Premier League Match 36 - Southampton 0 Manchester City 0

 

"It's better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt" - Mark Twain

Tune in for the latest edition of the popular new game show “What’s the Fucking Point?“. There are some people out there saying that Manchester City have had a poor season. Yeah, interesting one that. It’s all relative I suppose to be fair, I haven’t seen many Manchester City fans screaming and crying in social media videos so I guess at the moment they are fairly calm about the fact that they haven’t actually won the league this season, but instead they’ve had a bit of a transitional one but even in their worst season, City are still favourites for a Champions League spot.

The usual hope, when you play City at this time of the season is that they have already won everything and have nothing to play for, but this year, everything is sewn up for everyone apart from the chase for the European spots and City have hit form at just the right time to try and ensure they qualify for the Champions Big Money League next season. Put it this way - they will not be taking it easy today.

Over the past few seasons when we’ve played them, Saints have quite often given City a relatively tough game in that we have not completely rolled over and died on many occasions, but died we have most of the time. Earlier this season when Russell Martin was the manager, we went to the Etihad and played pretty well despite going 1-0 down early on. It was one of those rare occasions where we didn’t give away shit goal and kept possession pretty well for the whole game and gave City a tough time, even though we of course eventually lost. Pep Guardiola even said that he would learn things from Russell Martin and Saints, which must have been the highlight of Russell’s life but unfortunately, the main thing Pep learned was how to lose five games in a row which really derailed their season as far as winning any trophies was concerned.

Pep Guardiola is a genius of course and when the book of football is written, he will go down as one of the true innovators but there’s always a caveat and the caveat is that he has always managed the best clubs with the most money and the best players. His style of play is amazing if it works and in our own small way, we prove that it worked last season, keeping the ball, keeping possession and in the main Russell Martin was a pound shop Pep because our players were better than the players that we were playing against in the Championship. Fast forward a few months into the Premier League and we proved categorically that you cannot be successful playing that way when the opposition players are better than yours.  Pep developed his style at Barcelona with players like Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. With all due respect, he didn’t try and do it with Smallbone, Aribo and Adam Armstrong. Having spectacularly proved that you can’t do it with inferior pliers, we still occasionally see those ways creeping into our play now in the way we work the ball into crossing positions and then don’t cross it and slowly go and look for a better option on the half way line.

Even Pep goes direct if Erling Haaland is fit. He is fit now typically, which is great news for our prospects today (said with extreme sarcasm). They also go long from the goalkeeper quite often and in Ederson they have a goalkeeper who can ping the ball 80 yards to set up a goal and has done so on four occasions this season which is more assists than any of our players have managed, let alone our goalkeepers, though Joe Lumley and Alex McCarthy have provided a few assists between them, just not at the right end.

Russ-ball is different to Rusk-ball in that we take a lot less chances in defence but there is absolutely no danger of us giving City the amount of problems that we gave them at the Etihad, barring a miracle. Now, like then though, we seem to have no way of getting the ball into our forward players to actually have shots on goal and if nothing else in the remaining three games of the season, Simon Rusk needs to attempt to fix that. We need a bit of bravery about ourselves and I can’t see going into today with the 3-4-3 formation or as it always ends up, the 5-4-1 formation, is going to fix that lack of goal threat.

Team news and KWP is out to be replaced by James Bree, which does not fill me with masses of confidence. We don’t appear to have a striker on the pitch as neither Ross Stewart or Tall Paul are involved so the front three appears to be Fernandes, Dibling and Sulemana. I guess Sulemana could be the centre forward or else we’re doing some sort of false nine bollocks, which of course, has always been massively successful for us in the past.

City kick off and it’s hilarious. They knock it back to their central defenders who then pass it back to the midfield players and we’ve all fucked off back to our defensive third.  If ever the opening 30 seconds of a game set the expectations for what was to come, then that was it.

The same pattern continues as City dominate the ball of course but our massed defence digs in well and City don’t seem to have that much urgency about them.  We concede a free kick on the edge of the box which De Bruyne (on his farewell tour of course, swings in and Downes gets there before Bernardo to give a corner away, which we defend well.

De Bruyne is at the centre of things and hits the deck not long after and it’s Big Les who has committed the foul in the D of the penalty area and somehow gets gets away with it before De Bruyne curls the free kick narrowly over the bar and I lament the bygone days of “you’re shit, ahhhhhhhhhhh”

Kovacic gets away in the middle  as we allow them a rare bit of space, and this time, Lesley is definitely getting booked for the tactical foul.  Once again, City line up the freekick and once again De Bruyne takes it and once again it’s shit and straight into the wall.   In it comes in again, but it’s all pretty unscientific from City and we defend it well.   As half time approaches and with Lesley having already been booked, it probably isn’t the best idea for him to walk in front of a free kick that City were attempting to take quickly but the referee let’s us get away with it thankfully.

Half time and an appreciative round of applause from the St Mary’s faithful who are not used to seeing their team play with this much application. Simon Rusk clearly feels that the biggest threat to us is Lesley getting sent off so he doesn’t emerge for the second half and on comes Joe Aribo who in my head, is the better option than Will Smallbone for this assignment.  City have brought on Doku instead of McAtee who has done very little

Foden‘s mishit shot gets the second half on the way and it finds Bernardo in the middle but once again Saints get loads of players around the ball to smother the opportunity.  If he did us a favour in the first half by not sending off Lesley, then the referee has absolutely fucking done us at the start of the second half as Fernandes wins the ball off of Foden and he takes a good few seconds before giving city the free kick on the edge of the box. Foden eventually curls it in with his left foot and the previously anonymous Haaland throws himself at it at back post but it goes off for a goal kick.  Rambo takes to opportunity to have a shoulder injury, which no one is particularly worried about.

He Could Have Been Killed

Doku is causing problems out on the left but Bree is sticking to his task well.  It’s inevitable though that Doku will get past him occasionally and on this occasion, he squirts the ball back to Bernardo who knocks it past Ramsdale but Stephens gets back to aim a wild slice at the ball and somehow manages to get it over the bar. That really could’ve been an own goal and the time-honoured puffing out of the cheeks tells you all you need to know, basically “fuck me, that was close”.

