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

Premier League Match 6 - Bournemouth 3 Southampton 1

"And Up Top.... No one"

More points to be possibly had today, with a trip to the Vitality Shed to play Bournemouth in a game that has become bigger for us because of our result against Ipswich at the weekend. Much though Cherries fans would like us to believe it’s a bigger game for us because we are playing them, it’s simply a bigger game because we only have one point from five games so far and this is an opportunity against another team in the bottom half…. not an easy opportunity of course, but an opportunity nonetheless given the glimpses of life we showed against Manchester United and Ipswich.

I’ve watched a couple of Bournemouth games this season on the TV and in one of them against Chelsea at home, they were very unlucky to come away with a last-minute 1-0 defeat. To be honest, they were the better side and have a team with a lot of pace in it. Where they are struggling of course is up front, having lost their main striker, Dominic Solanke, to Spurs for a ridiculously high £65 million fee. They paid £40 million for his replacement, a Brazilian called Evanilson and he hasn’t scored yet, so a fixture against Saints is a dream for him.  Hang on, £65 million and £40 million… for the last few years Bournemouth have always traded at ridiculously high levels of transfer fee, which is completely at odds with the 11,000 capacity shed that they playing in.  Have no fear though as apparently, they are going to increase the capacity to a whopping 16,000 in the next few years. Just how much is their income? How are they doing on PSR? So many questions about Bournemouth’s past and their financing under the mysterious Max Demin, but he’s gone now so a bit like Leicester City, they have got away with it.

As I said, on the pitch they seem to have a decent side despite losing Solanke, well managed by Andoni Iraola, who survived a dodgy start last year to keep Bournemouth well away from the relegation zone at the end of the season. The results this season haven’t been fantastic however, with their only win being a ridiculous comeback from 2-0 down with 10 minutes to go at Goodison Park. You certainly aren't going to do that every week and I guess questions have to be asked how they managed to go two behind to Everton in the first place. So, as I said, this is an opportunity and it feels like one of those games where if we play well and don’t give anything away, we will have a very good chance to get some points but if we shit the bed, we will undoubtably get beat again and the pressure will grow.

Saints have arrived in a place where we are struggling to score goals and our major hope in attacking sense is an 18-year-old. Said 18-year-old is attracting a lot of attention in the media since scoring his first goal last weekend with all the usual suspects and their client media piping up. Hopefully Cameron Archer can take some of the attention away from Tyler Dibling today and have people talking about him next week and how he’s finally got off the mark. Maybe we’ll be talking about Ryan Fraser scoring against his old club.

Team news is in and it’s weird.  It’s one of those ones where you don’t know how to react. You don’t want to be negative before the game has started but on the face of it, you look at it and wonder if you’re going to be saying “I told you so” at the end of it. Big Les is in for Adam Lallana which I assume is a fitness issue (despite our last game being 9 days ago) and Max Cornet is in the side in place of Cameron Archer which I assume means that he’s going to be playing as the central striker.

As kick-off approaches, I got a sense of foreboding that Russell's gonna be doing something fucking dumb and that we were probably going to play without a proper number 9, like we did in those three games at the start of the season when we were shit and didn’t score. On the bench were all four strikers who were supposed to be our guys for goals this season – Archer, Armstrong, Brereton Diaz and Stewart. That kind of says it all about how much the manager rates them. Also on the bench was Tall Paul so we could be throwing all five of them on if it goes really badly. This game has suddenly just got even more massive for Russell Martin because it is absolutely guaranteed that if you make left field changes which most people will think are weird, and it doesn’t work, you are absolutely wide open to criticism.

As the game started it was even more weird than I imagined. Fraser and Cornet were on the wings and both Matty Fernandes and Dibling were pushing up from midfield. Basically, it was a return of the 4-6-0 formation which is a striker-free variation, similar to the 5-5-0 formation that had been so abysmally shit for us in the first three games of the season.

Regardless of my scepticism, it started pretty well with Wee Man, with a cacophony of not many Bournemouth fans giving him pelters, lifting a ball down the left flank for Big Les to gallop away from Adam Smith and his pull-back into the middle was met on the edge of the box by Cornet and his first time effort skewed off of Senesi’s head flew very narrowly wide. Unlucky.

Like me, Bournemouth seem a little bit confused by our formation and a shit back pass to Kepa, is scuffed away by the keeper as far as Wee Man thirty yards out and he knocks it forward before smashing it but Kepa gets down well to pull off the second save easily enough. Would’ve been a beautiful moment if the Wee Man scored but never mind.

Not Scored For Your New Club?  Have No Fear

So, mainly us so far, with Bournemouth not producing much. On 18 minutes, a hopeful ball is knocked forward by Bournemouth and Downes runs into Semenyo and Michael Oliver can’t wait to give a free kick.  The ball stops rolling and Tavernier chips it first time over the Saints defence and Evanilson latches onto it and gets a toe to the volley, sending it across Ramsdale and into the far corner.  For fucks sake.  Downes and Ugochukwu are still throwing their arms around about the free-kick being given against us and no one was switched on. Pathetic.

It’s nearly 2-0 straight away as soon as Senesi puts Outtara away down the left-hand side and his low cross is crying out to be tapped in until Taylor comes across from left back to clear it away. We seem to have gone full Man United at home and gone to shit at the first setback.  The respite is brief however.  Senesi up to Evanilson who holds it up and turns, finding Christie who spreads it wide to Semenyo and his low cross is hit by Cook and deflected by Outtara in front of Ramsdale, giving the keeper no chance again. It’s not offside because we’ve done what we did against Ipswich in that we have seven defenders in the six-yard box and none on the edge of the box and one of them then hasn’t pushed out.  Fucking ridiculous.

