Carling Cup 2nd Round - Swindon 1 Southampton 3

Paolo Spots His Mum in the Crowd

About a year ago, we played Swindon at SMS and I took all 3 of my kids along, one for each goal we let in.  It was abysmal and Vincent Pericard scored which makes it a bit of a low of epic proportions.  Since then, we’ve had Nigel Adkins in charge for a year and as you know, we are 2nd in the Championship whilst Swindon have just made the laughable appointment of Paolo Mussolini Nutjob di Canio as their manager and currently sit about third bottom in League 2.  When they appointed him, their main sponsor, a Trade Union, decided that their left wing tendencies didn't sit well with their club being managed by a confirmed right wing fascist.  Funny that.

The 3-0 reverse I mentioned was in the JPT and this is the slightly bigger and better Carling Cup, with a home tie against Charlton or Preston for the winner.  The build up for this match was enlightened by an interview with Matt Ritchie who seemed keen to remind everyone that he was a Pompey fan, playing for Swindon.  He obviously didn’t want to be ignored.  Let’s remind ourselves that he is an ex-Pompey player who was deemed not good enough for them when they only had 12 players.

Nigel’s team selection was interesting with a few changes but not as many as expected. Bart, Aaron Martin, Lee Holmes, Morgan Schneiderlin and Johnno Pace came in but surprisingly, Ryan Dickson and Danny Butterfield did not.  Chappers was ban free but injured and neither Lee Barnard or big Radhi were fit enough.  Most disappointing was the absence of Steve de Ridder who’d picked up a knock in training.   The 7 subs rule meant appearances on the bench for Sam Hoskins, Harlee Dean and Ben Reeves and Adam Lallana was the man wearing the armband, therefore doubling his weight.

The game kicked off with the Swindon manager saluting the Swindon Ultras (OK – I may have made that bit up).  Salute or no salute, Saints dominate from off and have their first chance on 5 minutes as a cross from Johnno Pace is met by the skipper who drilled wide due to being off balance thanks to the extra weight on one arm.  It didn’t take long for the Ultras to fall silent as Schneiderlin worked the ball out to Holmes on t he right who, remembering that he’s left footed, cut onto it and delivered a superb cross for the Gulyman to nod in from close range for 1-0.  Easy.

Morgan Schneiderlin showed his liking for boats by catching a Ferry (tumbleweed moment) and getting himself booked, possibly in 6 month old retaliation as Ferry was a right niggly little twat who got sent off in the league game at SMS.   All is forgotten though as the Gulyman threads one through for Johnno Pace to run onto and drill through the keeper who made a right bollocks of it, for 2-0.

In a typical measured response to going 2-0 down, Mussolini makes a tactical sub with a bewildered looking forward who hadn’t received a pass all night, coming off.  There were a couple more Saints chances before Mussolini’s tactical magic could pay off when Cork scuffed at a Richardson cross and saw his effort pushed wide and then Johnno Pace did his usual when presented with a heading opportunity and slid it wide off of his face.  Half time and a very good performance so far.

The second half seemed to almost be being played at walking pace as Saints settled for what they had and Swindon didn’t have the ability to make anything happen.  Occasionally some football broke out with Richardson firing in a long range left footed shot which the keeper held easily enough.  Radio Solent was playing loud and clear through the much maligned Saints Player and it was time for Merringtitus with “what we don’t want to do is let in a goal”.

With Dave being the Nostradamus that he is, we immediately let in a goal out of nowhere as Richardson challenged Kerrouche who went down like he’d been hit by a lorry, rather than by a large Northerner.  The cheating bstrd then rubbed salt in the wounds by curling an excellent free kick over the wall and past Bart before he could move.  They say cheats never prosper but they clearly do.  Didn’t di Canio once spurn a goalscoring chance so an opposition player could get treated?  I wonder what he made of that.

No matter as it was now 2-1 and suddenly from out of nowhere, Swindon had a chance of equalizing and forcing extra time which would have quite frankly been ridiculous given the flow of the game.

My Merringtitus returned with “what we don’t want.... is extra time” but we nearly had it when Clarke met a cross at the near post and slammed it wide when it looked easier to score.

