Premier League Match 31 - Tottenham 3 Southampton 1

 

Rambo and Janny about to lead the Lap of Defecation

A Team Photo For the Ages

With Wolves winning against Ipswich yesterday, Saints go into this game away at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium knowing that defeat will mean mathematical relegation. Apparently, a week 31 relegation will be the earliest anyone has ever been relegated from the Premier League. We are fucking massive.  I was watching local TV last night and the presenter mentioned that all the pressure was on Saints in this game.  As if it makes any difference – I’ve known we were going down from about October.

Spurs are currently only one place above Wolves in the table, such as been their struggle this season under Ange Postecoglou.  This week, after another defeat, he described himself as a lone voice supporting Tottenham and that he could do with some promonent Spurs support from the media.  As if that’ll make any difference to losing loads of games.  He’s also on his own when it comes to trying to make Tottenham any better because he gets fuck all help from Daniel Levy.  Levy will no doubt relief another manager of his duties at the end of the season and in fact, lose to us and it might well happen even earlier.  Postecoglou’s inevitable departure, whenever it is, will be yet another manager who’s been successful elsewhere who has gone to Spurs and died on his arse. I’m sure even the most hard-of-thinking Spurs fan will know by now that it doesn’t matter who the fuck is managing the club whilst Levy is there.  I guess they’re all waiting for the day here either retires or dies.   In Levy’s time, they managed to have a 30 goal season striker for about ten years in Harry Kane and didn’t manage to even get close to winning the Premier League title. The closest they got was actually the year that Leicester won it in 2016, when Spurs ended up finishing third and the two horse race.

Postecoglou appears to be one of these modern breed of managers who only has one way of playing and if Plan A doesn’t work, then we move on to Plan A with slightly different players. They will press high and have a high defensive line and whilst this doesn’t really work any more against decent sides, it will probably be too much for us.  We certainly couldn’t deal with it when they came to St Mary’s earlier on in the season and what turned out to be Russell Martin’s last game in charge as Spurs stuck five past us by half time when our method of coping with the Spurs press was to not do any running.  Ange was under pressure going into that game as well but a 5-0 away win does tend to keep the wolves from the door for a short while at least.

Some Spurs players have been coming under fire this season, especially the likes of Son Heung Min, who has been one of the best players in the Premier League for about ten years. I keep hearing about him being finished but anyone who bothers to look up his goal scoring record against Southampton will be expecting him to get on the score sheet today.  He’ll probably have a big fucking dive at some point as well.  Brennan Johnson has been in the rumour mill as well for allegedly deciding that someone who has just had a hundred blokes run through her, was girlfriend material.  The injury crisis that Spurs have been shitting on about all season, has now abated so we should see a more or less first-choice team. 

Our defiance of relegation for another week hinges on who is going to be available for this game and Ivan Juric’s pre-match press conference reported that whilst Ryan Manning and big Les have recovered from their knocks against Palace, Tall Paul is a doubt. So, it looks like we’re going to have to make at least two changes with Flynn Downs and Tall Paul probably being replaced with Joe Aribo and Cameron Archer which if it comes to pass, will take us from a competent team down to a shit one…. and that’s before we start bringing on substitutes.

As it turns out, the predictions were correct and it was Archer and Aribo, though strangely, Tall Paul was on the bench.  Ivan has changed the formation as well with Dibling coming in for Jack Stephens, so it looks like a variation of 4-5-1.

Away we go and the plan that we’ve clearly been sent out there with is ‘Do fuck all’, which we carry out to the letter as Spurs knock it around with no danger of a challenge ever coming in.  Ten minutes of that and Ramsdale pulling off a superb point blank save from a bullet Romero free header from six yards and we have our first attack with KWP and Dibling combining well up the right and the latter picking out Sulemana at the back post and his volley flicks off of Porro’s foot, hits the post and comes out.  Having all got nosebleeds from actually putting together an attack, we then don’t bother with getting back and Spurs play it simply down the left and Spence overlaps and then gets his head up and cuts it back and Lily Phillips 101^st dick of the day slams it into the roof of the net.

There’s no reaction unless you count sticking to the original ‘do fuck all’ game plan.  Spurs pass a free kick wide to Porro who slings in a cross and once more, Romero meets it and this time Ramsdale saves it with his face.  Joe Aribo in particular is carrying out the ‘Do Fuck all’ plan  with great care and diligence, jogging about in midfield.  His other job apart from jogging about is to mark Romero at set pieces and that’s going predictably well as the Argentine wins another header from a corner and heads across to where Bergvall swings a leg and mis-kicks it past Ramsdale for 2-0 but we’re off to VAR.

Hi there Michael, Stockley Park here – we have a potential offside situation

OK, talk me through it

Well it’s like this… we know that semi-automated offside tech is coming and we don’t want it

Why not?

Cos it’s gonna make our job less important

Is it?

Yes, and it’s going to make it more difficult for PGMOL to you know… control things.

OK, I get it that you're hurting, but hurry up we need a decision

Not so fast Michael… Ange slagged us off last week so we’re going to make the twat wait.

[4 minutes go by]

Hi Michael, we want to give it because it’s Spurs at home to Southampton but it’s offside.

Well why don’t you say it’s not offside… no one cares any more, after this long.

Because it won’t matter a shit cos Saints are shite and they'll chuck in another goal in a few minutes.

Why the fuck did that take over five minutes.  I also get the impression that they just guessed at it in the end.  Ultimately it won’t matter a shit and sure enough, a powder puff challenge from Bednarek and Spurs get away down our left and in comes the cross which is headed out by Fernandes.  THB gets bodied out of the way by Solanke and the ball bounces up for Maddison to head on and Johnson pokes it in, whilst Manning, Bednarek and Big Les all look at the sky with seemingly no idea that there was any danger.  Johnson does like an easy poke into a wide-open goal.

Half time and no changes because what’s the point really.  Positional change though as Aribo and Fernandes look to have swapped, presumably to get Aribo out of midfield and into an area where his jogging about will be less damaging.

Weirdly, Saints are the better team in the opening ten minutes, which shows how average this Spurs team are when faced with anyone putting in any effort.  All of a sudden, there is a bit of intent and some hard work. Zero composure around box however as we work a nice crossing position for Manning, which he shells into the Spurs fans behind the goal in fucking useless fashion. More of the same as Sulemana brilliantly skips past Porro and then wafts the cross straight to the goalkeeper.

Smallbone and Welington coming on for Manning and Aribo as we do a like for like at left back and the midfield engine room gets bolstered by another player who has no engine.  The shambles amongst the lesser players then infects Ramsdale as he pulls off a good low save from Solanke and then tries to reclaim the ball on the left of the penalty area and slides out of the box with it, comically trying to palm the ball back into the box.  No yellow card because the referee is an idiot.  Maddison then decides against tackling Fernandes and instead, pulls out a kind of forearm smash and that’s not a booking either.  The free kick is curled in from Fernandes, but there is no desire to attack the ball from anyone.

70 minutes gone and Ivan feels the need to furnish us with one of his amazing substitutions, so off comes Dibling, who has had a much better game than of late, and on comes Sugawara, who I’m beginning to think must have some sort of clause in his contract.  Archer is also put out of his misery and replaced with Tall Paul, who looks even more immobile than usual.

In truth, we have been the better side all of the second half and Spurs have been useless.  If we weren’t shit, it would feel like if we got one, we could well get a second but with so little commitment and intent in attacking areas, we are never gonna score.  This might help though… bloody hell it’s Ross Stewart on for Big Les, which means we have one more striker on now, and no midfield.

89 gone and Sulemana crosses to the back post and Fernandes has got in there and he controls on his chest and fires under Vicario to mean that we only need two more goals in about three minutes and seven consecutive wins and other games to all go our way, to stay up.  With 6 foot 3 Ross and 6 foot 7 Paul in there though, I’m sure we’ll be launching balls up there.

Nah, instead of that we do fuck all except allow a Spurs attack when sole midfielder Fernandes loses the ball and though he’s going nowhere, Welington dives in on Johnson, who goes over and Welington fires an “I’m completely fucking guilty and that’s a penalty” look at the referee.  19-year-old on-loan sub Tel, doesn’t let Johnson go for his hat-trick and though Rambo gets a touch, he can’t keep it out.

Ivan looking Forward to His Next Meeting with Johannes

And so the predictable relegation is confirmed and I’m not even bothered because I’ve known since October/November. I can still be bothered about this game though because that first half was as pathetic as it gets with no one willing to put a challenge in and a game plan that simply seem to involve standing off as the only feature of it. The defending on both of the goals was horrific, particularly the second one where three out of our four defenders - the ones paid to defend our goal - all acted like there was no danger present when Johnson scored.

