Premier League Match 37 - Everton 2 Southampton 0

 

Rusk Cooks Up Another Cunning Plan

When the fixture list came out at the start of the season, there was one game of special interest because it became apparent that Saints would be playing in the last ever game at Goodison Park before Everton moved to their new stadium, and the worst away end in the Premier League got bulldozed to the ground. The bit about it being bulldozed to the ground was an assumption that everyone was making until about three days ago, when Everton announced that they wouldn’t be knocking down their old ground at all, but instead, using it as the home ground for their women’s team, who last season had an average gate of about 2300.  If they housed those 2300 people in what passes as an away end for the men’s team presently, the women will want to be moving back to whatever ground they are currently playing at.

It is of course very unusual for the land of an old ground to not be redeveloped for housing, when a new ground comes along. There have been many occasions in the past where I wish we had kept The Dell for teams blow our first team to have played at, but mainly for nostalgia reasons. Even I can’t bring myself to blame Rupert Lowe for not going down that route even though he was a massive twat, however, and he still is of course.

Everton have been their usual selves this season, starting this season dreadfully and looking like a relegation side, before rescuing themselves quite comfortably.  They thought they needed a change of manager mid-season in order to achieve that this year, with Sean Dyche being replaced with David Moyes, whose arrival has brought a huge upturn in results and they could even make a late bid to finish in the top half before moving to the Bramley Moore Dock next season. They didn’t need to replace Dyche to survive of course, being one of the ring fenced Premier League 17, but that’s another story.

David Moyes Everton of 2025 is much like the David Moyes Everton of 20 years ago in that that they are physically tough and they get the ball into dangerous areas and play the percentages effectively enough to win enough games. Playing the percentages isn’t for everyone however and we of course, don’t do it. We don’t get the ball or bodies into the box and it remains to be seen if we can do so today.

Our performance last week against Manchester City might have been a blueprint for how to play against the better sides in the league, but we are going to need a little bit more than that today, like we needed a little bit more against Leicester two weeks ago and totally failed to deliver.  Yes, we’ll have to do some defending today against the likes of Beto and Ndiaye, but we have to have something about us to put some pressure on Jordan Pickford in the Everton goal.  Despite the whole “Goodison not being knocked down” thing, this is going to be a massive occasion for Everton and their fans and there will be some nerves around so we have to play on that. We have to not give them anything and see if they make mistakes.  It’s not a lot to go on, but there is fuck all else riding on this game apart from the fact that Saints owe their travelling fans a performance after the shit show at Leicester last time out.

Simon Rusk hasn’t warned us during the week of any issues with any players apart from the fact that KWP might not quite make it and sure enough he didn’t, and nor did Jan Bednarek, who has been reported to have some issue or other. I have a feeling that the issue with both KWP and Janny B, is that they have moves sorted out at the end of the season and don’t want to risk anything in what is for us anyway, a pretty meaningless game. On the one hand, I can see their point of view but on the other hand, they are being paid to play for Southampton and  it’s not a good look.

So, team news and it’s Nathan Wood for Bednarek and Joe Aribo has been rewarded for his decent 45 last week, with a start in place of Big Les.  I’m not sure that taking the more combative Lesley out of the starting line-up is a good thing, especially given that this is a completely different assignment to last week.  Sulemana is up front and though there is always hope, I bet that he will be shit.

Everton immediately are the first team to show as Saints look their usual passive selves.   There is none of the intensity of last week n display and I immediately have the feeling that our biggest contribution to the day will be that “Everton versus Southampton” is printed on the scarves that Everton have given to everyone as a memento of the day.

Stephens concedes an early corner to stop Coleman‘s break and when it comes in, there’s a free volley for Mykolenko at the back post and absolute carnage in the box with Beto taking a swing and Ramsdale having to pull off a point blank savee to prevent us going 1-0 down in the first minute.

It doesn’t take long enough for Everton to get the party started with Ndiaye picking up the ball on the edge of the box, lending it to O’Neil, who walks through a challenge from Sulemana and with Ndiaye easily getting away from Aribo, he then has all the time in the world to pass it into the corner of the net from the edge of the box. Fucking pathetic.

It’s nearly two, a minute later as and Ndiaye finds Beto in the penalty area on the left and he opens up his body and sidefoots wide the far post with Welington making sure it’s going off by smashing it off for a corner with no one anywhere near him. It’s a predictably free header for Brathwaite at the back post when the corner comes in, but he can only put it into the side netting.

There’s a minor heart attack as a back pass to Ramsdale puts him under a bit of pressure, but he takes too long to clear it and Beto gets a foot in, but luckily we scramble well to save Rambo‘s embarrassment.  Unbelievably, we then have an attack, and it comes to a predictable end and Everton break and one pass later and they are clean through our midfield, running at our defence. It goes out wide and then into the middle and Beto slams it into the net but fortunately he is a little bit too eager, and despite Beto‘s finger wagging at the linesman, it is clearly offside.

Tyler Dibling is clearly getting frustrated out on the right wing and he flattens Ndiaye and gives away a free kick which is played into the box, not dealt with and Everton, with a series of pretty nifty one touch passes, work it out to Ashley Young on the right and his cross is acrobatically headed into the net by Beto but he has once again gone early and he’s offside once again.

We survive until just before half-time, whilst predictably offering fuck all in the Everton half and then McNeil pokes a first time ball through the inside left channel, where THB should be, and Ndiaye finds himself clean through against Ramsdale and he jinks round him before slotting it into an empty net and finally Everton have the second goal that they deserve. We however, are beyond embarrassing.

As Sure as Night Follows Day

Half-time and I note that our stats are zero shots at goal, an xG of 0.0 and we have had two touches in the opposition penalty area. Impressive stuff from the .  Absolute shower of cunts. Everton could not have wished for better opposition to play their last game at Goodison.

The second half starts with us having made no changes because obviously, the first half performance was so good and to the amazement of everyone, it’s Everton who have the first shot with Garner being given the freedom to be able to smash it at Ramsdale from well within the penalty area but luckily, it’s straight at him and pushed away. They cross it back into the mixer and Beto is once again up above our defence but this time he heads it over. Putting the ball in the box in dangerous areas and competing for it. It will never catch on. As I’m thinking about that, Ashley Young puts in another superb delivery from the right wing and this time it’s Doucoure who goes flying in but he can’t get a clean contact on it and it’s wide for a gold kick.

On the hour mark even Simon Rusk can see that his tactical master plan for the day is not going to work and it’s triple substitution time with Smallbone, Archer and Stewart coming on for Aribo, Wood and Sulemana. It looks like we’re going to a back four in what amounts to tactical innovation.

Straight away, Stewart completes with Branthwaite in the air and it causes a bit of havoc in the Everton defence with Young accidentally hooking it across his own goal and Stewart has a chance which he gets on target but Pickford gets down well to save. With that, Rusk decides the substitutions might change things and off comes Dibling for Robinson.

With us putting a bit of pressure on, we actually win a corner which of course is crap and a chance for Everton to break, which they do and the ball eventually gets played across to Calvert-Lewin and unbelievably, Cameron Archer has tracked back seventy yards to shepherd the ball back to Ramsdale. Am I living in a fucking parallel universe or something? Genuinely, that is more distance than Archer has covered all season and it’s an absolutely brilliant bit of play but it raises more questions than answers.

Fernandes has come to life now and weaves his way past three challenges in midfield before the ball finds its way to Robinson on the right, who pisses past the full back and pulls it back into the middle where Archer connects and Pickford spreads himself to pull off a really good save and Smallbone can only hit the outside of the post with the rebound.

Smallbone then obviously decides to disregard instructions and puts an early cross into the box which Stewart meets and heads narrowly over the bar. It’s fucking amazing what happens if you put the ball in the opposition penalty area and put pressure on.  Too fucking late though and on 94 minutes, the Everton party can get fully under way once the guests from down South have gone home.

Well that was absolutely shit, again. Turned up passive, conceded after five minutes, had no intensity in any area of the pitch for the next forty minutes, got lucky as Everton had two goals disallowed and then finally managed to concede a second on the stroke of half-time.  All of this whilst not looking to pass forwards, let alone having any sort of effort on goal. It’s fucking embarrassing, like a limp dick in a brothel.  In the second half, we did just enough not to get embarrassed as Everton went into testimonial mode and settled for their comfortable win. We were a little bit better once we made some substitutions in the second half, but he doesn’t really count for anything because for all the time that this game actually mattered, we were absolutely pathetic.

