EFL Championship Match 30 - Southampton 5 Huddersfield 3

 

Weston Shore is Better than Bournemouth Beach Isn't It?

It seems like at the moment, the fixture computer has given us a chance to make up for our sins from earlier on in the season. First up Rotherham, now up Huddersfield, who we went away to during this unbeaten run and we had one of those games where we didn’t play particularly well, took the lead and then in almost complacent fashion, tried to coast to the end of the game and fucked it up when an attempted cross deceived everybody and ended up in the net.

As also tends to be the case at the moment, the opposition have changed their manager since the return game with Darren Moore becoming Darren No-Moore and his place being taken by caretaker Joe Worthington, who will soon be replaced we are led to believe, by Michael Duff, the man who took over from Russell Martin at Swansea and who after a few games, was labelled a PE teacher by the Jack Army.  Looking on objectively, you would say that Michael Duff could be excused for not wanting to rush through his appointment in time for today’s game, given how well Saints are playing at the moment.

Since the Watford game, the only news to come out of Saints has been positive with the return of Kamaldeen Sulemana. There is a very real possibility that we will have him, David Brooks and Sam Edozie all on the bench, ready to wreak havoc against a tired Huddersfield defence.  As long-time readers will know, I am yet to be convinced by Sulemana and would place him a very definite third behind Ryan Fraser and Sam Edozie in the left wing pecking order.  I also feel that the fact that he cost to club the thick end of £25 million quid is one of the reasons why he was playing as much as he was before he got injured. Still, clean slate and all that and let’s see what he’s got.

Saints are unchanged, with the team exactly what you’d predict from the last league game.  Away we go and not a great start with KWP dragging an early effort across goal.  It’s not a great opening twenty minutes or so, with very little goalmouth incident going on, with Huddersfield pressing aggressively from the front and in midfield and Saints seeming incredibly lethargic all over the park.  We are not taking our time to build up through the thirds and are instead we are playing a couple of passes and then looking for the chip over the top which might work if we had anyone on the pitch who could hold the ball up.  Che Adams is supposed to be able to do that but he is wearing the Adidas Trampolino boots again, so the ball is bouncing anywhere other than to another player in a red and white shirt.  Rya Fraser is being given 50-50 balls to compete with much bigger defenders for and Adam Armstrong is not seeing much ball at all.

We are struggling particularly in midfield to get a grip on things, and it doesn’t help when Flynn Downes goes down injured.  He tries to play on, has some raw chopped liver, goes down a second time and that’s the end of that for him.  I know that Russell is not going to bring on Shea Charles and my eyes are rolling into the top of my head as Joe Rothwell comes on to replace him.  The eye-rolling is not for Rothwell as such but for the fact it means that Will Smallbone will be dropping back to that defensive midfield position that just doesn’t work when the opposition is getting amongst us like Huddersfield are.

Sorba Thomas picks up the ball on the right side and runs at Manning before switching the ball wide and when it comes in from Rudoni, Thomas hits it and it seems to flick off of Manning and zips into the net.  Thomas then runs behind the goal and goads some kids in the Family Stand and then the Chapel and before doing a TikTok dance with his teammate like an absolute fucking bellend. Don’t know you are mate, so fuck off.

If I didn’t know who he was before, I did soon after as Huddersfield piss through the non-midfield again with Thomas again doing the damage and his low cross finds its way to Kasumu on the edge of the box and he rifles it high into the net giving Baz no chance. Fucking hell lads, for fuck’s sake.

Well, the unbeaten record is severely under threat as we go in at half-time two goals behind and we deserve to be two goals behind. This hasn’t been a smash and grab so far as Huddersfield have come with a game plan and executed it superbly and we have fallen into every possible trap that we could. We have been shit to be quite honest, coming up with no answers to the questions being posed.  However, booing the team off that is in the middle of a 24 game unbeaten run is idiotic..  Personally, I’m casting my mind back to Jonno Pace against MK Dons in 2011.  Who’s gonna be the hero?

Pick the Bones Out of That

Che has been put out of his misery and David Brooks is on and we start the second half with a completely renewed purpose and go flying forward. I kind of sense that we have to get one back fairly quickly.  The previously anonymous Stuart Armstrong makes good ground down the left and plays Wee Man through on the left and he gets bundled off it for a corner.. In it comes from Stuart Armstrong, punched out by Nicholls to the edge of the box and Rothwell producers a kind of sidewinder volley that sends the balls screaming into the top corner. What a ridiculous fucking strike that is.

Huddersfield kick-off and it ends with Baz, so we go again eventually building up through KWP on the right.  He finds Brooks who cuts infield and plays a ridiculous reverse pass between the defenders to pick up the run of Rothwell who takes a touch before drilling it across Nicholls and high into the net again.  What on earth is this.  I am amused that I questioned bringing him on.

The momentum is all with us as Smallbone picks up a ball in midfield and plays a perfect ball to send Adam Armstrong in on goal.  No defender is going to catch him and as he approaches Nicholls, the stadium gets ready and… he produces an absolute wanky chip straight to the goalkeeper who just stands there and catches it.  To be honest, that’s almost as bad as Charly Alcaraz and his chipped penalty.

Sensing that they’ve got a lifeline, Huddersfield settle down again and more non-existent midfield shield from us and Matos strolled up from left back and tries a pot-shot and it hits Smallbone and deflects miles up in the air and it could go anywhere but of course if drops perfectly over Baz and into the net.  Fuck. Off.

Russell goes to the bench again with twenty to go and and we’re just going for it with Sulemana and Edozie both coming on. A few minutes later and Sekou Mara is on to replace Adam Armstrong and you can’t complain about that one at all because Armstrong has generally been poor today and I still can’t get over that chip.

Immediately after Mara comes on, Saints build down the left Manning eventually knocking the ball wide for Rothwell to run onto and his low cross along the 6 yard line towards Sulemana is obligingly toe pokes by Less, the Huddersfield central defender and he sends it flying in at the near post given the goalkeeper no chance. 3-3.

Sekou Turns Up Again

Huddersfield are done and looking increasing fragile now.  Brooks gets bundled over but no penalty given and we recycle the ball back to KWP, whose ball in behind is reached by Brooks who just to get his foot round it and pulls it back to the edge of the 6 yard box and Mara spins and crashes it into the net.  Mental.

With Huddersfield now being cooked, we don’t need another goal but you can never have too many.  Sulemana and KWP knock is about on the right before we lose it but Brooks get a foot in to block an attempted clearance and it shoots across the goal and Mara has a wrestling match with a Huddersfield defender before calmly rolling it back to Edozie, who skips around the one defender who is not on his arse and crashes into the net to make it five.

The board goes up and there are 13 minutes to go, the vast majority of which is being added because of Huddersfield wasting time from about a quarter of an hour mark onwards but the game is dead now. We could score more if we wanted to but don’t need to and Huddersfield are done despite making a whole raft of substitutions.

Well that was absolutely mad. That first half was absolutely terrible with us being second to every ball and not being patient enough to keep the ball and try and break Huddersfield down. It was all too rushed and looking for the chip over the top too early and it was generally pretty poor. The substitution which occurred when Flynn Downes went off totally lost us the midfield with Joe Rothwell coming on and Smallbone reverting to playing as a defensive midfield. Suddenly we had no defensive nous in there and the defence became exposed and in ten minutes we had conceded two goals and gone in at half-time with a massive amount of work to do. The second half with renewed energy and bollockings no doubt dished out, we absolutely steamed into them and with two brilliant goals in two minutes, ironically scored by the first half substitute Joe Rothwell.

Then a key moment straight after that as Adam Armstrong was clean through with just the goalkeeper to beat but tried a chip and enough said and Huddersfield went back in front with a ridiculous deflection that looked miles up in the air and gave Baz no chance at all.