Tottenham have one good header of the ball and that’s Romero and we let him have three free headers in the first half, two of which were brilliantly kept out by Ramsdale and the third one led to Bergvall’s disallowed goal which was offside more by luck the judgement on our part. In the second half it was a different game because we showed how ordinary this Spurs team is by keeping the ball and playing with a little bit of intensity through midfield. The intensity only went as far as the midfield though because we pushed Joe Aribo further forward to support Archer, so we actually had some midfielders who are willing to run.  There was no intensity up front of course with those two, however.  There was the occasional input from Sulemana and Dibling from the wings.  We should’ve sensed a chance to get back into it on about the hour mark and really gone for it but of course we didn’t and didn’t get the goal back until the 89th minute. Even if we’d given ourselves ten minutes to get an equaliser it could have been different as the crowd had turned and Spurs looked there for the taking but of course we give away another one with a brain-dead bit of defending by Welington who jumped in on Johnson, probably didn’t touch him but made it look incredibly like he was guilty of something. Not sure where VAR was but the referee Michael Salisbury was always going to give it.

I know it ultimately doesn’t matter but what the fuck was the referee on today. Unbelievable inconsistency all the way through and shit for both teams. That little Bergvall shit in midfield for Spurs, sliced KWP in half in the first half to cynically stop an attack and didn’t get booked, leaving him to commit about three more fouls and deliberate handball.  Lesley Ugochukwu got booked for a minor shirt pull however, which is the same cynical stopping of an attack but without any violence.  Ramsdale not getting booked for handball outside his box does not make up for it.  Absurd refereeing.

Because I don’t have a direct hot line into the brain of Ivan Juric, I have no idea why he changed from the relatively solid defensive system that we employed against Palace and went with a back four today. Maybe it was to match up what Spurs do but he has not really shown any indication that he was going to do that until today. Flynn Downes became a better player through not playing today because you could see the stark difference with the lack of energy and lack of intensity in midfield in that first half in particular. Joe Aribo had a maximum speed of about 3 miles an hour and his average speed was the same. Lazy bastard.  Big Les didn't look fit and was hampered by the one yellow card that Michael Salisbury decided to give out.  Mind you, there's no defensive system int he world that can function with THB, Bednarek and Manning putting in the performances they put in today.  The odd good moment for each but as we all know, defending is about consistency.

Matty Can't Wait to Get The Fucking Horrible Shirt Off

On the positive side, Matty Fernandes again showed a massive amount of energy and commitment and it’s a testament to him that in this shit show of a season, and his first season in English football, he has not allowed his head to drop or standards to slip. I only hope we can hold onto him for next season but ironically performances like today’s won’t help. Tyler Dibling was a surprise selection to start but he had his best game for the past couple of months and was always looking to get involved.  As I said, there was the odd flash from Sulemana on the left, but he is the proverbial jigsaw in that he falls apart in the box.

So, relegation confirmed after 31 games for the first time for anyone, ever.  No one will remember that though but they will remember the lowest points tally ever, which we are of course one point shy of.  We’re not getting it in our next game either which is Villa at home.  Today was a pathetic performance which kind of summed up the season and the remaining seven games, particularly the four at St.Marys are going to be played in a surreal atmosphere now that relegation is confirmed.  Ivan Juric paid tribute to the fans today who stayed and clapped the team for their ‘effort’ today.  He’s right, the travelling fans are magnificent and those players, with a couple of exceptions, don’t deserve them.

Up the Fucking Saints Fans.

Premier League Match 16 - Southampton 0 Tottenham Hotspur 5

 

It Was a Good Opening 15 Seconds

Today sees a clash between two teams with managers under varying degrees of added pressure. The funny thing is that the team who are 11th in the table, Spurs, are probably much more likely to sack their manager if they lose this game than the team that is flat last. I guess that it’s a question of expectations.

Ange Postecoglou is in his second season as Tottenham manager and the expectations for him would’ve been to qualify for the Champions League for next season, meaning they have to finish in the top four at present they are seven places below that in eleventh place. Saints expectation this season is to finish 17th and we are currently 20th so you could argue that they need the points more than we do to try and make up the gap. However, look a little bit closer and you will see a team on five points who desperately need to win this game.

The fact is that we have a chance today because Spurs are, well Spurs and also because they are dealing with having several injuries to keep players. The regular centre back pairing of Romero and van de Ven are both missing as well as their regular first choice goalkeeper Vicario. The goalkeeper missing is of particular interest because currently in goal for them is Fraser Forster, who was a brilliant goalkeeper for us, then not so good, then injured, then he became decent again before we decided that we preferred Alex McCarthy, and Fraser joined Spurs at the start of the 21/22 season, a season in which we of course kept Gavin Bazunu in goal until almost the point where we were mathematically relegated. I’m not saying that we would’ve stayed up if we had kept Fraser, but we certainly would’ve been a lot closer if we kept the experienced players like Fraser and Oriol Romeu. Regardless of history, I hope Fraser gets a decent welcome today.

I can’t help but feel that Spurs injury crisis has been overplayed as they still look very strong on paper. Son Heung Min always scores against us or alternatively, he dives to win a penalty.  Dominic Solanke has been signed from Bournemouth and has done relatively well this season without maybe scoring as many goals as he would’ve liked. The creativity is provided by James Maddison (who always scores against us) and/or Dejan Kulusevski, who are both excellent players.  We do have to concentrate on the weaknesses. A few days ago against Rangers in the Europa league, they had Archie Gray playing at Centre back alongside Dragusin.  Excellent young player though Gray is, he is not a central defender so physicality will definitely be the key against him so whoever is playing upfront for us really needs to put themselves about.

A lot has been said about Spurs style, in exactly the same way that a lot has been said about our own style. One similarity that I see is a lack of willingness from both managers to change much in game. There’s a plan at the start of the game and that is it and it never changes with the game situation regardless of whether you are up in the game or down in it. Last week Spurs attacked really well at the start of the game against Chelsea and went 2-0 up but by half time they were losing 3-2 because they didn’t adapt at all.  Saints have done this on several occasions ourselves this season, the most obvious being away at Spurs nearest and dearest neighbours Arsenal where we went up and instead of spending ten minutes taking no chances, we gave the ball away three minutes later in our own half and two passes later it was in our goal.  We also refuse to change when we go behind – just knocking the ball about with no urgency and often having no shots on target.

Postecoglou seems like a genuinely decent guy but he will inevitably become the latest victim of Daniel Levy at some point in the not too distant future.  Levy seems to think that it’s solely the managers responsibility to make some sort of masterpiece out of less ingredients than all the other teams at the top. It will not be at all surprising if getting beaten by Southampton is as usual, seen as the ultimate barometer of failure and he gets sacked if they get beaten today.  Remember Glenn Hoddle.  However, it’s much more likely that they win this one and Ange will be fine.

Saints availability list is looking a little bit stronger this week with the expected returns of Bednarek and Tall Paul. The goalkeeper selection will be interesting this week because apparently Alex McCarthy is fully fit.  Be it Lumley or McCarthy, it will hopefully only be a one-week assignment with Ramsdale being close to fitness again.

Russell Martin had to defend himself this week in a press conference, in particular about his lead footed comments made after the Aston Villa game. He gets quite prickly when he has to face awkward questions though he usually answers them pretty well and is good at coming up with mitigating circumstances, or as some people would call it – blaming someone else.  He again sailed a little bit close to the wind,  implying that people outside of the dressing room don’t really understand and whilst that may be a fair point, people outside the dressing room have the facts on their side which are, five points from fifteen matches and ten goals conceited from mistakes in our own half.  No one has to do much, to present a counter argument to anything Russell Martin is saying. All you need to do is cut a league table out of a newspaper and put it on the desk in front of him.

We haven’t had a game since last Friday so there’s been the best part of nine days to work on this and as the team sheet drops, what do we have? Well, it looks like a back four but fuck me, Kamaldeen Sulemana is playing and it looks like he’s up front with Adam Armstrong. Christ that is shit.  Bednarek is back and Wood is left out meaning that our best from last week has been dropped, which is exactly what happened in the previous game as well.  Spurs have Archie Gray in central defence as predicted and it’s debut for 18-year-old Lukas Bergvall in midfield, so we absolutely have to get at these inexperienced players in those key positions.  Russell says we are all about aggressive intent this week.  Let’s see.

Away we go and fucking hell this looks immediately bad. Spence picks up the ball on the right-hand side and turns away from Downes and just runs directly at the goal into the fucking great big gap in front of our defence. He reaches THB and then slots the ball through and Maddison times his run perfectly and drills it past McCarthy. 34 seconds, 1-0 down, wankers.

