League 1 Match 28 - Southampton 1 Carlisle 0

Sniper on Gas Holders Takes Aim at Matty Robson.

Today we are at home to Carlisle who will forever be associated with our JPT Trophy win from last year. This year, Carlisle have managed to make the final again and are back at Wembley where as we spectacularly did nothing of the sort. They started the season brightly but in the League at least, have fallen away. Top scorer Gary Madine has been sold but none of this took place before they beat us up at their place. We owe them one.

Don Nicola broke his silence on a couple of issues. The first was the transfer window frenzy regarding Alex Chamberlain where he basically blasted a number of Premiership clubs for the way they tried to do business – saying they only seemed to care from a business point of view and not from a human point of view – no face to face negotiation, just a fax. The quote of ‘we care about the boy’ stood out in the middle of a cesspit of people only caring about their own self-interests. What this said to me was that our Chairman is a man of his word. What he says, is indeed what he means and in turn, it is what will happen. He said Alex wouldn’t be sold and he wasn’t, he in fact said no one would leave and they haven’t (Forecast, Wotton and Pulis don’t count here). What’s not to like here? We have a Chairman who does exactly what he says he’ll do and he flies directly in the face of the ‘we’re a big club and we will do what we want’ attitude and fights his and our corner. It’s so refreshing to find someone not prepared to accept the norm. Compare and contrast with our previous incumbent who in the main just bent over and took it, selling everyone at the first opportunity.

The other and more contentious issue is Cortese versus The Legends of SFC. There seems to be this expectation in football that you get handed everything on a plate. For example – a footballer signs a four year contract and then, no matter how badly he plays, cannot have this contract terminated without it being paid up in full - unless he does a Bosnich and starts sampling Columbian marching powder or whatever. Compare and contrast to the real world where you sign a 6 month contract with an employer and if you’re shite or if they just fancy getting rid of you for their own reasons, you’re history at a months notice at best. If ‘real world’ rules applied to footballers, do you think Anthony Pulis and Tommy Forecast would still be picking up a wage at SFC? I don’t see why current and former players should get things on a plate but at the same time, there should be some recognition and gratitude shown. I feel that the Legends aren’t doing themselves or anyone else any favours by digging at the club in the gutter press (that’s the Daily Mail) but I also don’t think it would do the club any harm to give events organized by the legends, their official support and stamp of approval. At the moment it’s like schoolboys having a pissing contest and all that happens in pissing contests is that no one wins and everyone gets covered in piss.


The defensive shambles at Peterborough saw the Axe of Adkins wielded with the blade descending on the neck of Dan Seaborne with Radhi Jaidi being restored to the side. When the team was first announced on the big screens, I thought we were playing some revolutionary new formation as we only had one centre back as they’d read out Ryan Dickson instead of Jaidi and put his picture up on the screen. Despite being on the front of the program, Bart was still on the bench and Recently-Not-so-Superkelv was still in the team. The midfield saw Dany N’Guessan restored to the left wing in place of Lee Barnard. One major bonus was that Adam Lallana was on the bench. Carlisle’s manager has said that they have the player to deal with Chamberlain in Gary Borrowdale... we’ll see.

Today was the day I decided to take my 6 year old son to his first proper game as my Dad couldn’t go, so I replaced one messy eater who doesn’t know what’s going on and can’t go 45 minutes without a pee, with another. He came to the Swindon JPT nightmare earlier on in the season and the Ajax friendly (70 minutes – fell asleep) but this was his first league game. We had played Saints v Carlisle on the Wii before we left and the result was Saints 2 Carlisle 3... whoops. David Connolly is usually fit on the Wii, Dean Hammond has red hair and Paul Wotton can do stepovers and beat people for pace ... bizarre. We watched TV in the concourse and saw some Granny Shagger score with a fantastic overhead kick v Man City... hopefully someone will do that for us today.

The first major action of the day was Chamberlain getting his first run at Borrowdale and entirely expectedly, he pushed the ball past him and Borrowdale made no attempt to get the ball and just blocked him off quite blatantly. It was a challenge that wouldn’t have looked out of place in ice hockey and totally warranted a yellow card.

After good work from Sir Rickie, Harding found himself taking on the full back on the left and whipping over a decent cross which went straight back to Sir Rickie, whose volley almost worked as a 1-2 as it was so bad, rocketing off the pitch just in front of Harding by the left corner flag.

Carlisle have a centre back called Michalik who looks like he’s been built by Dr Frankenstein. He makes Jaidi look small and caused a slight bit of consternation in our box by getting his oversized head on a corner but Superkelv made a comfortable save.

In direct contrast to Richard Chaplow, Dean Hammond was having a decent game and he sparked the best move of the match with a strong run forward before feeding The Gulyman on the right. The Brazilian master pulled it back into the path of N’Guessan who from 10 yards, shanked it over the bar with his right foot swinger. Bad miss, groan.

Chappers, as I hinted at earlier, was having a shocker and he showed the one flaw in his game by basically piling into a player when he should have just shepherded him away. It was a bad foul in truth and I reckon he could have been off if the ref had seen it from the side I was. Yellow was all he got though but the ref was soon to give his other card a trip out of his pocket.

Chambo then had his second run at Borrowdale and knocked the ball too far. However, Borrowdale still thought it was a good idea to grab his arm and pull him over even though the ball was heading out for a goal kick. The lino flagged and Borrowdale spat his dummy out before taking out all his toys and throwing them on the ground. Whether it was for the foul or the tantrum, the ref wasn’t happy and produced a second yellow and off you go – well done, you repaid your managers confidence in you really well.

