Carabao Cup 3rd Round - Portsmouth 0 Southampton 4 (FOUR)

Danny Ings, Fratton End, Tuesday

It’s here. Portsmouth versus Southampton at Fratton Park in the Carabao Cup 3rd Round.  It’s just another Carabao Cup tie right? Another game in the “What the fuck is it called this year” Trophy?. No it really isn’t. It’s a Game for great deeds to be done and to write your name into the history books.

For me personally, this game makes me first and foremost think about Steve Moran in the last minute in 1984, a goal which could potentially have got 15-year-old me in a spot of bother. There I was, being very, very quiet on the North Terrace at Fratton Park. Living in and going to school in Waterlooville at the time meant that it was the only way I could get to the game. A very tense and scrappy game and 0-0 in the 90th minute and I thought that this was probably going to be the best result possible for my personal safety but then, as now, you can never trust Saints to do what you want. Worthington to Armstrong to Moran, pandemonium in the away end.  To this day I do not know how I managed to keep quiet until we walked half a mile back to the car on the Eastern Road and were out of the city limits.

There is more personal history in that the first of probably a thousand of games that I have seen took place at Fratton Park in 1976. Saints had just won the FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace and travelled down to Fratton for a mid week game which again, we won 1-0 in the last minute through Mick Channon. At that time, I was only seven years old but my dad remembers having to lie about what the Pompey fans were chanting about Channon who was of course, every Saints fans favourite player at that time.

The 1984 Steve Moran game was the last time that we won down there which is ridiculous. The four Fratton games since then have ended in two draws and two defeats. You could argue that in the social media age, it is even more important to win the Derby than it was before. The bollocks that was written after the David Norris equaliser the last time the teams met was quite astonishing but that’s what a Derby is all about when even a late equalising goal, in a season that you end up getting relegated and your rivals end up getting promoted, is worth celebrating for years.

We go there as favourites of course as befits our Premier League status and we should win but we won’t if the players are not aware of the situation and aware of the unique (feral) atmosphere that is awaiting them. By ‘unique’ I mean that taking a throw in will be like a scene from that ‘I am Legend’ film where Will Smith was being attacked by those mutated zombie characters.  On our last few visits to Fratton we have had players that just didn’t fancy it and if we have one or two of those, then we are going to be in trouble.

Pompey are of course crap this season. Things started to fall apart at the tail end of last season and they went to from being Champions elect to promotion certainties to automatic hope falls to play-offs to losing in the play-off semi-final… and it was fucking hilarious.  This season, with the departure of a couple of important players, has been pretty underwhelming for a club which was expected to be challenging for the automatic promotion places again. There is a long way to go of course but they just haven’t done it this season which is why Kenny Jackett, a manager with all the charisma of a spoon, is under severe pressure. He will know though that a win against the old enemy or certainly boost his stock with the Pompey faithful, get battered however and it could go the other way.   It will however be a Pompey team that should play at a much higher level than they have been in the league. We have to get out there, silence the crowd and not give them a sniff. They have absolutely nothing to lose so they are going to go for it unless of course all the players want Jackett out the door and the quickest way to do that will be to get hammered. We can only hope.

As I mentioned earlier, I lived in Waterlooville and this was from the age of eight until I was 23 so this gives me a slightly different perspective having basically spent a lot of time in the blue half of Hampshire.  For me, there are two types of Pompey fan. There are the ones that I know who are long standing mates and all as sound as you like and then there are the ones that I don’t know, the perpetrators of the Portsmyths, the ones who genuinely think Norris’ goal was the winner.  Now, thanks to that ‘Why I Hate The Scummers’ video on social media, there are a category all of their own, who think we stole their food. What? for fucks sake.

So who fancies being the next Steve Moran?

I was delighted when I saw the team sheet because there was no fucking around. A back four with Ryan Bertrand and Cedric on the wings with Yoshida and Bednarek in the middle. The usual midfield three were all present and correct and the only real surprise was upfront with Redmond not being deemed fit enough to start, Boufal being dropped to the bench and Danny Ings and Michael Obafemi starting the game. I have a bit of a downer on Michael because of his tampon tendencies of being in for one week and then out for three. Let’s hope he lasts the game.

Away we go and the usual ‘scummers, scummers, scummers’ comes down from the terraces. The touchline on the dugouts side has a bit of room between the side of the pitch and the rabid mob but the other side is very close.  Cedric is over there for the first half and when he goes to take the first throw-in and predictably it gets thrown down the line.  Fair play to Cedric as he refuses to go and get it.

We haven’t started particularly well and there’s a momentary heart-in-mouth moment on 8 minutes as Marquis runs at the defence and tries a show from fucking miles out which skims along the ground and hits the outside of the post.  A few minutes later and it gets dodgy again as Pompey get some joy out of chucking it in the mixer and it breaks to Pitman to strike and he catches it well but Macca sees it all the way and athletically tips it over the bar.

Pompey are winning a lot of second balls and nicking the ball off us in our and a half.  Another corner comes over and Pitman meets it.  Macca gets down brilliantly to save and it looks for all the world that Marquis must score but Bednarek smuggles it off the line and Macca eventually falls on it.  20 minutes gone and we’ve not been in it really.

Our first real attack sees Obafemi play the ball to Ings and his first time shot is blocked by McGillivray and ends up out with JWP on the left.  He feeds it back into Ings who sends two defenders for a hot dog with a turn and then drills it along the ground and into the far corner from the edge of the box.  Danny Ings, Southampton boy, legend status.  Against the run of play and I fucking love it.  1-0.

Danny Rehearses the Knee-Slide.  He'd need it again later

It’s nearly and probably should have been 2-0 a few minutes later as Adams plays a great ball to Ings and he’s 1v1 but hits the keeper.  The rebound falls to Hojbjerg who beats one defender with the shot but Hawkins has got back to block it and the chance goes.

The goal has seen a change in that Pompey don’t see as up for it as they did beforehand.  They still have a few moments, mainly through ‘get it in the mixer’ football as we fail with three attempts to win a header before the ball drops to the big donkey with the ponytail they’ve got and he shows zero technique in shanking it wide.

JWP is coming more into the game now and drives forward from midfield and shoots all the way along the ground.  McGillivray should hold it but is squirms out to Ings who easily beats the full back and pulls it back to JWP but Adams gets in his way and the chance goes.

Another goal before half time would be nice and Curtis gives the ball away to Adams in midfield who feeds Obafemi on the right who slides a brilliant ball in between two defenders to Ings for him to beat the keeper to it and dink it over him for 2-0 and this time it’s a full shithouse knee slide in front of the Fratton End.  Beautiful stuff.  It’s perfect so far – a relatively early goal and then another right on half time and in addition, a few of the Pompey heads have definitely gone down.

Half-time sees a little walk around the pitch by Pompey Derby legends. I recognise Yakubu I think but I hope they all sit down and watch the second half and see their team get absolutely battered.

The next goal is of course going to be vital and we start well with Adams setting up Romeu for quite possibly the worst shot ever which ends up as a scuffed chip about 20 yards wide.  JWP has a shot block and Pompey threaten briefly with Hanstraup getting down the left wing after we’d given the ball away but the excellent Yoshida blocked the cross.  Curtis is the next to get down the left and there’s a bit of pinball in the box before it falls to Pitman who is now completely fucked as he’s played 55 minutes and he kind of watches as Obafemi takes the ball off him whilst he tries to make up his mind what to do.  He compounds this slow brain manoeuvre by hacking over the Saints forward.

On the hour mark it finally gets a bit feisty as Marquis blatantly leaves a late elbow in Yoshida’s ribs.  It takes a lot to get Maya rattled but that did especially as Kevin Friend did his usual ‘fuck all’ about it.  The next time Marquis got it, Maya went to kill him, missed and Marquis dived out of the way without being touched.  Kevin Friend, who is of course all seeing, managed to book Ryan Bertrand.

The game is ticking by without too much alarm.  On 72 minutes we put the game to bed as Cedric brings it forward to Hojbjerg who feeds Ings on the left who burns the right back again and as he tries to beat the last defender as he cuts in, the ball falls loose in the area and there is goalmouth predator Cedric to toe punt it into the net. What the fuck is he doing there – fucking brilliant, 3-0, fucking have that.

To take the piss we now bring on Redmond for Obafemi (who doesn’t look injured) and Long is on for Freeman of Southampton, Danny Ings.  Shane fancies getting his name on the list and tries a shot from halfway down the Eastern Road which is an easy save for the keeper.

The Best fans in the World ™ are staging a bit of an exodus as the clock ticks round to 87 and it increases as Bednarek plays it forward to Redmond and he kind of flicks it to himself which totally seemed to throw Downing and on went Nathan, cutting onto his right foot before drilling it past the keeper from 20 yards.  Brilliant goal and we want 5!  This is beautiful, fucking beautiful.

We had chances on the break to score 5 because Pompey had given up with tracking back but Redmond was too wrapped up in the game to actually pass to any of his teammates but he can be forgiven. Four will do.  It’s a fucking huge margin and emphasized the gulf.

It was Fucking easy.