With us seemingly drifting towards a 3-2 defeat, Russell Martin rolled dice again with the substitutions and having talked up the bench and how strong it was before the game, it worked for him. Joe Rothwell again was majorly involved in the third goal with his cross been turned into his own net and the fourth and fifth or down to two more subs, Mara and Sam Edozie. A quite ridiculous afternoon.

Sammy Seals It

I know it sounds daft to criticise the first half substitution because he scored a couple of goals and got an assist  but at the tactical meeting where Russell Martin laid out his football philosophy, he spoke of controlling the game and limiting the opposition. You can’t do that with no midfield when you haven't got the ball. We got slightly fortunate today and that our bench is so strong it’s like a cheat code to make up for any mistakes that happened earlier on in the game, be that from players or manager. We might get away with it a few times in the Championship but you can’t be playing games with so little in midfield because you will lose more often than not.

Usually, it takes a defeat to be classed as a wake-up call but this game today should certainly be classed as a wake-up call for us, even though we won. We didn’t put the work in the first half and were deservedly two down at half-time against a Huddersfield team looked really organised and looked like they had a game plan which we were struggling with. The game plan was a close us down aggressively, especially in midfield and that’s why the substitution before halftime was so mystifying because, and I’ll say it again, playing Smallbone as a defensive midfielder could work if the other team is passively sitting off but if they’re getting amongst you, like Huddersfield were then it’s just a disaster waiting to happen especially with Rothwell not being the most press-resistant player either. The problem for them was that they couldn’t keep going for 90 minutes, which ironically ended up being 103 minutes because of the amount of time that they wasted.

As I’ve said many times before, complacency is the biggest issue when you are on a long unbeaten run and we got away with it today. Coming up next week are away trips to Bristol City and West Brom and we cannot afford to have any complacency because those are two teams who on paper and according to the league table, are better than Huddersfield. The bad news is today that we’ve probably lost Flynn Downes and Stuart Armstrong but we have players to come in and all I hope for against Bristol City on Tuesday, is that Russell Martin gets the balance of the midfield right and if Downes is out injured, then for me, Charles has to play.

It was of course the proverbial game of two halves today but one player stood out as being good for 90 minutes.  At times it seemed like Jan Bednarek was the only defender we had and he led the defence superbly through the game considering the lack of help they were getting from the midfield. Another major plus was David Brooks. I’ve never really appreciated how good he was before, but the guy is exceptional and it’s ridiculous that Bournemouth have let him go out on-loan. The vision that he showed on the second goal to pick out Rothwell’s run was amazing and there was a couple of passes in midfield where he threaded the ball through three players, that were ridiculous.

But Has He Got Jonno Pace?

But, what about the Rothwell Incident (sorry!).  That volley was absolute filth - the technique absolutely ridiculous and you can't strike a volley any cleaner than that. Just imagine if one of the big boys had scored a goal like that.  This years Jonathan Forte has been found - two goals from an unexpected source to rescue a game where we were 2-0 and playing badly.

Ipswich dropped two points today, needing a last-minute equaliser to snatch a draw at home to West Brom but no such problem for Leeds who easily buried Rotherham at home. Leeds will be certainly looking for us to drop points on Tuesday and Friday but win them both and it’ll be a four point gap at least by the time Saturday rolls around.

Up the fucking 25 unbeaten Saints.

EFL Championship Match 17 - Huddersfield 1 Southampton 1

 

Behold, I've Done It Again

I was reading somewhere that Saints have to play twenty-two games in sixteen weeks before the next international break. Seeing as we are in an eight-game unbeaten run, if we can extend that to thirty games by the time the next international break happens, then I think we will be in a fairly good place regarding promotion back to the land of VAR and financial fair play my arse.

The first game of our twenty-two game run is away at Huddersfield and if we are serious about getting promoted this year then this is a game that we clearly have to win. Huddersfield started off the season with Neil Warnock in charge and depending on what you read, he was sacked or gracefully pensioned off after a few games and the present incumbent is Darren Moore, fresh from getting Sheffield Wednesday promoted out of League 1. The headline result of Moore’s time with Sheffield Wednesday was of course the play-off semi-final when they were 4-0 down to Peterborough and then scored five goals in about 10 minutes to overturn the first leg deficit.  Of course, this was not the norm. The norm was a very pragmatic, defence first approach which he has taken into the Huddersfield job.  Last time out against Hull, they basically lined up 5-4-60 yards-1 and tried to defend the shit out of it for 90 minutes which nearly got them a point but a late Liam Delap goal meant the tactics ultimately failed.  I am expecting similar tactics today.

Hopefully, we will be good enough today so that Huddersfield tactics don’t actually make much difference but in the first game back after national break, you can never quite tell what you’re going to get, especially when some of your players has been over the other side of the world. Russell Martin’s press conference yesterday was encouraging though with him admitting that we were in a better place than we thought we would be, regarding players coming back from international duty and existing knocks and niggles. There is also the tantalising possibility that Ross Stewart will be more ready to play after another couple of weeks training since his outing against West Brom.

Charly Alcaraz, probably jet-lagged from a flight here from Argentina is the only one missing from the starting XI with Ryan Fraser being given a chance to show he should be a starter, rather than an impact sub.  The other change today is that Russell Martin is of course sat in the stands after his three bookings in previous games.  There is the slightly absurd spectacle of him being sat there with a radio mic so he can talk to the bench, which is about five yards in front of where he is sat. He is sat on the end of a row with a big guy who obviously works for the club sat next to him.  I guess that this is to stop some random bloke sitting next to him and chatting shit all through the game.

The first incident Russell oversaw from the stand was Huddersfield bundle down the left-hand side before Thomas shot well wide.  Our first bit of threatening play sees THB switch it wide to Sulemana and we go all Brazil 1982 for a second with Sulemana with a couple of back flicks and Adam Armstrong and Smallbone combining to try and put Stuart Armstrong through but eventually the number of Huddersfield bodies does enough to crowd us out and get the ball clear.

KWP then links up with Stuart Armstrong who dribbles into the box and passes at the opportunity to shoot to sliding Fraser on the right but the wee man is pressured into hoofing the shot well well over the bar.

The game then falls asleep with us having the ball and Huddersfield dropping nine players deep and allowing us to to have it.  We are content to pass it around and not go anywhere and it’s boring.  As we approach 40 minutes it wakes up and KWP on the right cuts the ball into Adam Armstrong, who displays poor centre forward play in allowing a defender to get a boot to it but it rolls out to Stuart Armstrong who smashes it first time, past the keeper, against the post and out.  Shit.

Stu Makes Things Happen

We do however appear to be fully awake now and Smallbone plays it through inside the full back to Sulemana, who cuts inside and sees his shot blocked into the side netting.  Bree’s corner from the left is cleared out as far as KWP on the right and via Downes the ball goes to Smallbone on the edge of the box who does what site should do far more often and lets fly and keeper Maxwell makes an almighty flap of it but manages to keep it out.

The five minutes of pressure then pays with some patient play around the edge of the box before Smallbone finds Stuart Armstrong on the left his first time across his met by Adam Armstrong, who darts in front of his defender before stabbing the ball into the corner of the net. Brilliant finish and happy days.

Half time and a second goal will clearly be enough to put this to bed.  There doesn’t appear to be any need for any changes, just a need to keep the intensity up and keep the ball, push for a second and not do anything dumb.  We had in truth been largely untroubled all half but there were a couple of breaks by Huddersfield that we had eventually snuffed out, mainly because they only committed one player forward.

However, Saints start the second half like a fucking drain with Bednarek giving the ball away on the half-way line which gives Huddersfield the platform to build up down the left with Thomas flashing a ball across the box which is eventually stabbed behind for a corner by Bree.  More Huddersfield pressure down the left-hand side ends with more chaos and Koroma’s shot deflected wide.

