Football media likes things like losing runs or runs
of games without a win. Of course, we won a game last week so maybe now they will
be talking about a run of consecutive wins or a run of games without defeat. Unfortunately, some bastard saw fit to give us
Manchester City away, straight after our first win in what felt like ages. This
game has been brought forward from the end of the season because City are in
the Carabao Cup Final. I wonder whose idea that was? I’d rather play them
nearer the end of the season when they’ve already won the league and will have
one eye on other competitions.
City are of course, going to win the league this year by a mile and were on 21
consecutive wins until they played their voodoo game in the fixture list,
Manchester United at home and they lost 2-0 to a team that have been very
underwhelming over the last few weeks. It’s a strange season so why not
Southampton winning today and adding one to City’s losing run. Ha ha fucking
hah.
One obvious reason why we will struggle is because it looks like
Ralph is not going to risk the players have just come back from injury so that
probably means KWP and Diallo left on the bench, meaning that we will be
makeshift at right back and makeshift in midfield. Another obvious reason is
that City are a wounded animal after the defeat to United. Another reason is
that City have about 15 players who didn’t play against United, who would
comfortably get in our first 11. That’s why they could rest their whole
starting 11 from their last game and still put a team out which would probably
qualify for Europe in its own right.
I’m not gonna criticise City or Pep about the money as that’s
boring. He is a fantastic manager who gets the team to play in a fantastically
entertaining way. This year he has added a bit of pragmatism to their game as
well. What I mean by that is that the defence is decent this year. A lot of
that is down to the acquisition of Ruben Dias but also down to the resurgence
of John Stones and over the course of the season, Stones has gone from being
behind the likes of Tyrone Mings and Michael Keane in the England pecking order
to be the first named defender on the team sheet.
The media were very boring when they interviewed Pep as he was asked about
Manchester United beaten us 9-0 and how many City were going to beat us by. He
said 18-0 and he was clearly joking but of course the clip went out edited in
such a way that it made it look like he wasn’t joking. I guarantee there will
be someone somewhere who buys this. Also, there will be people tuning in
expecting to see another massacre.
So, take your place behind the settee for a 6 o’clock kick-off. Hopefully I
won’t be making my usual joke about getting fucked live on TV before the 9pm
watershed.
The 11 names on the Saints team sheet don’t make any sense. Are we playing the
normal formation with Bednarek right back and Jack Stephens in midfield or are
we playing five at the back with Stephens at right back? On Sky, they put the graphic up which looks
like pure bollocks because Ryan Bertrand is it right back, Salisu left back and
Jack Stephens in midfield. Surely not. City have got… well it doesn’t matter
what the fuck City have got. City have got 11 world-class players on the pitch
and another 9 on the bench.
Away we go and bloody hell, Bertrand is at right back. Even more surprising is
that we start the game really well and dominate possession. This is absurd. A graphic goes up after 10 minutes and we’ve
had 75% possession. Jannik’s tried the left
footed ping over the top to marauding right back Bertie and it’s weird but it’s
good. Stephens has nicked a couple of balls
in midfield and Salisu is an uncompromising presence at left back.
And then City put an attack together. Gündoğan
flights a diagonal over our defence and Bertrand has lost Zinchenko. He knocks it first time back to Foden whose first-time
shot is pushed out by McCarthy and De Bruyne rams it into the net off the
crossbar. Fuck. One attack, one goal.
We keep possession well after the restart and look sharp in attack, none more
so than Nathan Redmond who is taking players on and looking threatening and
after one of his runs, he tries to curl one in at the far post and Ederson
pushes it wide for a corner. Over comes the corner from JWP, met strongly by
Vestergaard, Ederson claws it out and as Vestergaard goes for the rebound,
Laporte produces some sort of wrestling take down and fat Jon Moss has given us
a penalty. No way that’s getting overturned and up steps JWP to pass it down
the middle of the goal whilst Ederson dived out of the way. Get in.
At 1-1 we still play with great confidence and are playing out well from the
back. McCarthy has allegedly been picked today because he is better with his
feet than Forster and that particular nugget comes back to bite us as Salisu knocks
it back to him and the ball rolls under his foot and Foden is about to stick it
into an empty net when McCarthy absolutely trashes him. Foden gets up and tries
to play on and no penalty is awarded. The ball goes dead and we’re off to VAR.