Our tactic for the next few minutes is to try and pump the ball over the top of Spence, for Sulemana to run onto and he does pick up the ball a couple of times but it’s all fart and no shit and no ball makes it into the penalty area.  Spurs on the other end are quite happy to put the ball in the box and on 10 minutes, Maddison puts one in there, Bednarek manages to flick it over the top of the covering THB and there is Son at the back post, with no right back in sight, to smash it under McCarthy to make it 2-0. For fucks sake.  We are so slow and nowhere near the pace of the game and it’s absolutely fucking embarrassing. There is a chant of “we want Martin out“ from the Northam End, which is officially the first mass dissent that I’ve heard during a game this season.

Three minutes later and the chant is ringing out again as Son gets down the left, completely unimpeded by KWP, who is busy doing fuck all higher up the pitch. Solanke piles in with Bednarek as the cross comes in and the ball bounces kindly to the alert Kulusevski, who taps it into the net for 3-0 on 14 minutes. What the fuck are we doing?

Nathan Wood is warming up and it’s blatantly obvious that Sulemana is going to be the one who comes off and it’s hard not to feel a little at least a little bit sorry for him as he remonstrates with Matt Gill as he leaves the pitch.  Russell’s nine days of planning to include the winger, being binned after not even a quarter of an hour.

Briefly we show signs of life with Tyler Dibling getting on the ball and beating a couple of players on his own and then puts a perfect cross in with the outside of his left foot and Armstrong meets it and and just heads it straight at where the goalkeeper is standing. It was probably more difficult to do that than it was to actually head it down to try and make him make a save.

We are showing a bit more confidence now, shame we’re already three goals behind and we work the ball to KWP on the right who loses it to Spence. Spence plays it up the line to Son and his pass in the middle finds Sarr, who stumbles his way past a couple of flailing defenders, before poking it past McCarthy for 4-0. 25 minutes gone and full Leicester 9-0 vibes.

It’s nearly five as Maddison (who of course played and scored in that game) puts Son through the middle but this time McCarthy reacts well to tip it over the bar.  We create another chance at the other end as our only two decent outfield players, Dibling and Manning combine and Manning’s low cross into the box is met by Armstrong but of course he puts it wide.

Russell Martin disappears into the bowels of the stadium as we get to the 48th minute to no doubt plan some masterclass for the second half and he probably hears the crowd reaction as Son plays a brilliant ball with the outside of his foot behind the defence with Maddison picking it up on the goal line before allowing Woody to slide past and making himself the slightest of angles before pinging it into the top corner for 5-0. Is the sort of goal that I might have actually applauded if it was down my end of the pitch. 5-0 and fuck off. Gutless fucking wankers.

Honestly Sonny, We Score Against These Every Fucking Time

Saints make no changes at half time but Ange decides to rest Son and brings on Brennan Johnson instead, which is a sure sign that Spurs are going to coast the second half.  The game is done and the second half has a lack of intensity. With Spurs having come down to our intensity level through choice, we create a few half chances with KWP hitting one into the side netting and Dibling smashing one just wide. We even get the ball in the net as Downes crosses and Fernandes scores with a header but was well offside.  Brennan Johnson should make it six for Spurs, but he somehow manages to scoop it up over the bar. I’m not having any of that restored pride shit from the second half because we still basically did fuck all even though Tottenham were playing walking football by this point. Joke.

That word – intensity. Spurs absolutely tore into the game and we sleepwalked into it. They won every tackle, they were quicker, they were more direct, they had more intensity with and without the ball and they have the quality to take advantage of the fact that we were second-best in every single non-negotiable category.  It’s a simple fact that if you have players with less ability than the team that you are up against, you have to outwork them but we just died without trying.  It was, from our point of view, absolutely pathetic and we looked like a collection of players who were not playing for the manager and that I’m afraid that’s virtually always the end of the road.

Russell and Matt Gill Come Up With a Cunning Plan Involving Sulemana

Russell’s tactical cunning plan that Baldrick would have been proud of, lasted all of fourteen minutes as we were three down and so off went Sulemana.  Russ had spent nine days thinking he was going to be the difference maker and that's a problem in itself.  Nine days of planning, out the window after 14 minutes most of the talk afterwards is going to be about the manager of course but fuck me, some of our players. McCarthy actually did okay in goal. He maybe could’ve stopped, the second goal from Son that was drilled underneath him, but otherwise he didn’t have much chance with anything. Ryan Manning was by far our best player and probably the only one who looked like he gave a shit for the entire time that he was on the pitch of and of course he got substituted in the second half.   If Ryan Manning is your best player then you are in trouble.  Tyler Dibling was again left to carry the attack completely on his own, usually with absolutely no support from anybody.

KWP was an absolute fucking disaster. I don’t think he put a tackle in all game because it’s hard to put a tackle in when you are twenty yards from the player you are supposed to be marking.  The space he was allowing Son to have was ridiculous. It was like he was playing as a wingback, when he was in a back four.  You have to defend when you are a full back in a four and he just didn’t. If he thinks he’s going to get a move to a top half Premier League side like Spurs, he is absolutely dreaming with performances like that. When you compare him to the likes of Spence, Udogie and Porro - he was absolutely nowhere near.

Bednarek and THB were all over the fucking place in the first half and didn’t seem to be communicating with each other and allowed ridiculous amount of space for any player who drifted into the area. They weren’t helped by our midfield however with Flynn Downes again being deployed too far forward, being asked to press from the front but also play as a number six which is just not possible.   He ended up drifting too far forward ahead of the ball and so every time Spurs got it he was out of position and no one else was doing the job in front of the defence. We lost virtually every game in the Championship when he wasn’t playing at number six so why Russell Martin thinks he can play further forward in the Premier League, with no nominated number 6 behind him is totally fucking beyond me.  The midfield was not help at all by Joe Aribo because it was just too fast a pace for him to play in.  He barely touched the ball and when he did he invariably got ran off it

Up front, Adam Armstrong was predictably fucking useless. The guy barely moves most of the time. The fact that he has the captains’ armband when he basically spends most of the game standing on the halfway line doing nothing, is absolutely ridiculous. He had a few efforts in the general direction of the goal, putting one header straight at Fraser Forster and putting everything else well off target. He simply isn’t good enough and especially when he’s deployed as a lone striker, which is what he was when we took Sulemana off.  The masterplan at the start of the game was to have him playing as split strikers with Sulemana, which is an attacking plan we’ve tried before this season and we’ve never scored.  Nice one Russell.

Russell Spots a Shit Banner in the Crowd

… and goodbye Russell.  As said, there were the first very obvious chants against Russell Martin today and clearly someone important was listening.  An hour or so later, he was the boss no more as Saints released a very lengthy statement, which had certainly been written in advance,  probably from when the third goal went in, detailing that he was leaving and how hard the decision it had been and going a great length to point out the mitigating circumstances such as the chasm between the Championship and the Premier League.  As goodbye statements go from professional football clubs sacking their manager, it was pretty good.  I got the immediate impression that they clearly didn’t want to do it but the road had clearly run out.  Well at least the Spurs fans chanting 'sacked in the morning' were wrong.

To be honest, it had to happen. Five points from sixteen games and conceding five in consecutive home games. No one survives that. There’s not a team in professional football in any division in any country where the manager survives with that record. No one survives when the players appear to be not playing for the manager either and that first half performance was that in abundance.  No one survives the crowd turning en-masse either.  A number of the players were a disgrace today but they'll live to be crap another day.  They should feel guilty after their efforts today but they won't.  Today was very much a final straw and I'll write about Russell Martin another time.

It’s too late of course and we are going down, but we have the Under 21s manager Simon Rusk in charge for the cup game against Liverpool on Wednesday. I’m sure that the nine months he had in charge of Stockport in the National League or stand him in good stead. Good luck to him. With the collection of players that we have, he is certainly going to need it.

The King is Dead, Long Live the Caretaker King and Up the Fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 28 - Southampton 3 Tottenham 3

 

Pick This One Out Mate

Back at St Mary‘s for today’s visit of Champions League chasing Tottenham Hotspur. If you believed the media, you would think that Spurs have more problems than we do which is quite remarkable achievement bearing in mind they are sat in fourth place. Spurs as we all know will never achieve what they probably should achieve bearing in mind the size of the club, size of the ground and the strikers that they have. Spurs will always manage to find a way to underachieve.  It’s called being Spursy.

The latest maanger to try and get them to the right level is Antonio Conte, a serial winner who like Jose Mourinho before him, has won just about everything in the game.  Conte hasn’t exactly torn up any trees so far.  For the past ten or so years, they’ve had the absolute godsend of Harry Kane, a striker who guarantees you 20+ goals every season and often more than that.  In addition, they’ve had Son Heung-Min, who will get you a similar amount of goals.  However, if you took those two out of this Spurs side and swapped them with any two of our strikers, I reckon we’d be higher in the table than them because it’s all about what your players at the top end of the pitch can do. The fact that I can make a statement like that and it will not be seen as completely outlandish tells you all you need to know about the averageness of the other players in Spurs line-up.