Sensing that Swindon may be building up a head of steam, Nigel summoned some big players from the bench with Sir Rickie and Deano replacing Johnno Pace and Lee Holmes, the latter of which had enjoyed a really good game.  In no time it was all over as Sir Rickie found himself shrugging off the last defender and being one on one with the keeper, a quick sidestep and a roll into the empty net for 3-1, job done, time to go home.  Sam Hoskins came on for his full debut for 30 seconds and managed to get a touch before the end of the game.

Overall, this was a really comfortable win, setting up a game at home against League 1 opposition for a place in the last 16.  We really outplayed Swindon in all aspects and it was nice to read that Swindon fans as whole agreed with that.  I have a Swindon supporting mate called Ryan who was giving it the large one this time last year – haven’t heard from him since.

All the fallout from the game has centred on an incident involving Paolo the Nutter which happened straight after the final whistle.  To be fair to him, it looked like he was trying to play peacemaker and take the issue off the pitch and into the tunnel but the TV coverage focussed on him pulling his players shirt and basically making a mountain out of a molehill. The trouble is that the media are there just waiting for him to fuck up and even if it’s not his fault, that’s the way it will be spun.

It promises to be an interesting day today with the closing of the transfer window with Saints very much in the market for players.  Reading between the lines, we’re in for a centre back and a striker and we could get both or we could get none.  There have been many stories in the press of supposed deals that have fallen through for whatever reason and Neil Warnock has been his usual bell-end self and slagging us off because we didn’t sign his makeweight defender who he wanted to use to buy Jason Puncheon. So, we’ve been painted as being difficult to deal with.   The press have agendas, player agents have agendas and (surprisingly for such a shy and retiring fella) so does Neil Warnock and for a club that’s so difficult to deal with, we’ve certainly signed a lot of players over the past two and a bit seasons.

So... transfer window frenzy to come, second the league and in the third round of the cup – not bad is it? We have an international break so we can enjoy England being shite and then a return to SMS for Nottingham Forest at home.  Bring a brolly, the secretary you’re sleeping with and your best fake Dutch accent.

League 1 Match 30 - Southampton 4 Swindon 1

"Get out me way, I wanna smack the bastard"

Following the rather dull draw against Hartlepool, a general mood of gloom had appeared to descend over the Saints faithful. We are 5th in the league and if we win our games in hand then we are 2nd. We have taken more than 2 points a game in the last 10 matches so what’s the problem. Oh yeah… people are incredibly impatient and demand that we win every match. Have fans always been like this or has the mentality of the ‘hire and fire’ chairmen than infest the game, seeped down into the average supporter. Everyone who pays their money to watch a game has the right to expect whatever they want I guess but it makes me wonder if fans are ever happy with their team – however well they do. If we come 2nd and go up automatically at the end of the year, there will be people bitching because we should have come 1st. If we go up through the playoffs then people will bitch because we didn’t go up automatically. The net result in all of these scenarios will be the same – we will go up one division. If we fail to go up this season then the Samaritans hotline will be in meltdown.

To bring all the moaning bollocks into perspective, just before the game we learned that Dean Richards had died at the ridiculously young age of 36…. which is 6 years younger than me. He was a fantastic player for a couple of seasons for Saints, as the successor to Ken Monkou and the predecessor of Michael Svensson in partnering Our Claus, in the middle of defence. For once in my life I was in the know when he followed Hoddle to Spurs. My Mum and Dad were house hunting at the time and Dad was a bit taken aback when Dean Richards opened the door and showed him round. Dad’s first words were “so you’re off then?”. I was gutted when he left as he was so good which seems to be a sentiment echoed by the fans of all the clubs he played for – Bradford City, Wolves, us and Spurs. RIP Big Man.

To the teams and Nigel made a mistake and accidentally handed in last weeks teamsheet as were completely unchanged, first XI and bench. Swindon had David Prutton on the bench whose time at Saints was forever soured by him going all nutjob on a linesman after he’d been deservedly sent off. He looks like he’s been backpacking for a year or two and has not had a haircut or a decent meal. I bet he still claps the fans though.

