FA Cup 4th Round - Southampton 0 Burnley 1

 

Can Manning Shoot with His Right Foot?

FA Cup 4^th Round and Burnley at home, a team currently residing in the automatic promotion places in the Championship and part of the same yo-yo group of clubs that is rapidly forming beneath the ringfenced Premier League Seventeen.  The yo-yo teams include Leicester, Ipswich, Saints, Burnley, Sheffield United, and probably Leeds… Too good for the Championship, nowhere near good enough for the Premier League.

Last time around in the Championship, Burnley blitzed their way to the title under the management of Vincent Kompany, by playing possession based football and generally being very entertaining. When they got to the Premier League, they tried to play the same way, with players who weren’t good enough to do it at higher-level. Sound familiar? They too have changed their style completely and now have the super pragmatic Scott Parker as their manager and are currently in the process of trying to bore everyone to death, including their own fans, in getting promoted.  Ten 0-0 draws have blighted their season and they must be testing the patience of every Burnley fan.  You know how it goes, you can have shit performances but get results and people will tolerate it but the moment you stop getting results then there is absolutely nothing to keep the fans on your side.   I kind of feel that if you are one of the yo-yo clubs, you do need to provide some entertainment in the Championship because your fans have usually just endured a horribly shit season in the Premier League and are looking for some respite.  Burnley have had a shocking season last year and this year at a lower level, it’s a bore-a-thon.

League form is largely irrelevant today.  Burnley have only let nine goals all season but you can expect precisely none of the regular goalkeeper and back four to be playing today, because for Burnley it is all about promotion and rightly so.  They had a midweek game a few days ago and they’ve got one straight after today’s game as well, so this game would be a low priority for every manager, let alone a risk-averse one like Scott Parker.

There are many connections between the two clubs in terms of players but when you look at it, we’re unlikely to see anyone playing against their former team.  It would be a shock if Nathan Redmond made a rare appearance for Burnley after virtually two years of being injured and unlikely that Jack Cork will take time off from coaching Burnley under-21s to have a run out.  Jay Rodriguez would have played in this game, but he moved to be an extra in Deadpool 4 at Wrexham in January. 

On our side of things, Charlie Taylor won’t be making an appearance for us I wouldn’t have thought and nor obviously, will Maxwel Cornet, who has gone to be shit somewhere else on loan?   THB is unlikely to play today after his ‘injury’ last week.  Do we still talk about #FreeTella?  Let’s not.

Ivan Juric seems to not give a single shit about resting players for the FA Cup and you can expect Saints to be strong today, though having picked up a couple of injuries in defence last week, it will be interesting to see who he brings in.  Bednarek and Bree are certain to play in the back three and the other one probably should be the lesser spotted ABK, though Nathan Wood is apparently fit. I hope that one of these options or Ryan Manning is used ahead of Joe Aribo starting there.  Kamaldeen Sulemana and Tyler Dibling will be in contention in the attacking positions though I would expect them to be kept back until the second half.

It's rare that a team is in a position where the league campaign doesn’t matter much, and they can really go for it in the FA Cup but that’s where we find ourselves with the league position being what it is.  Having won last week though and with no game until next Saturday, I expect Juric to treat this as if it was a Premier League game and pick his best possible side to win it.  Momentum is key, especially with this being the first of three successive home matches and after beating both Bournemouth and Brighton, we’ll be talking about the Greatest Escape, not.

Aha… completely wrong on the team with both Kamaldeen and Tyler starting.  Tall Paul is on the bench which means no actual striker.  Manning has indeed been brought in to the back three and once more, there’s no place for Flynn Downes on the bench which is not good news.  At a quick count, Burnley have changed eight players so this is definitely there to be won.

At kick off, it’s obvious that it’s not Manning who is the left central defender but Welington, which seems like unnecessary dicking about.  The new man is called into action straight away as Burnley breakdown the right feed the ball across and with no one near him, Benson drills it past McCarthy but Wellington gets back to clear it off the line, straight back into the grateful arms of the goalkeeper.

Saints first effort comes from Sulemana picking up the ball and doing what he does, turning and running at the defence. He’s clearly fouled as he beats the second player but the ref doesn’t give it and the goalkeeper produces a shit clearance out to Manning, about 15 yards out but unfortunately it’s on his right foot and the keeper blocks is effort which loops up in the air falls down to Dibling his volley is a bit of a shin-roller and is going wide anyway before it was cleared.

In the centre of midfield Burnley have Hannibal Mejri, who used to play for Manchester United and he’s obviously got that United favouritism going on with the referee as he fouls at will and gets away with it.  However annoying he might be though, his energy in midfield is stopping us doing anything much.

We are not bossing the game at any point though and long ball up towards the lumbering Ashley Barnes, who hooks it over the top the defence and Sarmiento and Bree are competing for the ball until Bree predictively does fuck all and Sarmiento goes through and drills the shot straight at McCarthy who makes a decent save.

Half time and that was a shit half of football.  We really don’t look like we have much idea of how to break them down and to be honest, Burnley have been the better side. At the moment, this is just looking like one long old afternoon.

We start the second half of a little bit more energy. A quick throw by Jimmy Champo finds KWP down the right his low cross squirts along the line to Dibling, who lays it back to Manning but it’s on his right foot again and he drills it straight at the keeper.

The period between 47 minutes and 75 minutes passes with nothing happening. Burnley seem happy to play for extra time and we seem absolutely incapable of winning it.  Aribo is trying to make things happen by dropping deep but when he does that, there’s no one to pass too further forward, and we are just going sideways and backwards and not going anywhere.

Tall Paul comes on for the lifeless Tyler Dibling but nothing much happens. We don’t change our style of play in keeping with the fact that we’ve brought on a giant striker to replace a winger. This is really looking increasingly clueless.   Someone like Lallana could be useful, but of course, he can’t come on because the game might go to extra time and he can only play five minutes.

Burnley attack down the left with Sarmiento. His shot is blocked up in the air by Bednarek,. Hannibal is the only player to react and he lays it across the goal for Edwards to take a touch three yards out and smash it into the net. Fucking embarrassing but not surprising.

