for weeks. Only the first part of that statement is true as it’s far from being
the highlight of the season that Sky would like it to be. Playing the big clubs is a massive pain in the
arse. It means away fans in the home end if you’re in the ground and very
irritating biased commentary if you happen to be watching the game on the TV.
On the pitch, it invariably means Southampton getting dicked and it’s not even
being close. I can’t be bothered to look up but apparently we haven’t beaten
one of the all powerful top six for about 35 matches since we won 2-1 at White
Hart Lane which is a ground that has of course been demolished since. And by
the why, that was against the Spurs side who had absolutely nothing to play for.
Personally, I’m coming to this game with a complete lack of enthusiasm. The walk across the Itchen Bridge is usually
punctuated with score predictions and guesses as to what the team is going to
be. There is a bit of that going on but the general consensus from three
generations of my family is a defeat and it doesn’t matter which players we put
out there. All I want is for us to have
a go. Is that too much to ask? On
arrival at the ground, the TV in the concourse is showing me that Fulham have
had a dose of top six reality and are currently getting thumped 5-1 at home by
Arsenal. There are a few fans raising a chuckle at Fulham‘s plight. Careful
what you take the piss out of lads.
On the face of it, it’s not a bad line up that Hughes has picked with Yoshida
and Bednarek coming in and it’s obviously three at the back. Despite the
rumoured fight in the changing room at Wolves and a predictable manchild social
media meltdown, Wesley Hoedt is in the side. The fact that he is our only
left-footed centre back is working heavily in his favour. Miraculously,
Gabbiadini starts. The only slightly disappointing thing is that none of the
new players that we signed this season have made the starting 11. Vestergaard
is on the bench but Elyonoussi and Armstrong are nowhere to be seen. I find the
make up of the bench rather annoying. JWP isn’t on there but Steve Davis is.
What the fuck does Steve Davis add these days that JWP doesn’t? What does he
add at all apart from experience? If you
want to shore up the midfield then you have Romeu and if you want to add to the
attacking side of midfield then Davis is not really the man when you could have
JWP, Armstrong or Elyonoussi. Still… Shane Long is also on the bench in case
we need a goal.
Chelsea’s team is full of superb players as usual and the one who is generally
held not to be brilliant, Olivier Giroud of course is like fucking kryptonite
to Saints. Here goes nothing. Hang on,
here goes daytime fireworks and flame throwers as the teams come out. It’s a fucking cringe but the kids love
it. As the game kicks of there is an
issue and three latecomers arrive who have no idea where they’re sitting and it
becomes apparent that they are Chelsea fans.
The temptation to kick off is strong but when two of the three are about
5 and 6, it’s best not to.
of McCarthy in and around the penalty area.
Chelsea are fizzing it about trying to pick a way through the mass of
defenders and Hazard nearly manages it but Bednarek blocks well before Willian
shoots and it hits Hoedt and bounces up, off the bar and over. Lesson not learned we play the opening 25
minutes in the same fashion and it’s a case of when rather than if. At risk of sounding like Mike Bassett…
fucking get into them.
It’s started after a near calamity with Hoedt playing a shite ball to
Yoshida who stumbled past Giroud more by luck than judgement, plays it to
Redders, into Ings and his chipped cross is just in front of Lemina and the
danger passes. It’s enough to get the
crowd roaring – it doesn’t take much these days.
interplay sees Gabbi fire in an optimistic one from 35 yards which Kepa pouches
easily. Then proper football breaks out
and it’s a great move with Bertrand picking up a return pass from Redmond and
crossing superbly. And Ings must
score. He connects on the volley from 5
yards out and fuuuuuuuuuuuck! He’s in the net, the ball is in the crowd.
changing formation on the fly with Bednarek going to right back and Cedric in
front of him. The confusion is played up
by Chelsea and they play it in the space behind Bednarek and Hazard finds
Giroud who is met by a sliding Hoedt who clatters man and ball away for a
corner. Chelsea are rather annoyed about
it and you can see why. He hasn’t fouled
him as such but both feet off the ground and not in control. Put it this way – we’d be a penalty down and
one man short with VAR.
around our box. A ball into Hazard is
met by a strong block from Wes but his ball to Hojbjerg on the edge of the box
has a blue flashing light on top of it.
Instead of just smashing it away, Hojbjerg tries to turn out and loses
it, one pass and Hazard has it, 10 yards out and unmarked. I stopped watching at that point.
kick just to the left of the penalty area but the ref, Craig Pawson, decides to
make Berty take it a good ten yards left of where the foul was committed. When Berty realises he’s serious and moves
the ball to0 the right place, he of course gets booked for it.
brought on. Within thirty seconds of the
restart he’s committed his first foul. I
guess we are changing approach now.
Willian has suddenly because our best source of possession when a shite
touch gifts the ball to Romeu. On to
Hojbjerg and he delays until Bertrand makes his run and clips a beautifully
weighted ball over the defence which Bertrand meets on the volley and miles
over the bar. That really should have
been a goal and the skipper knows it.