The first real action of the game was a Swindon attack where Chamberlain showed how much of a team player he is by getting back into our own penalty area to make an important challenge just as the overweight scruffy bloke in their midfield was about to shoot. Chambo then displayed the more widely known part of his game by running at the left hand side of the Swindon defence, ignoring the calls from Sir Rickie and Chappers to square it, went alone and his shot pinged off of the base of the far post and bounced back into play and we all strangled our goal celebrations and sat back down.

We didn’t have long to wait for the first goal as five minutes later, Fonte brought the ball out of defence and played it to Sir Rickie’s feet. Showing the delicacy of touch of Dennis Bergkamp (I shit ye not) he knocked it past a defender who dived in like a tit and laid it off to the Gulyman. One pass later and Lallana was through on the keeper and he fired it under him for 1-0.

Swindon, looking nothing like the side who had beaten us on the previous 4 occasions, seemed to roll over and accept the inevitable as we tore them apart. Harding made a forceful run down the left but found it very easy to get to the line from where he hung up a cross which was headed down by Sir Rickie for the Gulyman to drive against the post.

A second goal before half time would have totally killed it but we took our foot off a bit for the last ten minutes and the only incident was Fonte having a bit of a dive in their penalty area. Half time and relatively happy.

The second half began positively again for Saints but the two chances we created fell to Guly who showed that his strikers instincts were not in the building but on a bus, speeding away from SMS. For all the decent things he does, there is a problem with the fact that he’s not clinical in front of goal. Following the two misses, Saints went to shit and allowed Swindon back into the game. Our strikers were not holding the ball up at all and Sir Rickie was having one of his ‘can’t jump, won’t jump’ games. Hammond was competing well in midfield but Chaplow was completely off the pace.

Swindon managed a quick break down our left and Ritchie ran into a space where one of Harding or Lallana should have been. He cut onto his left foot and hit it to the near post where once again, Kelvin just waved it by as it flew in. You can never say categorically that it’s the keepers fault on goals like this but it’s another one where there’s a question mark. It’s near post and he hasn’t even got a touch. Maybe it deflected but I don’t think it did. Poor goalkeeping, again…. And Bart is now injured. Ritchie is of course, one of the youth team that the Skates deemed to be not good enough so they could spend a load more money they didn’t have on Premiership player wages.

Nigel responded straight away, replacing Chaplow with Schneiderlin and soon after, replacing Guly with Barnard. Schneiderlin soon got in on the act playing a wonderful ball over the left back for Chamberlain to control and burst past him only to be cynically hauled back. The referee, who looked about 90, didn’t even book him but did show a yellow card to a random Swindon player for mouthing off. Justice was done from the resultant free kick as Harding’s delivery was powerfully headed in by Sir Rickie… and I had been calling for him to be taken off about 5 minutes earlier.

No sooner had we recovered from that, we had a corner on the left. Lallana rolled it to Chambo who skipped out away from the goal and from the corner of the box, delivered a cross right onto the head of Radhi Jaidi who couldn’t miss. His goalscoring celebration was as bad as it was funny.

Swindon’s answer to us going 3-1 up was to bring on David Prutton who got a decent round of applause, which he wouldn’t have got if he’d come on at 1-1. It was very nearly 4-1 a minute later as Butters took a quick free kick to put Hammond away down the right and his superb cross was met by Fonte who got too much of a contact on it and headed over when a flick header would have brought a goal.

The difference that our two subs made is quite remarkable with Barnard offering a much more mobile target up front and Morgan having the guile to pick out the pass. Morgan found himself breaking forward with Chamberlain and instead of shooting (which he probably should have done) he slid it though for Chambo to smash in the net, only for the flag to go up for a tight offside.

The game then became a case of Saints vs Lucas in the Swindon goal. Sir Rickie hit one of those piledrivers that only he can hit and Lucas managed to get himself in the way, a split second before it knocked him over. He saved his best save though for a superb volley by Oscar Gobern of all people as he co-ordinated all four of his giraffe legs and managed an excellent effort rather than falling over in an uncoordinated heap like he usually does.

So, as we moved into injury time, that looked to be that but Lallana picked out Barnard and as Swindon all stopped and appealed for offide, he dribbled round Lucas and squeezed a shot in from a near impossible angle, in exactly the same way as Guly wouldn’t have. Huzzah! Saints 4 Swindon 1 and Prutton clapped all four sides of the ground.