They have two of our ex’s of course with Pierre Emile Hojbjerg being a key player in the centre of midfield and Fraser Forster who is currently enjoying a run of games on the side with Hugo Lloris being injured. There are many among us, me included, who feel that Fraser should’ve been given a one year contract this season and been our first choice with Gavin Bazunu learning in the background, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. Fraser is of course capable of the sublime and capable of the ridiculous so let’s just hope he has one of his shocking, indecisive, ‘nailed to the goal line’ games today. Before the game though, I hope we give him a decent reception because he deserves it.

Elsewhere, Spurs defence can definitely be got at if you have the mind to and the full backs are not the best defensively. Spurs overall are the kind of side where if they are not at it, you can certainly come away with something but you have to have a go for it and that’s our problem of course.

So what does Ruben do about that today?  Well, he’s reverted to the 4-2-2-2 formation with Stuart Armstrong and Moi Elyouselessi on the wings.  KWP’s injury against Brentford was not bad enough to keep him out today.  Theo Walcott is deservedly given the nod up front with Che.  Conte has picked Richarlison, who is of course, a twat and a twat who hasn’t scored a goal this season so far.  Guess who he always scores against?

It’s very obvious from the first whistle this game is going to be pretty open and Saints create an early chance with Perraud getting down the left and linking up well with Elyounoussi, crossing out to the edge of the penalty area where Armstrong’s shot is blocked and JWP‘s follow-up is going wide and Adams touch doesn’t divert it on target. Good start though.

Now I don’t like laughing when a player gets injured but it’s hard not to smirk when Richarlison pulls up, with a strained dickhead.  He goes to walk off the pitch but he has his shirt over his face to increase the drama of his exit… oh just fuck off mate, no one likes you, even Conte hates you.  Kulusevski is on to make Spurs stronger.

Richarlison Off With a Strained Dickhead

Three minutes later though, ABK has clearly been injured by a bit of a cheap shot by Ben Davies as the ball was dead.  Davies apologises but no consolation to ABK who is off, holding his shoulder and Salisu is on.

Adams battles away on the left and Elyounoussi plays a ball through to put Walcott clean through on the goalkeeper. Forster gets down well to block Theo’s side footed effort but the flag is up anyway.

The Minge, previously known as Son Heung-Min, has been quiet so far and hasn’t scored any of the usual four goals he gets against us but he picks the ball up on the left-hand side and with everybody seemingly expecting him to pass it and keep the move going he lashes one across goal which goes narrowly wide.  I admit that behind that goal, I rolled my eyes and was totally convinced for a second that it was going in.

Another injury and Bednarek is holding his ribs and has to go off after trying to play on.  With no other centre back on the bench it’s Maitland-Niles coming on at centre-back and it’s not over there as Davies goes down for Spurs and his replacement again makes them stronger as Perisic comes on.

Aside from the injuries, a feature of the first half is the space that Porro keeps finding himself in.  He’s already skied two efforts so we let him have another go.  We get ourselves in a complete mess with The Minge picking up the ball on their left and all our defenders have gone over that side leaving Porro, the right back, completely unmarked. He takes a touch and has all the time in the world to drill it past Baz. Absolutely horrific defending. Perraud cannot go in field if no one is marking his man and this is a fucking disaster.

Half time and a general feeling of here we go again.  Spurs haven’t even been any good, yet we are losing.  I’m getting strong Brentford vibes… will we do anything in the second half or just meekly lose again?  No personnel changes at half time but unlike with the Brentford game there seems to be a bit more intensity.  Theo Walcott wins a free kick out the right hand side courtesy of a clumsy file by Dier and then he’s on the end of Lavia’s through ball once the free-kick is taken and the squares it for Che Adams to bundle it into the net and fuck me we’ve equalised.  The shitness of modern football take a hold as there is not much celebration while we wait for it to be declared offside… but it isn’t and we’ve actually scored.

It will be interesting to see what sort of response Spurs have got now and to be fair it’s not bad with Perišić firing over but we have a quick VAR for handball check because the shot before that and hit Maitland-Niles.  Nothing Given and Saints go again but the attack breaks down with Elyounoussi being too slow in possession and losing it.  Kane comes deep and runs with the ball and we almost back off encouraging him to shoot,  which of course he does and lashes it over the bar. Greedy to be quite honest, considering he had three players up with him.

Kulusevski then gets the ball on the right. Cuts back onto his left foot and delivers a superb cross and Kane has got in behind makeshift centre half Maitland-Niles to head comfortably into the top corner of the net. Bollocks.

Ruben rolls the dice with a triple substitution with Alcaraz and Sulemana coming on for Armstrong and Elyounoussi but the third surprise a few eyebrows as it’s one of the Chuckle Brothers, with Sekou Mara, coming on for Che Adams.

The effect is not what’s required as another Kulusevski‘s cross is headed out to the edge of the box for Perisic to smash down into the ground and speeding into the top of the net. 3-1, Game Over, fuck it.  Fire drills all over the place with 20 minutes to go.

The good news is that we are having a go.  Saints into life though with Sulemana and Mara combining well done on the left hand side before JWP plays the square to AMN, who smashes it but Fraser pulls out an excellent save out of the top corner.  The corner is cleared before we head back out to JWP on the right and his cross back into the mixer is headed down by Mara and there is Theo Walcott to knock into the net to send the Spurs fans into ecstasy as an Arsenal old boy gets us back into the game. 3-2.

Theo Writes Another Chapter in The Story of the Tottingham

Spurs are shitting it now and dropping off, passively allowing Sulemana to make a break down the middle which is excellent, taking him away from three players before feeding Mara on the left who shoots but Forster makes a good save down low once more.

We are in the 89th minute and it’s another corner, which JWP puts into the mixer.  Headed down by Salisu and Sarr goes to clear it and takes a big swing but manages to kick Maitland-Niles in the back and Simon Hooper points to the spot. Fucking hell that looks a bit generous.  Off to VAR.

In the shambles that follows Forster comes out and scuffs at the penalty spot and it looks like Mara is going to take it for a second but JWP is backing himself again repairs the damaged spot, puts it down before smashing it high into the opposite side that he normally goes and it rips into the net despite Fraser going the right way.

There’s a few more minutes to go and nothing much happens.  We don’t manage to mount another attack which is a shame but we get to the end.

Final whistle and loud celebrations as if we had won the game, which of course we didn’t. We have to use the last 15 minutes as a springboard to take forward after the impending international break and there is certainly some positives to take from the fight shown to get back into the game. As we all know, there have been plenty of games this season where it’s not really been there.

A point might be very important in the final reckoning but I’m left with an unavoidable feeling like I had after the Manchester United draw in that if this had happened at the start of the season, I would have unequivocally thought it was a great point but given the hole we are in and given the loss that we had against Brentford during the week, a point today leaves me with a bit of a feeling of what if.  Had we beaten Brentford I’d have been delighted with a  point but one point from two home games doesn’t really do it for me.

I honestly think that Spurs were there for the taking today but on a day when our attacking play was generally better, our defensive play went to shit. The first half had seen Spurs right back Pedro Porro arrive in the penalty area completely unmarked twice already and in a clear illustration of not learning from your mistakes, he arrived for third time completely unmarked and this time managed to smash the ball in off the underside of the bar. It was like we were expecting him to keep missing. The ball switched from Spurs left to right by The Minge, found Perraud tucked infield in the left centre back position and that would be fine if the left winger had covered back and tracked the full back. As this hasn’t happened, Perraud has to stay wider and pick his man up. Absolute Mickey Mouse basics.

The second one we let in was basically down to not stopping a cross and allowing Kane a free header which can be partially excused by the fact that we’ve lost both our centre backs to injury and had Ainsley Maitland-Niles playing out of position at centre back. In between those two Spurs goals we got back into it straight after half-time with some marvellous play by Romeo Lavia and Theo Walcott down the right wing and a decent finished by Che Adams, though how much he actually knew about it is slightly open to question. At 1-1 we look comfortable for a bit before dozing off and allowing Kane his free header and Perišić making it 3-1 just seemed the final seal on yet another depressing afternoon in our march down to the Championship.

Where there is life there is hope however and once more it was Theo Walcott who provided it, steering in Sekou Mara’s nod down.  I had to admit that when the three substitutions were made in the second half and one of them was Mara, I was not impressed but he put in probably his best 20 minutes in a Saints shirt bringing you energy to the attack and helping to spark the comeback.  He looked like he fancied the penalty as well after AMN had been fouled but eventually gave way to JWP who was under all sorts of pressure having missed his last two, this being the last minute of the game and his big mate Fraser Forster in goal.  No problem today.