Dibling has had a half decent game but he is replaced with Cameron Archer.  This prompts a rare Saints attack as Bree slings in a cross, Fernandes heads it down to Archer, it bobbles back to him and his shot is blocked.  The problem with venturing that far up the pitch of course, is that you leave yourself short when you lose it, which we do and City break with Doku played in behind THB but Ramsdale anticipates superbly to come flying out of the goal to grab the ball before Haaland gets to it.

I’ve been watching the game, as I always do against the Super League clubs, and thinking about the ten minute markers.  We’ve now reached 70 minutes and the fact we are still at 0-0 is a good feeling. However, we were here against Aston Villa and managed to lose 3-0 so let’s not get too excited just yet.

A corner from Foden and header from Akanji, and Ramsdale has to make his first save in the afternoon, comfortably pushing it away.  City are beginning to create more chances now and Haaland gets through on the inside left channel. Bednarek manages to stay with him but Haaland pokes the ball across and City subs O’Reilly and Silvinho can’t add the finishing touch as they pile in with Welington.  The City tactic of crossing deep to the back post has seen many balls go straight out of play but De Bruyne gets one right and Haaland keeps it in at the back post and Silvenho brings a save out of Ramsdale, but in truth, it was probably going wide anyway.

Another 10 minute marker goes by (80), and another (90) and the fucker with the board holds it up and it’s got a big red 7 displayed on it.  On first viewing that looks harsh but there has been a lot of substitutions and we’ve been wasting time like bastards since half-time.  We’ve all got used to the pattern by which we make substitutions and make the team weaker and at this stage there seems very little need to make any more changes but we do with Sulemana coming off for Stewart and Welington being replaced by Manning.  De Bruyne tries to slide a ball through to Silvinho but it gets cut out by Fernandes who then seems to cramp up and collapse and the ball drops to city substitute Marmoush, who hits an instinctive snapshot towards the back post and it crashes off the bar and away. Fuck me that was close.

Fernandes has cramp and has to go off and Smallbone comes on for the final couple of minutes.  His first involvement is to win the ball out on the right hand side and knock it forward to send Archer scampering into the penalty area and as we dream of the last minute, total shithouse undeserved winner, Archer can only shoot tamely at Ederson, who pushes it wide. Just when we get excited about potentially having a corner, of course it’s offside.

The seven is up but the wanker won’t blow and he’s going to let City have one more attack. De Bruyne has the ball in the centre circle and knocks it forward and Ramsdale grabs it. That should be enough. Rambo launches it and still we go on but one more challenge and that’s the end. Fuck me, we got a point.  The release of tension from the crowd is huge and in the context of this absolutely appalling shite season, this result is massive.

Ruben... I'd Have Had More Chances Wearing This Shirt

And relax. Brilliant. Finally, the team played with pride for the badge and worked hard for 97 minutes and got what they deserved in the end. Brilliant stuff. That’s all I’ve wanted all season really, for the team to play from the first whistle to the last and not given an inch. Yes, we offered absolutely fuck all in the way of attacking threat and more on that later, but when you’ve only got 11 points and you’re playing against Manchester City, then it’s not really about your attacking threat. It would be nice to have some, but unless you have that hard work and that diligence and that willingness to defend, then you’re going to have a fucking bad day.  No one would’ve predicted that Saints could’ve stuck to a game plan and got to the end, especially with having to empty the bench.

Not What We Wanted to See: Doku vs Bree 1v1

I was rolling my eyes in my head when I saw James Bree’s name on the team sheet but though he had some dodgy moments, he stuck with his task incredibly well, especially in the second half against the very dangerous and tricky Jeremy Doku. Jack Stephens put behind him his absolute mare at Leicester last week, as did THB and Bednarek got stuck in strongly against Haaland who was largely anonymous, both through Jan’s efforts and through lack of service.  Welington‘s performance at left back begs the question why the fuck he hasn’t been playing. Yes, Ryan Manning has done okay but Welington is better and hopefully he’s going to be a big player for us next season.

Simon Rusk got the early substitution of Lesley Ugochukwu completely right because he was cruising for a red card and giving Joe Aribo half a game is much better than giving Joe Aribo fifteen minutes at the end when he never gets up to the pace of the game. Flynn Downes was again combative and exactly what we needed in the centre of midfield and Fernandes and Dibling both worked hard with very limited possession and very little scope to dp anything with the ball.  Sulemana was there as well.  To be charitable, he was not great as a central striker. As a winger, he doesn’t have to make that many decisions but he still, always makes the wrong one.  In the middle of the pitch however, you have too many options and too many decisions to make and it just showed him up as someone who really has no football intelligence whatsoever.  Once in the first half, he got isolated against Kovacic, City’s slowest player but instead of taking him on he turned backwards and shied away from the dream scenario.  We looked so much better when Ross Stewart came on, when a couple of things connected up front and City actually had to worry about us, if only for a bit.  Rambo in goal didn’t have much to do to be perfectly honest until the last 10 minutes when he made a couple of routine saves and also showed really good anticipation to see off a couple of situations, with City bearing down on goal.

Bye-bye Ruben

The headlines after the game were made by Ruben Diaz who basically made a complete prick of himself by complaining that Saints didn’t try and play and wasted time and all that shit, like we were supposed to compete with our Championship level players against their billion pound squad with 115 charges and play an open expansive game get absolutely fucked over. Go fuck yourself Ruben. This is from a guy who plays for a team that practically invented the break-stopping tactical foul, and he also plays for Portugal, who are right up there in international football terms when it comes to diving about and basically cheating.  This was also from a guy who praised us earlier in the season after we got beat at the Etihad.  They respect you if they beat you. There has been a pretty universal outpouring of ridicule for Mr. Diaz since his comments were made. Basically anyone who is not in the Manchester City fan Bass thinks he’s a twat and those City fans who remember getting relegated to League 1 in the 90s will also think he’s a twat. I even think there will be members of his own family who think he’s a twat.  

So, having secured the POINT OF DESTINY, we now have 12 points - onwards and upwards. Yes it’s fine to make sure that Robbie Savage keeps his record but with us being relegated for ages, it is all about moments and individual matches and we pulled it out of the bag today. Fair play to the players and manager for getting something out of this game and giving us as supporters something to be proud of.  Yes, some sections will criticise us celebrating getting a 0-0 draw and only being on 12 points but it’s not about that, it’s about the team giving us something tangible and a bit of pride back, after a shitshow of a season.

Everton away up next and there is a parade to be rained on.