A very odd game this one with us being pretty good for the first third and the last third but that middle third…. Jesus, we were shocking. Swindon for their part, were shite. They just looked like they were going though the motions. Ferry in midfield was industrious but the forwards were non-existent and Douglas and Prutton looked like what they are – journeyman pros. They didn’t look like they really wanted to be there. To be fair, they’ve lost Charlie Austin and Pericard, who is a handful, was injured but even so, I’d be a more than a bit worried about their chances of staying up if I was one of their fans.

Nigel focussed on the positives in his post match interview and he has a decision to make now as the team was 100% better when Schneiderlin and Barnard came on. In a reversal of recent weeks, Brighton lost but bloody Bournemouth won away from home in the 91st minute. The real worrying one is Peterbrough winning 5-0 away at Oldham…. What sort of result is that Fergie Lite, you miserable wanker, we won 6-0 there.

Next up, a trip too the Black Country and Walsall on Tuesday night. My advice for anyone going is …. Ansells.

Dean Richards, Rest in Peace.

League 1 Match 5 - Swindon 1 Southampton 0

"Roberto, what's it like working at a club that changes manager every 6 months ?"

What a week. After the last two matches with had much in common, namely ‘Southampton 0’ being at the start of both results, we had a week of ‘New Manager Bingo’ which of course brought the usual lies, guesswork, rumour as fact, crap written about Cortese bollocks from the press and the usual over-reaction, jumping to conclusions, guesswork, slagging of Cortese of our supporters. In amongst it all was Southampton Football Club saying ‘nothing to see here’. In summary, Nigel Adkins of Scunthorpe is the man in the frame and he’ll get the job if the clubs agree the compensation figure. End of. Anything else is irrelevant.

The big disappointment for me was that it wasn’t sorted before today’s trip to Swindon, a team we always lose against. In my mind, this meant that we were much more likely to lose today and consequently, I had zero expectation from this game. Our team was the same as against Rochdale with the midfield lining up in a diamond formation with Hammond at the back, Chamberlain and The Invisible Man wide-ish and Puncheon bringing his end-product-free brand of playmaking to the hole behind the front two.

Spoiler alert – if you don’t want to know the result, look away now….. ok, ready…

We were shit and we lost again.

For those of you still with me, Saints won a few corners inside the first few minutes and from one of them, swung in Puncheon and missing the first defender for a change, Aaron Martin thumped a header against the bar. It was quite a boring game with not a lot of goalmouth incident until 20 minutes when Superkelv blocked an Austin effort. He didn’t block Pericard’s header on 25 which sailed into the net but thankfully he didn’t have to as the offside flag did it for him. The rest of the first half was quite frankly dull but at least we weren’t losing yet. Half time, 0-0.

The second half started with that rarest of things, a Saints shot as Harding summoned up a kind of 9-iron chip volley effort that bounced off the bar, though in truth, it was never giong in and no one was going to get on the end of it. Swindon took the lead and won the game on the hour mark as Charlie Austin again, swept home a lose ball again, whilst all our defenders watched as the ball bounced back into play off the bar. Mind you, Fonte was about to clear it when he was thumped in the back but 'League 1 Ref' decided not to give it. Oh for fucks sake.

Post goal, Saints produced next to nothing with the only real incidents being Kelvin Davis clattering into Austin and forcing him off injured and a Wottonesque “the ball has gone, one, two, three, four…. Lunge” tackle from Dean Hammond which on another day, would have brought a red card. There were some ‘more of the same’ substitutions from Wilkins with then man who Wilkins had chosen to play in the hole and spark the attack, being replaced with Guly do Prado (who must be wondering what the fuck he’s done coming here – I’m a Serie A player – Get Me Outta Here) and then Chamberlain being replaced with the great attacking game changer, Heather Mills. Again, this weeks attacking bench warmer, Ryan Doble, didn’t get on even though we had a sub left to make and needed a goal. It’s shite really, no other word for it.