I keep hearing that Pompey should be proud of their performance. Fuck off. They got completely battered at home by their biggest rivals by 4-0. They were supposed to be the team that was more up for it and I’m sorry but they just weren’t, as soon as the first goal went in. Once the first goal went in, which was brilliant by Danny Ings, you can see the life draining out of two or three of the Portsmouth players who then had their heads down. Their heads went down – how about that? It was supposed to be us that were intimidated at fortress Fratton and us that couldn’t handle the occasion but it does look like their players just melted as soon as the going got a bit tough. Oh yeah, I’d be dead proud of my team if they done that in a local derby. How the fuck do you let your head go down in a game like that? Go and fucking kick someone and try and change something but don’t let your head go down for fuck’s sake. What a bunch of bottle jobs.

They had all the advantages and levellers they could’ve had with the pissing rain and being at home but they still got absolutely fucking battered and barely raised any sort of effort at all in the second half to get back into the game. I’m also hearing that we should’ve won because we are a Premier League side and they’re League 1. Whilst this is true, did they give a fuck about that set of circumstances when it was reversed in the FA Cup a few years ago…. No!  They beat us 4-1 then, with the team that eventually made them bankrupt. We have won by 4-0 today in a fair fight so fuck off – own it! So what if some of you stayed to the end and clapped after your team had just embarrassed themselves against the fucking scummers of all people.

Bednarek vs Zombies

I must however commend the Portsmouth crowd for the dedication in screaming ‘scummers’ at the Saints players when 4-0 down. It is particularly nice to see kids who are between 5 and 10 years old giving it loads whilst being watched proudly by their parents. Usually you feel sorry for kids who have just watch their team get battered... at home.... by their biggest rivals..... but not today.

The four goal winning margin equals the biggest win in any Derby between the two sides. The last time there was a four goal victory was in 1975 when we smashed them by the same score at the Dell. It is the biggest away win in the history of the South Coast Derby. How do you like all of that?  I guess now will get a deluge of “we’ve got more trophies than you’ - if you count ones that one before fucking war and “we’ve won more Derbies than you” - if you count the ones before the professional era (pre-1920)

It’s always the case that the Premier League team has difficulty opening few minutes and that was the case today and we didn’t play particularly well in that time but we still have to be grateful for a couple of good saves from McCarthy.  Of course all of the next bit has to be taken with a pinch of salt because of the opposition that we played but for me, Alex McCarthy again proved that he is Saints best goalkeeper. He looks a lot less likely to make a mistake then Angus Gunn and I for one would be more than happy to be back in the Premier League starting 11. There was also an impressive game from Maya Yoshida. We still had a few weaknesses in the air when Pompey were lumping balls into a box in the first half but we are like this is in the air even when we’ve got the 6 foot 6 bloke playing.  We had a proper left back today and he was beautiful.

Danny Ings proved again that he is our best striker and he now assumes legendary status after two goals and an assist at Fratton. The other Southampton boy in the line-up, JWP (yes I know he’s from Portsmouth) produced one of his best games for a long time and though Michael Obafemi was a bit of a mixed bag, the assist for the second goal was brilliant as was the shit-housing of the Fratton End. Che Adams again struggled and I think it’s maybe time to give him a little break to see if taking the pressure off for a bit will help him to come good. Cedric had a funny game. I thought he was a little bit rattled in the first 20 minutes with the proximity of the zombies on his side of the pitch but he certainly sorted himself out in the second half. I have no idea what he was doing there to ram in the third goal but fair play to him. Nathan Redmond again showed what he can do when one-on-one with and opponent but he did butcher a couple of chances to make it five, simply by holding onto the ball for too long rather than release a better option.

Ultimately, tonight‘s game was one that just had to be won and we did that emphatically. It wasn’t particularly tough and it wasn’t close as I thought it was going to be before the game. I reckoned without Pompey being as shite and as gutless as they were. Just 20 minutes of fight? In a South Coast Derby? You would maybe think not… because of the relative quality of the opposition…. but this will give the players, the manager and the club as a whole a boost which will not do us any harm at all in the following weeks when we do have a run of decent opponents to play against.  Again, despite the opposition, I feel that this game will be quite significant point in the season.  We played a formation that suited our players and it was round pegs in round holes. This is more like I expected us to look like after a pre-season with Ralph. We didn’t look disjointed at any point last night and actually looked like something resembling a coherent well oiled machine.  There was still dodgy moments in defence but let’s face it, we are always going to have those regardless of who we are playing against.

As for Pompey, I genuinely thought they would be challenging for promotion this year. I don’t know much about League 1 currently so all I can do is compare it to the standard that it was when we got promoted out of it. Basically, they are nowhere near the side that we were back then so I really don’t think there’s much chance on that score. There may be a chance of they didn’t have the manager who has the charisma of a spoon but let’s hope Kenny Jackett stays for a long long time to carry on the good work. I didn’t think much of many of their players individually. Marquis put himself about and at least showed some desire to rattle the Saints players. I expected Curtis to be a lot better than he was being a Republic of Ireland international and all that but he just chose the wrong option every time and then after he fucked up he just looked for someone else to blame. I thought I’ve got rid of all my pub analogies when Charlie Austin left but I can certainly bring them out again for Brett Pitman who did in fact look like a bloke who was 8 pints into his evening, weaving through a crowd of people trying to get to the kebab shop. Overall, you would have to say that the gulf between them and us is as big as it has been since the late 70s when they were in Division 4. 

Pompey fans of did themselves proud again.  They somehow try and claim some level of superiority because most of them stayed to the end and sang their 8 syllables and they try and twist Ralph's post -match words to make it sound like he was in love with them or somesuch bollocks.... but at the end of the day, one Pompey fan punched a fucking police horse. “That ‘orse was a facking scumma mate!!!”. The horse punching incident is the one that made the national news the next day so no matter how much you try and talk up your support, all anyone outside of the region will remember this game for regarding your fans is punching a fucking horse (and then of course getting the shoeing off the coppers that he deserved).

Next up we have Tottenham away in a stadium which is almost as nice as Fratton Park. They are not in the best of form at the moment and Mauricio Pochettino has the air of a man who doesn’t really want to be there anymore. Hopefully their Carabao cup experience of getting beaten at Colchester on penalties, will have some sort of negative effect on them and we can leave the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with a positive result. Right now though, I don’t care. All I care about is that we went to Fratton Park and absolutely fucking battered them.

Whatever happens for the rest of the season, we will always have that.

Premier League Match 5 - Sheffield United 0 Southampton 1

And again.....

After Manchester United, came the international break but before that came the closing of the European transfer window. In the hope that other European Leagues would follow suit, the Premier League decided to end its transfer window before the season started which is actually very very sensible. However, unsurprisingly, we are out of step with the rest of Europe and all the other leagues just kept exactly where it was on the 1st of September because in their eyes, if the English clubs are prepared to give themselves a disadvantage, why should we stop them. It’s a bit like art imitating life really isn’t it?

Anyhow, what it meant was that Saints didn’t have to panic about getting rid of some of the deadwood as we had an extra month to do this with the added bonus that the players leaving would not be playing against us next season. Hence, Fraser Forster departed on loan to Celtic, Mohammed Elyounoussi surprisingly did the same, Wesley Hoedt went to Antwerp and Mario Lemina went to Galatasaray. #TonicLikeWarmPiss

I’ve always had a very dim view of the loan system and thought it was fundamentally wrong for a number of reasons but we are really using it to our advantage this season. Not in the same way that Chelsea do, which is to stockpile players to not let anyone else have them with no intention of them ever playing for the first team. In our case, we have loaned out a lot of players because they are either promising youngsters who need experience like Tom O’Connor or because they are overpaid overrated shit that we have bought without a receipt and cannot return them as not fit for purpose.

Firmly in the latter category are Hoedt, Lemina, Carrillo and Elyounoussi, none of whom have proved for a period of longer than a couple of matches that they are in anyway fit for purpose for a Premier League team.

Lemina has moved to Galatasaray on loan for the season and the more I think about this, the more I think it suits him down to the ground. For one they are the best team in an average league so they’re going to be on top of most games so there’s not gonna be the famous Mario disappearing act when things get a little bit difficult. It will be interesting to see how he goes in a few big games they have out there against Fenerbache and Besiktas.

Galatasaray are all about their mental fans and the atmosphere they create and the authorities over there obviously have no problem with their pyromaniacs virtually burning down the stadium every match. In short, it all looks very flash which will suit Mario down to the ground. Oh Fart no shit. The Instagram posts about the atmosphere and how brilliant it is have started and now he’s likening himself to a Lion and all that shit, like a poundshop Zlatan .... but I would still back him to fuck it up. You have to remember, this is a guy who is never really strung together more than a few games of first-team football in his entire career and the trouble with mental fans who create a great atmosphere is that they can turn pretty bloody quickly.

Galatasaray Pyromaniacs Set Lemina on Fire When They Realise He's a Fucking Waster.

Saints other great recent mistakes, Guido Carrillo and Mohamed Elyounoussi have been packed off on loan to Leganes, still managed by Mauricio Pellegrino, who are the only team that would be remotely interested in the striker and to Celtic, who were absolutely desperate for any sort of player it would seem. Good luck to them both. It will be interesting to see if a lack of pace, crossing ability, finishing, workrate or skill is an impediment for doing well playing for Celtic in the Scottish league.