Up the fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 9 - Manchester City 1 Southampton 0

Pep Loves Us

Here we are ladies and gentlemen for the latest episode of the Premier League game show “What’s the Fucking Point?“. In the blue corner we have a billionaires of Manchester City complete with there are 115 charges, world-class manager and world-class squad, where one player is probably worth £200 million and then the red corner we have newly promoted Southampton with their limited PSR allowance, no charges because they play by the rules and squad of players that includes players who can’t run, players who are barely good enough for the Championship and a manager who on occasions, acts like he’s on a level with world-class manager in the Blue corner.

Just what you need when you haven’t won in the opening eight games of the Premier League season - a trip to the Etihad to play Manchester City who of course, haven’t lost yet. They have drawn a couple and only beat Wolves away in the last minute last week but these are very small cracks of light in the darkness that is our prospects of getting anything from this particular game.

It does start 11 against 11 though and since last weeks fiasco against Leicester, where virtually every substitution made us weaker, I have arrived at the theory that we must leave our starting players on the pitch for as long as we possibly can because the squad players are just going to inevitably drag things down. That theory can probably be saved for the two games that follow this one against Everton and Wolves because this one is surely just a case of damage limitation. Mind you, we said that when we went up to Arsenal a few weeks ago and we actually put on a decent performance and to be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me if we did that today. It’s one of those when you just have to take ten minutes at a time and stay in the game for as long as you possibly can. On the face of it, this is the biggest home banker of the season in the entire league.

With Saints being where they are and with what happened against Leicester, we officially declared silly season open with regards to stuff that turns up on the internet. Just now I saw us linked with David Moyes as a manager and Patrick Bamford, currently languishing on a Championship bench, to be some sort of saviour for our season. Agents hard at work I suspect.

I don’t usually pay much attention to Pep Guardiola‘s pre-match press conferences so I don’t know if he does this with every club, but every time he talks about us he always seems to be playing mind games, talking up how brilliant we are at something or how brilliant the manager is at something. I know he has to say something and he’s not going to say “they are shit and they have absolutely no fucking chance playing like that”  No exception this week and the usual talking up of Southampton was in place. Russell Martin’s clear vision for how the game should be played and how you shouldn’t compromise that. With all due respect Mr Guardiola, what the fuck do you know about managing a team with a bottom three squad at the bottom of the league? Manager of peak Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. I totally get that he’s one of the most respected man in football ever, but do me a favour?

More usefully, he did mention that City would be missing a few players like Doku, Walker, Grealish, de Bruyne and long-term absentee Rodri. Trust me when I say you can still pick the Champions League winning level first 11 without those guys that was far as we are concerned, it’s much better but those guys are unavailable.

Saints got one of the famous PGMOL apologies during the week. Well, not so much an apology but an acknowledgement that Anthony Taylor should’ve given us a penalty last week. Well that’s really fucking useful isn’t it? So on the one hand they are acknowledging that Anthony Taylor made a mistake as a vital point of the game but on the other hand, they’ve given him the most high-profile game of this weekend fixtures as he referees Arsenal against Liverpool.

Team news and Lallana instead of Aribo was a bit unexpected given Russell’s comments last week about Adam not being suited to a game where we don’t have much possession.  Jack Stephens, fresh from the end of his ban and elevation to 'legend' status, for calling a referee and 4th Official ‘c**ts’, also came into the team in place of Sugawara as we are undoubtedly going with a back five.

The first of what will probably be many processions towards our goal ends with City working the ball in from the left and Rúben Dias having a shot from 30 yards which is straight at Ramsdale who stops it easily. To be fair,  if Rúben Dias is having shots from 30 yards, we are probably doing our jobs.

Bednarek As Dog Toy

Another attack down the left and Nunes sends Gvardiol away and he just puts a cross into an area but in that area is Erling Haaland, who treats Bednarek like a dog treats a new toy and just chews him up and gets him out of the way before making contact and knocking it straight into the roof of the net. Fucks sake. 1-0, five minutes and you just know that everyone in the mainstream sports media is getting their calculators out.

Whatever our game plan is, we stick to it and things calm down a bit and we are keeping the ball pretty well.  There are a few alarms but everyone is digging in and we get to 20 minutes still just the one behind. On a rare Saints break up the right hand side, the ball is played infield from Dibling to Downes who tries to let it run and is clearly fouled by Lewis but referee Tony Harrington decides to let play go on and it ends up with Haaland bearing down on goal but a Bednarek makes amends for his dog toy impression and gets a block in which takes it through to Ramsdale.

The next City attack sees Bernardo Silva bring the ball forward and Downes comes in with a perfect tackle to take the ball of him but referee decides that’s a free-kick which provokes an angry response from both Downes and Lallana and it’s Downes that picks up the yellow card for dissent . To add insult to injury, Russell Martin managed to get booked as well, all whilst Lallana gave out a similar opinion of the referee as Jack Stephens did against Man United.

Approaching half-time down our left they come with Silvinho getting a cross into the box, which is half cleared and Kovacic smashes it and it’s moving all over the shop but Ramsdale gets a good hand on it and we smuggle it away for a corner.  The final threat of the half is ours however as we play out, with Downes finding Stephens, who has made an extra man in midfield and he pokes it through and suddenly Archer is motoring towards goal.  On he goes into the penalty area and a touch left and bang, past the keeper, hits the bar and out.  Shit.

We Have a Shot

Half-time and just the one down and to be honest we played pretty well and given a good account.  We are working at not letting City have the ball all the time and that’s going well but we need to create more chances.  The risks we take to get to the half way line and beat the press are not being backed up with creating chances – the Archer effort being our only shot of the half.  One change with the quiet Tyler Dibling being replaced with Adam Armstrong. I assume that Dibling is just feeling the pace after so many consecutive games at his age.

Within a few seconds of the second half starting, City break and Foden picks up the ball at the edge of the box and drags his shot about a foot wide of the post. Adam Armstrong then goes into the book with his first involvement in the game as he brushes past Nunes and he goes down like he’s been shot. In comes the free-kick and it’s headed across the goal by Gvardiol and Bednarek has to clear it out from under his own crossbar. In comes the corner to the back post to Haaland and THB heads off the line.  Danger not over though as back it comes and Haaland can only pick out Ramsdale with his second header.