From the resulting Harding free kick, Fonte planted a header straight at the keeper but from the next attack, a Gulyman cross from the left was competed for and won by Chamberlain (probably the smallest played on the pitch) and his resulting cross was headed past Collin the keeper by Sir Rickie for 1-0 and baby cradling celebrations – congratulations to Sir Rickie and his missus. I was delighted that we’d seen a goal and even more so that my boy saw it and celebrated like a loon - the Dad’s amongst you will appreciate this. Carlisle immediately brought a sub on with Robson coming on at left back. I remember him from Wembley, diving about when he realised he couldn’t get past Dan Harding.

We had arrived at half time and I had not sworn as yet. Even the Chuckle Brothers behind me had not provoked me with their continual stream of drivel. We hadn’t played particularly well and seemed to have less energy than a very limited Carlisle side. As a rite of passage, I took my lad to the refreshment stand, got him a pint and a pie told him he now had 5 minutes to finish it before barging past people coming out through the ‘In’ door and having a pee as you’ll never last til the end. Not really... we actually dissected the goal we’d just scored and how we managed to lose to Carlisle on the Wii when they weren’t very good. We were 1-0 up at half time in that game as well.

There was a major surprise at the start of the second half as Lallana came on for Chappers – I presume to avoid the ‘referee evening things up’ scenario. We lined up with Sir Rickie up front, N’Guessan wide left, Chambo wide right with Lallana and the Gulyman pushing on from midfield. It looked like a line up that would bury Carlisle but it didn’t quite work out that way as we reverted to hoofball and persisted despite getting nowhere with it as we only had one forward. Occasionally, football broke out on the pitch, again instigated by Hammond who fed a pass into the Gulyman, who stepped over it to give Sir Rickie some space to fire in a shot that was deflected straight to Collin.

The disjointed rubbish continued for much of the second half with there being far too much of a gap between Sir Rickie and the rest. Though in theory it looked an attacking line-up, N’Guessan was struggling to get past the full back and Guly and Lallana seemed reluctant to break forward. Carlisle for their part, continued the game plan they had when they had 11, which was to bang it forward for Jaidi to head away. The other part of Carlisle’s game plan was to kick lumps out of anyone who came near but the ref decided to referee the second half differently to how he reffed the first when he booked just about every tackle. He had to book a few though as some of the tackles were ridiculous. After one misplaced pass I uttered the word ‘crap’, which was seized upon and repeated the next time the same player repeated the mistake. He’s crap isn’t he Dad….. Ahem!

We had one more chance as Chamberlain played a neat 1-2 with Lallana and saw a decent shot well saved by Collin, diving to his left. Carlisle managed a header from Dr Frankenstein’s creation which brought a ‘one for the cameras’ save from Davis but as far as goalmouth chances goes – that was about it. Robson did his diving thing in the last 5 minutes when he was shot by an imaginary sniper from on top of the Gas holders. Mind you, Fonte did the same when he was given a hospital pass by Davis.

To summarise.... that was rubbish but we won. It was a really poor second half but you can’t demolish teams every week. In truth, the win was very comfortable as Carlisle never looked like scoring and only had two efforts on goal, both headers from their beast of a centre back which both resulted in comfortable saves for Davis. You have to laugh when a Carlisle ‘highlight’ on the telly, was a winger beating a man and the ball going out for a goal kick before he pulled it back to a Saints defender. On the other side of the coin, we scored our goal in the immediate aftermath of them going down to 10 men and before they’d made a sub to sort things out. I thought Dean Hammond was our best player today with Sir Rickie, Chambo and Jaidi being the pick of the rest. Chaplow had a shocker and he was joined in that by N’Guessan who had a ‘winger on an off day’ game. It can happen and it’ll happen again.

A lot has been made about the booing of N’Guessan in the same way that Puncheon got stick earlier in the season. The similarities are that if you waft an easy chance over the bar then the crowd are going to groan because there is the immediate emotion of disappointment involved. Personally, I think you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t groan at an easy looking chance being missed. Ironic cheering when a player gets substituted is something else though as it’s nothing short of moronic as it’s pre-meditated. Get a grip... he wears our shirt so support him. We’ve seen what he can do already in the Exeter game and like I said, there were a few out there having poor games today.

Nigel wasn’t happy with the performance and was downbeat afterwards with no talk of buses. I had a bus of my own to worry about and would I be able to get one to transport my son across the Itchen Bridge... no, we had to walk, well I did anyway... carrying a 6 year old who got progressively heavier as we went. He enjoyed the game, probably more than I did and he wittered on about Lambert, Jose Fonte and do Prado all the way home. Though the second half was boring, he enjoyed all the yellow cards being handed out.

“Lambert’s goal was better than Rooney’s wasn’t it Dad?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because Lambert’s goal was real and Rooney’s was on the TV”.
Quality.

League 1 Match 16 - Carlisle 3 Southampton 2

One day I'll play for Saints

Today’s effort starts on a sad note. This week we mourn the passing of a Saints legend with the loaning out of The Late Paul Wotton – he of the the ridiculous tackle when the ball is in another post code and he of the cultured overhead hoofed clearance. Oxford’s gain on a two month loan is our loss… a moments silence please.

OK, joking aside – he was brought in as an experienced player to help the kids in Rupert’s Dutch revolution and has had some good games for us, filling in at centre back on occasions and always giving 100%. He comes across as a decent lad with a sense of humour. Did anyone else the bit on Saints Player about the players doing the filming for the team announcements on the scoreboard? The first cut of this film (which I watched in the morning), had Wotton turning round, saying ‘Paul Wotton, midfield’ and then delightfully dribbling spit down his chin. By the afternoon, this little scene had been cut out as obviously someone thought it was a bit on the distasteful side. I hope he does well at Oxford and gets a contract for next season out of it as he’s out of contract in the summer.