With 13 minutes plus extra time to go, there is zero prospect of an equaliser unless something changes.  Nothing does for the first ten and then it’s Smallbone on for Ugochukwu.  Another five minutes of nothing and with a whole four minutes to go, Fernandes and Sulemana, probably our best two attacking players, are off for Gronbaek and Archer and Burnley bring on Nathan Redmond for a few minutes.  We do nothing to try and get a goal - no crosses into Tall Paul and no urgency.  At one stage we have six players on the left and we plod about before passing back to Bednarek, then back out to the left and then back again.  Slow, passive, shit.  The four minutes extra are soon up and we cross it into the box and out for a goal kick. The keeper smashes it up the middle and that’s the end of that. Dreadful

Welington Trying to Make Things Happen on His Own

Well, what a load of absolute shit that was. Absolutely fucking clueless from start to finish. A deserved defeat against Burnley reserves and all done in the most clueless way possible.  Burnley scored with fifteen minutes to go and in that remaining fifteen minutes we put two balls into the box that were both shit and that was it. No urgency, no plan no substitutions that made any difference, no changes in tactics.

Oh yes, the tactics. three at the back against teams that we should be beating at home is 100% not the way to go and the worrying thing is that Juric would want to play this way in the Championship. Fuck right off.  In our history, Saints have successfully played three at the back once I think, in 1994 under Alan Ball.  It’s actually okay if you are looking to be defensive if you are looking to attack then forget it.

With no Tall Paul in the lineup today we needed to pass the ball through the thirds and get the ball into the feet of the attacking players or into the channels. That was made more difficult by some weird tactical shit going on meaning Joe Aribo dropping into the back three and no one taking his place in midfield which meant that Big Les was the only person you could possibly be passed on the ground if you wanted to go forward.  If you’re only playing with a two in midfield then they both have to fucking be there.  So, if Les was marked, then we were left with playing Russ-ball, passing it along the back six as was. When Aribo did drop into that position, Wellington went wide and Ryan Manning might as well have gone for a piss, because he never got the ball and was never involved. Fucking shambles. Maybe stick to the basics?

Even when we were slightly brighter in the first half, Burnley still looked the more likely to score. This is Burnley by the way, who bore everyone to death on a weekly basis. They forced more saves out of McCarthy than we did out of their keeper.  If Burnley had been more inclined to pull the trigger from the edge of the box then the margin of victory probably would’ve been more. It was just so shit.

Tyler Dibling was very quiet today and Sulemana was bright in some passages of play but there was no end product as per usual. Matty Fernandes spent most of the game in front of the ball and not being given it, as marginalising your most creative player with your tactics is always a good move.  Fernandes still managed to be one of our best players along with Welington.  Big Les was ok, as was Bednarek, but it’s slim pickings.

The starting lineup was weird. I could’ve understood if he played Manning as the left side is central defender but putting Wellington there seemed completely unnecessary. On top of that of course, the ’no centre forward’ thing does my head in.

Substitutions were once again done on rotation with no thought about changing the game and either trying to force openings while it was still 0-0 or getting back into it when we went behind. We didn’t try two up front at any point and didn’t do anything. I get annoyed with people leaving early on a regular basis but once the goal went in we all could’ve fucked off because the game was done we had nothing that was going to open up a well organised defence.

So, in conclusion, that was a majorly bad day for Ivan Juric and if you made me decide right now, I would not have want him to be our manager in the Championship next season. As we discussed a couple of years ago, in the Championship, you have to go out to win 25 games and you’re not gonna win 25 games playing three or five at the back and not having the faintest fucking idea how to attack.

I guess one positive is that the pricing that was put in place for this game meant it was only 17,000 empty seats this time round instead of the 20,000 we had in the last round, so that’s a win. Slow handclap everybody. I cannot blame anybody who didn’t go.  The 17,000 who didn’t occupy the empty seats were the lucky ones today.

There was a chance today to build some momentum and get a second win in a row before two successive home games against Bournemouth and Brighton but momentum is for other teams, certainly not us. We are like the coyote in the roadrunner cartoons.   Just when he thinks he's winning and in danger of actually doing well, he falls off a fucking cliff.

Ivan pictured with all the fans who agree with his post-match assessment

In his press conference after the game, Ivan actually said that he thought we played well and he had no problem with the way we played. Fuck off mate. That was absolutely fucking shit if you’re still there with a turd in your hand and everyone can see that it’s a turd in your hand, don’t try and gaslight everyone into thinking it’s something else. It’s a fucking turd mate,  If you think that’s a good performance then you can fuck off.

After he had come out with that little gem, he then got asked about Flynn Downs continuing absence from the squad and basically said that he had had a shitty attitude and we had turned down an escape from the club in January, presumably to Ipswich. There are lots of angles to this of course, but basically Flynn has been a massive disappointment this season. I wanted him to be our Roy Keane midfield general who is going to drive the standards of all the other players in the team but he’s been pretty poor, not helped admittedly by Russell Martin trying to make him lead the press in midfield and also be the deepest midfielder protecting the defence at the same time. His performances under Ivan Juric have so far been absolutely shit. He was part of the capitulation late against Manchester United and he had that first half against Nottingham Forest where it looked for all the world that he was trying to get himself sent off.  I wonder if that game was straight after the tantrum.  It looks like Flynn is being a dick but regardless, I really don’t see the benefit of going public with this from the managers point of view.

So, our stalled momentum takes us into next weeks league game is against Champions League chasing Bournemouth. What a fucking sentence that is.

Up the fucking Saints

FA Cup 3rd Round - Southampton 3 Swansea 0

 

Tyler Knows 'Man of the Match' is in the bag after two tap-ins.

FA Cup 3rd Round and Swansea City at home. This is a huge game for Ivan Juric and not a huge game for absolutely everybody else. I’m sure that this will be reflected in the attendance today which promises to be very low indeed. It’s not a particularly interesting tie for away fans, so there’s not gonna be many of those here and the clubs tone deaf insistence on charging between £20 and £25 for an adult ticket for this game, is going to ensure that a vast majority save their money to pay the Christmas bills.

If there was any air left in any of the balloons after the appointment of a new manager, it has totally gone now after the absolute mauling we got by Brentford and our last home game, hence the importance of this game to the new manager. It’s hard to imagine him not going as full strength as possible for this particular game to try and get something happening, get anything happening.

Silly season is here of course with the transfer window and as far as we know it’s just about outgoings though the message needs to be sent that Sport Republic are in some way in control and either not giving up on this season or planning for next season in the Championship.  Our one January arrival Welington, played his first game for the Under 21s last night, completing the first half of a 5-0 win which included a Dominic Ballard hat-trick. 