Bournemouth now look like they’re gonna score every single time they go forward and Semenyo is found out on the right hand side and he easily beats Ugochukwu and turns Downes and THB inside out before firing across Ramsdale and into the far corner again. It’s embarrassing and the fact of the matter is that the manager has fucked it from the start of the game and the players have compounded the error by giving up. Wankers.

It’s absolutely grim and more by luck than judgement, we get to half-time just the three goals behind. No doubt the changes that should’ve been made when the team was being picked or even when we went one down, will now be made. There is an unofficial “three-goal rule” whereby you are excused from leaving the ground/turning off the TV if you are three goals behind but those with a morbid curiosity to continue would see three half-time substitutions with the bringing on of a centre forward in Ross Stewart, midfielder in Joe Aribo and a dustman in Ben Brereton Diaz.  Max Cornet and Ryan Fraser are unsurprisingly removed, as it is Big Les who had a good five minutes and was then Big Hologram. Unsurprisingly, we have reverted to the formation that we should’ve had from the start.  I know formations aren’t important to Russell but maybe they fucking should be.

The game is completely dead and you can tell from the start of the second half that Bournemouth are just going through the motions. Saints get on top and actually look like we have a business in being out there on the pitch. We win a free-kick over on the right hand which is swung in by Dibling, met by THB and well saved by Kepa.  Taylor retrieves it back to Fernandes and his cross is met by the stooping THB, getting his head to the ball and sending it bouncing into the far side of the net.  35 minutes left to make the game interesting.

THB's consolation Goal with 40 minutes to go

Tyler is really struggling even though we’ve gone back to a normal formation, but shows a bit of life to drive up the pitch, leaving players in his wake but when he loses the ball when he reaches the Bournemouth back line, one pass forward to Cook, then another pass forward to Evanilson and he’s clean through on Ramsdale but takes a shot early and thankfully straight at the keeper.

Lallana is on for Fernandes, despite him playing pretty well in the second half once the formation changed, and Lallana immediately sets about making us tick and his ball finds Dibling on the right.  The pass in towards Lallana is half cleared as far as Downes and his first time volleyed pass finds BBD on the left hand corner of the 6 yard box but all he can do is knock it sideways across the goal and no one can get to it.  Once he chose to use his right foot instead of his left, that was always going to happen.

Archer is now on for Dibling, with no time to make an impact, though we do look a bit lively as Stewart comes short to pick up a Downes pass and puts it out to Sugawara on the right.  He finds a yard and slings it over and Stewart throws himself at it and nearly connects and we win a corner. It might not seem like a big deal but it stands out because that was proper attacking.

Christie has an effort on the volley from 25 yards which goes into the side netting and I’m amazed it didn’t go in and we have one final chance to get anything happening when the impressive Aribo gets bundled over at 25 yards out and Sugawara added to the fucking terrible game he’d had by curling a free kick straight to the goalkeeper about six foot above all the players he was aiming at. Absolute shit. So, all in all, after the THB goal, we didn’t have a shot on target despite Bournemouth going through the motions and not attacking much.

Well fuck off and that was fucking shit. First of all, I’m not having any talk about “well we won the second half”.  Fuck right off. Bournemouth just strolled through the second half because they had already won the game.  The only relevance lies in the first half  because Russell Martin had nine days to pick a team and come up with tactics and the first half was an indication of how well that went. Absolute wank.  It took Bournemouth about ten minutes to come to terms with our weird tactical set up when the centre backs realised that hey could push up as far as they liked on Dibling and Fernandes and they wouldn’t be able to handle it or influence the game.  In our opening ten minutes of “surprise”, we of course didn’t score but once they’d sussed it, they pissed all over us for the rest of the first half, scoring three goals that they didn’t particularly have to work hard for, whilst Russell Martin sat on his hands and didn’t correct the rather obvious flaw in the plan.  With a striker in front of Dibling and Fernandes, the centre backs would have to drop deeper, giving the young lads more space and facing the right way ... duh!

Teams like Saints who are struggling in the bottom half of the league, need to play with a central striker. Not playing with one, for me is almost as stupid as playing without a fucking goalkeeper. We are not Spain 2012, we are not Man City without Haaland. When your team is not top level, not having a central striker means that you are incredibly unlikely to score and you are incredibly unlikely to even get near the opposition goal in open play because you have no focal point.  I know the modern game has changed but there are some undeniable football truths out there for fuck‘s sake. The biggest crime of the selection was the effect it had on two of our brightest players with both Tyler Dibling and Matty Fernandes becoming lost and getting in each other’s way and losing the ball with their back to goal on the half way line with big centre backs up their arse.  Neither played well in the first half because they are two players who are getting used to playing in the Premier League and suddenly they’re having to play in a way that is completely different to them on top of that. So, two of our brightest attacking players were in affect neutered by our own tactics.

The second half can only be used in the context of learning. What I learned from the second half was that the formation was better (but then we knew that before the game).  Also, KWP has to come back into the team because he’s better than both of the full-backs who we had playing – it’s that simple.  Joe Aribo is miles clear of Big Les, who does the odd good thing that it’s just not enough in a struggling team, to disappear as much as he does. Maybe you can get away with it at Chelsea when you are on top for the majority of the game but not here.  Ross Stewart did okay as a centre forward and he certainly has more about him than a lot of the other options. Ben Brereton Diaz is officially an embarrassment.  He didn't even win a free-kick for his dive today.  All I can say is that the standard of Chilean football must be absolutely honking if he gets a game.