What a surprise, we played Swindon and we lost. What a surprise, we had most of the possession and most of the shots and we lost. What a surprise, we had a caretaker manager and we lost. I’d love to know the stats of what our record is down the years when we’ve had a caretaker manager. I mean, it happens so fucking often for us that you’d think we’d have some sort of plan in place just in case. I can’t be arsed to look it up but Wilkins is Played 3, Lost 3, scored none, conceded 6. Dodd and Gorman were bloody terrible and Wise and Bassett weren’t all that either. Then we have Gray and Wigley who were both shocking as caretaker managers and used that as a springboard to get the job full time… when unsurprisingly, they were terrible. Well at least there’s no chance of the caretaker becoming permanent this time with Dean Wilkins.

Today was the most predictable of defeats and the most predictable of goalscorers. As you may have gathered from the stetchiness of the match report, I couldn’t really keep in touch with the game today but I wasn’t bothered as I pretty much knew we’d lose. The season starts as soon as we get a new manager and we could really do with that being before our next game. We’re currently 8 points behind the leaders of the division – another game with a caretaker manager in charge and we’ll be back to where this blog all started – League 1 Minus 10….. or maybe 11.

JPT Southern Section Round 1 - Southampton 0 Swindon 3

Pericard volleys in the first (excellent stuff from the Swindon Advertiser)

The day after the morning before and how would Saints react to having no manager. There had been a statement from the clubs PR department regarding us being fully focussed on retaining our trophy, that trophy being the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, won by Alan Pardew. A day of bewilderment and daydreaming on my part, had been punctuated by an email from a Pompey supporting mate of mine – it simply said “Paul Hart – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....” followed by another 2 pages of “ha”. I saw the rumour in the middle of all the deadline day panic buys and remembered that last time, we were linked with Tony Adams so there is obviously a Skate somewhere, on a wind up.

This JPT game was a big game for me as I was bringing my (just turned) 6 year old son to his first competitive game meaning it would be the first time he heard me use some new words. He’d only previously been to the Ajax friendly so I was in ‘friendly language’ mode. My two daughters were also present so it was a bit of family day. As i’d refused to pay the £10.50 to park near SMS, we got the bus from Woolston and that cost nearly £4 for the four of us. As we got to the ground, daughter 1 had her bag searched for “pictures of Alan Pardew” as the steward put it. A jovial start to the evening.

To the teams and Saints had changed a few from the 4-0 hammering of Bristol Rovers. Jaidi was back to give Martin a break in defence and Guly do Prado replaced Lallana in midfield. Up front, Barnard was left out to give Connolly a game. Swindon seemed to have a team of youngsters out there but had Charlie Austin and Vincent Pericard up front for them – the former having given us a hard time last year and the latter being an ex-Saint, ex-Skate and a handful when he can be bothered.

Kick off and ‘ALAN PARDEW’S RED AND WHITE ARMY’ is blasting out of the Northam. Guly do Prado had lined up on the left in a straight swap for Lallana which was my first disappointment of the evening as he’s totally right footed and he looked completely lost, not touching the ball for the first 10 minutes. The first player who stood out was Puncheon who twisted and turned into a shooting position before firing just past the near post. Also showing up well was Deano who was giving it some hammer in the centre of the park, flying into challenges like a man who was on the verge of taking someone out... and then there was the main in the blue who was shite and generally not giving any free kicks for anything as he simply didn’t understand what a foul is. Deano went up for a header, won it and then got nutted by the Swindon player competing. Not a bad foul but a foul to anyone watching. Play on. He eventually stops it when he realises that Hammond hasn’t got up and that he needs the trainer on ... and that he has blood dripping down his shirt from his head... and he has to change his shirt... and he has to put on of those daft turban things on that makes him look like a Teletubby.

The Northam End were doing their best to get my kids acquainted with football humour at its best. I was dreading having to explain how someone would stick Paul Hart up their arse. My son was still in World Cup mode and thought that Lambert was in fact, Lampard. I pointed out that Sir Rickie was our main goalscorer and that David Connolly was the one falling over a lot and gifting the ball back to the opposition. I was going to point out our marauding Frenchman but I couldn’t find him because he was wearing that cloak that makes him invisible. The he appeared a hit a fantastic 50 yard pass out to Puncheon on the right wing, a feat he tried to repeat twice more in succession, getting one right and one wrong. Hollywood balls are fine if they work but I’d rather he got involved in the game more often and actually use the ability he has in areas that might hurt the opposition. Ah yes, the opposition...