So let’s go back to the part of the game when it was still a contest. Joe Aribo was selected ahead of Big Les and after five minutes he showed his ability to lose his man, which would be great if he was attacking, but when you’re defending, it’s not great. He was the man picking up Ndiaye when he first got involved in the move in the fifth minute and he was absolutely no fucking where near him a second later when he passed the ball into the corner of the net under no pressure from anyone.

Aribo was also the victim of people not losing their man in the first half when on one occasion he picked the ball up 30 yards from goal and though Sulemana, Dibling and Fernandes were all in front of him, none of them fucking moved and so we expertly worked the ball back to the halfway line so Everton now had 11 players behind the ball. You could argue that Joe couldn’t pass it forward because there was no one moving and you could also argue that he was never going to pass the ball forward anyway because we haven’t been doing that all season, so even if someone makes a run, they aren’t getting the ball.  The only reason Everton weren’t further in front was because of two goals being disallowed for offside.  I’d like to say this was because of our disciplined defensive line but that would be a lie because Beto, for all his improvement this season under David Moyes, doesn’t know the offside rule but at least he’s making runs and trying to get into the danger area, unlike all the fuckers in yellow.

Wag Your Finger All You Like Mate - Learn the Rules.

I used the term ‘disciplined defensive line’ in the paragraph above.  The second goal happened for partly the same reasons that Leicester’s first goal happened two weeks ago. THB came bolting out of the defensive line and didn’t get the ball so there was absolute carnage in the space that he was no longer in, because once he’d bolted and achieved nothing,  he was twenty yards out of position. You could argue that Ramsdale should’ve been stronger in the tackle as Ndiaye walked around him, but Ndiaye is too confident and too good to miss one on one with the keeper.  Back to THB though - if you come bolting out of the defensive line, then you have to get the ball or as a backup option, you have to clatter someone to stop the game. Doing neither just absolutely fucks everyone else.  Dreadful defending.

In the second half, we had the bizarre incident where Cameron Archer, raced back seventy yards to stop a counter attack, like a proper footballer would. Fair play to him - it was brilliant but why is it happening in the 37th game of a 38-game season and he’s barely been able to raise a jog for the previous 36 games?   He also had our best chance and brought a decent save out of Pickford.  The cynic in me would say that his agent had other teams watching him today. Ross Stewart again looked lively in his cameo but then anyone would look lively after what had gone before and at least he had a couple of shots that were saved and blocked respectively.

People will look at the performance when we changed formation and went to four at the back, and say that we should’ve started that way and they could well be right, but the point is the it doesn’t matter what formation you have if you’re going to a game with no attacking plan and you put in as little effort as we did in the first hour.  The best formation and the best manager in the world won’t make any difference if you play with that little effort and that little intensity.  Oh for a Francis Benali, a Jason Dodd or Matt Le Tissier to tell these feckless fucking players what it means to represent the city. Who has been driving the standards all season? No one, would be my guess.  How many of those players today, actually gave a shit about the badge on the shirts and about the supporters who travelled miles for a shit kick off time to watch that gutless pathetic pile of shit, trying to masquerade as a Premier League football team. Wankers.

After the performance against Manchester City last week, which took 100% effort from everyone, it was absolutely typical that the team could not back it up because that’s what we’ve had in our last two seasons in the Premier League, a bunch of players who can do it for one game when they want to, but have absolutely nothing when it comes to the levels required to be a consistent performer in the Premier League.  It’s that old thing that I’m always banging on about - how many of our players are capable of a run of three games where they play well at Premier League level? I’d love to know the responses from the players if they looked in the mirror and asked themselves honestly if they were capable of it.

Maybe We Should Pick a Forward Simon?

  
Simon Rusk is in that boat – he did well last week but had another shocker today, I’m afraid. The game plan had to go out of the window as soon as we conceded the first goal but he didn’t do anything until the hour mark, and leaving it that late just highlighted the fact that we went into the game with no attacking plan whatsoever apart from maybe hoping that Sulemana could mis-control the ball in the right direction.   Dibling and Fernandes need to be given the ball in the attacking half but they spend all game scrapping for it in the defensive third.  Fernandes in particular, finally came down to the level of everyone else today. I forgive him for that because of his consistency so far this season.

Just the one game to go and it’ll be another backs to the wall effort against Arsenal.   We’ve laughably been told that we’re not allowed a pitch invasion afterwards.  Hilarious.  We might get a point but it’s one of those games where I’d rather have a go and lose, than set up with no strikers and no attacking plan. Over to the Rusk / Lallana dream team to try and make it happen. I’m not expecting it.

The name of Will Still has been mentioned a lot of the media over the past couple of days as potentially being our new manager. Because this is all been doom and gloom I will finish with the joke and say that if he is given this group of players, then we will still be shit next year.  Thank you very much - I will be here all week.

Premier League Match 10 - Southampton 1 Everton 0

 

Not Today

Russell Martin doesn’t seem to think so but I don’t think you’ll find many supporters who don’t believe this game isn’t a shit or bust type of scenario. It could be quite a defining day today because all of the bottom six are playing each other. For us, today is surely the day where we have our best chance to get off the mark regarding the win column in the table.

There hasn’t been much fallout from the Stoke game, just an acknowledgement amongst most of the fan base that we didn’t play particularly well and even though it was six different players to usual and many substitutes who don’t play often, it did bring an element of gloom because of our lack of threat in attack. Hopefully, today will be like the first half against Leicester and we make the Everton defence work a bit.

Everton will be a tough nut to crack. They started the season appallingly and then won their first game against Crystal Palace, backed up with a win against Ipswich and are undefeated in five games. The Sean Dyche lead outfit was always going to do this. If you look at their team, it is full of hardened Premier League players who might not be good enough to get the club anywhere near the top half of the table but they will be good enough to keep her away from the bottom. The likes of Jordan Pickford, James Tarkowski, Michael Keane, Jack Harrison, Abdoulaye Doucoure, Idrissa Gana Gaye, Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin are all decent enough to ensure the Everton start next season in their new ground in the Premier League.

Historically, Everton have never been out of the top flight of English football but in the last few seasons, have sailed pretty close to the wind.  Last season they got deducted points for PSR breaches and still managed to stay up.  I like the way that the responded to losing ten points by winning the next three games, staying out of the relegation zone and sticking a proverbial two fingers up at the league.  They weren’t particularly hard done by as the club had been badly run for years but they so seem to have been judged more harshly than others, who continue to get away with it.

On my walk to the ground, I’m earwigging other supporters and I hear a lot of ‘shit or bust’, ‘have to win’ and the more prosaic ‘lose this and we’re royally fucked’.  Team news and weird – five at the back at home.  I guess we’re looking to be solid with both Stephens and Manning starting.  Tyler Dibling is on the bench and Adam Armstrong starting instead of him.  Adam Lallana again keeps Joe Aribo on the bench.  Everton for their part have left out Jack Harrison but it's more or less what I expect.  Abdoulaye Doucoure isn’t playing, which is probably the only they only way that he wouldn’t be scoring against us today.  Is he forgiven for the Watford handball goal yet?  No.

The game starts and nothing happens, followed by more nothing, followed by Everton players taking it in turns to go down for no reason at all.  It all follows the same pattern in that there is a challenge, the Everton player stays down, the referee Andy Madley, brother of Bobby the Dog Botherer, stops the game, the physio is about to come on and in the Everton player springs back to his feet. Strange to be time-wasting in the first half against a team that hasn’t won in ten games.

"It's OK Ref Because You Should have Given Us That Foul Over There" (Getty Images)

There is another strange incident on 20 minutes when the ball gets played up to Calvert-Lewin and under challenge from THB, he falls on the ball and grabs it. Referee Andy Madley gives a free-kick to Saints for handball which clearly boils the piss of some of the Everton players, particularly James Tarkowski who then steams straight through Cameron Archer on the halfway line with the ball in the SO15 postcode, not the SO14 postcode where St Mary‘s actually is.  Horrible challenge and it’s just a yellow card we’re off to Stockley Park.

