Europa League Match 5 - Sparta Prague 1 Southampton 0

Sideways, Backwards, Sideways, Backwards

A trip to Prague to play Sparta who evidently are much improved from when we played them the first time round when they were pretty dreadful. It looks like they've appointed the youth team coach as manager and he's had a positive effect. Since they played us, they've won every game in the group which includes both of their home games so far. There is some stat that says Sparta haven't beaten an English club since 1982. Here we go then.

I strongly suspect that this game would be taken lightly by the management and that we were not going to put our best team out because even if we lose tonight, we have another chance in the final home game and so it proved with Cedric and Bertrand making way for Martina and McQueen, Maya instead of Jose in defence and even Romeu was rested with Hojbjerg playing defensive midfield. The weakest of our wide midfielders in JWP and Clasie were in the starting line up and the forwards looked full of running but not much else with Long, J-Rod and Redmond picked. I kind of understand the weakened side but at the same time I kind of don't.  I would say the better policy is to get it done tonight and rest players for the home game against Be’er Sheva.

Off the pitch since the Liverpool game, fans have had to deal with at the Alex Crook bullshit machine saying that Liverpool are going to sign both Virgil and Sam McQueen from us with Daniel Sturridge coming in the other direction. Hold it right there for fuck's sake. Now, even though I spent the whole of the last blog slagging off Daniel Sturridge, He would be an absolutely dream signing for Saints which is exactly why it will not happen because he's probably on at least twice as much as our highest paid player. Virgil to Liverpool in January really isn't happening either and any time there's a swap deal mentioned, it never happens.   If you forget money for a second, maybe it’s possible that Sturridge wouldn't say no to a move down here if he looked at how our other big club rejects like Bertrand, Romeu and Hojbjerg have improved in the time down here. I do however strongly suspect though that he is Billy Big Bollocks so wouldn't even contemplate moving to a team that's not a big club.

Anyway, regarding the outgoing rumours, if only in the club could block Alex Crook from writing about them in the same way that he blocks most of us from following him on Twitter.  It’s not just what he writes but it’s the fact that he writes it and a million fan pages and Twitter accounts flood the market with it.

Away we go and almost immediately, McQueen threads a ball down the line to Long who bundles past the full back and squares it to Clasie who could shoot but presents an easy chance to J-Rod who takes the shittiest of shithouse first touches and instead of tapping in, tries to dribble round a defender and loses it.  JUST FUCKING HIT IT MAN FOR FUCKS’

SAKE!!!

Sparta’s first attack ends with Virgil waving a lazy leg at it and whacking it straight up in the air.  Down it comes, hed tennis carnage and then Pierre tries to sort it out by heading it back to Fraser and it just gets there as Lafata swings a boot at it.  Virgil has another dodgy moment a few minutes later when he doesn’t seem to be concentrating and takes out Julis in the air to give Sparta a free kick about 30 yards out.  Dockal chips it in and Costa has ambled into the box with the freedom of fucking Prague and volleys it past Fraser at the near post.  Martina and Clasie have just watched him go.  Oh fucking terrific.

Straight away we respond with a great ball from Redmond which puts McQueen in and he hits it first time but straight at the keeper who blocks well.  We create a coupld of chances as the half goes on but nothing much.  Long gets his head on a JWP frr kick and the keeper easily pushes it wide and then Redmond puts McQueen away again and he squares for J-Rod whose shot is blocked before rebounding to McQueen’s right foot and he shanks it wide with the swinger.  Half time and it’s already shaping up to be one of those games.  Basically, we are not going to score all the time Austin is not on the pitch so we may as well hook J-Rod and get him on now but no, we start the second half with the same side, playing the same sideways and backwards way.  Claude appears to have told them to shoot more and so Maya does, from 45 yards and what a surprise, it was shit.

