Carabao Cup 4th Round - Southampton 3 Stoke City 2

With a Roar That Was Heard in The Welsh Mining Village

Carabao Cup 4th Round at home to Stoke and for the winner, a place in the quarter-final. It’s a game that has many sub-plots to it, not least the fact that Russell Martin really needs to win this game because a defeat here would really see a lot of the fan base given more cause to point a finger at him. A lot of that fanbase won’t be present tonight because as I write, ticket sales have not been great. I get it if you live out of town because travelling to mid-week games can be an absolute pain in the arse with Southampton seemingly infested with roadworks and train cancellations. There is also the idea the Carabao Cup in particular has become so devalued over the years with Premier League clubs in particular playing fringe players in all rounds up until the quarter-final or semi-final and of course it’s extra money on top of the season ticket.

Stoke aren’t doing particularly well in the Championship this season and currently sit 19th, just the five places above Portsmouth, who they had their last win against which was a very enjoyable watch as they won 6-1. It was a shame they took the foot off the gas in the last half an hour to be honest. Since then though, Stoke have not managed another win in four attempts which is usually enough of a drop in form for them to sack their manager like they have done once already this season with Stephen Schumacher departing after just a few games.  In that regard they certainly seem to be the Watford of the North. We played them twice last year reason of course.  Our away win at the Britannia was against Alex Neil, our home defeat was against Stephen Schumacher and this game is against Narcis Pelach.  They up a few familiar players with Sam Gallagher now playing for them and he is usually upfront alongside Tom Cannon who they got on loan from Leicester at the start of season, who scored four goals in the aforementioned defeat of our nearest and dearest. They also have Lewis Koumas on loan from Liverpool, who scored against us in the FA Cup last season when Liverpool put out of team with an average age of 17 and still beat us comfortably.

Russell Martin seems to be aware of the importance of winning this game and has said post Manchester City that would we be going with a strong lineup for this game and it wouldn’t be 11 changes or anything like that. I’m not convinced to be honest because the likes of Adam Armstrong, Tall Paul, Ben Brereton-Diaz, Ryan Fraser, Max Cornet, Big Les, Joe Aribo, Charlie Taylor and Alex McCarthy would be looking to be playing in this game.

As it was, it was six changes with Wee Man, Arma, Aribo, Big Les, Sugawara and Bree all starting in front of a half full St Mary’s.

It really is like the majority of our Championship home games last season as Saints keep hold of the ball and Stoke defend in depth. We work the ball wide to Adam Armstrong whose low cross is cleared out to the edge of the box where Aribo fires in our first shot of the evening but comfortably saved by the keeper.

A Defender Is Now Our Main Goal Threat

It's a possession-fest with not much threat and we win a corner as we approach 20 minutes, which the linesman has just guesses at because he wasn’t remotely interested in giving it until everybody appealed.  Over it comes from Fernandes along the line of the 6 yard line and THB has got completely free and unimpeded by anybody, nods it powerfully into the net.  Dunno where the keeper was but we'll take it.

A lovely ball around the corner by Sugawara sends Armstrong away in absolutely acres of space and with all the time in the world.  He advances on goal and then with two players in the middle, he doesn’t have a clue and smashes it straight at the keeper at the near post. Piss poor it has to be said.  I don’t blame him for having a shot but it has to go across the keeper.

It seems that there is no danger as Sugawara gets seen off by Dixon in the Stoke penalty area but the defender reckons without the tenacity of Yuki to win it back and when the Saints defender gets in front of him and takes possession of the ball again, Dixon swings a leg and boots him and it looks a bit soft but I can see why the referee gave it.  We have a penalty taker on the pitch today and it’s Arma and bang, first goal of the season and he certainly takes a good penalty.  2-0 now and it should be more or less done from here.

Cruising to a Comfortable Win at this Point

It’s time for the first charge of the day as Wee Man goes off.  It’s a bit strange because he doesn’t look injured and on comes Maxwel Cornet on the left and we have that rarest of things, right footed winger on the right, left footed on the left.

It all seems so easy as we appreach half time.  Stoke break up the right and Vidigal gets trashed by Big Les and it’s a free kick about 40 yards out.  It’s chipped into the mixer in nondescript fashion and there’s a header and it bounces off Sugawara who has got himself in a mess and Phillips flicks it past Ramsdale from close range. We have literally conceded with more or less the first time they’ve got into the penalty area.  Shit.

Half-time and that’s put a slightly different slant on it. It’s been a ridiculously one-sided first half but we have left the door open and Stoke can walk through it and will now think they have a chance in the second half.  Stoke goal aside we’ve been dominant but have slipped into that mode where we create nothing.  No one is prepared to shoot from any distance and we’re not trying to find Archer in the middle.

Ten minutes of the same boring shit goes by and Stoke come again down our left and a cross-shot deflects off of Bree and lands perfectly at the feet of Cannon beyond the far post and he rams it into the roof of the net.  I think they’ve been in the penalty area twice and now it’s 2-2.

Russell gets on his radio from the stands and on comes Tall Paul and BBD for Archer and Fernandes, meaning Arma moving back into the midfield three.  Now we have the big man on up[ front we of course don’t play to his strengths and we are still creating nothing from our possession.    Stoke now look dangerous ever time they advance and Moran starts dribbling past players and gets into our penalty area and seems to go round about four players before Sugawara eventually gets a tackle in and we hack it away. We got a bit fortunate there as THB left his leg out and if Moran had gone down then it would’ve been another penalty.

Talking of penalties – they are now looking likely and there’s more headscratching substitutions as Arma and Bednarek are replaced with Sulemana and Sam Amo.  It looks like Sulemana is at left back with Bree at centre back next to THB.  It’s anyone’s guess who is in midfield and whilst we work that out, Cornet fucks up and puts THB in the shit and Manhoef is his clean through and it looks like he’s bundled it past Ramsdale, who has made himself very small and it looks like it’s rolling in but Sugawara gets back to clear it off the line.  All eyes on the referees watch… nothing.

Sulemana to his credit, tries to put a cross in towards Tall Paul but it’s headed back out to him.  The £25 million man takes his time and rolls it back to Bree on the edge of the box and the man nurtured by the man from the Welsh Mining Village, smashes it from outside box and into the net.  Get in.  I wait for the apocalypse but it doesn’t happen, so I therefore deduce that we can actually shoot from outside the box if we want to.

Now to manage the eight extra minutes with three defenders, two midfielders and five forwards.  Big Les is at centre back now and the back four is protected by a clearly knackered Joe Aribo, and Sam Amo and no one else really.  We see it out and thank fuck that’s over with. 

Through to the quarter-finals we go and that’s just about all you can say about it. You don't want to be too negative because we haven't won many games this season but here comes the truth.  Fucking hell that second half was absolutely grim until someone finally had a shot from outside the box and lo and behold, buy a ticket and sometimes you win. I guess you could say it was a classic illustration of getting over the line without playing well and we would kill for a win of that nature against Everton in the league on Saturday and no mistake.  However, from the moment Stoke pulled a goal back just before half-time until James Bree finally took that shot from outside the box, we were fucking atrocious - as bad and ineffective with and without the ball as you could possibly be.

We showed absolutely no clue how to get efforts on goal. Yes we scored twice in the first half, once from a corner and once from a penalty but from open play, nothing. We have a central striker in Cameron Archer who has been on good form but we have no idea how to get the ball to him. We never play the ball into his feet from midfield and when we get into the wide areas we cross the ball in the air which is of course not his strength.