Thought it’s looking like a second goal is coming, Saints are still a minor threat with KWP chipping a pass over the full-back for Adam Armstrong to run onto.  Just the one thing in mind as he cuts across Rúben Dias before smashing it straight at Ederson who catches it dismissively..

That brief foray is momentary respite as Foden feeds the ball in from the right hand side and it meets the run of Haaland at the back post but in about an event more rare than finding white dog shit these days, Haaland taps a sitter wide of the post.

Three Players Laughing at a Decision

More greatness from Tony Harrington as we win a free kick in midfield but in typical City fashion, Foden stands on the ball to prevent a quick one being taken.  Lallana taps the ball into him and the ref does nothing. Lallana taps it into Foden again who has still not moved away and it’s Lallana who gets booked.  A few minutes later and Lallana has to be removed before he kills the referee and on comes Joe Aribo.  Silvinio immediately gets away down the City right and picks out Haaland with a cross and he seems to get caught in two minds between heading for goal and heading across and Bednarek hacks it away again.

Are City getting nervous as we reach the last 20?  Probably not but you can hear that their fans are and we attack down the left with Archer feeding the ball back infield to Aribo, on to Fernandes and he plays it wide to Armstrong on the right and his shot from an angle is shite and always going over.

A spate of substitution seems sees us bring on James Bree, Sulemana and Tall Paul, with Manning, the injured Downes and Archer making way.  Saints are still trying to play and get out of our left corner and find Bree on the right, on to Armstrong, who hangs up a cross towards the big man and Tall Paul heads it down and it’s hacked away by Akanji for a corner. It’s our first corner in the 92nd minute and it comes from Fernandes, but headed out and of course there is a City break which ends with Haaland bearing down on goal and Ramsdale throwing himself at his feet – great save.

96 minutes and we get a free kick on the halfway line and it’s surely “land it on Tall Paul” time…. but instead of launching it in the general direction of the massive bloke, which every other team in history would’ve done, we pass it around for a bit before our goalkeeper launches it up to no one in particular and that’s the end of the game.  Sometimes I just don’t get us.

To be honest, that wasn’t bad against the combined might of Manchester City and Tony Harrington making sure that we could never get a foothold in the game. We pretty much did as well as we possibly could today and it says a lot about the spirit within the camp but we can go 1-0 down that early and still be in the game as time ticked down. If you are being hyper-critical then you could look at the usual failings of us taking all these risks to get to the halfway line and beat the press and then having very very few ideas of how to progress it any further and actually threaten the opposition goal. There were a couple of moments, with obviously the closest one being Archer hitting the bar just before half-time. Adam Armstrong had a similar chance in the second half but smashed it over and there was the 90th minute header by Tall Paul that could've caused problems. Slim pickings.  City and Pep will be very pleased to have got over the line because we didn’t make it easy for them and that is more or less all that you can ask for. The goal we conceded was not down to any ridiculous giveaway and they scored it because they have the best number nine in the world.

Other than the goal, we kept Haaland relatively quiet. He missed one sitter from close in but the defenders can all be pleased with themselves for the way they handled him after the goal. For the goal itself you could say the Bednarek should’ve been stronger but no matter how strong you are, Haaland is stronger and that’s what happens. What I love about Haaland is that he is not looking to hit the deck at every opportunity and at all times he just wants to make things happen.

A lot has been written and said about how as well as having all the advantages in the world, city get most of the decisions of the referees as well. This is not a new concept as it happened a lot for Manchester United when they were the dominant team in English football but today was almost funny. The Lallana booking - to be fair to Tony Harrington, he had probably been waiting to book Lallana throughout the game, which mostly stemmed from the other ridiculous incident with the Downes tackle. This isn’t the reason we lost a game of course as City are light years ahead of us, but it certainly doesn’t make it any easier. Today’s gripes of course, come on top of the acknowledgement we got from PGM Oh Well, that Anthony Taylor should’ve given us a penalty last week.

The standout performance in the back three was from Taylor Harwood-Bellis who was happily throwing himself in front of everything and looked more like the player that we hoped he would be after his season in the Championship. Today he certainly looked like he has adjusted to the step up, which bodes well for the rest of the season. I was pleased for him today and for Aaron Ramsdale in particular. He had no chance whatsoever with the goal and managed to repel everything else. We should also mention the fact that we responded well to the setback of going behind because it would’ve been very easy for us to cave in and I think most people would’ve seen that early goal going and expected it to be five or six by the end but by the end of the game we were pushing for an equaliser.  Ryan Manning had a decent outing and all of the midfielders did their bit defensively – no one had a bad game but we do need to work out how to create more chances against the good sides, when the get into their half in broken play.

The good news is that on Saturday, none of the other winless teams managed to register their first wins of the season but Wolves got a late point at Brighton which does drop us to the bottom of the league. On Sunday, the good news didn’t last because Spurs shit the bed at Palace and handed the Eagles their first win of the season. 

Pep was predictably complimentary about us being really brilliant, whilst having one point from nine games and Russell Martin will come out of today’s game relatively unscathed and you could argue that outside of Southampton, his reputation will have been enhanced.  Amongst Saints supporters, no one who hadn’t already, will have turned against him after the defeat today but you could imagine that he has the next two games to keep his job and it won’t matter if the performance is good, average or bloody dreadful - we have to get at least four points from the next two games, starting with Everton at home on Saturday.

Up the Fucking Saints

Premier League Match 30 - Southampton 1 Manchester City 4

Oh for the Times When We Didn't Give Grealish Half the Pitch to Himself

Manchester City at home is not the sort of game you want at the best of times and these certainly aren’t the best of times. Nine games to save ourselves in the Premier League and to take advantage of everyone else down the bottom of the table being shit as well. The trouble is that no matter how bad all the other teams near the bottom are, Saints are showing absolutely no capacity to catch any of them.

We need to talk about last week. If I was the sort, Southampton FC would’ve had me punching the wall every day since the West Ham game. I still can’t get over how incredibly shit that was. I have a major downer on Ruben Selles, or Ralf Little right now and it was great to hear his press conference where he didn’t give me any more confidence but just gave me more ammunition.

When asked about Charly Alcaraz he said that we sometimes need him to come on after an hour to change the shape of the game. No shit Sherlock. He has to come on after an hour because you’ve totally fucked it up by setting us up with no attacking intent whatsoever with some of the more shit players in our squad being preferred to him. After an hour you realise that it’s all gone to shit and we are 1-0 down and we are never going to fucking score so you have to put on one of our better players who should absolutely be starting every single fucking game, regardless of the opposition. Here’s a novel thought, maybe pick your best fucking players and try to win the game.

