So This is Refereeing in England?

It’s
exactly half-way through the season after today’s game against Crystal Palace
at Selhurst Park.  19 games will have been
played out of 36 and we will have played every team once.  If we lose this one, we will have just the 6
points – double that and we have 12 and we will not be the worst Premier League
team of all time. As seasons objectives go, it’s not a great achievement.  Selhurst Park – I was here for the end of the
Great Escape in 1998 when we beat Wimbledon. 
This today is of course the start of the Great Escape 2025… is it fuck!

Spoiler Alert – He Didn’t Make It

Palace are members of what is being known this season as the Shite Six. No one
in the media is calling it that but you know what I mean. It’s the three
promoted clubs plus Wolves, Everton and Crystal Palace. The three that go down
are going to come from those six teams, so we have to target this game for a
win.  At least after the game against
West Ham, you feel that we might actually have a chance of winning it.

It shouldn’t have been this way for Palace this season. Last year in the second
half of the season under Oliver Glasner, they were excellent
and had he been there the entire season, they would probably have been
challenging for the European places. As it is they have missed their window
somewhat, losing Joakim Andersen and Michael Olise from last years squad and
not replacing them with players on the same level. Having said that, Lacroix
and Sarr are gradually getting better as are Crystal Palace themselves. They
will of course have been delighted recently with a win in the Strange Derby
between them and Brighton.

Palace had the gift last season of Jean-Claude Mateta discovering how to score
goals and having a physically imposing centre forward who can score 15-ish
goals this season is an absolute godsend if you are a team in the bottom half
of the league. If Mateta can repeat that this season then Palace will be
absolutely fine and whilst he’s not been as prolific as last year, when he
probably had, a little bit of an element of surprise about him, he is still
doing well enough to suggest that the goals are going to come.

Also in their ranks is one of our ex-players
in Nathaniel Clyne, now well into his thirties but a player for us associated
with the Pochettino era and one of the first to tread the path from Southampton
to Liverpool, when all that shit was going on.  As an aside, it has amused me greatly this
week to see another right back, namely Trent Alexander-Arnold being heavily
linked with moving to Real Madrid and all the Liverpool fans losing their minds over it. What goes around comes around, twats.

Ivan Juric’s press conferences this week haven’t really given much away as to
what team he’s going to put out for Saints today. I imagine it will be largely
the same as what played against West Ham with maybe Cameron Archer coming into
the mix if he’s fully fit. According to Ivan, Tyler Dibling has been looking
tired and that’s why he’s on the bench, which I think is fair enough. It looks
like Armel Bella-Kotchap has been given another clean slate and told to get
himself fit and get himself back in contention for the team. That guy has so
many clean slates, he could tile a bastard roof. I’ve been guilty of being
impressed by this in the past and I’ve heard it said a few times recently about
ABK being a full German international, but if we drill into that a little bit,
he got selected for a World Cup squad and didn’t play and Germany got knocked
out by Japan, so maybe being a German squad player isn’t all it was
once cracked up to be.  Also, England are
higher in the world rankings than Germany at the moment and Lewis Dunk is a
full England International.  However,
Dunk would walk into Saints current side so I might be arguing myself in
circles there.

Team news and it’s a bit of a WTF. 
Downes out altogether and Big Les on the bench, meaning that Aribo and Fernandes
are the midfield two bringing the intensity required for a Juric team.  Other than Will Smallbone, Joe Aribo is the
last player I’d pick to do that.  Bree is
in for Sugawara which is just what we want, a right back who wasn’t good enough
for us in the Championship.  Armstrong
has kept his place and I’m beginning to wonder if he has incriminating photographs
from the Sports Republic Christmas Party.

The first quarter of an hour goes by and we are the better side but nothing
tangible yet until we win the ball in the centre of the park go right to Dibling
and then back across the pitch and until it eventually ends up with KWP and
with just the defender in front of him decides to take Munoz on for pace and pisses
past him. His pull back finds Armstrong who takes a swing at it and scuffs
across goal but fortunately there is Tyler to turn it into the net from just in
front of Henderson. Brilliant by KWP, a large slice of luck from Armstrong’s
miskick but will take it and 1-0 and the Great Escape 2025 is on…. is it fuck.

The Great Escape 2025 – It’s On…. Is it Fuck!

After the restart is still Saints on top with KWP putting in another ball from
the left, after a decent burst forward by Woody. The cross is over the top of Tall
Paul but ends up with Breezy on the far side and his volley down and into the
ground is comfortably claimed by Henderson.

