Europa League Match 4 - Southampton 2 Inter Milan 1

The Two Main Men

If my time as a Saints fan is anything to go by, there won't be many Saints supporters who get to see a competitive home game against one of Europe's superpower clubs. Inter Milan have earned the right to be mentioned up there with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and the other Italian giants Juventus and AC Milan. That is a fair reflection of their pedigree and tonight they are playing at St Mary's. 40 years ago, as a seven-year-old I saw us play Anderlecht who at the time we are one of the biggest clubs in Europe. I obviously can't remember too much about that game but I remember that the atmosphere was electric and the chocolate boxes behind the Milton Road and at the Dell were ridiculously packed.

In the context of Europa League Group K, we cannot afford to lose this game. A defeat would put us right in the shit regarding qualifying for the knockout stages. If we could have hit a barn door at the San Siro a few weeks ago, we would have a little bit of leeway here.

Inter have by their standards been having a shocking time of it this year. Three points in three games in the Europa league pales into insignificance compared to them being 9th in Serie A. Frank De Boer paid the price for this and was sacked a couple of days ago so they have the youth team manager in charge tonight. Hopefully, he is a lot like Steve Wigley.

It's an interesting night for Claude with his team selection. We have this game and we have the less than glamorous trip to Hull City on Sunday. I do not see that game being more difficult than this one and so to me, we should be putting out of the stronger side tonight. I am therefore not terribly impressed when I see that your Yoshida is playing ahead of Fonte and that J Rod is in ahead of Austin. I'm happy with JWP and Hojbjerg being in ahead of Clasie and Davis because the latter two were pretty poor on Sunday.  In the full back positions, Sam McQueen gets the nod ahead of the recovering Bertrand and on the right is Cuco the Clown.  Personally, I would've played either your Yoshida or Steve Davis as a makeshift right back ahead of the clown Martina who was so bad in the Chelsea game that the thought of him playing again tonight makes me cringe. The selection on the bench throws up a question and it makes me wonder why we signed to Stuart Taylor? With McCarthy being injured you would expect Taylor to be on the bench as the experienced option but no, Harry Lewis is preferred and I don't know how old he is but he looks about 15..

Inter have put out what looks like a fairly solid and strong team with Handanovic in goal through to Banega and Icardi up front. No matter how badly they are doing by their own ridiculously high standards, they are not going to be easy to beat with international players from Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Italy dotted around all over the pitch.

Away we go and a decent start down the right with Tadic putting over a decent cross right onto J-Rod’s head and he climbs well but there’s a lack of conviction in the header as it goes wide.  J-Rod has another chance a few minutes later when he tries to curl one into the far top corner but it starts too central and Handanovic can watch it over the bar.  We have one more off-target effort as Redmond cuts in and shoots wide before Inter get into our half and what do you fucking know?

Perisic against Martina was always going to be a fucking nightmare and he beats him and crosses right over to the other side where Medel retrieves it, exchanges passes with Candreva and crosses from the dead ball line.  Perisic should score but his effort hits Martina and the ball somewhat fortuitously finds its way back to Icardi who slams it first time intot he bottom corner before Fraser can move.  Fuck!!!  It looked like there was a foul on Virgil by Medel out on our left but no one is interested in giving that so 1-0 down again from Inter’s first shot.  You have to say that they’re efficient.

We are all kind of stunned and frustration sets in as we slow everything down and do not look like scoring at all.  J-Rod is hanging onto the ball too long and every move seems to break down on him.  We look good in midfield with JWP and Hojbjerg making up for a somewhat wayward performance from Romeu. Aside from J-Rod, the other dead zone is on the right where Cuco has gone into full clown mode.  I love the way he goes steaming over to a situation where he has no chance of winning the ball, only to realise it, stop and then chase back as the opposition have skipped round him and away.

The world seems shit and on half time we win a corner.  Tadic takes it poorly and it gets cleared up in the air.  Rather than aimlessly head it, Hojbjerg brings it down on his chest and tries to bundle past Perisic and the ball bounces up and hits him on the elbow.  Penalty given.  Absolute bullshit decision.  There’s some sort of scuffle going on as the Italians protest and from the other end I can see McQueen take a slap in the face from someone.  The ref is looking straight at it and calls the offender (Candreva) over and bottles it with a yellow card.  A good three minutes have gone by before Tadic steps up and it’s a shite penalty at a comfortable height and just right of centre with Handanovic going the right way and saving it easily.  Fuck off… half time.