The upcoming Pompey game is of course big news and both clubs and the police in their wisdom have decided not to make it a bubble game which is good in that it gives people a choice but as the previous bubble game was the only game ever at Fratton Park between these two teams that didn’t have any trouble, I am very very surprised by this decision. If you are expecting it to be absolutely horrendous down there then it won’t be as bad as you are thinking it is going to be but likewise, if you don’t think there’s going to be any problem and it’s just gonna be like any other away game then you are in for a bit of a rude awakening. Set your expectations accordingly. The tickets have been allocated in the usual way in that you have to have a season ticket and you have to have in the first instance, 10 away games from the start of last season. It is the way it has always generally been done so why is anyone surprised by this and why is anyone complaining?

England came to town and played at St Mary‘s for the first time since 2002 with a home game against Kosovo. Kosovo were supposed to be the minnows of the group and so this was a game that was scheduled away from Wembley but as it turns out the rest of the group is abysmally shit and Kosovo are actually the closest team to England in the group.  The game itself was like watching and under 11‘s game with a goal every few minutes, ending up as it did 5-3 to England. England are a strange side right now. The forward line is as good as anybody’s is with Kane, Stirling and Sancho but the midfield three, the back four and the goalkeeper all have massive room for improvement.  It’s better than it used to be but you still have this ridiculous scenario where it matters more who you play for rather than how you play or what you’ve actually done. James Maddison being both behind Ross Barkley it was never really done anything since he was a promising youngster and Mason Mount who has played a whole four games to Chelsea, really sucks. The irony is that Leicester will probably finish above Chelsea this year.

The England game was an opportunity for a certain celebrity Portsmouth fan to get himself some column inches. As you are no doubt aware, John Westwood turned up in his Pompey gear and was not allowed in. He then made a big play of the fact that he was a victim. It’s amazing how many news outlets just bought this without questioning why you’d wear club colours to an England game especially when said England game was going to be played in a place where wearing those club colours would be inflammatory? Would you get any Saints fans turning up in Saints gear to a representative game at Fratton Park? I really don’t think so and would it make the news if they weren’t a ‘famous’ fan?  Of course it wouldn’t and everyone knows this so why do the media lap it up, especially that arch arsehole Neil Allen of the Portsmouth News. No one seem to want to mention the fact that he pissed all over the seats the last time he was in St Mary’s as well – that’s Westwood, not Neil Allen.

The stewards allegedly said that they couldn’t guarantee his safety, to which Westwood said that he could look after himself. Westwood doesn’t care if he gets a slap off someone because he would be so drunk that he wouldn’t feel it anyway and he certainly doesn’t care about any people in the vicinity of him who might get caught up in any incident. You can tell that from the fact that he doesn’t care about others when ringing his fucking bell at every game which I have on good authority, pisses off the vast majority of Portsmouth fans who are unfortunate enough to be sat anywhere near him. I’m told that one of the things the Pompey fans hope for when they go to away games is that the game starts and with 20 minutes gone when he finally turns up, they find that he is sat nowhere near them.

Today’s opponents are Sheffield United, a newly promoted club with a few Saints connections. Chris Wilder the manager was, back in the midst of time, a Saints apprentice and they also having their ranks, Billy Sharp and David McGoldrick. Billy Sharp was a January signing in our season in the Championship when we got promoted to the Premier League and he chipped in with about 10 goals to take some of the pressure off of Sir Rickie and get us to the Premier league. He was somewhat unfortunate to get bombed out by Nigel Adkins before he really had a chance to show that he could handle the step up. His return to his home town Blades has seen him turn into a hero there, once more firing a team in to the Premier League but he once again has found him self mainly on the bench this season. Unbelievably, one of the players keeping him out of the side is David McGoldrick who was always fucking shit. He did have the misfortune of being the striker used in the infamous Poortvliet and Wotte season. Similarly with Bradley Wright-Phillips, I remember never being remotely confident when he got through one-on-one against the goalkeeper and he took some of the most embarrassing penalty kicks I have ever seen that barely reached the goal before the goalkeeper just picked them up. He has had a career knocking around League One and the Championship but he has somehow found himself as a Premier League footballer. Hopefully none of that will bite me in the arse later on today. I think the point would be decent today but it is an opportunity for a second away win in a row.

Once again Ralph named a team that has us scratching our heads. If it’s the preferred 4-2-2-2 then Yoshida is playing at left back. He has come in to replace the suspended Danso and Djenepo is in the side instead of Danny Ings. There is still no place for Ryan Bertrand who is on the bench but as the game kicks off we line up with five at the back with Moussa as the left wingback and Cedric on the right. Brave selection.

It’s an even start to the game with both sides finding each other out. Sheffield United are a far cry from the Brian Deane and Vinny Jones tough bastard side they used to have but I have a few lads who are not shrinking violets. Basham is the first one to show as he takes three attempts before finally bringing Boufal down and then moaning about it to the referee. The free-kick is swung in by JWP and headed clear, back in by Romeu and headed clear badly to Adams on the edge of the box and he absolutely drills it first time skimming across the turf and crashing into the right-hand post and away with the goalkeeper nowhere. I think Che is destined not to score ever. Straight from that chance, the Blades break up the left hand side and a ball is played in between Yoshida and Vestergaard but no worries, it’s McGoldrick who is clean through. Go on Dave, show us how shit you are and sure enough, straight of the goalkeeper. Absolute wank.

The next chance gave Che Adams another chance to prove that he is probably never going to score as JWP put in one of this brilliant crosses the curls in from the right behind the centre backs and Adams rises to meet it superbly, pounds the header down and into the turf and Henderson flings himself to his right and somehow keeps out. For fuck‘s sake.

Che is Never Going to Score

Ralph has made a lot out of emphasising that the likes of Boufal and Djenepo need to do more defensive work so Boufal finds himself in the right back slot and carts someone over. The free-kick comes over and it’s behind the defence and in steams Sheffield United player at the back post but no worries, it’s McGoldrick and the ball ends up in the crowd. He was offside anyway but it’s still shit.

We have one final decent chance before half-time as Djenepo picks up the ball on the right hand side and gets his head up well and square is it to Boufal coming in from the left but he doesn’t get enough on the shot and dribbles it straight at Henderson who is really not going to be beaten by that. Ralph makes a tactical change just before half-time with Cedric going to left-wing back and JWP to the right because the left-hand channel containing the attacking Djenepo and the oil tanker that is Vestergaard is getting absolutely pillaged. Still, we get to half-time at 0-0.

The first incident that of the second half is another oil tanker moment from Vestergaard as Baldock megs him on the right and Jannik just trashes into him. Yellow card and a freekick. Norwood again bends it in behind our line of defenders and the ridiculously expensive McBurnie bundled in at the back post. It looked offside in the middle at first view and sure enough, VAR helped Lee Mason to get to the right decision.  No argument.

Boufal suddenly started looking unplayable up front and the Blades defence can’t get near him he weaves his way past three defenders out on the edge of the box before making a bit of a bollocks of the shot and put in it well over the bar. We are building a bit of pressure now and win a corner which is delivered and Vestergaard’s header is saved easily by Henderson. Sheffield United try to play out but get caught and it’s Boufal who ball back and get it to Djenepo. He goes past Norwood who has hold of his arm but Lee Mason, to his credit, allows it to go on and Moussa shrugs off Norwood then sends the two centre backs for hotdogs and rolls it past Henderson from the edge of the box. It’s a brilliant goal which is going to guarantee every pundit selling him to top six club by the end of the evening.

The Blades efforts to get back into the game are led by Fleck who does seem to be a very good player, even though he is related that Robert Fleck twat who used to play for Norwich. Fleck has a go from the edge of the box and it goes just wide. Substitution time and Danny Ings is on for Moussa Djenepo who leaves to heroes reception but it’s the defenders you have to step up to the plate now with Bednarek blocking another shot from Fleck and McGoldrick once again living up to my expectations by missing from close range with Gunn blocking again.

Billy Sharp is on as a late sub but then Billy Sharp is off again as he closes down Armstrong (on for the clearly knackered Boufal) and whacks him just below the knee. It’s not as bad as the Andone one at Brighton but it’s pretty ropey and even though Billy complained a lot as he left the pitch, he really can have no complaints that are valid. From then on it was just a case of making sure we concentrated. Shane Long came on for the ridiculously unlucky Che Adams and 93, 94, yassssss!

Another away win. I could get used to this. Bramall Lane will be a tough place to come from many teams this season so to get out of here with 3 points really is a decent result. We dug in when we had to, rode our luck at times a little bit but we looked a threat going forwards at all times. It’s a huge change from last season.