Harding played the ball up to Guly on the left and he tried to flick it inside the defender and lost the ball from where Swindon worked it out to Austin on the right who left Jaidi for dead and brilliantly hooked over a cross which was spectacularly volleyed home by Vincent bloody Pericard. Superb goal it has to be said and I actually clapped an opposition goal which doesn’t happen often.

Saints have gone a bit wobbly and are struggling to cope at the back. Fonte is having a tough time with the awkward Pericard and Jaidi is just having a mare, like he’s driving a car with four flat tyres. Surely Fonte should be on the quicker Austin and Jaidi on the big lump or that being too obvious. It’s not too bad a performance overall and a nice bit of skill on the left by Do Prado, results in Hardig scufffing a right footed shot straight at the keeper. Half time, 1-0 down.

The second half starts with a big blaze of nothing much and I’m getting the feeling pretty soon that we’re not going to score. Sure enough it’s Swindon who go 2-0 up as a cross is swung in from the left and Austin loses Fonte to score from close in. It’s a diabolical goal to concede as we all stood and watched.

The first change is made on the hour mark when Alex Chamberlain comes on for Puncheon. Now I thought that he had to get a note from his teacher to play an evening game on a school night but here he is and what a difference he makes, running with pace and commitment and challenging defenders to make tackles. This is in direct contrast to what Sir Rickie is doing. He looks like he’s running through treacle to be honest. He can’t run and he can’t get off the ground when he jumps whilst up the other end, Pericard is being a right pain in the arse and not giving Fonte or Jaidi a moments peace.

With just over 20 minutes to go, Dean Wilkins brings on Barnard and Dickson for Butterfield and do Prado. These were two good players to bring on but why not put Guly in his correct position and take the bloody Invisible Schneiderlin off. My kids are getting bored now and who can blame them. When it’s in your blood then you think nothing of sitting through a shit game when you have no chance of turning it round but for them, it was getting tough.

Lee Barnard was running about like a madman, showing a level of commitment that put most of the Saints players to shame when he launched into a bit of a lunging tackle which provoked a few Swindon players into getting involved. The ref, who had carried on being a wanker for the whole match, was only ever going to react one way when he saw the reaction of the Swindon players and Barnard was sent off. The fact that he seemed to show yellow and then a straight red just adds to the farce... apparently his cards were stuck together – idiot.

Because I’m a heartless bastard, I made my kids hang on to 85 minutes before we left. The sweets had all gone and so had everyone’s spirit. We headed towards the Itchen Bridge along with lots of disgruntled fans who were swearing lots. Usually I don’t notice it and I’m probably one of the worst offenders. We heard a cheer from SMS and I wondered for a second but someone on a mobile said ‘it’s three fucking nil now’. I now know that it was Pericard again.

So – so much for the JPT – out in the first round when defending ‘our’ trophy. I wonder when we have to give it back as I don’t remember seeing a squad photo this season which of course, would have had the trophy in it. It’d be a bit embarrassing to have one taken now bearing in mind we’ve already been knocked out and the manager who was in charge when we won it is currently doing a spot of gardening leave. On the radio I heard the interview with Caretaker manager Dean Wilkins who sounds like a decent bloke but he’s wrong when he said we played well-ish and he’s wrong when he said the upheaval didn’t affect the players. It did and we were shit though I have to say, Swindon were deserving winners and that’s now three times in a row that they’ve beaten us so fair play. Austin and Pericard were too much for our defence and Pericard is exactly the sort of player we should have signed as a backup for Sir Rickie. Mind you – on today’s performance, who would have been the back up.

A really bad day at the office with the knock on that Lee Barnard will be suspended for three games and he’s been our best player this season. We’re also hearing that Adam Lallana is unlikely to be fit for a while and seems to be heading for a knee operation. Oh yeah... and we haven’t got a manager but what we do have is the piss take form fans oof other clubs as numerous failures tout themselves for the job. Phil Brown – good at karaoke and public humiliations, not so good at managing football clubs. Mind you – he’d be better than Paul Hart, stuck up your arse or otherwise.

League 1 Match 35 - Southampton 0 Swindon 1

Swindon at home on a Tuesday night and a rarity for yours truly in that I was present for a midweek game. I’m not going to expand on that too much other than to say it had something to do with the Saint who drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Anyhow, Swindon, currently in 6th place in the table, having beaten us 1-0 in the 3rd game of the season – needed to be put in their place for Saints to have any chance of maintaining their slim chance of making the playoffs.