If the game wasn’t lost with the original selection, it was lost the second we didn’t react to going behind and conceded a second goal. The first Bournemouth goal was courtesy of a quick free-kick that we didn’t react to, even though we knew Bournemouth like a quick free kick. Big Les and Downes were too busy turning their back and waving their arms around at the referee, to bother to stop the freekick being taken and THB compounded the error by not paying attention to either the free-kick or the striker he was supposed to be marking.  As said, the second goal was a combination of the Ipswich mistake - defenders too deep and no one on the edge and, the Manchester United mistake - Flynn Downes not pushing out like your taught to do when you’re about 10 years old.  Two goals and two big involvements by the centre forward. Who’d have thought it Russell?

The third goal was down to the skill and directness of Semenyo who turned three of our players inside out before firing into the far corner giving Ramsdale no chance yet again.  Good goal but half-arsed in the extreme from us.

Semenyo Gives Thanks For The Space We Gave Him

Our goal came when we actually put some pressure on the opposition box with THB is header being saved by Kepa, recycled and crossed back in by Fernandes for THB head home.  So, whilst the first half was as miserable as it gets, the second improved a tiny bit, helped by Bournemouth who were just seeing the game out.  Having scored, there was not enough urgency to get back into it.  Out attacking efforts were summed up in the 86th minute when we got a throw about 10 yards from the goal line.  It’s an attacking opportunity – you can take a long throw into the mixer or you can bounce a throw back to the taker who can cross it.  Not us though, oh no. Two goals behind with four minutes to go and we throw it backwards and two passes later it's all the way back to Ramsdale because we are a team that can’t read the game situation and can’t think on their feet. Four minutes to go plus injury time and we think going back to the goalkeeper is a better option than getting it into the box. For fucks sake.

We scored when we put the ball in the box and for me, the best part entire game was the bit in the second half when Ross Stewart knocked the ball out to Sugawara, then span into the box and nearly connected with the cross.  Again, those undeniable truths in football - getting the ball in the box with players flying in is a pretty good way to try and score a goal but that’s not in the Russell Martin playbook - well it might be but it just doesn't happen enough. I go back to Ralph Hasenhuttl and the red zone, which is central in the middle of the penalty area to roughly the edge of the 'D' – that’s where you need the ball and that’s where you need some players.

As I feared before the start of the game, it turned out to be a diabolical day for Russell Martin and if there was an approval rating for managers amongst the fanbase, he’s probably gone from about 85% before the game, down to a solid 25% after the game. When you have nine days to think about it and then impose weird left field shit tactics and get hammered by Bournemouth, that is always going to happen. There was nothing much wrong with the way that we played against Ipswich and the team and tactics did not need changing. Yes, it turned out that the Lallana wasn’t fit to start but starting without a centre forward was absolutely fucking ridiculous.  He said something afterwards which basically implied he wanted to win the game off the bench with the strikers, which in turn implies that he was limiting our chances of scoring until the strikers come on.  Saints are not good enough to take an hour off from trying to score a goal.  It’s in the territory of crazy ramblings of a delusional man.  The people who slag the possession style of play no matter what, will be screaming and that is an issue (the 86th minute throw-in move) but much more than that, trying to be too clever is what I’m most angry about. We have been searching this season for a combination that might get us points in this league and since we switched to a back four for the Manchester United game, there has been some promising signs against both United and Ipswich. Russell Martin talks a lot about not having fear in the Premier League but he fucking does, because why else would he radically change the tactics for Bournemouth?

I agreed with a lot of what Russell Martin said in his post-match interviews, namely that the players basically gave up after the first setback. When the questioning was turned on him though and focused on the fact we had five strikers on the bench and none on the pitch, he didn’t really have any answers other than to get tetchy about it. Fuck around and find out, especially if it doesn’t work.

There were two quotes of note from the Bournemouth camp. One was from Antoine Semenyo, who basically said that you just have to keep pressing the Saints defenders and they will give you something. The way he said it implied that his manager had basically said it’s inevitable that they will give you something. The manager himself Iraola, came out with an absolute pearler when he said “I’d rather have chances than possession”. Spot-on mate.  If you have to choose one it has to be that one.  Having lots of possession is fine but only if you have chances to show for it.

So, six games in and four of the games were decent points winning opportunities and we have a grand total of one point. I was optimistic we’d get it right before tonight, but this was massively deflating.  In addition, now the fixtures get rather difficult with a visit to the Emirates to play Arsenal. Great.  Following that, it's a defining game against Leicester, then a write-off at Manchester City and another defining game against Wolves.  If we don't win either of the 'easier' games in the next four then Russell Martin's approval rating in the Sport Republic Boardroom is going to be very questionable indeed and if he repeats this striker-less shit, even against City or Arsenal, then my personal approval rating of Russell Martin will probably be zero.

Up the Fucking Saints

Premier League Match 33 - Southampton 0 Bournemouth 1

E-I-E-I-E-I-O Down to the Championship We Go

Due to the fact that we are now at the business end of the season, I, like many other fans I suspect, have been spending fair amount of time looking at the league table and one of the things that keeps coming back to me is, how bad must we be to be nine points behind Bournemouth?

I am not trying to be disrespectful to Bournemouth… too much anyway. The answer is of course that we have been shite for a vast majority of the season. Bournemouth on the other hand, having been managed by Scott Parker and then Gary O’Neil and with the players that they have, should have finished flat last this season but they are not going to and barring a catastrophic collapse, will be in the Premier League next year and fair play to them.  I think we all know who is going to finish flat last.

We actually went above them in the table when we won our last game against Leicester but since then they have picked up wins in six pointers and have also beaten the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham and Fulham who were under performing but Bournemouth still managed to get the points and that’s all that you can ask for. When Saints have played under-performing teams this year like Manchester United with 10 men and when we were 3-1 up with two minutes to go against Arsenal, we didn’t win. When we played any six pointers, we didn’t win either.