Huddersfield now have their tails up and we are absolutely still in the changing room and it doesn’t take too long for Russell Martin to replace Sulemana with Edozie. It’s been another hit and miss display by Sulemana. Looking electric in places and coming out after half-time and looking like he just can’t be bothered when it gets a bit difficult.

Headley bundles past three half-arsed challenges on the left which gives Koroma another chance to shoot which Baz flaps away somewhat unconvincingly. We are trying to play, as you expect but no one is putting their body on the line to secure and keep possession, with both Stuart Armstrong and Smallbone coughing up possession cheaply to give Huddersfield the ball and give us some defending to do.

Saints finally get some play in the Huddersfield half and on 70 minutes, Stuart Armstrong knocks a ball back for Edozie to shoot but it’d well saved by Maxwell and Fraser’s follow is blocked for a corner which nothing comes from.

Ten minutes to go and it looks like we’re not really going put Huddersfield away so it’s now a case of can we hang on or not. Koroma causes more problems down the right and fires over a brilliant cross along the 6-yard line and Thomas just has to run into it but, probably impaired by his ridiculous hairdo the ball slapped him on his 50p head at an angle the sent it wide.  Dreadful miss.

More Huddersfield pressure and Edozie gives away a dopey freekick on the edge of the box. In it comes and Helik, all 6 foot 8 of him, being marked by Wee Man Ryan Fraser, heads wide of the post with a free header.

It seems a little bit too late but on come Manning, Stewart and Charles in place of Bree, Stuart Armstrong and Fraser but it’s still all Huddersfield with Jackson who looked across it in with his left foot and his inswinging cross flies over Bednarek and bounces and beats the dive of Bazunu into the far corner. For fuck‘s sake - it’s a slightly fortunate goal but we cannot possibly complain about Huddersfield equalising.

Seven minutes of injury time to go and we show a bit of urgency but not enough and when the final whistle went, I was happy enough to get out with a point.  No last-minute goal and in truth we didn’t deserve one. The horrible, almost complacent start to the second half killed the tempo of our performance and we could never pick it up again. It was like we expected Huddersfield just be dazzled by our brilliance and accept their fate and not do anything.  Great lads – however, we gave them the encouragement at the start of the second half and to be fair to them they kept on pressing.  Okay, it’s a lucky goal because basically it was a cross but you can’t deny that Huddersfield deserved the point for being the better side in the second half.

It was a bad day all round and maybe Russell Martin being in the stands rather than dugout played a part. The substitutions came far too late. Once the other team puts us under pressure for a sustained period of time and starts getting a foot in, then it is not the kind of game for Will Smallbone and he needs to come off as soon as possible. Shea Charles should’ve been on for him a lot earlier than he was.  It wasn’t just Smallbone who is off the pace in the second half. Sulemana went from being a regular threat in the first half to being absolutely nothing in the second and the same happened to Stuart Armstrong.  Adam Armstrong did as usual, not a lot and then scored a very good goal but his second half performance was lacking as well.  Ryan Fraser did nothing but cement his place as an impact substitute – the trouble being that he started the game today.

The complacent start the second half started with Bednarek giving the ball away needlessly with a crap pass on half-way and from that Huddersfield one a couple of corners and we basically didn’t get the ball out of a penalty area for about five minutes. The sloppiness set the tone and that was the all the encouragement that Huddersfield needed and it gave them belief that they could get something out of a game that they shouldn’t have got a sniff at getting anything out of.

The goal conceded was fortunate as said but could have been prevented.  Bednarek misjudges the flight of the ball and you could argue that Bazunu did also by assuming that Bednarek was going to head it.  Maybe that’s harsh on the keeper but I do wonder if he could have done better.

You can’t win every game of course and at least we kept the unbeaten run going but that second-half performance was absolutely pathetic.  In all honesty, the first 35 minutes of the first half wasn’t great either as though we controlled the ball and had a lot of possession, we created precious little with it with nothing sticking up front. On about 40 minutes Stuart Armstrong hit the post, Smallbone made the goalkeeper work and then we scored…. And then we thought we’d done all we needed to do.  It’s not good enough though just to score once and expect the other team to do nothing.

Russell Feels the Pain of Being a Supporter in the Crowd (Sort Of)

Russell was allowed down from the stands to do the post match interviews and wasn't happy.  Stopping short of outright blaming the players, he blamed the players for not following instructions and the lack of second half intensity.  He doesn't tend to give too much away in interviews as he's very level headed but the frustration of being in the stands and the annoyance at the performance was plain to see.  It's comforting to know that like me, he gets annoyed about shite performances.

On to a home game on Wednesday against Bristol City where we have to get back on track after today’s disappointment.  Other promotion chasing teams had mixed results with Ipswich losing and Leeds dropping points at Rotherham.  We would have gone up to 3^rd place with a win but maybe this is a point gamed rather than two dropped but it doesn’t really feel like it right now. All we have can do is worry about our own performances and results and the league table will ultimately look after itself.

FA Cup 3rd Round - Southampton 2 Huddersfield 0

Pick That Out

FA Cup third round and our recent form in the league has at least given us the option of taking this game seriously. That said, I’m really not expecting very many regular first-team players in the side today for the visit of Championship side Huddersfield Town.

Huddersfield were of course in the Premier League last season and when David Wegner was the manager, they kind of had a chance of repeating the previous seasons' heroics and staying up. For whatever reason, they got rid of Wagner and appointed a German guy Jan Siewert who looked like he had been plucked off the street with absolutely no football experience whatsoever. Siewert was completely fucking useless and couldn’t have been more out of his depth if he was nailed to the bottom of the North Sea… and relegation was nailed on from that moment as they barely picked up another win. This season of the Championship started in a similar vein and so they changed the manager again and got in Danny Cowley who had done relatively well in the lower divisions. Given time, Cowley will probably prove to be a decent appointment but they are fighting against relegation again this season so I will not be at all surprised if they aren’t playing many of their first-team players either.

If we’re going to go with the second string side then I hope we do it properly and we see some youngsters like Will Smallbone, Callum Slattery, Kayne Ramsey and not just the obvious ones who will play today like Oriol Romeu, Maya Yoshida and Angus Gunn.

One player who I severely hope we don’t see today is Danny Ings who, because he scored against media darlings Tottenham, has now caught the attention of the mainstream media and being touted for an England call-up. Of course, Danny thoroughly deserves to be called up by England but let’s be realistic here. He is at best going to take the squad place of someone like Callum Wilson and be about the fifth choice. Kane is the first choice and even though he is injured, Abraham will be the preferred replacement and that’s before you even consider Rashford playing as a central striker. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been playing pretty well for the last four or five games and he is the sort of player that will get a call up before Danny does. Of course, we need him so I think it would be in everyone’s best interest for him not to get called up.

Team news and we have debut’s for Smallbone and Jake Vokins with JWP being the only first-team regular.  Angus Gunn is in goal for the first time since 9-0 and the rest of the side is players who are regularly on the Premier League sides bench like Romeu, Vestergaard, Yoshida and Adams.  Kevin Danso has been shoe-horned in at right-back and surprisingly, Boufal’s table has allowed his victim to play from the start today.  Huddersfield have Fraizer Campbell playing – the same Fraizer Campbell who won a full England cap, basically because he came through the Manchester United academy.

Away we go and it’s kind of flat but a bit of patience required because you’re not going to get a free-flowing performance from a scratch side.  We’ve lined up in the now usual 4-2-2-2 formation with Smallbone on the right-wing and Danso at right-back so there are two players out of position for starters.  On the left, JWP creates the first chance with a lung-busting break, gets to edge of the area and slides in Adams and is this it?.... nope… a virtual backpass.