First off I’m going to mention a player who I am not a huge fan of. In the past I have taken issue mainly with his defending but also with his taste in very tight shirts but today, Cedric Soares was brilliant. He played really well on both the right and the left hand side and the fact that he could switch with minimum disruption to left back meant that Ralph had a tactical flexibility to push Moussa Djenepo further forward from where he scored the winning goal. Switching Cedric to the left also plugged the horrendous chasm on that side where the Vestergaard and Djenepo’s defensive effort was about as alarming as it could possibly be. The Central midfield pairing was also magnificent today with Romeu and Hojbjerg both reading the game very intelligently and winning the tackles that they had to win. The amount of times that Romeu in particular was just in the right place. He doesn’t always get it right but today he was absolutely perfect in that role. Che Adams is going to score goals but he of course needs the first one to hit the net and he couldn’t get much more unlucky today than with the shot that pinged off the post and the excellent save by Henderson to keep his header out. In both of those incidents, Adams did exactly the right thing so it’ll come and I am of course joking about him never scoring. 

The flair in the side is of course provided by Djenepo (when he’s not left back) and Sofiane Boufal. Both of them are at times going to frustrate when they allow themselves to get crowded out and they run into trouble but on the flipside they can pick up the ball in zero space and do something amazing to get themselves free, never better illustrated than with the goal. Boufal had a 15 minute spell in the second half where he was absolutely unplayable and it’s great to have him back and playing like this.  Everyone was unsure about his play without the ball – well today he won the ball back by pressing a midfielder and that led directly to the goal.  Good man.

Ralph justified the selection of Djenepo at left back by saying that we want to get on the front foot but also acknowledged that he had to change something when Sheffield United started to get in behind on that side. It wouldn’t have been so bad but as left-sided centre back, Vestergaard is so slow so if the left back gets caught up field, there are huge spaces which he just can’t fill… not quickly anyway. I can see a time in the not too distant future with Danso playing that left-sided channel and Vestergaard is moved into the centre.

Sheffield United try to play football in an entertaining way and commit players forward to try and score goals. Sometimes though it doesn’t matter how good your tactics are when you are trying to implement them with players that are simply not good enough. McBurnie is a Championship player at best and McGoldrick isn’t even that. It was such a relief that all the chances fell to McGoldrick and he lived up to expectation and missed the lot. How the hell Billy Sharp is not in the team ahead of McGoldrick is totally beyond me. Talking of Billy, Of course he won’t remember his first game against Southampton since he left particularly fondly. I thought the red card was a bit harsh on first viewing but when you see it again you can see why Lee Mason sent him off. To be fair, Chris Wilder said he had no in issue with it.

Billy In Better Times

There’s not much point in talking about league tables at this time of the season but we have shot up to 10th and our next game is Bournemouth at home and we should be aiming for three points in that one. Following that we have the game against the Skates. Some people are saying it’s two local derbies in a row. Fuck off is it.

Premier League Match 4 - Southampton 1 Manchester United 1

Vestergaard is Not Messing About

Before the Man United stuff…

I heard the news today oh boy....

Carabao Cup third round draw, Number 20 Portsmouth will play number 17 Southampton. Fucking hell.... what a draw that is. There are several ways of looking at it. One is of course that we are a Premier League side and they are League 1 and we have a chance to go down there and put a few things right. There’s the two 4-1 defeats and there is a chance to make up for the last time we met which included David Norris’s last minute goal that he would never score again if he tried it 100 times. It will be a huge game and I bet there was a collective ‘fucks sake’ from the Hampshire police when that draw came out.

There’s also the fact that we have everything to lose of course. If we win then it is expected but if we lose then it’s fucking humiliating. All of the potential outcomes and the emotion around the fixture is what football is all about and the atmosphere at the game will be something else.  Win and the feel good factor goes through the roof, lose and everyone gets angry and it’s tough to turn that around.  Can’t fucking wait.  Having lived in that neck of the woods from age 8 to 23, I have a lot of Pompey mates so it’s a nightmare for me…. unless we win of course.. and if that happens then I will be a dick about it.

The last time we played them was in the Championship and we should have won both games, leading both late on in, ut I true Southampton fashion we managed to draw them both. Even though we got promoted at the end of the season and they got relegated, there are many of a blue persuasion who think they had the better of things that season simply because they scored a last-minute equaliser. Strange lot.

If we play well and all the players are up for it and not intimidated by the atmosphere, then we should win of course. It never works out as simply as that though so I can see it being a really tight game and one goal either way will win it. Anyone who thinks we’re going to go down there and win 3-0 or 4-0 is sadly mistaken.

Tasty

Believe it or not, we actually have some games before the trip down the M27, starting with a small matter of Manchester United at home today. United fans are going through the same thing but Liverpool fans went through at the end of the 80s which is watching a decline and having to get used to not being the best team in the country anymore. One could argue that Liverpool fans have never really accepted that they were ever not the best team in the country.

The Manchester United story of the last few years has been interesting, not least because a couple of years back, José Mourinho, one of the most successful managers ever in terms of winning trophies, said that coming second with the Manchester United squad that he had, ranked alongside his biggest ever achievements. At the time I put this down to Jose just throwing out a soundbite but what he said has proved to be 100% true. To be fair to the current manager, Ole Gunnar Solkjaer, he has at least made steps to try and rectify this with binning off some of the players who were clearly not of the required standard for a club that expects to be winning honours at European level. Hence, Lukaku, Sanchez and Smalling have all gone and the new signings of Wan-Bissaka and Maguire look decent. Daniel James joined for a relatively paltry £15million from Swansea and looks extremely promising and considerably better and some of the shit they still have remaining in the squad like Jesse Lingard. Whether this is down to Solskjaer making tough decisions or the money men at the top, or indeed the Ghost of Sir Alex, is open to debate but regardless of whether things are slowly progressing in the right direction or not, it’s hard to believe that Solskjaer should be in charge of a club of this magnitude.

So because it’s Manchester United, of course it is on TV and we have been given the stupid kickoff time of 12:30. My dad was completely unaware of this until he got my 11 o’clock “where the fuck are you” phone call. So, we eventually arrived at the ground after I had dropped him off and I’d had to run across the Itchen Bridge, at 12:31. Having missed the Liverpool game due to being on holiday, it was my first home game of the season and it has some how reassuring that some things don’t change when about 30 seconds after sitting down, I first heard Manbaby that sits behind me whining “I could see that from here ref“ because of course, Manbaby has superman style vision where he can tell if something is offside or not when it is 80 yards away.  Other things that don't change - The Northam are singing about a team two leagues below us when we're playing Man United

Once again it was a all a bit George Burley with no recognised left back – Danso being shoved there again.  On the other side there was a recall for Tight-shirted Boyband Wannabe Cedric and Sofiane Boufal came in on the left to replace the injured Redmond.  Other that that the team was as it was against Brighton.  Talking of left backs, Luke Shaw’s body has creaked again under the weight so he’s out again and Ashley Young is in the side.  Carlton Pogba is in midfield along with McTominay and an injury to Martial means that Mata comes into the side to play behind Rashford.  The referee today is Mike ‘All About Me’ Dean.

Whilst I was hoping for JWP at right back and Cedric on the left – it was the 4-2-2-2 formation which we have never looked comfortable with but we start well with Adams linking well with Boufal and he got a shot away which skidded just wide.  United don’t look that great but then what do you know, they build down their right and the ball is switch out to James on the left.  With Mata running on his outside totally untracked, Cedric has a decision to make and gets it wrong as he follows Mata’s run and by the time anyone wakes up, James is in the panlty area with no one closing him down and he rips a rising drive into the net.  Garbage.  JWP was fucking nowhere and Cedric made a horrific defensive decision.  10 fucking minutes was all it took for him to at least be partly to blame for a goal.

They’re really not very good but we’re not either – working hard but not doing much creatively.  It strikes me that we work so hard at winning the ball back high and probably practice that all the time but when we’ve got the ball we look ponderous.  JWP is playing against Ashley Young but he’s never going to run at him and Boufal has a few darts at Wan-Bissaka but he’s really good defensively.  He’s not usually great going forward but he gets in the box to meet a McTominay cross but volleys well over.

Ladies and Gentlemen – Welcome to the Mike Dean Show.  Danso is doing his best to get forward but gets caught out of position a bit when an attack breaks down and pulls back Perreira and gets a yellow card.  No issue with Mike on that one.  Literally five minutes later, McTominay pulls back Cedric on the right, free-kick and no card.  You couldn’t make it up really but Mike Dean does, every fucking time. I bet Dean hates VAR with a passion as it’s taken away a lot of his licence to be a complete prick on goal incidents.  He’s now reduced to being a prick on yellow cards and other less significant areas.

The first half comes to a close with James letting fly again and Gunn parrying the ball away with a strong hand.  Half time and it hasn’t been great.  Still to be convinced by this formation.  Cedric and JWP have crap, Romeu and Hojbjerg have been outnumbered in the middle and Ings and Adams have not linked up at all.  Hmmm.  It’s frustrating because United are shite.  Rashford has done nothing and Pogba is being Pogba.

Boufal tries to light the fuse at the start of the second half, swapping passes with JWP before teeing up Adams but he looks like a man low on confidence as he lashes at the ball and skews it wide.  He really has to get that on target.

Just before the hour, Boufal’s next dart wins a corner on the left.  Over it comes from JWP and Ings meets well and flicks goalwards only for de Gea to push it away.  Danso picks it up on the far side and tosses it back in and there’s the massive fucker with the headband to get above Lindelof and plant a header into the net.  At last, Jannik Vestergaard has scored and he’s off to the corner, jumping higher than he ever manages during a game.  It’s amazing what adrenaline can do.  Well played big man.