In other news, the Under-21ish team beat the Moaning Dorset Bastards 5-1 and the Under-18s beat Thurrock to progress in the FA Youth Cup. Excellent work and so onto today against Carlisle who are just below us in the league and who I’m sure will see this game as their best chance for a bit of JPT revenge.. The Cumbrian media are trying to make a big deal of the fact they’ve won three games at home in a week and scored 11 goals, thus making Brunton Park a fortress. All sounds good until you analyse that they’ve beaten two League 2 sides and a non-league side which is hardly the same as playing the mighty SFC, even though we have no Wotton.

What we do have is some tactical tinkering by Nigel as we go 4-5-1 with Schneiderlin starting instead of a forward. Alarm bells are ringing for me on this one. For starters, Schneiderlin doesn’t deserve a starting place at the moment and Barnard does not deserve to be left out. That aside – Sir Rickie up front on his own in his current form? Hmmm. A bit of a surprise was to see Seaborne replaced with Jaidi – just as Seaborne had started to prove that he might not be a liability after all. My personal view is that our central midfield is not good enough to only have one striker in front of them, whether we have 2 players in there or 3. Also, Lallana, Chambo and the full backs have less to aim at if they want to put a cross in. Carlisle, for their part, no longer have Ian Harte and have replaced him with a player who can run and jump.

After an immaculately observed minutes silence for Wotton, Saints started well and were soon knocking it about. The best chance fell to Lallana who pulled out his signature move by attacking the left edge of the penalty area and cutting back onto his right foot. Unfortunately, the curled right foot finish into the far corner was straight at the keeper. Totally against the run of play, Carlisle took the lead when Madine held off Fonte with ease and helped the ball on to Marshall who was given far too much space by the dithering Harding. That said, it was a very good finish back across Superkelv which gave him absolutely no chance.

Stunned by conceding a goal, Saints went from being a side in control to a side who didn’t look like they actually knew eachother and so compounded the situation by going 2-0 down when a cross in from the left was looped over the Davis by Harding. It depends on how you look at this one as it was unlucky for the ball to deflect of Harding’s left foot and what looked like his right knee and flip over Davis but it really was crap of the highest order.

Obviously feeling good about himself, Harding then completed his entry for ‘worst half hour by anyone’ when he launched someone up in the air and got booked and Fonte quickly followed for the same. Lallana skidded a long range left footed shot wide but half time couldn’t come soon enough.

Of course, we had to start the 2nd half well and duly did as Lallana went on a run down the left and stood up a cross for Chamberlain to head past the flapping Collin to bring us back into it. Lallana continued to leave defenders in his wake and we were suddenly looking by far the better side once more. Of course, the next goal was going to define the game and then we failed to adhere to the golden rule of chasing a game – keep the fucking back door shut. It’s a familiar tale – we had to defend a corner which as you know, we’ve had a bit of trouble with of late. Over it comes and James Chester (on loan from Man Utd – another reason to hate them) rises totally unchallenged to head in from 12 yards. Later on in the evening I watched Audley Harrison just stand there and wait for bad things to happen and here, Morgan Schneiderlin did the same – f.all. At this moment in time I wished David Haye would hit him as well.

Nigel decides at this point that it’s time to put Harding out of his misery because at 3-1 down, we can’t afford any more defensive disasters and he’s replaced with Ryan Dickson and it’s all Saints with Hammond forcing Collin into a decent stop from long range and then Chaplow dragging wide a sitter when he really should have scored having been put through by Sir Rickie’s one contribution to the game.

We need a goal and so we don’t need Schneiderlin and on comes Lee Barnard, 72 minutes after he should have been on. We’re now back to 4-4-2 and within 8 minutes we’re back in it again as Hammond rumbles forward and smashes in a shot from 25 yards which either deflected or swerved but whatever happened, Collin made a balls of it and we were back to 3-2. Deano really should shoot more often as he’s got a decent dig on him.

With 10 minutes left to find and equalizer, all Saints could manage was a spin and shot from Barnard which flew just over and so we ultimately slipped to an unnecessary and self-inflicted defeat.

Going forward, we played reasonably well in patches compared to Carlisle (more shots, possession, corners etc) but it doesn’t matter how well you play going forward if you let in goals like we did. All three goals were gift-wrapped to varying degrees with Harding having a complete shocker on the first two and Schneiderlin on the third. Nige will take a bit of a pasting for changing the formation and changing a winning team and rightly so – however, the change in formation had nothing to do with the Morgan standing there like an Audley tree and letting his man have a free header, for example. I’d like to know why Connolly was left on the bench though when last week he came on and created two goals in a minute. Surely it would have been worth taking Jaidi or Richardson off and throwing him on for the last 5-10 minutes.

So, the first game of our 3 game mini-season ends in defeat but to be honest, I’m not that worried about this one other than it puts more pressure on the next two games. We played ok and you would have thought that the diabolical defending won’t happen again for a while. What is worrying though is our continual ability to allow free headers in the box from set pieces. Next up we have Peterborough who started the season well but seem to have had the wheels fall off in the last couple of weeks – today they lost 5-1 at home. Saints will be back to 4-4-2 and if they’re not then Nigel will have lost the plot. I fully expect Chaplow and Hammond to be in central midfield, Barnard and Seaborne back in the side and it’s time for Ryan Dickson to be given a go. If you don’t think so then watch the replays of the goals we let in today.

Maybe we need to recall Wotton before it’s too late.

League 1 Match 44 - Southampton 3 Carlisle 2

Jason Price brings the house down

‘Believe’

So said the scoreboard as I took my place at SMS, in front of the Chuckle Brothers, behind the guy who knew too much about Tapeworms and inbetween my Dad and the bloke who is about 100. Believe in what? Believe that a combination of results was going to occur where if you had accumulator on that combination, you could bet a tenner and then retire to Barbados. Would Huddersfield really not get the two points required to condemn us to another season in League 1? They are away at Stockport who have already been relegated and subsequently, don’t give a shit and we are at home to Carlisle who of course, we last saw in the JPT Final.