When you look at Bournemouth’s squad you can only summarise by saying they have been better than the sum of their parts. There aren’t any individual players that scare you at all but the collective obviously has something about it to have got them to the position that they are in and despite what you may learn from Sky Sports, football is still a team game.  Massive credit must go to O’Neil for the job he has done.

Jack Stephens has been on-loan to Bournemouth this season and after not playing much in the first half of the year, he has got in the team and has largely performed well though I did have a bit of a smile to myself last week when he was getting absolutely battered by Michail Antonio against West Ham. We’ve seen that particular episode many times before.  Jack won’t be playing today of course but there is obviously a discussion of whether he will be with Saints next season or with Bournemouth. There are lots of different ways of looking at it of course but if/when we go down, there is a player who can obviously do a job at Championship level but will he want to?  As far as I’m concerned, he will have earned his opportunity to stay in the Premier League if Bournemouth want to pay the money to sign him.  To be honest, I don’t really think we have missed him as I don’t really think that central defence has been our main problem this season, even with our lack of clean sheets. Even now, with Salisu unlikely to play for the rest of the season, we still have a Polish international, a German international and a Croatian international not to mention a Brazilian Serb lunatic to cover that area.  Next season though, depending on what division we are in and departures that may or may not happen, it’s all up for grabs.

We of course, have to win this one but we’ve been saying that for quite a while, haven’t we? It will be interesting to see the Ruben Selles master plan for this game bearing in mind he said that we absolutely have to win this game in his press conference, in amongst the usual drivel he comes out with. Will he have worked out that we are a better team when our best players are on the pitch and will he have worked out that we need some sort of goal threat which is not going to be provided by the likes of Adam Armstrong or Joe Aribo?

Out of our team , seven of the outfield players pick themselves and it’s just a case of who the other three are. The seven who will definitely play, barring injury are KWP, Bednarek. ABK, Lavia, JWP, Alcaraz (1st half at least) and Walcott. The other three positions are open and who Selles picks in these three positions will largely determine if we are going for it or not. If he goes with Maitland-Niles, Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong then it might be time to stay in the pub.  If however, he goes for Perraud, Sulemana and Adams then at least if we lose we are going down trying.  If Adam Armstrong and Elyounoussi are chosen, then it’s purely for defensive reasons which is not what we need today and it’s not what we ever need to be honest.

With us playing on the Thursday, there were games on Tuesday and Wednesday, the most damaging being Nottingham Forest’s 3-1 win against Brighton which means that as things stand, we are six points adrift so I think we can categorically say that if we don’t win tonight, we are fucked.  So bearing in mind that we are fucked if we don’t win today, what’s the team Ruben?

Shit the bed.... Alex McCarthy is in goal which is 10 games overdue and it’s a bit of a surprise bearing in mind that Bazunu wasn’t actually that bad in the last game against Arsenal. Makes me think that it was decided after the Palace game which in turn makes me think why put him in goal in an away game at Arsenal in a game where we were going to be under loads of pressure and could potentially have let in a lot of goals. Shit management of a young player is all I can think of.  

The rest of the team is basically as it was against Arsenal aside from Caleta-Car playing instead of ABK who is presumably injured. This of course means that Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong are both starting so two players with no attacking output whatsoever. It looks like the 4-3-3 False 9 formation with Moi in midfield alongside Lavia and JWP and Charly Alcaraz as a false 9 with the goal threat being provided by Theo Walcott and the aforementioned Adam Armstrong.  Deadly.

If my mood can be likened to an inflated balloon then I’m currently leaking air and making  farting noises as I fly around the room before limply landing on the ground in a corner. The bench is also interesting with Che Adams make a return alongside Sekou Mara.  Tall Paul is nowhere so we haven’t even got that option. Really good investment in January being borne out once again.

I managed to dodge the rain and get into St Mary‘s and the atmosphere is kind of muted. This team has sucked the life out of everybody this season. I think it comes down to the fact that even if we win, we are still three points in the shit and no one has any faith whatsoever that this team can string two wins together.  We need 4 wins out of the next 6, having only won 6 games all season.  As if?  As the teams come out, it’s pissing down.

Saints start quite well with Bednarek picking up Alcaraz further forward and he slides a good ball into Walcott coming in off the right and he scuffs the shot and Neto gets down easily enough to save. A good positive start with forward passing and a bit of intent.

There’s another chance more by luck than design as Adam Armstrong runs with the ball until he loses it as usual, but the ball bounces back to Perraud and once again, more by luck than design it ends up back with Adam Armstrong who hits it at the near post but again, saved by the keeper.

Bournemouth’s first bit of attacking play see them cut through us with Sinesi playing the ball through to Solanke who can always be relied on to miss and McCarthy gets out and spreads himself well but the ball bounces back out Vina who scores comfortably.  Solanke did look offside when the ball came through and so it proves as the lino’s flag goes up straight away but not quick enough to stop a Bournemouth fan lobbing a flare onto the pitch. Muppet.

When play gets going again, Bournemouth try to play out with JWP intercepts and feeds KWP on the right hand side he eventually crosses his left foot and Walcott goes up but in fact it’s a Bournemouth header the balloons the ball goalwards and it bounces off the top of the crossbar. 

We seem to have blown ourselves out now and Bournemouth are dominating possession and we are making Dominic Solanke look like a world-beater by allowing him space to run into and he’s actually seriously quick once he gets moving.  When we get the ball back there is absolutely no movement so we are belting it away and it just comes back. Solanke runs with the ball, plays 1-2 in the penalty area and lashes one narrowly over the bar.