Still, Selles should be happy today because having set up not to attack against West Ham, he now has a genuine game where we have to sit up to keep it tight because Manchester City are in town. Makes no fucking difference what we do in this game because no doubt the one after, we will play Crystal Palace at home and he will shit himself again. After what will be an inevitable defeat today, we will just have eight games left and maybe, just maybe he will set us up in a way that might actually allow us to have a chance of scoring a fucking goal.

What can you say about City that hasn’t been said already. They are quite simply a ridiculously talented group of players with a brilliant manager but it’s a brilliant manager who fucked up the last time they came to St Mary’s when he rotated badly for the Carabao cup game and got beaten by a team managed by Nathan Jones.  It was probably one of the most surreal moments of recent seasons. Kyle Walker was at centre back for the first time in his career, Kalvin Phillips was selected to actually play football and Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland were left out. I can’t see Pep making the same mistake again especially as City are still eight points behind Arsenal and moving into the territory where they have to win more or less every game between now and the end of the season to have a chance of retaining the Premier League title. Pep’s team selections are always interesting and there is a reason why the term “Pep Roulette“ has come into being and everyone knows what it means.

One player not subject to the roulette at the moment is Jack Grealish who has made the left wing spot his own and he’s producing in terms of goals and assists at a level not previously seen of him in a Manchester City shirt. Haaland was injured recently but they bought in World Cup winner Julian Alvarez so they didn’t really miss him much.  However, if I could pick one player who I hope he’s not in the starting line-up then it would be Riyad Mahrez.

After last weeks’ shambles, I have no real idea what Ruben Selles will pick for his Saints lineup but seeing as he just copies Ralph and Ralph had success with 4-2-2-2 against Manchester City I would assume it’s going to be that and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it’s the same line-up as last week. With Che Adams still unavailable with his injury picked up on Scotland duty, Selles basically has a choice of picking Tall Paul or one of the Chuckle Brothers.  My money is on him thinking that Paul won’t press the defenders particularly well and he’ll go with one of the other two clowns. I’ve course expect our non-goalscoring, non-shooting, non-crossing, non-dribbling, non-assisting creative midfielder Mohamed Elyounoussi to be in the team.

Meanwhile, on Friday night, Burnley were promoted back to the Premier League which is interesting for all sorts of reasons. One reason is that we should be looking to emulate them next season and bounce straight back but the way they have done it by completely changing the philosophy of the club and employing a bright young manager who has done it all in the game as a player. Secondly of course, one of their main players this season has been Nathan Tella who we loaned out to them. He has contributed goals and assists all over the place. I’m not going to rewrite history here and say that we definitely should’ve kept him but when you think about who we’ve had playing in that left-wing position this season, it’s a little bit ridiculous. Not only that, we have signed two players in the transfer window in Sulemana and Orsic, who played that position when we could’ve recalled Tella in January, who certainly wouldn’t have been any worse.

Team news and I don’t know what this is.  None of the strikers are playing so I assume it’s Walcott up front on his own. ABK is back to partner Bednarek and Maitland-Niles is starting so KWP is on the left so there’s not a single left footed player on the pitch for us.  Sulemana has come in for Stuart Armstrong.  City’s line up is basically every player I would not want to be playing.  Mahrez, Haaland and Grealish up front… fuck.  De Bruyne, Rodri and Gündoğan in midfield… fuck.  Full strength, 100%, not fucking about.

Away we go and hang on… we’re not playing with anyone up front.  It’s kind of 4-3-3 with Alcaraz as a false 9, Sulemana and Walcott on the wings and Elyounoussi as a false midfielder.  Well, it’s different, I’ll give him that.

Saints are trying to press City which is all well and good but City are so good in possession that they played through it and spring onto the attack with us nowhere. Mahrez brings the ball down their right-hand side having been freed by Stones. His ball into the middle finds Gündoğan who knocks on to the totally free Grealish on the left-hand side and his first time effort is well pushed away by Baz. Hot knife, meet butter.

Gündoğan tries a volley from the edge of the box which is blocked and spins out for a corner.  Mahrez tries to play the corner quickly to de Bruyne on the edge of the box but Sulemana reads it, toes it on and is sprinting away at the city goal from 70 yards. He turns on the burners and gets to the edge of the box and with Ake stopping him getting onto his right foot he takes an absolutely shit touch off his standing leg, giving Ederson the chance to dive in and clear the ball.

Saints have another half chance with Elyounoussi and KWP doing good work on the left hand side before Sulemana’s cross is cleared back out to Elyounoussi and his cross in towards Alcaraz floats over his head and drifts wide. Would’ve been a great cross for Tall Paul.  The ball in was very similar to the one Paul hit the bar with at West Ham.

Half an hour and so far so good but it’s shit-yer-pants time as city break once again down our right with the de Bruyne playing a ridiculous pass without looking to Grealish.  The cross deflects up in the air and Haaland gets up early and above everybody but can only head wide.

Having survived Haaland getting a rare touch of the ball and not scoring, Saints are still creating openings at the City end of the pitch and Lavia sorts his feet out and finds Sulemana on the left and his cross into the channel between the defenders and the goalkeeper is decent but we don’t have a striker on the pitch so no one is throwing themselves at it.

Having not woken up to the danger down out right hand side, again City attack down there with Grealish finding de Bruyne and the initial cross is headed out back to Grealish, back to de Bruyne and his right footed in-swinging cross lands on the 6 yard line and Haaland has a simple task of nodding it into the net because the defenders have lost him and the goalkeeper has done nothing.  6 yards out Baz – you have to be punching that.

Half-time and that goal before half-time is a real kick in the bollocks cause we’ve actually played quite well and don’t really deserve to be behind but behind we are and now we have to do something.  I’m pondering the irony of de Bruyne and Elyounoussi producing two very similar in-swinging crosses from the left with the right foot and City having a striker in the box and us having a small-ish midfield player.

As the second half starts it looks like Sulemana has been pushed up alongside Alcaraz,  with Walcott and Elyounoussi filling in right and left midfield.   I wonder if’s it’s two strikers or two false 9’s.  Either way it’s a midfielder and a non-scoring winger as our two most forward players.  Two minutes into the second half and we still haven’t fixed the issues down our right hand side as Grealish again finds loads of space before the ball breaks to Gündoğan, who curls just wide of the far post when he really should’ve scored.