We now look the better side – Long is on for Adams and he and Ings immediately link up and we’re looking good and United are still average… and then Kevin Danso takes my brief moment of optimism and kicks it in the bollocks.  Actually, he takes out McTominay somewhere near bollocks level and it’s the easiest red card Mike Dean will ever give.  Fuck it.

Pierre has gone to left back, Armstrong is on for Boufal and then Yoshida is on for Ings and he goes to left back as we settle on a 4-4-1 damage limitation formation. At the heart of this is Oriol Romeu who is playing like a man possessed crossed with a lunatic.  Pogba does not fancy it one bit.

There are hairy moments of course.  Shane  Long long does Shane Long things coming back to help the defence, controlling the ball and then passing it straight to Pogba, allowing Rashford to force a save out of Gunn.  United have sent on the much hyped Mason Greenwood (see Macheda, Januzaj) and he falls over in the box but even Mike Dean knows that VAR won’t give that one.  Greenwood does bring one save out of Gunn and then Ashley Young of all people, goes pretty close with a curling effort from outside the box.  He’s still shit though.

In the end it’s a point which feels like a win against Manchester United and Mike Dean. Mike Dean was not the reason that we ended up with 10 men as he had no choice with either booking but Mike Dean managed to go the whole game without giving us a single decision that wasn’t 100% obvious. By that, I mean that everything that was even 1% debatable was given in favour of United. All that and 10 men and the fact that we were horribly disjointed at times and we still got a point.

I’m not having this 4-2-2-2 thing with the players we had out the pitch today. Pre-ninja assault, Danso did his best to get forward from left back but that was only one of the problems. JWP and Cedric were chronically bad over the right hand side both from an attacking and defensive perspective. The United goal illustrated this perfectly as JWP provided no cover whatsoever for the overlapping player and Cedric followed the overlap instead of closing down James, who by the time he smashed into the net was only about 12 yards out. Terrible decision-making by Cedric and a lack of basic defensive nous and understanding of some of his position by JWP.   In an attacking sense he was consistently too far infield she meant we had no outlet ball to the right hand side and if he did get wide, lack of pace meant Ashley Young, who is about 40, was never really tested. Meanwhile, though shining in patches, Boufal was struggling to get much change out of Wan-Bissaka on the left who fair enough, is an excellent defender – why not switch for a bit and have a run at Young? The first half also showed the zero level of understanding between Ings and Adams. Ings and Long linked up more in Shane’s first five minutes on the pitch than Ings and Adams did in the first hour. It looks to me that Ings and Adams are trying to be too clever and rotate positions.  Maybe just play Adams as a 9 and Ings as a 10 and save the complicated stuff until Adams has settled in a bit more.

With the score level at 1-1, at that point I actually thought we were going to win until Big Kev’s brain fart. Like I said, I have no issue with the two yellow cards that Kev got except Mike Dean allowing McTominay to do exactly the same thing without a yellow card.  Whilst I did enjoy his over the top support for Tranmere in the playoffs, he’s a fucking nightmare of a referee.

The positives today were a superb performance by Angus Gunn who didn’t have to produce any absolutely breathtaking saves but he did what he had to do very well and is growing in stature by the game at the moment. The two central defenders were excellent in the face of the pace of Rashford. Jan Bednarek was absolutely everywhere, winning every header and tackle and I was delighted for Jannik Vestergaard to get his long overdue first goal from the club and to put in a really solid defensive performance. He also managed to drill the ball right up Mike Dean’s arse as well which was probably the highlight of the first half.  Oriol Romeu, not usually selected in most Saints Fan Twitter Experts Starting XI… was a monster throughout.  As a team, we showed a lot of tenacity today, as we did last week against Brighton and overall it was a deent today bearing in mind we had Redmond, Djenepo and Bertrand all missing and Valery only fit enough for the bench. Though they are not what they were and probably never will be with Ole at the wheel, we got a good point at home against a team who will probably finish in the top six at the end of the season, especially if Mike Dean referees them every week.

Not that I wish to take anything away from Saints getting a point today but if I followed United I’ll be very disappointed with that showing. They showed absolutely no urgency whatsoever until we went down to 10 men and after that I showed a bit of urgency without showing any cutting edge whatsoever. You might as well just let Ashley Young cross the ball because he is fucking hopeless and he’s never gonna pick out one of his own players. Rashford was kept very quiet by our central defenders and James did next to nothing after his goal. The enigma which is wrapped inside a conundrum which is Carlton Pogba again showed some great touches but again just seem to be out for a stroll a lot of the game, getting caught in possession frequently and looking like he’s almost rather be anywhere else. I’d expect more from my £90 million World Cup winning player. Gone are the days when United used to be able to bring on world-class players from the bench. Now, it’s overhyped youngsters like Greenwood and Instagrammers like Jesse Lingard who is arse. Still, who fucking cares about them?

We need an answer to the Ryan Bertrand question before our next game which is after a well timed International Break. Danso will be suspended and we don’t want to play Hojbjerg there and it appears that Vokins has been declared to be not ready for first-team action. Ralph also has to get to grips with our growing tendency of having dreadful first half’s of games.  After the break it’s Sheffield United away, which is another game where we should be looking to pick up some points as is Bournemouth at home just after. Four or six points from those two games and we set ourselves up quite nicely for that cup game which everyone seems quite keen on winning.

FA Youth Cup 3rd Round - Southampton U18s 7 Portsmouth U18s 0

I Know! Same Picture Every Time..

The Skates were in town for the FA Youth Cup 3^rd Round game.  The draw was made a while ago and n order to get to play us, they had to beat Barton Rovers and I have no idea where that even is.  Anyway, they duly scraped through 1-0 and so are here under the lights at SMS, in front of a crowd of nearly 4000.

The Twitterskates seem to think that they’re going to win but they surely can’t be favourites as we play in the Premier Youth League against decent sides and they’re in a vastly inferior league.  There’s also the fact that we have a much vaunted Grade A Academy and the last I heard, they were debating whether to even have one at all given their financial turmoil.  Pompey’s first team has been in freefall recently which has seen them hover above the trapdoor into non-League football and lead to the sacking of Guy Whittingham who fell firmly into the ‘nice bloke, shite manager ‘ category.  Their new manager is Ritchie Barker who is present tonight. 

In other fishy news, one of their current players posted a picture of himself with Adam Lallana and got endless bile and vitriol spat at him by some Pompey fans.  To be fair, it was a rather stupid thing to post, a picture of you acting like a fanboy with your biggest rivals captain.   So that was a player from today not being particularly bright and then the news that a player they had last season has just been arrested for match fixing which though amusing, is not really Pompey’s fault.  It appears Sam Sodje’s crime was to arrange a bet on himself being sent off and then deliberately and bizarrely punch an opposition player in the bollcks and then do it again to make sure he got sent off.  I was at the infamous game at Coventry in 1994 when Bruce Grobbelaar let in a very suspect goal in the first minute before we screwed up his plan with keeping possession for the remaining 89 minutes and winning 3-1 with Ronnie Ekelund to the fore.  I will never be convinced that Bruce was innocent so Saints fans of older than a certain age have been there.

Tonight, the game starts in fairly even fashion with a Pompey full back having a half chance but it swings towards Saints as the game settles down and we go 1-0 up in the 27^th as Gallagher rolls around Whatmough too easily and squares for Hesketh to arrive and finish well.  With half time approaching it’s 2-0 as chaos following a corner is resolved with Mason scoring from close in.  Mason is of course the player who made headlines when he signed for Real Madrid when he was about 6.  I have no problem accepting Real Madrid cast-offs.

As the second half starts to becomes obvious that this is going to be a slaughter as the Pompey lads seem to have shrunk in stature as Saints stepped it up.  Saints get a free kick on the right hand side of the box and no Pompey player reacts as it’s rolled to Targett who has a free shot.  Pompey keeper Bass (no fish jokes please) does well to save but with the Pompey defenders playing statues, Big Sam Gallagher slots home for 3-0.  It’s 4-0 soon after as Hesketh pulls a trick out of the Gazza’96 book and flips the ball over a defender with a shock of blonde hair and scores easily.  

A Leggett chip to the back post and a Sir Rickie-esque header back across from Big Sam makes it 5-0 before he completes a hat-trick with a goal i can;t quite work out as Targett’s ball kind of hits him on the knee and bobbles past Bass in apologetic fashion via a post.  I actually feel a bit sorry for the keeper as he’s done his best and has been their best player by a mile but he’s had no help from those in front of him.  It’s also nice to have a new ‘Big Sam’ to talk about as opposed to ‘Fat Sam’ from the West Ham Total Hoofball no Striker Academy of Football.

Whilst I take no pleasure in a bunch of kids getting mullered, I do take great amusement from the spectacle of Pompey fans leaving early.  There’s less than 4000 in here mate so no need to beat the traffic.  By leaving early they probably missed the last goal as substitute Mark Irvine ran through to fire past a totally unprotected Bass to make it 7-0. 