I’m of the same opinion as I was against Chelsea on Sunday.  There is no point in leaving a player on who is not going to do anything so we may as well take J-Rod off now but we don’t and it’s an unchanged team who are back on to start the second half.  We make a good positive start and Hojbjerg’s cross finds its’ way to JWP who strikes it well but Handanovic makes a strong.  A few minutes later and Virgil and J-Rod combine and JWP creams one towards the top corner but Handanovic is there again, throwing up a really stong arm to keep it out again.  It the last contribution for Jay and Austin is on and Jay appears to take out his frustration on the advertising hoarding.  Soon, there’s another great chance as Hojbjerg cust in from the right and keeprs going before chopping onto his right foot but Ranocchia makes a really good block.

Surely it’s going to come in a minute – Tadic swings over a corner and up gets Virgil to thinmp it goalwards but too central and the keeper tips is over again and then finally, as the second corner is half cleared, Romeu flicks it goalwards and it loops over the keeper and hits the bar, falling for Virgil to ram it into the net from close range.  The referee immediately looks like he’s disallowed it but it’s a goal and the big man gets a deserved first of the season.

Three minutes later and it all goes proper mental as Tadic and McQueen work an opening down the left and Tadic gets a yard and crosses low and it takes a deflection off one Milan defender and that seems to confuse Nagatomo at the back post and he stands there like a twat and it bounces off his hip and loops past Handanovic and into the net.  Cheers mate, 2-1.

Davis on for Tadic for the last 15 as Claude demonstrates his European experience and Dvo seems to calm things down and we keep possession nicely until Romeu plays a shit house of a pass across our own box and straight to Icardi who forces Fraser into a decent low save.  It feels ridiculous to say it but that incident aside, we are extremely comfortable and the only side that looks like scoring.  Redmond shoots wide after a break up the left and we play out the last knockings in the corner with Davis, McQueen and Hojbjerg not letting inter have it.  The ref has seen enough and fuck me, we’ve won.

This is a game that in a few years, when I'm an old bastard dribbling into my cornflakes, I'll be looking back and will be able to say "I was there". Southampton 2 Inter Milan 1. Just let that sink in for a little bit
.
.
.
.

Okay. The first half was pretty dreadful from our point of view with us offering absolutely zero attacking threat and then letting in a shit goal on Inter's one visit into a half.  After the first few minutes, the atmosphere was pretty flat because the team weren't doing it on the pitch. Like in the Chelsea game, there was a lot of sideways and backwards and are losing the ball as soon as we tried to do something positive with it.  The second-half however was completely different and we tore them the new arsehole that they desperately deserved and the crowd responded superbly. I sit in the family stand so I'm used to it being fairly quiet but tonight was very different and I’m not just talking about the presence of half and half scarfers. Sure, we got a bit lucky with the winning goal but boy did we deserve it, not just for tonight but for the game in Milan as well.

There were many great performances in the second half but some players did it for the whole 90 minutes, in particular, Sam McQueen, Virgil, Maya, Pierre Hojbjerg and James Ward-Prowse. I'm writing his full name, instead of just JWP because today, he was the real deal. A superb performance in midfield from start to finish and the best game I’ve ever seen him have. If only he was a little bit more forceful when it comes to demanding the ball to take a penalty. On that note, that has got to be it for Tadic and penalties. Even the ones he scores are dribbled into the goal but I think that's two he's missed now and to be honest with our basic problem of not scoring enough goals, missing penalties is not something we can afford.

It seems churlish to talk about negatives but J-Rod really needs to be playing every single game that the under 23 side plays because he was so far off the pace, he was virtually running backwards. Also, though he improved in the second half, Cuco Martina is a fucking nightmare. Cedric or Pied or an Academy Right back or the January transfer window cannot come soon enough.  Then there’s the referee Pawel Gil – unreal decision not to send Candreva off and I know it’s a Premier League thing to penalise holding at corners etc but Ranocchia has rugby tackled Virgil on at least 3 occasions and he’s not given it.  Also, you have to say, the decision we got given for the penalty was scandalous.