It was a good day for Ruben today. Bearing in mind he had to burn two substitutions in the first half which restricted him somewhat, the triple substitution in the second half certainly worked with all three contributing.  Sulemana meant we had a running threat on the left-hand side which stopped whoever the Spurs right back was from getting forward and Charly Alcaraz again looked like a proper player.

The two centre backs both being injured could potentially be a bit of a problem but they have two weeks to recover.  ABK‘s injury looks like a recurrence of a shoulder problem in what I thought was a pretty cheap shot by Ben Davies. Bednarek’s injury looks more like ribs but it was nice to see him applauded off where is a few weeks ago he was getting booed on to the pitch.

To come back from two goals down with 15 minutes to go, of course shows all manner of fight but in general I don’t think fight is our issue.  It’s guile in the front third of the pitch that is the problem and it would be some story is Theo Walcott provides the spark to keep us up. He was brilliant today, totally deserved his goal and was at the centre of everything good about our attacking play. It was 100% the right decision to leave him on for the full 90 minutes.

So, What does 'Spursy' mean Antonio?

As I said, I think Spurs were there for the taking. They’ve undoubtedly got some good players but if I was a fan of theirs, I would not be impressed with throwing a two-goal lead against bottom of the league but also, the intensity didn’t seem to be there for large portions of the game. I’ll stand by what I said at the start of the game in there if they didn’t have Kane, they’d be very average indeed.  The Minge wasn’t really at it today and the midfield of Hojbjerg and Skipp is functional rather than outstanding. And then you have Antonio Conte who gave the most amazing press conference after the game, slagging Spurs record over the last 20 years and slagging the owner.  It was like someone asked him what the definition of ‘Spursy’ was.  If anyone wasn’t sure by now, they must be 100% sure that he wants to be sacked and he has no interest in being Tottenham manager. Absolutely fucking ridiculous behaviour for someone who has had a decent transfer budget to work with.  He may well be speaking the truth but unless Levy promised him £500 million budget and has gone back on it, he’s basically complaining that the job was exactly what it was when he joined. He is going to leave the Spurs job either now or at the end of the season and all that he’s added to his reputation is that he was better than Nuno Espírito Santo. I wouldn’t go near him if I was the owner of a football club but no doubt someone will and it will probably be someone at the highest level.  He got lucky today as well – the two enforced subs means he replaced Richarlison and Davies with Kulusevski and Perisic and got two assists and a goal out of it.

As for us, with the international break now upon us it will be interesting to see if Ruben can use it the same way Ralph used to and come up with something decent for our next game which is a huge one away at West Ham. It’s another one of those six pointers that this season we have never turned up for. We absolutely have to turn up for that one. At least after today we can go into it with a little bit more optimism. I would still say that the odds are against us regarding staying up but we demonstrated the spirit needed today and against West Ham, we have to show up

Up the fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 1 - Tottenham 4 Southampton 1

Selection - Poor, Subs- Poor, Tactics - Poor, Fashion Choices - Shocking

New season and a very tough opening fixture with a visit to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to play Antonio Conte‘s Super League Spurs.  Spurs appear to have recruited very well in the window so far, with the arrivals of Ivan Perisic, Yves Bissouma, Clement Lenglet, Djed Spence and of course Fraser Forster. Of course, Fraser is unlikely to be building a wall in front of the Spurs goal today as that job will go to the other dependable Hugo Lloris. The first two of those signings in particular will make a massive difference to Spurs as the season progresses but the good news for us is that they are both unlikely to start today. Even if it’s the same Spurs side as last year that we are facing, you know that it’s going to be better because Conte would’ve had a full pre-season with them and this year, Harry Kane will be interested from the first match and not just from after he’d finished throwing his toys around for not getting a move to Manchester City, which is I assume completely off the table now given that they’ve just signed Erling Haaland.  As usual, when you play any Super League Club away from home, you need to referee to be decent and today we have Andre Marriner, so fully expect any theatrics from Spurs to be fully rewarded.

I don’t really know what to expect in this game from Saints. I basically want to see a good performance and if we do fall to the expected defeat, I want us to at least show signs that we are going to be half decent and hard to beat. Remember, we are playing a formation that is supposed to make us more solid so today will absolutely be a good test of that and what Ralph and the new coaches have been working on in pre-season.

I am present today at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and it’s the first time I’ve been here. They’ve moved the fucking thing even further from Seven Sisters Tube station, albeit by about 50 yards. All of these new huge super stadiums look fantastic from when you can see the pitch but the difference maker with this one is that it looks amazing from the outside as well. Off to my left is quite possibly the biggest single tier stand but I think I’ve ever seen in person and they do appear to have completely smashed out the park with the design of the stadium, complete with a massive cock on the roof at one end.

On the walk from the pub to the stadium, the team news drops and Ralph has done it again.  It looks like the curse of over-thinking.  The team that looked like it was going to start the first game, is not… with Armel Bella-Kotchap on the bench and his place being taken by Yan Valery, who has played well in the pre-season but it does seem strange that the one defensive signing that we have made, who I assume was brought in to make a difference, is not playing. Worst fears are confirmed at left wing back with the selection of Moussa Djenepo. We have unsurprisingly gone for the solid midfield of Romeu, Romeo and JWP and Adam Armstrong is given the nod to partner Joe Aribo.  Interest and trepidation in equal measure.

Spurs don’t have any of their summer signings playing with Bissouma iand Perisic both on the bench and the team has a somewhat familiar look about it but the front line of Kane, Son and Kulusevski looks somewhat terrifying when paired up against our back three.  I wonder if Son will stay on his feet today or will he return to being ‘The Minge’?

Andre Marriner gets the game underway and the first 10 minutes is somewhat disjointed with Romeo Lavia showing up very well for us, disrupting play and trying to get us going. I’m already finding myself in the ‘keep the score down’ mode because I’m delighted when we get to 10 minutes and we haven’t let a goal in as yet.

Then madness, as Moussa Djenepo find himself on the left wing with just Emmerson Royal in front of him.  He turns him inside out, gets to the line and pulls it back with a good cross to the edge of the box and there is JWP to volley it down off the ground and high into the net giving Lloris no chance. Fuck me we’ve scored and there is celebration mixed with disbelief in the away end. This is how it’s going to be, it’s a sign of things to come and we are going to be brilliant after all and solid defensively.  It’s Our Fuckin’ Year….

No it isn’t.

We actually have a good chance for 2-0 as it breaks to Adam Armstrong on the edge of the box but he does his usual and tries to smash the cover off it and screws it wide.  He has to get that on target at least and as if to prove it, Spurs build down or left and one wing-back Emmerson Royal easily finds enough room to swing the cross over and there is the other wing-back Sessègnon at the back post who has got away from KWP and buries the header past Bazunu who has absolutely no chance.

Spurs are beginning to cook now and we are struggling, looking particularly weak in defence.  We aren’t even getting close to them.  Valery in particular is looking very uncertain and a long ball from our left to right catches out Valery and Bazunu is forced into a decent save from Son – corner.  It’s headed out as far as Son who again has absolutely no pressure on him and he crosses into the middle to where Eric Dier has easily lost Joe Aribo and flicks into the net past the unprotected Bazunu. Shit defending and simple goals both.  So much for defensively solid.

There are 20 minutes left to go in the first half and there’s only one team that’s going to get the next goal.  Djenepo dives in and sells himself like an over-enthusiastic Under 11 player and Spurs tee-up a shot for Davies which Bazunu again has to save..   Big Baz is having a good day but he shanks out a shite kick which puts Valery under pressure but it seems to be ok until Valery decides to take on half the Spurs team and loses it which results in Son dribbling across the top of the penalty area and he should score but he smashes it over. Kane forces Bazunu into another save from a tight angle and we just about get to 45 minutes and two minutes of injury time are signalled.  Andre Marriner decides to play four minutes as Spurs are attacking and plays on until Romero heads over as the clock ticks 49.

Lucky to be only 2-1 down and we desperately need to make some changes. My direct hotline to Ralph obviously worked so our two worst players, Valery who has had an absolute nightmare and Adam Armstrong who has done absolutely nothing except fall over under minimal pressure, are both off to be replaced with Jack bloody Stephens and Stuart Armstrong who I presume is going to play up front. Che Adams is still on the bench and we need a goal and are starting the second half with no striker on the pitch.

Ralph's half-time team talk presumably said something along the lines of “carry on as we are, don’t get close to the runners and hope for the best“ because that was what we did and within 30 seconds the ball’s in our net again with Jack Stephens asleep and only an offside flag against Sessègnon saved us from game over after 46 minutes.

It doesn’t take long however as Stuart Armstrong loses the ball on the left hand side and Emmerson Royal breaks, gets the ball back from Son before crossing into the box.  It’s going nowhere, until what I can only assume is a fantastic piece of non-communication and Salisu bundles it into his own net in comically shit fashion.  3-1.  Fuck.