So the Saints go marching on in the FA Youth Cup and this could be there year where we underline the status of our Academy by doing well in it.  This competition is a straight knockout competition so there’s always the possibility of getting a really difficult draw or just putting in one substandard performance and then you’re gone.  The test of how good these kids are is solely how many of them make it to the first team squad in the future.  At a time when there’s a lot of publicity for the Man United Class of 92, maybe in 20 years time we’ll be seeing a line-up of Gallagher, Hesketh, Sims, Mason, Debayo and Targett or any other combination of todays line-up in a Class of 2013 film.

The facts are that when we came into some money with Markus and Nicola taking over, we spent it on infrastructure and on the Academy.  When Pompey were in the money, they spunked it all up the wall on players they couldn’t afford as has been well documented elsewhere and whoever the owner was didn’t give a single thought to the future.   I use the term ‘owner’ to apply to all of them - Mad Mandy, The Arms Dealer and his son, The Invisible Arab, The Fat Ice Cream Seller Bloke and the Loan Shark.  The investment in our Academy is bearing fruit now with Premier League standard players coming through the system to supplement (in the main) wise expenditure on experienced players.  Tonight, based on the eligibility rule of 18 or under on 31 August 2013, I think we could also have played Luke Shaw, Harrison Reed, James Ward-Prowse and Calum Chambers if we’d wanted to, not to mention Omar Rowe, Jordan Turnbull, Jason McCarthy, Sam McQueen, Jake Sinclair and Ryan Seager.  Just imagine... the one player with any first team experience who did play was Sam Gallagher and look what he did.   At the other end of the scale, Pompey (I think) had one of their players from this game who has played a couple of games in League 2 whilst many of the others look like park players like I myself was when I played for Havant Schools against a Benali and Wallace brothers inspired Saints Academy in the mid-80s.  Yes, we got annihilated as well.

Obviously natural ability plays a large part but if you had two players of the same natural ability and one went to Saints and the other to Pompey – who do you reckon would turn out best?  If I was one of the parents watching their son play in blue last night, even if (god forbid) I was a Pompey fan, I’d find it hard to not wish my son was playing in red.  This is nothing new of course as 12 years ago, Mark Chamberlain who was a Pompey player and worked for Pompey at the time, sent his own son to play for Saints.  It’s a sad state of affairs down the wrong end of the M27 and one they really have to address with some longer term planning and financial commitment.  It sure isn’t going to be easy but in any walk of life, you have to get the foundations right otherwise sooner or later, it’s all going to come crashing down irreparably.  If you have strong foundations then you can build again and the foundations are the youngsters in the Academy, unless you of course are Chelsea or Manchester City when the foundations are the size of the owners’ wallets.

I’ve seen a few articles praising Rupert Lowe for turning round the Saints Academy which is only fair as he did recognize that it needed to pick up again after not producing a great deal for a decade or so.  However, that praise should come with the caveat that Lowe’s stated aim was to produce players to sell on, as he cared more of the financial bottom line rather than what was going on on the pitch.  Now, in the Liebherr-Cortese era, the aim is markedly different as it’s to produce players to play for our first team, not some other clubs’ first team.

Saints fans should do some crowing about this result – not particularly because it was 7-0 but because it shows how well we have done through the long term planning and investment and it should make us smile at the gulf between the rivals and wallow in a bit of smugness with the comparison between how to do it and how not to do it.  The Pompey kids will have been gutted to have been dicked 7-0 but hopefully for them, it will be character building and good for their longer term development and some of them can turn into decent players for them in the future.  You have to remember that these are kids, even if they wear a blue shirt.

I did however smile at some of the comments from the Twitterskates afterwards which were along the lines of “it was only a youth team game” and “when was the last time you beat us?” and “it’s Premier against League 2”.  Well, the last Pompey win against us was that very dodgy FA Cup game when they were in the Premier League (and were in administration) and we were in League 1.  Before that, their last win against us was in the 2004/5 season, the same season we last beat them and we beat them twice that season.  I swear some of them still think David Norris scored the winner a couple of years back and the ‘you haven’t beaten us for years’ contingent will in the next breath, talk of winning the league in 1939.  Do you think they’d have been crowing much if they’d won 1-0 last night, let alone 7-0?  Of course they would.  My personal favourite though was one missive which read something like  “the lads may have lost 7-0 last night but they’ll wake up this morning and not be Scummers and they’ll be glad”.  Erm... no they won’t – they should wake up and aspire to be of the standard of some of the Saints boys and hope that Jason Dodd or Paul Williams or even Mauricio Pochettino saw something in them that might make Saints make an enquiry.

Our Claus, In the Middle of the Pub

Claus - Five Minutes into his interview

But first...

There have been a couple of major stories in the transfer market since the last blog entry with the Alexander Buttner deal hitting the buffers for now as a mysterious ‘third party’ came into play.  Vitesse Arnhem exonerated themselves and Saints against any wrongdoing and we all jumped to conclusions like it was some mysterious agent and like the Tevez saga and all that.  Turns out that it’s his Dad wanting a cut if the media is to believed (which of course it usually isn’t).  “Mr Cortese, please can you pay an extra.....drrrrr (phone goes dead)”

Steven Davis has signed from the Pompey of the North as he exercised his right to quit rather than be transferred to the new version of Rangers, the Derangers.  He’s a central midfield player with 50 odd caps for Northern Ireland and Premier League experience so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.  The Derangers new Chairman however is not happy and is kicking up stink about Davis and a number of other Rangers players refusal to become Derangers and instead, taking up the opportunity which is open to them, by law, to sort themselves out.  It seems however that he’s arguing against this basic employment law and is doomed to failure so all things being equal, we’ve got a decent new player on our hands after his appeal is heard and he’s told to piss off.

Steve - in Liverpool shirt.

We’ve been recently linked with Wilfried Zaha (he of the toys out of the pram) and Nathaniel Clyne from Palace which seems a fair swap for letting them have Aaron Martin on loan for a season.  If that cames off then that would be right wing and right back sorted.  We also know that we need a goalkeeper and at least one centre back for the squad and talking of Saints centre backs…

The only Saints centre back in the news has been Claus Lundekvam who really needed to engage brain before opening mouth.  The genie is out of that particular bottle now though as he’s accused everyone of spot fixing, betting on the first throw and the like during his time at SFC.   Everyone was apparently at it, both teams etc.  Having I assume, noticed that cricketers have gone to jail over similar accusations, I would expect that he thought long and hard before opening his mouth... or maybe not as this is Claus after all who may have been sat under a bridge drinking out of a bottle wrapped in a paper bag with nothing but a dog on a string and Paul Merson for company.  I’m sure many of us Saints fans remember seeing him in Jumping Jaks totally pissed out of his head either after a Saturday game or on occasions on a Friday before a game.  I’m sure everyone remembers his confessions of a post-retirement drug issue, of financial problems and of his arrest for assault of a business partner.  Francis Benali, a truly respected and trustworthy SFC legend of that period of time, alluded to Claus’ personal problems when questioned about the allegations and said he knew nothing of it which is the same story as Matt le Tissier, David Hirst and Paul Williams have repeated. 

It’s notable that Claus has mentioned no names specifically which makes me think, when considered along with his more wayward tendencies, that this is either a complete load of bollocks or that he’s exaggerated the extent and breadth of it to muddy the waters of his own involvement.  Either way he should have shut the fuck up and I really hope he’s making no money out of these allegations.  It affects the way he’s thought of by fans as well and as a player with over 400 appearances- that’s a real shame.  I’m sure no one at SFC 2012 gives a shit about the allegation except maybe Jason Dodd who of course, was a player at that time.  Pompey fans taking the moral high ground is hilarious though – paid back those charities, schools and local businesses yet have you boys?

So, we’ve got a pissed ex-player making things difficult but down the road they have 8 players (Blue Few) who they have to sell (Blue Fewer) before a takeover by a bloke who has owned it twice can take over again (Blue Murder).  As he only wants it for asset stripping, the fact that they’ve been deducted 10 points for the forthcoming League 1 season won’t bother him in the slightest but the fact that 5 years of restrictions have been put in place regarding how much of the debt he can wipe off and how soon he actually has to pay some money to creditors may well see him run for the hills and leave the club right in the shite as it could be time for the fans who have pledged a grand to the Pompey Supporters Trust to actually cough up.  We await with bated breath.  Basically, they have no choice as the League have grown a pair and pulled out the “play by our rules or fuck off” card.  My criticism of the League is that they should have done this two years ago after the 2010 administration which would have saved creditors, charities and schools etc a lot of money.

Cue “its not fair” and “not our fault” and “a big boy did it and ran away” and a big “WHO THE FUCK IS LAUGHING NOW ?”…

Anyhow, as far as this blog goes it’s kind of cool that I started it three years ago when we were bottom of League 1 with -10 points and Pompey were in the Premier League and now it’s the complete opposite – so it’s all down to me and I take all the credit. 

I thank you.

How embarassing

Alex on his debut - how the Pompey fans celebrated

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/portsmouth-ace-makes-england-squad-1-3894311

Let’s face it, that lot down the road are embarrassing.

