game against Arsenal, in the bottom three, needing a point to at least have any
chance of getting out of it by close of business on Sunday night.
For the last two weeks, there hasn’t been a lot going on with Saints ensconced in
Tenerife on a training trip. Hopefully, Charlie Austin has not been put in
charge of the social side of things. Whilst on the trip it emerged not only
that Michael Obafemi is still alive but that he has signed a new contract
taking him up to 2022 which is good news. As long as Ralph is here, he won’t be
behind Shane Long in the pecking order for too long.
So, all was relatively quiet until Virgil Van Dijk of all people, felt the need
to try and twist the story about the end of his time at Southampton. The other
two players in our recent history who have felt the need to give damage
limitation interviews are Adam Lallana and Jose Fonte. What’s the common factor
between these three players I wonder? I
guess it’s because they know that at the end, they acted like complete pricks
and there is something gnawing away at the back of their mind knowing that for
the sake of their personal brand, and for everyone to think that they’re a fine
upstanding guy, that they need to try and rewrite history a little bit. I can’t
imagine for a second Why Virgil felt the need to bring this up again. As Saints
fans I think we except why he wanted to move to Liverpool but there are ways of
doing things and he was undoubtedly a prick. Just accept it and get on with
Virgil. We have. You’ll do the same to
Liverpool when Barcelona or Real Madrid come calling.
To today and Arsenal and traditionally, we write this fixture off as zero
points but we’ve already beaten them once this season so why not again? Under
Unai Emery they have been good in patches but not great and their defence is
dodgy which is what we exploited at St Mary’s. We have to get on the front foot
and try and force them into mistakes but even if we spend time penned back,
there will always be opportunities on the break so it could suit us today. Their home record is very good however so it
sure isn’t going to be easy.
Things start well when an early chip forward puts Redmond away on the right
wing in loads of space. The cuts in, chops past the last defender and then
smashes it straight Leno’s chest and the chance has gone. This disappointing thing is that he didnl;t
really look like he had the belief that he would score. Arsenal break, we regain the ball and and
Stephens has it in the middle of the park and he pisses about with it until he
gets tackled. Lacazette brings it forward and feeds Iwobi on the left. His
cross into the middle seas Torreira hits the deck and before Grahan Scott can
give a penalty or not, Mkhitaryan shoots and Lacazette flicks into the net. He
looks offside but he isn’t and so we have gifted them an early goal, again.
When you watch it back, Stephens has compounded giving the ball away with jogging
back instead of sprinting, pulling down Torreira and then appealing to the
referee to not give a penalty rather than marking a man. Fucks sake.
Xhaka pings one just wide from outside the box and suddenly it looks like we
might get buried. Saints then have a bit of pressure with Romeu winning three challenges
in a row ahead of Arsenal bottle jobs before Targett’s cross is nodded back by
Redmond and Armstrong’s header hits and Arsenal defender and gets cleared. We win
it back again through Armstrong and he tees up Targett he brings a decent save
out of Leno with an angled drive.. As usual, there is an Arsenal player lying
on the ground with nothing wrong with him and so eventually the referee decides
to stop the game when we are enjoying our best spell of the game. From the
restart, Arsenal give us the ball back only they haven’t really as they’ve
given it to Stephens who once again fucks around and ends up giving a dreadful
backpass to Gunn. Gunn however, should let it just roll off for a corner or
smash it for a throw but instead of that he desperately tries to keep it in and
presents it to Iwobi 20 yards out. He takes it on, squares across the top of
the penalty area and Mkhitaryan rolls into the far post for 2-0. Another goal they had to work really hard
for.
Xhaka is allowed the freedom of the emirates to tee-up Lacazette and it’s only
thanks to Bednarek’s block but we’re not 3-0 down. Lacazette then misses an
absolute sitter, hoofing over from 5 yards following some more desperate
defending in the middle, this time from Bednarek, teeing up the Arsenal
players. Gunn then has to save from Lacazette with his feet and it looks like
we’re going to get absolutely annihilated. Half-time and the game is over. I’m reminded of a game at Highbury in the
early 90s when we were 4-0 down and for the only time ever, I left early to go
to the pub as there was no point in staying.