Inter Milan got what they deserved. There is a lot that I like about Italian football, particularly the way their sides usually defend.  I'm not talking about the niggly, time wasting, diving method of defending but the actual technical defending that Italian sides do so well. There are times when it oversteps the mark though and it just becomes blatant thuggery. Though it was up the other end of the pitch to where I was and I didn't see it at the time, the actions of Candreva around the penalty with scuffing the penalty spot and then elbowing McQueen in the face were absolutely fucking scandalous. You would think he may get some sort of retrospective ban for that but who does that benefit? Not us.  We could probably do with him playing against Sparta Prague and he is one of their better players even though he's obviously a horrible little fuck. I was amazed at how little Inter did, Not just tonight but in the first game as well. I guess that's why they've had nine managers in six years.

The coverage we got in the media was predictable in the extreme. Even though it was one of the biggest wins in the clubs history, Manchester Red Cunts losing on the same night was of course a bigger story.  On the highlights that I watched when I got in they spent 10 minutes discussing how the Red Cunts should build their team around Carlton Pogba, who got injured in the first half of the game today and therefore didn't contribute anything to the game they were showing the highlights of.  When they did get around to showing our game, or when anyone talks about it on the radio or anything like that it's always in the context of the players that we lose every summer and the manager fucking off and that gets a bit tiresome as well as you know that all they really want to do is talk up Virgil moving to a huge club at some point.

Fuck ‘em all, we don't need to be top of the bill to have a fantastic night. I don't give a flying fuck if Inter aren't what they were a few years ago.  They are still a massive European name and with the possible exception of Manchester Red Cunts, the biggest side in the competition and we beat them quite convincingly.  With Sparta beating Be'er Sheva we are now in the position of needing to win one of our last two games to be certain of qualifying for the knockout rounds. It would be nice to do that in the next game which is away in Prague as that would leave us top of the group going in to the last round of matches. Sparta were distinctly average at St Mary's when we won 3-0 so let's go out to improve our pretty dismal European away record.

Tonight, we played Inter Milan at home and we won.  Mental.

Europa League Match 3 - Inter Milan 1 Southampton 0

The Moment We Realised It Wasn't Happening

It’s just another game tonight at the San Siro against Inter Milan. It’s just a run of the mill Thursday night at one of the most iconic stadiums in world football against one of the super powers of European football. No biggie. They were winning the Champions League with Jose Mourinho in charge and we were... well, shite and two divisions below our local rivals. Today would be a good day to remember who our local rivals are but for the life of me I can't.

Inter as we know have to leave a few players out of their Europa League squad due to financial fair play reasons and have been having a crap time of it lately. They sacked Roberto Mancini as the season started and got Frank de Boer in, have started the league season badly and lost the opening two Europa League games. This in my mind makes them more dangerous tonight. In addition to all this, their captain Mauro Icardi decided to write an autobiography saying that he could have all Inter's hardcore Ultras killed by Argentinian gangsters if he clicked his fingers. Not the brightest thing anyone's ever committed to paper and he's about as popular with the Inter faithful as Harry Redknapp is with his wife right now. Get well soon Mrs Redknapp by the way.

There had been more debate than usual about rotation and which was the priority game, this one or Man City away at the weekend. If it was down to me then it would be this one all day but it is not down to me. Seeing as he's our only striker who can hit the net, if Austin was 100% fit then he'd have started but no, J-Rod is up top. Elsewhere, Steve Davis is out, JWP is in, Redmond has a niggle, Shane is in and I can't be the only one who thinks Jose Fonte should be starting tonight. A defence with Cuco, Maya and Sam McQ in it certainly looks less than watertight on paper.

We look very lively at the start but the first chance is for Inter as Martina plays a shockingly shite back pass straight to Icardi who has stopped threatening to have people killed long enough to try to backheel it towards the danger area but Fraser blocks it away for a corner.