A vast majority game was played in front of the Stoke team who would drop back to the edge of the box whilst we passed the ball around, side to side in between the halfway line and about 30 yards out. We carried on this ineffective and quite frankly, piss boring style of attacking throughout the second half despite changing virtually every attacking player.  Many got gametime for the first time in a while, so you would expect them to be keen to impress.  Maybe they were keen, but that didn't really translate to anything.  Of our underperforming wingers, Max Cornet was given a chance for about 65 minutes and did nothing with it. Ben Brereton Diaz came on and was fucking awful.  Ryan Fraser started the game before going off ill and he did nothing either.  Adam Armstrong scored a penalty and other than that showed an ability to have absolutely no idea what to do when it came to delivering a ball into the box.  
 
Tall Paul came on for the last 20 minutes, which you would have thought would have been the signal to change how we attack. Did we put crosses into him? I can remember one and that was so high that all he could do was knock it off for a goal kick. You simply have to mix it up when you are attacking or else you become very very easy to defend against.  Wingers need to take on the full-back occasionally instead of always turning back, we need to play the ball into the strikers feet occasionally and we need to shoot from outside the box more often. Stoke’s defence was not tested at all for about an hour.  Bree’s goal was probably down to the surprise element because Stoke probably weren’t thinking there was any danger and didn’t set up to defend a long-range shot because unless it's our third choice right back, no one thinks of doing it. Maybe the fact that Russell Martin was sat in the stands, with a different vantage point to usual, will turn out to be a good thing. 

We Look Shit From Up Here

Having said our attack was dreadful – so was the defence. Defensive cover was provided by Big Les, who started like a monster and had a good first half but has a tendency to give away free kicks in bad areas and with the way be defend set pieces, that's not great.  Every time Stoke came forward in open play, which wasn't often, it was like a bomb had gone off in a penalty area with bodies everywhere and no one looking like they had any sort of composure whatsoever when put under any pressure. They scored with their first attack which was a hopeful free kick tossed into the box on the 44th minute and then they scored with their first attack of the second half and they very nearly won the game themselves when Sugawara managed to get back to clear an effort off the line.

In the first half we were absolutely miles better than Stoke but their goal before half-time seemed to kick the belief out of us and the second half was absolutely painful to watch. I have been thinking a lot recently about how you can get away with things at Championship level that you can’t get away with the Premier League level. Today was a prime example because we were absolutely shocking in that second half but still managed to win. We were absolutely shocking in the second half against Leicester and look what happened.

So, having got through somehow, and seen how Wednesday’s games panned out, we had the draw for the Quarters and it’s all Prem sides.  Palace were the only ‘bottom half’ side in the draw and we didn’t get them…. No, we got the holders at home – Liverpool.  The Scousers will be shitting it after watching us despatch Stoke.  Sarcasm alert.

Up the fucking Saints

EFL Championship Match 45 - Southampton 0 Stoke 1

I Guess The Ref Thought the Keeper Got to The Ball First

When we were in the Premier League and you got to this stage of the season, there was no such thing as a dead rubber as long as you could possibly move up a place or down a place, because of the amount of money that was attached to every place in the Money and Greed League. In the Championship of course, the money is less but we cannot drop below fourth place and we are not going to make third so this is as close to a dead rubber as we are ever going to get. Consequently, I hope we use it to try and learn a few things about how we’re going to approach the playoffs. Can we find an alternative to Stuart Armstrong as the guy linking the midfield and attack? Do we need to give Joe Lumley a game in the Championship to see if it’s better for our playing out from the back. Can we trust some of the younger players in the squad in a physical Championship game? For me, finding answers to these questions is at least as important as winning the last home game of the season against Stoke.

Well, it isn’t the last game of the home season because we now know after our capitulation against Leicester, that we will have a playoff semi-final at St Mary‘s against either West Brom or Norwich. That’s for another day however. Today it’s the aforementioned Stoke City at home, another team that have a new manager from when we played them the first time around with Alex Neil being replaced by Steven Schumacher, who was tempted from Plymouth with The challenge of trying to make a success out of the poison chalice job that has been Stoke City since relegation from the Premier League. If Nathan Jones couldn’t do it, one of the best managers in Europe no less, then what chance has Schumacher got?

When we played Stoke at the Britannia Stadium earlier on in the season, they were a bunch of arseholes and managed to draw us into having a mass session of handbags at the end of the game, which is some achievement bearing in mind what a bunch of soft arses we are. It was quite a memorable game, containing as it did Stuart Armstrong going full JWP and putting a freekick in the top corner, a fantastically executed rugby tackle by Jan Bednarek which didn’t result in a penalty and Kamaldeen Sulemana beating Stoke right back Hoever at every opportunity and being pulled back about six times which resulted in one booking halfway through the second half. I don’t usually advocate Sulemana starting games but I would like to see him starting this one against a fullback who he knows he can piss past at every opportunity.

Team news and what the fuck… the promised dropping of those uncommitted during the Leicester defeat turned out to be hollow words as the one player praised, Che Adams, was left out with Sekou Mara coming in.  With Adam Armstrong also left out, goals might be hard to come by today.  Edozie and Wee Man are the other two forwards.  It looks like David Brooks is in midfield with Smallbone and Charles, who once again starts, with Flynn Downes on the bench.  Captain Jack is back of course but not at the expense of one of our woeful full backs – Bednarek on the bench with Bree and KWP continuing.

We start the game looking somewhat disjointed and not being able to string three passes together, so we are hitting it long up to our forwards who have a combined height of about 15 foot between the three of them. Captain Jack’s plays a ball forwards which is easily picked up and Stoke build down our left with Tyrese Campbell easily breaking free behind KWP and his shot is pushed out to McCarthy and Laurent has an open goal but somehow manages to put it wide.

Some nice play through midfield by Stoke, which is kind of what we’re supposed to do but anyway, the ball goes out to Manhoef on the right and James Bree shows he’s learnt absolutely nothing from the Leicester debacle by standing off and allowing him to get to the edge of the box before smashing it goalwards and McCarthy has to pull out quite a decent save to keep it out.

After a foray down the left wing with Fraser gets rejected, we pass the ball back to the halfway line, eventually to THB and he chips a ball over the Stoke defence and Mara does really well to get there before the goalkeeper and heads it goalwards and get absolutely wiped out by Iverson with a defender getting back to clear off the line. That is 100% a penalty with the referee David Webb looking right at at at it but he doesn’t give it. The keeper has punched him in the fucking face and not get anywhere near the ball for fuck’s sake. How is that not a penalty?  The lino must have been level with it as well.

Taylor and Macca Not Covering Themselves in Glory

Stoke right back Hoever launches a big ball down the right over Captain Jack’s head to send Campbell away against THB, who has to come to cover. THB tries to send him down the line but doesn’t get close enough and Campbell simply rolls the ball through McCarthy‘s legs and into the net. Diabolical defending and piss poor goalkeeping.  1-0 down.

Saints try and get back into it before halftime with Stoke rather presenting the ball to Edozie on the right wing and his ball across the top of the box is perfect for Wee Man to run onto and meet but his side footed effort is straight at Iversen who easily pushes it away.