“Hi Andy”
“Come on chaps, quick review needed”
“Well, it satisfies every criteria for a red …”
“Too slow… just a yellow then”

Away we go again and neither team has got any quality going forward. From a Saints perspective, whenever we get the ball in the wide areas through Adam Armstrong or Ryan Manning, the ball into the box at best could be classed as a hit and hope. Poor, very poor.  On about 40 minutes we being to play with some intent.  KWP looks forward and picks out Downes running behind the Everton midfield.  He passes the ball through and Archer has a lot to do from about forty yards out but he backs him self against Keane gets to the edge of the box and fires across Pickford but wide of the far post.

Downes again drives through for midfield and finds Adam Armstrong and it looks like he actually picks someone out this time but Pickford gets something on the cross of takes it away from Manning who can only fall in a comedy heap on the ground.  Manning’s involved again a few seconds later as Fernandes puts him away down the left and he puts over a decent ball first time which is knocked behind by Mykolenko. Over comes the corner and our goal magnet THB, rises at the back post but can only nod it wide.

Half-time and that in the main has been a painful after football between two teams with no attacking quality. It becomes apparent that Lallana has managed as much as he can and so on comes Joe Aribo. As the game restarts, Everton seem to have come out with bits of gravel in their collective ear, from a Sean Dyche half time grilling.

Mykolenko swings across into the box which goes over everybody and find Ashley Young on the far side.  He passes across the top of the penalty are where Mangala decides to stop throwing himself to the ground for a second and smashes in a shot through a crowd of bodies and Ramsdale sees it late but reacts brilliantly to knock it over the bar.

It’s turning into a better game now, with KWP playing a lovely forward pass to meet the run of Archer who was unceremoniously from to the ground by Michael Keane. Manning’s free kick is either low deliberately or not very good, and it bounces out of the magnet THB but blocked away for a corer which we do nothing with.

An hour gone and with Saints still desperately needing quality at the top end of the pitch, Ryan Manning is replaced with Tyler Dibling.  Stephens is now a conventional left back and Dibling immediately gets involved and the Everton defence starts stitting itself as he runs at them and plays a nice ball down the side to KWP and his cross fizzes to Armstrong at the back post but he can only volley over the bar.

The feeling that this is going to go the way of whichever team wants it and Everton come alive again with Lindstram putting in a cross from the left and Michael Keane is somehow completely free at the back post and has a point blank header…. nooooo…. brilliantly saved down low by the post by Ramsdale and it bobbles around and somehow Rambo shovels it wide.

Dibling is making a real difference on the right and combines again with KWP with a full back again picking out Armstrong at the back post and this time he seems caught in tow minds between lashing it wide and heading it wide and he eventually chooses the latter option.  To be fair, the cross had some serious pace on it.

Everton have sent on Beto in place of Calvert-Lewin who has been completely anonymous.  No strength in the challenges and I don’t remember him winning a header all game.  Beto is a different beast however and after a Saints attack comes to nothing, Everton clear it out to Beto on the left who is in a foot race with Bednarek.  Beto is obviously going to win and Bednarek brings him down and it’s a clear yellow card. THB looks like he’s on the cover and we’re off to VAR.

“Hi Andy – potential denial of a goalscoring opportunity there”
“Really – I thought the defender was on the cover”
“Not sure – we’ll try and make your decision correct for you – light touch and all that”
“Good lads”
[pause]
“Ok, we’ve got a decision.  The cover is half a pitch away and isn’t getting there”
“Oh…”
“…. But it’s Beto …. and he’s shite so technically…”
“Shite?”
“Yes, Shite… so it isn’t a goalscoring opportunity… because he’s shite and would have missed”
“Love it lads – so I was right?”
“Yes… and you’ve got to get out of the ground without Dyche getting hold of you”

So, panic over and now just a free kick to deal with.  Lindstram puts it in and Ramsdale pushes it wide easily enough.

Jack Stephens has been having a bit of a nightmare in the second half, continually giving the ball away and is replaced with Sugawara with KWP moving to the other side. Sugawara immediately gets caught out of position and McNeil puts in a lovely cross which Harrison gets to before Ramsdale… and it drops just wide as St Mary’s breathes a collective “oh fuck”.

I Beto You Can't miss From There

More problems down our right as Dibling gives the ball away and picks up another yellow for pulling back a player. In it come is the cost of the back post with Michael Keane has got free and he cushion volleys a cross onto the head of Beto, who is five yards out and he manages to hit the bar.  Thank fuck for that… Fernandes runs the ball out of the danger area down our left and swaps passes with Aribo before switching it right via THB to Sugawara who takes a second and pulls back a perfect ball along the top of the penalty area to meet the run of Adam Armstrong who smashes it first time down the middle of the goal past Pickford.  You fucking beauty and 1-0… 85 minutes gone.

Just 5 Minutes to Hold out Lads

Now it’s just a case of concentrating and we of course don’t do that as Young plays a 60 ball over the top of the defence and Beto takes a brilliant touch before slotting into the net. For fuck‘s sake…  it looked miles offside but the flag hasn’t gone up and we’re off to VAR again.

“Andy… we speak again”
“Check offside on the goal please lads.  That shite Beto has just scored”
“Agh – this is going to take ages”
“Why?”
“Because VAR was designed to focus on the end where the goal was scored”
“Of course – why’s that an issue?”
“Because it’s fucking Dyche-ball smashing the ball from one end to the other.  We have to print off two screens, stick them together with tape, get the fucking protractor a ruler out, blue line, red line and all that.”
[Time goes by]
“Andy, we have a decision – offside”
“I’ll tell Janny B and he can tell the crowd”

Bednarek is giving it the big one before the official scoreboard announcement.  Get in… or out… or whatever.

By the time we get going again it’s 93 minutes and there are at least six to go. Big Les and Tall Paul are on for Fernandes and Archer, so our team has just got approximately two foot taller.  Madley gives us the shits one more time by giving a free kit for nothing against Tall Paul and then booking him for good measure.  In it comes with Pickford, cleared away as far as Adam Armstrong and finally the whistle goes and that’s it.

Get in. Relief.

Finally, we’ve won a fucking league game.  To be honest, as I said before, it really doesn’t matter how we got over the line but the fact of the matter is that we did and that really is all that counts.

The first 40 minutes was pretty dreadful from both sides with absolutely zero attacking quality on display.  Every time Saints got into an area where they could deliver a pass in towards the strikers it was aimlessly smashed across the box, usually picking out an Everton defender with Adam Armstrong and Ryan Manning being the worst culprits. Everton did nothing except slowing the game down, mainly through feigning injury.  The second half was better as a game and we were grateful to Aaron Ramsdale keeping us in it with two or three excellent saves. Our quality in the attacking third only improved with the introduction of Tyler Dibling and Yuki Sugawara for Manning and Stevens and it was Sugawara who got his head up and picked out Adam Armstrong’s excellent run in from the left wing, goal, 1-0, nice finish.  Even though there was 85 on the clock at that point, we still managed to completely doze off and we got incredibly lucky that Beto’s effort was ruled out after a VAR check that seemed to take about three days.

As far as Russell Martin is concerned, I thought the tactics at the start of the game and the team selection were a bit questionable but the end result justified the means because we got to the hour mark at 0-0 and the subs came on and changed us as an attacking force.  Having got it all wrong against Leicester, today he got the substitutions right, particularly with Sugawara and Dibling but also at the end, throwing on the physically imposing Big Les and Tall Paul to combat the inevitable Everton aerial bombardment. Joe Aribo had come on for Lallana at half time and against City last week, he didn’t look like he was at the pace of the game at all, but today he was right on it from the moment he stepped on the pitch.