Talk of the transfer window can wait however because today is about the FA Cup, which is of course the oldest and greatest cup competition of them all, or rather it was. Now, the Premier League and the FA have combined, in the face of greed, to all but kill it and certainly kill the magic of it. The big clubs would rather finish fourth in the Premier League than win the FA Cup and that says it all really. A cup run for a team like Saints is exciting for the fans but even if it goes well, there’s always that moment when you get to the quarter-finals and you begin to dread the bun fight for tickets at Wembley and the damage it will do to your bank balance, just for a semi-final.

Swansea are mid table in the Championship and so will be looking for a run for a play-off place in the second half of the season. They also have the small matter of the South Wales Derby to play against Cardiff next week.  Consequently, they are going to be resting players for today. When we played them last season, their best player was Matt Grimes who used to play for Russell Martin at Swansea and was clearly, brought up to pass the ball and was on a completely different wavelength to the rest of his more limited teammates.  Russell Martin’s shadow looms large over this game – I wonder who he wants to win?  I wonder if Lucy Pinder has an influence?

Team news and no Tall Paul and in fact, no striker at all so we can only assume that Sulemana is up top.  Well that’s a bit of a reach.  Fernandes is back in for Armstrong and Ryan Manning is in for Nathan Wood, which I assume means Jimmy Champo slotting into a back three and KWP on the right.

Away we go and what is this?  Saints looking like the better side by a long way and an early chance as KWP brings down a cross on his right foot before firing wastefully over with his left.  If anyone was looking for which team was haunted by the ghost of Russell Martin then it was Swansea, who coughed up first with McLaughlin in goal passing to a defender who turned and played it backwards straight to Sulemana, who cuts inside a couple of defenders and has to score from the box and ….. no,  he drags his shot just wide.

In true anti-Russell fashion, the next chance came with some genuine route one stuff from us with Ramsdale’s big boot forward being challenged for by Big Les and as the ball bounced behind him, Sulemana used his pace to get there first and when he got there, the goalkeeper McLaughlin had come out and was standing in the very definition of no man’s land, which made up the strikers mind for him and he executed a lob sailing over the keeper, no bounce into the net for his first goal in what seems like forever.  Yes, it was made easier by shit goalkeeping but still a decent finish.

Kamaldeen Comments on the 20,000 Empty Seats

Ten minutes go by with no Swansea threat at all and Big Les drives to within 25 yards of goal on the left, lends Aribo the ball, on to Sulemana on the left and he plays a give and go with Les and is in round the back and he fires of ball across the 6 yard line to where Tyler Dibling has made it into the centre forward position to knock it past the keeper with ease. Excellent goal and good play all round.

With a two goal lead established, there’s not much going on before half-time and unlike the Stoke Carabao Cup game where we threw one in, we go into the break two goals up with no alarms at all.  Another goal at the start of the second half would of course see this game completely done and we have to wait ten minutes for the next chance as Manning’s corner from the right is met by Captain Janny at the back post and his thumping hits the keeper and bounces out, hits a defender suspiciously high on the arm and it smashed away.   No VAR so we don’t have to sit through all that shit and we can marvel that we’ve nearly actually scored from a set piece.

It’s still all a bit of a stroll, which suits Aribo of course and he storms out of defence and gives the ball to Manning out on the left and his low cross into the box is not cleared and Dibling stumbles through a couple of half-arsed tackles before smashing it into the net from just outside the 6 yard box. 3-0 and Wembley here we come.

Get Players in Danger Areas, Score Goals

The goal is Dibling’s last involvement and off he goes along with Sulemana, who gets what is probably his first ovation as he leaves the pitch and on come our reserve strikers, Armstrong and Archer. There’s another change in midfield with Big Les coming off for the returning Little Will Smallbone.   Matty Fernandes, as he has done all afternoon, brings some class to the proceedings by threading a lovely ball through to Archer who turns down the opportunity of a first time shot, and eventually runs into the keeper to block it out for a corner.

As we approach the last ten minutes, there is time for both teams to pay tribute to Russell Martin.  Firstly, McLaughlin plays that straight pass into midfield that we’ve seen so often from our keepers this season and it gets picked off and the ball ends up with Adam Armstrong on the edge of the box and his low shot is pushed wide by the keeper making up for his own mistake.  Arma, to the shock of no one, is offside.

Our own tribute sees Ramsdale playing a ball to the edge of the box where Smallbone doesn’t move quickly enough and he can’t control and Joe Allen picks it up and drives a low shot past Ramsdale, pinging off the inside of the post and going across the goal and wide to preserve our clean sheet in the most shit way possible.

Lallana is on for Aribo and Saints respond to the near miss with a really good incisive move up the pitch to send Armstrong away and he takes on Christie for pace, which he can do against championship defenders, but when confronted by the goalkeeper he bobbles the shot wide in eye-rollingly typical fashion.  No matter though, mission accomplished though for Ivan Juric and Saints are through to the 4^th Round.

Russell salutes Bravery of Both Teams As They Give Away Chances

Because the FA Cup is shit these days, the draw has already been made and because the Arsenal v Man United game has finished during our second half and we have got Burnley at home in what promises to be a keenly fought Free Nathan Tella Derby.  I wonder if they’ll price it to get the ground nearly full or are we going to end up with another 12,000-ish gate like today.

That’s for another day though.  Today? Well, that was easy and if you wanted an illustration of the difference between the Championship and the bottom of the Premier League, then this was it. I’d be interested to know what Swansea fans thought of their performance. Maybe they will think it wasn’t too bad but from our point of view, in the context of our season, they were shite and there was never any doubt that we would win the game, even before we took the lead.

On paper it didn’t look encouraging with Sulemana as the only real striker on the pitch, but today it worked.  It was a nice finish for the first goal, with the keeper lending a hand with the decision making but the give and go and injecting pace into the move for the second goal was exactly what we have been crying out for him to do since he got here two years ago.  He’ll get a run of games now to try and prove himself at the higher level in the league and he simply has to take the chance.

Sulemana’s work on the second goal provided a tap-in for Tyler Dibling and likewise, the third goal from Ryan Manning’s cross. Whilst Tyler might have had a relatively quiet match, the fact that he got himself into that position twice to finish off crosses into the box is something that we have been failing to do all season.  Tyler gave a beautiful "teenager" interview afterwards when presented with the Man of the Match award, being somewhat bemused that his two tap-ins got him the nod.  He and Kamaldeen are an unlikely strike pairing but no one else has taken their opportunity, so why not?