Huddersfield don’t really commit any players forward but they don’t need to as Vestergaard gives the ball away in midfield, one pass and Campbell is running at the goal.  Yoshida back off and backs off and eventually, Campbell is in the penalty area and luckily, he lashes it into the empty Chapel Stand.  Yoshida is backing off so far he’s almost like Toby Alderweireld backing out of the stadium.  I mean, you can back off to a point but he was well inside the penalty area when he hit that.

Smallbone creates a decent chance for himself but his left footed shot is closer to the passing Flybe jet than it is to the goal and a rather pedestrian first half is coming to a close when Vestergaard comes forward from the defence, finds Smallbone with a good ball forward and the youngster lays it off first time and Shane is though and surprisingly, he scores like a proper striker… oh, hang on, fucking VAR check.  The world stops turning, civilizations rise and fall, Donald Trump starts a War and then we finally get the VAR verdict and it’s offside by the smallest margin.  To be honest, as soon as the VAR check started I knew it was going to be offside because it was Shane and Shane is always offside.

Half time and it’s been dull.  The two young lads have both done ok but the play is too slow and Hudderfield are keeping in shape and not being stretched too much.  The game could do with a goal and within 3 minutes of the restart we get one and JWP finds Danso on the wing and the big man lumbers past Bacuna and digs out a great cross which swirls to the back post, Shane knocks it to the penalty spot and there’s Will Smallbone to lash it into the net.  Well done nipper – bloody great finish that was.  Huddersfield players are appealing for VAR to rule that Danso’s cross had gone out – fuck off.

You would think that Huddersfield would come out a bit more now and go for it but they don’t and we’re still very comfortable.  Cedric is on for Danso who appears to have a knock and the new man has to do something that doesn’t come naturally to him and defend when our left side is all at sea and the cross is headed out to Grant by Yoshida and Cedric has to get his boyband features in the way of Grant’s shot.

85 gone and nothing much happening…. Armstrong and Obafemi are on for Smallbone and Boufal but the icing on the cake is provided after Adams cleverly created space and knocked the ball out to Vokins who ran at the Huddersfield right-back Simpson (probably the worst player ever to win the Premier Lieague) and tried his luck, seeing his shot flick off Simpson and then fly over the keeper and go in off the bar.  It’s lovely to see the second youngster get in on the act and a nice way to end the game.

Pick That Out (Part 2)

Well it wasn’t a game that will live long in the memory and all you can say about it is that it was a job well done. We won the game, no one got injured, two youngsters made their debuts and both scored and a load of first-team squad players who had not been regulars, all got a good amount of time on the pitch.

In the first half, it was quite easy to see why some players had not been playing in the Premier League. Oriol Romeu didn’t have what you would call a bad game but he just took too long to pass the ball and a lot of our moves, or potential moves forward were cut off at source because he just took too long to play the ball at times. The second half was better and all the players tried to play the ball a little bit quicker with the tone being sat just before half-time by Smallbone’s first time pass through to Shane Long who of course, was narrowly offside. More of the use of VAR later on.

Once Smallbone’s goal went in at the start of the second-half then the game was virtually done as Huddersfield basically just turned up and lost. They offered very very little in terms of attack and their game play, despite a couple of substitutions, did not get any more attacking as the game went on.

We had all been wondering why Jake Vokins was not given a chance when Ryan Bertrand was out suspended. Today I think we saw why he maybe hasn’t been given a chance but also, we saw that there is a lot to work with. On the plus side, he is very good going forward which was illustrated by his goal, which admittedly did owe a little bit to the fortunate deflection of the Huddersfield defender but it was brilliant to see that hit the net. His starting position seemed to be wrong I lot of the time and there were many occasions when we were passing of all along the back four and normally the next pass will be out to the left-back but the left-back was stationed 40 yards further forward so eventually, we had to turn on play the ball back the other way. The other problem he’s going to have going forward is that he is physically quite small so there is going to have to be a lot of time spent in the gym in order to be a truly effective regular at Premier League level.  Overall, I can totally see why Ralph has not thrown him in at the deep end in the Premier League as yet.

Smallbone looked calm and composed throughout, though it did seem that he is not suited for playing wide in a 4-2-2-2.  When he wandered infield, like he did for his goal, then he looks a different player.  He had a good game without tearing up any trees and I think he, like Vokins, can be very happy with his debut.  He seems to be a player who is all about his end product and he certainly showed that today but though he is extremely promising, he has a long way to go to be in regular contention for the first team.

We can’t mention the end product without talking about our forwards. The thought of a Danny Ings absence from the first team came into horrific focus today.  Both Long and Adams worked hard but there really wasn’t a lot to strike fear into opposition defenders. This was a real chance for Adams to get off the mark in the Saints shirt but apart from one time when he hit the goalkeeper, he never really looked like doing so.  Shane was unlucky with the VAR shout.  Because they can’t have VAR at every ground in the FA Cup 3^rd Round, they should not be having it at any game in the 3^rd Round.  Just having it at Premier League grounds makes a mockery of the FA Cup because basically, games in the same competition are being played under different sets of rules.  More bollocks thinking from the powers that be over VAR.

So, into the hat for the fourth round and it was interesting to see the Pompey made it through into the hat as well. Personally, I don’t want to play them again as I want them to stew on the 4-0 home defeat for a few years at least.  Still, the draw is on Monday - lightning can’t strike twice in one season, can it? 

Premier League Match 38 - Southampton 1 Huddersfield 1

 

Take the Gunn, Shoot Yourself in the Foot

And so the season comes to an end with The visit of Huddersfield town to St Mary‘s. Congratulations to Huddersfield who have managed to avoid being the worst team in Premier League history but with just the three wins all season... only just. It should be a bit of a party today and it would be good to send the fans home feeling good about everything with a nice win to round off the season.

I don’t think this game has anything riding on it at all, not even position related prize-money. We are two points behind Burnley and they are at home to Arsenal who have just qualified for the Europa league final. I would be amazed if Burnley don’t win that game. Brighton are two points behind us and they are not getting three points at home to Manchester City as long as I have a hole in my arse. That’ll be the first result I look for after our game has finished to ensure that Manchester City and not the Red Scouse bastards have won the Premier League.

People have desperately been trying to make the Champions League semi-finals in some way connected with Southampton as a number of our former players were playing. They are fucking dead to me once they leave and I really don’t care about how well they do with their current clubs. That said, the only thing I have against Tottenham from a Saints perspective is that they sing “oh when the Spurs go marching in“. Other than that, the last shit house thing between us and them was the Toby Alderweireld transfer which was four years ago now. The list of things I don’t like about Liverpool is huge and I have been very vocal about that on a number of occasions so I will be a Spurs fan come Champions League final night.

There was some sad news on Saturday in that John Gittins has passed away at the age of 55. He was twice a Southampton player and was capable of very good performances at top league level. He was never really a first-team regular in either spell with the club but he had a good career and 55 is far too young. Rest in peace big man and thoughts with his family.

Ralph is not really giving much away regarding what sort of team we are going to put out but Charlie Austin has been somewhat cryptic on social media suggesting that out of adversity comes great opportunity. I’m sure that someone had to spell those long words out for him. Maybe he’s playing against Huddersfield who he has some sort of grudge against which I believe stems from his Burnley days or maybe he has found a new club to play for next season. Maybe both are true.

The team is pretty much the usual with the 4222 formation being present again. Long and Ings upfront with Redders and JWP wide. With the Under 23s having a play-off final on Monday, there is no room on the bench for any youngsters apart from Alfie Jones who I’m not sure is even eligible for the under 23’s anymore. After his performance last week, Elyounoussi hasn’t even made the bench which kind of tells you all you need to know I think.

Saints have the first kind of half chance as Ings lobs a ball forward and debutant keeper Coleman comes out of the edge of the box and makes a fuck-up of it. Shane has to turn and chip towards the empty goal but it’s never going in and drops a long way wide.