Feigning Injury - Utter Woke Nonsense

Sean Dyche is a manager who is the epitome of everything old school football where everyone was a tough bastard. As everyone knows, he sounds like he gargles broken glass for breakfast wash down with a pint of gravy.  He’s a tough boy and his ‘Utter Woke Nonsense’ meme is legendary, so he should be absolutely embarrassed by the way his Everton players collapse for absolutely no reason.  It’s obviously pre-planned as well because they stay down just until the physio is about to come on and then spring to their feet again. Why referees don’t book them for that, I have no idea. Dyche had a good old moan about the fact the Bednarek wasn’t sent off but he didn’t mention the ridiculous tackle by Tarkowski on Archer which is a red card offence by any definition. Out of control, excessive force, nowhere near the ball, ticks every box but I’m not sure it was even viewed.  As for the Bednarek decision in isolation, I feel that we got a little bit fortunate and on another day that would have been a red.  At the time I thought THB was clearly covering but when you see a replay of it, he was miles away.

So, we had the bit of luck today that you need to get over the line.  You can say that ‘offside is offside’ and that’s not luck… but it was bloody close.  I still think VAR should be binned and I loved not having it in the Championship, but we have to be grateful for it today, even though it did take an age to arrive at the decision that ultimately won us the game.

We wouldn’t have even been in the position to win the game if it wasn’t for Aaron Ramsdale, who was brilliant today.  The save from Michael Keane’s header alone was enough to make him man of the match.  It’s massive for him to get a clean sheet as well and this is what we brought him in for, to keep us in games and give us the chance of picking up points.  We of course, spent big money on him by our standards and it’s a compelling evidence to back up the ‘you get what you pay for’ angle on transfer dealings.  Not always the case of course but maybe signing one good player instead of three average ones is the way to go in future.

I am pleased for Russell Martin, pleased for the players and pleased for all the supporters including myself. Every win for a team like us can only be achieved by being dogged, by keeping your head up and by having a bit of luck. Today we earned the luck, mainly Everton hitting the bar which led directly to us breaking up the other end of the pitch and scoring. This could very easily have been another demoralising defeat but we got over the line and won the game and we can all look upwards and going to the game next week against Wolves with a bit of confidence.

With the other two games involving the bottom six ended in draws, we were the major winners this Saturday and closed up a bit on the teams above us. A win next week and maybe we can start believing.

Up the fucking Saints.

Carabao Cup 3rd Round - Everton 1 Southampton 1 (Southampton win 6-5 on penalties)

 

I've Been Diving the Wrong Way Since Before You Were Born Son

Time for the Carabao Cup all-Premier League mega clash between Everton and Southampton, being beamed live by every broadcaster all over the globe. Or not as the case may be. Everton are currently 20th and Saints are currently 19th in the Premier League, both with zero points. Everton have been different to Saints in that they have got themselves into winning positions in their last two games, having been 2-0 up in both of them and have spectacularly managed to lose both.

Back in the day, both teams would’ve seen this game as a chance to improve morale and get that winning feeling back again to give the league program a boost but these days, with virtually all Premier League teams changing 10 or 11 of the starting players, that’s not really relevant anymore.

Sean Dyche needs to win this game because there is a growing clamour for him to be sacked because Everton of course, are still a big name, even though they have been pretty shit for a number of years. Dyche did a good job with them last year and overcame points deductions, without which, they would’ve finished comfortably mid-table. Another preseason of financial weirdness has happened though with important players like Onana moving on. They are still battling with PSR restrictions and have been involved in some of those “Cheating In Plain Sight” deals, swapping youngsters with other PSR threatened clubs like Aston Villa, for ludicrously overinflated fees. I guess if the rules allow it then you can’t complain though not exactly in the spirit of things bearing in mind the reason that the rules were brought in.

Whatever team Dyche puts out will of course carry the Dyche hallmark of being physical and pretty direct so maybe it’s not a game for us to put out a bunch of kids.  The incoming physical challenge is one reason why Saints team selection will be interesting because since the Cardiff game in the last round, the status of a few of our players has changed. Matty Fernandes and Tyler Dibling are first team starters, as are Cameron Archer and Big Les. Joe Lumley is now no longer required to bring the vibes to the Carabao Cup so I am sure that we will see Alex McCarthy in goal today.

Team news and we do indeed see McCarthy and there are just two players who could reasonably expect to start against Ipswich on Saturday.  THB captains the side and there is also a place for Big Les.  Other than that, it’s the usual ‘reserves’ like Bree, Taylor and Wood, the recently dropped like Armstrong and Aribo and the fitness seekers like Cornet, Fraser and Lallana.

Away we go and the pattern of the game is obvious straight away with Saints having possession but then looking very shaky whenever we don’t have it.  Dyche is still reassuringly old skool in his approach.  His goalkeeper gets the ball, the defenders push up to halfway and he thunders it up the pitch towards a big unit striker.  Beto is his name and they signed him for £30m after they’d tried to sign Che Adams from us for £15m but we weren’t happy to accept £1 a year instalments.

Our first effort is from a Taylor cross which deflects up to the edge of the box and is met by Aribo flying in but he must have had his eyes shut because a perfect 50p header flew well over the bar.

Beto, for it is he, has the first shot of the day as he picks up the ball inside the box and from a tight angle, drills it at the near post but McCarthy easily pushes it wide.  Another Everton attack and Lindstrom is blocked by Wood and wins a corner. McNeil puts in the in-swinger, which is flapped at by McCarthy, kept alive be on the back post by O’Brien, headed goalwards by Keane and nodded into the net by Doucoure, who at least has a good Grace to use his head this time, instead of slapping in his hand like he usually fucking does. Bollocks.

Saints respond pretty well but get caught on the break again with Lindstrom running through from the left hand side before trying to open up and curl it into the far corner but instead of that, he passed it straight to McCarthy. Another chance as Everton build down the right and a pass in behind the hopelessly out of position Wood, who appeals for offside but THB clears up before his line-breaking pass finds Big Les, who turns and again plays forward to Fraser who gets absolutely trashed by the young impetuous Everton full back Dixon. In it comes from Taylor and THB is free at the back post to head powerfully down and bouncing into the top corner.  1-1, Get in.

The game settles down again into the same pattern of Saints possession and Everton waiting for us to screw up close to our goal.  There is minor excitement as Cornet shows a bit of what he’s about by flying in from the right and lashing wildly over the bar with his left foot.

Half time and that was OK I guess though it’s hard to square off that we have apparently had 77% percent possession and six shots to their seven.  So, say it was 45 minutes…. That means we’ve had the ball for 35 minutes and had 6 shots, so just under 6 minutes of possession per shot.  Everton have therefore had the ball for 10 minutes and had 7 shots, so roughly 1.5 minutes of possession per shot.  Lallana has been different gravy in midfield with his skill and ball retention but no more as he’s off the be replaced with Fernandes.  I assume this will mean Les playing a bit deeper.

Wood has gone a good 20 minutes without a mistake but 15 of that was spent in the dressing room at half time.  His lightweight, off-balance effort at defending puts us right in the shit and a flick on by Beto sends Lindstrom through and going behind beckons until McCarthy meets him and superbly blocks the effort again.

Saints are offering a bit going forward but not too much. Matty Fernandes jinks past the right back before finding Wee Man and he bundles his way through and through and from a narrow angle, goes for the far post and the goalkeeper sticks his foot out and deflects it away.

In pretty quick succession, the forward line is changed with Armstrong, Cornet and Fraser all going off along with Big Les and in their place emerge Ross Stewart, Tyler Dibling, BBD and Flynn Downes.

Saints are looking to get the ball out to Tyler Dibling at every opportunity as he’s now up against Ashley Young, who is twice his age.  Young has just come on as a sub to a crescendo of abuse from Everton fans, which was aimed at the manager for bringing him on for a striker – even though the striker in question was Beto, and he is shit.  Downes eventually does find Dibling, who weaves past two players as if they weren’t there before cutting in and lashing over the bar.  He's at it again straight after, lining up Young and going past him as if he's not there and into the area and Young has a nibble and over he goes.  Penalty surely..... corner, fuck off.  One thing for sure is that he didn't play the ball so that's a penalty or a goal kick or you've just fucking bottled it.  Where's VAR when you need it?  Oh yes, this competition doesn't bring in VAR til later in the competition, as opposed to the FA Cup that uses it when the ground has capability.  Shambles.

Three minutes of injury time and can we just be put this out of its misery. It’s largely been a shit second half and bring on the penalties so there is at least a bit of excitement.