No Danger Sali.... Fuck's Sake

Virtually straight from the kick off we’ve lost the ball again and Hojbjerg slots a ball in between the defenders to Emmerson Royal.  Djenepo it’s completely absent, meaning Salisu has to leave his man to close down the full back and Royal just knocks it to the unmarked Kulusevski who passes it into the far corner of the net. Fucking shambles.  Defensive basics – if Salisu goes to the wing then Bednarek and Stephens should move over one player and KWP tuck in.  It takes communication, application, effort and not being shit to do that though.

Half an hour to go and this could be 6, 7, 8 but luckily, Spurs know the job is done and start phoning it in. Harry Kane tries one shot from halfway up the High Street though he still has time to put Bednarek on his arse simply by standing his ground. Embarrassingly pathetic weak defending from the 6 foot 2inch, 26-year-old, 42 International cap waste of space.

We do actually create a couple of chances in the last 15 minutes with Salisu either playing brilliant pass or panic clearance but either way, it put Aribo away and he beats the last defender and gets a good shot in which Lloris saves and pushes along a 6 yard line but we don’t have another player within 20 yards to knock it in and Spurs four players back and none of them does a Salisu and smashes it in the net for us. There is one final chance for us to put some respectability to the score line make it even more flattering than it already is, as as a JWP is cross is met by Perraud at the back post and his first-time volley flies just over the bar.

The End. Shite.

I know that one shouldn’t go overboard giving that it was the first match of the season and that we were playing a Super League club away from home… but that was fucking dreadful. The opening 10 minutes saw a slightly disjointed Spurs and fair play to us, we managed to capitalise with Djenepo turning Royal inside out and his cross being put home from the edge of the box by the ever-reliable JWP. That was after 10 minutes.

After the time that when Spurs went from 2nd gear to 3rd gear, there was next to nothing from us. Having gone in 2-1 at half-time, courtesy of two basic defensive lapses of the “not stopping the cross, not marking the player in the box” sort, the start of the second half was of course going to be crucial and we were very fortunate not to be 3-1 down within 10 seconds of the restart.  It only took another 10 minutes or so for Spurs to be 4-1 up and from then on, if any of the other Saints fans were like me in the ground, we were just waiting for the game to end in the hope that we didn’t get smashed by any more. It was one of those games where if Spurs had needed to score 7 then they undoubtedly could’ve done but they phoned it in for the last half an hour and for that we can be grateful. It was absolutely nothing to do with anything that we did because we were shit.

It’s a given that Spurs have the better players with more ability. We know that and we accept that but what we don’t accept is that Spurs looked fitter, they wanted it more, they ran more, they tackled more, they got stuck in to the headers and made sure that we knew we weren’t gonna get given anything and even when they did commit a foul, they all surround the referee which is fucking annoying, especially when Harry Kane does it because he’s got fuck all to do with any incident - but it shows that they really have a collective will to win, instilled by the manager.

Men against boys springs to mind. I feel that we may be hearing that a lot this season. No physicality from any of the defenders aside from Salisu in the first half.  Easy afternoon’s work for Kane and company in the heat as we didn’t make it difficult for them at all.  In order to get points in this league, we have to be all over teams and especially against the Super Leaguers, we have to get them out of their comfort zone by being fitter and willing to work harder.

Ralph. What the actual fuck?  Over-thought random bollocks was the order of the day.  Okay, so we know we’re gonna go with this formation with three central defenders and in any game where we’ve had anything that looks remotely like a first choice line-up in preseason, Bella-Kotchap has played on the right hand side. He is our only new defender and therefore the only player who’s going to possibly make us any better than the shit show we’ve been defence in the last two seasons.  He’s big and imposing and physical and he wins headers but he gets left out however and Yan Valery plays and we get battered everywhere, especially on crosses.  Now, Yan has done pretty well in pre-season but today just proved the pre-season means nothing.  Yes, you want your fringe players to put their hands up and he earned a chance to be higher in the pecking order but the bottom line is that he isn’t good enough and nor is Bednarek and nor is Djenepo and nor is Adam Armstrong. So that’s four players out of the outfield 10 who we all know are not good enough. What a surprise that we can’t live with a team like Spurs on their own ground when 40% of our starting line-up just isn’t good enough.

Ralph actually did well to decisively make two substitutions at half-time and he took off the worst two, who were Adam Armstrong and Valery but he still didn’t bring Bella-Kotchap on, instead throwing on Jack Stephens who has never been any good when he’s just thrown into a game. This is another known fact. Valery and Adam Armstrong were the two selections that had most people scratching their head at the start of the game so basically all Ralph was doing at half-time was trying to correct the madness of muddled thinking from when he threw together the team sheet.  Stuart Armstrong, who should’ve started, came on and that meant that Joe Aribo was pushed right up front – he is not a “lead the line striker”. Ralph knows this, Joe knows this and so consequently we had absolutely no idea of how to go about trying to create chances in the second half.  Absolutely shit.

Yes, I know we are short at full-back at the moment and Perraud is finding his way back to fitness. Moussa did well to create the goal that we did score but after that he was the predictable disaster that I and probably most people knew he was going to be. Kulusevski and Royal down the right-hand side could basically get their head up and pick out any cross ball that they wanted to because Moussa was nowhere near them at any point.  Salisu had started the game relatively well but gradually got more and more stressed with Moussa not being in the right position and it all led to Salisu having an absolute beast of a moment with the own goal.  Don’t get me started on Bednarek, our most experienced defender and ‘leader’ of the back-line.

In midfield, I have to say that Romeo Lavia was absolute quality and was our man of the match by an absolute mile. He is a serious player and with him in midfield, JWP had a decent match.  Oriol Romeu looked like a fish up a tree however and Spurs just played round him in midfield. I don’t remember him really getting a tackle in and he certainly didn’t create anything going forward.

Up front, in the first half Adam Armstrong was a complete waste of time. I don’t know what his strengths are but they certainly aren’t playing as a lone striker. He can’t hold the ball up and he has no strength and just gets brushed off it. He had one shot at goal, which he tried to belt the cover off of and snatched it so it trickled wide and it was more evidence to add to the Championship-only stack of evidence that is building up.

The two players I felt sorry for were Gavin Bazunu who was totally blameless for any of the goals, and Joe Aribo, who did his best to get something going but was completely isolated in the second half.  There was a classic illustration of this when he got through and fired in a decent shot which Lloris pushed along the 6-yard line and there wasn’t another Saints player following up within 20 yards because it seemed to me that no one really knew where they were playing.  Stuart Armstrong had come on at half-time and sort of started off on the left and then he was pushed up front and then he drifted to the right, obviously under instruction from a manager who was by the stage basically making up shit as he went along.

We’ve done some decent work in the transfer market this summer in recruiting some new players but we still have a load of shit hanging around which means Ralph has the opportunity to put it in the team, which he keeps doing. If Bednarek, Valery, Adam Armstrong and Djenepo had all left this summer, no one would've given a shit and if we had played instead of those four, Bella-Kotchap, Lyanco, Perraud and Che Adams, we certainly wouldn’t have been any worse.

We are not going to score enough goals with this formation and Joe Aribo as one of the strikers so to my mind, he has to sacrifice Romeu in midfield and put either Aribo or Stuart Armstrong there and play with two strikers, Che Adams and someone else, hopefully the striker that we haven’t signed as yet.  Che Adams is not brilliant but he is by far our best striker.  We had no idea how to attack in the second half in particular and no one seem to know how they were going to create anything for the forward players.  I know we were probably trying to stay in the game as long as possible but you have to have a goal threat and you have to have an attacking plan.

There was one section of play which summed up the difference between the two sides as we had the ball on the right wing with a crossing opportunity but didn’t cross it into the box even though we had three players in there and instead we turned round worked it back to the centre backs, over to the left-hand side where again we turned down the cross and lost the ball. Spurs went, one pass, two passes, shot on goal.  It was saved by Bazunu but that’s not the point.  Spurs showed that they knew how to attack and we had no fucking idea whatsoever. They also of course knew how to defend it in a disciplined, structured way.

If we had lost today but looked decent and looked like we knew what we were doing then I think most people could’ve seen past the result and thought there might be something better around the corner. Ralph doing weird shit and that performance today has just left everybody fearing the worst. The next home game against Leeds is absolutely massive because if we put in a shit performance in that then Ralph is severely going to be up against it pretty much from the start of the season.  Win it and this this Spurs game will be written off.  Over to you Ralph.