Half-time and that unsurprisingly, has been dog shit. The ball is not sticking up front at all with Mara either in cable or unwilling to withstand any physical challenge from the Stoke central defenders. The midfield isn’t passing the ball quickly enough and there’s not enough movement. Defensively we’ve been all over the place with Stoke finding an easy way forward all the time as once again, we’re not getting close enough to anyone.  Not good.  We come for the second half and there are two changes with THB being replaced by Bednarek and Shea Charles being replaced with Aribo meaning Will Smallbone as the number 6.

The first attack of the half by Stoke is caused by a Stephens mistake on the halfway line to send Bae Jun-Ho running away and he gets deep into the penalty area before he overdoes it and a combination of KWP and Bednarek stop him.  Saints break out with Wee Man being taken out off the ball and Stoke try and take out Brooks as well but his ball find his way through to Mara, who has an opening on his left foot but it lands somewhere between Row Z and Row FF.  More great refereeing - there were two clear cynical failed attempts to bring a player down by Stoke as we broke forward but the referee decided that neither was worthy of any action.

Edozie is coming more to the fore out on the right and he picks up the ball from Mara and burns past ex-Skate Stevens before pulling it back to Brooks on the penalty spot but he gets a shot all wrong and it was so bad that it probably didn’t go on the stats as a shot.  Straight from the clearance, Stoke surge up the right through Laurent and he finds Campbell who rolls the ball across the top of the 6 yard box to Manhoef and McCarthy throws him self in the way for a quite brilliant save.  Jon-ho picked up the ball on the left and finds Cundle in front of goal and McCarthy cops that one in the face but regardless, another good save.

Saints are still struggling generally to clear the ball and Campbell spins away from Stephens in the box, Stevo clips the back of him and Campbell hits the deck. This time the shit referee comes to our rescue as he gets that one wrong as well.

Mara gives the ball away in really shite fashion twice in about fifteen seconds and you can see Russell Martin losing his rag and immediately, Adams comes on to put Mara out of his misery.  Flynn Downes enters the fray in place of David Brooks as well.

David Webb with the Universally Understood Referee Signal of "I Haven't Got a Fucking Clue"

Adams first contribution is to spin the ball out to Edozie out of the right and he gets into the penalty area before dragging the ball back and hits the deck. Looks a bit soft to be honest and it will be a scandal if that got given, seeing as there’s been two obvious ones not given. Stoke quite rightly play on and it’s down our right and Manhoef is quickly clean through to go and have a shot at McCarthy which he has to push away again.  Manhoef again gets a sight of goal and puts it just wide.

We have one more sub to make and we’re not going to see a re-run of the Sulemana versus Hoever slaughter at Stoke and instead it’s Adam Armstrong coming on for Edozie, who has been our threatening attacking player by quite a long way. Arma has one chance when after a little mazy run by Downes on the edge of the box, the ball finds its way out to Wee Man and Armstrong throws a leg at the cross and well over the bar.  Six minutes of injury time but nothing much happens.  Boring as fuck.

Well that was absolutely abject. The first half that was as boring as a game of football can possibly be and a second half where the opposition has sat in a low block for 45 minutes to protect what they have and played on the counter and we had absolutely no idea, especially when we took off the players who can actually take on a player 1 v 1 or provide any creativity.

As said, Russell Martin’s words after the Leicester game rang hollow as he basically tossed off this game with that starting lineup. That can be justified seeing as it was a dead rubber for us but don’t say you’re gonna bomb out the players who didn’t show much commitment against Leicester and then not do it. I guess he calmed down the next day and realised that he didn’t really have that many options.

As it was, he picked Sekou Mara to start upfront which was probably out of desire to give Che Adams a rest and Mara gonna Mara. I mean, he was absolutely 1 out of 10 shit. He can’t control the ball, he has no strength to hold off a defender and when he gets the ball he can’t pass it.  He shoudl have had a penalty however and our bunch of soft arses should have been all round the referee demanding he spoke to the lino but no, passive acceptance. 

So, were our full backs any better than last time out? James Bree was given another chance and he defended with no more intensity that he did against Leicester.  He’s so scared of getting done for pace he just doesn’t engage.  The one time this season he had a race with a winger was against QPR and Ilias Chair, and Bree did his hamstring.  He was terrible on the left and then we moved him across to the right so we could be terrible in his natural position. On top of his no contact defending, he also managed to get himself in good crossing positions a couple of times, once on either flank and both times put the ball 10 yards behind the goal.  KWP showed a little bit more in the defensive department than he did against Leicester but still not enough.  It’s almost like that at the start of the season he knew he was the best in the league and now he’s allowed himself to be dragged down to their level.

It’s a very low bar but I think there was one positive in that David Brooks looked okay as the potential Stuart Armstrong replacement. It wasn’t brilliant because today nothing was, but I think he proved that he is the best fit to potentially provide the forwards with some ammunition. Put it this way, it was worse when he went off and at least he tried to play forwards.  So lightweight though so I question where you can balance a midfield with him and Will Smallbone in it.

Sam Edozie is a player who gets a lot of flak, but he was one of the few today who actually asked some questions and caused the left back Enda Stevens, quite a few problems. On the other flank Ryan Fraser put a couple of crosses over with his left foot and spent the rest of the game turning back and passing the ball back into the midfield. Considering he was playing against Ki-Jana Hoever, who proved up at Stoke what a dreadful defender he is, should’ve meant that he was driving at him every opportunity, but it didn’t really happen. I know it may sound completely obvious here and maybe it’s a nod towards his commitment, but I can’t really believe that Sulemana didn’t get any time on the pitch considering we were losing from about half hour onwards and he ripped him apart up at Stoke.

The other positive was that Flynn Downes played for twenty minutes, hopefully without any reaction. Maybe half an hour to forty-five next week against Leeds before putting him in properly against whoever our playoff opponent will be.

If it is Norwich then they have form for playing the low block tactics so we are going to have to do considerably better than we did today. It was a comfortable win for Stoke and it was another game with the amount of possession means fuck all because the only goalkeeper that got tested in the second half was Alex McCarthy who had to come up with three big saves to keep the score down. He could’ve done better on the goal we conceded however. THB did half a job in forcing Campbell to have a shot from a narrow angle but he didn’t get close enough to him to block the shop and once the shop has got away, there is absolutely no way McCarthy should be beaten from there.

Did we learn anything today that we didn’t know? Maybe a bit with the Brooks experiment in midfield. We certainly didn’t improve morale about the place and inclusion of Jack Stephens, which was supposed to sort out a lot of the problems if you believe the narrative from Tuesday night, didn’t really help much with him making a fair few mistakes including the old failing of letting the ball just drift over his head.  Maybe this is just me being old school but if I was centre back and captain, I would have been yelling at the full-backs at every opportunity for not getting close enough and I didn’t see much of that.

Russell Martin was at pains to point out at the end about there fixture pile up that we’ve had throughout the last month and the implication is clearly that we have run out of steam. Of course, we’ve lost two key players to injuries and that hasn’t helped and if we cast our minds back to the start of April when the Preston game got postponed because of the fire, we all knew that the fixture pile up would be difficult to navigate.  I keep coming back to that game at Cardiff though. If we had won that game like we should, the energy would’ve continued through adrenaline.  You don’t feel tired when you’re winning.  Leicester wouldn’t have been certainly as much of a disaster as it was and today would’ve been a competitive game that we would’ve taken more seriously. We can only hope that come in the playoffs, the adrenaline rush from playing a really meaningful game means that collectively, we find some more energy and some inspiration and play like a functioning team again.