Pards made a couple of changes from the Oldham bore-fest with Barnard and Wotton being omitted and Papa Waigo and Antonio starting on the left and right wings espectively. This meant Punch was in the middle of midfield with Capn Hammond and Lallana was playing off Sir Rickie. It the words of The Ramones, hey ho, lets go.

How do I describe the first 40 minutes of the first half? I could explain in detail every incident but that wouldn’t take long so instead, I shall generalise. It was shite, real shite, It starts at the back and Kelvin has the ball, he looks to throw it to the full backs who aren’t watching so he belts it forward, usually straight to the opposition goalkeeper. If the full backs are watching then he’s so surprised that he boots it long anyway. He’ll sometimes take a chance on Harding but not on Otsemobor and who can blame him for that. On one occasion he rolled it out to Zenedine Seaborne and guess what he did with it.

I was interested to see how the midfield shaped up with Punch and Deano in the centre but all they did was watch the ball travel backwards and forwards over their head. On the rare occasion that we did get the ball down, Papa Waigo and Antonio were looking dangerous but Papa had that ‘right footer on the left’ thing going on so more often than not, lost the opportunity to cross the ball when he doubled back. Sir Rickie as winning a lot of ball against the Carlisle central defenders, most notably against Ian Harte who seems to have added ‘jumping’ to his list of things he can’t do alongside ‘running’ and ‘turning’. Most of the balls up to Sir Rickie had snow on them and we were creating very very little.

On 40 minutes it all changed and the ball found itself on the grass for a while with Waigo, Antonio and Punch to the fore. Waigo set up Lallana whose low shot from 15 yards was well saved down low by our mate Collin in the Carlisle goal. Again it was another typical Adam effort where you know it would have been a goal if he’d put his bloody foot through it.

Five minutes later and Waigo got down the left hand side and got a cross in which went over the first wave of attackers running in but was met by Antonio who sent a right foot volley back across the keeper and into the net. Lovely finish, nice dance, 1-0.

‘There will be a minimum of one minute to be added’ said the tannoy as Carlisle restarted and it’s amazing what can happen in a minute as a cross came into our box and Seaborne executed a kind of wrestling throw on the centre forward and the referees whistle sounded the death knell. Free kick on the edge. What? It looked a good three yards inside the box from where I was. No matter though as Ian Harte clipped it over the wall and into the net whilst Kelvin watched, feet planted. I was annoyed because we didn’t have a bloke on that post. Hammond was on the other one but he was always going to curl it as it as too close to smash it. Maybe I’m being harsh but I think we made it easy for him. Half time, 1-1

Next to the Chuckle Brothers were two blokes who I never usually notice. Perhaps it was because of the lack of anything resembling entertainment in the first 40 minutes but I did today and the reason is that they chatted for 40 minutes about everything apart from the game. One owns his own cattery and currently has 28 cats in there. That’s interesting isn’t it… no it fucking isn’t. Are the half times from around the country interesting? Stockport 0 Huddersfield 2, ah well, season over.

Saints came out meaning business at the start of the second half and the scoreboards are no longer displaying the ‘Believe’ message. Antonio finds himself out on the left and beats two players before pinging a superb cross to the back stick where Sir Rickie steams in and sidefoots a volley past Collin at his near post for 2-1 to the mighty Saints.

Five minutes of Saints pressure went by before Sir Rickie battled away to tee up Antonio who took his time before lashing in a low finish for 3-1. Carlisle’s defending was shockingly bad and the goals were so easy with no pressure being put on any of the attackers even when they were in the penalty area. It looked at this stage that it could be any score we liked at the end.

Carlisle responded to things taking a turn for the worse by opting for comic relief. They took off a normal looking player and replaced him with a clown with a stupid wig on. The clown charged about and bumped into Fonte and fell over before getting up and moaning at the ref. Oh how we laughed at the slapstick. Very good of the Carlisle manager to cheer us up like that and very easy for the Northam End with ‘what the fuck is on your head’ raining down from the terraces (well, seats – you know what I mean). Pards made a sub for us with Calum McNish making his debut in place of Michail Antonio who must have now done enough to convince everyone that he’s worth signing. McNish went into central midfield with Punch moving to the right.

Saints butchered a couple of chances with a bad final ball before Fonte tried a spectacular long range lob which looked like it was in all the way until the keeper clawed it away. Sadly, it was back towards our own goal and so Carlisle were awarded a free-kick, three yards out and Kelvin got booked. The non-running, non-jumping one had gone off so another Carlisle player lashed it into the wall on the goal line before a 2nd player smashed the rebound over. Papa Waigo celebrated the miss like Senegal had just won the World Cup. He's a nutter.

David Connolly and Lee Barnard came on for Sir Rickie and Punch and combined to give Barnard a chance which he should have passed but instead stabbed wide. As the game petered out Carlisle scored to make the scoreline totally flattering for them when Seaborne and Davis didn’t sort things out and Madine squirted in a shot off the near post which I’m pretty sure was travelling away from the goal when it hit Fonte and dribbled in. After his effort earlier, Jose deserves a goal. Full time, Saints 3 Carlisle 2.

I haven’t really done justice to Saints domination of the second half and with a bit more care we could have easily scored six. Carlisle were pretty poor, probably worse than they’d been at Wembley but fair play to them, at least they tried to play and the second half at least, was entertaining to watch. Michail Antonio was the stand out player for Saints and apparently we are already talking to Reading about a transfer. He’s out of contract there in the summer and whilst we’ll have to pay a bit due to him being under 24 (to compensate for his development costs), it shouldn’t be too much as Reading didn’t really develop him, merely signed him from non-League Yeading. He makes things happen and he’s only going to get better. I do wonder why he runs with his head right back and it does look like it’s going to fall off his shoulders at times but I’ll forgive him that and hopefully, he’ll be the first new signing of the summer. It’s always nice to see an Academy kid get on the pitch though McNish didn’t pull up any trees when he came on but the good news is that there were no big gusts of wind to blow him over. He does look like he needs to fill out a bit if he wants to play in central midfield.