The team was somewhat predictable with Wayne Thomas coming in for the injured Otsemobor at right back. Pards resisted the urge to tinker anywhere else with Jaidi making his 2nd game in four days – it’s remarkable what competition for places will do for a players belief that he can’t play three times in a week.

Saints started by zipping the ball about and you got the impression that we were going to try and bulldoze Swindon in the same way we did to Huddersfield. One important difference was obvious straight away which was that Swindon had a midfield who could cope. Puncheon in particular was struggling from the start as he never got the ball with less than two men confronting him as Swindon were working so hard.

With Swindon winning the midfield battle, it was down to good old long ball to make inroads and we nearly did after Barnard was bundled over when trying to control a cultured punt upfield from the subtle left boot of Radhi Jaidi. Sir Rickie sized up the free kick from just left of centre and curled it over the wall and into the net in customary fashion. Up jumped the Chapel and the Kingsland before realising the ball had landed on top of the net, having cleared the bar by inches. As a fan, you always feel a bit of a plum when you do that.

Swindon’s ex-Poole Town striker Charlie Austin then took centre stage – first off with a flying elbow in Jaidi’s face which really should have brought more action than just giving a free-kick from the referee and then finding himself completely free on the edge of the box and dragging his shot wide.

It was predominantly Saints though and we again were standing up and shouting before sitting down again when Barnard laid back to Hammond who fired from 20 yards, against the post for Barnard to tap in the rebound. Up went the bloody flag - I think that this is the third time this has happened to Barnard since he’s been with us.

We threatened again just before half time when a Thomas header was parried out and Schneiderlin’s effort was cleared off the line. It was shaping up to be one of those days. We’d not played particularly well but had had by far the better of the chances. For their part, Swindon had dug in and played some decent stuff when they got the ball.

At half time I laughed out loud. This time it wasn’t the guy who makes animal noises through a rolled up programme but his mate – the one who spends the whole game whining ‘why did he do that ?’ and other such stupind questions. The half time classic was ‘I think we’re gonna bring on that Puppy Waigo’. He then repeated the same thing he’d said at least 15 times in the first half which was ‘Why is that winger (Puncheon) having a bad game ?’ Moaning bastard. Shut up you fool.

The second half started with Swindon having the best spell of the game, moving the Saints defence around and looking threatening with none of the Saints midfeild really helping out the defence much. On 55 minutes came the breakthrough as Austin found himself one on one with Davis who came out 2nd best as Austin skipped round him to score. It’s tough to have a pop at the keeper when a 1v1 ends up in the net but to me, Kelvin didn’t do enough. He came out too far, ended up outside the penalty area and then kind of sat down. Regardless, all too easy and 1-0 to Swindon.

Ten minutes later after more huff and puff from the Saints there was an incident in the Kingsland when a certain somebody asked ‘Where is Lambert playing?’ and a certin somebody else snapped a bit with ‘centre fucking forward where he always fucking plays, stop fucking moaning for a minute’. It wasn’t the most literate of responses I grant you though there were lots of people sniggering.

Swindon’s attacking spell was over and again it was all Saints but there seemed to be no conviction or belief that we were ever going to score. The closest thing came when Sir Rickie picked up the ball in the inside left channel and curled a lovely shot onto the bar and out again. By this time Waigo and come on for Barnard to absolutely no effect so Pards tried to make up for that by replacing Hammond and Thomas with Connolly and James.

We went with three up front and the idea was clearly for Lloyd James to get some decent crosses in from the right which Thomas is never going to do. The next ten minutes followed a similar pattern whereby the ball would be worked out to James on the right and he’d hit the first defender, scuff it along the ground or mis-control the ball. At a guess, 8 crossing opportunities resulted in 0 decent crosses into the box. At 1-0 down and having to win it really would have been better putting Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on, in the mystifying absence of Michail Antonio from the bench.

James contributed something at last by being on the receiving end of a bad lunge which resulted in a 2nd yellow card for Ferry and there was just enough time left for a Waigo shot to be saved and for Puncheon to put the rebound over the bar. Five minutes of injury time and nothing happened. Saints 0 Swindon 1 – leage season over, for us anyhow.