Leeds away next week.  The good news is that we have a week to prepare, the bad news is that Leeds are going to have something to play for going into that game, even if Ipswich win their game in hand at Coventry in midweek.  Good luck to anyone who paid the £47 to watch that.

Up the fucking Saints.

EFL Championship Match 10 - Stoke 0 Southampton 1

 

Some Serious Hair Products in This Photo

Tuesday night in Stoke and we get to try and follow up our win against Leeds with three more points from a trip to the crassly named Bet365 Stadium. It’s a good job that the football world has identified gambling as a massive problem, isn’t it? I wonder if the locals still call it the Britannia Stadium.

I was surprised and somewhat alarmed by the passing of time when I noticed that this is Stoke's fifth year in the Championship, having been relegated in 2018, in a season where they started with Mark Hughes as manager and ended with Paul Lambert. I am struggling to think of a less exciting duo of managers but then I remember the two assclowns who we had at the tail end of last season.  Mark Hughes is of course not the only connection regarding managers - both Saints and Stoke were managed by the genius that was Nathan Jones - statistically, he was the best manager in Europe you know.  If that's true, it's a bit odd that both Saints and Stoke fans have the same "he was shit" opinion of him.

Prior to Mark Hughes of course, Stoke had a period of pretty much unprecedented success under Tony Pulis (Father of Saints legend, Anthony) who was there for the best part of 10 years and built a squad and a team that reached an FA Cup final and regularly bloodied the nose of more illustrious opponents. The days of Peter Crouch, Marko Arnautović, Robert Huth, Ryan Shawcross and Rory Delap are all long gone now, however. A quick scan of the squad now reveals no one who you remember from Premier League days and that’s the danger when you stick around in the Championship for too long, certainly if you stick around once the parachute payments have run out.

Stoke look nailed on for a mid-table finish this season and like ourselves, they have been struggling to get any results at all recently but they achieved a superb win on Saturday, coming from behind to overturn a 2-0 deficit at Bristol City, to win 3-2 in the last minute. This means they will be going into this game with some confidence as well but regardless of their win on Saturday, we need to be backing up our performance against Leeds and looking to turn them over, even though a trip to whatever the stadium is called in Stoke, is not and never will be easy. 

Russell Martin has hinted at changes after the Leeds game, not because of performances but because we have three games in a week and I guess that’s fair enough, though I do hope that the back four remains in place as that is clearly the best combination. Stuart Armstrong and Charly Alcaraz are two of the starters from Saturday who might have a problem playing twice in three days and Kamaldeen Sulemana’s minutes have also been restricted due to fitness up until now. I’m guessing that Shea Charles, Ryan Fraser and Che Adams can expect the call if those three are rested.  Come 7pm on Tuesday, it turns out ‘twas but a bluff and it’s an unchanged team.

The opening five minutes sets the tone for what is probably to come with Saints trying to pass the ball but it’s not quite working and Stoke using every opportunity to exert their physicality.  They won in a couple of corners at the start and they are predictably in-swingers on top of the goalkeeper but we survive with a degree of comfort.  An interesting development is the booing from the two-thirds empty home sections when Smallbone touches the ball.  He was on loan there last year and did pretty well by all accounts so of course, that’s normal behaviour from the Stoke-tards.

One intriguing battle is Sulemana up against ex-Liverpool fullback Hoever, who after about five minutes is in the conversation for quite possibly the most clueless looking defender I’ve ever seen playing at professional level. Every time Kamaldeen runs at him, he is totally off-balance and just as he starts eating dust, he has one tactic which is to grab hold of the Saints winger. People complain about players going to ground too easily but to his credit, Sulemana stays up three times in the opening 15 minutes and the referee is too clueless to spot it.  That’s why players throw themselves down.

Sulemana does have a chance to do something about it from a decent break with Adam Armstrong feeding Alcaraz and though he’s trying to pick out Stuart Armstrong, the pass turns into a good one for Sulemana and he tries to wrap his foot around it but puts up a fucking balloon into the sparsely populated home end.

Ryan Manning then has one of those little spells where he keeps giving the ball away and his slip allows Leris to get down the right hand side and sling a ball over which Lowe meets but it’s a simple save for Baz.  Manning is however getting no help from his winger with Sulemana mixing up very good attacking play with defending that can best be described as half-arsed.  Actually, what’s less than half-arsed?  Quarter-arsed?  I guess that he is in the team to go forwards and he produces a mazy run diagonally across the pitch before finding Adam Armstrong and he tries to pass it into the far corner but Bournemouth loanee Travers makes a decent one-handed stop and the referee decides that it’s a goal kick, obviously.

As if JWP Never Left

Stuart Armstrong picks up the ball on the left-hand side and runs diagonally towards the edge of the box whilst Laurent is hanging onto his shorts and then his shirt and down he goes and the referee gives a very obvious free-kick and needless to say all the Stoke fans and players are complaining about something that was 100% a foul.  It’s just to the left of centre, prime JWP territory and it’s either going to be Manning or Stuart Armstrong to take it. Up steps Stu and it’s over the wall and spinning away into the top corner past Travers despairing dive. What an absolutely brilliant free-kick.  Get in.

What’s that goal was a pleasant surprise, there was also a second one when Sulemana pissed past Hoever yet again he pulled him back yet again and the referee finally decided it was worth a booking. By the time he pointed to the areas of the pitch where all previous offences had taken place, there was no time left in the first half and in we go.

To be honest, that wasn’t great with a number of players underperforming and some looking a little bit leggy as a result of the two games in three days. All of the ones we knew had a bit of an issue with fitness, namely Alcaraz, Sulemana and Stuart Armstrong all struggled a bit, brilliant free kicks aside. No change the half-time however as we come out for the second half.

First attack of the second half and it should be 2-0 as Alcaraz breaks from midfield and finds Adam Armstrong on the right and it looks like he’s over run the ball but he gets to it and fires over a perfect cross and as the ball is in the air and I see who is heading towards, I ask myself the question… Have I ever seen Stuart Armstrong score a header? No I haven’t and…  I still haven’t as his downward header hits the one defender McNally, stood in front of him and spins off a corner. Fuck.

We are much the better side now and Downes sets off on a run through midfield, leaving a couple of trailers in his wake and plays Sulemana in behind the full-back and Hoever once again grabs hold of him but he has to let him go as he’s already been booked and he has to score but gets no height on the shot (see A Armstrong three days ago) and Travers comes out and makes the save. Meanwhile, Wilmot has covered behind his keeper and managed to smash himself against the post and eventually needs to be substituted. The resulting Manning corner is met about 10 yards out by Alcaraz with a stooping header that has no power on it and straight through to the goalkeeper.

The substitution of Wilmot means that there is a reshuffle and Hoever is moved out of harms way and away from Sulemana. To be honest, if I was Russell Martin I would be tempted to now put Kamaldeen right through the middle but instead, he’s moved to the right wing and Armstrong moved to the left.  We seem to lose a bit of momentum after this and Stoke are having more possession but not really doing anything with it. It’s all got a bit agricultural and scrappy with Stoke throwing as many crosses as they can into the box and us not stopping any of the deliveries which luckily, are nowhere near the strikers.