It’s definition of madness time again as we once more give Grealish half the fucking pitch to himself, when Haaland flicks the ball inside to de Bruyne, who of course plays the perfect way to pass to Grealish, who is clean through against Baz who pulls off a decent save from his first effort but is unfortunate to see it go straight back to Grealish, who rams it into the net.  2-0, game over.

Yeah, Alright mate.

Oh look it’s happened again - another ball down our right for Grealish.  He doesn’t need to shoot this time and he just chips it to the back post where Erling Haaland takes off and despite the ball being behind him he manages to crash a scissor volley into the net.  Fucking ridiculous goal.

Selles has had a couple of subs waiting to come on and it’s Djenepo and Mara, so I can’t really contain my excitement.  Within a few minutes, something weird as fuck happens as Mara starts the move midfield with a ball going out to Djenepo on the left hand side and he stumbles past one challenge from Walker, and another from Bernardo, tackles his way past a third from Gündoğan before getting his head up and knocking it to Mara to pass it low into the net. Really good goal.  Funny what having a striker on the pitch can do.

City are annoyed however, and they go straight up our end of the pitch and pick their way through the crowded central area on the edge of the box with de Bruyne planning a one-two with Álvarez and he is about to pull the trigger when KWP comes scything in and takes him out.  Clearest penalty you ever will see. With Haaland off the pitch and unable to claim an inevitable hat-trick, it falls to World Cup winning Julian Alvarez to smash the penalty down the middle. 4-1.

It should be 5-1 from another rapier like City break which sees de Bruyne pick up the ball, get to the by-line and pull it back to Bernardo Silva but he manages to hit Bednarek with the shot.  The End.

Ultimately this game doesn’t make the slightest difference to the bigger picture of whether we stay up or not.  We got comfortably beaten in the end but that’s expected and at least we didn’t disgrace ourselves.  The opening 44 minutes were actually pretty good and we contained City pretty well, whilst having a bit of attacking intent ourselves, not much but a bit. Ruben Selles did actually try to do something different and whilst it’s not what I would’ve done, playing without a recognised striker did the job it was intended to do in stopping Manchester City dominating possession.  The downside of course was that we had openings in the first half as well with a couple of balls across the goal but of course, we didn’t have a striker in the box.  The big chance fell to Sulemana with his break from the halfway line but it was all rather predictable that come the moment when he actually had to shoot, he would fail to do that.

The goal before half-time was really shit timing from our point of view but it was a simple header for Haaland from a ridiculously good cross by De Bruyne. How a centre forward can head the ball from 6 yards out is the question that the defenders and particularly Bazunu should be asking themselves. Selles made a tactical switch at half-time we went 4-4-2 but whilst you would have expected it to shore up the wide areas, the opposite happened. Walcott dropping deeper should’ve course meant that he was helping out Maitland-Niles with Grealish on the left hand side but both of them deserted their post one too many times and if you continually give a player of Grealish’s quality, half the pitch to himself, he will eventually make you pay and it was a great save by Bazunu in the first place but Grealish buried the rebound. Down that side again for the third goal with Grealish finding Erling Haaland for his ridiculous acrobatic finish.

Ruben‘s second substitution was to bring on Djenepo and Mara supply upfront and against all odds the two of them combined for our goal with Djenepo tackling his way past three players before finding Mara for a cool finish. What I don’t want is for anyone to think that these two should start the next game. Substitutes at best.

Our goal just seemed to irritate City as they kicked straight off went straight up our end and won the penalty in a clear case of “you might have scored but we can score whenever we like”.

There were some good individual performances out there, the main one defensively from Jan Bednarek who has certainly turned a corner in the last few weeks. ABK looked a little bit rusty and whilst the full backs, particularly KWP, played well in the first half. AMN was just not bothered about defending in the second half. The guy can do it when he wants to but there was a large period of the second half we clearly didn’t want to.

There were decent performances in midfield from JWP and Lavia though they lost a bit of energy as the second half went on and we have to of course hope the Lavia injury doesn’t keep him out for any of the more important games coming up. I of course felt sorry for Charly Alcaraz, who was our most forward player. It’s an absolute fucking shambles that we are using a midfielder, who doesn’t speak English, in his first season in the Premier League, as a striker. Elsewhere, Walcott was non-existent and Elyounoussi was the same.

No point in dwelling on this game, it’s all about the next two home games. Win against Palace and Bournemouth and we still miraculously have a chance of staying up. Four points will drag it on more in hope than expectation and any less than that will mean we are completely fucked.

"Trust the Process"

Another press conference after the game and more worrying comments from Selles.  We were solid apparently - errr, no we weren't.  We will continue playing this way - errr, it's not working.  The most worrying take out is that he seems to have a lack of realisation about the situation we are in.  There is no time to mould a team, no time to Trust the Fucking Process or to Convert Potential into Excellence.  Look at the fucking league table? It’s about results – everything else can wait.  False 9, false manager perhaps.  8 games to go Ruben, tick tock.

Carabao Cup Quarter-Final - Southampton 2 Manchester City 0

Kyle Walker With a Face That Says "Where the Fuck Did He Come From?"

DISCLAIMER: This is the blog that clearly illustrates that the part from before the game, was indeed written before the game….

The League Cup seems to change its name every few years. Off the top of my head I remember the Rumbelows Cup, the Milk Cup, the EFL Trophy, the Carling Cup and the Carabao Cup and when we got drawn against Manchester City in the quarter-final, it became the What’s the Fucking Point Cup. Well we can’t complain really as we have managed to draw three League 1 sides to get this far but we are all 99% certain that the run ends tonight.

Being the kind of club that we are, with no proper trophy since 1976, I would normally be getting excited about a cup quarter-final but there is nothing there. I seriously considered not going as it was £25 I could’ve spent on something else but old habits die hard. I’m not expecting it to be sold out tonight by any means and with the football we served up in the last home game, I can’t blame anyone for making that decision not to go.

There is absolutely no point in looking back but if this had been a game with Ralph Hasenhuttl in charge then there was always the chance that we could’ve put in one of those performances that causes City a lot of problems. That’s the thing, he had that credit in the bank. With Nathan Jones in charge, the thought of him going up against Pep Guardiola in some sort of tactical battle is absolutely fucking laughable. Maybe our tactic should be to play for penalties from the first whistle and then if we go behind, just try and keep the score down.

