Cautious Optimism - Here Comes the Summer - Part 2

#TonicLikeAMassiveBellEnd

The first pre-season trip was to Austria and of course, eyes were in who made the trip and who didn’t. The surprise inclusions were Klarer, Vokins and N’Lundulu from the Academy and promising youngsters Cedric and Hoedt. Yes.... Hoedt.  Let that sink in... Hoedt. Let’s face it... he’s better than Stephens.

The high profile absentees were Slattery, Austin, Gallagher, Clasie, Reed and Lemina. I put Slattery first on that list because he’s different to the others in that he’s not up for sale.... rumour has it that he came back overweight. Not good. Of the others, Lemina caused the biggest reaction at the time because somehow, Arsenal and Man United appeared to be interested.  Was that real interest or agent bollocks.

Lemina signed for us when we had just finished eighth and got to a cup final under Claude Puel. He clearly didn’t look too far beneath the surface because if he had he would’ve realised he was joining a team that was in decline. It soon became apparent that this was not what Mario had signed up for and it soon became apparent why Juventus let him go.  It seems clear to me that he bought into the Sadio Mane approach in that he thought he would look decent for a couple of seasons for us and then sign for a Champions League club, in much the same way that Sadio and many others had done before over the past few seasons. He’s since admitted he only ever saw Saints as a 2 year thing and now he was only interest in playing for the biggest clubs.  Fucking waster.

The part of the deal that Mario forgot of course, was that you had to play consistently well. For a while, when it looked like he was going to get the Man United move, it seemed that you don’t necessarily have to, it appeared that you only have to do well in flashes and you will still get the move that you wanted from the start. His flashes of brilliance were spliced together by an enthusiastic Man United fan and retweeted by Mario himself as a very sad “this is what I do”. It’s a classic ‘de Ridder’ style video in that it shows hundreds of tricks and flicks and beating players but always goes onto the next clip before you see any end product or more often than not, the losing of the ball. This video is particular good because it is at 1.25x speed to make him look faster and one of the clips is Nathan Redmond.

So, having put himself in the shop window and made it obvious that he never intended to stay here very long anyway, it turned out to be a bit of premature bridge burning. Noise about Manchester United and Arsenal has now become noise about Everton and West Ham and Wolves and if the speculation/agent bollocks goes down another level then he won’t be moving to anyone that has any more money or is any better than where he is at the moment. I wonder why. Maybe it’s all the #TonicLikeLeminade #FuckingCringeBollocks. If you're a fan of Mario's Instagram like I am, you'll have noticed that his partner, the lovely Fanny, seems to have got fed up with him as well.

Somewhere along the line in the pub, Charlie Austin was clearly told that he was not going to be in the first team squad this season and massively threw his toys out the pram which resulted in the deletion of his Twitter account. This wasn’t before he posted some more fan baiting pictures of him in a Liverpool shirt. Strikes me as a guy who likes to give it out but can’t really take it. Apparently a fee was agreed between Saints and West Brom for him to move but he turned the deal down and there have been some whispers the new Newcastle manager Steve Bruce, wanted him at up there..... until Newcastle surprised everyone and spent 40 million on a striker that no one has heard of. If memory serves, Austin was linked with them when he left QPR so let’s hope that someone at Newcastle still thinks that he was the same player as he was at QPR and not the fat mess he is now.

All that Charlie and Mario need to know is that Ralph saw more value in Wesley Hoedt being in the squad than either of them.

Whilst this was all going on, we had a friendly on the Austria tour which ended up with a 1-1 against Altach with Austin‘s replacement, Che Adams, scoring after one minute. The first team friendlies continued when the players got home with a behind close doors 3-0 win against Brentford and a 3-1 win away at Preston which brought two goals the Danny Ings and one for Jake Vokins.  Ings’ first goal was a thing of beauty as the Preston goalkeeper drove the ball straight at him and it flew in over the keeper off of Danny‘s thigh. How often does it happen that a player who is struggling for goals gets a freak one like that and it sets them up for a nice run of goals . In this case, it will hopefully carry on at the start of the season. The Preston friendly also saw the Wesley Hoedt and Jack Stephens Dream Team combination reunited as two thirds of a three-man defence and these two even managed in a pre-season friendly to show no actual desire to defend and keep the ball out of our net with Preston’s goal seeing a player nutmeg Hoedt on the edge of the box and instead of being straight in with the tackle like he should’ve been, Stephens just stood off and allow the Preston player to walk into a dangerous area and smash it in the net. I can’t make up my mind which age group of schoolboy defending this counts as. I’m going to go for Under 11’s.