Stoke actually play a couple of passes in our half and work opening for Johnson to have a shot from the left and his effort flicks off of Harwood-Bellis and goes through to Baz but before the ball gets the keeper, Ryan Lowe is making a run across the penalty area and Bednarek has had a brain fart and produces a challenge that really wouldn’t have been out place in the rugby World Cup across in France at the moment. He has kept himself nice and low so there is no possible head contact and has wrapped his arms round in a genuine attempt to make the tackle and I don’t think anyone could really argue with that interpretation from a Rugby Union perspective.  As Nigel Owens says – “this is not soccer” and that challenge certainly wasn’t.

Nice and Low, No Head Contact, Play On

Substitutions a-plenty with basically a new forward line of Fraser, Mara and Aribo and three of them combine on the break with Fraser streaking forward in finding Slow Joe and he takes his time to find the correct pass to Mara wide on the left of the penalty area but with no defender inside and just a goalkeeper to beat he absolutely shags it wide with his left foot. Fucking shit effort.

With just a few minutes to go we bring on Mason Holgate for Will Smallbone, still getting booed by the Stoke-tards. Holgate has 10 minutes of injury time not to fuck up as we go three at the back.  There’s a shot from Stoke substitute Berger from the edge of the box which is never going in and Baz pushes it away easy enough. Stoke don’t even seem to know how to feed the giant Wesley, who has come on as a sub.

We get our first real bit of aggro on the pitch as Wesley smashes into Downes as the ball is dropping and it’s a clear free-kick and for some reason it all kicks off in the middle of the park with Stoke Captain Johnson getting in Downes face and suddenly there about 15 players involved for some handbags. Lovely stuff and joking aside it’s great to see our players not giving an inch. Johnson picks up his second booking for his troubles but of course the referee had forgotten to give him a yellow earlier, for scything down a player to stop a break.

Ten minutes are up and hen the lino got in on the act of incompetence, when Slow Joe clearly won a corner, but he decided to give a goal kick.  Hoofed upfield, cleared, final whistle and breathe, but not straight away because it’s all kicked off on the pitch at the end.  Stoke goalkeeper Travers, who had been running to get involved in incidents that had absolutely fuck all to do with him for the last 10 minutes of the game, feels a slight shove from little Alcaraz and goes down like an embarrassing six-foot-three sack of shit and then pogoes back to his feet like he’s going to do something about it.  Fucking idiot. More handbags, more Bednarek peacekeeping and away we go with the three points.

Bournemouth Player Embarrassing Himself

A great three points against a tough team who gave us the sort of test I would not necessarily have expected us to stand up to but stand up to it we did with determination, not backing down, not taking any shit and being pragmatic and getting to the end with that vital and unexpected clean sheet. Stoke were extremely limited and for the last 20 minutes just played Pulis-ball, launching it into the mixer but for credit to everyone on the pitch in a black shirt for doing their bit.  It wasn’t pretty but you do have to win games like this if you have designs on being anywhere near the top.  Dug it out.  Though it always felt nervy when the ball was getting piled into the mixer, to be honest we only really had one hairy moment when Bednarek for reasons known only to himself decided to play rugby against Ryan Lowe and we were very lucky to get away with that one.

Stokes fans were ... different.  For starters there weren’t many of them with vast swathes of red seats all over the ground and they didn’t seem to realise that you can’t pull a players shirt, shorts, shoulder.  It was probably only a few that booed Smallbone for having the temerity to go back to his parent club after a successful loan spell last year.  

Yes, you can spit feathers about the referee not giving that penalty for Bednarek’s rugby challenge but didn’t think he was any worse than any other referee we’ve had other than that.  Maybe incompetent, maybe lenient given the Hoever and Johnson situations.  Hoever could’ve been booked five times by another ref and Johnson’s cynical foul wasn’t carded as we kept the ball for a minute or so and the ref clearly forgot to book him.  Yes, if booked earlier he probably wouldn’t have confronted Downes near the end of the situation that had absolutely no reason for him to get involved in - but there you go. The booking the ref gave to Pearson was a bit harsh because there wasn’t much contact but at the end of the day, Pearson went flying in and wasn’t really in control so it was more luck than judgement that he didn’t really catch the player that badly and that’s the sort of thing the referees have been told to clamp down on. That’s not exactly a new interpretation either.  You also can’t complain about the free-kick being awarded that lead to the winning goal and Alex Neil really should’ve watched it before he made a tit of himself on TV.

The best players for us all came in the back half of the team with Bednarek and Harwood-Bellis being the pick, along with Flynn Downes in the centre of midfield who barely misplaced a pass all game. Smallbone had a decent first half and KWP was good throughout. We were lacking a bit up front with neither Adam Armstrong or Sulemana providing much of a goal threat and whilst Charly Alcaraz did some great stuff dropping back into midfield to pick up the ball and get us moving, he looked very limited when he got near the Stoke goal.  He needs to trust himself a bit more from the edge of the box and firing some shots like he did last season.

We need to talk about Stuart Armstrong. He made a colossal difference to the overall flow of the team when he played against Leeds and though he found it difficult today with the physical nature of the game and the fact that it was a second time in three days, he still had enough about him to pull out a free-kick that JWP would’ve been proud of.  Absolutely magnificent and going in from the moment it left his foot. The king is dead. Long live the King.

The biggest congratulations however are reserved for Gavin Bazunu Who got the clean sheet that looked miles away and fair play to him. And the defenders have got to be looking to back that up on Saturday at home to Rotherham. There is no point beating Leeds and winning away at Stoke if you are not going to do the same at home to Rotherham.

Bring it on and Up the Fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 29 - Southampton 0 Stoke City 0

Don't Mess With The Hoedt

Here we go again and another must win game. The challenge for Mauricio Pellegrino is to show that finally, after all these learning experiences that he goes on about the end of every match, he has learned how to pick a team to actually go out and win the game against very poor opposition at home.

Stoke must be piss poor because they are below us in the league table. Unlike us, they pulled the trigger on the shockingly underperforming manager and got rid of Mark Hughes but the man they appointed to replace him was on the face of it a shocking appointment. Paul Lambert was an abysmal manager at Aston Villa and was just as bad at Wolves. I have no idea how he managed to get himself another job in the Premier League - it must’ve been a case of hanging round the club car park at the right time. He won the first game after his appointment and ever since then it’s been much like ourselves with mainly draws and very little inspiration. There are not many people who would say that their squad is better than ours and unlike nearly every team we play against, I can’t think of many of their players but I would like to see at St Mary‘s. The player I’m most worried about on their side is Peter Crouch which kind of says it all.

It will be interesting to see what Pellegrino had actually learned from the Burnley game last week. It should be that we cannot start the game incredibly slowly and that you have to have some thrust in attacking positions. After his goal last week I half expected to see Gabbiadini picked with Redmond being sacrificed so golden boy Tadic could move over to the left hand side.

There was some doubt as to whether this game would go ahead because of the mythical Beast from the East, or as it usually known outside of the tabloids, winter. Thankfully, common sense prevailed and with the pitch looking better than it did before the snow and all the surrounding areas and the roads being absolutely fine come Saturday, the game went ahead as planned.