You would’ve liked to have seen Saints pushed on and tried to score some more goals but once the third one went in, it just became a case of playing out the rest of the time.  I think we can be forgiven for that given what has gone on in the league this season and there’s a bigger couple of games coming up in the week.

I assume that Juric will take some things from this game and take them forward into the Premier League in the next few weeks. I would not be surprised at all if we saw Sulemana being used as a striker but as it stands, I’d be absolutely amazed if that works in the Premier League but I’m sure we are about to find out.  KWP on the right and Manning on the left today looked very well balanced and in his games so far, Ivan has tried all of Manning, Charlie Taylor, Jimmy Champo, Yuki Sugawara and Nathan Wood in a bid to find two defenders to partner the ever-present Bednarek, KWP and THB.  I think that Manning has nailed one spot for now and it’ll be between Wood and Jimmy Champo for the third centre back spot.

The lack of midfield options was evident again today with Downes being missing. Joe Aribo was generally decent against a poor side but in the second half he did seem to have spells where he is always positioned just where the ball had moved from.  When Big Les, who had a good game, went off, we had Aribo and Smallbone as the midfield.   Try that in the Premier League Ivan and we will be conceding ten.  However, Aribo was made to look like Ngolo Kante when Lallana came on for him, with the veteran giving a pretty good, impression of someone who has never played football in his life before.

Onwards and Thursday against Manchester United at Old Trafford and the Decaying Theatre of Penny Pinching.

FA Cup 5th Round - Liverpool 3 Southampton 0

 

Here's Our Player Chipping the Keeper : No Goal

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of months, you will know that this is Jürgen Klopp’s last season as Liverpool manager. If you have just emerged from under that rock and you tuned into any sports media anywhere in the world for longer than about 30 seconds, you will know that it’s Jürgen Klopp‘s last season as Liverpool manager. The media coverage is endless.

You will also know that Liverpool have lots of injuries and have a fixture pile up. You will also know as they have been playing a lot of their academy products in recent games, including the Carabao Cup final which they won 1-0 against Chelsea, with a goal by a defender who was average before they paid a world record fee for a defender to sign him from… who was it again?… Oh yes, Celtic. Oh no, hang on, that was Southampton. Southampton signed him from Celtic for a reasonable fee, developed him into one of the worlds best central defenders and then Jürgen tapped him up by inviting him to Blackpool and the rest is history.  As for the fixture pile-up, yes Liverpool have had quite a few games recently but they’ve had less than Saints but I would expect that to be overlooked by anyone in mainstream sports media talking about the game tonight.

Liverpool, as you’d expect from a club of their stature, are still in the running for all four major trophies and having won the smallest one of those, the dream narrative would be for them to win the quadruple in Klopp’s last season. Last year, Pep Guardiola and Manchester City were on for the quadruple until they came across Nathan Jones at St Mary’s. In one of the more ‘strange but true’ episodes from last season, Nathan Jones stopped Pep winning the quadruple. Is it Russell Martin’s turn today?

Russell has done his usual and alluded to the fact that we have so many games coming up in the build-up, which means that there will be a fair few rested today. Liverpool will doubtless do the same and this is a sad indictment of the fixture planning and the decrease in importance of the FA Cup.

Talking of which, the teams are in and Liverpool only have van Dijk and Gakpo from their first team with Gomez and Tsimikas being the other senior players.  Saints have Bednarek and Manning from the first team – Aribo and Edozie from there or there abouts and all the squad players – Lumley, Bree, Stephens, Rothwell, Charles, Mara, Sulemana.  It’s a weird felling as the game kicks off – I of course want us to win but don’t feel that I’ll really give too much of a shit if we don’t.

Saints start really well and show that we want to pop the ball about, easily breaking the Liverpool press.  There are less than 30 seconds on the clock as Aribo puts Mara through and he looks miles offside but strides on and finishes low past Kelleher.  A brief visit to Stockleigh Park because we have VAR tonight..

Craig: Hello from Anfield – Craig Pawson here
SP: What do you want?
Craig: Just checking that offside
SP: Why?  I switched off when I saw who it was – shit!
Craig: What Sekou Mara?
SP: No, Southampton – they haven’t paid their VAR subscription with Sky this year Craig
Craig: Well they’re in the Championship – where the refs are shit but honestly shit
SP: Less scope to get the result we want though Craig, if you know what I mean?
Craig: Offside it is then.
SP: Hail Jurgen
Craig: Hail Jurgen

Liverpool overplay in midfield and Aribo gets a tackle in and tees up Sulemana on the left and he takes his time and his low right-footed effort comes across Kelleher and flicks off the far post and wide. Shit.  A decent effort but has to score really.

Liverpool or not looking any more comfortable as we go on with van Dijk and Gomez combining to play Bradley into trouble and he gets binned by Mara and Mara ends up dead centre, edge of the penalty area with the whole goal to aim at and with a swing of his left foot and visions in his head of the net bulging and being a hero - he puts it straight at the fucking keeper.

We decide to keep attacking until we score and Sulemana wins a corner off of Quansah.  In it comes from Rothwell and Aribo has a header blocked before we recycle it back out to Rothwell and he cuts in onto his right foot and then sharts it wide of the far post.  I am reminded of that Roy Hodgson meme where he gets his hopes up before seeing them smashed to pieces and slumping back into his chair.  Another break and once again it’s Sulemana taking on Quansah and bursts past him before once again shooting straight at the fucking goalkeeper.

Aribo puts Mara away on the right and he’s 1v1 against van Dijk, with Edozie in support.  Mara’s brain is thinking ‘take on best defender in world or pass it to the unmarked team mate?’ and his decision making is predictably terrible and doesn't end well.

One Attack, One Deflection, One Goal

Approaching half-time and Liverpool‘s first real attack sees a corner headed out as far as Elliot and his low shot is well saved by Lumley.  Liverpool come again though with the next attack with Clark (son of Lee) feeding Tsimikas (son of some Greek bloke) out on the left and he finds Koumas (son of Jason) on the edge of the box and he cuts across Jack Stephens (son of Russell Martin) and gets a shot away and it flicks off Bednarek (son of Poland) and gives Lumley (son of Joanna) no fucking chance at all. For fuck‘s sake.