Fernandes up first, I have confidence …. Bang, no problem and high past the goalkeeper down the middle. 1-0

Michael Keane…. he’s a big donkey but I reckon he’s going to score this and…. he comprehensively sends McCarthy the wrong way. 1-1

Ross Stewart… will probably get injured running up to this ball.  Here he comes… Virginia gets a fingertip to it but he’s not keeping that out, 2-1

Dwight McNeil, got his mouth hanging open but that’s no reason to expect him to miss… miss it you fucker….. no problem and McCarthy the wrong way again. 2-2

Ben Brereton Diaz.  I assume he’s going to show us what we were missing on Saturday and… sure enough, right-footed and drilled past the goalkeeper who goes the wrong way. 3-2

Ndiaye for Everton and … Groundhog Day as McCarthy emphatically goes the wrong way again.  Whatever is written on his water bottle is clearly wrong. 3-3

THB…. Hmmm, don’t like centre backs taking one.  Come on Captain…. Bang, absolutely drilled it past Virginia, who is competing with Alex in the ‘going the wrong way’ stakes. 4-3

Lindstrom… this has to be a chance as he’s shit himself every time he’s seen the posts today and oooooh close.  No, Macca’s gone the wrong way again but it’s hit the other post and bounced in. 4-4

Joe Aribo looks cool but left footed kickers always worry me…. but he scores easily enough as the keeper once again goes the wrong way. 5-4

Jack Harrison to take the fifth and easy…. with McCarthy again showing maximum commitment to going the wrong way, flying through the air and gracefully landing in the opposite corner to the ball to keep up his 100% record. 5-5

Sudden death and down to the people who you don’t really wanna take one and it’s James Bree.  He strikes a good ball so I’m hopeful and … easy, Virginia goes for a hot dog again in the wrong direction. 6-5

Ashley Dung steps up. He’s always been shit and this is a chance…. and McCarthy stands his ground and sticks a hand out and deflects it onto the post and we are through.  Get in.

You Can Still Get Excited About Winning a Carabao Cup Game

Well that was fun in the end and a perfect illustration of how one average penalty and your goalkeeper finally going the right way, can change the entire feeling of an evening.  Small margins and all that. The game itself was pretty torrid to watch and it was one of those ones where we have 75% possession and have less shots than the opposition.   Too much sideways and backwards and this was acknowledged by the manager afterwards.  The main problem was is that we couldn’t get the ball through to the forwards players and didn’t stretch the Everton back four enough during the game.  One issue was that we seemed slightly unwilling to pass the ball forward for whatever reason and another issue was that there were not many options higher up the pitch.  

Part of that was because Adam Armstrong has completely lost his confidence from last season.  He very rarely came short to receive the ball and he never attacked dangerous spaces in between defenders and spent most of his time standing behind defenders so there was absolutely no option to get the ball to him.  It looks to me that he has completely accepted that he is not good enough at this level but he absolutely needs to get that out of his system otherwise we may as well put him behind some glass, like a fire extinguisher with ‘do not break until relegated’, written on the front of it. You may very well not be good enough at this level but you at least have to have the mindset that you are good enough. It wasn’t solely his fault of course, Ryan Fraser and Max Cornet both showed flashes on the wings but Fraser was too willing to turn back and not take on his full-back, whereas Cornet is still trying to work the rust out of his game after his long injury.  Fraser was particularly frustrating, playing as he was against Everton fullback Dixon who was incredibly rash.  I liked his enthusiasm because he played the game at 100 miles an hour but steaming into tackles every single time at full pelt is not going to end well and indeed, that is where our goal came from.  The free kick that led to our goal was a forward pass from THB to Les, a turn and forward pass to Fraser, who ran at the full back and got trashed.  All positive, forward-thinking bits of play.

In midfield, everyone did well on the possession front but there was a lack of intent to play forward and nothing much when we got to the edge of the box. Joe Aribo played furthest forward of the three, making a complete bollocks of one decent headed chance in the first half but was on the whole ineffective regarding goal threat, as was big Les and Adam Lallana. Somewhat mystifyingly, Lallana played the deepest of the three with big Les attempting to be a box-to-box midfielder which on the face of it, doesn’t appear to be his game. Adam Lallana was wonderfully neat and tidy in his 45 minutes but I would have liked to have seen him in a more creative role with Big Les deeper. It’s not as if Everton were playing a lot of football in midfield.

The tone of Everton‘s performance was set by their goalkeeper Virginia, who was the very antithesis of the modern goalkeeper who plays the ball short to his defenders. Every time Virginia got possession he just screamed the ball as hard as he could towards Beto, Everton’s big but useless £30 million striker who was at least causing a few problems for Nathan Wood with his physicality.

Sad to say, Nathan Wood was bullied all over the place as usual. He is a tidy footballer but he really needs to get in the gym because there’s not a striker in the Premier League who wouldn’t be able to just manoeuvre him off the ball. THB had a decent game at the back and I thought it was a very good idea to make him captain as he’s going to be playing in the Premier League on Saturday and it can’t have been anything but a boost to his confidence. The goal he scored will also have done that. He had a couple of loose moments but in the main stood up well to the somewhat limited one-dimensional Everton approach. James Bree and Charlie Taylor were what they are, solid and unspectacular. Bree struggled early on against Dwight McNeil but grew into the game and ended up as one of our better performers. It’s a shame for him that he has KWP and Sugawara ahead of him for the right back position so no matter how well he does, he is never gonna be more than a Carabao Cup player this season.

THB - Back on Track

And then there’s Alex McCarthy. Having spectacularly and emphatically dived into the opposite corner to the ball for the first five penalties, he managed to make himself a hero by saving the decisive one from Ashley Dung.  It was a bit like a striker who misses five chances and then scores one off his arse and it turns out to be the winner.  His contribution to the Everton goal was a bit wet but he made a couple of decent saves in the second half when Everton got through and can be pleased overall with his nights work.

Of the substitutes, the obvious stand out was Tyler Dibling. I didn’t particularly want him to be involved tonight but he was more or less the only player to get anyone off their seat in the second half.  One move cutting in from the right wing before firing over the bar was excellent and he should undoubtedly have had a penalty in the 90th minute as he pulled exactly the same move that he pulled on Diogo Dalot at the weekend and Ashley Dung carted him over. Maybe I’m missing something here but I am amazed that no one appealed for that.

This game is of course, small beer compared to what we’ve got coming up at the weekend with the visit of Ipswich Town. Relegation six pointer in coming and we are going to need everyone - manager, staff, players and fans to step up. We need those three points.

Up the fucking Saints

Premier League Match 19 - Everton 1 Southampton 2

First Win Here in the 21st Century Ya Fuckers !!!

Wins in the cups are all very nice but it’s now time to stop pissing around and get some results in the league. Nathan Jones has to prove that he can win games against teams from the bottom half of the Premier League, starting with Everton today.

Make no mistake, Everton are a piss poor football team and our only rivals when it comes to most out-of-form club in the Premier League. Their manager Frank Lampard is really hanging on by a thread, having done the usual and failing to get any sort of tune out of Everton.  They sailed pretty close to the relegations rocks last year and Lampard got some credit for getting them out of it, but this year it looks a different story.  Last year, they had Shithouse Richarlison up front who though not prolific, scored enough goals and gave them a presence which kept them out of trouble. They replaced him with Neil Maupay, who is about 25% of the player, though he is a shithouse of similar standard but that’s as far as it goes.  I guess that Everton and Lampard thought that Dominic Calvert-Lewin would get back to his best this season but he hasn’t been near it, troubled again by the injuries that seem to be ever-present.  Everton are going to struggle to buy the way out of it as well because of the FFP restrictions placed on them after many years of spending beyond their means to not get very far.

The recruitment of Conor Coady and James Tarkowski at the start of the season suggested that they would be stronger this season and indeed, they beat us at St Mary‘s in one of Ralph‘s more clueless games earlier on in the season. Under Ralph we played a few teams at a low ebb earlier on in the season and every time, we were passive at the start of the game and allowed them to play the way into the game and we ultimately lost. We absolutely cannot afford to do that today because if there’s one crowd guaranteed to turn against their team if things are not going well, then it’s Everton. So, Saints need to be at it from the first whistle like we were against Manchester City in the week.