After about twenty minutes, the inevitable happens with Palace getting more
dominant in midfield through Hughes and Lerma, with Aribo and Fernandes being
unable to stem the tide. Lerma has a blast from the edge of the box which is beaten
out by Ramsdale and we survive and then Palace win a corner as Sarr’s attempted
cross is blocked by Ramsdale.  Hughes swings
in the corner to the near post and it’s all very untidy with Ramsdale picking
up a very clear shove off of Mateta and the ball ends up in the net for a
combination of Chalobah and THB.  Surely
that’s a foul but unbelievably, Michael Salisbury gives the fucking goal, but
we are off to VAR.

Hello Michael, Scotty at Stockley Park here. 
We’re just checking this goal. What was your on-field decision.  Hard to tell because you did fuck all?

Nice one Scotty.

Oh just fuck right off. What’s the fucking point in even trying to compete in
these games? Fucking absurd.  In what
world is that given as a goal?

Mateta versus Bednarek is becoming a bit of a battle and the Palace giant gets
up to flick a ball on, which Sarr takes in his stride and sets off towards goal
and his low effort is brilliantly kept out by Ramsdale.  Another corner comes in from Hughes and once
again we don’t have a player keeping Mateta off of Ramsdale so it’s more carnage and the ball drops to Lerma at the back post and he tries kind
of overhead scissors kick which Ramsdale has to beat away.

Palace nearly take the lead with the next attack as Sarr sends Mitchell away on
the left and a lovely low cross is begging to be put in by Munoz at the back
post but he, somewhat fortunately for us, manages to hit KWP’s heel as he’s
facing the wrong way right in front of the goal.

Half time and it took 20 minutes, but the lightweight midfield has completely come
home to roost now and we haven’t had a kick for the last twenty five minutes.
We have been reduced to launching long balls to Tall Paul and it’s just not
enough to just do that. There has to be some sort of quality on the ball up to
him and we have to get some runners around him otherwise he’s got absolutely no
chance,  Personally I’ve stopped caring since the Palace goal.  The Premier League is Fucking Bent.

At the start of the second half we get a free kick in the middle of the park
which Fernandes chips forward to Armstrong who feeds it first time out to Bree
and his cross is met by THB at the far post but Palace get rid of it for a
corner. Apparently, we have had 78 corners this season without scoring and this
one is no different.  No set piece coach
appointed since the last one pissed off.

Big Les is warming up within two minutes of the restart and it takes a further three
to get him on the pitch in place of Joe Aribo, who jogs off faster than he has
been getting about the midfield. Meanwhile, Mateta wins a corner and Hughes
takes it short this time to Eze and then crosses it in.  It’s headed away by Tall Paul and then played back
into the mixer and Munoz hooks it back across. Fernandes tries to take a touch on
the edge of the box and Eze seizes on it and smashes it into the bottom corner,
giving Ramsdale absolutely no chance at all.  For fuck sake. 
Another one for the non-existent set piece coach.

Saints respond pretty well with Big Les finding Fernandes about 25 yards out he
takes on three Palace defenders before shooting from more or less the penalty
spot, but Henderson helps it over the bar.  Another corner, another failure.

Armstrong and Tall Paul are next to be replaced and on come Archer and Sule-fucking-mana.
THB gets done by Eze on the edge of the box and wrestles him to the floor and
from the resulting free-kick, Eze a blast it hits the foot on someone in the
wall as they jumped and the ball bounces down hits the ground and spoons up
over the bar. Fortunate to say the least.

Michael Salisbury the referee hasn’t been useless twat for about twenty
minutes but then he decides it’s time and it’s long overdue as Fernandes goes
up for a header with five foot two Tyrick Mitchell who doesn’t jump and because
Fernandes wins the ball cleanly and Mitchell hits the deck, that of course is a
yellow card and Fernandes missing our next game. Well done Michael Salisbury –
Useless fucker, to give him his full title.

As we get towards the end, it really should be a time for Palace to get nervous
but it’s almost like the bad old days because we look completely done, with no
real ideas. Two of our best players, Dibling and KWP are then replaced with Lallana
and Manning, but without Tall Paul on the pitch, there really doesn’t seem to
be any idea of how to attack.  One last
big launch forward by Ramsdale in the 95th minute, headed out and that’s the
end of that and another defeat.  The Great
Escape 2025 will have to wait for another week at least.