I love Ian Wright but he scored a hat-trick that day. Bastard.
Some changes have to be made with Jack Stephens been put out of his misery,
along with Stuart Armstrong and Charlie Austin is on with Michael Obafemi. The reason we never get back into these games
is illustrated when at the start of the second-half Xhaka passes straight to
JWP on the edge of the box and from right in the middle of the D, JWP smashes
it wide.
Obafemi has darted about and started to look dangerous but then he went into
full sprint mode and surprise surprise, pulled a fucking hamstring again so off
he goes to be replaced by Elyounoussi.
The rest of the second-half is a predictable waste of time with Saints having a
couple of decent efforts with Austin’s flicked header making Leno work and then
in the last minute, Targett putting in a fine volleyed effort which worked Leno
again. Gunn is forced to make a decent save with his foot when Vestergaard
desperately tried to stop a cross going across the box and deflected it towards
goal but that was about as exciting as it got in the second half as we limped
to defeat.
Well that was a waste of fucking time wasn’t it? As predicted, Arsenal weren’t
that great but they didn’t have to be. The game was done after half an hour and
they just jogged through the second half, three points, thanks for coming.
I really don’t know what else to say about Jack Stephens. Basically, he does
not have enough desire to keep the ball out of our fucking net. You can’t be a
defender in the Premier League or in any league for that matter without
basically taking pride in your defending and enjoying doing that job. I don’t
care how good he might be on the ball. He is not as good as he thinks he is.
You don’t saunter into midfield after five minutes, piss around and lose the
ball. Following that he then tried to give a penalty away and failed only for
Arsenal to score anyway. So, with Cardiff’s winner last time out, Stephens has
now coughed up three goals in 18 minutes. He has always got away with it in the
past and has been cut a lot of slack mainly because he’s been with the club
since he was 16 but he is simply not good enough. Put it this way, Wesley Hoedt
has made less mistakes all season then Stephens has made in the last three
games.
It is not his fault that he is picked however. It was a bit of a strange line-up all round
but Yoshida not being picked was the strangest decision out of the lot. I guess that like he did with Vestergaard
after the Cardiff away error, Ralph wanted to give Jack another chance. Some selections (Targett over Bertrand) made
me think that it was almost as if Ralph had seen Wednesday as a more winnable
game. I certainly think that Bertrand will be back on the side for example and
there is no way we were going to that game without a striker. I don’t think Gunn
will be playing against Fulham either to be honest.
Maybe they just went on the piss for two weeks in Tenerife, mocked up a few
training videos and that was that. We had the return of Michael Obafemi today
for what it was worth. It’s all very well being lightning quick but if you’re
going to pull a hamstring every time you sprint then what’s the fucking point?
The guy obviously has some sort of mechanical problem so that’s probably him
done for the season so that can be sorted out. (UPDATE: he’s out for the
season). However, why are we relying on
an 18 year old who has never completed a game?
The fact is that our only decent, proven striker is Danny Ings and he is always
injured, then we have the “unfit can’t play more than half an hour” Charlie
Austin and Shane Long. Time for Sam Gallagher to be given a go perhaps?. If
Gallagher is given a go however, can we please not just launch every single
ball 15 foot up in the air because he is tall.
So who played well today? Valery and Targett were okay as were Bednarek and
Vestergaard. The midfield three didn’t do a bad job but it’s a hard game to
take any positives out of bearing in mind the last 60 minutes was testimonial
paced as far as Arsenal were concerned so anyone saying that so-and-so played
well has to come with a massive caveat in that the game was completely done
after 30 minutes. We didn’t cave in and lose by more which is a positive I
guess but the game should be judged on the first half an hour as the last hour
was irrelevant.
Whether we play for at the back of five at the back against Fulham, we have to
put them under pressure. Put their defence under pressure and it will crack.
They are worse than us so we should back ourselves to outscore them even with
our deficiencies upfront.
to lose to so no need to panic. However,
the ease with which they beat us and the help we gave them was ridiculous. Keep making it easy for the opposition and we
will be getting relegated. It has to
change and that starts now.
League 1 Minus 10 
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