Saints have another chance to practice defending when we lose the ball on the edge of the opposition penalty area but even Huddersfield manage to play all the way through us up the left wing, back across to the right and Aaron Moot, their best player, cuts in and with his left foot, curls it narrowly over the bar. Gunn wasn’t getting anywhere near that if it been on target.

Ings is working hard to win the ball back in the Huddersfield half but when he gets sight of goal it all looks a little rushed and he drags one wide of the far post from 25 yards. His partner upfront has reverted to being the usual Shane Long instead of the impostor who has been playing the last few weeks and I can do nothing but laugh when he tries to control the ball on the left wing and it simply bounces off his shin and out of play.

Ralph is pacing about not looking remotely happy with what he sees on the pitch but he cheered up a minute later as Ings picked up the ball in midfield and drove forward before feeding it to Redmond out on the left. The newly crowned double player of the season cuts inside one man, cuts inside another and with no third Huddersfield defender coming to close him down, he smashes it over Coleman and ripping into the top of the net. Fucking brilliant goal. Not only is he our player of the season but he has been the best player today by an absolute mile.

Half time and Ralph has obviously had enough of the old Shane Long and he is replaced with Matty Targett who has been pushed up onto the left wing with Redmond going central. Targett is involved straightaway, finding Ings who tees up JWP and from 25 yards he pings in another superb effort which Coleman gets fingertips to and it rattles off the bar. Get another goal and this lot are toast.

And then we added another chapter to the “Goals that we managed to throw the opposition when under no pressure whatsoever“ file. Gunn takes a goal-kick to Bertrand who plays it back to him and Gunn seems to be totally unaware of Pritchard closing him down, takes a horrific touch, Pritchard nicks it off him and passes it into the net. For fuck‘s sake.

There is still half an hour to go but you know that the game is going to completely change now. There is a brief flicker as Targett megs a defender and puts over a dangerous cross which is cleared and there is another chance for Ings as Valery over hits a ball down the right wing, Redmond somehow gets over a superb cross on the volley and Ings header hits a defender and squirts wide. He is having no luck at all.

With Ings unable to buy a goal, it’s time for what will hopefully be Charlie Austin‘s farewell appearance. He has had his hair dyed blonde. Well we all know that Charlie does love a trip to the hairdressers. We have a go at letting in another goal from a corner as our half zonal half man marking shambles leaves Schindler with a free header at the back post which he bounces down and over the bar.

We are then treated to the worlds slowest pitch invasion by one fat bastard who looked a bit like an overweight extra from Shaun of the Dead, such was his waddling presence. None of the stewards were going to make a tit of themselves by trying to catch him so they kind of walked alongside him until he walked into the goal, at which point the fat fuck didn’t really know what to do. What the situation needed was some big meathead Steward to absolutely poleaxed the guy with a rugby tackle.

Sims comes on for Romeu as Ralph at least tries to win the game and the final chance to do so falls to Austin after more good work from Redmond but the blonde haired fat lazy lager boy kebab boy curls a shot narrowly wide of the far post.

It was quite nice that aside from the aforementioned fat pillock, no one ran on the pitch at the end of the game including Charlie Austin who hadn’t ran on the pitch in the 20 minutes he was on. The lap of appreciation was done with baby McCarthy being the star of the show And the players and staff disappeared off down the tunnel to begin their well-deserved summer breaks.

Today’s game was mainly dreadful. It only really came to life whenever Nathan Redmond got the ball and he thoroughly deserved the brilliant goal that he scored. The second half started reasonably well and we looks like we were going to canter to a 1-0 or 2-0 win. Not long after JWP hit the bar and we looked in control, then Angus Gunn did that. It’s another example of this Southampton side being able to virtually throw a goal in our own net at any point from any position on the pitch. It brings back into focus our goalkeeping situation. Personally, I think Alex McCarthy is the most reliable of the three and didn’t do very much wrong before he got dropped. Gunn, putting today’s aberration aside for a second, doesn’t quite have the presence yet and Fraser Forster’s form has gone off a cliff of course in the past two years.

Letting in shit goals like that when you have been under no pressure at all, tends to kill momentum, A bit like all the air leaving your body in one go. The last half hour was just played out at walking pace which made it ideal for Charlie Austin to come on as a substitute but even that pace was too much for him.

Elsewhere, we had the return of the normal Shane Long it was dreadful for 45 minutes before being substituted and it really look like to me for the rest of the players were desperately trying to get a goal for Danny Ings and whilst I thought things had a good game today, he never looked confident in front of goal and always seem to take an extra touch and lose the ball when the chance presented itself.

I know that 4-2-2-2 is Ralph’s preferred formation but it doesn’t work with the players that we have got at the moment. It certainly doesn’t suit JWP and what seems to happen is that the midfield two get over run which in turn means there is very little protection for the two central defenders, one of whom is of course Jack Stephens at the moment.

Anyway. The good news is that I am sure the opening game of next season will see quite a few changes in personnel. Bring it on.

Elsewhere in the country, the good news is that Liverpool didn’t win the fucking league. They have been dubbed the greatest runners-up of all time and... get in the fucking sea. They are not the greatest anything as they have come second which the last time I checked, does not make you the greatest. Virgil, Sadio, Adam and Dejan have still won just as many trophies as they would have won if they had stayed at Southampton. All we need is a really good performance from Spurs in a couple of weeks and that can continue.

In the race for 15th, we came 16th which is slightly annoying because Burnley did in fact lose to Arsenal and we would have won the race for 15th if we had beaten Huddersfield today. Personally, I wasn’t remotely surprised by the lacklustre performance and we just have to be grateful that we are starting next season in the Premier League and not in the Championship with Huddersfield.

The fact that we are not in the championship is down to Ralph Hasenhuttl and the improved form of the players that he has brought about. I can’t wait to see the current and new players after a full pre-season with the big man in charge. We have every reason to be positive. If we get it right over the summer and it should be a good season next year and I for one can’t wait to see how Ralph develops this team. Until next season…

PS... on Monday night I went along to St Mary‘s to watch the Under 23s in their play-off final against Newcastle, which ended in a hard earned 2-1 win. Over the 95 minutes we did deserve it but you could see the influence of the first team in the last 20 minutes as we did our very best to give away the two-nil lead that we had established. To be honest, not many of the players looked ready for regular first-team action. Alfie Jones stood out in defence, Callum Slattery and Tom O’Connor in midfield and Dan N’Lundulu looked a handful upfront but he was blowing out of his arse after 45 minutes. It was all about winning now and win they did so they are now in division one of the under 23 section next year which is good for the club and good for the individual players who will now be tested against better players of course.

The future is bright....

Premier League Match 18 - Huddersfield 1 Southampton 3

Right Son, Let's Get Down the Pub

One of the biggest failures of last season was failing to beat Huddersfield at home or away. The reason it was such a massive failing was because Huddersfield were fucking dreadful and we weren’t any better than them. With their one good player, Aaron Mooy missing and none of the new players having made much impression, we really should be beating them today and with Chelsea and Manchester City coming up in our next three games, we really need to.

David Wagner got tarred with the same brush that Ralph Hasenhüttl is being tarred with this season, in that Wagner apparently is a good friend of Klopp’s whereas Ralph just gets his teams to play in vaguely similar way. This meant that last season, the media had to mention Liverpool and Klopp every time they mentioned Wagner and Huddersfield last season which I guess was as irritating to their fans as it is to me.  No, scrap that, our recent history with Liverpool means it grates just that little bit more.