The City game obviously gave everybody a massive lift at Saints and a further lift was provided the following day with Rasmus Ankersen and Martin Semmens being interviewed by Radio Solent, which if nothing else, at least told us a little bit about Sport Republic and the way they see things. It also confirmed what we all suspected, which was the Rasmus Ankersen is responsible for the recruitment at this moment in time.  It will be interesting to see the level of involvement of Mislav Orsic and maybe even Charly Alcaraz today. The only thing I really disagreed with with the answers from Rasmus, was the assertion that the Championship is the 6th biggest league in Europe, as justification of Nathan Joneses managerial experience.  The financial side of the league is completely irrelevant and there is no way that the Championship is a better standard of football than somewhere like the Dutch or the Portuguese league. I would say the Championship is on par with the top divisions in countries like Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. After all, we’ve just signed a player from the Croatian league and we’re more excited about him than we would be about a player from the Championship.

The City game of course saw some exceptional performances by players who don’t usually get in the starting line-up so will be interesting to see if the likes of Djenepo, Mara, Adam Armstrong and Diallo stay in the team this afternoon.  It’s stating the obvious but we cannot go back to our tactics of launching the ball like we did on our last league game because that will be playing into Everton’s hands.  Everton are a huge great physical team so we need to compete with them on that front and try and play when we can.

There were empty seats in the directors box today because Everton‘s board have been advised that there is a safety risk if they turn up.  The story is that one of the female board members was put in a headlock by a fan at the last game.  Nobody has a picture of it or a video of it but apparently it happened.  Hmmmm, sounds like bullshit.  Reports also emerge as the game kicks off that Everton fans have done their usual and put on a nice firework display outside the Saints team hotel last night. Fuck me lads, could anything be more tinpot if it tried? You really need to try and keep our players awake to give yourself a better chance? We are bottom of the fucking league and have lost 6 in a row. 

After a frenetic opening a few minutes, the first real incident of any note sees Onana pick out Mykolenko on the left hand side and his ball behind the defence is controlled by Demarai Gray, who runs out of angle before lifting over the bar.

Saints build up and down the left-hand side through Edozie, who plays it across the top of the penalty area to JWP who decides against shooting and instead shifts it on one more to the right to Elyounoussi who hammers it across and sees it deflect of the undercarriage of Mykolenko, bounce down, fly over Pickford, over Che Adams and narrowly wide of the post.  In comes the corner from JWP and Salisu meets it well 12 yards out but it’s straight at Pickford who short-arm jabs it away.

There is not a lot of quality with what’s going on but an decent amount of effort. Lyanco sets off on a diagonal run across the pitch from right back, at no point looking like he knows what he’s going to do with it but he’s right out on the left wing by the time he loses it.  A mad-bastard swipe to try and stop the attack misses when Everton tried to counter but immediately, Diallo wins the ball back and sets off, gets the ball back from Edozie and I’m sure he has images in his mind of curling the ball into the top corner of the net but instead his effort is closer to the top corner of the Gwladys Street end.

On the half hour, Demarai Gray takes on KWP out on our left but KWP sticks to his task well but concedes the corner.  Over comes the corner from Gray and Onana, all 7 foot 6 of him has a relatively simple task of head it into the net. Bollocks.  Who the fuck had him then?  Saints defenders are kind of looking at each other with Salisu and Elyounoussi looking the most sheepish.

It nearly gets worse as Salisu plays Diallo a hospital pass in midfield and he is clattered and loses it in the ball goes to Alex Iwobi, who attacks the Saints box before trying a curler from 20 yards which goes closer than Diallo’s effort but a couple of feet wide is the same as a couple of miles wide.

Caleta-Car’s clearance finds its way to Che Adams, who holds off his defender and flicks it round the corner to send Edozie scampering away down the left.   He gets his head up and finds JWP on the edge of the box and his first-time side footed effort is arrowing into the bottom corner but Pickford gets down and one of his little T-Rex arms is just long enough to push the ball onto the post. Great move, great save by the angry little bastard.

Half time and though we’re behind, I don’t feel that we’ve been too bad.  We need to compete more with their physicality.  Just because Onana is fucking huge, there is nothing to say we can’t smash into the bastard.  Everton seriously have nothing else so we just need to believe in ourselves.  One goal and this will turn.

Tactics Frank

As we come out for the second half it looks like Saints have had a little bit of a reshuffle without making any substitutions. KWP has gone to right back and all the centre backs have moved over one with Salisu now occupying the left back birth. We also seem to have pushed Romeo Lavia a bit further forward.  Whilst Everton are working out the changes that have been made the ball goes to KWP the right-hand side just inside the Everton half and he picks out Adams with a lovely ball and he knocks it inside deliberately to meet the run of JWP.  The main man skips past the sliding Godfrey before rolling it past the angry little bastard in goal into the corner of the net. Get in there you fucker. 1-1.

Booooooo go the Everton fans.  You can hear it straight away but the crowd are now giving it some to the Everton players. After a mistake by Salisu, Iwobi tees up Demarai Gray who tries one from 30 yards with a straight down Baz’ throat.  They do go close with the next opportunity is Diallo tried to play too much and gifts the ball to Godfrey.  He picks out Calvert-Lewin, who takes time off from thinking about his next modelling assignment and shit clobber wardrobe that makes him look like a twat, and shoots from the edge of the box and like Elyounoussi’s first half effort, it hits Salisu, bounces down, loops up over Baz, hits the bar and drops down, as everyone of us of a Saints persuasion collectively shites their pants.

The youngsters races are run as Sam Edozie and Romeo Lavia are both replaced with Adam Armstrong and fresh off the plane from Argentina, Charly Alcaraz.  Alcaraz’ first involvement is a decent pass square to pick out JWP about 35 yards out and he screams in another shot which is on target but Pickford gets down together well and hold in those little arms of his.

There is another minor heart attack moment as Onana swings in the cross from the left wing and Baz goes out for what should be a simple claim but somehow, he flaps at it and it hits Godfrey at the back post and goes wide.  Fucking hell Baz.

All game Everton have been hitting the deck and staying there pretending to be injured, in the hope of getting a free kick and Demarai Gray tries it again in a challenge with Che Adams for the referee having none of it and Saints break through Adams, who spreads play out wide to KWP on the right hand side and though his cross is headed out Adams picks it u again and Anthony Gordon bundles into the back of him.  Anthony Gordon was clearly last in the queue when they dished out brains.  This is 25 yards out on the left-hand side and you would say, the perfect position.  Everton line up the wall and as JWP draws back his right foot to shoot, Mykolenko decides to try and head towards the post and all that does is completely confuse Pickford and the ball flies over the wall, over Mykolenko and into the net whilst Pickford stands there looking round the other side of the wall.

It was at this precise moment... that Pickford realised he was Fucked.

Jones throws on three subs to try and shut the game down with Perraud, Maitland-Niles and Mara coming on.  Perraud’s first contribution is to get absolutely skinned by Anthony Gordon down the right-hand side and his cross is volleyed goalwards by Tarkowski but Alcaraz repays the first part of his transfer fee by blocking the ball with his head for a corner. The corner is headed out by Salisu and Gordon feels the presence of AMN about 5 yards away from him so throws himself to the ground like the absolute little prick that he is.  The end.

Fucking hell, we’ve only gone and won at Goodison Park for the first time since 1997. Finally, we played the opposition and not the ground or the atmosphere. Everton have been shit for years but we have always contrived to find a way to fuck the game up but today we got over the line and again, like on Wednesday against City, I never really felt that Everton were gonna get back into it once we went in front.

I thought we played pretty well for the first 20 minutes. We were passing the ball and standing up well to Everton‘s physicality which at the end of the day, is all that they’ve got. For the second part of the first-half we allowed them and Amadou Onana in particular to boss the game in a physical sense and even though we didn’t play particularly well for the 20 minutes leading up to half-time, we still came in at the break having created more openings and more chances than they had, we just let in a shit goal through people not doing their jobs properly at the corner.