As for the accumulator and Barbados retirement… Stockport 0 Huddersfield 6. Close one then as Stockport went down fighting. Wankers. To be honest, it was always very unlikely this season and today anyway, we won again, the sun is shining and I’m off down the bookies to get a bet on us winning this division next year.

JPT Final - Carlisle 1 Southampton 4 (Wembley Stadium)

Just who is Serigne Ababacar ?

The day had finally arrived when the mighty SFC were to take on Carlisle in the Final of the Johnstone’s Paints Trophy at Wembley Stadium. Though it’s been open a few years now, it is my first trip to the New Wembley Stadium which looks very impressive on the TV, with the arch and all that.

Having travelled to the game on Greyhound Bus No.4, the excitement started to build as the traffic ground to a halt on the A40, in the queue for the Hangar Lane Roundabout which is the worst roundabout to drive around, this side of the Arc de Triomphe. As we queued, in the distance away to the left was the arch. Once the roundabout from hell was negotiated, the shop from hell was spotted when Ikea, Brent Cross came into view. I used to have to come here before they built one of the big yellow and blue boxes in West Quay and the memories came flooding back of the time when I was in the procession of misery round Ikea, a procession that women love and men despise. I stopped because the person in front of me stopped and the trolley behind smacked into my achilles. Sharp intake of breath and off we went again until we stopped again and I was trolley assaulted again – this time I turned round and glared at the small woman who was guilty. Off we go, stop, bang, pain. “Look, it’s perfectly fucking simple, when I stop, you stop”. After this outburst it got very dark. I then looked up (I’m 6 foot 1) to see where the light had gone and saw this woman’s son glaring at me. He looked like an American footballer with the pads sewn in under his skin. She bashed her trolley into me twice more on the way round and I didn’t say a thing.

Anyway, round the back of Ikea and up a hill, through and Industrial Estate and there we were, in the coach park – no time to get excited at all. The coach was parked at the arch side of the ground and it (the arch) really didn’t look that big or impressive from the outside. One of the things I loved about the Old Wembley was the look of it from the outside with the Towers and the white walls etc. The new one looks dull as you like and is completely lacking in character. I thought that the big area around the stadium would be full of vendors selling beer and food etc (like they have at the Rose Bowl for example) but there was nothing which of course is a ploy to make you buy stuff inside the stadium. So, there are no vendors and there is precious little of interest aside from one statue of Bobby Moore and that’s it. Is there a Museum or anything ? I assume so but I didn’t find it…

I then made the mistake of going in the Wembley Shop which sold England kit and associated merchandise but also merchandise from the Big 4 and believe it or not, Celtic. What the fuck is going on here. I find it really sad that the National Stadium is not above all this pandering to the big boys and is just another JJB Sports Shop. It should sell England stuff, it should sell Wembley stuff, it should sell stuff for the teams competing on the given day but it should not be selling Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea gear when they’re not playing today and it especially shouldn’t sell fucking Celtic gear when they’re not even English and never play at Wembley except in meaningless pre-season tournaments when no one cares. It gets even worse… I went round a corner in the shop and was confronted by a German national team strip. I wanted to be sick or at least, blow my nose on it. At least I can imagine them shifting a few Man Utd shirts but who’s gonna buy a Germany shirt. If you were a German living in London, I can’t imagine you’d think of going to Wembley to pick up a replica shirt. I don’t know if there was a Scotland shirt as I didn’t hang around to find out.

Instead, I went into the ground because I was starving. The food inside was ridiculously overpriced and shite. I asked for a Chilli Dog and the bloke looked at me like I was mad. I pointed out that it was on the menu and not a special request and he disappeared for 5 minutes and came back saying ‘no chilli’. A Chilli Dog without Chilli is of course, a Dog or rather a Microwaved Weiner in a stale bun which I could have brought from Tesco for about 30p. £4 but it tasted so good so it was worth it. Irony Alert !!!!.

OK – time to check out the seats. Once you get sight of the pitch, your impression changes as it’s seriously impressive. Talk about wow factor but now, I’m going to do some more moaning but I don’t really know if I’m moaning at Wembley or at the Saints Ticket Office. I booked into blocks 127 to 131 and I did it on the first day, in the £44 section. I was a wee bit disappointed that I was in block 127 in row 11, looking along the goal-line. Block 131 was near the half way line and was where I really wanted to be and row 11 is too low, especially when you’re in a corner. Some of my mates who are not Season Ticket Holders who booked after me, were in Block 131 so whoever allocated the tickets obviously started at block 127 and worked upwards. Annoying. Anyway – I promise I will stop moaning now….

As we approached kick off time, the 44,000+ Saints fans looked absolutely magnificent. Though the colours were different, it was lump in the throat time, like at Cardiff in 2003. To the team and the outstanding issues were resolved as follows. Morgan Schneiderlin had not recovered from the tight hamstring he picked up last week and was replaced by Paul Wotton whilst Michail Antonio was fit for the first time in about a month and took cup-tied Jason Puncheon’s place on the right wing. Also cup-tied was Lee Barnard whose place went to Papa Waigo N’Diaye whose name caused a few seconds of panic for the stadium announcer. Carlisle had only two players I was vaguely familiar with – Ian Harte who takes a mean free kick but can’t run and Graham Kavanagh who is now 36 but doesn’t look any older than he did when he was 25 when he looked about 50. National Anthem, teams introduced to Mawhinney the Arse and away we go.