Hojbjerg goes down with what looks like a dead leg and on comes Romeu in his place, with Boufal coming on to put Rusty Rodriguez out of his misery.  It makes no difference though and Sparta enjoy a bit of possession and work a neat 1-2 on our left and the shot is straight at Fraser but he decides to palm it straight back out into the middle to make sure that the defenders are on their toes.  They win a free kcik when Costa gets challenged by Boufal and just stands still and then does a forward roll and rolls around until the ref gives a free kick.  It’s bizarre and so is our defending as it’s chappied in, no one goes with Lafata and he just misses it… oh hang on it’s going in but Fraser sticks out a hand to paw it away.  More pressure and this time Clasie gives it away and Dockal gets in alow shot which Fraser does well to get down to.

Sparts have had their ten minutes so now it’s business as usual, sideways and backwards, sideways and backwards, 11 behind the ball, no forward runs.  Garbage.  I gave up 10 minutes ago on us scoring and every opportunity that we fuck up is just a shrug of the shoulders from me.  Boufal chips in a good ball to JWP who has made a decent run but he misses the ball.  Shrug!

Austin is on for Clasie but we are shit with overhit passes from Redmond and diabolical crossing from Martina.  Straight to the keeper, straight behind the goal, wank.  Long comes short and picks up a ball, turns in midfield and runs with purpose to the edge of the box and wildly slashes miles wide. Shrug!  Long again as JWP put him in on the right, crosses instead of shooting and cleared for a corner.  Shrug!  Corner comes over and Virgil smacks a free header over from 6 yards.  Shrug! Shrug! Fucking Shrug!

The final ten minutes which should be like the bastard Alamo is ten minutes of nothing.  We do nothing except sideways and backwards.  It’s fucking painful.  The last chance isn’t really a chance because Maya is offside as JWP’s free kick comes in but it hits his face and bounces down to the keeper anyway.  Shrug!, Bollocks! Shit!

Well that was fucking dreadful from the moment that J-Rod decided to fuck about in the first few minutes until the end of the 94th minute. We were absolutely fucking shit – nat as bad as Midtjylland but not far off. I've completely given up on the fanciful idea of scoring or even working the goalkeeper from about 55 minutes onwards. We were so clueless in the way we were playing and so many individual players were having shocking games. Like I said at the start I understand Claude picking a weaker side for this game and in his defence, that side should have been strong enough to beat this Sparta side who let's face it, are pretty fucking average at best. He chose a side of that he thought would do the job and they completely and utterly didn't. 

Where do you fucking start with individual players. I know, I'll start with the worst of the lot, Cuco Martina. We would have been better off taking him off when we had already used all three subs and played with 10. If he wasn't on the pitch then we wouldn't have been giving him the ball and expecting him to do what a full back is supposed to do and actually cross the fucking ball into an area somewhere near our strikers in the middle. If we do substitute him without putting anybody on we possibly would have been given an extra 30 seconds of extra time at the end to try and get a goal.  As we all know though, that would've been just another 30 seconds of complete fucking shit. Martina was the worst closely followed by J-Rod. Rusty Rodriguez as he's known now was absolutely diabolical again like he has been in every single game he's played this season. There comes a point when the excuse of being rusty just doesn't cut it anymore. This is top level sport and you can't carry people.  We need him to contribute as he is one of the main strikers in the squad and at the moment he just isn't contributing at all. That miss or rather, that lack of shot in the first couple of minutes is as bad as it gets. He shoots he scores we are 1-0 up. Instead, five minutes later we are 1-0 down. Game changer.

Then we have Shane Long who at the moment is just running about. All season he's just run about with absolutely no quality in his play whatsoever. I understand that he had a bit of a go at some fans who are booing at the end of the game. That's really fucking dodgy ground to be on when you are a striker who hasn't scored for 8 months including all of this fucking season and it's nearly December.  Redmond...? Stationed wide left and pretty average though did link up with McQueen quite well. He's never a goal scorer though. Never.

Apparently we are going to start seeing the best of Boufal according to Claude. Well we fucking didn't see it tonight as he barely touched the ball when he came on and added absolutely no spark to a team that was completely and actually flat anyway.  Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on him as trying to put life into that performance was like trying to jump start a car with no fucking engine or battery in it.  Dusan Tadic is becoming a better and better player with each game he misses. 