In summary and probably missing stuff - From Gun Runners to Fat Skint Arabs to non-existent Arabs to prossie bothering managers to loan sharks to convicted fraudsters to the best fans in the world ™ to Can’t Pack the Park to Fratton Park is falling down to training in Southampton to ripping of charities twice to ripping off schools twice to administration twice to quality of quantity to 36k a week journeymen to paying win bonuses to their CEO to....well everything really.

Regular readers will know that I don't have much time for the press (see the Lukas Jutkiewicz piece) but a new low has been reached since the season ended with the announcement of the England squad for the Euro 2012 tournament. That paragon of truth and telling it how it isn’t, the Portsmouth Evening News, ran an article titled ‘Portsmouth Ace in England Squad’. I saw that and thought they were bigging up Glen Johnson and Jermain Defoe – a little bit embarrassing I thought cos they’re not at Pompey now and are two of the players they should never have bought as they could never afford them but technically, they were Pompey players once up on a time. Defoe in particular is not well liked down there but still, he was a Pompey player.

I know that there is journalistic license but Christ on a bike… they are talking about Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who, in case you didn’t know, has played for Arsenal since August 2011 and before that he played for Southampton where he has been, playing all his football since he was 8 years old. As far as we all know, he’s never even played kids 5 a side in a team that was affiliated to Portsmouth Football Club. He developed in the Southampton Academy, made his first team debut at 16, tore up League 1 for a season and was then sold to one of the best teams in the country for 15 million quid. The fee for the Pompey Ace was not paid to Pompey but to Southampton. But you knew all this... and here’s a quick Q&A...

Did Pompey develop him? No.

Did Pompey fans chant his name? No.

Did Pompey fans feel pride when he made his first team debut? No.

Did Pompey fans get his name printed on their shirts? No.

Did Pompey fans leap to their feet as he tore past players on the wing? No.

Did Pompey fans stand there open mouthed when he chipped the keeper from a ridiculous angle? No, no and unsurprisingly, no again.

When all these things happened, if a Pompey fan had seen it, he would have shouted ‘Scummer, Scummer, F**king Scummer’ or somesuch at him, much like they used to do when he went home on the train in his Southampton tracksuit when he was a kid, as reported by his father.

The story of course is that his Dad is an ex-Pompey player who sent his son to Southampton’s Academy because then, as now, Pompey’s is shite and Southampton’s is one of the best in the country. Alex was born in Portsmouth and went to school there and that’s the whole basis of The News claiming that he’s a Portsmouth Ace. Why not Portsmouth-born Ace? By saying ‘Portsmouth Ace’, you are implying the football team and so shock of shocks, the headline is just completely embarrassing. Trying to somehow claim Alex is one of Pompey’s own is a bit like claiming money that you raised after saying it was for charities…. Can’t think who’d do such a dishonest thing.

I think I’ve missed a trick by not writing something where Saints claim credit for Darren Anderton’s international career as after all, he was a Bitterne Park schoolboy. No, I wouldn’t do that as it would be too embarrassing. He’s one of Pompey’s in the same way that Alex is one of ours.

The question for me is; what are The News trying to achieve? Are they trying to make Pompey fans feel better about things, to deflect attention away from the fact that they may well not have a club to support in a weeks time? Maybe they just want to try and wind up the Saints fans and get a reaction. Well, they’ve done that I guess but it’s not an indignant reaction, it’s just a completely-embarrassed-feel-sorry-for-you cringe.

I myself was born in Southampton but lived in Portsmouth country, in Waterlooville from age 8 to age 23 so Mr Portsmouth Evening News, you could probably claim my blog for Pompey. If you want to call me a Pompey blogger then go ahead – people will read it and laugh at you, much as people with half a brain will have laughed at your Alex article.

Let me ask this – if Alex hadn’t signed for Arsenal and was still a Southampton player? Would The News have written it then? The criteria they have used to justify their viewpoint wouldn’t be any different but maybe, just maybe, it would have been just a little too embarrassing…. even for the Portsmouth Evening News.

PS... Since writing this, I've found an earlier article which is even better.... altogether now... CRINGE!!!!

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/england-bow-for-portsmouth-talent-1-3889219

NPC Match 41 - Southampton 2 Portsmouth 2

Lightning Strikes.... Twice!

All the pre-match posturing, bile and vitriol was now done and it was time for the real posturing, bile and vitriol to begin.  The ground was filling up, the bubble was causing peace and tranquility everywhere and the South Coast Derby was at SMS once more.  This, my Brighton and Bournemouth supporting friends, is a rivalry.

I think the bubble is a good idea but I do miss the journey to the ground, seeing opposition supporters and exchanging friendly one fingered acknowledgements.  Whilst on the journey in, I heard an interview on the radio where the leader of one of the Pompey fan groups was on one of the bubble coaches basically saying that he didn’t like it cos he wanted to get shitfaced.  I hope that Hampshire Police ask for his contribution to the debate should this ever happen again.

To the ground and it’s full and it looks great, even if there are 3000 Skates in there.  To the team news and Sir Rickie is fit to partner Billy Sharp with Guly moving back onto the right wing in place of Chappers who has gone altogether from the squad.  Deano is in the side in place of Corky and I can tell that I’m nervous as I go into full rant mode at anyone who’ll listen when I find out the subs.  Barnard, de Ridder, Cork…. Ok fine with those three … Martin, ok…. and Harding.  What!!!  OK, I know Nigel wants to be positive and have 5 outfield subs but why be negative then and have 2 out and out defenders when Cork is there who can cover all of the defensive positions in an emergency.  Harding and Martin can both only cover one position each so surely having Chappers or Punch on there would be more positive.  Meanwhile, the Skates have replaced the injured Thorne and Tal Ben 38k a week with Jailbird Etuhu and Ricardo Rocha

The game starts with Lallana running at the Pompey defence and appealing for two free kicks, both of which were rightly ignored by the referee provided by the Premier League, Mr Swarbrick.  The ref is interested a minute later though as Morgan gets robbed by Norris and then pulls him back by the arm for a free kick and a yellow card.  It’s 1-1 on the card count a few minutes later as Maguire catches Fonte over on the left wing and we have a few handbags before the Derby forward is booked.

 

The early game clattering is complete after 6 minutes when Morgan flew in to tackle Varney who saw him coming and smashed his studs into Morgan’s knee and off he went in obvious pain to be replaced with Cork.  For what it’s worth, I don’t think Varney went in to ‘do’ him but it was a forwards challenge to say the least.  Nigel is not happy and the ref gets an earful, I assume it wasn’t anything to do with buses or together as one.

Pompey are certainly leaving their mark where they can and the officials are missing most of it, including Rocha throwing at elbow at Lallana as they compete for a ball near the touchline.  Rocha is having a dodgy few minutes as he then needlessly trips Billy on the left wing.  Big Jos launches himself at Adam’s free kick and gets in front of Ashdown who spills and recovers the ball.  The first real effort on goal fell to Kelvin Etuhu who didn’t really get hold of his effort and Superkelv parried with a degree of comfort.  When we get our passing going we look good and one such passage of play ends with a rising drive from Fox which Ashdown tips over the bar which according to Swarbrick rules, is a goal kick.

Jose is trying to get things moving for us by bringing the ball out of defence and he makes some decent ground and beats a couple of players before laying it off to Deano.  Enough time then passes for you to nip off, run a hot bath and have a good soak before Scott Allan arrives and clatters him.  Play goes on and we win a corner as Rocha puts it out and the Skate twat is on a mission and decides to welly the ball into the crowd from point blank range before responding to Adam’s probable assertion that he was a prick, by clipping him round the face.  Following a ref-lino conversation, all of that added up to a yellow card for Rocha and nothing but a word for Allan whose tackle was so fucking late it’s unbelievable but not as unbelievable as Mr Swarbrick’s decision not to book him. 

27 minutes have gone and from the corner conceded by the prick, Lallana’s delivery from the left is cleared high by Pearce to the edge of the box where Sir Rickie heads it back into a ruck of players to where Billy Sharp controls and manages to flick it up and poke it into the net past Ashdown and set off in celebration towards the stunned Skates fans, finger at the lips in the time honoured tradition.  Adam is bit naughty running behind the goal to join in but we’re in front, poachers goal, get the fuck in.  Needless to say, Mr Premiership Bollocks decides to book Billy who will one day score a goal without getting booked afterwards.

Five minutes later and Allan manages to kick Fonte up in the air again and this time it’s deemed worthy of a booking but it’s not nearly as bad as the last one.  We’re on the up now and surge forward again with Billy producing a volley which is at a comfortable height for Ashdown to save.  From everything being alright, it suddenly and out of nowhere went to shit.  A chip down the left by Maguire was chased by Etuhu who eventually laid it back to Maguire who advanced to the corner of the penalty area and absolutely smashed it into the near top corner to make it 1-1.  Where the fuck did that come from?  How he had to confidence to even try a shot from there is a bit of a mystery but what a goal.  At first I thought that Superkelv must have been at fault but to criticize him for that would be very harsh indeed.  The comatose Skates fans couldn’t believe it, having probably settled for a chastening afternoon and there seemed to be a pause before they realised it was in.

