is mainly about other stuff.
from the mighty Southampton FC… Fat Sam has been sacked as England manager,
just 67 days after getting the job.
Great effort all round that. He’s
undoubtedly an idiot for falling for a newspaper sting operation and for being
a greedy arrogant bastard. The FA have
mutually consented him, thus taking the moral high ground which is a bit rich
because of the past and also because, they knew he wasn’t a whiter than white
character when they appointed him and guess what, he proved it. Then there’s the press and their role in
it. Making and shaping the news instead
of just reporting it – like they do when they leave bottles of whiskey outside
Gazza’s house in the hope that he gives them a photo opportunity of him looking
hung over. They set him up Fat Sam and
he walked right into it. Don’t get me
wrong, he had to go and the FA had no choice but I’m uncomfortable with the
methods used to get rid of him.
Telegraph will claim they’re on some moral crusade the clean up the game and it
will have an effect I guess because it’s brought down the England manager but
is that their job and do they really care?
They want to sell more papers generate more web traffic and this is a
marvellous way to do that. Apparently
there are 8 more names in the frame for being ‘outed’ for taking bungs which of
course, the Telegraph are going to drip feed over the next week or so to
maximise sales / traffic. If you’re on a
moral crusade just get it all out there and be done with it. If the press are the moral guardians of the
game then we’re all screwed.
no news like bad news is there? If
they’d set up this meeting to frame Fat Sam and he’d turned it down and not
turned up, or even if he’d turned up and said “f**k off I’m not having anything
to do with that”… would they have reported it?
Would The Telegragh have published a front page boasting that they’d
tried to stitch up the England manager but he didn’t fall for it? I think we all know the answer to that one as
they’d probably be on very thin ice with the law. The only reason they’re not being completely
slaughtered is because at the end of the day they’ve got a result and so the
end justifies the means somehow. I can’t
imagine that these ‘stings’ have a 100% success rate and I don’t recall ever
seeing an article which read “… (insert manager name) is a good egg cos we
tried to bribe him and he didn’t take the bait”.
Fat Sam became England manager then he as fair game as far as the press were
concerned and he fell for it like an idiot and for what? He believed it was all real and he stood to
gain £400k for amongst other things, providing information on how to flout his
employers’ rules on 3rd Party Ownership. Not smart.
I guess the £3 million a year he earned for his dream job that he’s
coveted for 30 years wasn’t enough.
Idiot. I’m disappointed because
from a football point of view, I actually felt that we had a chance of doing
well with him in charge but there you go – it’ll be back to the Southgate’s of
this world now and that’s what’s happening in the meantime whilst the FA wait
for Wenger to finish his Arsenal contract in the summer, before he undoubtedly
turns England down and stays with The Gunners.
England National Team – The Gift that Keeps on Giving.
to Israel to play Hapoel Be’er Sheva. On the one hand they lost 5-2 to Celtic
but on the other they beat them 2-0 at home and then most notably, won away at
Inter. They are supposed to be the weakest team in the group but I can’t
see them being worse than Sparta Prague were.
Claude’s team selection is obviously made with
Leicester on Sunday in mind. The early announcement that Jose, Davo, Ryan
Bertrand and Goal Machine Austin had been left at home got under the skin of a
few but what’s he supposed the do? He’s left behind our two oldest players and
the two who’ve had relatively recent fitness issues. Also, Leicester played their
Champions League match on Tuesday and it was at home. We’re playing two days
later and 2000 miles away. I guess that TV schedules are more important than
having a level playing field.
The starting XI picked itself. Oh, hang
on, Dusan on the bench and Jake Hesketh is starting… Didn’t see that one
coming. Hapoel have apparently never lost at the Turner Stadium which is
something to aim for. Their manager is resplendent in a suit and T-shirt and
looks like a right Cockney wide boy. They have a bloke in midfield called
Ogu who looks like he should be a Bond villain. He’s fucking huge. If Big Vic
was still with us they could just have an arm wrestle for supremacy.
Anyway, game started and we win a free kick as Bond Villain treads on Long
about 40 yards out. Up steps JWP and curls it perfectly over the defence and
away from the keeper and right onto Captain Virgil’s head. GOAAAAAAAFUCKKKK!
How’s he done that??? 50p head moment from the big man. All he has to do is get
his forehead on it but it’s hit the corner of his head and made a beeline for
the corner flag. I watch the replay still expecting the net to bulge and
prove I was in some sort of false reality the first time round but no…50p
head, corner flag.
The game settles into a pattern and its Hapoel
passing it about and us sitting off and letting them get to 40 yards out before
we get in their faces. On the one hand it’s inviting pressure but they’ve not
got the quality up front to do anything.
They have a couple of shots but nothgin to worry about as they bobble
through to Fraser.
Despite having some joy down there when they
created a chance that Virgil had to clear up, I’m glad that Hapoel haven’t got
the foresight to attack down our right where Cuco is having a mare, not being
helped by Clasie in front of him who may as well not be there. We are getting
nothing going up front where Long can’t make any ball stick, Redmond is trying
but ineffective and Hesketh is dieing on his arse and not touching the ball.