Premier League Match 23 - Tottenham Hotspur 2 Southampton 3

 

Dad Dancing Here We Go

Tottenham,Tottenham, no one can stop them…. as Chas ‘n Dave sang.  It was a shit song to be fair and Chas has been gone a while and plenty of teams have stopped them since.  We stopped them at St Mary‘s earlier on this season when we turned up with a makeshift team because we were squad rotating over Christmas when we thought we were playing Newcastle a few days later, then we made it hard for ourselves by getting a player sent off in the first half but we still managed to hold them to draw.
 
It’s a different Tottenham we play today because Antonio Conte has been there a while and the corpse of the team left by Nuno Espirito Santo has been revived somewhat. Harry Kane now looks interested again and has started scoring goals, so this game really isn’t going to be easy, especially given that it’s at their new home, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.  It’s a shit name – would have been much more amusing if Daniel Levy had named it in honour of himself – The Super League European Elite Teflon Arena or something.  At least they paid for it I guess, which is more than the Cat Kickers at The London Stadium Dildo Emporium.

This is the game every year where the referees and VAR see it’s Southampton away at a big club and go in dry. This usually happens because some cheating little bastard in white has executed a perfect dive and cons of the referee.  It’s a two-stage process now as well of course because then VAR find a way to back up the official. Last year in the league it was Sergio Reguilon having a dive on the edge of the box.  To this day I still can’t see that that was in the penalty area but of course the penalty got given, last minute, fuck off.  The year before that we played them in the FA Cup and Son Heung Minge (no that’s not a typo - so called because he’s a massive twat), dived over the top of our goalkeeper and won the penalty that knocked us out of the FA Cup that year.  Still, lovely bloke, breaks legs, dives all the time, smiles about it…

Spurs dive about a lot and then all get round the referee, led by a Mr H.Kane.  They did this earlier on in the season at St Mary‘s with Emerson Royal being their latest recruited diver. They have got rid of one of them though with Dele Alli moving to Everton.  I see this as a really positive move for Tottenham because it’s cleaning house of players who think they are better than they are and ultimately, have very questionable attitudes.  As a forward player in the modern game you have to work hard when you haven’t got the ball and some just don’t have the attitude for that.

Ralph caused a bit of a stir this week by saying in the German ‘Kicker’ publication that he didn’t want to work in football after 2024 which is when his contract at Saints runs out. Immediately I saw some people drawing comparisons with the end of Gordon Strachan‘s reign when it leaked out that he wanted to leave at the end of the season, results duly plummeted and he left early. I don’t think you can really use that as a benchmark for a number of reasons. The first of which was that we had Rupert Lowe in charge so we were only ever five minutes away from something destabilising happening anyway. The second is the football has moved on and even less than they did in 2004, managers don’t stay at clubs a long time and players are used to managers moving on.  What it does do is mean that he's less likely to get poached by a struggling big club.

The concern will just be the normal concern of having to find a new manager to continue what will hopefully be an upward trend until that time. When a relatively long serving manager makes it known that he is going to leave, it doesn’t necessarily spell disaster. Everyone knew Sir Alex Ferguson was leaving Manchester United but he still won the Premier League in his last season. I think we’d take that.

There will of course be a media flurry with it and Ralph can expect this question to come up in virtually every press conference he does over the next few weeks and every time there is a slow news week over the rest of his time at the club.  I’m sure he realised this before the article went to print.

Anyhow, back to tonight are starting line-up is back to 4-2-2-2 and it looks perfect to be quite honest. Fraser in goal, KWP and Perraud full backs with Salisu and Bednarek in the middle. JWP and Romeu with Elyounoussi and Armstrong on the wings.  Of all our wide players, these two are easily the best and Broja and Adams up front promises a tough evening for Spurs. I’m looking at their midfield and thinking we’ve got JWP and Romeu against Hojbjerg and Winks. I also think that we are going to be a threat in the wide areas as neither Emerson or Reguilon are particularly good defenders.  However, we ourselves have to defend properly because otherwise Kane, Son and Moura will tear us apart.

Saints start going really well and only takes three minutes to create for the first chance as Elyounoussi on the left clips a cross in with his right foot which is beautifully flighted over the top of the Spurs defence and Che Adams meets it about 5 yards out but in exactly the same way as last year, he manages to smash it straight at Lloris instead of hitting the vast expanse of open goal on either side of him and the chance went begging. Arse

Saints are playing so well and Spurs are struggling to get out but on more or less the first occasion they do, there is a foul out on the left and a free-kick to be taken from that area that we always struggle from. The Minge clips in and Romero has a simple header into the net past Forster but the flag goes up immediately. A quick replay shows Spurs have about six players offside, who are still offside even allowing for the solid steel bollocks that our defenders have.  So, no drama at all really that you can hear the disappointment in the voices of Ian Skate Darke and Glenn Tottenham Hoddle on commentary for BT Sport.

The pressure is all on Spurs and they can barely get out of the defence but they do so by accident as Sanchez panics and aimlessly boots it forward and dissects our midfield and set Spurs on the attack. Wide it goes from The Minge to Kane, who passes it over and sets Reguilon up with a sitter from 10 yards…. but he shites himself and smashes it straight as a keeper. To be fair, Reguilon must’ve been confused by wondering how we could incorporate a dive into this passage of play. Never mind mate.

Another Spurs attack next and a big cross-field ball is eventually recovered by Royal who knocks in field to Moura who plays a lovely reverse ball to the overlapping Hojbjerg, who never did that when he played for us. His cross is heading for The Minge but Bednarek was determined in his quest for the Premier League Golden Boot of own goals and showed expert predatory movement to get in front of the striker and smash it into the net. Fucks sake. We’ve been the better side but find ourselves behind. When you see the replay, you can see that Bednarek has slid in with the wrong foot. If he had slid in with his left, it would’ve been a corner but he went with his right and has been unable to control where the ball is gone.

Golden Boot Incoming

Going a goal down just seems to have made us more intense and more determined. Elyounoussi produces a lovely bit of skill down the left to go past a clumsy looking lunge by Emerson Royal before teeing up JWP on the edge of the box and he goes for the near post and nearly catches Lloris out and a less agile goalkeeper than he would not of been able to get down and push it past the post.

From the next attack, it looks like Broja is going to get a shot away from the edge of the box but he wants it on his right foot and gets dispossessed by Sanchez who knocks it back to Davies and someone, somewhere played some tumbling clown music and the Welshman fell over on his arse and scooped the ball up into the air. Full-scale panic ensued and a bit of pinball before Perraud picked it up on the left and stabbed it across and there was Broja to side-foot powerfully past Lloris to deservedly make it one apiece.

Another chance a few minutes later and it’s a glorious opportunity to take the lead as KWP hooks it forward left-footed and Spurs defence gets caught flat-footed and Broja is away and behind them as he advances on Lloris from the right hand side and we wait for the net to bulge, he shanks it horribly wide of the far post but fear not Chelsea, we still want to sign him and we are quite happy for him to miss the occasional chance to keep the fee down.

We can’t keep missing these chances however and we get another one as we somewhat fortuitously win a corner over on the far side and then it comes from JWP, Lloris comes out flapping and misses it and it ends up with Salisu, diving in to head it but Davies manages to just about deflect it wide.  Over comes this resulting corner, which gets knocked out as far as Perraud, who takes a touch and absolutely lashes it back at the near post and it pings off the angle of post and bar.  Back it comes into the mixer again and Lloris is bouncing around like Tigger but he and Spurs just about gets away with it.  Shit. 

They get away with another one as a cross comes in and Hojbjerg leans into the ball, arm moving towards the ball, arm hits ball.  For the next 30 seconds I’m waiting for the game to stop whilst we go off the Stockley Park but no, nothing.  BT Sport show a replay – it’s as clear a handball as you like.  Ian Darke and Glenn Hoddle don’t dwell on it for too long.  Shite.

Half-time and now the fuck aren’t we winning. It’s hard to imagine that Conte will not do anything about it in the second half and that Spurs won’t be better. It’s also hard to imagine us managing to play with the same level of intensity for the next 45 minutes so there is a chance that we’ve missed out here. However, we have been so much better than them in this first half, there is hope it can continue.

Unsurprisingly, Spurs start the half better have a glorious chance as Reguilon gets down the left and gets over a really good cross which Harry Kane meets from all of 3 yards out but he sends his header down and it bounces up and over the bar as we are very fortunate. Glenn Hoddle spends the entire time the replays are showing, giving excuses for Kane missing a header from 3 yards.  Ian Darke still has his trousers round his ankles.

Nothing to See Here

Spurs are pressing us high and we’re not playing much football.  After good work by Adams, Saints win the ball back and Perraud clips it down the wing towards Broja who gets absolutely poleaxed by Emerson Royal, who just smashes into him in the air.  No free kick, Broja is down, the game doesn’t stop and Spurs work it to Kane, who knocks it through to Maura who plays in a lovely first time cross and there of course is The Minge to slide it into the corner of the net. Conte is going particularly celebration mental and then they show the replay of Royal's elbow making contact with the back of Broja’s head. I am not confident that they are going to go back as far as that with VAR even though the move started with it.  Down on the benches it has all kicked off with all the support staff going at each other and Antonio Conte trying to shush the Saints bench, who are clearly giving the opinion that this is the usual bullshit we get here. Off we go to VAR.

