I strongly suspect that this game would be taken
lightly by the management and that we were not going to put our best team out
because even if we lose tonight, we have another chance in the final home game
and so it proved with Cedric and Bertrand making way for Martina and McQueen,
Maya instead of Jose in defence and even Romeu was rested with Hojbjerg playing
defensive midfield. The weakest of our wide midfielders in JWP and Clasie were
in the starting line up and the forwards looked full of running but not much
else with Long, J-Rod and Redmond picked. I kind of understand the weakened
side but at the same time I kind of don’t. 
I would say the better policy is to get it done tonight and rest players
for the home game against Be’er Sheva.

Off the pitch since the Liverpool game, fans
have had to deal with at the Alex Crook bullshit machine saying that Liverpool
are going to sign both Virgil and Sam McQueen from us with Daniel Sturridge
coming in the other direction. Hold it right there for fuck’s sake. Now, even
though I spent the whole of the last blog slagging off Daniel Sturridge, He
would be an absolutely dream signing for Saints which is exactly why it will
not happen because he’s probably on at least twice as much as our highest paid
player. Virgil to Liverpool in January really isn’t happening either and any
time there’s a swap deal mentioned, it never happens.   If you forget money for a second, maybe it’s
possible that Sturridge wouldn’t say no to a move down here if he looked at how
our other big club rejects like Bertrand, Romeu and Hojbjerg have improved in
the time down here. I do however strongly suspect though that he is Billy Big
Bollocks so wouldn’t even contemplate moving to a team that’s not a big club.

Anyway, regarding the outgoing rumours, if only
in the club could block Alex Crook from writing about them in the same way that
he blocks most of us from following him on Twitter.  It’s not just what he writes but it’s the
fact that he writes it and a million fan pages and Twitter accounts flood the
market with it.

Away we go and almost immediately, McQueen
threads a ball down the line to Long who bundles past the full back and squares
it to Clasie who could shoot but presents an easy chance to J-Rod who takes the
shittiest of shithouse first touches and instead of tapping in, tries to
dribble round a defender and loses it. 
JUST FUCKING HIT IT MAN FOR FUCKS’

Where do you fucking start with individual
players. I know, I’ll start with the worst of the lot, Cuco Martina. We would
have been better off taking him off when we had already used all three subs and
played with 10. If he wasn’t on the pitch then we wouldn’t have been giving him
the ball and expecting him to do what a full back is supposed to do and
actually cross the fucking ball into an area somewhere near our strikers in the
middle. If we do substitute him without putting anybody on we possibly would
have been given an extra 30 seconds of extra time at the end to try and get a
goal.  As we all know though, that would’ve been just another 30 seconds
of complete fucking shit. Martina was the worst closely followed by J-Rod.
Rusty Rodriguez as he’s known now was absolutely diabolical again like he has
been in every single game he’s played this season. There comes a point when the
excuse of being rusty just doesn’t cut it anymore. This is top level sport and
you can’t carry people.  We need him to contribute as he is one of the
main strikers in the squad and at the moment he just isn’t contributing at all.
That miss or rather, that lack of shot in the first couple of minutes is as bad
as it gets. He shoots he scores we are 1-0 up. Instead, five minutes later we
are 1-0 down. Game changer.

Apparently we are going to start seeing the best
of Boufal according to Claude. Well we fucking didn’t see it tonight as he
barely touched the ball when he came on and added absolutely no spark to a team
that was completely and actually flat anyway.  Maybe I’m being a bit harsh
on him as trying to put life into that performance was like trying to jump
start a car with no fucking engine or battery in it.  Dusan Tadic is
becoming a better and better player with each game he misses. 

Now the midfield and JWP had a completely
anonymous game contributing the square root of fuck all. Another game where he
had the chance to step up and completely failed to do so. Clasie was okay for
the first 30 minutes and then he did what he always does and fade completely
out of the game before we have to take him off.  Maya was a fucking
nightmare waiting to happen at the back and his shot from 45 yards was awesome
and Virgil had quite possibly the worst game I’ve ever seen him have the Saints
shirt. He really looked like he didn’t want to be out there and played in a
really half arsed lethargic way.

The players that leaves who had relatively
decent performances (and a couple of these are ‘at a stretch’) are Hojbjerg,
Romeu (who was sorely missed from the start), Forster who was looking
unconvincing but at least made a couple of saves and Sam McQueen who was easily
our man of the match.

With Hapoel beating Inter 3-2, we are now dead
level with the Israeli’s going into the last game against them at St Mary’s.
This game is the most important game that Claude will have as Saints manager.
If we fail to get out of this group then the crowd will turn. Some are turning
already but in my opinion if we fail to get out of what is a really easy group
with Inter being crap, then people will have the right to ask serious questions
of the manager.  Part of the reason he was brought in was because of his
experience of European competition. Three away trips and no fucking goals?  Sideways and bastard backwards and no forward
runs from midfielders and strikers playing miles apart.  Tactically – something is severely wrong at
the moment.

So, I get that we have to rotate players and the
weaker players only seem to play in the European games and the League Cup
games. When do performances become so bad that players get left out of the
rotation? I would personally rather see Harrison Reed playing ahead of Jordy
Clasie. I would also prefer to see Sam Gallagher playing ahead of J-Rod and to
be honest I think I’d even rather see the incredibly raw Olomola. There has got
to be an alternative to playing Martina at right back. Why not play Yoshida
there and play Jack Stephens alongside Virgil?  Promote the England U21
player instead of playing the journeyman donkey.  It was kind of okay when Martina was a
novelty player who played occasionally but this season he is playing far too
much and he just isn’t good enough to string three decent games together. At
the moment is not good enough to string 10 minutes together.  If the fullbacks
don’t deliver any quality from the wings then we severely struggle.  Claude knows this as it’s his system so why
is he picking a player who just isn’t capable of playing this way.

Lots of interviews afterwards with the manager
and players saying I’m ever so sorry, we let the fans down. Yes you fucking
did. It’s not just tonight though, we have let a painfully average team win the
group so even if we managed to scrape our arses through in a couple of weeks,
we are heading for a last 32 tie against a team who has dropped out of the
Champions League and the way we are playing at the moment, that will definitely
be the end of that.

Next up and back to the league and we have the
visit of the Lying Dutchman and his Everton side. They have Stekelenburg in
goal and we all know he has a weakness with shots at the goal. Right now I’m
wondering if we will actually fucking have any.