Someone’s Happy

Already
relegated Fulham come down to St Mary‘s for a game that I’m sure they are
really looking forward to. In all my time of supporting Saints, I don’t think
we’ve ever been relegated with this much of the season left so I don’t really
know.. but I can’t imagine this is much fun for Fulham players and fans, even
though they are used to getting relegated. Fulham have been a team this year,
bolstered by a load of loan players who probably don’t give much of two shits
anyway and they will all now be wondering where they are going to be next
season.

One of their loan players is of course our very own Saints legend Mario Lemina.
Ralph made some interesting / worrying statements in his last press conference
to the effect that Lemina may well come back into the squad next season for the
last year of his contract. Whilst on one level, I can see that that would make
sense because he can possibly provide cover for every position apart from the
strikers and the goalkeeper, I just wonder if we really need a player who
doesn’t give a fuck. It’ll be down to his attitude I guess but I have to admit,
I was quite impressed with the commitment he showed and the performance he put
in, in the Fulham game against Burnley which they lost and confirmed their
relegation.

Scott Parker is the manager of course and there is this narrative around the
game that he’s done a great job and he might be a contender for a possible move
to Spurs. Hang on a fucking minute. They’ve only won five games all season so
how a manager can emerge from that with an enhanced reputation is absolutely
beyond me. He does come across quite impressively and he wears a nice suit on
the touchline, but really?

The major news after the Palace game was that Ryan Bertrand confirmed that he
would not be signing a new contract with Saints and will be leaving the club at
the end of the season. This demands a full blog entry in its own right and I’ll
do that soon but for now, let’s just say that he’s been a brilliant servant to
the club over the last seven years and for a couple of those years at least, he
was certainly in the conversation for being our best player and certainly been
the most consistent. I don’t think he’s quite been at the races this season and
it is probably the right time but it’s always a worry when you have to replace
someone who is in the starting 11 every week if he’s fit. I hope that he is fit
enough to get on the pitch in the Leeds game next week so at least some fans,
including me, can give him a decent send off.

Today’s team news and …. Meh!  Bednarek hasn’t
made it so Salisu starts next to Vestergaard and aside from the goalkeeper
tombola with Macca back in between the sticks, there’s no changes, with
Minamino and Redmond keeping their places. 
In the Fulham side, I’ll be keeping an eye on Anguissa and Andersen to
see if I start lobbying for us to buy them – not that that of course, makes any
difference.

Fulham are trying to play out of defence and looking about as comfortable as
their fans did when they put up a Michael Jackson statue at the ground.  Andersen plays it into Aina, who is being
deployed in midfield which is surprising because he is absolutely shite.  With no awareness at all, he allows Armstrong
to nick the ball off him and Minamino picks out Redmond in loads of space on
the left but when a shot across the keeper was required, he lazily lashed it
wide with his left foot.   No matter
because Minamino took too long to pass the ball and so he was offside anyway.

Aina is our most creative player and he plays a great “no-look” pass to Adams
on the edge of the penalty area.  Adams
switches it inside to Minamino who is through but to be fair to Aina, he’s got
back in to block the shot which is eventually cleared miles up in the air from
about a yard out and caught by the goalkeeper.

A move down the right hand side ends with Armstrong dummying his way past
Andersen who grabs him and pulls him back. Free kick and a yellow card and more
punishment as JWP puts the freekick across, right on the money and there is Che
Adams to sweep it first time into the net from 6 yards to make it 1-0.  Needless to say, he’s being marked by Aina,
who brilliantly just stands there and lets Adams do what he likes.

It’s the Aina show yet again and his next contribution is to pointlessly Lee
trash Minamino right on the edge of the penalty area and dead central. It’s not
the ideal position but you do know that JWP is going to get it on target. I
notice Harrison Reed for the first time but only because he’s lying on the
fucking ground behind the wall, knowing full well there is no way JWP is
putting it there. In the event, the skipper has to smash it goalkeeper side,
and Arreola produces a save for the cameras.

There is one more opening before half time as Armstrong produces a lovely run
before slipping the ball through to Ings, who skips round Areola, doesn’t dive
but runs out of room and eventually his cross it’s nodded out by Andersen.

The game meanders on for the first 15 minutes of the second-half with the only
near miss being a JWP freekick from the right-wing which we use to try and
re-enact the first goal but this time, Onomah gets a flick to stop Adams
scoring again. The first sub comes jusy before the hour mark with Danny Ings,
clearly having reached the predetermined number of minutes for today, coming
off to be replaced by Nathan Tella.