I managed to leave my phone at home so I had no idea what the team was until I saw it announced in the ground. I was absolutely staggered to see Josh Sims starting and equally perplexed to see that JWP had been dropped. Needless to say, Gabbiadini was on the bench again so it was the usual one upfront, Carrillo, who has not even look like scoring yet, supported mainly by Tadic from the 10 position, I assume when he is not going sideways or backwards, or fucking about out on the wing. Don’t get me wrong, Sims is a plus but today of all days, only playing one upfront is not. On the bench we have JWP, our best set piece taker, Gabbiadini, our best fit goal scorer and a Boufal, our most skilful player. On top of that, Hojbjerg it’s also on the bench and he was our best midfield player until he got dropped.

With Shane Long back on the bench it means you have to watch the warm up or else you have a decent chance of getting a ball in the face during the shooting drill.  He’s fucking dreadful against no defenders and Stuart Taylor – I counted four in a row off target and two straight at the keeper.  It’s all very well laughing and pissing about Shane but maybe if you took practice seriously you might actually improve.

Once more, only one sentence is probably needed to sum up the first half of this must win game from a Southampton point of view – it was shit.  We simply didn’t do anything.  Once more we had no intent and were happy to just play it cagily which of course suited Stoke down to the ground as they are crap.  They had a shot when Cedric decided the best way to deal with a slightly underhit pass to him was to smash it aimlessly and of course it went straight to Stoke and N’Diaye skimmed in a shot from 25 yards with McCarthy saved comfortably.

There was an interesting moment when the referee had to calm down Hoedt and Diouf when judging by Hoedt’s reaction, Diouf had stamped on him.  I didn’t think any more of this until about 10 minutes later when there was a header to be won in midfield and Hoedt won it easily and made sure that he left a bit on Diouf who crumpled like he’d been hit by a train.  Off he went, taking the longest time to walk off the pitch with what looked like a dislocated shoulder.  One simply does not stamp on Wesley Hoedt’s foot.

Sims was looking like the only spark for Saints and he took down a long ball superbly and knocked it past Zouma with his first touch and was away but lacked conviction at the end and allowed Zouma to get back and block the shot.  The resulting corner missed everyone and the only other action of the half was a superbly flighted ball from Shaqiri who must wonder every day how the fuck he ended up playing for Paul Lambert and Stoke, which was well met by N’Diaye and McCarthy got down to pull off a superb save and push it wide.  There were 5 minutes added onto the first half for the time taken to pick up bits of Mame Biram Diouf off of the pitch after he’d been Wesleyed but it was a shit half of nothing.  Half time and I had some soup which was the highlight so far.

Peter Crouch, that lovable lanky streak of piss was on for the second half and Pellegrino was obviously happy with what he saw in the first half as he left it as it was in terms of personnel but it did look like Sims and Tadic had swapped over with Tadic on the right where he is proven shite and Sims up in a position that he’s never played before.  To be fair, the opening minute of the second half was remarkable because we had two shots.  After a hilarious Shaqiri dive, Carrillo put Sims away but his first touch was poor and the angle was against him by the time he fired into Butland’s legs and off for a corner.  From the corner, the ball was half cleared to Lemina whose shot hit the ground and flew off target.

Sims was still being the main threat and he was the man who eventually had the shot saved by Butland after Tadic reminded us he was playing by crossing to Carrillo who laid off to Sims who exchanged passes with Cedric before shooting.  It was better but still not great and Stoke looked ropey as you like at the back.

On the hour mark came the change that should have been made during the week on the training ground with Tadic replaced by Gabbiadini.  4-4-fucking-2 – have it.  Of course, every time Pellegrino has tried 4-4-2 this season he’s done it with Steve Davis as one of the central two in midfield so we’ve just got completely fucked over in there but with the strength of Romeu and Lemina in the middle, Sims and Redmond on the wings and two proper strikers – this might just work.

Redmond has come to life and is suddenly looking like the player he should be, taking players on and going for it.  He takes a ball from Carrillo and tees up Cedric who gets his effort on target but Butland makes an easy save look really really flash indeed. 

Sims is scaring Pieters to death down our right so of course, he gets taken off and replaced with Boufal which sends Redmond onto the right wing where he’s best.  The newly confident winger takes Pieters on with his first touch and skins him before digging out a great cross which picks out Boufal about 6 yards out and he thumps his header down and fucking wide.  For fucking bollocks sake.

With one sub left – for me it should be JWP on at right back to get some quality on for set pieces but Pellegrino brings on Shane Fucking Long to bring his warm-up form to the party.  Just what we need.  Off goes Carrillo who has once again looked ok without ever looking like scoring.

Not much happens for the rest of the game but there is a bit of a mystery as only 2 minutes are added.  There have been 4 subs in the second half which are 30 seconds each so we can assume that there has been not one second of time wasted.  Ok then ref – utter bullshit.  We win a free kick when N’Diaye pointlessly trashes through Boufal and we don’t get chance to take it.  Maybe Anthony Taylor has a long trip home battle with the Beast from the East.  Wanker.  I don’t think he even added the two minutes indicated which I know is only a guide but it was a bit odd.  Not that it matters as we’d have never scored anyway. 0-0 and yet another draw at home.

If you took this game in isolation, you could maybe write it off as unlucky. We did after all dominate the second-half and created a few chances but either contrived to miss them or to see Jack Butland pull off some really good saves. However, this performance cannot be taken in isolation as we don’t have that luxury any more because we have got ourselves in a position where the result is absolutely everything and 0-0 at home against the team that sits below us in the table at this stage is simply not good enough.

We completely wasted the first half of this game. We were negative, lacking in any purpose and more or less exactly as we have been in just about every game back to August. For this reason, Pellegrino’s post match talk of ‘learning’ is the biggest pile of insulting shite that he could possibly come out with. There is no point in learning if you do not take whatever you have learnt into the next game and we never do. Today he said we have learned that we should be positive from the start. No shit Sherlock.

I was absolutely staggered to see Josh Sims in the starting lineup but it was ridiculous that it was in place of JWP.  JWP has been decent since the turn of the year and he gets triggered after one bad game at Burnley. So, Pellegrino has decided to leave out the guy who takes all our set pieces and surprise surprise, we don’t have a fucking clue what to do when we were given a corner. We started off with Sims knocking them short and after a couple of those where we didn’t actually get the ball into the box because we fucked up, we went back to Redmond from the left and Bertrand from the right and whilst the deliveries weren’t dreadful but they were nowhere near the standard that JWP brings to the table. All this against a team that has conceded about 30 set piece goals this season. Maybe Pellegrino should’ve learned that before the kickoff.  He says he learns but he learns fuck all.

It’s a common theme for players who are playing well to be bombed out. Hojbjerg worked really hard to get back in the squad and then in the team and then it was looking like he was going to be our player of the year but now he’s been bombed out again for no real reason at all. Boufal was playing well before he picked up a slight injury and Pellegrino has used that injury as a reason to not pick a player who he obviously doesn’t really like picking because he attacks, take chances and occasionally loses the ball and all that bad stuff. He prefers Dusan Tadic of course who does something decent about once in every 15 games. Needless to say, today wasn’t one of those matches.  We basically played with 10.

This manager has no idea about how to send a team out to actually win a game. We don’t go out to win games. We go out not to lose them and that is why we have so many fucking draws - 13 of the fucking things. Five wins and eight defeats would’ve been better but of course, Pellegrino wouldn’t see it that way. He actually highlighted that Stoke had the best chance when we had two strikers on the pitch. That tells you all you need to know-he sees having two strikers on the pitch as a negative because we might concede a goal. He doesn’t even mention that we created shit loads more chances once we had two strikers on the pitch. Basically, he is a fucking idiot.