You could argue that Swindon deserved the win because they defended in a very committed way but the bottom line is that we had loads of chances even though we didn’t play well and should have won. There seemed to be an anxiety about us in the final third. For Saints there were too many poor individual performance with Puncheon being generally well shackled and Lallana being non-existant. Lambert is quite clearly knackered and only came to life in the last 10 minutes and Barnard was all effort for no reward. Schneiderlin showed up well but Hammond had an off day. The bright spark of the day was provided by Connolly who is a class player – if only he could stay fit.

Not a good day at the office but at least the stupid whining bastard who sits behind me was quiet from the 65th minute onwards. As I was walking out someone tapped me on the shoulder and an old boy said 'Well done son, I've been waiting all season for someone to say something to him'

League 1 Game 3 - Swindon 1 Southampton 0

First the good news - another player has joined. Dean Hammond was signed today from Colchester and once again, a need is being addressed as he's a central midfielder. The bad news is that he could not be in the side tonight against Swindon who started the season with a 5-0 defeat and a 0-0 draw. So, they hadn't scored so far. I'm sure that every fan of every team feels that their side is the one which all opposition teams or players break their bad streak against... well I promise you, no one does it quite like Southampton.

Alan Pardew tinkered with the side with Lloyd James reverting to right back to replace Murty who had a pie strain. Shockingly, Ollie Lancashire has been picked instead of Chris Perry, which in my book is a major black mark against the manager because, as I've mentioned before, he is useless, the proverbial chocolate teapot. Jacob Mellis came into the midfield alongside the holy trinity of Schneiderlin, Wotton and Lallana who all have major defects in their game that stops them from being decent midfielders. Todays name out of the hat to partner Lambo was Matt Paterson, the quickest but least experienced of the options available.

Again I'm in the Dublin B&B but I have found text commentary from the BBC website which is not great but better than nothing. The best thing about this is that it auto refreshes, meaning you avoid the condition known as 'F5 thumb'. John Paul McGovern shots wide for Swindon, says the BBC. Corner to Swindon, says the BBC. Headed goal by Sean Morrison, says the BBC. Swindon 1 Southampton 0. Remember what I said about Swindon not scoring... well it took them a whole eight minutes.

Another 5 minutes of auto refreshing and it's all Swindon so I turn my attention to the Celtic v Arsenal match on the TV. Celtic are like the Saints in that they haven't got a clue of how to be effective. I'm not sure Arsenal have a goalkeeper playing as I haven't seen him yet. Text alert, half time, 1-0 down.

At half time I get a Skype message from Pompey Dave reminding me that we are still on -9. I call him to pass on my best for Portsmouth's relegation struggle and he takes great delight in reading out the BBC text comentary on the game and generally taking the piss. 'Lloyd James? Is he one of yours, big black bloke with a name like that ? etc etc'. Not good, I'm still on the call midway through the 2nd half and we've still not even got close to scoring. It's reads like it's really really poor again and 1-0 is flattering us.

The minutes tick by and he belief that you have that you will score a goal is conspicuous by its absence. Booking for Paul Wotton for unsportsmanlike behaviour, says the BBC. I bet I know what happened there. I bet a Swindon player passed the ball, got substituted, went to the dressing room, had a bath, got dried, put his suit on and came back out to sit on the bench... and then got hit by a Wotton special.

More bookings and more nothing and beep beep, text alert, another defeat. So now, even if we didn't have the 10 point deduction, we'd still be in the relegation zone. My optimism for the season has not evaporated as yet but if Huddersfield was a reality check then this was a slap in the face. Huddersfield will be near the top this year whereas Swindon will be bottom 6 and it sounds like we hardly had a shot. Not good.

Brentford at home on Saturday and my guess is that new boy Hammond will come in for Wotton in midfield and hopefully Murty will be back. I'd like to see Saganowski up front with Lambert but if our midfield is shocking again then it wouldn't matter if we had Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo up there.... and guess what, I can't bloody go... as I have to go to a farm with 20 5 year olds. Happy birthday my son.

PS - There will be no league table published on this site until we have more than zero points. We're last by miles and that's all you need to know.