PR Trip - Completed It Mate.

Some of the youngsters with a smattering of senior players jetted off to Macau to play against Chinese super league side, Guangzhou and the game ended in a 4-0 win with goals from Adams, Long, Valery and Christophe Klarer.  Both Adams’ and Long’s goals where the result of horrific goalkeeping howlers, in keeping with the Ings goal at Preston.

We did manage to shift some of the squad excess and Jordy Clasie finally completed a permanent move away from Southampton when we cancelled the last year of his contract, enabling him to move to AZ Alkmaar on a free. There does seem to have been a certain amount of history revision regarding Clasie. From my point of view, he was not physically strong enough to make up for his lack of physical stature. There was obviously a player in there but I just don’t think he was ever suitable for the English game. If you comparing with our current first choice three midfielders then you would say he was not physically strong enough to play where Romeu does, not gifted enough on the ball to challenge JWP and not possessing of a big enough engine to challenge Pierre. This seems to have been an undertone on his part to blame Southampton for his situation but for me, the bottom line is that he has spent a year in Belgium with Club Brugge and a year in Holland with Feyenoord and neither have wanted to sign him at the end of the year despite him being available for not very much money by today’s standards.

Also, Sam Gallagher completed a move away to Blackburn Rovers, where he was on loan the season before last. For the past few years I have wanted Sam to be the replacement for Graziano but for one reason or another it never really worked out for him and he never really got given a chance. I was always really wanting him to do well whenever he got on the pitch but it never really happened, with him always taking a split secomd to long to do whatever it was he was attempting to do, be it jump for a header or shoot or release the ball. I have a feeling that they could well be a Premier League striker in there in the future, playing for a team like Burnley and whilst I’m usually disparaging about Burnley, For once I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. To get to that level though he does need to be playing regularly in the Championship so this is a good move for him.

Another friendly was played, this time in the Netherlands as we played Feyenoord. Once again, Ralph played two separate teams in each half with the first half team being what you would expect to be closer to the starting 11 in the first league game. For all the talk of the 4-2-2-2 formation, it’s became apparent what I have suspected all along that unless we sign a commanding central defender, Ralph doesn’t trust any two of the current centre backs to play in a back four so we have to go with a back 3 of Bednarek, Yoshida and Vestergaard. Anyway, we won 3-1 with another goal from Che Adams, a bundled effort from Yoshida and a last-minute goal from the returning Sofiane Boufal having calmly skipped past the defender, sat the goalkeeper down and smashed into the roof of the net. Whisper it quietly but Wesley played really well in the second half. I initially thought he was only on this Dutch trip because he knew where all the best gear could be found and the location of all the best dodgy bars, being a native of that part of the world and all that but it appears that he might actually be a part of things next season. Whether this is down to a change in attitude or no one being interested in buying him, is unclear at the moment though if he has won Ralph over then fair enough. As previously said, he is better than Jack Stephens anyway who was conspicuous by his absence from the Dutch trip.

Overall in the Feyenoord game, we looked like an exciting side going forward with Adams, Ings and Redmond, not to mention Boufal but the central midfield of Hojbjerg and JWP looks a bit light without the presumably injured Romeu so defensively, it all looks a bit worrying.

Danny Taking a Penalty Properly

The final pre-season game was at home to Cologne and though he was apparently in hospital, Ralph put out what I expect to be the starting line-up next week. Maybe he went to hospital because he didn’t want to watch the one surprise, which was Jack Stephens playing in central defence.  Regardless, we saw off the Germans with relative comfort by 2-0 with a penalty by Danny Ings and a nice goal by Hojbjerg who combined very well with Obafemi and Adams. There was also time for Danny Ings to look a twat by chipping a second penalty straight to the goalkeeper who stood in the middle of the goal and patted it down.

There weren’t any huge revelations that weren’t known from the Feyenoord game. We are good going forward and we look ropey as soon as the opposition break our initial press high up the pitch.  Remember that goal we let in loads of times last season where the team broke on us from their own penalty area and we were all over the place.... get used to it.  Against Burnley, you know that the high press is going to be negated by them smashing the ball up to whatever seven foot striker they got on the pitch so it’ll be a different challenge we have to rise to.  Moussa Djenepo made a debut but didn’t have time to prove he’s going to be anything other than an impact sub to start with.

