this game on the crest of a wave and maybe, though illogically, thinking that
we had a chance of upsetting Billionaire City. However, after the West Ham slap in the face,
even the most optimistic won’t be thinking that today as they approach the
ground, they will be thinking variations of “we haven’t got a fucking prayer
against this lot”. Mind you, fans of
Palace and Leicester will have been saying the same thing recently and they
beat City but crucially it was a City without Fernandinho who is the single
most important player in amongst all the Galacticos. With any luck he won’t be playing today which
will give us a small chance I guess. City’s
resolve will also be strengthened by the fact that Liverpool have opened up a
seven point lead on them at the top of the Premier League so I would say the
chances of getting anything out of the day or somewhere between slim and none. I feel like I’m a bit of a miserable twat
being this negative about our chances but I would say it’s being realistic.
Sometimes you just know. It’s a bit like turning up to a gunfight with a fucking
peashooter.
Ralph said after the West Ham defeat that some players looked tired and he may
rotate a few. When I saw the team…. My oh my! It was a selection that clearly smacked of
saving some of our best players for a game we might win. All of the front three were rested along with
Yoshida and Vestergaard. There was a
debut at right back for Kayne Ramsey and starting places for JWP, Jack Stephens,
Charlie Austin and strangest of all, Mohammed Elyounoussi. I actually think
that one of these changes might be tactical as Vestergaard will get ripped to
shreds by the likes of Stirling Agüero and Sané. The composition of the bench
gave some real pointers as to which players will likely be leaving in January.
There was no place on the bench for Cedric, Hoedt, Gabbiadini or Davis. When the manager is freshening up the team
and you are an international footballer and not even on the bench – you know
you have no future. To be fair, Guardiola
went for some rotation as well but it was stuff like leaving out Leroy Sané and
playing Bernardo Silva instead – you get the drift.
compunds this by getting outmuscled by Sterling who is half his size. Eventually it is worked back to Bernardo and
McCarthy pulls off a worldy to keep it out from about 10 yards. Our first chance follows a break from
Hojbjerg, a ball inside to Elyounoussi and the winger clipped a superb ball to
Austin who was clean through but instead of hitting it first time, a trampoline
touch that Shane Long taught him took it straight to the keeper. Two minutes later and Bernardo advances down
our left, plays a 1-2 with Danilo and this is enough for Lemina to give up
helping Targett out and a pull back is despatched by David Silva for the most
unsurprising opening goal in history.
yard box, popping first time passes about and the goalkeeper getting involved
as well. Wankers. Then they pass out and are away with Mahrez running
through on goal. He drills it wide after
a long run but it quite brilliant football. Another quite brilliant move cuts
us open and McCarthy again has another worldy to keep out Aguero from 5 yards.
Hojbjerg on his goal line. We win a
corner which feels like something worth celebrating and JWP’s kick is flicked
goalwards by Austin and Ederson surprisingly saves it with his hands instead of
catching it between his ankles or some such ridiculousness.
and it does when Zinchenko, who is not on the same level as the other City players,
turns inside in the left back position and gets caught by Hojbjerg. On marches the captain and lashes it past
Ederson who doesn’t move to unbelievably make it 1-1.
pings a superb diagonal over Zinchenko to JWP who knocks it past his marker,
gets in front of him and bears down on goal.
Arm in the back, over he goes, nothing.
Fuck sake. So, he’s neither dived
or been pushed. Ridiculously unlikely I’d
have said.
After another minute which included a City goal kick which possibly should
have been a corner to us, forward come City, Stephens gets too tight to David
Silva and then gets his feet in a mess and passes it straight to Sterling. He cuts in and crosses, it hits JWP and flies
past McCarthy at the near post. Part
self-inflicted and part bad luck but just when we were looking half decent, 2-1
down and a sense of injustice again as ‘2-1 to the referee’ rings round the
ground.
concede another goal and it happens with Zinchenko being allowed to cross from
our right and Aguero in in between Targett and Bednarek to head in front point
blank range. Maybe Macca could have
stopped it but anyway, it’s 3-1 and game over.
reason but Lemina is off for Redmond as we start the second half. That’s about as exciting as the second half
got to be honest as no one really gave a toss.
Sterling smashed a shot into McCarthy’s face so that goes down as
another good save and Aguero span past Bednarek and Stephens before hitting the
bar. Saints were content with a holding pattern with the odd clattering tackle
with Austin scything through Fernandinho so late that the ball was in another
post code. City weren’t beyond this kind
of shithousery as well and Kompany launched a two footed drop kick as
Elyounoussi which earned him a yellow when it clearly should have been a red.
for more important challenges and then the ref evened up the non-penalties when
Valery looked to have brought down Sterling from behind but nothing doing. Long came on for Austin cos we needed 2 goals
but unfortunately we only have 15 minutes and not the 63 matches that Shane
would need to score them. Charlie signed
off with a ‘playful wave’ at the City fans who had been on his case since the
Fernandinho tackle.
has to keep the score down and all this would be kind of acceptable until
Hojbjerg went into full ‘fucking idiot’ mode and trashed through Fernandinho
with 5 minutes to go and give the referee the opportunity to send him off. The ref got this one spot on.
an end after a second half which was as boring as it could possibly be with the
game already decided and neither team being that fussed about anything else
happening. We’ve lost 9-2 across two
games v City this season. Despite all
this, Hojbjerg still managed to get himself sent off which was fucking
ridiculous as he now misses, I think, three matches for the red card plus an
additional one as it is his second red card of the season. No question, he
deserved to go but how the hell Vincent Kompany stayed on the pitch after his
two footed airborne effort against Elyounoussi is completely beyond me. After
picking up a yellow for the challenge he should’ve got a red for, he then took
out Alex McCarthy whilst he was still in the air which is even a bloody foul
and a yellow card offence in Rugby Union.