Once everyone calms down, we do our best to kill the game off before half-time when Bree runs into traffic and gives the ball away in our half and eventually it falls to Gakpo who drags his shot wide.

Half time and overall we’ve played well, broken the press, created chances, missed them and paid for it due to a bit of bad fortune.  The bad fortune wouldn’t be so much of an issue if we’d been two goals ahead like we should have been.  Interestingly, because it is a Premier League side after all, we’ve sat a bit deeper and the shape in midfield has been good.

Saints start the second half relatively well with Charles and Aribo combining to send Edozie away on the right and his low cross is touched away from Mara by Konate and then Sulemana can only hit the fucking keeper again. Rothwell’s corner is there met by Aribo, who flicks it narrowly over the bar.

Another attack, another corner on the other side this time.  In it comes from Manning and it drops to Charles at the back post and he takes the touch has all the time to shoot and shits himself and produces an awful effort to shag it into the side netting.  Groan!!!

KWP and Adam Armstrong are on for Bree and Sulemana on the hour mark.  I’d have left Kamaldeen on to be honest as he was still looking dangerous.  Ten minutes go by and Edozie is off for Adams and Rothwell for Smallbone.

Here's Their Player Chipping the Keeper : Goal

Manning brings the ball forward and feeds into Smallbone for his first touch and he passes it directly behind where Manning was and straight to Harvey Elliott, who feeds it into Jayden Danns and the young substitute chips it easily over the onrushing Lumley.  Game over.  In the aftermath of the goal, KWP has worryingly gone off to be replaced by THB.

The tempo of the game has completely changed as well.  Alexis Mac Allister is on for Liverpool and they are now dominating and we can’t get out.  Aribo gives the ball away in blowing out of his arse fashion and the cross comes in from the left, headed out by Bednarek as far as Bradley and his improvised effort with the outside of his boot is pushed out by Lumley and Danns follows it in for a simple second goal.

Please let it end… and eventually it does.

Oh well, lost 3-0, fuck it.

On the positive side, we played pretty well for the first hour and showed a lot of bravery to play out from the back the way that we did and it should have brought reward as we beat the press regularly and created a load of chances.  However, miss them all and you don’t go in ahead at half-time, you go in 1-0 down to a spawny deflected effort from Liverpool’s first attack of note.

We started off the second half reasonably well but in the last half an hour, Liverpool took over and our substitutes just made the team worse.  Liverpool bringing on Mac Allister made their team much more difficult to play through as well.  When we had Edozie and Sulemana on the wings, we always had the prospect of breaking and causing them trouble in wide areas but when we replaced those with Adam Armstrong and pushing Mara out wide, you haven’t got that out ball or anyone carrying the ball forward, especially when you combine that with the slowest midfield three in history with Charles, Aribo (who played pretty well but was blowing out of his arse by this point) and Smallbone, who is the very definition of what you don’t want in an impact substitute.  Minor gripes however from a game where the expected happened.  The only real setback that matters is the injury to KWP and at time of writing there was no news on how serious that is.

I thought the back four and goalkeeper all played relatively well.  Bree did ok in his first game back but in hindsight, 45 minutes would have been enough.  Joe Lumley acquitted himself well in goal and didn’t have much chance with any of the goals. As said, Joe Aribo had a really good first half and Shea Charles did a good job defensively and just makes me wonder even more, why he’s not been in the side of late with Flynn Downes injured.  He did have his usual quota of flaky passing and giving the ball away but he was no worse than Rothwell who gave the ball away just as many times from a lot less possession.

The reason we didn’t have a decent go at winning this was down to the profligacy up front. Out of our misses, the only one that I would call unlucky was the one where Sulemana side footed that effort onto the post. Other than that, further misses by Sulemana and Mara were just shit.  Shea Charles, Aribo, Bednarek and Edozie all missed presentable chances. Mara – bloody hell.  Not only was it funny that he got 95 minutes, he also provided the funniest moment of that game was when he had a choice of playing a simple five yard ball to put Edozie clean through or taking on Virgil van Dijk, probably the best one on one defender in the world.  I mean, full marks for confidence or stupidity, one of the two.  Needless to say, he became a trailing speck of dust as Virgil moved upfield with it.

Our aim this year is of course to get promoted and play against Liverpool and all the others next season.  Even though it was Liverpool kids today in the main, the increase in speed and intensity showed up a few of ours today and is a bit of a reminder of how much work would need to be done on the squad in the event of us going up.  Though he wasn’t alone, Adam Armstrong proved once again that against slightly better opponents then you get in the Championship, not being able to control the football when it is passed to you is a bit of a disadvantage.

We lost again because we didn’t take our chances, end of story. We had so many chances in the first half whilst Liverpool‘s scratch team was growing into the game but didn’t take them and once Liverpool upped their game a little bit, helped admittedly by the slightly fortunate first goal, we didn’t really have an answer.  The five and a half thousand travelling fans were magnificent however.

Personally, I watched it on ITV and the coverage was a Klopp-centric as you’d expect it to be - very ITVomit.  It was all about him and his teeth and hair and the Liverpool youngsters and it was a great opportunity to shut them up but we blew it in that first half.  Sam Matterface can get in the bin as a commentator.  Absolutely shite and he’s bailed out by Ally McCoist, though he was a bit difficult to understand at the start of the game before the beers had worn off and he becomes less ‘Glasgow’.

So, we lost and in the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter and it would’ve been Manchester United away in the next round anyway.  It would have been interesting as we might have done well against a side not known for pressing particularly well. We’ve gone to Anfield, we've played pretty well in patches, we’ve got knocked out and now we move on.

Being out of the FA Cup doesn’t matter is shit in the context of this season and all we can do is take the positives from this game and take them in to the rest of the league campaign where have very little margin for error, starting with Birmingham City away on Saturday. Win that and I will not give a toss about this game.

Up the Fucking Saints.

FA Cup 4th Round Replay - Southampton 3 Watford 0

 

Sekou Can Fly As Well

The replay no one wanted is here with Watford making a Tuesday night trip down to St Mary’s. Win this tonight and this will be the first of five midweek games in a row, which is a quite mental schedule and will include a 5th round mid-week trip to Anfield.  Whoopee.

Watford manager Valerian Ismail thinks he has the answers and that though Saints will be much changed for today, he knows our system and how to combat it. On the one hand he has a point because they have drawn twice with us this season but on the other hand, both of those games have been at Vicarage Road and this one isn’t.