Once more, as with Burnley last week, Pellegrino completely fucked up the first half and the substitutions when they came couldn’t fail to make the team better. Having said that, taking off Sims for Boufal turned out to be a mistake and bringing Shane Long was the complete waste of time that I knew it would be as soon as I saw his name amongst the list of substitutes.  Another two points have been left out there, in addition to the two points left out there last week.  With more positivity from the start we would have won both of these games against piss poor opposition.

I repeat, probably for about the tenth time, that we should’ve sacked him months ago and I still fail to see how it would be a negative to sack him now. There is though, as much chance of me shagging all five of Girls Aloud then there is of the Saints board admitting they made a colossal mistake hiring this bumbling idiot and sacking him. He is a few of our worst managers combined. He has the cluelessness and riddled communication of Poortvliet, the stubbornness Branfoot , the totally out of his depth air of Steve Wigley, the risk averse scared to death approach of Claude Puel and the bewildering team selection of George Burley.

When we are talking about players who played well today, we have to more or less forget all about the first half as no one did anything aside from the odd burst from Josh Sims. In the second half, Sims played really well until was hooked off and there was a welcome return to form from Nathan Redmond. He can be an excellent player when the shackles are off. When he was switched to his best side on the right, the run past Erik Pieters and the fantastic cross he put in for Boufal to head wide was his best bit of play this season by a mile. I also thought the central defenders handled the admittedly limited threat that Stoke provided. Credit is due there because let’s face it, I haven’t really handled direct teams very well in the past.  I am a big fan of the way Wesley Hoedt sorted out Mame Diouf.  You stamp on my foot – see what happens next time.

And so another winnable game goes by and onto the next, an away trip to Newcastle for another six pointer. Though our players are without question, better than theirs, Newcastle will probably have a better attitude and I’m going to be expecting Rafa Benitez to have too much tactically for our complete numpty. We will go there for a draw. Have no fear.

Premier League Match 7 - Stoke 2 Southampton 1

Feel the Fume !!!

Stoke at the Britannia in one of the most unappetising games of the season but one that’s always a good yardstick as to whether your team fancies it.  Mark Hughes has come under a bit of pressure for an indifferent start and they have a few injury problems so we should be looking to capitalise and really go for the three points.  Hopefully we can take the form of the second half against Man United into this game from the start.

The build up has been quite understated for this game and you-know-who has been the centre of most of it.  Judging by Mauricio’s press conference, it appears that Virgil will make his first start of the season which I assume will mean a change in formation to three at the back.  The boss had also said that he liked that formation at previous clubs.  Ok, bring it on.  So, I was quite looking forward to this until I heard Virgil interviewed upon the launch of FIFA 18 and he got asked who would go furthest in the Champions League out of the British Clubs – “Liverpool”.  This is despite them being shit and City and United being on fire.  Then he was asked who his most difficult opponent was – “Daniel Sturridge”.  Ok, now I know you’re taking the piss.  He absolutely had Sturridge in his pocket when we played them last year so that’s complete shite.  If you’re going to carry on sucking Liverpool’s dick Virgil, then get a fucking room.

So, I was expecting something a bit different with the formation and the team but the only change was Virgil coming in for Wesley Hoedt.  Hang on a minute – what the fuck has Hoedt done to deserve getting dropped for someone who hasn’t played for 9 months?  There were rumours that Hoedt was carrying a bit of a knock coming into the united game so maybe that’s the issue.  In some ways I hope it is.  The Hoedt decision is not all that’s slightly annoying – the same personnel in the same formation in the front positions.  Davis, Redmond, Tadic, Long…. Nothing different going on there.  Maybe Redmond and Tadic are going to play on the opposite sides to usual or else it’s the same shit different day.  Completely underwhelming.  The bench includes our two players who know where the goal is as well as the X-Factor of Boufal and the best set piece taker in JWP.  I guess the logic is that we dug out a 1-0 win against Palace in our last away game so this will do.  Stoke are better than Palace though so we’ll see.

Away we go and it’s pedestrian, like we’re not really up for it.  Stoke’s Cameroonian striker, the entertainingly names Maxim Choupo-Moting picks up the ball and ambles forward, being allowed to shoot but it’s blocked by Virgil for a corner.  We appear to wake up a bit and Lemina is at the heart of it, driving forward and due to a lack of options and movement from others, decides to have an optimistic shot and curls it wide from 25 yards.

More chances are exchanged and we allow Shaqiri the freedom of the penalty area to test out Fraser and the big man is up to it.  After that, we break well up the right through Cedric and Tadic who slides a good ball in to Redmond and for a second it looks like he’s through but he doesn’t turn on the burners and when Diouf gets over to him, Redmond shows no strength at all and gets easily seen off.

With Stoke, you know you’re never too far from a shocking tackle and in it comes from Joe Allen.  There’s a loose ball bobbling about and then Lemina nearly has a couple of loose balls as Allen wellies him in the nuts.  How the fuck is that not a booking?  From the free kick, Stoke half clear it and Romeu stabs a ball through and Long is in the clear as one defender hasn’t pushed out.  He turns and in typical Long fashion, smashes it straight at Butland who to be fair, has got off his line quickly.  It’s the sort of chance that ‘has’ to hit the net.

Tadic then clips Diouf as he goes to tackle him and the ref doesn’t give a foul and Allen responds by cynically taking out Tadic as he breaks which he gets booked for – that should be his second yellow.  Stoke win a corner as Fletcher’s shot is blocked by Bertrand and over it comes from our left and Diouf simply heads it into the net from dead central from about 8 yards.  It’s pathetic defending by Lemina who has just let him go.  For fucks sake.  1-0 down to this shit.

Fromt heir next attack we attempt to make it even worse as Bertrand loses the ball and Berahino gets inside the box and tries to work his way into the middle.  He feels Virgil tugging on his arm and throws himself forwards to ensure it gets given and it does.  It stinks all round – Berahino has managed to be pulled back, yet dive forwards and Virgil looked like he just couldn’t be arsed to tackle him so he pulled him back.  Absolute shite.

There’s a chance because Berahino is taking it and he hasn’t scored since he accidentally took a load of drugs allegedly.  Up he steps and Fraser guesses correctly and keeps it out comfortably.  Well played big man but half time and 1-0 down.

We look lively initially after the break with Cedric digging out a superb cross but Shane can only head over and then he heads wide after Tadic turned a defender inside out.  Stoke are settling for 1-0 and on 60 minutes we need a bit more from somewhere and Boufal is on for Davis with the captains armband passing to Maya Yoshida and not to you know who.  Gabbiadini is soon on for the disappointing Redmond and Boufal is looking lively.

Then, praise the fucking lord, we get a corner.  Boufal’s kick ends up back with him and he takes on Diouf and beats him on the outside before crossing.  Long waves a foot at it and deflects it across the box and Yoshida takes off to execute a scissor kick volley thing perfectly and crash it into the top of the net.  Fucking hell, we did a goal.

In to the last ten and there’s only one team that looks like winning it (if you forget for a second how hard we find it to actually score).  Cedric swings over a free kick after Tadic has been fouled by Pieters and Yoshida is there again but can only divert into the side netting.  Stoke have taken off Berahino and thrown on the giraffe.  There’s a deep sense of impending doom about this and within five minutes this has proved to be prophetic.