Claude’s had enough after half an hour and it’s
time for a change with Tadic coming on for Hesketh. Though there’s the expected
blather on the TV about it being harsh, I like the fact that Claude has made
the call. Tadic stations himself on the right wing and we instantly look
better.
Christ this is shite. Cuco is doing my
fucking head in. How can you be offside twice when you can see right across the
pitch you twat? It’s like watching an Under 13 player who’s never played in a
game with the offside rule before.
It gets a bit fiery just before half time.
Targett goes down and Hapoel have the ball. They make no attempt to kick the
ball out and Ogu dawdles on it and gets it taken off him and Redmond shoots
wide and it all kicks off. At least it’s something to wake everyone up.
Half time, rubbish.
Saints with JWP combining well with Targett before slipping a challenge and
bringing a good save out of the keeper with a low shot. Be’er Sheva go close when Redmond gives the
ball away and then Romeu misses a header, allowing a break. Luckily they overhit the pass to the free man
and a shot was drilled across the goal and just wide of the far post and we
were dead lucky that the bloke on the back post missed it.
and he’s a diving fucker. Howver, he
puts in a decent cross which Maya decides to backheel straight to a striker who
shoots wide. It’s Maya’s “what the fuck”
moment for the game and the reason he will never be a Premier League regular.
pulling off a ‘one for the cameras’ save.
All there is, is shite from us up front with Shane Long continuing his
current form and basically falling over the ball and doing everything aside
from holding the ball up and passing it to a black shirt. There are only 2 minutes of injury time as the
ref can’t be arsed and the whistle goes after Shane tries to take on two men
and treads on the ball again.
it’s over. We settled for a draw with about 15 minutes to go and they were
never good enough to score against us. I just feel that with even a little bit
more intent we could have one tonight quite comfortably. Whenever we did
actually press the ball, their players just gave it away but we set off for
such a long periods that it gave the impression that Hapoel were actually quite
decent, which they weren’t. We kept a clean sheet for the fifth match in a row
but on the flip side of that, that’s a minimum requirement against teams like
this who were never going to score.
Lack of intensity aside, we weren’t help by Virgil’s 50p head effort in the first minute, nor by Martina getting caught
offside about four times when he could see right across the whole fucking
pitch. We were also not helped by a performance from Shane Long that can only
be described as abysmal. I can understand a striker having a bit of a
confidence crisis in front of goal but he was repeatedly failing to control the
simplest of passes.
The more positive performance has came from
Romeu in the midfield and for once I actually thought Clasie had a fairly
decent second half though he was piss poor in the first. Martina meanwhile was voted in UEFA’s Team of the Night. Well Corruption is all the rage these days.
Jake Hesketh was a little bit unlucky to be
taken off but he was looking completely out of his depth and I back Claude 100%
on this call though many will dig him out for it. Claude was happy with a point and so he
should be. We’ll dick these at home and
the Inter games are going to shape how well we do in the group. They lost again tonight at Sparta by
3-1. Apparently they have a load of
Financial Fair Play implications if they play their full squad so all their big
money players are not in the Europa league squad and they obviously can’t afford
to not give a shit and pay the fine like Manchester City do. Our next game is of course in the San Siro so
we have to go there looking for a win to keep ourselves at the top of the
group. I imagine that the players are as
keen to play in the San Siro as the fans are to watch the game so I expect us
to play a stronger side there than we did tonight.
When I said at the start of this that all the
news, the Daily Telegraph and all the corruption was about England and is
nothing to do with Saints, I didn’t know that Claude’s assistant, Eric Black
was going to become the next person to be implicated. Southampton FC have asked
for a full article from the Telegraph but of course they haven’t given it to us
because otherwise they wouldn’t sell as many papers. It sounds as though that
he has been filmed advising fictitious businessman on how best to bribe lower
league footballers. Hopefully this is nothing but on first reading, it does
sound like he is completely fucked as far as keeping his job is concerned so
Claude is going to have to find another French speaking Brit.
Apparently the team is not leaving Israel until
Friday morning which is going to make for a very entertaining Thursday night
for Eric Black. Imagine being the poor bastard who has to share a room with him
or sit next to him on a coach or on a plane. Morning Eric, how are you?
Sleep well? The Friday morning training session they have planned could be
interesting. I wonder if anyone will try and bribe him to put the cones out in
a certain way or whatever.
Anyway, in the current climate I couldn’t see him being around for the Leicester game on Sunday though as
I write, Saints have once again asked the Telegraph for unedited video and a
full transcript which they are refusing to give. Now it appears that the agent at the centre
of it all who has spoken of 8 managers being on the take, has made it all
up. Stranger and stranger.
Back to the footy and Leicester. Well, we know four of the starting 11 for
that game and I expect the other 7 will mean that the team is unchanged from
the West Ham game. Another clean sheet on Sunday against Vardy and Mahrez and
Slimani and we’ll be laughing all the way into the international break.
League 1 Minus 10 
Leave a comment