There was a lot of interest around the team selection for tonight, with the last day of the transfer window meaning that neither Mason Holgate or Charlie Alcaraz are still at the club and they would definitely have been playing tonight. As it was, four players survived from the starting lineup from the weekend in Jan Bednarek, Che Adams, Will Smallbone and somewhat surprisingly, Flynn Downes.  Joe Lumley was given another chance to show the goalkeeping is easier when you use your arms. Shea Charles was deployed out of position at right back with youngster Jayden Meghoma on the left. Captain Jack partnered Janny B at centre back. Midfielder included Joe Rothwell it’s Stuart Armstrong’s usual slot and Che was flanked with Sekou Mara and Tyler Dibling.   Watford looked a little more at full strength that they had in the initial FA Cup meeting and the main thing was that Wesley Hoedt was present and will doubtless have an evening of shit raining down on him from the Northam End.

Away we go and pissing down and Tyler Dibling is the first to show as the Dutch Caleta-Car tries to pass his way out of defence but gives the ball straight to Smallbone. Dibling picks it up and meanders his way past left back Morris before putting it right across the goal with no one running in to finish it off.

The first shot on target comes from another Dutch Callum Davenport mistake, as he virtually scuffs his nose on the pitch stooping really low to head the ball out but it’s returned by Dibling to Downes who slides in but can only half hit it straight at Bachmann.

Watford are catching us with too many midfielders in front of the ball and their first threatening attack sees them pissing through midfield with Downes out of position and Smallbone showing his usual sprint speed to get back in there.   The ball eventually finds its way to Kone, who shoots, deflection off Bednarek down and looping up and Lumley watches with feet planted as it bounces off the top of the bar and over.

The first goal will be important tonight as if we get it, it will give the makeshift team some confidence and mean that we don’t have to empty the bench in order to try and claw the game back like last time.  We build down the left with Mara picking up the ball in lots of space and he gets to the edge of the box, gets his head up well and slides in a lovely ball to Che Adams, six yards out with just the goalkeeper to beat. Guess what happens? Yep, hit the fucking goalkeeper and as he tries to step round the sprawling defenders, the Dutch Mason Holgate gets a foot in and stabs it off for a corner.

The rest of the first half was absolute shite and no more really needs to be said about it. It was just ‘going through the motions’ bullshit and just waiting for half time.  All of our attacks were breaking down on Mara or Adams and it was only Dibling offering any spark in attack.

Second half and still pissing down and Watford break through midfield again and Chakvetadze gets into the box followed by Shea Charles and dives between two players, neither of whom attempt to tackle him and hits the deck. Fucking embarrassing mate and the referee does get it spot it and dishes out a yellow card.

Almost straight away we pick the ball up on the left and Rothwell drives into the penalty area and tries to play a 1-2 Adams but either by luck or by design the ball doesn’t go back to Rothwell and instead it finds Sekou Mara and he uses the swinger of a left foot that he never normally uses and smashes the ball past Bachmann at his near post.  Get in – I can’t believe he's done that!

You Can't Stop Him Like That Mate

Tyler Dibling is really showing up well now and cruises past Morris again on the halfway line and set off towards goal before crashing to the deck. The referee decides that this is also a dive even though there is no logical reason why he would’ve done it, unlike their guy who was in penalty area.  Levelling up.

Unflustered by it, Dibling turns up in the right-back area and knocks it back to Lumley who instead of whacking it up the pitch decides to play and turns the ball to Downes.  He looks like he’s in trouble but spins out of it and via Charles, Dibling takes off again in a big diagonal run and gets 40 yards before being absolutely carted by Thug Porteous as he releases the ball to Adams.  On to Mara, one touch, thunderbastard, goal.  No one expected that – not Mara, not any of the other players, not any of the fans and certainly not Bachmann who saw it flash by him at the near post again.  Having been shit on both of the goals, Bachmann collapses and we have a little break while he gets himself substituted. Just fuck off mate. Watford bring on Ben Hamer in his place.

Sam Edozie is on for Dibling and almost immediately Adams put him through with another clever ball in between the lumbering pair of the Dutch Lyanco and Porteous but all Sam can manage is a back pass.

Che Will Tear You Apart

Watford are not in the mood for Edozie and his tricks and Sierralta carts him up in the air, somersault and everything, rather than try and win the ball.  Will we make him pay? Rothwell fires it over, Watford’s defenders all stop and Adams peels off the static defence to knock it into the empty net from about six yards.

Watford’s performance has tailed off, which is hard to imagine bearing in mind they’ve been shite all game and there are more goals in the offing as Porteous tries to pass out of defence like he’s actually a competent footballer and gives the ball away. One pass and Edozie is clean through coming in from an angle and he tries to give the keeper the eyes which he does successfully, but then he fucks up the finish and hits the inside of the near post and sees it bounce away.

Porteous then tries to do the same thing again and loses the ball this time to Edozie and it bounces to Sam Amo who just has the goalkeeper beat and he manages to knock it over Hamer as he comes out and hits the fucking post as well.

Liverpool here we come and that really couldn’t have been much easier. Let’s draw a veil over the first half which was absolutely shit.  Che Adams missed an absolute sitter when he managed to increase his xHitTheFuckingKeeperFromAnywhere stat. Watford had that one chance which deflected and bounced off the bar.

In the second half however, we stepped it up and Watford didn’t and the goals started to flow through Mara and Adams. Watford just packed in and to be honest we should’ve scored two more but Edozie and Amo-Ameyaw brought our ‘missed sitter’ count for the game to three.  Sam Amo in particular looked gutted with his miss.  It’ll come fella.

The Dutch Holgate Applauds the Fans That Used to ... oh never mind.

To be fair to the Dutch Alan Bennett, he didn’t have the best of games with his passing but he actually looks too good a player to be playing for team that Watford side. Quite a few times he swept the ball out to wide players who couldn’t control it or didn’t look after it and his frustration was obvious.   He kept on losing his shit with his own players whereas when he carted over Sam Amo at the end, he made sure he picked him up.  He certainly deserves better than having to partner Ryan Porteous, who is just a big clumsy park-football thug and should certainly have got two yellow cards over the course of the game.