It Doesn't Rain on the Right Hand Side

Perraud picks up what looks like a nasty injury as a Bournemouth player runs across the back of his achilles right in front of the referee who does fuck all.  Perraud plays on for a bit but he has to come off and Maitland-Niles comes on with KWP switching to the left which is going to give us even less width than we are showing already.  There is no one to pass to and the restless crowd is having a go at the defenders which is stupid because they have two choices – keep the ball or cream it upfield for our 5 foot 8 strikers to compete with the Bournemouth centre backs.

Half-time and the last half an hour has been clueless wank. Sideways backwards sideways backwards. As I said, you can’t have a go unless the defenders or midfield players are turning down a forward pass and they never are because there’s no one upfront so there’s no choice but to go sideways and backwards and back to the goalkeeper. It’s painful and it’s shit and a manager who had a fucking clue would sort it out at half-time.

Hold my beer says Ruben and JWP has gone off which can only be one of two things. Either he’s injured or he’s told this clueless fuckwit of a manager to do one. Either way, he has been replaced with Lyanco and we do look like we have gone three at the back with Elyounoussi at right wing back and KWP on the left.  AMN has gone in central midfield.  I cannot imagine anything more horrendous than this in a vital game that you have to win.

We start the second half and we are all over the fucking place. No one has a clue what they should be doing and it looks a matter of time before the unthinkable happens and then it does as Solanke bursts forward again into space and finds Taverner on the right and he cuts inside onto what I assume it is weaker left foot and bobbles a diagonal effort which somehow evades everybody and ends up in the far corner. Fucking hell.

Now we are behind and even the idiot in the polo-neck can see that things are not going well so off come Elyounoussi and Walcott to be replaced with Stuart Armstrong and Che Adams.  In a new development, no one seems to know where the fuck they are supposed to be, especially Charly Alcaraz, who I’m assuming he’s been given a free role because we seem to have four strikers at times now with Adams and Alcaraz up front with Stuart Armstrong on the right and Adam Armstrong on the left. Sulemana comes on with 10 minutes to go to replace Adam Armstrong who amazingly, has had a shocking game.

With Stuart Armstrong pushed up on the right-hand side now and AMN playing right wing-back, we seem to have a one-man midfield now with Romeo Lavia doing the work of three men.  Never worry young man – it will soon be over and you can go somewhere and have a good career.

With Stuart Armstrong leading the way, it appears to pay off as AMN feeds Armstrong on the right hand side and he swerves inside a Bournemouth challenging in the penalty area before knocking the ball square and Adams tees it up for himself before volleying at high into the net. Five minutes to go so maybe just maybe we could sneak the most undeserved win and drag this shitshow on for another week. Oh hang on, we are off to VAR

“Hi, it’s Stockley Park here”
“I can’t believe they fucking equalised mate”
“A bit harsh mate they need this”
“Makes no difference mate, they are shit and even a point won’t be enough for them”
“But they might get the winner now”
“Will they fuck, they are fucking hopeless – please find something to put them out of their misery – it would be the kindest thing”
“I’ll try…. Oh yeah, no worries mate,  I got it…. he’s offside by two millimetres”
“Thank the lord Mike Dean for that, get them gone, flush that turd”
“Put it on the screen now big man, get ready for the stampede for the exits”

Well there’s no VAR in the Championship…

There’s not much time for anything else.  KWP charges right through the middle of the penalty area and wins a corner when the tackle from Kelly comes in. Stu’s corner is headed out and that’s it.  Spineless, gutless wankers.

Well that’s the end of that then. A completely cluelessly inept showing, once again from the moment the team was announced. The idiot basically picked the same team that he picked against Arsenal for completely different assignments. Absolutely horrific to pick Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong from the start and so it proved to no one’s surprise but his.

We were actually okay for the first 10 minutes or so and then what followed was 35 minutes of cluelessly inept bollocks football with no attacking intent, no forward movement and no intensity. Sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, try to go forward give the ball away because it’s one player isolated. No pattern, no cohesion, no strikers. Selles said we were going to concentrate on our 'red zone' threat today - well you totally failed there didn’t you, you useless twat because we didn’t have any red zone threat at all because you played a midfielder out of position again and you played the worst striker I think we’ve ever had at Premier League level.

James, you've gone from Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Romeu and Davis.... to Me.

With JWP going off at half-time, Selles pulled out the coup de grace by going three at the back.  Three at the back is only an attacking move if the full backs get up the line and get crosses into the box. Begs the question who are we getting crosses in for when all our forward players are 5 foot 8 and by putting Elyounoussi and KWP on the wrong side as the wing backs, you basically have no advantages at all. What I particularly don’t understand about that is the obsession with putting KWP on the left. Elyounoussi has played on the left-hand side of the pitch his entire career.  Also, Moussa Djenepo was on the bench, a player who was given a new contract because he had a couple of decent games at left back.  Djenepo should really have come on when Perraud got injured and if you’re going to wing-backs then he should certainly have come on.  Instead we went to a formation we clearly hadn’t practiced, with players who clearly were uncomfortable playing it.

We were absolutely cluelessly abysmal until the last 15 minutes when Bournemouth started retreating a bit and Stuart Armstrong and Che Adams inspired some sort of intent from the team with Stu putting in more effort in 15 minutes than he had in the whole rest of this season combined. Yes, we were unlucky to have a goal ruled out for VAR but it wouldn’t have made the slightest fucking difference other than to make Bournemouth sweat a little bit more until the end of the season.

Once again, I’m wondering what Sport Republic think of the £30 million worth of goalscorers they purchased in January not even being in the squad. Don’t get me wrong, neither Tall Paul or Orsic have shown anything whatsoever so far but for them not to be on the bench, especially Tall Paul against a team that generally struggles in the air. We had Joe Aribo on the bench for fuck‘s sake.
 