After this scare the game settles down and Saints are bossing possession.  To be honest, Inter don’t look that interested in closing down or chasing back especially on the wings.  Virgil pings a ball out from the back and it’s over Miranda who has just kind of left in and J-Rod is away.  He cuts in from the left once he’s retrieved the ball and there’s a moment when he could have have hit it but he tries to cust back inside a retreating defender and loses it.  Let’s put that down to two years of hardly playing.

J-Rod does better work as we approach the half hour, picking up a clearance just over half way and poking the ball out to McQueen on the left.  He puts over a great cross behind the defence and J-Rod goes in with keeper Handanovic who gets there first and it rebounds off the Saints man and rolls towards the goal.  There’s an Inter defender there and you hope he does a Bridcutt (see Sunderland 8-0 game) and somehow fucks it up but he clears it easily enough.  Back we come again and Martina pulls a god ball back across the top of the penalty area and JWP arrives like he did against Leicester, leans back like he did against Leicester and shats it over the bar like he did against Leicester.  Fucking hell.

It’s amazing how much possession we’re having and how dominant we are.  Literally all over them but the score is still 0-0 and it still is as Martina delivers a good left footed cross, up goes Long with a defender and it flicks on to the back post and J-Rod is inches away from it.  Another head in hands moment.

Before half time there’s a quick reminder of the dangers at the other end as Maya delivers his ‘one a game’ shite piece of play and heads a long ball down to Eder who takes and fires wide of the post that Fraser had covered anyway.  Half time and a superb performance everywhere bar the final third.  Though Inter have a much stronger line up than they had in the previous two Europa League games, we are still bossing it.  In the San Siro and we’re bossing it… everywhere except on the scoreline.

The second half starts in similar vein with Saints having all the control and creating the chances.  Hojbjerg slides in J-Rod who is well tackled by Miranda.  Corner and over it comes from JWP and the whistle blows well before it reached J-Rod at the back past who gets above the defender and heads in.  I cannot for the life of me see why the whistle went but there’s no spewing frustration as the whistle had clearly gone before Jay headed it.

More decent play and Long is in a footrace with a defender on the left and for no reason at all a foul is given against him but that’s the least of Shane’s problems as his hamstring has pinged and he has to go off and Austin is on.  Within 5 minutes he’s combined superbly with J-Rod and has an opening on the edge of the box but he drags his shot wide.  Should have done better.

The referee covers himself in whatever the opposite of glory is on the hour mark when Austin lays the ball off and Brozovic arrives a minute or so later and trashes him.  Advantage played as Tadic shoots straight and Handanovic.  Surely we get the free kick on the edge of the box now?  Nope, play on, wanker.  He does eventually remember how to referee a game and books Brozovic.

So, all the play and all the chances missed and then guess what.  Inter play it across to Santon on the left wing who evades the non-existent Martina and crosses low.  Candreva isn’t seen by shows JWP how to finish this sort of chance and lashes it first time left footed into the top corner before Fraser can move.  Fuck off!  One shot on target, one goal, have that.  Inter are looking decent now and Icardi produces a ridiculous turn in the box to leave Virgil standing but gets greedy and Maya slides in to knock it off for a corner.

Time for another debut and on comes Sofiane Boufal for Tadic who has tired in the last few minutes.  He takes up a position on the left wing with J-Rod switching to the right.  Having got themselves in front and starting to play better with the confidence provided by the goal, Brozovic decided to undo it all and produces a ridiculous sliding tackle through the heels of Hojbjerg and the ref has no option whatsoever but to give him a second booking.  I have a feeling this is going to make things more difficult as the time wasting has already started and this is going to make it even worse.

From the free kick, Inter have set up with such a high line that JWP has a huge area to curl the ball into and he does this and Virgil is totally free, meets it with a left foot volley and straight at Handanovic who saves easily.  Resignation has taken hold by now and we aren’t ever going to score are we?  We’re going to keep trying though with Davis on for J-Rod and Virgil playing up front.  Romeu has a potshot blocked and another corner.  In it comes from JWP and Virgil meets it, beats Handanovic and off the line for another corner. In it comes again and this time the ball drops above six yards out and Austin gets there and hits it, Handanovic blocks again.  Great save but Charlie had to lift it into the roof of the net.