In the FA Cup at the weekend, Graham Potter, a man who I would certainly take as Saints manager, had a go with his Chelsea squad and got beaten 4-0 by a City team that didn’t contain Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, İlkay Gündoğan or John Stones amongst others. Pep clearly sees us as more of a threat than he saw Potter’s Chelsea. If we manage to keep it down to 4 tonight, I’ll be quite pleased.

It seems that we are completing the formalities on another new signing with Racing club of Argentina agreeing to sell us Carlos ‘Charly' Alcaraz, who sounds like an all action midfield player. Don’t know how he’s going to get in the team ahead of Elyounoussi and Diallo but there you go. Extreme sarcasm alert. Again, on the face of it, like with Mislav Orsic, it sounds like a very good signing by the Sport Republic recruitment team and I do wonder what on earth Nathan Jones is going to do. Are we going to play through the midfield three of Lavia, JWP and Alcaraz, like we surely should or are the three of them just going to be doing shuttle runs, chasing the ball after it has been banged over their heads.

Talking about Alcaraz, he’s on the pitch a few minutes before kick-off, waving to the fans and wondering what drugs his agent had been taking.  It’s nice to see him anyhow and it’s a nice touch. Mislav Orsic is on the bench tonight as well. Once more it looks like a back five for us and it looks like Djenepo is going to be at left wing back. The Adam Armstrong, Sekou Mara strike force does not fill me with a lot of confidence. Pep has given us a chance with his City selection because in relative terms, there are a few weak links. Ortega is in goal and Sergio Gomez is at left back. Interestingly, Kyle Walker is at centre back in a back four. Kalvin Phillips is obviously going to be a bit rusty and let’s face it, we would rather Cole Palmer was playing instead of Kevin De Bruyne or Riyad Mahrez. The big news is that Erling Haaland is on the bench but his place goes to a guy who’s just won the World Cup with Argentina, Julian Alvarez.

Away we go and once again, Nathan Jones has done the “Lyanco at right back” thing and we are in fact playing a flat back at four with KWP on the left. The other feature is that JWP is pushed up in a number 10 role With Moussa and Arma on the wings.  The good news from the start is that we are pressing City and when we get the ball we are passing it and not just going route one.

It’s already better than the Forest game as we actually force the keeper to do something.  The ball comes in low from the right and squirts across and there is Caleta-Car of all people to wave his left foot at it and it’s a decent effort heading for the bottom corner until Ortega gets across to save it.  Passing longer is not a problem in itself if there’s an aim to it and Lyanco clips one over the top which is bought down superbly by Mara but he turns and off-balance, lashes it well wide.

Lyanco Celebrates His Assist

City haven’t got going yet, probably due to all the changes in their team, but we know they are just waiting and when JWP gives the ball away 40 yards out, the break is on. Laporte strides out of defence and tries to play it to Grealish but Lyanco steams in and ends up reading it perfectly before charging up the pitch himself. He gets to about 30 yards out on the wing and flashes the ball across hard and low and Mara nips in front of Walker and clips it superbly past Ortega and in at the near post. Fucking brilliant goal and what a way to get off the mark for your new club. It’s also a brilliant goal from the point of view of breaking quick and getting a shot in once you’ve won the ball.  Laporte waves his arms around to blame someone – he’s a bell end.

The expected City onslaught doesn’t really happen and good work by KWP sees the ball go to Lavia in midfield who bodies Kalvin Phillips out of the way before laying it in to Djenepo.   The Malian man of Mysterious Choices easily shrugs off the attention of Cancelo and sees that Ortega, City’s very small looking reserve goalkeeper is on the penalty spot in complete no man’s land and from 30 yards, Moussa just clips it over his head to put us 2-0 up. This is fucking ridiculous. When Moussa Djenepo is scoring goals like that, surely it has got to be our day.

Keeper Got Near That One

It is with great amusement that the chant of “Pep Guardiola, your football is shit” goes around the ground for a little bit but everyone is just deep down, a little bit scared of what’s going to happen next.  Lyanco goes sliding in like a mad bastard to try and pull off another interception but this time doesn’t quite get there and Grealish is away down the left but with players to pick out in the middle he tries to shoot and he runs into a parked car, a Caleta-Car no less.

Having made that mistake, Lyanco resorts to what he’s good at it, which is winding up opponents. He leaves a late one on Grealish, having chased him across the pitch, which is very amusing but Saints are digging in strongly with JWP leading from his number 10 position and Lavia and Diallo snapping into everything in midfield.  The comparison between Lavia and Kalvin Phillips is delicious.  Anyway, half time.

At half-time, thoughts turn to what Pep will do because of course, he has some big fucking guns on the bench but conversely, it would be just like Pep to send out exactly the same team in the second half. He does decide to make changes though with De Bruyne, Ake and Akanji all coming on with the disappointing Gomez, Palmer and Walker departing.   Laporte is still on which is good because he's a bell end.  Saints come out for the second half unchanged but there is a definite change information with Djenepo having gone to right wing back and we are switching to 3 at the back.

De Bruyne immediately makes a difference, getting on the ball and sliding it in between defenders for Álvarez to run onto but it’s clearly easier to play in the World Cup Final than it is in the Carabao Cup Quarters because Alvarez drags his shot across the goal and wide.

Djenepo has a little spat with Grealish and goes down, never to get up again until he is substituted and replaced with Perraud.  Lavia also goes down with what hopefully it’s just cramp as replaced with Elyounoussi and Che is on for Sekou Mara and after a spot of pinball in the City box he can’t quite get on the end of KWP’s mis-hit shot as it flies across the goal.  The great thing is that we are still creating chances.

Not Today Big Man

There is thunder a lightning as City bring on promising youngster Erling Haaland for the last half an hour.  There isn’t but you know what I mean – the deep sense of foreboding.   He soon gets on the end of a cross which is behind him and hooks it over the bar. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Haaland up close and you realise how fucking big he is, especially when he standing next to Caleta-Car and you know our guy is 6 foot 3.  City do look a completely different team with Haaland on the pitch and a sweeping move from left to right ends with de Bruyne putting a dangerous ball across the box and unlike a couple of times recently, Baz’ dive away from his goal to intercept the cross is successful before Haaland can have a tap-in behind him.