For the first 10 minutes, if anything Carlisle were the better side, looking to pass it about in midfield and work their openings. From their first corner, Harding decided that the way to go was World Wrestling Federation and grabbed hold of Grandad Kavanagh as he made his run. At the time I thought nothing of it but when you see a replay it’s pretty bad and I think we can count ourselves a bit fortunate. Most of the Carlisle play revolved around getting the ball out to Robson on their left who was playing against our left footed right back in Harding who comprehensively won the first challenge between the pair which immediately resulted in Robson throwing himself to the floor the next three times he got near the ball. The ref was having none of it though. The tide began to turn when Hammond and Wotton started to get a grip in midfield and Carlisle started to try long balls up to their lone striker who was never going to get an joy competing against the classy Fonte and the brick shithouse Jaidi.

Antonio had started up front with Waigo on the right but when Antonio found himself on his natural right hand side for the first time, he put over a cross towards Lambert where for some reason, the centre back flapped it away with the palm of his hand. From where I was you couldn’t tell what the ref had given but it was as obvious as you like. The only debate was whether he should have been sent off or not. When Sir Rickie is on the pens, the centre back may as well have caught it and thrown it in the net himself as there is only ever one outcome. Bang, top right, 1-0 despite goalkeeper Collin being about five yards off his line when the kick was struck.

Suddenly it was all Saints with two chances in quick succession falling to Lallana. At first I thought he’d scuffed both of them but in fact he made a really good contact with the first and was unfortunate that it buried itself in Collin’s midriff. The second was a bit of a half hit effort and I always feel with Adam that he needs to take a leaf out of Sir Rickie’s book and try and break the net.

Carlisle came back with a couple of efforts of their own with a header from Harte bouncing off the top of the bar and a hooked shot from Marc Double-Barrell landing on top of the net – neither of which caused me or Kelvin Davis any bother. Every time they attacked, Saints looked likely to score and Sir Rickie fashioned an opening for the impressive Antonio that he hit well but Collin turned aside.

Ian Harte is an interesting player in that he won 50+ caps for Ireland and played in the Leeds side that played in the Champions League Semi Final and then he kind of dropped off the map and ended up playng for a crap Spanish side (Levante if memory serves). He was only about 27 when this happened and now he’s only 32 but you can see the problem. He was a left back in his prime and even then was regarded as being a bit slow and having the turning circle of a ocean liner. He is now, even at league 1 standard, too slow to play left back and not good enough in the air to play centre back. Holding midfield role I reckon. Anyway, today he’s a centre back and was getting comprehensively beaten to every header by Sir Rickie including an important one on 44 minutes when Sir Rickie flicked on a long Antonio throw from the right and Lallana stole in completely unmarked at the back stick to head past Collin for 2-0.

It nearly got even better a minute later when following a dreadful foul on Papa Waigo on the left wing, Sir Rickie swung in the free kick which went about a foot wide of the far point having just avoided the lunging Jaidi. Half time and so far so good. My feeling was that our only problem was going to be if Carlisle got one back straight away but I really couldn’t see it. They seemed to have nothing up front and it was carnage every time we got near their penalty area.

The second half started like the first with Carlisle having a spell of keeping the ball and zipping it about but the first time they gave it away, Sir Rickie went gallivanting up the left wing and laid it inside to Papa Waigo who hit a delightful pass with the outside of his right back back to Sir Rickie who had continued his gallivant. Before he collapsed of exhaustion he crossed it to where Horwood was the covering defender. He tried to let it run across him being completely oblivious to Antonio behind him who burgled him and smashed it goalwards where it was parried upwards by Collin’s face. There waiting for it to come down was Papa Waigo who nodded into the empty net for 3-0. The celebrations were long and milked for all they were worth – a run to the crowd in the corner (where I was), a group hug with Lallana and Lambert and then he remembered that he hadn’t done the Waigo shuffle and set off behind the goal to perform his masterpiece. The only questions now were – is it called a parry if it comes off his face and how many would we get ?

Deflated, Carlisle resorted again to hoof and hope – Jaidi headed everything away and Fonte was so laid back he was in a deckchair. Harding and Mills had totally shut down the flanks and whilst not offering much going forward – they didn’t really have to because others were doing just fine on their own. On 59 minutes, Sir Rickie won another header before the ball broke to Antonio who nudged it past a defender and smashed in a left footed half volley which gave poor Collin no hope. 4-0 and a dance for the crowd to match the Waigo effort from earlier.

To be honest, the next half an hour was shite and who can be surprised. The game was won and Carlisle were deflated. To be fair, Carlisle kept trying and following a magnificent spirit lifting performance from Golden Elvis in the crowd, Carlisle got a consolation goal in the 86th minute when sub Madine flicked in an Ian Harte free kick which was given for sod all but it would be churlish to complain too much.

Saints threw on all three subs in the last 15 with Simon Gillett on for Papa Waigo, David Connolly on for Paul Wotton and finally, for what will probably be his last appearance for Saints, Chris Perry on for Radhi Jaidi. Only Gillett made any kind of mark on the game with a snap shot at the near post which Collin tipped wide.

Final whistle – Southampton 4 Carlisle United 1. Southampton win the Johnstone’s Paints Trophy 2010.

Following Carlisle’s trudge up the steps, it was our turn and soon, Dean Hammond and Kelvin Davis were lifting up the seriously large Johnstone’s Paints Trophy. Papa Waigo managed to get himself too excited and tried to get in the way of all the photographs at the key moment. Typical Papa, always five yards ahead of where he should be.

Watching the presentation – it seems funny to me that Markus Liebherr has his own little camera which he takes to every match. I’m hoping that some of his photos get published in the Saints website one day. Nicola Cortese looked very happy and it was a nice moment when he and King Alan were together. A rift? I don’t really think so. Don’t believe the hype, don’t believe the Daily Echo and don’t believe that fat oaf Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail. All it is, is their opinion but written in a forceful way so you think they have the inside track. As we know, the Daily Echo does not have the inside track and I think it’s safe to assume that Martin Samuel doesn’t either. We’re all better off forming our own opinions.