And there you have it. More depressing crap for a number of reasons.  Like West Ham last week, Palace weren’t
great, but we have found a way to lose both games through our complete lack of
ability to defend set pieces and the second phase from the set piece.  Palace nor West Ham have scored from open play
against us but we simply do not react when the initial set piece is cleared.  

Palace‘s first goal today was of course from a set piece as well but that one
slightly more complicated because it is yet another shit joke from referee,
linesman and VAR. It just makes me feel that the sooner we are out of this
league, the better.  Maybe that’s what The Great Escape 2025 is about – getting out of this shite league.  I despair at the
state the game has got itself into.  I
just wish I didn’t have to put up with another five fucking months of it.  In any division of any professional football
league, apart from the Premier League, that goal is disallowed a hundred times
out of a hundred.  Let’s be honest – it’s
disallowed in the Premier League a vast majority of the time but not today.  In the Championship, where we will soon be, the
referee sees a coming together between the striker and the goalkeeper and blows
the whistle and disallows it.  In the
Premier League however, the referees do fuck all, thinking VAR will sort it out,
but of course VAR doesn’t sort it out, not today anyway as it just goes with
the referees non-decision. Of course, it only does this when it feels like it
because it didn’t do this when we played at Wolves the other week, when our
goal got disallowed despite being given on the field and then PGMOL insisted
that decision was correct.

Here’s the Second Foul – Holding and Strangling

We will probably get another apology for this one or another acknowledgement
but at the end of the day it’s another complete pile of shit that has
gone against us and gifted Palace an equaliser. Also, remember Brighton when
they checked the on-field decision, found it was wrong and then went and found something
else and that was that Armstrong was interfering with the keeper from fifteen
yards away.  I guess that if Arma had
thrown him into a post then it would have been allowed.  Also today, let’s not overlook the fact that
Chalobah was clearly fouling THB as well and he’s the actual goalscorer. That
goal should’ve been a disallowed for two reasons and they found none, probably because
they weren’t looking.

However, regardless of the fact it should have been chalked off – it was a shit
set up for the corner.  A defender should
be moving Mateta away from Ramsdale and because we are so lacking in leaders
and thinking, we allowed Mateta a free shove at the keeper for all the remaining
Palace corners in the game.  It’s almost
as if we don’t have a set piece coach… oh yes, we don’t. Well, we might have,
It was Matt Gill at one point and now he’s gone and there was another guy
coming in but he needed a work permit and that hasn’t been announced as
yet.  Maybe we’ll replace Jason Wilcox one
day as well Rasmus.  Just a thought.

Even though they were on top, you can argue that that goal changed the game and
of course Palace scored in the second half with another piss-poorly defended
free kick as we have cleared it a couple of times before losing the ball and Eze
scores. A carbon copy of the West Ham goal in the incompetence of getting the
ball clear.

Again, I am very dubious of the substitutions made by the new manager. Limited
though he is, our whole attacking philosophy now is based around Tall Paul, so
when you take him off, you better have some sort of Plan B, but we didn’t have
any. The substitution of Adam Armstrong was amazing as well because even though
he had been absolutely embarrassingly absent for 65 minutes, apart from his
mis-hit assist, we took him off and replaced him with the only player in the
squad guaranteed to do even less in Sule-fucking-mana. If this is to put him in
the shop window to encourage teams to buy him then I think we would be better
off not playing him because they are more likely to realise that he is
absolutely shit.  It’s not his fault
alone though that the second half was dreadful and we didn’t test Dean
Henderson at all.

Going back to the start, the team selection today was weird. There is no common-sense
link between the way Juric wants his midfielders to play and picking Joe Aribo
as one of them. We might have got away with it if Flynn Downes or Lesley Ugochukwu
had been picked alongside him but Joe and Matty Fernandes was just too
lightweight and lacking in intensity and once Palace got a grip of that area of
the pitch after about twenty minutes, we were never in it again after that and
if you’re making Will Hughes look like a worldbeater, then there is a problem.  I am hoping that Juric is learning quickly
and this kind of strangeness will soon stop.

So, halfway through the season and six points. It’s been a fucking nightmare so
far and no mistake. The transfer window is upon us now and we have to find
players who can make a difference this year and are also happy to play in the Championship
next year.  That’s gonna be a difficult sell
because we are also going to have to sell being on less money next year despite
the damage having been done before you arrived. We have to clear some space in
the squad and there are certainly players that we need to see the back of. .I’m
guessing that we are going into the New Year knowing that things can only get
better because they can’t really get any fucking worse.

Next is Brentford at St Mary’s, a team that has not won an away game all
season. I wonder what will happen.

Up the fucking Saints.