“Hi Mossy – Andy Madley, brother of Bobby Madley, at Stockley Park here”
“Give me a chance to get my breath back man, I’m knackered”
“Looking at the penalty shout for Foden Mossy”
“Fucked if I know, I was in the City half blowing out of my arse and waiting
for a taxi”
“Looks like a clear pen to me, keeper’s got none of it and taken his ankle”
“Ah shit. That’s gonna make me look
bad. Is there any doubt?”
“Well I’ve got this one angle where you can’t see that he doesn’t get any of
the ball”
“I like what you’re thinking Andy…”
“It’s horrific though – clear penalty all day”
“Oh Andy, they’re gonna win anyway.. just leave it, be a mate!
“Really? He’s proper cleaned him out”
“Your brother Bobby would have done it for me – he was a proper ref from the
Mike Dean School of Centre of Attention Refereeing”
“Ok Mossy for fuck’s sake… sending it to screen now… you know they’re gonna go
nuts in the media cos this is against the big team”
“I’d rather keep my reputation – have you got any food?”
Fuck me, we’ve got away with it. We
carry on and JWP takes aim from 35 yards and Ederson has to tip it over the
bar. Back come City though and having
got away with the McCarthy shambles, we carry on being brave on the ball and
trying to play out of defence until Che Adams picks up the ball on the right
back spot. He thinks he’s Steven Gerrard and tries to ping a cross field ball to Salisu at left back but he’s more Steven Gerrard’s shit twin brother and he shanks
it horribly straight to Mahrez about 25 yards out. He dances round two flailing defenders before
working it onto his left foot and you know what happens then. Fucks sake.
Still, it looks like we’re going to get into half-time just one behind and we
can come out and have a go in the second half but then some marvellous play
between De Bruyne and Mahrez sees our nemesis dancing to the penalty area
whilst Vestergaard and Stephens watch and Mahrez shoots, McCarthy makes a
good fingertip save to tip it onto the post but it bounces out to where Gündoğan
reacts whilst our defenders do the Mannequin Challenge and he has a tap in for 3-1. Oh dear.
Fucked before the watershed again.
That third goal has killed it as a contest.
Now we just have to stay in it and see if we can nick the next
goal. Another problem is that Moussa
Djenepo as you know, is made of biscuits so when he was limping around at the
end of the first half, it was pretty short odds that he was going to come out
for the second half and sure enough, he doesn’t and is replaced by Nathan Tella.
The start of the second-half is fucking horrible. We are completely open and
it’s just a case of how long City will take to score. Doesn’t take long and once again they get a helping hand from us as we try and pass the ball out
of defence and Salisu just presents the ball straight to Fernandinho. He knocks
it wide to Foden and in it comes to Mahrez on the edge of the box and our
defenders seem transfixed and are all playing monoliths again as Mahrez does what he
does and works a bit of space and with the left foot that you know he’s going
to use, curls into the corner of the net. It was predictable and it was shit
with no defenders reacting and McCarthy didn’t move his feet to get far enough
across his goal to prevent what was a very simple finish. Could we try
defending for the rest of the game please?
It’s reached that point of the game when you think that we might get absolutely
fucking hammered because there’s still 40 minutes to go but out of nowhere, JWP
picks up a defensive header from Dias, Redmond back heels to Armstrong, who
crashes a pass into Che Adams but it drops nicely for him to ram into the net
to make it 4-2. It’s a bizarre game.
Maybe if we get the next one… back come City and Gündoğan runs off of Stephens who is looking somewhat bewildered
and hardly raising a jog. He finds Foden
on the edge of the box who knocks it off to De Bruyne who dances through
Bednarek with a contender for the nutmeg files and then, from the edge of the
box passes it into the net whilst McCarthy dives over it. Dog shit.
That’s it for the Stephens experiment and off he goes to be replaced with
Diallo and Watts comes on for Armstrong. I suspect that one player has been
removed because he isn’t playing very well and one is being removed to rest him
for the game on Sunday. The difference
with having a proper central midfielder on is instant and we look more
solid. There are still chances for City
of course as Salisu gets caught dawdling and Ferran Torres drags a shot wide
when he really should’ve scored.
Then, shock of shocks JWP bursts through from midfield on the left hand side
and finds Adams who looks up and beautifully curls a shot around Ederson and in
at the far post but unfortunately, the comeback is only on for about half a
second because the flag is straight up and it was clearly offside. Both teams settle for what they have in the
last few minutes as Jon Moss manages one more breath to blow his whistle to end
the game.