I’ve followed Saints since 1976 as I’ve said before, I was a 7 year old thinking we’d win something every year. I’m now 41 and we’ve finally won something to add to the FA Cup in 1976. Call it a minor competition, call it what you like – I don’t give a shit. I was there. 50,000+ of us were there as it turns out and we had a fantastic time. Wembley, the playing arena is fantastic. Wembley, the rest of it is a bit disappointing but nothing ruins the day – not even the two hour wait to get clear of Hangar Lane on the way home..

Thankyou Markus, Nicola, King Alan, all the players and Serigne Ababacar who apparently is the Senegalese God of Offside.

JPT Final Preview

So… all the league fixtures are done for now and the next game is the Johnstone Paints Trophy Final at Wembley Stadium v Carlisle United.

It’s worth having a little recap here of our progress in the competition so far. To see blog entries - click this link http://leagueoneminus10.blogspot.com/search/label/JPT

We got a bye in the first round and in the 2nd, got a home draw against Torquay and we were quickly 2-0 down. I think that at this point, if they didn’t already, most fans saw this cup as an irrelevance and we didn’t care, it was beneath us, it was a waste of time, stupid little tin pot trophy etc etc. Two close range goals from Papa Waigo and Paul Wotton hitting home the winning penalty in the shoot-out... and we were happy enough.

The 3rd round brought us Charlton at home and the motivation for this game was there due to the quality of the opposition, the game being live on Sky and Pards being their much-hated ex-manager. We thrashed them 2-1 with goals from Wayne Thomas and Sir Rickie. We were totally dominant in the game with Charlton spawning a last minute consolation. Now we were all taking it quite seriously.

The Southern Regional Semi-Final brought another home draw, this time against Norwich City – more decent opposition and once again, despite a goal from Papa Waigo, we were losing 2-1 with a minute to go. Following a forearm smash by Michail Antonio on deserving recipient Grant Holt, once again, that man Papa Waigo popped up to force a penalty shootout which we won with James and Antonio’s misses cancelled out by three excellent saves by the Bart Man and so it fell to Wayne Thomas of all people, to stroke home the winning penalty. Now we were taking it very seriously indeed.

The Regional Final was against the Fake Dons and we won the away leg 1-0 with a goal from Michail Antonio and really should have won by more. We over-celebrated in full view of renowned cretin Karl Robinson. In between the first and second legs, we pulled a neat trick out of the bag and signed their best player in Jason Puncheon and even though he was cup tied and couldn’t play for us, we won the 2nd leg 3-1 at a bit of a canter with goals from Lambert, Lallana and a funny own goal. We’re going to Wem-ber-ley.

The ticket allocations were announced and we were given 44,000 which at the time, I thought we’d be hard pressed to sell. Despite a ticket office phone meltdown, I got mine on Day 1, only to find the best seats had sold out. Within a couple of weeks we had shifted 40,000 and rumours were that there would be no general sale which is astounding really but astounding in a good way. The ‘sold out’ signs went up and then the rumblings began about trying to possibly getting more tickets, especially when it emerged that Carlisle were only bringing 20,000 and there would be approximately 20,000 empty seats. Don Nicola Cortese weighed in and revealed that he had offered to pay for extra stewards and also had explained to the FA, how to allocate us extra seats and avoid segregation issues (the poor reason that we’d been given for no extra tickets). It seems though that the FA would rather save face than have an extra 15,000 fans paying approximately £30 a ticket. That’s nearly half a million quid which is more ammunition for the ‘FA is a joke’ brigade. I hope someone is sacked over that as it’s not as if they couldn’t do with the money as the Wembley pitch has just had to yet again, be relaid at great expense. The cost of the new pitch would easily have been covered by the income from the extra tickets they could have let us sell. Idiots.

Going back to the pitch for a second… there has been a load of negative publicity over the state of the Wembley pitch and talk as to whether it’s been a factor in players getting injured etc. Maybe they relaid it because of that but they probably did it because the Saints are in town. The JPT Final will be the first match played on it and after that it’ll probably be a couple of Rugby League matches and a Take That gig before they have to bring in another new pitch. Maybe it’s the Take That gig that rots the pitch with all the women in the audience wetting themselves.

And here we are…. Four days to go and we have an injury crisis. In League 1, we are usually or occasionally fielding 4 players who are cup tied for the JPT in Lee Barnard, Jason Puncheon, Dan Seaborne and Jon Otsemobor. None of those can play and in addition, Wayne Thomas and Graeme Murty are definitely out and there are question marks over Adam Lallana, Radhi Jaidi, Morgan Schneiderlin, David Connolly and Lloyd James.

I’m going to try and predict the team. Warning – I’m usually useless at this.