Now the midfield and JWP had a completely anonymous game contributing the square root of fuck all. Another game where he had the chance to step up and completely failed to do so. Clasie was okay for the first 30 minutes and then he did what he always does and fade completely out of the game before we have to take him off.  Maya was a fucking nightmare waiting to happen at the back and his shot from 45 yards was awesome and Virgil had quite possibly the worst game I've ever seen him have the Saints shirt. He really looked like he didn't want to be out there and played in a really half arsed lethargic way.

The players that leaves who had relatively decent performances (and a couple of these are 'at a stretch') are Hojbjerg, Romeu (who was sorely missed from the start), Forster who was looking unconvincing but at least made a couple of saves and Sam McQueen who was easily our man of the match.

With Hapoel beating Inter 3-2, we are now dead level with the Israeli's going into the last game against them at St Mary's. This game is the most important game that Claude will have as Saints manager. If we fail to get out of this group then the crowd will turn. Some are turning already but in my opinion if we fail to get out of what is a really easy group with Inter being crap, then people will have the right to ask serious questions of the manager.  Part of the reason he was brought in was because of his experience of European competition. Three away trips and no fucking goals?  Sideways and bastard backwards and no forward runs from midfielders and strikers playing miles apart.  Tactically – something is severely wrong at the moment.

So, I get that we have to rotate players and the weaker players only seem to play in the European games and the League Cup games. When do performances become so bad that players get left out of the rotation? I would personally rather see Harrison Reed playing ahead of Jordy Clasie. I would also prefer to see Sam Gallagher playing ahead of J-Rod and to be honest I think I'd even rather see the incredibly raw Olomola. There has got to be an alternative to playing Martina at right back. Why not play Yoshida there and play Jack Stephens alongside Virgil?  Promote the England U21 player instead of playing the journeyman donkey.  It was kind of okay when Martina was a novelty player who played occasionally but this season he is playing far too much and he just isn't good enough to string three decent games together. At the moment is not good enough to string 10 minutes together.  If the fullbacks don't deliver any quality from the wings then we severely struggle.  Claude knows this as it’s his system so why is he picking a player who just isn’t capable of playing this way.

Lots of interviews afterwards with the manager and players saying I'm ever so sorry, we let the fans down. Yes you fucking did. It's not just tonight though, we have let a painfully average team win the group so even if we managed to scrape our arses through in a couple of weeks, we are heading for a last 32 tie against a team who has dropped out of the Champions League and the way we are playing at the moment, that will definitely be the end of that.

Next up and back to the league and we have the visit of the Lying Dutchman and his Everton side. They have Stekelenburg in goal and we all know he has a weakness with shots at the goal. Right now I'm wondering if we will actually fucking have any.

Europa League Match 1 - Southampton 3 Sparta Prague 0

Two 8-Year Olds Have to be Separated by Their Dad

It’s time for the rewards for last seasons efforts to be delivered and here we are, Europa League Night 1 – it’s been a journey from the Liebherr takeover in 2009 to now.  The Europa League branding around the ground looks good and there is an undoubtedly different feel about his as opposed to a normal League game.  Sparta Prague were pretty well known in European Football terms when Czechoslovakia was still a country and in the early 90s when the Czech Republic was formed, they were the dominant side domestically but they’ve not been as great recently, hence their appearance in the Europa League whereas teams such as Slovan Liberec are in the big competition.

Not that this is a small competition (well maybe it is for Mourinho and those patronising Man United bastards) and certainly not for Saints and Claude.  We need a win and we need some positive signs that the way we are playing is going to work.  However, I was expecting a different style of game tonight, one that would suit us more.  We’re seen as the 2^nd seeds in this group, behind Inter and ahead of Sparta and Hapoel so in the context of the group, it’s important to get a result against the team who on paper at least, should be challenging us for a qualifying place.