The shock around the ground lasted for a good five minutes and we were certainly knocked out of our stride both by the goal and by the continuing strongarm tactics which were still not being noticed by any of the officials.  They do notice Varney tripping Lallana though and the resultant free kick sees Sir Rickie line it up from the left corner of the penalty and Ashdown only put two men in the wall.  The free kick nearly knocks him over but it’s central enough for him to parry up in the air and for the Skates to scramble away as far as Lallana whose volley clipped both Jose and the post on its way out of play.  Very close.

There is just time for another pair of chances as Sir Rickie weights a perfect ball behind Rekik for Guly who smashes it at the near post which is covered by the sprawling Ashdown.  Foxy’s corner is met by big Jos who kind of throws himself at it but the ball flies wide.

In our usual half time brains trust meeting I decreed that we would score again based on the logic that we were looking very dangerous at set pieces and that the Skates weren’t good enough defensively to not give us a load of free kicks and corners in the second half.

The second half starts and like the first, Pompey create the first chance as Varney does well down the left and feeds Maguire who shows the reason why Derby loaned him out by sidefooting horribly wide.  We take 10 minutes to fashion our first chance of the half and again it’s another pair of chances.  Firstly a ball comes back out of the Skates box and Lallana volleys it only to see Ashdown take off and pull of a brilliant save.  From Adam’s corner, Jose meets it with a full blooded header from 8 yards and Ashdown takes off again and somehow shovels it over the bar – another brilliant save, bastard.  I thought he was supposed to be dodgy.

Guly then moved quicker and with more purpose than he had done all match on the hour mark when he was substituted.  I don’t think he even looked at the number of the player being replaced, just knew there was a sub being made and went, having put in his second complete shithouse of a performance against the Skates this season.  On came Steeeve to hopefully give us something down the right where there had been nothing so far.

Nothing much happened for the next 20 minutes aside from a Maguire free kick which wasn’t exactly off the training ground as he hit the wall and then smashed the rebound at the sun.  Steeeve is completely redundant on the right as we’re not getting the ball to him at all with Corky getting caught in possession and decent pressure from the Skates midfield meaning that we’re resorting to hoofing it forwards to Sir Rickie a bit too often.  The Skates are playing what Gordon Strachan would call ‘propaganda football’ in that they were passing it about nicely but not doing anything with it with the final ball often being aimless.

Voldemort made his first substitution, replacing the ineffective Etuhu with Dave Kitson.  What a strange player Kitson is – he can’t jump without doing this strange windmill thing with both his arms above his head.  He then went up for a header with Frazer and lost it, while windmilling his arms about before bleating to the ref and holding up an imaginary yellow card when there wasn’t even the suggestion of a foul.  You would think that silly windmill thing + imaginary card waving + shite footballer = Wanker.  In fact it equals £20,000 a week.

As the game moves into the last five minutes it’s all us again with another near thing from a free kick, given away by the Ginger magician.  Foxy’s freekick is headed back across by Sir Rickie to where Jose gets airborne and smashes it over the bar.  Aaaargh!!! Next it’s Adam Lallana’s turn as he allows a Jose pass to run through, giving him a run at Ashdown.  He should have taken it left footed but tried to go round Ashdown who flies out and clips him but Adam takes another couple of steps before running out of room and pulling out a horrible dive for which he should get booked but doesn’t.

And so we arrive in the last minute and it looks like the Skates have survived but they give us as chance as Rekik makes his one mistake of the match and slices it to Steeeeve who tries to pick someone out when he maybe should have shot and Rocha slices it over his own bar for another corner.  Adam’s corner is flicked on and poked into the net by Billy Sharp but the lino’s flag is up straight away for offside.  Fuck it.  Deano has gone nuts at he ref and he’s going over to have a word with the lino, a quick conflab and fuck me…. he’s given the goal.  After a quick “fuckinghaveityouskatebastarrrrrrrrrds” I don’t know what emotion I’m feeling most, relief, joy…?  Actually, I just think it’s funny as the Skates all surround the ref.  Turns out the the corner was flicked on by Varney and so Billy can’t be offside.  Well played ref, genius.

There are three minutes of the additional four minutes remaining and the next time the ball goes out, off goes Billy to be replaced by Dan Harding who goes to the left of midfield with Lallana floating around in the centre.  A ball lumped forwards beats everyone and goes through to Superkelv and I thought that that was going to be it.  But fucking no…. they get the ball back, aided and abetted by the fact that we only have one up front now and an aimless straight ball is tossed forward by Rocha and headed out by Jose.  It drops to Norris who is completely free in enough space to build a new Tesco and unhindered by any of our midfielders, catches it superbly and smashes it into the net for another superb goal.

There is still a minute to go and we manage one more attack with Lallana getting a head to a Frazer cross but the ball, rather fittingly ends up with Ashdown who saves comfortably. 

The End.  Fuck.  FUCK. ING. HELL. Final whistle and like the first game at Fratton Park, the Skates celebrated a draw like they’d won the fucking World Cup.  Fair enough though, I’d have done exactly the same had the roles been reversed.  Talk about sickening.

When I first thought about it I decided that it was a fair result as they’d played better football than us in the second half in particular but hang on a minute, they’ve had 4 world class moments from players that are not usually capable of that with Maguire, Norris and Ashdown twice, producing moments that are almost certainly up there with anything they have ever or ever will produce.  Ashdown wouldn’t have even been playing if they hadn’t had to offload Henderson to Fat Sam.  I remember Kelvin making a comfortable save from Etuhu in the first half but other than that, no Pompey efforts on target whereas we peppered them but it was almost all from set pieces.  Having seen the highlights, in which pretty passing going nowhere is not featured, we battered them pretty much.  Like the game at Fratton, we should have won but Pompey managed to drag something out of the bag to snatch a point both times showing that they can do it when they want to.  We can’t be too harsh on ourselves though – their keeper had the game of his life and look at their goals.  I guess that over ten matches a team attempts 20 twenty-five-yarders and maybe one flies in and the rest are blocked or shit and fly into the crowd.  The Skates had two fly into the corners of the net in one match.

It could not be said that we played well though and the midfield was absent completely in the second half.  I thought the back four did ok defensively but Foxy in particular was guilty of some poor crossing.  Deano huffed about in midfield and did some good things but Corky kept getting caught in possession.  On the wings, Adam flattered to deceive a bit, as did Steeeeeve but Guly was worse than that, he was abysmal.  I don’t go for the Guly-bashing by default as lots seem to do but he was bloody dreadful today – no crosses, no tackles, no urgency, no decent balls and he’s been pretty poor since Christmas and the time has surely come now to take him out of the side for a bit.  Up front, Sir Rickie was quite well shackled by a combination of Pearce, Rocha and the referee giving him fuck all and I’ve almost come to expect that Billy Sharp will not appear to do too much but he will score goals.  It seems that whenever there is a bundle of players and the ball ends up in the net, it’s Billy that’s put it there.  His all round game is improving though with each game and I think that with a bit of patience and a full pre-season, he’ll be improving for a while.

For the Skates, well Ashdown looked world class and if you ask any Skate fan, he usually isn’t.  I was very impressed with Rekik at left back who just looked like a quality footballer and they’ve pulled a right stroke in getting him on loan, likewise Scott Allan who played well once the referee allowed him to get away with some very dubious tackling.  Halford did his ‘destroyer’ job in midfield pretty well without ever looking entirely comfortable there and the forwards were a nuisance without looking particularly threatening – two world class goals aside…. Sounds daft doesn’t it?

Nigel was attempting to be positive afterwards but his ‘one point gained’ line was not fooling anybody.  I was waiting for the interviewer to say “fuck off Nigel, it’s two points dropped isn’t it?”.   If I’d been the interviewer I’d have written my own P45 by pointing out that like the game at Fratton Park, Pompey were not threatening our goal at all and you made a sub and switched it around and we allow them to score.  You want to waste time then fine but take Billy off and put Barney on.

I can’t usually be arsed to talk about referees but today we have to as we needed a strong referee today to take hold of the inevitable ‘kick them off the park’ tactics that were coming our way and we got Mr Swarbrick who was shit.  How on earth can Scott Allan not get booked for his ridiculous late hack on Jose?  How did Rocha stay on the pitch?  He didn’t even give a foul for Varney crippling Morgan, then booked Billy Sharp for celebrating a goal, then failed to book Adam Lallana for a horrible dive. OK, he did well on our second goal but fucking hell.

I guess that if the game had petered out at 1-1 then we wouldn’t all be as pissed off but having been in front with 2 minutes to go, it’s a complete pisser to have only got one point instead of three.  I also guess that if we’d won 2-1 then Mr Swarbrick would be our hero and not the person we’re all pointing at.  The Fat Sam Total Football Academy and Reading must be delighted with us dropping points today but we still went back to the top of the league, ahead of the Royals on goal difference and four points and goal difference ahead of Fat Sam.

So, no bragging rights for us which is a shame but there you go – ultimately that doesn’t matter.  Still, no time to dwell on it and barely enough time to draw the fabled blue line underneath this game and move on as we have 48 hours-ish before we kick off against mid-table Palace at Selhurst Park.

5 games left, 11 points needed.