Goalkeeper : Kelvin Davis, enough said. Bart on the bench.
Right Back: Dan Harding has played here for the last two league games so I expect him to start the final here unless Wayne Thomas miraculously recovers or Pards wants to play both Harding and Mills down the left. Of course there is also the option of pulling out a strange one and playing Paul Wotton (very slow) or Simon Gillett (very short) here. Of these two I’d play Wotton I guess though the prospect of him lighting up Wembley with one of his special tackles when the ball has long since gone is one that makes me shudder. In addition there is the horrible prospect of Lloyd James playing here. Please No.
Left Back: Joseph Mills unless he gets pushed into midfield with Harding behind him.
Centre Backs: Jose Fonte and Radhi Jaidi though Chris Perry will play if Jaidi fails to make it. I hope that Perry gets on the pitch at some point as he’s been a good player for us and this will be his last season with the club.
Right midfield: Adam Lallana or maybe Papa Waigo if Adam plays on the left and we’re not bothered about the right winger tracking back Michail Antonio would be starting here if he was fit and it must be devastating for him to miss out.
Left midfield: I think (and I worry) that Lee Holmes will get the nod here despite not being in the League 1 squad for about a month. He came into the squad after Christmas and surprisingly, started a few games and has disappeared as quickly as he arrived despite not doing too badly. There is always the possibility though, that he is injured. Other possibilities are to play Lallana here with Waigo on the right or to play Joseph Mills with Harding at left back.
Centre Midfielders: Dean Hammond and Morgan Schneiderlin though expect Paul Wotton or maybe Simon Gillett to play here if Schneiderlin misses out. I would slightly favour Gillett out of the two as keeping the ball is not really a Wotton strength.
Strikers: Rickie Lambert and Papa Waigo N’Diaye with David Connolly fit only for the bench. It’s a big pitch so expect Papa to be offside by even further than usual but also expect Connolly to be given 20-25 minutes at the end.

There is always a ‘fairytale’ story around team selection for Cup Finals. Remember at Cardiff 2003 when Chris Baird came from nowhere to start the final. This years Chris Baird could be either Simon Gillett or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain though I do think that both of these will end up on the bench.

I have watched Saints at Wembley three times: Charity Shield in 1976, League Cup Final in 1979, ZDS Cup Final in 1992. Lost, lost and lost again. I, of course, also went to Cardiff in 2003 where we lost again. So, yes I want to enjoy the day and yes I know it’s not the most important cup competition in the world but on Sunday it’s one that I desperately want us to win. In 2003, the feeling I came away with was of a great day and the fact that we lost was almost secondary after a while. There is no question that we should win this one and there will be no consolation for the 44,000 travelling Saints and the 15,000 unable to get a ticket, if we don’t.

Come on you Reds. (not Yellows this time)

League 1 Match 9 - Carlisle 1 Southampton 1

Saints Travel Club Coach 7 arrives at Brunton Park

Carlisle is a long way away, 336 miles to be exact. You head for the North Pole and stop about 10 minutes before you get there. If you get together a team of Huskies, a sled and enough supplies and make that journey to go and watch your team then you are a complete hero and needless to say, I wasn't. 15 odd years ago I'd have been in the 900-odd hardy souls making the trip in the hope that Saints could continue their unbeaten run and maybe get their first away win of the season. As it was I was at home but I was certainly expecting something from this game.

Strange goings on during the week where it was both worrying and encouraging to read that Alan Pardew had spotted signs of complacency in the squad following last weeks win against Yeovil. It's worrying that any player can just expect to roll up and win when we are bottom of the league on negative points but it's also encouraging that the manager has spotted it and publicly stated that it's not happening on his watch. I wonder who the specific players were that he was talking about. My money is on the 'oh so soft' academy graduate players who have been with us for the past few years of total shambles and mis-management. I can imagine Jan Poortvliet telling the players that 'we have won once in ten matches boysh, sho we have no need to make a goal'. Christ he was a moron.

The Saints team showed a few changes with Thomas being injured and therefore unable to add to his record streak of 4 consecutive games between injuries. His place at right back was taken by Lloyd James with Jacob Mellis coming into the midfield. Also into the side was Joseph Mills to hopefully add genuine width to the side but disappointingly, it was at the expense of a forward with Saganowski returning to the bench.

I'm at a family meal thing so I'm not following the first half at all but at 3.45 I manage a quick gander at BBC Sport and we're 0-0.

The second half is progressing and I'm despatched to the shop to go and buy an essential that has been omitted from the shopping list. On the radio, Saints are attacking and Jacob Mellis is clean through. Now... the curious case of Jacob Mellis. By all accounts including my own, he's a lightweight who is not really adding anything to the side at the moment. It must be quite a tricky situation when you take a player on loan from a big club (Chelsea in this case) and he's pony. Chelsea obviously loaned us the player in the hope he plays regularly and gains experience. If he'd been any good then of course, no problem as everybody wins but as it is, he's been the polar opposite so he's in and out of the side but Saints won't want to annoy Chelsea as we may need to borrow another player off of them another time. We had a similar situation a year or so back with a lad called Stephen O'Halloran from Aston Villa who was not even a footballer. He doesn't make the 'Worst Saints XI Ever' simply because Lee Todd played the same position. Martin O'Neill got the right hump when he played one game before being consigned to the 'thanks but no thanks' pile. So... back to the game and the aforementioned Chelsea starlet is clean through with just the keeper to beat and a golden chance to show why he plays for Chelsea and England U19s and why he's so highly rated. Does he take this golden chance? Nope. Muppet.

Two minutes later and Carlisle's Scott Dobie (who is not a starlet, and will never play for Chelsea) gets a similar chance and buries it. 1-0 down and petulant kick of the inside of the car door by me.

Back home and my mood is not great as it looks like we're about to lose. It's 4.55 and I'm relying on text goal alerts again.

I'm giving up hope and being a miserable sod and my pocket has gone vibration crazy. Sneaking out again I can see that I have two messages again which had happened a few times already this season. One will be a goal and one will be the final score.

God bless Radhi Jaidi. 1-1, 96 minutes. I'm back in the room and smiling... everyone notices.

To be honest, I'm happy enough with a point and keeping the run going though I'm not over enamoured with playing one up front in any game. We really should be looking to take the game to the opposition in a vast majority of the away games and in my opinion, packing the midfield and leaving Rickie Lambert isolated up front is not the way to do this. Lambo is many things but Drogba or Torres he is not so I don't think that playing him up front alone is the answer. I really hope that one of Saganowski or Papa Waigo is in the side to partner Lambo against his former employers, Bristol Rovers at SMS on Tuesday night.

Obligingly, the Skates have lost again and still have their 100% record and zero points. We are -1.