In the under 14s side that I coach, I’ve forever telling the full backs that if they have a situation when they are facing their own goal line and they have a player up their arse – then whacking it out for a throw in or even a corner is the way to go.  I do that because it’s fucking obvious as trying to set up an attack from that position is not really playing the percentages in that scenario.  So, if Pellegrino wants me to have a word with Cedric then I’m happy to.  Cedric has this scenario and in addition, it’s pissing with rain and the pitch is wet.  He tries to dummy the striker who is behind him and slips on his arse, allowing Choupo-Moting a free run on goal.  Shoots, saved, pinball, carnage, penalty appeals as Oriol piles in and eventually the ball, via a lucky mis-hit finds its way to Crouch who is three yards out in amongs the strewn bodies of defenders. 2-1 – fuck off.

There are 5 minutes plus stoppages to go but you know we’re fucked.  Austin is on for Lemina and Virgil is thrown up front as well.  We have a go to be fair - Boufal to Bertrand, a cross and it’s just too far in front of Gabbi.  Then a Virgil flick on from a punt forward and Butland punches it into Gabbi but instead of bouncing in or to a Saints player like the scramble in our penalty area fell for Crouch, the ball hits Gabbi and bounces off for a goal kick.  Austin knocks one down to Long but a predictable shit first touch means the chance is gone.  Corners and whipped in with poor delivery and comfortably cleared and yawn.  The End.  This is a ridiculous defeat again, culled from an episode of Groundhog Day that we seem to be reliving over and over again.  Good in the main at the back and in midfield but completely blunt in the final third. 

We’ll start with the return of Virgil - I have to say that as we neared the end of the transfer window, as was as long as it wasn't to Liverpool, I wanted van Dijk gone. So, I didn't really know how I was going to react to him being back in the first team. On the one hand, I know that he's a world-class player when 100 percent fit and focused but on the other hand, if the two incumbent centre backs are playing really really well, then I would've been quite happy for Virgil to get splinters on his arse from being sat on the bench for the whole season if necessary. This is why I have a problem with him playing and Wesley being dropped.  He'd had a great game against Palace and apart from being fouled for United winner he had not put a foot wrong. That game was against a United side who have routinely been scoring four against absolutely everyone. I guess that we can expect Yoshida to be dropped next week as it was probably decided in advance that the two Dutchman would be the first choice centre back pairing.  It would be harsh to drop Maya as he’s done nothing wrong but neither has Wesley Hoedt.

The penalty incident was very interesting because it looked to me like Virgil just couldn't be fucking bothered to defend the run properly so he just held him back.  In that instant it made me wonder whether he was rusty or whether he actually gives a fuck.  Does he care as much as Yoshida or any of the others?  That’s the problem now – does he really care?  By all accounts he had a pretty decent game aside from that incident.  I guess that the bottom line is that I as a fan have not forgotten or forgiven all the shit that went down over the past six months.  If I was the manager, at the moment I wouldn’t trust him to put in that last ditch tackle when it was needed.

Now we get to Senor Pellegrino and the rest of his selections.  There is that oft quoted definition of madness - trying the same things and expecting a different result. If you pick as your four most advanced players, players who score approximately one goal every 10 or 15 games then what makes you think that they're going to score with any regularity. We need to rely on our very strong central midfield players and play a more attacking player in front of them and not Steven Davis who, great footballer that he is, hardly has a goal or an assist in him.   On the wings, Nathan Redmond has been crap this season. The odd flash of ability and the odd shot after a direct run is not enough for seven games of effort.  He’s actually been a good source of attacks for the opposition as he has a tendency to cough up possession by falling over when back in the defensive third.

Tadic played pretty well today but he is in the team to score goals and provide assists and so far he's not achieved much of this seven matches.  You could argue that with his assist today, Boufal has contributed more in half an hour.  Boufal should be starting, probably in place of Redmond but Tadic has to do so much more to justify his continued selection.  Hoedt got dropped despite doing nothing wrong yet our forward players get picked despite not providing what they’re in the team to provide.

Now we come to Shane Long.  For all his effort and commitment and being horrible to play against, he has not scored now for 20 matches and this is not the first time he's had a 20 match streak without a goal.  A good striker gets twitchy after going about 3 games without a goal.  Twenty games…. That’s half a season.  That tells you all you need to know. He's not a goal scorer and whilst he is the one striker in our team, we are never going to score enough goals.  I would be quite happy for him to play wide right but with our present goalscoring crisis, he can’t be the main starting striker.

I'm not Charlie Austin's biggest fan but at least he knows where to goal is. Also, Gabbiadini got dropped because he kept on making runs and the midfield players behind him couldn't pick him out and didn't give him the ball so consequently he looks completely ineffective. This was solved by dropping him and putting a striker with much less ability in his place instead of sorting out the actual root of the problem which was the supply.

This right footed player on the left and left footed player on the right thing that we do does not work for us.  It just means that every attack is slowed down to the point where the opposition can get loads of players behind the ball. Also today, with Stoke playing a very deep defence and not leaving Shane with any space to run into, why did we not try something different? We only try something different when we get to the last 20-25 minutes and we’re behind.  This was a piss poor Stoke side we were playing against and we left it til 60 minutes to try something different.  Pellegrino was supposed to be tactically flexible and whilst I don’t agree with totally changing everything (like Puel tried to do with the diamond), we clearly can’t go on like this.  I almost lost interest in this game as soon as I saw our line up.  Same again and guess what … we did the same again.

We lost in the end because the normally reliable Cedric fucked up big style.  What the fuck was he doing? – just fucking clear it.  You are not going to set up an attack when you’re facing your own goal line with a player up your arse so just clear it.  Man of the match today was the big man Fraser Forster who was superb – saving a penalty, catching everything in shite conditions for a keeper and basically being ‘The Wall’.  Unfortunately, for the goals there was a dereliction of duty from the players in front of him.  To be fair this doesn’t happen often but it happened today and we ended up losing to a very limited Stoke side.  I don’t think Mark Hughes could actually believe that they’d managed to get away with that one.

Someone's Rebuilt The Wall 

So, we have a couple of weeks to stew on this before Newcastle at home and following that there are three more winnable games against West Brom, Brighton and Burnley.  These four games are going to shape our season.  Comfortable mid-table to looking over our shoulders?

As the players arrived in their camps for international week, there was the usual interviews done.  For the foreign players, it’s good because they tend to be a bit less guarded in what they say.  Virgil – bearing in mind he had not uttered one word about Saints since the summer – used his interview to talk about hopefully being able to go in January, having no regrets about the way he acted and wanting to take a step up.  Now I’m sure a little has been added or lost in translation but his answer clearly wasn’t “I’m a Southampton player and that’s all I have to say for now”.  Words fucking fail me, aside from ‘drop him now and sell him in January to anyone except Liverpool’.

Ryan Bertrand, a player who according to common knowledge, also wanted to leave Saints in the summer, spoke of helping the Grenfell Tower victims and has also recently spoken of how Saints gave him a platform to prove himself and how grateful he was.  The difference couldn’t be more stark.  I know with Ryan Bertrand that if he makes a mistake then it will be genuine.  I remain to be convinced by Virgil van Dijk.