So, an unbeaten pre-season.  In football, it is of course always better to win rather than lose but you can never read too much into it.   I vaguely remember us doing that once in the 90s and then losing our first five matches. That only happens of course when the players think they’ve cracked it and all they have to do is turn up and win. There is no danger of that with Ralph in charge. We will hopefully see a couple more in through the door before the transfer window closes but if not then we will get on with what we’ve got and I think we can have cautious optimism for the season ahead. We aren’t going to be pushing for a European place against the likes of Everton and Leicester but we should certainly have enough about us to be nowhere near the bottom six and I would take that.

Where Did the Pre-Season Break Go?

That Shirt is Way too Big for Him

In amongst the departure of Morgan Schneiderlin and the decision of Toby Alderweireld to follow the money to Spurs, Saints managed to bring in two players and play some pre-season friendlies.  In addition to Cedric Soares, Juanmi and Maarten Stekelenburg – first came Cuco Martina who plays for a country I only heard of recently, Curacao.  It’s a small Caribbean Island which is ruled by the Dutch and Martina played for FC Twente and is a utility defender but mainly a right back.  It appears he has been bought for cover, primarily at right back where we got pretty lucky last year with only having Nathaniel Clyne.  This is not a comment on how good or bad Martina is as a player because I’ve never seen him play but I know that we have a policy at the club with having a pathway for youngsters.  How does signing a foreign player as cover fit in with this?  I guess it depends how much better he is than Jason McCarthy or any of the other youngsters who play at right back.

There are no question marks on the face of it however about the signing of Jordy Clasie from Feyenoord who you’d think would be as sick of the sight of us as we are of Spurs and Liverpool.  For something between £7 million and £10 million, Clasie follows Koeman and Pellè down the path from De Kuip to St Mary’s but the Dutch are used to seeing their players depart for the English league and just have thanks rather than any animosity towards their former heroes.  Part of this is cultural but the other factor is that their players don’t act like total pricks when they move and don’t disrespect the club in any way...Adam, Dejan, Mauricio...

Clasie will slot in where Morgan Schneiderlin was, next to Big Vic.  He’s a combative midfielder with an eye for a pass and has 11 caps for Holland, playing as a defensive midfielder or slightly farther forward.  His tenacity and technique makes up for the fact that he’s only 5 foot 6 and a bit so I guess the presence of Big Vic is vital as you can’t imagine Clasie and Harrison Reed being in the same midfield too often as our opponents would think they had accidentally run into a production of Gulliver’s Travels.  Clasie of course credited Koeman massively for the progression in his career when Ronald was manager at Feyenoord and his first interview was class in that it of course mentioned the manager but also that he would have signed for the club regardless.  So – welcome to the new midfield general. 

Meanwhile, the pre-season friendlies have started as the players try to build up fitness for the Europa League campaign starting on July 30^th.  First up was RB Leipzig and we scored 4 goals but managed to let in 5.  The good news is that all the goals came from the new guys with Juanmi, Cedric Soares and J-Rod (2).  Getting the latter back on the pitch and him scoring twice as the biggest plus of the day.  Next up was the Audi Quattro Cup which sadly, did not feature Gene Hunt beating up 70s gangsters but a 45 minute semi-final against Valencia, competing for the right to play a 45 minute final against either hosts Red Bull Salzburg or Wolfsburg.  We played ok against Valencia with Juanmi and Jose Fonte hitting the bar and then Valencia breaking away and scoring to nick it 1-0.  3^rd place playoff it is then and a game against the hosts and we were shocking.  With a midfield which didn’t consist of a single defensive minded player (Steve Davis was the closest) , we attacked, lost the ball and got the ball back when Red Bull either missed or scored.  Stekelenburg made a couple of decent saves but was powerless to stop either of the two goals in five minutes which sent us to another defeat.  However bad we were, we were not as bad as the commentator on the official internet stream who had no idea who anyone was or what had just happened.  Lloyd Isgrove was referred to as Negredo throughout as he got the teams mixed up but the two players in question didn’t have the same number on so I assume he had two lists of names and was just guessing.

The fitness building continued with a 1-0, last minute closed doors friendly at Staplewood against Brighton with a surging run by Sadio Mané ending with a tap in by Sam McQueen.  Then it was off to Holland on the Koeman Nostalgia Tour, taking in many of the destinations of his career including matches against Groningen (where both Koeman brothers started their careers) and Feyenoord. 