After winning hearts and minds last week, Ralph has been at it again this week with visits to hospitals visits to the very young Saints Academy and another very impressive pre-match press conference. One hour before kickoff, a time that I had grown to dread over the last 3 years, just brought more cheer with a totally unchanged side from the excellent performance against Arsenal. This tells the players but if they play well, they will stay in the team and anyone not in the 11 will have to work damn hard to get back in. The subs bench was interesting with three strikers on it with Obafemi joining Long and Austin. The defensive options were Jack Stephens and an Academy full-back called Kayne Ramsey which meant no place for Wesley Hoedt who has gone from Mark Hughes’ first choice to Hasenhüttl’s fifth in a couple of weeks. Mario Lemina was fit to return which meant no bench spot for JWP, Steve Davis or Mo Elyounoussi.

The first significant action of the game was a massive dive in midfield by Huddersfield’s Chris Lowe.  Since leaving the Pet Shop Boys he’s turned into a shit midfielder in much the same way that Jon Moss has turned into a shit referee since leaving Culture Club.  Stuart Attwell, today’s referee has spotted it a mile off and booked him. How desperate do you have to be to pull a horrible dive in midfield at the start of the game?

Cheats don’t prosper as Ings picks up the ball in midfield and as is the way now, we attack.  Ings knocks it past one and Hojbjerg picks it up.  Redmond is already on his bike in front of him and Hojbjerg slots him in as Kongolo comically falls on his arse trying to intercept and Redmond, without a goal all season, smashes it past Lossl and into the top corner.  Get in.  If ever a player deserved a goal it’s Redders.

We pretty much dominate the rest of the first half without giving Huddersfield a sniff and another attack from midfield sees Redmond feed Ings.  Ings tries to reurn it to him on the edge of the box and finds Jorgenson but his first touch is fucking dreadful and Zanka becomes a Wanka and carts Ings over for the clearest penalty ever. Only one player is going to take it and Ings commits Lossl with a stutter step and passes it into the corner.  If he was in the freezer he couldn’t be any more cool and 2-0.

We make an attempt to not get to half time at 2-0, allowing Mounie to fire over on the turn from the edge of the box but he’s crap so it’s well over the bar and I’m really not used to this.  Two goals to the good and cruising.

Huddersfield are nothing if not spirited and put us under pressure at the start of the second half, mainly through launching throw-ins into our box.  From one of these, Pierre heds it straight up in the air and then tries to make up for it but merely compounds his error by heading across goal.  We stand and watch as Jorgenson heads goalwards and Macca flicks out a hand to turn it wide.  I don’t think the replays will do justice to how good a save this is.  If de Gea or Alisson had done it then it would be full scale frantic masturbation time.

If Macca was pleased with that one however, he won’t have been pleased with the next effort on goal as Billing wasn;t closed down and tried a pot shot from 30 yards which swerved past Bednarek (who turned his back) and flew past McCarthy and into the net.  Balls.  You know, I really don’t see a way we’re not winning this even when McCarthy has to be alert to block another shot after another bout of long throw induced chaos.

Ings race is run and I assume Austin is coming on by no, it’s Michael Obafemi for his Hasenhüttl debut.  Within minutes, Vestergaard picks it up on half way and has little mazy past three players and slots a lovely ball past the defenders and Obafemi is in.  He gets there before Lossl and tries to dink it but it roll across the goal and wide. 

Lemina is on for the excellent Armstrong to give us more muscle in midfield and Huddersfield are committing more players forward now and they’re really not good enough to do that and we find more space on the right as Valery puts Redmond away.  Redders tries to take on Schindler and loses it but Schindler takes a shit touch and Redders nicks it off him, knocks it to Obafemi who has pulled into space and the Irishman passes it into the corner of the net for 3-1 and game over.  Get in.  On the bench, Ralph is giving it the full Monty but not as much as Charlie Austin who is off down the line giving it loads to the home fans.  If an opposition player did this to us then we’d think he was a dick but that’s quality shithousing.

No one is going to score the next goal apart from us and Obafemi is through again as Huddersfield gift us the ball on the half way line.  He outpaces the defence but this time he scuffs the left footed effort and Lossl makes a comfortable save.  Never mind, I’m sure he and Ralph will settle for one.

All aboard the Ralph Express. As away wins go, this was pretty comfortable with the result never really being in doubt once Redmond put us into the lead. The second goal before half-time virtually killed it as a contest but Huddersfield got their goal and there were a couple of hairy moments but in the end we should of won much more comfortably than we did.

This whole day had ‘feelgood factor’ written all over it. The team announcement started things off with an unchanged side from the Arsenal win and another youngster making the bench for the first time. There was also of course the free hats to the crowd. 2-0 up at half-time and then another academy lad coming off the bench and scoring the crucial goal. Then you have the attitude of Charlie Austin who was hell bent on winding up the Huddersfield fans and be completely delighted with Obafemi scoring, even though he could justifiably be quite annoyed that he didn’t get on as a substitute.  Then of course, you have King Ralph who again kicked and headed every ball and was being serenaded by the crowd at the end of the game.  Fucking brilliant. It really didn’t take that long to get out of the rut that we have been in, more or less since Ronald Koeman left.

Again, there were no players on the pitch you could point a finger at and say that they underperformed. They know that they have to you now or else they are not going to last long. There is nothing like a little bit of good pressure to make you perform to your capabilities. You know that if your attitude is not 100% and your effort is not 100% than you will be getting it thrown off the train and it’s going to hurt.

Alex McCarthy will be disappointed by the goal but I think it’s the first goal he has let in since he got into the side where he will think that he maybe could’ve done better. It’s a strange one in that I think he saw it late after the shot had gone past the defender and then it seemed to swerve a bit and died on him which ultimately meant that it went in.  Basically though, getting beat on the nearside and nowhere near the post is not a good goal for a keeper to concede. Other than that, he was his usual excellent self.  The defence again was very very solid with Valery and Targett again having very good games at full-backs and the three centre backs stuck to the task against and admittedly week Huddersfield attack. Neither Vestergaard or Bednarek were in the squad for Mark Hughes but they’re great again today and I’ll forgive Jan for turning his back on Billing’s shot. Vestergaard will always struggle against the very pacey attackers but in games like this, he is absolutely ideal. I loved the sight of the 6 foot 7 centre back tiptoeing through three players in midfield and then passing a perfect ball into the striker.

Hojbjerg and Romeu cleaned up in midfield, so much so that Lemina wasn’t missed but he did really well when he came on because he knows that despite playing really well this season, he is not an automatic pick any more, having missed a game through injury.  This is the way it should be.  Ings, Armstrong and Redmond in particular, scared the shit out of Huddersfield at the back and forced them into those mistakes which lead to goals and then there was Obafemi. I was amazed that Ralph put him on to replace Ings ahead of Austin and Long.  He immediately missed the chance when Vestergaard put him through and I was wondering whether it was the right move.  Logically though, it is because Long would’ve missed as well and Austin probably would’ve been in the pub still and not been in that position.  Obafemi tucked away his second chance and probably should’ve had another when he ran through on his own. We have to remember that the lad is 18 and he will make mistakes, he will miss chances but if he doesn’t play, how is he going to get any better? Now he has got his goal, it will be really interesting to see what difference the confidence of that will bring to him.

And so to Ralph. I was a big fan of Glenn Hoddle as a Saints manager back in the day because he took Dave Jones’ shit squad and immediately made them better just with tactics and organisation. The difference the Ralph has made in the space of two weeks with a failing squad is absolutely ridiculous. I was convinced we were going to be rock bottom of the league at Christmas at least four points worse off than what we are already. It’s not just the results though, it’s the performance levels and the intensity and the plan.  In the space of two games, he has got everybody looking forward to the rest of the season where as before, most people were just having the life drained out of them. 