Whereas in the first game at Watford, none of the fringe players really did anything to make the manager sit up and take notice but that wasn’t the case today. Tyler Dibling was probably the biggest plus and having been somewhat nondescript at Vicarage Road, he certainly turned on the style today and what a style it is, very languid but very effective in the way he dribbles past players and then puts his body in the way so they can’t catch him. It certainly is a very young Le Tissier in the way that he moves and the socks around the ankles certainly add to the persona. He was excellent today.  Jayden Meghoma was another 17 year old who put in a really good shift.  He looked a lot better defensively today as well which will come on leaps and bounds as he gets used to mens football.  A couple of decent players in the making there.

Most headlines will go to Sekou Mara for his two goals. He started the game fairly well for the first 20 minutes or so and then the second part of the first half he didn’t look interested in the slightest and may as well not of been out there. Goals change perception however and they also changed his enthusiasm for the game and having scored one he looked a completely different player and the second goal was a brilliant strike.
 
Che Adams had a somewhat inconsistent game, missing an absolute sitter in the first half but he then got the assist for both of Mara’s goals and then knocked one in himself as he was alive as a free-kick came into the box when no one else was.  Overall, for a 90 minute performance, you take a goal and two assists and he is definitely going to be massively useful to us in the Championship run-in, despite his contract running down.

Joe Rothwell showed a bit more of what he was about despite being on the receiving end of a couple of late tackles, especially the one from that useless late lump of shit that is Porteous.

It was an interesting day for the referee as well as he correctly booked Chakvetadze for his embarrassing dive in our penalty area and then seems to want to even it up by booking Dibling for going down in the middle of the pitch when he had absolutely nothing to gain and had already beaten the player.  Edozie then got booked for one which for a glorious moment, I thought was going to see Porteous get a deserved second yellow card.  I’m not a fan of diving and hate our players doing it but hypocritically, if it gets rid of the opposition shithouse then it’s worth the risk.

Bring on Liverpool. Maybe they will be out of contention for every other competition by this time and it will be the last chance for Klopp to sign off with a bit of silverware. Probably not though and with both teams having ridiculous fixture congestion before and after the fixture and the 5^th Round being scheduled for mid-week, there’s no way either team will be at full strength which is a bit of a shame and shows what are the powers that be think of the FA Cup these days.

Still, we have about five league games before then and it’s much more important to go to Anfield with our unbeaten record still intact and if we do lose at Anfield, so fucking what.

Up the fucking Saints Reserves.

FA Cup 4th Round - Watford 1 Southampton 1

 

His Hair is Fine....

Watford away in the 4^th Round of the FA Cup in one of the most uninspiring draws of all time.  It’s a team we’ve played many times recently in both the Premier League and the Championship and it’s a team in our own division so in short, it’s boring.  I’m suspecting we will see a much changed side even though we had no mid-week game last week, nor do we have one next week. It’s a bit of shame but that’s the way it is.

One player who would’ve been playing today, if he was fit, was Kamari Doyle.  On the face a bit we had a bit of bad news on Wednesday when it emerged that he was leaving the club and joining Brighton. The reason for him leaving was the Jimmy Jay Morgan one of lack of game time.  Cough-Bullshit-Cough!

If we delve beneath that headline a little bit, we will see that Doyle has been injured for the last four months so I don’t know when exactly he was expecting to play or was in any position to make demands in that regard. He was fit at the very start of the season and he was fit at the tail end of last season, so is he leaving because he didn’t get many minutes in the train wreck that was Ruben Sellers as we got relegated ? What are his prospects of getting more minutes for Brighton in the Premier League than he would get for Saints in the Championship and cup games?  Is it a Premier League thing?  Maybe stick around for a few months and and back yourself and team-mates to get back there.   Maybe it was assurances of game time that he was after? It’s such bullshit isn’t it because laughably, as opposed to that, Doyle has been put in their Under-21 squad, which I guess he knew about when he signed and he probably won’t even be training with the first team, for fuck‘s sake.

It’s always disappointing when someone decides to jump ship but how exactly is Jimmy Jay Morgan getting at that pathway express that is Chelsea?  Nothing plausible in that lot, so that kind of leaves us with good old cash as the reason.   For what it’s worth, I’ve only seen Doyle play a couple of times and he didn’t particularly make an impression and looked miles away from regularly challenging for a first team place. Good luck to him but I think we’ve done alright with the £3 million-ish fee.  Careful what you wish for. (UPDATE: Somewhat spookily, Russell Martin confirmed virtually every word of this when asked about Doyle's move)

Kamari, Modelling the Brighton U21 kit

Moving on and we are of course getting towards the end of the silly season and the transfer window and the rumour has been about KWP moving to Arsenal. There’s no actual quotes or any actual information in any of these reports but Arsenal is the very worst club but one of your players can be linked with because social media for your club will be completely and utterly poisoned until the story goes away, such is the average Arsenal fans keyboard warrior enthusiasm.

To today and the team – just the 9 changes with only Che Adams and THB remaining from the last league game.  Holgate right back, Captain Jack centre back and Jayden Meghoma at left back.  A worrying looking midfield of Charles, Rothwell and Alcaraz and Che being flanked up front by Tyler Dibling and Sekou Mara.  All I know about Watford’s line up is that Wesley Hoedt is playing.

We start the game pretty well and despite all the changes and settle nicely into the pattern of keeping the ball and probing.  However, Watford‘s first break is down our right and over there we have Mason Holgate who is dozing after three minutes and Holgate somewhat clumsily carts over Asprilla on the left-hand corner of the penalty area.   He may well have got a bit of the ball there but it looks clumsy and Michael Salisbury, who is always shit, deems it worth a booking.  Lumley just has Tyler Dibling as his one-man wall and two seconds later he’s looking rather stupid as the freekick is smashed by Martins, low at the near post and Lumley does a possible impression of someone doing the ‘salmon’ in wriggling across his goal without using his hands and ball nestles in the net.  What the fuck was that? The only possible thing I can think of is that Lumley thought it was going wide because it almost look like he pulled his hands away but zero arms goalkeeping is never going to catch on, or catch anything.

Proof That Joe Lumley Has Arms

Saints try and get back into it but every time the ball goes up to Adams, he has the shit kicked out of him by either Hoedt or Pollock.  The latter absolutely trashes through the back of him, which is twice as bad as Holgate’s tackle but it’s not a yellow card this time because, as I may have mentioned, Michael Salisbury is shit.  We are now looking very rattled having conceded the early goal and it’s mainly Watford instigating any action in the penalty areas. A corner from the left is meant by the completely unmarked big bloke with a ponytail who is not Hoedt, and he heads well wide but we are living dangerously here.