Selles can fuck off and he can fuck off now.  He was brought in to keep us up and he’s failed so he can fuck off.   Like signing a load of young players in the summer, we appointed a rookie young manager and it could’ve been brilliant but the chances are it wasn’t going to be and it’s actually been worse than that. It’s been absolutely fucking shocking after he and Chelsea combined to con us before we realised quite how shit Chelsea were.  

Rasmus Ankersen and Sport Republic must be weighing up what is the most embarrassing right now. Is it more embarrassing to sack another manager that they’ve appointed within a couple of months or is it more embarrassing to keep him. Personally, I’d say it’s more embarrassing to keep him.  The results are no better and it’s a different kind of drivel to Nathan Jones in his press conferences ... but it’s still drivel.  As the great Paul Weller once said:

"And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end
That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names"

Bearing in mind we have been losing virtually every game, I turn up to watch every week thinking they are going to have worked on something different and every week we turn up do the same things, get beat 1-0 or variations of, and that’s it.  The inclusion of Alex McCarthy today of course meant that we didn’t have the capability to pass the ball around at the back because he’s about as good with his feet as a tap dancing elephant. Still, that’s what we tried to do and it was an absolute miracle that we didn’t give anything away at the back because of it. Most of the time it was four or five panicked passes whilst the tackles were flying in, before McCarthy clubbed it out of play on the halfway line. Embarrassing.  It was a bit like how we clearly don’t practice how to play with Tall Paul on the pitch.

Our attacking play if we did get the ball into midfield was absolutely non-existent. No runs in behind, no holding up the ball, no coming short to receive the ball, no quick 1-2’s played with any conviction. No surprise because he picked a shit starting line-up with no focal point centre forward.  What was he saving Che Adams for? Because he was clearly fit enough for the bench, he should have started and come off at half-time if necessary. If you don’t wanna do that then you play Tall Paul or Sekou Mara from the start even though they’re pretty poor options.  Charlie Alcaraz was kind of up front today and he had a terrible game, continually trying too hard and giving the ball away virtually every time he had it.  He clearly didn’t know where he was supposed to be playing, especially in the second half and he’s probably had his head filled with shit since getting substituted at half-time against Arsenal, so probably was very conscious of that.

Ruben Picks the Team

You’re going to make decisions as a manager that not everyone agrees with but it’s especially important if you’re not winning and you’re not scoring any goals and you are going to get relegated, that you can explain why you did what you did and Selles just doesn’t.   He might think he does but he just talks absolute bollocks as justification for the decisions that he makes. He tried to justify the Adam Armstrong selection by saying that he was sharp in training.  I bet there are thousands of players through time that have been good at training but absolutely shit when they step out onto the pitch. Adam Armstrong has stepped onto the pitch 70 times approximately for Saints now and I think we all know how he’s going to perform on the pitch, when it actually matters.  You use the ‘good in training’ line when you are talking about an 18-year-old and why you gave him his debut or something – not a 26 year old who has repeatedly failed at this level.

Southampton, the unflushable turd will now be flushed. Six points behind with just five games left and our goal difference is worse than every other team down there, bar one. A few weeks ago when we had 10 games left, I wrote about how we needed to get 10 points from the four games against the teams in the bottom half of the table. We have now played three of those four games and got precisely zero points from them and not only that, we have scored zero goals. It’s over, it’s done and we’ve managed to have two of the worst managers in our history in the same season so can you be surprised?

So – 4 wins needed out of 5 and Newcastle away up next.

Up the Fucking Useless-Gutless-Spineless-Managed-By-a-Clueless-Twat Saints

Premier League Match 11 - Bournemouth 0 Southampton 1

 

Lift-Off?

Tonight will hopefully be a night where two runs will end. Hopefully, Bournemouth’s run of six undefeated will go and our run or five games without a win will also go. If not and we failed to win today, we will be looking at our remaining fixtures up to the World Cup and wondering where our next point is gonna come from and if Bournemouth win, they will feel they are well on the way towards their target for the season of staying up.

Bournemouth have a new American owner waiting in the wings, which is good for them I guess but I do wonder if he will spend any more money than the mysterious (as in ‘no information on the internet’) current owner Max Demin has done over the last few years. Russian owners who don’t appear to have a internet history are of course, nothing to be even vaguely suspicious about. American owners are at least less mysterious, but we do have to be slightly wary of the day when there are 14 clubs with American owners because we will have franchise, all-Star games, four quarters and no relegation before you fucking know it. 14 is of course the number needed to vote anything through at the moment.

Bournemouth of course have something in common with us and that they have been beaten 9-0 but as of yet, they have only done it once – amateurs!. Since the 9-0 defeat they got at Liverpool earlier on in the season, they sacked their manager Scott Parker (who was by all accounts, a bit of a dick) and appointed Gary O’Neil as a caretaker.  Gary O’Neil is of course an ex-Skate and a bit of a legend in those parts, mainly because he bettered himself and got out.  Putting all that aside for a second, he speaks quite well and seems like a decent guy and whatever he has done, he has got what looks like a fairly average collection of players to play well enough as a team to go six games unbeaten. Granted, it has been a favourable fixture list with only Newcastle from the top half being played in that time.   It is of course, results against the teams in the bottom half that define how your season is going to go for clubs like Bournemouth and Saints and that is where they have been doing considerably better than us over the past few weeks with our crap defeats against Wolves, Villa and Everton.

They will of course see this home game against Saints as another game against one of the weaker sides of the division and will fancy their chances of another three points at the Vitality Shed.  Their run does however, include only two wins and they were both ‘come from behind’ victories against Forest and Leicester where the opposition both felt that they should’ve won so maybe Bournemouth aren’t as impressive as the current narrative tries to paint them as.