The team selected by Claude is kind of strange but not strange.  Three changes in the back four is a bit of a change with Cuco, Maya and Matty Targett in and only Virgil retained from the Arsenal game.  Elsewhere there are 4 other changes but nothing that you’d deem earth-shattering with Austin, Long, Hojbjerg and JWP coming in for J-Rod, Redmond, Davis and Clasie.

Oh look we’ve got one of those behind the goal officials that does nothing, right in front of us.  The first action of the game is after 5 minutes when Austin gets down the right and tries to cross only for it to be blocked by the sliding Costa at left back for a corner.  The ref gives a corner and everyone seems happy and then out of nowhere he points to the spot and it’s a penalty.  What the fuck is that for says I, with not the same venom as I said it at The Emirates a few days ago... and how did he arrive at that decision as he didn’t consult the traditionally placed linesman who didn’t have a flag across his chest.  It must have been a word in the radio earpiece from the official behind the goal.  Later replays proved this to be harsh beyond belief.

Before the penalty is taken we have a scene as Austin has the ball and is clearly wanting to take it and he and Tadic are having a bit of a row like a couple of 8 year olds.  It takes the head boy Virgil to go up and pull Tadic away and he’s still not having it but eventually he walks away.  Fucking embarrassing.  Anyway, after the comedy award and the comedy double act, up steps Charlie and drills it into the corner to give us a great start and hopefully give him some confidence.

We’re all over them now and Cuco is getting involved down the right, putting over a good cross which Charlie meets and nods into the net but as is often the case with Charlie, he’s offside.  We then settle into a rhythm of playing possession football but it’s all a bit slow paced for me as we work it up to the half way line and then knock it back again. 

It takes until the 20 minute mark for us to create another chance and it’s that man Cuco Martina again.  Thirty seconds after me moaning at him because he was so slow at getting out that he allowed his winger all the time in the world to get a cross in, he gets down the wing and has a great position to cross it in but he scuffs it into the defender and it bounces back to him and out of nowhere, he pulls out this wonderful cross with the outside of his right boot, right onto Charlie’s head, back across the keeper and 2-0 as easy as you like.

Back to the holding pattern for the rest of the first half, not really giving them a sniff and then Maya (as usual) has a go at ruining an exceptional first half for him by blindly knocking a shite short back pass to Fraser who has to dribble past a forward before clearing.

My prediction at half time was that it would be a dull second half and we’d just try and play it out and as we restarted, this looked like coming true.  We got a free kick for a foul on JWP on the half way line and we took it, passed it about a bit on halfway and then worked it back to Fraser.  Fraser then wellied it back to half way, where JWP lost a header and Sparta had the ball.  My question is this – what was the point of that?  Far from advocating ‘putting it in the mixer’ a-la Allardyce, there has to be more value in passing it forwards. Why not stick Charlie Austin on the penalty spot and toss it in there?  What’s the worst that can happen?  We lose the ball in their penalty area.  We are at times too patient and need to commit to a few more forward passes slightly earlier than what we are doing.

Anyway, nothing much is happening and it’s time to bring on some subs and Redmond is up first, coming on for Tadic.  Dusan has again looked superb in places but went out of the game when a Sparta player whacked him in the back in the first half.  After being bollocks and static against Arsenal, Redmond was a revelation here and was exactly what the game needed with his willingness to run at people and inject a bit of pace into the play.  Charlie Austin was beginning to look knackered as he was doing lots of tracking back on the left wing and so he came off without a hat-trick and was replaced with J-Rod.

The game was won to be honest and this was illustrated when Hojbjerg played a superb ball inside the full back for Cuco to run onto and whilst he looked up for someone to knock it back to for a tap-in, there was absolutely no one busting a gut to get into the box so he dithered and got tackled.  Not Cuco’s fault and I bet he wished he’d just smashed it at the goal.

Oriel Romeu had been having a mixed match to say the least but the tackle he put in to get booked was so late that the ball was in another post code.  Hilarious but Claude thought better of leaving him on for entertainment value and on came Davo for the last 10 minutes.

