problems with that. One is that you are playing against our own players who aren’t very good and two, they are playing at training level intensity and pace. Time to revisit it your Flynn Downes spat you fucking idiot.  He’s not perfect by any means but he’s much more suitable for the midfield role.

Most alarmingly, he also blurted out that you need to have dynamic players to play the way he wants to play. Am I alone in finding this an absolutely incredible admission because he’s basically saying that playing this way isn’t going to work with the players that we have. Since day one it has been obvious that playing this way requires two dynamic players in the centre of midfield. We have two of those who could possibly fulfil that role in Flynn Downes who is currently banished and Lesley Ugochukwu, who apparently needed a rest after the game seven days ago.  I am really beginning to hope that Juric is just a placeholder until we get a proper manager in in the summer. I cannot imagine either Dragan Solak or Johannes Spors are impressed with these quotes.

Not that it matters but we play Brighton at home next week. I was looking at this as a potential win up until they beat Chelsea 3-0 and we produced this stinker of a performance. Will it be us getting past Derby’s 11 points record low or will it be the final part of a triumvirate of shit home performances in three consecutive weeks. I know what I would have my money on.

Up the fucking shite Saints