With the score at 1-1, like the West Ham game, we had a very good penalty
appeal turned down, like the West Ham game and 30 seconds later we were 2-1
down, like the West Ham game. The penalty appeal today is given if it’s for a
big club (see Salah at least 5 times a season) – like the one in the West Ham
game. Hey, even if we had been given the
penalty and gone to one in front, I am 1000% sure that we would have lost
because City could’ve scored as many goals as they wanted to today but with their
two goals just before half-time it was job done and thank you very much and who
are we playing next? The team they are playing next is of course Liverpool so
they are going to have their eye on that one and of course I hope they win. Today’s referee was Paul Tierney from Wigan,
which is 20 miles from Manchester – maybe he was worried about them not giving
a lift home the spineless twat – just saying. Penalty aside, we also had the Kompany Drop
Kick and also we had Danilo refusing to go to the referee to get booked and the
referee then sheepishly walking after him rather than giving him a yellow card
for the original foul and then a second yellow for being a fucking dick
straight afterwards.
Ralph certainly hadn’t prioritised this game and had chosen it to rest some of
our more influential players like Ings, Redmond and Armstrong. This was not a
game for Vestergaard with the ball being at the feet of small nimble attackers the
whole game so it was a genuine chance for others to show what they could do. Bednarek in the main played well but did lose
Aguero for the third goal. Stephens did some nice things with the ball on at
his feet including putting JWP clean through for the non-penalty but his
defending was in the main poor and on the second goal it was an absolute joke. Kayne Ramsey looked terrified in the first
half when he was playing as a conventional right back. When he went to the
right of a defensive three (a tactical switch probably bought about by him
struggling), he actually did quite well but I sensed that he didn’t really want
the ball and other Saints players seem to sense that too and very rarely gave
it to him. He did put in a couple of decent tackles and for the first game in
the Premier League and playing against this calibre of opposition, he can be
quite pleased with himself. This will probably be an unpopular opinion but I
thought JWP put in a decent shift at right wingback to cover Ramsay and in the
centre of midfield, Oriol Romeu and Hojbjerg were excellent until Pierre’s red
mist moment.
playing against better players and a better team and instead of deciding to
raise his game to show he was worthy of being on the pitch against these
players, he just collapsed and couldn’t be bothered and showed and amazingly
disrespectful attitude towards his manager, his teammates and the fans who pay
to watch him. On the whole he’s been very good this season but today was a
throwback to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final. He has too many games where it
just looks like he can’t be arsed and I sense that Ralph saw that today which
is why he got hooked on half-time. There
have been some reports of him playing whilst injured but it happens so often
that you have the question his attitude.
Then we had Mohammed Elyounoussi who produced a very passable impression
of a hologram, barely touching the ball and when he did, having a virtual
hundred percent record at giving the ball back to the opposition. The odd promising run but zero at the end of
it. Up front, Charlie Austin at least
tried but he had to score that chance (provided by Elyounoussi amazingly) but
no…. and its games like this when you have to take every chance, let alone when
you are clean throughout against the goalkeeper.
Match of the Day 2, went out of their way to do us no favours whatsoever in
that the edit showed Austin being substituted for no reason other than to show that
he flicked the V’s at the City fans as he left the pitch. That was deemed more
highlight-worthy than Kompany’s drop kick or Danilo’s blatant dissent. More examples of Top 6 refereeing ridiculousness
also happened in the Manchester United versus Bournemouth game when Eric Bailly
should have been sent off twice and Ashley Young should also have walked.
Earlier on in the week we had Mo Salah diving for a penalty which was less
obvious and JWP is one today and needless to say, he got given it. To the Big 6
really need monumentally bent referees? Aren’t the bent FFP rules and
consequently the fact that they have mega billions of pounds to spend, enough?
Clearly not.
Saints start 2019 away at Stamford Bridge and whilst that is in all likelihood
going to end in defeat we have reason to be optimistic for the New Year. It is
all about staying up and just maybe having a little go in the FA Cup. 2018 has
been uniformly bollocks apart from a small spike when Hughes kept us up and the
surge of optimism when Hasenhüttl was appointed. I don’t think anyone can doubt
that we have the right man in charge now but January is going to be telling as it
is up to Ralph Krueger and the board to back the manager as the manager will
have a clear picture now regarding which players are fit for purpose and which
ones will go.
All aboard for more ups and downs in 2019. Hopefully The proportion of ups
compared to downs will be slightly higher this year. Happy New Year to
everybody, apart from Liverpool. Liverpool
can get in the fucking bin.
League 1 Minus 10 
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