The tactics were basically a 5-2-3 formation with the 5 quickly dropping into shape when we lost the ball with the two in front of them screening and leaving the three up, meaning we were always dangerous on the break and we had players committed forward.  This meant we could pressurize the defence and all three Huddersfield central defenders coughed up goals for us – Kongolo fell over for the first goal, Jorgensen’s crap touch led to him fouling Ings for the second and Schindler lost the ball for the third goal.  Tactically, it worked like a dream.  Later, when Lemina came on, we went 5-3-2 and just left two up but because the two were Obafemi and Redmond, there was pace to burn when Huddersfield committed bodies forward in search of an equalizer.  Long live King Ralph

In his post match interviews, Ralph spoke really well about the tactical differences between this game and the Arsenal game in that Huddersfield would not give us as many chances to win the ball higher up the pitch which is the cornerstone of Ralph’s tactics. However, if you look at the goals, especially the third one, we did manage to win the ball high up the pitch and we regularly forced Huddersfield to defenders into mistakes. People say that Huddersfield made shit mistakes at the back but they were pressured into that and shown up to the players who are not good enough to play out from the back but the problem was that the Huddersfield players thought they were good enough to play out from the back when they should’ve just belted it into Row Z.

As for Huddersfield, I’ve just seen an interview with David Wagner who admittedly, has a very hard job with trying to find any positives with that. One of the positives he found was that they scored a goal at home but he didn’t really mention that it was a bit of a fluke and nine times out of 10, the goalkeeper wouldn’t have misjudged it. Not that I really care about Huddersfield or their manager but they are fucking dreadful and will deservedly be relegated at the end of the season and not be missed by anyone much apart from Saints fans who live near Huddersfield.

Happy Christmas one and all and on to West Ham - hopefully you’re next.

King Ralph

Premier League Match 19 - Southampton 1 Huddersfield 1

With Any Luck This Is A Wave Goodbye

When the fixtures were announced and we saw the list of games we had for December, one stood out as ‘3 points’ and that was this one, Huddersfield at home – and the Leictester at home one which we’ll gloss over here,.  Huddersfield had a very good start to the season and then tailed off as newly promoted sides are prone to do and for the last few weeks they’ve been picking up the odd result including a thumping 4-1 win at Watford last week. 

Saints have generally been utter turd this season but I’m sure that all will be well now because Les Reed has risen from the dead and done something.  Public enemy number one apart from the obvious candidates like the manager and Les Reed himself has been Eric Black. Eric was brought in by Claude Puel, mainly because he worked with him before and because he spoke French. When Claude left, I assumed Eric would be following him out the door but he’s stayed on and joined Pellegrino’s staff. There must’ve been a reason for this but I don’t know what it is. Maybe, just maybe, the people that matter, as in the players and the board, think that he was good at his job.

Because he was a caretaker manager Aston Villa when he inherited a job that would’ve been beyond Jesus Christ himself, it appears that he has been tarred as being useless and one of the main reasons why we’ve not been so great for the last season and a half. I must have missed the announcement that said that Eric Black had decided to sell Sadie Mane, Graziano Pelle and Victor Wanyama in the same summer. I also missed the announcement that he was picking the team and deciding on the tactics and substitutions. I also missed the announcement that the reason that both Jose Fonte and Virgil Van Dijk have thrown the toys out of the pram was because of Eric Black. Eric Black is actually an anagram of antichrist if you take a few letters out and had a few more in. The only thing Eric Black did wrong really was get caught up in that gambling sting which turned out to be a complete load of bollocks anyway.

There is a slight question left unanswered as usual because he is apparently leaving because he’s got a bad back. In any other line of work, if you have a bad back then you go off sick for a period of time and get it sorted but it appears that he is no longer going to be employed by Southampton FC so I wish him well with whatever he chooses to do next.

I’m not looking forward to today.  I have a distinct mood of pessimism about the whole thing.   Our Itchen Bridge game of predicting the scores has wild Optimism from my son and my Dad and brutal 1-1 realism from me. Before the game and before I saw what team Pellegrino had picked for today I had decided to write down the League 1 Minus 10 rules for picking a starting 11.  This was by no means an exhaustive list and was thrown together in approximately three minutes and listed things I just think are obvious.

1) Only ever pick a Tadic or Davis, never both. If you pick both of them then it’s too one-paced and not enough pace or power in the side.  We are not Barcelona.

2) Never pick Steve Davis as a defensive midfielder because he is fucking useless there. He doesn’t track runners and can’t tackle and doesn’t win headers because he’s 5 foot 8.

3) If Nathan Redmond is going to play it has to be on the right and never the left. It just doesn’t work on the left.

4) If Tadic plays, it can never be as a right winger. Virtually all of the decent games he played for Saints in the dim and distant past were as a left winger.

5) Shane Long upfront on his own. No nay never, no nay never no more.

6) Only pick players who are hundred percent committed to Southampton football club. A can’t be arsed, sloppy attitude from one player spreads.  One bad apple and all that.

7) Sofiane Boufal always starts.  He’s not the finished article but in the context of this squad, he has to start every game as he’s the only attacking player we have who is not relatively easy to defend against.

I am sure that Pellegrino will pull something else completely fucking random out of the hat to make me add to this list later on….. and so we are walking past the Chapel Arms when I see the team on my phone.

A quick tot up reveals that 4 out of the 7 rules will have definitely been broken and maybe a 5th depending on where Tadic plays. What the fuck is he doing? It might be slightly different when the game actually starts but on the face of it, we are playing 4-2-3-1 and on paper, the team looks fucking dreadful. The attacking midfield three will be Redmond, Tadic and JWP – how completely uninspired and one dimensional is that?  A defensive midfield of an injured Lemina and fucking Davis. Jack Stephens at right back and even at left back, it’s Matt Targett instead of Sam McQueen. Matt Targett hardly ever gets forward so who is going to put crosses into the box?  Probably the wingers who will also be tasked with defending when they are attacking. It just looks like a fucking disaster waiting to happen. I haven’t even got to the ground yet and I’m already depressed. Is the pub open?

No Romeu, no Hojbjerg, no Boufal… but the story will be no van Dijk who isn’t even in the squad so we can assume that that’s the last we’ve seen of him in a Saints shirt and a deal has been struck with hopefully, anyone apart from Liverpool though anyone who is watched Liverpool‘s defence this season knows that they still need him.

Away we go and I just can’t get excited about this.  There is always that thing that as a supporter, you of course don’t see what goes on at training and just maybe the manager has hit upon a winning formula during the week.  That’s what stops you not bothering about going – it’s the hope that we’ll get it right even though every instinct that you have is telling you that you are about to watch a complete pile of shite.

Huddersfield look the more composed side and our makeshift defence looks all over the place as Ince, the perennial ‘good Championship, Shite Premier League player’ gets down our left easily and picks out Mooy with a low cross who no one has tracked.  He should score but he delays his shot long enough for Hoedt to make a block.  We have not got to grips with anything and we have another huge let off when our left hand side is exposed again and Unpronouneablename at right back stands up a cross to the unmarked Schindler and his header is superbly tipped onto the bar by Fraser.

We have a foray up the other end with a roaming run by Stephens from right back and win a corner, JWP’s kick is cleared out to the left and Targett whips in a good ball which the keeper Lossl punches away and Redmond wins another corner.  This time, JWP’s kick finds Hoedt who wins it easily and heads down and we have a goal hanger two yards out and he stoops to head into the net.  Charlie Austin of course and he’s off to have a celebration in front of the Huddersfield fans.  Not sure what all that’s about but there seems to be some history there.  Anyway, 1-0 up, undeserved but we’ll take it.

Inspired by our tactically astute manager, we know that a clean sheet wins the game but before that, a cross comes into our box and Stephens and Yoshida ball watch and Schindler is in between them but luckily he has a 50p head moment and heads it down and wide.  I don’t care what anyone says – until these two defenders start dominating in the air, they are never going to be good enough to play regularly in a team that doesn’t want to be near the bottom of the Premier League.