The goal of the start of the second half totally turned the game in our favour.  The crowd started getting on Everton’s backs and we started to play football again. You could say that the first goal came from long ball football and in a sense it did, but not in the shit long-ball football sense, where the ball is just smashed aimlessly up the park. KWP picked out Adams with that long pass and he knocked it down to JWP who did the rest. Superb football.

I thought we were comfortable in the second half and very unlikely to not get at least a point but the absolutely brain-dead challenge by Anthony Gordon on Adams gave JWP the chance to add another free-kick to his total and pick that one out Jordan Pickford.  The fact that it was against a goalkeeper who will have trained against him in the past is even more sweet. Pickford might be an arsehole but he is a good goalkeeper and without him, Everton would be more fucked than they already are.

Again there were great scenes of togetherness at the final whistle between Nathan Jones and the players and I’ll repeat what I said at the end of the Manchester City game, it shows that the players are buying into whatever is he selling them and that can only be a good thing. If JWP is making sure that the manager gets his moment with the fans then that means the skipper in OK with the new manager which is good enough for me really, for now.

It’s another brilliant day for the man from the Welsh Mining Village and another game towards changing the perception which had been set in his first few matches. We tried to play football the right way. Okay, it wasn’t always effective, but the intent was there and there weren’t many hopeful punts forward.  I have to admit that I was surprised by some of the team selection. I expected Adams to play ahead of Mara because of the physicality of the opposition but I was slightly surprised that Edozie was included even though he has done well in recent games.  I couldn’t understand the Elyounoussi selection but then I realised that Jones always wants the option of going to 3 at the back and Elyounoussi got picked because he can play at right wing-back allegedly so we can switch to that formation without burning a substitution. Personally, I think his lack of pace means that he isn’t an option there.  Jones is happy to make a substitution to go to 3 at the back in the second half but in the first half he wants to players to be more flexible. The half-time switch that he made to move Salisu to left back and KWP to the right hand side, paid dividend straight away with KWP’s ball up to Adams being more accurate than it probably would’ve been off of his left foot.

The substitutions worked again with Lavia and Edozie being taken off at the right time and it was great to see Charly Alcaraz getting given a half an hour even though he spent most of his time slipping over.  I thought that virtually all the players put in decent performances. Baz had a couple of ropey moments ago but had no chance with the header that beat him. The back line again featured a massive performance by Caleta-Car and Lyanco had another really good game dealing with the aerial threat that Everton posed.  Lyanco and Salisu played full-back on their respective sides for part of the game and all was good.

A Male Model and a Big Bastard Beast of a Defender

Then of course we have JWP who is entering Matt le Tiss territory for being the person you know is gonna show up when the chips are really down. A superbly taken first goal followed by a standard freekick second goal. I say standard which is ridiculous because it’s only standard for him and 99% of players couldn’t do that. I’m not a religious man but there must be some explanation for JWP.  When Alan Ball took over as Saints manager, the first thing he did was to put le Tissier, our best player, in his best position and take away any defensive responsibility he had.  Nathan Jones has done roughly the same thing with our current best player and he's now free to do what he’s best at.

I also thought Che Adams had a good game upfront, battling away with three Everton centre backs for most of it. He knocked the ball off for JWP’s equaliser and he was the one barged in the back by Anthony Gordon to win the free-kick that we won the game from.

Everton are pretty one-dimensional and if you stand up to their physicality then they really haven’t got a lot else.  They scored from a corner but I never felt like they were going to score from open play as they don’t have the creativity.  When your best passer is the goalkeeper, you are struggling. They have Onana who is just a massively powerful big unit in midfield but other than him there were no threats. I guess that Anthony Gordon was brought on to provide that threat but all he did was give away the free-kick that meant that Everton lost the game instead of drawing it. Even without Gordon on the pitch, Everton are dreadful for pretending to be hurt after every challenge – Demarai Gray, Alex Iwobi, Dominic Calvert-Lewin – fucking get up.

It’s a sad situation going on there at a historic football club but it’s rotten to the core with shocking decisions having been made repeatedly for years. I like Frank Lampard and I’m sure he’s going to have a long successful career in the media after this managerial stint comes to an end, which may well be pretty soon.  Saying after the game that he didn’t think it was a tactical game in the 2^nd half was weird.  Saints changed tactics at half time and scored straight away.  Maybe you should pay attention after all, Frank?

What a difference a week makes down here. A slightly sketchy win against Palace followed by two excellent wins against Manchester City and Everton. No time to take the foot off the gas though because after all this with two of those games being in the cup, we are still bottom of the league but now it’s only on goal difference. The club is looking upwardly mobile now and we have to keep this going now to force our way above is the likes of Everton, Bournemouth, Leeds and Leicester and West Ham, who are all heading in the other direction.

Premier League Match 8 - Southampton 1 Everton 2

 

Ralph Offers Out The Itchen North Corner

The international break has come and gone and we are back in Premier League action today with Saints entertaining Everton at home. Using the word ‘entertaining’ might be a bit of a misnomer but we will go with it for now.

The one thing that you can guarantee for the international break is that JWP will be well rested having not played for a minute for Gareth Southgate’s England in either the pathetic defeat to Italy all the entertaining but comical draw with Germany. Our centre back pairing of ABK and Salisu will be buzzing from having made their international debuts for Ghana and Germany respectively and Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong are now Nations League, League A players and will be playing on a higher division than Gareth Southgate’s England when the Nations League rolls around again. Well played Gareth, officially worse than Scotland and if you manage that by any metric, then you are clearly not doing a very good job.  What remains to be seen today is whether Ralph he’s as stubborn as Gareth Southgate. Will Elyounoussi be his equivalent of Maguire?

Everton have had a relatively solid start of the season under Frank Lampard. They have gone down the Experienced Premier League Journeyman route regarding new signings with the likes of Conor Coady, James Tarkowski, Neil Shitbag Maupay and Idrissa Gana Gaye coming into their side. They have had to replace the shitbag Richarlison but overall, seem to be in a better place than they were last season. They are shaping up to be very much like ourselves, solid at the back with not a lot going forward. There was a lot of attention at the start of the season on Anthony Gordon and the fact the Chelsea seemed ready to spend a ridiculous £60 million to acquire the services of a player who scored about four goals in his career. That move didn’t happen and Gordon is still there, joining Maupay in taking on the Richarlison role of diving about whenever an opposition player does so much as breathe on him.

This is a big game for Saints with Manchester City coming up next away from home.  Seven points from seven games it’s kind of acceptable but seven from nine doesn’t look as clever and so three points today is a bit of a must. It’ll be interesting to see how Ralph goes about solving the central midfield conundrum as hopefully they’ve got Maitland-Niles up to speed over the international break.  Two weeks should surely be long enough.  Also interesting of course, will be how brave he is with the players who start behind Che Adams but you would think that after the shower of shit that was Villa away, Joe Aribo and Stuart Armstrong would all feature very heavily in his thinking for this game.

Today was of course the day that the trains were all on strike so the traffic in and around St Mary’s was absolutely horrific.  Having eventually managed to park the car in Ocean Village, The team news dropped in the pub, along with my jaw.  Six changes from the team against Villa. I expected 3 or 4 but SIX - looks liek Ralph has had two weeks of over-thinking again!  Out went the ‘against the ball’ three, with Elyounoussi, Djenepo and Adam Armstrong - all on the bench and in came Stuart Armstrong, Aribo and Sekou Mara. There were two other slightly unnecessary looking changes at the back with Perraud and Salisu on the bench and Juan Larios and Duje Caleta-Car getting their first starts. Also, Ainsley Maitland-Niles has obviously learned how to play football enough to start in the centre of midfield.

Away we go and hang on,  Sekou Mara is right up front and we are playing 4-2-2-2 with Aribo on the left and Stuart Armstrong on the right.  We nearly go one or down in the first few seconds as Iwobi slings over across on the left hand side and the giant Onana comes in at the back post, marked by 5 foot 2 Larios.  Larios fortunately does enough for the ball to bobble up to Baz who gratefully gathers.

Saints first task is created by Mara, who plays one of those clever balls in between so the centre back and left back and Che Adams is in and his chip goes wide for a corner off Pickford’s chest but Andre Marriner is refereeing today so it’s a goal-kick of course.