Whilst Austin had rebuilt his confidence with his goals and a decent performance, Shane Long had not and was having what is usually described as a ‘mare’.  He’d been so bad that it was somewhat surprising a) that he was still on the pitch and b) that when he got put into space on the left that he didn’t fuck it up and he got his head up and fed the onrushing J-Rod who sorted his feet out well and passed it across the keeper and into the corner for 3-0 and make the final score more representative of the match.

There had been a bit of a niggly undercurrent in the game and Sparta had clearly had enough as JWP copped a bad one on half way which made him kick off and as the final whistle blew, the left back decided to take a chunk out of Redmond and they had to be kept apart at the final whistle. 3-0, a decent if not perfect performance and happy days.

On the one hand, it’s great to get a win and it’s great to make a good start in the Europa League group.  It’s a welcome boost for Claude and there were a lot of positives with the biggest potentially, being the goals for Charlie Austin and the confidence it will bring him.  Christ knows we need a goal scorer.  Elsewhere, Virgil just strolled through the game looking like a Rolls Royce in a garage full of Trabants and Maya had a very good game aside from the one massive balls up.  Romeu was hilarious in midfield, going through a cycle of win ball, give ball away, win ball, give ball away, break someone.  He is part Schneiderlin, part Wanyama, part Wotton.  I was impressed by JWP for the whole game and by Hojbjerg for most of it.  Pierre seems to have ten minutes off here and there but when’s he’s switched on he’s a great player.  JWP is obviously working hard to adapt his game to what’s required in this system and is notably being more aggressive and passing the ball quicker.  He should really now be getting as much game time as Davo and Clasie. 

And then there was Cuco, swinging from bloody crap to bloody brilliant within seconds.  Miles away from the man he’s supposed to be marking one minute and then putting over a superb cross the next.  He’s totally unpredictable, which is not necessarily what you want in a defender.  Nothing sums him up more than the goal he set up for Charlie – a horrible shanked cross which hit the first defender and bounced back to him, followed by a perfect cross with the outside of his foot to give the striker a goal on a plate.

Elsewhere, Man United lost to Feyenoord which is funny but they don;t give a shit so we shouldn't be surprised.  They too chose a few squad players like Depay (£30m), Schneiderlin (£25m), Herrera (£28m) and other big money players like Rojo and Martial.  Pogba was shit again and Zlatan came on as a sub so it was hardly a team of untried kids.  Tossers.  More importantly, there was a shock in our group as Inter lost at home 2-0 to Hapoel Be'er Sheva which I guess is not a good result for us.  I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks when we travel to Israel.

Bigger picture… Are we getting there?  I don’t know really.  The wide areas of the pitch still concern me.  I have a feeling that against teams that play with real width we’ll really struggle.  Our strikers chase back into the traditional right and left midfield positions and then aren’t up front if we break.  To me it looks like they don’t really get back far enough to be part of the defensive effort but they’re back far enough to not get involved up front too much.  J-Rod’s performance was interesting in that he had 15 minutes on the pitch and in that time he only managed to get forward once, when he scored.  The rest of the time he was playing just in front of Targett.

Sparta – they were pretty shite to be honest.  Some tidy stuff in midfield but nothing up front and some strange players at the back and in goal.  However, the penalty that we were given was complete bollocks which put them up against it right from the start.  Would it have been given at The Emirates?

Next up we have Swansea in the League and another ‘must win’.  Claude has a few decisions to make regarding the 11 that start but I would imagine the defence will be re-installed with Cuco being the most likely to be given a chance out of today’s line-up.  In midfield I think Romeu is set in stone and I thought Tadic was until today but Redmond coming on and playing in the hole behind the strikers really made a difference so maybe Redmond there and Tadic on the left, up front with Austin.  Personally I’d persevere with Hojbjerg and JWP in midfield but I think that Davis will come back into the side, probably at JWP’s expense.

Anyhow, that’s for another day.  For now, let’s just bask in that winning feeling again.  It seems like it’s been a while.