Going forward, Stephens is a different matter though and another mazy out of defence sees him try to put Austin through but he’s mistaken Austin for someone with pace and overhits it.  The keeper claims easily and about three minutes pass before Austin arrives, obviously too tired to jump over him so he kicks him in the face.  Do you want Christmas off then Charlie?  Anyhow, the ref doesn’t give anything and the Huddersfield players don’t kick off too much so Austin has completely got away with that one.

We have our best spell just before half time.  In a half that has been so shit, this is not saying much but Austin and Lemina combine for Redmond to cross and Tadic to have a shot blocked by Lossl.  The keeper is having a fun time and he takes ages over a clearance and it gets charged down by Tadic and comes out to Austin who had to hit it first time really but he takes his time and then tries to chip the keeper who is comfortably back in his goal by that time.

                                                                                           

Half time and 1-0 to us but it’s been shocking.  We’re winning due to a set piece goal which was against the run of play.  It’s two desperately poor teams and it’s like being in a time machine when we had players like Neal Trotman and Paul Wotton, such is the level of ineptitude out there. 

The second half starts in much the same way but Huddersfield appear to have upped their game in midfield and are closing us down much quicker.  It takes quarter of an hour but we create the chance to go 2-0 up and kill the game off as Redmond breaks down the left and for once, with the insane cackling laughter of Pep Guardiola ringing in his ears, he bursts pat Unpronounceablename and squares it to Austin who just has the keeper to beat.  It’s a sitter and the ball is with the only player you’d want it to be with.  Shank – wide.  Fuck.

And in that instant, the game changed.  Davis gets bustled off the ball on our left and another cross comes in and falls to Mooy who once again, see his shot blocked but it doesn’t take much Huddersfield pressure to get a goal as substitute Smith takes a pass from Ince and puts over a cross and Depoitre, who is a massive lump with Shredded Wheat on top of his head, has sensibly decided to attack the gaping fucking space between Yoshida and Stephens, knowing that neither will challenge him and he can’t miss and he doesn’t.  Pathetic beyond words.

Maya Looking for The Man He Lost Again.

So, having watched us take a shit in midfield for the past 20 minutes, Pellegrino decides to wait another 10 before changing anything and he hooks Davis and Tadic who have bother been garbage and puts on Hojbjerg and Boufal.  The effect is instant.  Hojbjerg wrestles back the midfield and Boufal commits defenders.

We come close when a JWP corner from the left flicks off Yoshida and goes wide before Lossl gives us another shout with a shite clearance which Austin chests down and hits and Lossl gets lucky as it hits his wrists and stays out.  Austin is down in that all too familiar pose of arm-up, signalling to the bench.  That’s a hamstring and he’s gone for a while.  The Huddersfield fans are loving it as he limps off and Gabbiadini is on.

Though we’re the better side now, it’s too little too late but we get the predictable last minute chance.  This time, a foul by Smith on Boufal gives us a free kick out on the left about 35 yards out.  In it comes from JWP and time and the defence stands still and Yoshida meets it with a superb down wards header and it beats the keeper, hits the base of the post and hits the keeper in the face and bounces clear.  The we get the spectacle of a grown man claiming that he’s injured because the ball has hit him.  Yoshida – not the most irritable of players – gestures to him to get up and it all kicks off with handbags and a mental over-reaction from Huddersfield.

A suitably pathetic moment to finish the game on.

Three more rules for Pellegrino.

8) Never leave both Oriel Romeu and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg out, ever.  It never even occurred to me before the game that any manager could be that fuckwitted as to do this.

9) Don’t start Maya Yoshida. He has never been good enough to be a starting centre back in the Premier League and he never will be. Goal a game, every game.

10) Don’t play out of position players at full-back. If ever a player is going to get found out then that is the position where they will get found out because they can’t cross the ball.

#PellegrinoOut

Fucking hell. What a tedious bag of shite that was. A dreadful game between two dreadful teams. We were probably unlucky not to win it as Huddersfield scored with their only shot in the second half but let’s not forget but they could’ve been in front before our goal which came from a set piece and totally against the run of play. If Austin scores that sitter then it’s 2-0 and game over but Huddersfield slung a ball into the box and there were Maya and Jack were doing what Maya and Jack do and ball-watching and allowing a free header from 6 yards. Absolute fucking crap.

This is the end of the line to me as far as Pellegrino is concerned. The team looked fucking dreadful on paper and it was predictably fucking dreadful out on the pitch as well. The substitutions that he made, which was far too fucking late made us instantly better once he got Davis and Tadic off the pitch and got Hojbjerg and Boufal on.   The improvement was absolutely instantaneous.  Up to that point, Hudderfield had bossed the midfield in the second half and Pellegrino just stood in the technical area and watched it happen whilst Romeu and Hojbjerg sat on the bench.  Fucking madness. Sadly, there wasn’t enough time for us to make it count. We nearly did with Yoshida’s header but even if that had gone in it would’ve just been papering over the cracks. We are getting no better as a team and Pellegrino has now had 19 matches and won the grand total of four with seven draws and eight defeats. That is bollocks.

After the game, Pellegrino was asked about van Dijk but who fucking cares at the end of the day? We know he’s going and that isn’t news. The more interesting question would’ve been why the fuck were Romeu, Hojbjerg and Boufal all left out for a game that we had to win. Next up we have Tottenham away and Manchester United away. In both games, no doubt we will resort to the 9-0-1 formation which has carried us to narrow defeats at Manchester City and Chelsea. Charlie Austin won’t be fit for those games but it looks like he’s probably going to pick up a suspension anyway for kicking the Huddersfield goalkeeper in the head. (UPDATE: He got  three game ban).  He wouldn’t of been picked for those games anyway as they are the sort of games where Pellegrino picks Shane Long to run around and do fuck all or he picks Gabbiadini to make run after run after run and never get the ball.

What a fucking strange goalkeeper Lossl is. There was always a chance for us every time the ball went near him as he fucked up kicks and showed bad ball control. I have never seen a player get an injury break for getting hit with the ball which is what happened when Maya’s header bounced off the post in the last minute.  I know he’d had a kick in the face earlier but that’s embarrassing.

Huddersfield were pretty shite but what they did do was contest every second ball and not give us any time on the ball at all. In the second half in particular they swarmed all over us and Steve Davis just disappeared in the midfield. Pellegrino should’ve taken him off at half time and put Romeu or Hojbjerg on as we were winning but no, he left it too late to do anything about it so instead of being proactive he was reactive and we didn’t have enough time to bring the game back. He is fucking useless as a manager and he has to go. I would rather put ready Radhi Jaidi in charge for the two games we’ve got coming up and have a new manager in as soon as possible. I just hope that the board have been proactive themselves and have someone lined up.

Nathan Redmond is as usual, getting slaughtered after the game and he didn’t have a great game though he did set up the sitter of a chance for Austin that he missed. I feel that Redmond does exactly what the manager asks him to do and as a result, he doesn’t take risks and he plays safety first if there’s a chance that he might lose the ball. This is probably why he got picked today. It’s more ingrained in Boufal to be a maverick and play off the cuff which is why Pellegrino has a mistrust of him and that’s why he’s a substitute. Though I do think Guardiola is insane, his comments on Redmond to carry a lot of weight, let’s face it and the boy would do much better for us if he was allowed and encouraged to take people on.

The modern game is all about pace and power. We appear to be stuck in 10 years ago mode with having midfield players like Davis, Tadic and JWP who are neat and tidy pretty passing footballers. You can have one of those in your team in the Premier League in my opinion but any more than that and the team becomes slow paced and easy to play against.  You rarely hear the term ‘water carrier’ any more and there’s a reason for that and it’s because the modern game doesn’t need players like that.  Pellegrino should know this by now but even if he doesn’t, he knows that 4 wins in 19 it’s not good enough and playing in exactly the same way is going to continue to fail. There are absolutely no signs of improvement and it is actually worse than the tail end of last season.  Bye – don’t let the door hit your ass.

Spurs away

United Away

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year