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the ball into the net in the last minute to make it 2-2. At the time we were
absolutely fuming at how the shithouse got away with such blatant cheating but
at the end of the day, if he had not done it, Saints would have won that game
and then probably Pellegrino would have stayed charge for a little bit longer
and we would probably be mid-table in the championship by now. So – no harm
done Doucoure you cheating fucker.
Watford have had an incredible season really. They are on course to finish
seventh as the best of the rest and they are also in the FA Cup final so even
if they get beat, they have a very good chance of being in Europe next year
which is brilliant news for them. The manager Javi Gracia is on course to be
the longest serving Watford manager since Graham Taylor. I haven’t fact checked
that particular statement but I have certainly gone through a few in the last
few years. The good news for us is that Troy Deeney managed to get himself sent
off a week or so ago so he will be missing against us today. This is really
good news because we of course have defenders who in particular, struggle against the big
bustling centre forward types who put themselves about.
Hopefully we will have taken enough positives from the second half of Newcastle
to ensure that there is no repeat of the first half and it will be very
interesting to see what line-up Ralph goes with bearing in mind the quick
turnaround from Saturday’s defeat. It sounded like Vestergaard wasn’t too far
away from being fit and the official line on Valery was that he was being
rested so hopefully those two will be back in contention today. I’m hoping that
Ralph decides to give either Kayne Ramsey or Alfie Jones a place on the bench and
not Jack Stephens, whose confidence is clearly shot to bits. Elsewhere it will
be interesting to see if Lemina starts. I can’t see him lasting 90 minutes so it’ll
be just be a case of whether Ralph wants to use him at the start or at the end.
Other Saints news following the Newcastle defeat was that shock of shocks, Wesley
Hoedt was a prick on social media. It really isn’t going to go down well if you
like a post about a player which is about an opposition player who has scored a
hat-trick against your parent club. Even if the goalscorer happens to be your
best mate or even your fucking brother, you just don’t do it unless, as Wesley
has proved on countless occasions, you are a prick. I wonder if it’s escaped his
attention that we have done I have a lot better ever since Ralph saw through
him and fucked him off.
At the weekend, Brighton picked up a point at Wolves and surprisingly, they
didn’t score again. Cardiff were predictably beaten at home by Liverpool.
Cardiff’s next two matches are Fulham away and Crystal Palace at home. Fulham
have been relegated for a while but have won their last two games as Scott
Parker tries to put his mark on things. Palace
are now safe – especially from the Nazi’s who they have never heard of – which
probably means that the supporters would quite happily tank the game at Cardiff
to put Brighton in the shit. Brighton
are playing tonight against Spurs so will be good if Mr Pochettino put out a
full side and doesn’t rest everybody for their impending Champions League
semi-final.
Valery or Vestergaard so unless it’s a back 4 with Jack at right back, JWP is
in defence again. Before kick off it
looks like we are 3 at the back again but Stephens is on the left of the three.
Well that’s better anyway. Elsewhere, Shane Long is up front as two
games in four days was always going to be too much for Danny Ings.
actual fuck?. Watford have taken the kick off back to Cathcart in defence and
he has been closed down by Shane Long, smacked the ball against him and it’s landed
perfectly for Shane to run through and dink the ball over Foster as he came
out. This is not a drill. There was something else magical about this in that Doucoure
of all people was stood there with his arm up appealing for handball against
Shane. Fuck off you cheating prick. Shane Long, three goals in four games,
feckin’ goal machine. Right then, now for the rest of the game.
Watford have a decent chance straight away as they play it out to the wing to Will
Hughes. Andre Gray is in the middle, he’s offside and he’s been offside the
whole move but they’re allowed to carry on and the ball comes across and Gray
shoots, Gunn saves and the ball pops up and Gray can I only head it wide. In the excitement of the start I haven’t noticed
who is referee – It’s Mike Dean. Great.
Watford have the attacking threat of Gerard Deulofeu, who has been brilliant
the past few weeks and scored an absolutely fantastic goal in the FA Cup
semi-final. Our concentration goes to shit for a bit and we allow him onto his
good right foot, just to the left of centre and he sets the curler off towards
the far post and a scrambling Gunn sees it go a couple of feet wide.