City are attacking more and more now and Saints are relying on breakaways.  I feel we are a couple of decent passes away from scoring a third but it never quite happens.  Baz hurriedly hacks away a through ball and the ball goes to Elyounoussi, who is desperately trying to check out and pass backwards but with all options blocked, ends up running diagonally forwards cause he has nowhere else to go and we eventually set up a chance for JWP which hits a defender and bounces to Adams who puts it away but is clearly offside.  We come as close as we have been to conceding a goal as Gundogan burrows into the left hand side of the penalty area before squaring and the ball which is half hit by Álvarez and we get lucky as it hits Salisu the rolls to the grateful Baz.

There are 10 minutes to go and we might actually fucking do this. The defending is 100% committed, embodied by Lyanco streaming into a challenge against Foden and smashing the ball at 100 miles an hour into the crowd. If Foden had been in the way he would’ve ended up in the crowd as well.

It’s another encouraging moment with the first appearance of Mislav Orsic from the bench, to replace Adam Armstrong who had his usual game of 100% effort.  By this time though, Orsic is almost relegated to doing shuttle runs to try and close down the City player with the ball. Saints are defending all the crosses that are coming into the box pretty well until one ends up with Rodri on the end of the box and his chip in looking for Haaland is fortunately missed and drops into the grateful hands of Baz.

The six minutes of injury time are going by without too much alarm with Saints doing some quality shithousing in the corner mainly through Che Adams sticking his arse in the way and refusing to be moved. 94, 95, 96 and we are comfortable, ridiculous, but comfortable. Final whistle, fuck me we won.

And through we go to the semi-final. Pretty mind blowing to be honest that we’ve relatively easily beaten the best team in the country. Nathan Jones has masterminded a win against a Pep Guardiola team, one week after thinking the best way to beat Nottingham Forest was to hoof it up in the air for 95 minutes… and the world is not really spinning on its axis at the moment. Mental.

Shit?

Did we deserve to win? Yes. Were we lucky at all? No. What were the better team practically all the way through? Yes. I am struggling to understand and maybe I just shouldn’t bother trying. I repeat, how the fuck have we gone from hoofing the ball up in the air for 95 minutes against Nottingham Forest to 1 week later, passing and pressing Manchester City off of the pitch?

All 11 of the starters put in a superb shift today from Gavin Bazunu through to Sekou Mara. Baz hardly had anything to do in truth and even when City brought on De Bruyne and Haaland in the second half, the defence, superbly marshalled by Caleta-Car, gave them no opportunity whatsoever. Out of all the centre backs that we have at the club, Caleta-Car has the priceless gift of being calm and consistent. ABK, Salisu and Lyanco all have the tendency to doze off or to do something rash so they all need Duje as a partner. We bought him in as the more experienced defender to help the others so that shouldn’t really be a surprise.

There were some ridiculous performances elsewhere by players I didn’t think were capable of it. Lyanco again was superb at right back and as a right-sided centre back and as said before, he’ll stay in the team to add some bite in amongst all our nice lads.  Ibrahima Diallo had a great game in the centre of midfield and looked like a genuine option there – maybe another midfielder being paraded on the pitch beforehand gave him a kick up the arse  This midfield three with JWP in front of Lavia and Diallo was what we had in our other big win this season, against Chelsea. 

To the goalscorers and to say the source of the goals was surprising is an understatement.  Moussa Djenepo scored a brilliant goal and from that moment until he was substituted on the hour mark, looked like a proper player for once and it's so frustrating that he so rarely does it.  Sekou Mara scored his first goal for the club with a brilliant instinctive finish and can hopefully take that on.  For the first time really, he looked like he wanted to impose himself on the defenders 

I find myself in a strange position regarding Nathan Jones because I have been very critical and I don’t blame myself for that, nor anyone else who sat through the games against Lincoln, Brighton and particularly Nottingham Forest. He got it spot-on today from the team selection, tactics and playing with a back four, through to the substitutions that enabled us to see out of the game relatively comfortably. He was a little bit spiky in his post-match interview, giving some back to the people have spoken out against his start as a Saints manager and whilst on one hand, you would like him to rise above it, on the other hand, I don’t blame him at all. He cannot be surprised that people were not happy with what they had seen from those opening games. The key for me was that today at the final whistle, there seem to be a lot of warmth between him and the players and that is massive because it means that they are happy with what he is doing and telling them.

Spiky Media Duties Incoming

Jones knows that the challenge is to take this on and we cannot afford to get beaten by Everton at the weekend and we can’t afford to go back to the performance levels that we showed in games prior to this. Today is an incredibly positive day, not just the result but also the new signings, the attitude and performance levels.  It’s remarkable how things can turn on one game. I have a pretty much 100% attendance record for home games over the best part of 45 years but I was struggling to find the enthusiasm to go to this one.  In the end of course, what a brilliant decision that I decided to go. I don’t know why I particularly decided to go because all logic was telling me not to bother but of course, that’s the rock ‘n’ roll of being a Southampton fan. Though they will of course be regretting it, I repeat, I don’t blame anyone for not going because of what had gone before.

City are used to having things or their own way and they clearly thought that they were going to have things or their own way today. Pep seemed to expect us to just smash the ball over the top so didn’t really bother with the midfield. On top of that, Kyle Walker playing centre back in the back four was a bit of a stretch and up front, the only player who was even vaguely up for it was Jack Grealish, Palmer and Álvarez producing very very little. Then there was the goalkeeper? What the fuck he was doing on our second goal is totally beyond me. City started the game at 80% think it was going to be simple and once we went ahead they had to up their game which is very difficult to do if you start sluggishly. Even the best have to be on it for the whole 90 minutes and the start of the game is absolutely crucial. It was good to see Pep go to the bench early and bring on De Bruyne and also for him to give Haaland over half an hour. It was even nicer to see that it didn’t work. However, I expect that they will absolutely smash Manchester United at the weekend.

In the hat for the semi-finals were Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest and Southampton. If they wanted to fix the draw then Newcastle and Man United would be kept apart and if they wanted to fix it even further, Newcastle and Man United would be playing at home in the second leg which is largely seen as the advantage. Guess what happened… not saying the draw is fixed but Nottingham Forest versus Manchester United and Southampton versus Newcastle.

That is of course for another day. Next up is an even more important game. Everton away.