The sub takes less than a minute to have an impact as Armstrong drives forward
from midfield, plays a 1-2 with Minamino, before sliding in KWP on the right-hand
side and his low cross in between the defence and the goalkeeper is absolutely
perfect for Tella to bury for his first ever goal in professional football. The
smile on his face as he wheels away seems to be outside the parameters of his
actual face. A brilliant moment for a player who has had to overcome quite a
lot of adversity in a short professional career so far.

Fulham begin to come into the game a little bit, now they are out of it and we
are not managing it very well.  A quick
break up our left hand side catches us out a little bit with Decordova-Reid
finding Cavaleiro in the middle but Jack Stephens comes sliding in with a shit
or bust tackle and superbly wins it and knocks it back to McCarthy.  Salisu then has to make a last ditch block to
deny Decordova-Reid and then Fulham get the goal they probably deserve as Decordover-Reid
puts Carvalho through any lashes it past McCarthy and in off the crossbar. Poor
defending by Stephens, who is way out of position, it has to be said.

Ralph has decided it’s time for more substitutions with Diallo and Walcott
coming on for Minamino and Armstrong. Straight away Diallo starts giving the
ball away but the other substitution, like the first one, is a success straight
away with Walcott being involved at the start of the move finding Adams, then
running on to take Tella’s back-heel into his path before smashing into the net
with the aid of a deflection. Theo‘s first goal at St Mary‘s the best part of
15 years.

Tella then has a greedy moment when having sprinted about 50 yards to barge had
Adarabioyo out of play, he ignores Adams on the edge of the box and instead,
shoots at the near post which forces Areola to shovel wide. I think we can
forgive him that one. The End – 3-1. 
Easy.  Two wins in a week.

You know we have those games occasionally where the other team beats us and we
feel that they were only in second gear and they just did what they had to do
to win. That was a bit like us today. The win was always comfortable, and it
was always a relatively easy three points, but we just did what we had to do
and that of course meant it was a little bit in question when Fulham got a goal
back. The truth is, you can see exactly why Fulham are going down. They are in
the main, bloody awful. Nothing whatsoever upfront and some of their defenders
are just dreadful and just not committed enough to keeping the ball out of the
net.

We won the game basically with nine players and more on that later. Highlight
the day of course was the performance of Nathan Tella off the bench. The guy is
so enthusiastic and brings so much to the team when he comes on as a sub and it
was fantastic to see his smile when he got his goal. The assist for Walcott
wasn’t too shabby either and it was nice to see Theo get back to something like
his best form in his cameo. Theo’s influence on the younger members of the
squad is clear for all to see and interesting that Walcott was a big player at
Arsenal when Tella was in their academy.

Che Adams had another good game up front and help himself to another goal and
the defence in the main was untroubled by the admittedly limited Fulham attack.
Defensive highlight of the game was the Ghana Express ploughing straight over
Carvalho in the first half and the young Fulham forward getting up with a “what
the fuck was that? “, look on his face.

I was initially disappointed with the selection of Redmond and Minamino and
they did nothing to prove that I was wrong not to be impressed with their
selection. Redmond bought everything that is negative in his game to the table
and Minamino shows that he does not know his own game. He does not realise that
he does not have the pace or the strength to beat a player or keep hold of the
ball and get away from the player. It annoys me that he even tries to beat a
player because all he’s going to do is give the ball away. There simply must be
something about the number of minutes he plays and the cost of his loan deal
because I can’t believe that he stayed on the pitch for 90 minutes against
Palace and 75 minutes today because he was appalling in both games.

It was nice to see Ralph relaxed and enjoying himself is the game wound down,
taking time to have a good laugh when Fulham drilled the ball at the referee.
It must be nice as a manager when you bring onto substitutes and they score 2
goals and produce an assist between them.

As for the Fulham players I had an eye on, Frank Anguissa didn’t do much to be
fair and look like he was ambling through the game whilst he Joachim Andersen
was solid but there were a couple of ropey misplaced passes.  No doubt he would be a better player in a
better side.

Next up a course is fans back in the ground for an altogether tougher test
against Leeds who are a team who will never take it easy in an end of season
game, as proven by them running out 4-0 winners at Burnley this afternoon.
Having won two in a row, it be great to get a third but to be honest I’m just
pleased to be in the ground and looking forward to my first live football match
for about 14 months. Bring it on.  Up the
fucking Saints.