I am honestly of the opinion now that Ralph has to go if we don’t win today. This has nothing to do with the locality of the team that we are playing today but to do with the fact that it will be yet another game against a team who are going to be near the relegation places at the end of the year. I guess we a lot will depend on whether Bournemouth can deal with our array of attacking options which are basically, smash it up the park to Che Adams and hope to pick up the pieces.  It’s actually quite sad that we’ve gone from this side that played in an enterprising aggressive way that sometimes got results and sometimes didn’t, to a team that plays ‘dull as fuck’ football and wins 3 games out of the last 22.

When I said earlier on the Bournemouth have an average collection of players, that is based on them still having a lot of players who were with them and they got relegated from the Premier League such as Adam Smith, Dominic Solanke, Phillip Billing, Lewis Cook, Chris Mepham and Jefferson Lerma. We should not be going into this game with any sort of inferiority complex and should be looking to impose ourselves on Bournemouth like we have on our last visits here when we comfortably won both games, 3-0 in the cup and 2-0 in the game that all but confirmed Bournemouth’s relegation. We cannot go into this game and play stodgy, boring shit football and allow them to dictate. If you’re going down Ralph, please go down swinging.

Ralph’s team selection will tell us a lot about how he approaches this game. Seeing as how we played quite well in the first half against West Ham, I can see him going with exactly the same starting lineup as close as he can. ABK is not going to be available today as we are still waiting to see whether he’s dislocated shoulder, which popped back in, is going to need surgery or not. Rumour has it that Theo Walcott was in line for a start on Sunday but a late illness, probably caused by the prospect of actually having to earn his money, caused him to miss out. I expect he will be back on the bench today.

Spot on – Duje Caleta-Car comes in for ABK but other than that we are unchanged.  The Bournemouth line up has a few new players but no headliners.  Tavernier signed from Middlesbrough, Senesi at centre back, Ryan Fredericks from West Ham reserves at right back.  Fuck me, Adam Smith is captain!

“And we’re live on Amazon Prime – Is it a Derby?  I think it is.  Is it a Derby? – It’s only 30 miles away so it is”

No it isn’t – fuck off!.

The first real action of the game sees Bournemouth break from midfield with Solanke finding Billing out on the left. He attempts a crossfield ping, which Perraud can only head in to the midfield and Solanke picks up again before screwing well wide. One nil to me because I think Solanke is shit.

8 minutes gone and Maitland-Niles advances in midfield and plays good progressive ball forward to send Elyounoussi running into the Bournemouth half.   The move nearly dies on its arse as he tries to slide the ball to Adams but even though it’s a shit ball, Che fights off Senesi and gives it back to Elyounoussi, who now sets off diagonally across towards the left-hand side. He holds onto it before knocking out to Perraud, who fires in a first time cross which is met superbly by Adams and guided is the far side of the net with his head. Brilliant header, great movement, superb cross. One fucking nil. Have it!

God Listens Out for the Bournemouth Fans

Bournemouth‘s first attempted response is down our right and Perraud picks up a yellow card for pulling back Tavernier. The free-kick is shit and is headed away but Bournemouth get it back in there and it eventually falls to Billing, who shows good technique for such an ungainly looking bloke, to volley goalwards with Bazunu tipping over the bar. It’s offside anyway.  Billing is a very strange player and just looks very awkward, standing as he does it about 6 foot 6.

After the KWP throw-in controversy against West Ham at the weekend, it’s nice to see him again do something decent from throw, when he uses his legendary throwing technique to get the ball back from Caleta-Car, skin a couple of Bournemouth defenders and head along the by-line. He fires across along the ground at the near post and Aribo gets across the defender and gets a toe on it but can only divert it at Neto, instead of in the netto. (Shit gag – apologies)

Straight up the other end of the pitch and Baz produces a shite kick into the midfield and Billing picked the ball up and hammers goalwards from about 20 yards but it straight at Baz, who redeems himself and pushes away for a corner.

As we approach halftime there are some handbags as Bournemouth get the arse with us standing up to them and AMN is about two yards off the pitch when Mepham’s sliding tackle takes out the back of his calf with the ball nowhere near. They both get booked for the handbags and I find it absolutely amazing that there appears to be no VAR check for that challenge.

As we approach half-time, the ball is played up to Che and he spins round Adam Smith who just pulls him down in the same way that Perraud hauled down Tavernier earlier but this time, the referee decides it’s not a booking. Smith then confirms that he must be related to the referee in some way, by diving over a challenge and then handling the ball deliberately as Saints try and play on. Somehow the referee thinks this is Smith‘s freekick. Absolute fucking bullshit.

Anyway, half-time and 1-0 and to be honest, Bournemouth don’t really look like they’ve got anything.  What they have got in their favour is our ‘one half mentality’ like we showed against West Ham last week.  We’ve played decent football in the first half and though there have been a few errors in midfield – I’ll take that if it means we’re not solely banging the ball forward.

Having I’m sure been hammered with ‘keeping it tight’ messages at half time, the second half starts with a ball with corner from the left and Saints do their best to let in a goal at the start of the second half yet again, by leaving Senesi completely unmarked but he heads it well wide.

There is Bournemouth pressure for the next 15 minutes, without any efforts on goal and Ralph decides that it’s time to go five at the back with Lyanco coming in for Joe Aribo. Aribo‘s has been decent and this is a clear indication that we are just gonna sit deep and challenge Bournemouth to break us down. The first effort is from Solanke, as he makes a decent run to pick up the ball in the right-hand channel before turning out and lashing hopelessly over the bar with his left foot.  Two nil to me – he’s shit.

Any Saints attempt to get forward is now coming from deep, usually through the bullying of a centre back by Che Adams or by Adam Armstrong running with the ball in the left-hand channel. After one such run, Arma gets his head up and finds JWP at the top of the D but to be honest, it’s a bit of a hospital pass and JWP throws his swinger of a left foot at it and drags it wide.