Overall, to be honest, I think it’s a case of job done. We got through the game, KWP and Diallo will
be available for the Brighton game and we didn’t get smashed by too many. Ok,
letting in five is never good but as we all know, we are capable of doing much
worse than that. We did pick up our obligatory injury however with The Biscuitman
having to go off at half-time.
It made me laugh throughout the game when the commentators, Martin Tyler and
Andy Hinchcliffe kept assuming we were doing some sort of clever inverted full-back
thing because they incorrectly thought that Mohammed Salisu right-footed. We
all know that the reason we lined up a defence like that is because Bednarek
and Stephens are absolutely horrible at right back and Salisu, with his natural
pace, would probably do a better job at left back. Bertrand was OK at right
back but he did get caught out a couple of times, looking over the wrong
shoulder, getting drawn infield and stuff like that.
Jack Stephens in midfield is something that a lot of people have been calling
for, for a long time, with the logic being that he’s not a fantastic defender
but the best part of his game is his passing and confidence on the ball. Today showed that there is a world of
difference between passing the ball from central defence when usually you have
quite a lot of space and maybe one striker to worry about, and passing it from
the centre of midfield where there are tackles flying in and you have to do
everything quicker. You have to pass the ball quicker and you have to get it
out your head up quicker. He tried his best and he won a few tackles but the
difference when Diallo came on in the second-half was enormous. A not to be repeated experiment, I feel.
I’ve seen it said that City only played well for a small portion of the game
and they still scored five goals. I
think that doesn’t do us credit because I don’t think we actually let them play
too well but the difference is that they are so clinical when they get to the
final third, especially if you have given the ball away and they hit you on the
transition. They always pick the right option and they always get a shot on
target.
Alex McCarthy made a few decent saves but overall, didn’t make the most of his
surprise recall. In the first half he made a couple of saves, got a bit unlucky
with the first and third goals. One the
third he made a very good save that wasn’t seen by anybody on the commentary,
to deflect the ball onto the post before Gündoğan scored. Sandwiched in between that though was the
horrible mis-control which gave the ball to Foden and I am still not entirely
sure how on earth we got away with not giving away a penalty for that incident.
The two goals in the second half were not great from the goalkeeping point of
view with Alex not getting across the goal quick enough for the fourth goal and
producing a horrible chocolate wrist effort for the fifth.
Going forward, Nathan Redmond was really good in the first half and showed the
difference between when he wants to do it and when he doesn’t. In the second half he reverted to type a bit
however. It’s good for Che Adams to get
another goal and it was also lovely finish for the one that was ruled offside.
I do hope that Redmond’s improved first half showing doesn’t mean that Nathan Tella
misses out at the weekend because he again was lively when he came on for the second
half.
It was nice to see Pep give us lots of plaudits for the way we played and the
fact that we made them suffer for the opening part of the game. Pep’s actual quotes are as follows… “We faced the most
brilliant and the best team we have faced in this stadium in the competition. The first 15, 20 minutes, they were just exceptional.
Big compliments for Southampton, the way they play is fantastic – it’s a joy to
watch, it’s a present for the spectators […] That’s why I like the Premier
League – you play games like today, so difficult, so tough. Today, Manchester
City won [due to] the quality of the players we have on the pitch, the players
up front made the difference.”
Ralph’s take on
things was that we basically could’ve gone there and defended the shit out of
it and lost anyway. He’s not that bothered and to be honest, I’m not either.
One person who is bothered though is Graeme Souness. The bitter old fucker is
still on Sky, still talking shit, still hating Saints for some reason, still trying to be edgy and just coming over as a
miserable twat. JWP is not a regular penalty taker but he stepped up against
probably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League and scored and he did it by
putting the ball exactly where he wanted to put it. In Graeme’s Miserable Old
Fucker World though, it’s a poor penalty. Fuck off!. To my mind, JWP knows that
Ederson has seen his penalty from the Sheffield United game and he’s got that
correct because Ederson has gone that way. Souness then crapped on about us playing into City’s
hands. Yeah, like it’s really a level playing field Graeme. We’ve given City
more problems than most teams over the past two seasons so calm yourself down,
you miserable old goat.
Next up is a huge game at home to Brighton on Sunday. KWP will be playing,
Diallo will be playing, Big Fraser will be playing and we will be decent. Bring
it on.
League 1 Minus 10 
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