It is a very open game and we are finding a lot of space and having a lot of
possession in the Watford half of the pitch. Hojbjerg battles well and finds
JWP out on the right and his excellent cross in between the defenders and the
goalkeeper reaches Shane at the back post and ‘GOOOOAAAAAFUCK’ and the goal
machine can’t crane his neck enough and can only had it wide. A good chance,
should be 2-0.
Watford I have a guy called Mossina at left back and he is shite. Long bullies
him and superbly brings down the ball out of the sky. On it goes across the goal to Redmond who
allows the balls to run across him and again it looks like he’s going to tap it
into an empty net but a sprawling Foster gets something on it and the ball pops
up and hits the post before going wide. Fucks sake. Should be 2-0, for the
second time. From the corner, MayaYoshida gets himself free again but again finds
a new way to miss, this time clearly controlling the ball with his arm before
playing an airshot.
Surely it’s 2-0 this time as JWP again gets down the wing and again puts over a
perfect cross and this time it’s Ryan Bertrand at the back post who meets it
but it hits the outside of the post again and goes wide again. There is an old cliche that you have
to score when you are on top otherwise it comes back and bites you in the arse
(or something like that). Good job we
have a good record of holding on to 1-0 leads, otherwise I’d be worried.
I mentioned earlier that the referee is Mike Dean and as we approach half time
he has managed to do about 40 minutes without doing anything horrendously
fucking ridiculous but then Bednarek goes into a tackle against Gray and wins
the ball as cleanly as you could possibly win it. There is a slight contact on
the follow-through but that’s enough of Mike who gets out his yellow card with
clear relish. Fucking idiot.
Half-time and this has been going remarkably well. Watford don’t seem to know
how to deal with us at all going forward and the gamble of playing JWP at
right-wing back has really worked because he’s done well defensively and still
managed to get forward and get over a couple of absolutely brutal crosses which
we should’ve made more of. It becomes apparent that Shane’s goal has been timed
at 7.69 seconds which is absolutely ridiculous.
Mike Dean is obviously decided that he liked being the centre of attention from
little bit before half time so Romeu of course gets booked straight away but
not very much at all. Watford have change the shape and are looking the better
for it and we nearly have a flashback to last year as Deulofeu attacks on the
right and Stephens (who has played well so far) gets a tackle in but the ball
get crossed back in and Doucoure looks
like he’s going to score but he makes a complete bollocks of the timing of his
jump and the ball ends up getting his arm again but this time he doesn’t execute
as well as he did last year and the ball drops down for Gunn to pick up. It’s enough for me to call him a cheating
prick again though.
recognise. Oh hang on, Josh Sims has
wiped his beard off and goes onto the right wing. As the half goes on, Romeu commits another
couple of fouls so before Mike Dean can really be a twat, Oriol is off to be
replaced with the Rock Star Instagram Model.
80 minutes and we’re still causing them all sorts of trouble when we go forward
and Long gets the chance to run at the Watford defence on the left hand side
and on the edge of the penalty area, Kabasele just brings him down with no
other thought in his mind. Mike gets the yellow card right this time and after
a lengthy delay for the injury, JWP whips in the free-kick but Foster pushes it
away at the near post. Shane has had to go off and Yan Valery has come on,
pushing JWP into midfield.
Straight away the new man is in the action, leading the charge out of the
defence and skipping past a challenge. Redmond is in the middle and JWP has
made up ground on the edge of the box and is unmarked. All Valery has to do is
pick him out but he manages to dissect the two of them and the chance is
butchered.
It is still looking relatively comfortable as we approach 90 minutes but
Watford are ramping up the pressure of it and for the first time we are just
beginning to look a little bit ragged. Pareyra gets a shot in from about 10
yards which Gunn is forced to save and though it takes ages and several
attempts, we do eventually clear it. Back it comes though and he gets fed out
of the right wing. Another cross comes in, a lucky bounce and there is Andre
Gray to swing a foot at it and it flies into the roof of the net at the near
post. Fuck off. It’s absolutely
ridiculous how we’ve managed to do this.