“Coots!... Coots – can you hear me?”
“Not really Brooksy mate… Conte is on an acid trip of some kind, off his tits!”
“Tell him to shut up then”
“No way mate, he might explode… anyway, what’s up? Why are Saints going mental?”
“Spurs won the ball from Emerson smashing into Broja, elbow to back of neck”
“Didn’t see that mate, was looking at the clouds”
“Looked like a head injury and Spurs played on”
“Nah, not having it… Broja limps everywhere, every week, not having it mate”
“Even so, it was a definite foul and they scored from it
“Nah, there was two passes and three seconds between that and the goal, plenty of time “to reset.
“You’re the boss Coots – can you see the BT Sport commentary box from there?
“Yes mate, Ian Darke is jumping up and down in his Pompey kit and Hoddle is making “cut-throat gestures whilst looking straight at me.
“Goal then?
“Goal it is…

Like when we conceded the first goal, straight away we are back on the attack and Spurs, who as I said, had been playing a lot more aggressively and pressing a lot higher at the start of the second half, are suddenly back under pressure again and we are playing all the football.  Do they think we’re done, and we’ll just roll over now? Winks makes an error in midfield and loses it to Broja who goes barrelling off towards goal and ignoring the pass he should’ve made to Adams, goes on before lashing a decent opportunity over the bar. Again, it’s all deliberate just to keep the price down.

On, on and suddenly Spurs can’t get the ball and we seem to keep it for a good minute, but this is passing with intent you can tell we are looking for an opening. Eventually KWP picks it up on the right-hand side and turns to find that Spurs have obligingly left JWP in acres and he fires over the first time cross and meets the run of Elyounoussi, who has jogged into the box and no Spurs defender picks him up, allowing him to glance it down and into the net and Lloris doesn’t even manage a dive. 2-2, come on!  Ssssssssshutup Conte!

Two minutes later and we’ve pinned them back again.  Perraud on the left hand side and his cross is flicked away but finds its way out to KWP again he thinks, you know, I will do this again and it just rolls it back to JWP who is again unmarked and once more, over comes the cross and this time he finds Che Adams at the back post unmarked and he powers the header in.  Mental, 3-2 - Shhhhhhhhhhh. What the fuck is going on here? Ralph is pulling some Dad dancing moves down the touchline in front of the Spurs bench. As if we couldn’t love him any more at this point.

The World's Finest Scot-Albanian Strike Force

There are 10 minutes to go, and Ralph replaces the strikers with the excellent Adams and Broja being replaced with Long and Walcott – no drop off there at all.  We reach 90 without any alarms and oh here we go, The Minge comes forward with the ball, bursts between two players and crashes to the deck with no contact whatsoever. Miraculously, David Coote doesn’t give it.  He should of course book the diving twat, but you can’t have everything.  Fuck off Minge.  We survive and then Walcott tries to run the ball out of the defence and loses it. Spurs feed Kane and his crosses in the box is met by Romero and there is the sub Bergwijn to tap into the net. Fucks sake. Oh, hang on the second, we are going upstairs.

“Hi Brooksy… what’s the craic… good game isn’t it… 94^th minute equaliser, 3-3”
“You’re not going to believe this Coots”
“What?”
“Bergwijn looks offside”
“He can’t be, it’s Spurs at home against Southampton, you know how it works”
“The guideline is “massive dive in the last few minutes, decision to Spurs”… can’t let this one go”
“Why not?
“Cos it’s clearly offside and no amount of pixilation, thicker lines or a broken etch-a-sketch will change that.”
“Fuck… I should’ve given that Son dive a few minutes ago”
“Nah mate.  Even Big Mikey Dean couldn’t have given that one – it was fucking horrendous”
“OK then – offside – besides it’ll be funny seeing Conte lose his shit.”
“Certainly will Coots, make sure you take in the crushing disappointment in the Darke/Hoddle corner”

Ian Darke: Dry Your Eyes, Skate.

No goal - ha ha ha. Two minutes later and we’re done.  Winning.

Get the fuck in there – wonderful result and also, you would be hard pressed to find anyone to argue that that wasn’t a deserved win.  On the stats we absolutely murdered them in terms of shots, corners, possession and all that shit that doesn’t really matter.  What does matter is the goals though and a 3-2 win up here is an absolutely fantastic result. 

Apart from putting the ball in the net, the first half was as good a performance as you could possibly hope for. We kept the ball, we pinned Spurs back and we created endless chances but missed all bar one of them.   We really should have been out of sight.  Spurs pinned us back at the start of the second half until they went ahead and then they took a step back which allowed us to take over again and score our totally deserved identikit goals.

In the battle of the managers there was only one winner with Ralph proving how good he is. It was particularly sweet because Conte got all mouthy after the second Spurs goal before being put completely back in his box by our two late goals and Ralph’s dance moves down the touchline.  Love it.

I said at the start of the game that we needed a fair shake off the referee and in the main David Coote was pretty good. He didn’t buy the obligatory dive from The Minge as we reached the 90th minute but there were still two massive decisions that went against us though, the first being the penalty we should’ve got at the end of the first half when Hojbjerg clearly handled and the second one was of course the second Spurs goal. There is of course, always a bent goal when we play at Spurs away but this time it happened early enough that we could do something about it. I’ve seen it argued that it was a head injury, and you should stop the game straight away. That’s true but even if it’s not a head injury, that was a fucking foul as Emerson Royal just jumped straight into Broja. Karma bit Emerson firmly in the arse within 10 minutes though as he was the defender who was nowhere near Elyounoussi for the equaliser, and he was the defender nowhere near Adams for the winner. In fairness, Adams should have been Davisson Sanchez’ man. Same mistake twice in three minutes either way.

Royal is their new £25 million right back and we had KWP who Spurs sold to us for half the amount. I find it hilarious hearing Spurs commentators and fans wanting him back at Spurs when he was there for five years and hardly played a fucking game.  KWP was brilliant today – the most telling contributions being to two perfectly weighted passes he put back to JWP for him to swing the two crosses in first time.

Talking of Spurs commentators, I watched the game on BT Sport where we were treated to Ian Darke, who is what we call a skate bastard and what everyone else calls a Portsmouth fan. On co-commentary we had Spurs legend Glenn Hoddle.  Hoddle is like Jamie Carragher in a way, in that his analysis is usually pretty good when it’s a neutral game but when he’s doing the analysis for his own team it’s ridiculously bent and painful to listen to – not as high pitched but still painful. When the discussions were going on about the second Spurs goal, he was desperately trying to find every single reason why it should be a goal and the Skate was just doing his usual “lost points from winning position” routine.  Spurs dropped three points from a winning position today Ian and Saints didn’t drop any, but you didn’t mention it.  Sorry to ruin your narrative…. and Glenn, Spurs were not robbed of an equaliser by VAR. You are not robbed if the correct decision is reached and that was clearly a correct decision.

Everywhere you looked today they were fucking massive performances, from Fraser right through to Armando up front. The ones who are slightly more brilliant the others were the aforementioned KWP and his fellow full-back Romain Perraud, who was fantastic on the left-hand side along with Elyounoussi, even though the latter took about half an hour off at the start of the second half and then came to life for the last 15 when we started playing a bit more football again.  Perraud’s improvement shows there is absolutely no reason to rush Livramento back into the team and this is of course the competition you want for places.

JWP in the centre was an absolute machine and those two crosses for the two headers were absolutely superb but as everyone who only watches highlights knows, he’s just a free-kick merchant. Stuart Armstrong again showed just how much he has been missed this season so far and it was another absolutely top-notch performance by him.

Gone are the days of us caving in at the first setback.  Brilliant today and keeping going, even though we were behind twice, missed the first half chances, didn’t get the penalty decision and the shambles over Spurs 2^nd goal.  Ralph’s interview with Peter Crouch and Franny Benali after the game was class – he basically said that they knew that we were going to get some dodgy decisions and it makes winning at big grounds even more difficult.  I loved the way he kind of shrugged it off – I guess the £20k fine he got earlier in the season for nothing makes it a bit easier in a way.

Next up we have Manchester United on Saturday morning and they’ve had an extra day to recover so we are up against it but with the current mentality in the team, why not? The early kick-off gives us even less time, but today’s result makes Saturday a bit of a free hit, so let’s fucking hit it.

Today was one of the really great days and quite a good start to Ralph’s long goodbye.  Up to 10th in the league and the expected drop-off hasn’t quite started yet.