There’s one last chance for JWP that you know we’re not going to score from in the 95^th minute as Boufal feeds it in and via Virgil it sits up for JWP on the volley which he puts a couple of feet wide.  Fucking hell….Gutted

I can write the post-match bit in one of two ways. Either from the point of view of 'we won the JPT when they won the Champions League' or from the point of view of purely the 90 minutes I've just seen. Big Picture vs Small Picture.  I will try and do both (and probably fail).

Small Picture first... No doubt everyone to do with the club and in the media will be saying well how did Saints lose that? It's perfectly simple - if you are complete dog shit in the final third for 90 minutes then you will not win many matches.  It got to the stage at the end when even when we were smashing the ball at the goalkeeper from 5 yards, I fucking knew it wasn't going to go in so there seemed hardly any point in even getting excited. It was similar to all those years ago when Bradley Wright-Phillips used to get clean through against the goalkeeper, you just knew it wasn't going to end up in the net so you may as well sit down and wait for the opposition to get away with it again. It wasn't just players like J-Rod, Austin, Virgil and JWP missing chances, it was also pathetic attempts at a final ball by Tadic and Martina amongst others. Inter had one decent chance, bang, win the game 1-0.  Efficiency in the final third-it's what it's all about chaps. You can be as good as you like on the rest of the pitch but if you're going to smash the final shot at the goalkeeper, some bloke in Row Z or at the fucking moon then you may as well not bother.  No debate though, we were very good in the other areas of the pitch.

If you look at the players individually, none of them played particularly badly but when it comes down to it though Long and J-Rod were never ever going to threaten the opposition goal and Martina was infuriating.  In the second half he wouldn't have put a decent cross in if he played all night and replaced the Inter players with training cones.  If we'd had a final third tonight we'd be sitting here today top of the group, having won about 3-0 and Frank de Boer would be down the Job Centre this morning.  If we’d scored first there was no way Inter would have come back given the fragile morale in that team.  It was always going to be the case that Inter were better against us than against the other two sides in the group.  Having lost the first two they’d have been virtually out if they’d lost tonight and de Boer would have been out of a job so they picked a stronger team.

We are short up front and I think we all kind of knew that.  Charlie Austin is doing it most of the time but Shane Long appears to be proving that last season was the exception rather than the rule.  He looks tired to me after the Euros and is picking up niggling injuries in addition to just not looking like a goal threat.  J-Rod cannot be expected to be firing on all cylinders but I find it worrying that he appears to have lost the speed which made him such a handful.  You could always rely on his willingness to pull the trigger as well but even that went missing at the crucial time tonight. 

At the other end of the pitch, it’s interesting that suddenly Virgil is getting a load of attention as the media wake up to how good he is.  Maybe one positive from tonight will be that he lost Candreva for the goal so maybe the boys with the big chequebooks will be put off. I may be clutching at straws here.  I was very impressed with Sam McQueen particularly in the first half and Maya had a decent game.  Cuco?  Yeah, let’s leave that one for now.

Unbelievably, Sparta Prague, having just won in Israel, sit top of the group and they were quite comfortably the worst team we have played.  We should still qualify of course as we should beat this Internazionale team and Be'er Sheva at home.

This fixture has meant a lot of reflection on where we come from in the past seven years. All that leaves me with a nice feeling about the club but it doesn't take away from the fact that we had a glorious chance tonight to put qualification from this group to bed and we fucked it up. Of course, we rested a few as well so now the pressure is on to get a result at the weekend, away at Manchester City who are coming into that game off the back of getting smashed 4-0 by Barcelona.  After you Claude...

Big Picture.... 7000 fans in the San Siro, some of whom would have been at Hartlepool and other godforsaken places a few years back. I salute everyone who made the trip. It is barely believable that we have gone from League One Minus 10 to being disappointed and frustrated with a 1-0 defeat to Inter Milan in 7 and a bit seasons.  We've got them at home in a couple of weeks and in many ways that'll be even better as it'll be sold out and we'll be looking to put tonight's result right.  One of the European heavyweights will be coming to our ground and it won't be for a pre-season friendly.  Can't wait.  Tonight isn’t terminal to our chances of going through so we have to learn from it and move on like we always do.  Inter Milan at the San Siro and we should have won – we really should have won.