There is only a little bit of time left but it’s enough time from Mike Dean to
make a dick of himself again as Kabasele, clear as you like, is last man up
against Redmond and he put two hands on him and shoves him over. Mike has his
whistle to his lips and decides that the clearest push ever seen, is not a
foul. The only thing that could’ve been more ridiculous is if he’d given a foul
and then not given him a second yellow. Before
there’s any more incident and his incompetence is highlighter further, Mike
decides he’s had enough.
Absolutely fucking infuriating. No doubt people will try out the stats about
how many points we lost from winning positions and I don’t really care to be
honest. What’s the opposite of clinical? Whatever it is then that is us. It’s
not that we miss a ridiculous amount of chances but we do manage to butcher an
enormous amount of situations where we just a little bit more care or a little
bit more quality we would create a situation where we would find it harder to
miss the score. How the fuck did we not win this game? It should absolutely
have been out of sight at half-time. We get the early goal which is brilliant
and because of the way it came about, an absolute bonus and then we spent 45
minutes dominating the game and only forced Foster into one more save. if you
look at the game as a whole, we have scored one goal which was lucky and by
that I mean that 99 times out of 100 the clearance doesn’t hit Shane and it
certainly doesn’t bounce into the perfect place on the pitch for him to run
through in score. That said, it was an absolutely brilliant finish from the
hurling playing goal machine. 7.69 seconds is a record that you have to think
it’s gonna last forever unless someone has a shot straight from the kick-off.
I’m not even sure if you can score straight from the kick-off these days with
the one touch kick-off now in place but even if you can’t, I guess the only way
that Shane’s mark is going to be beaten is by a tap by one player and then the
shot by another.
Shane did have a very good game after the seventh second but he should also
scored that header and Redmond should also have scored as well and we took the
wrong pass and fucked up the opening on numerous occasions. The absolute
classic was the Valery one in the second half. A clinical side scores that and
wins the game 2-0 and thank you very much.
I think they were excellent performances all round today. I admit that I
absolutely groaned when I saw Jack Stephens name on the team sheet but he
slotted in on the left hand side at the back three and had what for him was a
very solid match. I also thought Armstrong and Romeu were pretty good right
throughout the match until they got substituted which in Romeu’s case was to
stop him getting sent off. Has he ever
been sent off for Saints? I don’t think he has.
Having started breathing again and calming down, a point at the end of the day
is huge in the scheme of things. It puts us six points ahead of Cardiff plus a
better goal difference and the last of their three games is Manchester United
away and they are basically going to have to win all three of their remaining
games to have any chance of overtaking us and that’s assuming we don’t beat
Bournemouth or Huddersfield at home. It would have to be truly spectacular for
us to finish below Cardiff. This is probably why Ralph didn’t seem overly
disappointed at the end of the game as he sees the bigger picture.
Looking even further ahead, Watford are probably going to finish seventh this
year and are in the cup final and will qualify for Europe. Do you honestly
think they are much better than us? It goes to show that if that is the
standard you have to reach to finish seventh then we most certainly should be
capable of it next season with Ralph at the helm. The current squad of course
needs adding to but I think today gives an indication of exciting times ahead.
The one remaining question at the bottom of the Premier League is whether it is
Cardiff or Brighton who go down and Brighton had an agonising 1-0 defeat away
at Spurs tonight, only conceding in the 89th minute but the positive is they
did complete their sixth consecutive game without scoring a goal.
Saints move on to a home game against Bournemouth on Saturday. Aside from a
freak win at Brighton, Bournemouth have been pretty dreadful for the last
couple of months and the first questions are being asked about Eddie Howe and
whether he can take this Bournemouth team any further. He can do what he
fucking likes as long as he starts after Saturday. If we play well then we will
win and I’m sure that Ralph will spend the next few days impressing on the
players that the job is not yet done.
Footnote: Your truly was a guest on The Ugly Inside Bournemouth Preview show where I chatted about the Watford game without all the 4 letter detail written above. Enjoy.
League 1 Minus 10 
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