KWP looked like he was injured earlier on then goes down with what looks like a hamstring injury and has to be replaced and surprisingly, it’s Stuart Armstrong who comes on with Elyounoussi going to right wing-back.  The change is a good one though because all of a sudden, we are keeping the ball better.  We’d lost a bit of that when Aribo went off but Stu Armstrong is having a good impact, again proving that it’s good to have a least one player in midfield who is decent on the ball.  Stu proves the point and then threads a lovely ball inside the full back for Perraud to put in another low first time cross, which this time met by Adams put the shot balloons up off of Smith and drops to Elyounoussi on the angle - who puts up a fucking balloon which skews away into Row Z – actually it’s a about Row G here..

Five minutes to go it’s time for three more changes with Larios, Diallo and Djenepo coming on for the clearly knackered Perraud, AMN and Adam Armstrong. Diallo starts particularly well and now we are keeping the ball really well.  This is game management people, and we’ll be breaking out the “Ole’s” in minute as we’re hardly giving Bournemouth a touch.   They seem to have given up to be honest and so do most of their fans and there are quite a few streaming for the exits.

Stoppage time and Bournemouth win a corner as substitute Stanislas tries to cross it but ends up skewing it and Baz has to shove it over the bar.  In it comes from Tavernier and Baz drops it but luckily, the imperious Salisu is on hand to belt it away.

95 gone and another chance for us as everyone miss a throw-in and Djenepo is clean through from the right wing on the angle but instead of getting his head up and squaring it across to the unmarked Adams, which is what a normal player would have done, he decides to have a shot and it’s absolute wank and dribbles through to the goalkeeper.  No matter though and the referee puts Bournemouth out of their misery. Excellent stuff.

Well, the first thing to say is that the players put a shift in for the manager who will now no doubt continue on and fair play. The tactics were spot-on today – we played decent football in the first half and took some risks with our passing out of defence. Sure, we got the ball away a couple of times but we imposed yourself on Bournemouth when we had the ball and got the goal.  We managed the first 15 minutes of the second half without too many alarms and then shut up shop for the last half an hour by changing to go back three with the introduction of the mad bastard Lyanco. Further substitutions arrived at exactly the right time with Diallo and Stuart Armstrong in particular not putting a foot wrong when they came on and we ran down the last 15 or so minutes really well.

Clean Sheet Bonus Ahoy!

Everyone stood up today. Brilliant for Gavin Bazunu to get his first clean sheet and he deserve that bit of luck when he fumbled that cross in the 90th minute because he had another excellent game. In front of him, Mohammed Salisu was absolutely immense in the absence of ABK and they were solid performances in the full-back positions by KWP and Perraud, who put over an absolutely fantastic cross for the goal.  Duje Caleta-Car is an interesting player and I see quite a lot of potential in the guy. He seems to be a very solid central defender who keeps things very simple and does the basics very well. He doesn’t seem to attack the ball particularly well in a crowd (defending corners etc) and had an element of Jack Stephens about him in that regard but hopefully he will become more aggressive in his defending the more he plays in the Premier League.  If we were ever to play three at the back then he would be absolutely ideal as the central defender, maybe sitting back a bit and letting the others to attack the ball.  We might see that against Arsenal with Lyanco and Salisu in there with him. Lyanco - fucking hell. If he’s not charging up the wing and being ahead of the ball when we lose it and he’s been brought on specifically to shore it up at the back, then he’s pulling out a drag back in a congested midfield and striding away with the ball. Absolutely magnificent mad bastard.  Cult hero stuff of the highest order.

Mad Bastard Applauds Crowd

In midfield, AMN and JWP were solid, continually picking up loose balls and both using the ball well and looking to pass forward, particularly in the first half. Joe Aribo had an excellent first half before being sacrificed to bring Lyanco on and Elyounoussi and Adam Armstrong did their usual and worked incredibly hard but did show their limitations in possession.

Then we have Che Adams who was an absolute God amongst men.   Playing up front on your own and battling with the centre backs for every single ball is fucking hard work but he did it for the full 95 minutes, got the goal is deserved and if Moussa Djenepo had a brain in his head instead of cheese, he would’ve got an nice tap-in in the last minute to seal the victory.

Bournemouth weren’t very good as I suspected they wouldn’t be.  Because of those two wins, which were both snatched from the jaws of defeat, I was expecting some big, spirited attempt to get back into the game in the last 20 minutes but it didn’t really happen. It didn’t really happen because we defended properly and they didn’t really have a clue.  I know this is a slight irrational hatred on my part but any team that gives Adam Smith minutes in the Premier League deserves all they get to be honest. Absolute whining shithouse in addition to being absolutely crap. Can’t stand defenders that dive, whilst trying to give out that he’s some sort of hard man.  Special mention to the referee today as well who in the first half was quite stunning in his ineptitude and inconsistency.

The final word for the Amazon Prime TV coverage which was largely excellent, hosted by Kelly Somers who I thought was really good, apart from her insistence on saying it was a derby every couple of minutes. It isn’t a derby and it never will be, no matter how many times you say it.   See the ‘cauldron of nothing’ atmosphere generated by the Cherries massive. For fuck‘s sake, there’s more atmosphere on Mars.

So, full marks to Ralph and full marks to the team because today was all about the result.  For the home game against Arsenal on Sunday we will undoubtedly be a little bit makeshift with KWP picking up any injury today and AMN being ineligible to play.  I assume that it will be either Juan Larios or Moussa Djenepo at right wing back if it’s a back three. I would imagine that Lewis Payne will come into the equation on the bench.

Today’s win has kept the wolves from the door for a little bit and we can go into Sundays’ going with slightly less pressure than would otherwise have been the case. Bring it on.