Willian wants us to have another go and another mistake gives Redmond
the ball and on it goes to Ings whose effort is easily saved.
a free kick with Ings hauling down Hazard.
The free kick is chipped to back stick and Giroud is all on his
own. He volleys across and Barkley
bundles it into the net from 5 yards.
Fuck sake. Game over.
and Gabbi goes off, having played right win in the second half. We do have a chance to get back into it as
Rudiger’s headed clearance went straight to Redmond and his superb strike seems
to be over Kepa but the £71 million keeper throws up an arm as he’s falling
backwards and somehow tips it onto the bar.
the new man nearly does as Hazard breaks, plays him in but he can’t beat
Macca. As the game runs down, Ings sees
Kepa pull off another good save to tip his shot over. Lemina is on the deck – put there in an off
the ball incident with the shit bag Marcos Alonso, returning to the ground
where he tried to break Shane Long’s leg last season.
space, frees Morata and he dinks over Macca for 3-0. Fucking fuck off. Everyone has already and most of those left
head for the exits. Wank.
six booked without anyone getting booked twice. All bar one of those bookings
was after the game was already dead. It seems almost pointless to mention the
referee but booking Bertrand for attempting to take a free-kick from the right
place was a bit of a triumph. That’s winning the booking count 6-0 was also a
bit of a triumph considering Alonso and Luiz were up to their usual off the
ball tricks.
Oddly enough, despite the predictability and boredom, we had some really good
chances which Ings and Bertrand should have converted and how the fuck Kepa
kept Redmond’s shot I will never know and I was sat directly behind it. The decent moves that we put together show
you that with a bit more belief, we could actually do something against these
sides. We are so fragile though.
I really want to know what the thinking was behind bringing on a striker who
has two goals in 60 games when we need two goals with 20 minutes to go. I am
not a huge fan of Charlie Austin but leaving him on the bench and bringing on Long
is either the work of the4 world’s biggest optimist or a complete lunatic.
Bednarek was unlucky to get hooked at half-time in the tactical switch as he
had probably been the best of the three centre backs in the first half. I
thought that Gabbiadini was unlucky as well, being forced to play right wing in
a 4-4-2 formation in the second half which again highlights the ridiculousness
of loaning out both Boufal and Sims and not even having JWP or Armstrong on the
bench.
As was entirely predictable, Chelsea were different gravy to us altogether both
on and off the ball and I felt like if they had needed to win 5-0 then they
could’ve done quite comfortably. Hazard is completely unplayable but especially
so if you give him time and room which we did. Predictably we contributed
massively to our own downfall with the first goal being an absolute gift. I see
that the knives are out for Hoedt as usual and he probably got sucked into closing
down a space that he shouldn’t have done but when a midfielder, in this case Hojbjerg,
pisses around with a ball on the edge of the box and loses it, it’s 95% their
fault. The second goal was ridiculous in
that Giroud had half of the penalty area to himself to volley across goal for
Barkley to score. When you see it
replayed though, Hojbjerg is marking Giroud but Luiz wraps an arm round him to
let Giroud run free. Cynical play by
Sideshow Bob but he got away with it so fair play to him. Third gold didn’t matter a shit because the
game was already dead but it was a brilliant goal by them as we watched on and
only about a quarter of the supporters were still present to see it.
In the scheme of things, similar to 3-0 defeat to Liverpool, a 3-0 defeat to
Chelsea doesn’t make the slightest difference to our season because even the
most optimistic fan would not have had us down for any points from this game.
The problem with today is that it showed that we aren’t getting much better in
terms of either finding a way to compete against the big boys or putting together
a 90 minute performance. We look good in
small sections of games but can never maintain it. Yet another formation change and it was
changed again during the game and yet again, the same insipid bollocks and fear
football which we seem to get every time we play one of the big boys. If this is going to be the way there then
there are another 10 games against the top six that we can write off for the
rest of the season, leaving us with about 20 games to get the 32 or so
remaining points that we need to stay up.
chances at both 0-0 and 1-0 down. We need to be going to these games against
the top six with the confidence that we can create chances if only we get on
the front foot occasionally instead of just sitting back shitting ourselves. We
cannot defend and keep concentration for 90 minutes and once we’re 1-0 down
then we’re usually fucked so that approach is always going to lead to defeat.
Another international break is here so we don’t have to worry about the shit
for another two weeks when we are down at Dean Court to play Bournemouth who
are currently fifth in the table and playing like a team possessed and a team
who know exactly what they are doing. They are currently miles better than us
but regardless of that, we have to go down there and look to win this game. Have some fun and try and pick a combined
Saints and Bournemouth XI. I’ve done it
and maybe McCarthy, Bertrand, Hojbjerg and Ings would get in. You’d be struggling after that.
League 1 Minus 10 
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