As it turns out, a trip to Holland was just what we needed as we’re going to be going back there soon in the Europa League.  Cast your mind back to 2003 and the draw for the first round of what was the UEFA Cup – we got the best team we could possibly get in Steaua Bucharest.  The draw was made and how bizarre was it.  The teams were split into groups so we, as a seeded team, could only be drawn against one of six possible teams.  The fact that these groups were drawn or allocated behind the scenes make you wonder if it’s all bent given the recent goings on at FIFA (I know this is UEFA but tarred by the same brush as far as I’m concerned and I wouldn’t trust Platini any more than Blatter).  So, we could have got one of 6 teams from all sorts of far flung places like Macedonia, Norway, Ireland and also in the mix were Belgium and Holland and guess what we got?  Yep – the highest ranked team we could have possibly got and a tie against Vitesse Arnhem.  Vitesse are used by Chelsea as a youth team as it’s not easy for Chelsea to have 30 players out on loan all over Europe. West Ham as always, got drawn against one of the ‘where the hell are they from’ teams.  Ah well, at least Holland isn’t too far to go.

Back to the tour and Groningen was notable for it being Jordy Clasie’s debut but also, for the fact that we actually turned up for a friendly, running out 3-0 winners.  There was a header from a corner by Captain Fonte to put us 1-0 up in about 20 minutes.  Next up was a cracking team goal as we built up the right through Tadic and Cedric, with Cedric crossing low for Mané to finish.  It was 3-0 with ten to go as Tadic expertly jinked round a defender before sliding a great ball through for Graziano to pass past the goalkeeper.  Great stuff and nice to get a few goals and look decent.

A few goals were certainly on the agenda in the game against the vaguely amusingly named KVV Quick 20, a Dutch amateur side who we beat 10-0.  There were hat-tricks for both Graziano and J-Rod and you could tell how much it meant from the goal celebrations which consisted of variations of ambling back to our own half.  The other goals came from Jordan Turnbull, Juanmi and two from Steve Davis.  It must have been intense if Steve Davis scored twice.  Despite what Erwin Koeman said afterwards about it being worthwhile, you have to wonder if it was even worthwhile for fitness.  It was 7-0 at half time and no one was really busting a gut n the second half.  I guess it gave the like of Jordan Turnbull and Jack Stephens the chance to play with some first team players and of course, J-Rod to get 90 minutes in.

Onto Feyenoord for the main game of the pre-season tour and it’s a big day for Koeman, Clasie and Pellè as they return to De Kuip for the first time since leaving.  The expected great receptions duly arrive for all three and Clasie in particular seems very choked up by it all.  Maarten Stekelenburg, given his Ajax connections, is given dogs abuse however.  The game itself wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting as we coasted to a 3-0 win.  Tadic gave Pellè a goal on a plate before a Yoshida header and a nice finish from Juanmi who was teed up by fellow substitute Shane Long.  The starting XI seemed to give up Ronald Koeman’s thinking for the Vitesse match in the Europa League with Stekelenburg in goal, a back 4 of Cedric, José, Maya and Matt Targett in the absence of the injured Bertrand.  We then had Big Vic next to Little Jordy with Steve Davis in midfield and Tadic and Mané up front with Graziano.  There was no J-Rod on the bench which says to me that he’s still being very closely monitored.

It came to light that Florin Gardos’ absence from the Dutch friendlies was down to him picking up a knee injury which is going to rule him out for ages so now there’s a potential story for the media to call a crisis.  Also absent was Gaston Ramirez – what a surprise.  He was offered the opportunity to play more this season and guess what – injured again – same as he always is when he has a chance to play.  To think we had hopes that he’d be the new Matt le Tissier when he signed and in fact he’s the new Lee Holmes.  It happens too often for it to be a coincidence.  Remember when J-Rod got injured and he was next in line to play a few games – guess what happened?  Yep, injured.  The guy is a waste of space.  If any Italian or Spanish or South American club offer more than a million then get rid… but my guess is that he’ll carry on being a drain on wages for the final year of his contract even if we hawk him out on loan somewhere.  The bloke’s on course to retire with a career total of about 100 league games.

The centre half crisis was averted before it really got started as we signed Stephen Caulker on loan for the season from QPR.  I saw a lot of negative reactions from Saints fans to this as he’s been relegated twice in the last two seasons but think about it.  Signed for Malky McRacist to play for the basket case that was Cardiff and then signed by Harry Redknapp to play for the basket case that was QPR.  Maybe he sacked his agent as he’s now ended up with us.  Now, I’m not over convinced by him but this is a defender who has represented England once and was highly thought of and I remember wanting us to sign him when he left Spurs.  José Fonte will make him a better player and the solid structure that we have behind the scenes will bring out the best in him…. Not to mention the manager who knows a thing or two about centre halves.

It doesn’t seem very long since we stuffed Villa 6-1 but here we go again….