After this initial flurry in the first half settles down to be incredibly tedious. There is a half chance for Everton as Demarai Gray’s cross, skids across the 6 yard line without anybody getting a touch but the main feature of the rest of the first half is Everton‘s time wasting which Andre Marriner completely fails to get a grip off - beckons at Pickford to hurry up a few times but that's it.  It works like this. Everton get a goal kick and Jordan Pickford stands there with the ball and gestures for his to centre backs Tarkowski and Coady to come closer to him. About 15 seconds goes by while they lumber back to the 6 yard line and then they turn start running forward and Pickford bangs the ball up the middle. Rinse and repeat. Pickford has absolutely no intention to give the ball to either centre back except for once when he almost accidentally gave it to Coady who just smashed it up the pitch.  Piss take.

The other feature of the rest of the first half was the chronic lack of movement of the ball that Saints have we literally are playing 4-2-2- with the three lines of two all narrow. There is no one to pass to in the wide areas unless Larios or KWP get forward and because they have no one behind them, if they do get the ball they are frightened to take anybody on so all just funnels back into the middle.   What we have is two desperately poor sides lacking in any attacking quality.

Player With Composure Scores Goal

Half-time, no changes but maybe a change in attitude as Saints look more fluent. Larios bursts through the centre and finds Adams on the left and his clever ball inside is picked up by Aribo, who takes a really good touch before drilling it low past Pickford who maybe wasn’t in the right position. Either way we’ll take it. 1-0, big surprise, fucking get in.  Now – keep it tight, draw them out, they’re shit, win the game on the break.

It’s the first time we have scored the first goal in any home game this season so the next thing to do straight out of the Saints playbook is for KWP to give away an absolutely needless free kick over on the right hand side by pulling back Onana who was going absolutely fucking nowhere.  In comes the free-kick and Onana has got himself on the back post against Mara and heads across and there is Conor Coady with the freedom of the Chapel End to knock it into the net. Fucks sake.  About two minutes.

Everton try to return the favour virtually straight from the kick-off as a shit ball from Tarkowski goes straight to Aribo and he drives forward before finding exactly the right pass to Che Adams coming in on the right hand side and as we all scream ‘first time shot’, he has a touch, then shoots but doesn’t get hold of it properly and Coleman manages to get back and block it and Pickford would’ve saved it anyway.   The ball bounces to JWP whose shot is blocked and Everton eventually clear.  Straight up the other end they go with Iwobi putting in a cross towards Onana again arriving to cause havoc and the ball dropped to Dwight McNeil who absolutely lashed it past Baz at the near post.

Ralph rolls the dice when we’ve gone behind, which he has to do with the ineffective Mara coming off for Adam Armstrong and the tiring Maitland-Niles being replaced with Edozie. Stuart Armstrong is the latest therefore to step into the Lavia shaped hole in the centre midfield.  Saints broke down the right hand side with Che Adams getting a ball across and Adam Armstrong takes a touch away from the defender before turning in smashing it goalbound but Pickford is across to save easily enough.  If we are to create a chance with I hope it feels to Joe Aribo because he’s is the only player who demonstrates any composure in front of goal whatsoever.

Six minutes on the board but nothing much happening here.  Marriner actually gives us a free kick out on the right hand side as we approach the 90 and JWP get a delivery right for a change and perfectly picks out Caleta-Car at the back post and he really should do better than volley it onto the roof of the net. Fucks sake.  There is time for one more half chance for Adam Armstrong, which he doesn’t hit cleanly and it rolls through the Pickford.  Andre Marriner of course doesn’t add anything on for the time wasting that went on in the six minutes, so spot-on 96 minutes, the game is over. and that’s it.  A third  defeat in a row against dreadful opposition. Wolves, Villa, Everton - all shit - all beat us and we played dreadfully against all three. 

To be honest, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference if we played another hour or so. Today there was a distinct feeling that once Everton went ahead, that would be it and their experience and know-how would see the job done for them.

The first half was an absolute waste of 45 minutes of everyone's life when even with us having all the attacking players on the pitch, we contrived to do very very little as everyone stayed really narrow apart from the full-backs who seemed reluctant to take on their opposite numbers.  It was hard to count three consecutive passes by either team and there was a massive lack of quality all round. We came to life in the second half, got our goal, then we totally threw away the advantage which all came from KWP giving away a completely unnecessary and pointless free-kick which led to Conor Coady‘s equaliser. The brain fart by KWP was a key moment but the other key moment of the game was where Che Adams was teed up with a free shot but he again showed his talent for picking out anything but the net and straight from that, Everton won the game as Onana arrived in the box, completely untracked for about the 5^th time and allowed McNeil to score the winner.

We did create a couple of chances and a half an hour that remained, in amongst all the Everton time wasting and Andre Marriner not giving us a fucking thing, Adam Armstrong and Caleta-Car should both have scored.

Che Adams gave a glimpse in the Leicester game in the Cambridge game that he could be the centre forward that we need to score the goals for us to have a decent season but since then, he’s reverted back to type with missing simple chances. If he scores at Wolves then we get a point. If he scores today with the game level, then we almost certainly would’ve won. He is the best that we have got though because neither Sekou Mara or Adam Armstrong look equipped at this level.  Mara may get there in time but he’s not there at the moment.

AMN had a bit of a mare trying to fill the Romeo Lavia shaped void in midfield – maybe Ralph was right to be cautious about using him but maybe he’s not suited to playing in a midfield two – looks less mobile than Romeu to me.  JWP seems to be a burdened down by the average players being deployed next to him and his own game is suffering. Virtually every corner in the first hour hit the first man and after that he was almost overcompensating and giving them too much air.

It was a strange to play Juan Larios today. I know we save money on the VAT because his kit is child sized but that didn’t seem to be any logical reason to leave Romain Perraud out of the starting line-up today. Likewise Salisu - I know Salisu played a game and a half on the international break but it’s not as if he was travelling to Africa. The games took place in Spain and France so I don’t really know why he wasn’t playing today unless he picked up a knock and if he picked up a knock then why was he on the bench. To be fair, Caleta-Car looked decent.

The first half was ridiculously disjointed and the reason for that was because Ralph came up with a combination of changing six players (some of which were obviously needed) but also, changing the formation to something that at least four of the new players have never played before. 4–2-2-2 only works if the spaces between the players are correct and rigidly enforced. We’ve learned this the hard way over the last four years.  The line-up that we had against Villa needed changing but there was an element of desperation and chucking the baby out with the bathwater and this is now the third major shift in a couple of months. It was five at the back in pre-season, then it was 4-3-3 and now it’s 4–2-2-2. The only consistent thing with all these formations is that we don’t look particularly good at playing any of them. Our identity as a pressing team and being difficult to play against has completely gone. The formation today is supposed to be ‘the pressing formation’ that Ralph built his name on but there wasn’t much of it and I’d love to see what the individual duel stats were after the game because it did seem like a very men against boys kind of game.

You can pinpoint a couple of incidents as I’ve said but we don’t look like a team that’s going anywhere and there doesn’t seem to be a plan that would work on another day.  Sport Republic haven’t spent £70 million quid on this team to see it go backwards and there is going to be a tipping point somewhere soon along the line if things don’t change quickly.  Speculation on Ralph’s future is only going to ramp up and the statistics stretching from this season back into last season do not make good reading.  I have always found the boards support for Ralph quite reassuring but like with anything, there comes a point and I’m not sure that Ralph himself has really regained the enthusiasm and fire that he had in his early days at the club and maybe the team is a reflection of that at the moment, similarly to how Claude Puel’s team reflected the boring nature of the manager.  Managing Southampton is fucking hard work and Ralph looks like it’s just become too much over the past year and he’s worn out. It’s getting near the point where a change seems inevitable.  I can’t see Ralph still being here if we get nothing from our next two games and one of them is Manchester City away.

I wonder if he'll be 'not unhappy' if the axe falls?  What a shit soundbite that was.

Next up of course it’s hilarious because it is indeed Manchester City away. Against them in the past, we have done well with the 4-2-2-2 shape and everybody being on it for 90 minutes and not giving them a second.  We are not that high pressing team anymore and even if we were, the addition of Erling Haaland has made them a completely different beast and it scares me to think about what might happen next week.