It gets no better though as Watford, prompted by the mercurial Hoedt at centre back, spread the ball out to our left and Martins nicely weighted pass picks out the run of Asprilla but THB has gone with him and slides it superbly to prevent the shot coming in. That’s one of our two regular first team as ladies and gentlemen.

We haven’t got a midfield – Shea Charles is doing his bit but has no help from Alcaraz who is constantly giving the ball away and Rothwell, who can’t run, can’t tackle and it’s a bit of mystery what he’s about to be honest.

THB doesn’t have a great moment as he puts a totally free header over the bar from a corner and then he has a shocker on his own penalty area on the next attack as he intercepts the ball into the box but can only present the ball to Bayo, who takes a touch before drilling it across at the far corner but it goes just wide.  Luckily, Lumley didn’t need his arms for that one.

Half-time and we have basically been fucking dreadful. When you have five players out of eleven dropping 2 out of 10 performances, then there is absolutely no way that you are going to put together any sort of coherent performance. Holgate has been fucking embarrassing, as has Rothwell. Alcaraz has clearly forgotten what colour kit he is playing in and then we have the fish brothers – Sekou Mara who is a fish up a tree and Joe Lumley, who dived across the goal like a fish, because a fish has no arms.  I feel a bit sorry for Dibling out on the right,  because he’s relying on his fellow right-sided players, Holgate and Rothwell to link up with him.

No changes at half-time when to be honest, there could’ve been five, and Saints don’t particularly get any better. A corner from the left is headed out but bounces off of Meghoma, back into the danger zone and Martins has a shot which deflects and Lumley can’t get near it as it bounces off the post. We really should be 3-0 down by this point.

63 minutes and it’s substitution time now and here come some proper players with Stuart Armstrong, Ryan Fraser, Will Smallbone and Adam Armstrong all entering the fray. Off go Joe Rothwell, Shea Charles, Che Adams and Tyler Dibling.  Oh look, we’re much better and another fifteen minutes go by before it’s time to throw the sink at it and Sam Amo is on for Jayden Maghoma and so we are going three at the back, Smallbone in midfield and everyone else going for it.

Stuart Armstrong looks in the mood right from his introduction and he bursts away from two players down the left before crossing to the back post which is cleared as far as Holgate of all people, who comes steaming in and brings a half decent save out of Bachmann.

Holgate is playing like a man possessed now, bursting forward and playing like a proper full back and from his next excursion to the edge of the box he goes Full-KWP and tries to jink past a couple of players before being trashed.  For some reason, we allow Alcaraz to take the free kick and we may as well go back to halfway and wait for the goal kick which inevitably follows after he shats it over the bar.

The direction of travel of this game has completely changed round now but we’re running out of time as we reach 90 as Watford get deeper and Saints just pile on the attack. Sekou Mara, now playing in his favoured centre forward position, picks up a ball on the right and decides to make his first contribution of the game by smashing it goalwards and Bachmann pushes it out of the edge of the penalty area.  In comes Stuart Armstrong, checks inside one player and with everyone expecting him to curl it with the inside of his foot towards the far post he reverses it back to the near post and Bachmann has taken a step the wrong way and is therefore completely fucked, as it rips into the net.

There is only one team that looks to win it in the five minutes that remain and we win a corner on the right which is crossed in to the mixer and THB gets up and it’s just inside the post but unfortunately, Bachmann decides to use his arm in very un-Fish like manner and pushes it wide of the post.  The End.

At the end of the day, a draw was the result no one wanted but it was a fair result. Watford should’ve been more than one goal in front at half-time, whereas was we were by far the better team in the last half an hour, especially when we brought on some of the proper players.

That first half was an absolute shit show in general terms where half of the team as individuals were absolutely shit. Of the five mentioned earlier, at least Lumley, Holgate and Alcaraz improved.  Mara had one of those games where you just want to pack him back off to France as soon as possible, taking whatever haircut is necessary on the £10 million that we paid for him. There is no way that any striker in our Under-18s upwards could be as bad as him.  Mara is terrible in the wide areas and he’s not strong enough to play in the centre forward position. He stands at roughly six foot, so he’s not small but the way he plays, it looks like he weighs about six stone – breathe on him and he falls over.

Sekou Having Lost the Ball Again, Having Been Breathed on By a Smaller Player

Mason Holgate in the second half was an absolute beast and was probably our best player and that sums him up. He’s like Ainsley Maitland-Niles in that he is eminently capable of reaching a very high level but he can’t do it consistently. Last year, I had this thing about the lack of people in our squad who could string together three decent games in a row. This is Holgate and this is why his career has not gone anywhere up till now, he just can’t do it consistently and you end up being amazed when he hits a high-level and not surprised when he does the opposite. The boy can play but he’s got a find a consistent level somewhere between the ‘beast’ that he was in the second half and the ‘dogshit’ that he was in the first.

The five subs all made good contributions and upped the energy level. The goal in the end came from the one decent thing that Mara did all game when his shot was parried away by Bachmann and Stuart Armstrong’s finish from the edge of the box, reversing it into the near post, was absolutely brilliant.

So overall it was a bit of a strange game with no one who is not in the regular Championship starting XI, giving any cause to convince the manager to think that they should be. Jack Stephens was ok at centre back but we already know but he’s not good enough to challenge the two incumbents. Mason Holgate had a good half as said earlier but the likes of Joe Rothwell, Sekou Mara and Charly Alcaraz really didn’t do enough.

I’ve seen it said that with the system and the style of play bedded in now, that players should be able to swap into it seamlessly but that’s simply not true.  A number of these players are reserve players for a reason and you can maybe slot in two or three and if not weaken the team at all but if you slot in eight or nine, then there is an inevitable drop off

No doubt those who didn’t set  the world alight today, will be given another chance in the replay and be responsible for us trying to secure a thankless trip to Anfield in the 5^th Round.  It will be a chance to mess up Jurgen Klopp’s retirement party I guess.

The draw today is good for one thing in that it extended the undefeated run. If we get beat up at Anfield then no worries but I feel it was quite important to not get beat today, even with a weakened side.  Bring on Rotherham away at the weekend and a mission to avenge the ridiculous dropped two points at St Mary’s.

Up the Fucking Saints.