Juric Six Months Ago, before He Became Saints Manager

Villa are not the easiest of opponents to be playing today.
We are fortunate in a way that they are involved in the Champions League Quarter-final
having played the first leg against PSG a few days ago and having the return in
the middle of next week. Being 3-1 down after the first leg, they are going to
have to throw the complete kitchen sink at it in the return, to have any chance
at Villa Park. Unai Emery though, is nothing but the master of the one-off
game, so don’t count them out.



Villa are another one of the recent batch of clubs who have
done some PSR manoeuvring in order to build up their squad, swapping an unheard
of youngster with the similarly financially up against it Everton, for relatively
stupid money.  Pure profit on the sale
and a relatively small outlay when amortised over the length of the
contract.  It’s shit, but their squad is
now ridiculously strong. In their last league game against Nottingham Forest,
they had Matty Cash, Lucas Digne, Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa, John McGinn, Jacob
Ramsey and Marcus Rashford… all on the fucking bench and they still managed to
beat the team in third place in the Premier League this season.  If there are any weaknesses in the Villa team
then you would have to look at the central defenders but in order to look at
them, we have to get somewhere near them.


Today’s team saw slight surprises in that Fernandes partners Big Les in
midfield and there is a place for Cameron Archer, for some reason.  Hopefully Rusk has seen something that no one
else has.  There’s a place on the bench
for Jay Robinson, which is thoroughly deserved after his recent performances
for the Under 21s.  Villa have rotated a
few but it’s Rashford for Watkins and stuff like that.  It’s laughable really.


Saints game plan is obviously going to be to keep things
tight and we are doing precious little attacking in the opening few minutes as
Villa pass the ball around in our half in front of us. Our first break comes
with Fernandes and Big Les breaking up the play in the middle of the park with
Les sending KWP away and Archer Makes a good run from inside Mings and fastens
onto KWP’s perfectly weighted ball. Archer takes a touch too wide and has a
choice of picking out Tall Paul at the back post or drilling it at the goal but
in the end does neither and his half hit shit cross and shot hybrid is easily
cleared by the diving Martinez.

The pattern of the game remains unchanged however with Villa probing around the
edge of the penalty area with crosses into the box being headed away until one
goes out to Asensio on the right and his cross into the mixer is nodded down
and Tielemans looks like he’s going to get an effort on goal from an angle but
Ramsdale comes flying out to block.

Again our game plan is kind of working as Lesley breaks up Villa once again in
the middle of the park and finds Archer who feeds out right to KWP, who works
himself a yard before slinging across to the back post to where Tall Paul comes
flying in, but he can only head the ball into the side netting and smash
himself into the advertising board.

There’s a maginally interesting incident just before half time as Archer goes
for a cross from Manning and ends up tangling with Konsa.  Play goes on upfield and Konsa grabs Archer’s
shirt and there are brief handbags. 
Hmmm.  I mean, that doesn’t get
given as a penalty but when you think about, it really could be given.

Half time and there’s not been much action to talk about.  Villa are getting frustrated with lots of
flopping to the floor and appealing to the very obliging Thomas Bramall and we
are digging in well.  It’s ok but purely
because it’s 0-0 so the end result has justified the means but it is only 45 minutes.

The previously limping Tall Paul doesn’t appear for the second half and on
comes Dibling with Archer moving into a central stirker role where there will
be defenders and all that shit he doesn’t like.

The second half starts it must the same vein as the first with Villa having all
the play and after a couple of half clearances and Onana lines one up from 30
yards and drills across goal towards the far post but Ramsdale beats it away
quite comfortably.  Villa are getting
closer though with Rashford beating Archer’s laughable attempt to shield the
ball and making his way along the byline before pulling the ball back to no
one. From the next cross into the box, Bednarek rises highest, and it comes off
the back of his head and goes narrowly over the bar.

Rusk then does something fucking mystifying with Smallbone coming on for
Sulemana and Ross Stewart for Archer. This means Smallbone going into the
midfield and Fernandes going out to the left-wing.  It seems mental and within a minute it’s
proved to be mental, as Smallbone’s shit touch plays KWP into the shit against
two players. Smallbone compounds his error and  jogging past KWP thinking he’s going to be magically
beat the two players up his arse to get the ball to him somehow, but of course
we lose it and then we are short of bodies in midfield – one ball into the box
by Maatsen and Bednarek goes trashing through Watkins and that’s the clearest
penalty you will ever see.  Fuck sake.

All that work to be completely undone but not yet as Ascensio takes the penalty
and Ramsdale springs to his left to push it away.   One of the highlights of the season right
there.  Crap penalty to be fair, but we
get a life.  However, before we can get
used to having a life, Mings gives the balls to Tielemans just inside Saints
half and no one presses him, which is a really great idea against an
experiences international playmaker. 
This allows him to chip the ball over the top to meet the run of Watkins
and Watkins sticks out a foot and brilliantly diverts it over Ramsdale, off the
bar and bouncing down into the net. Fuck off. Brilliant goal but bloody hell.

The Saints press is now of course fucked and once again it doesn’t work as
Smallbone goes chasing on his own and two passes and Les is on his own in midfield
and Villa play through us and Rogers finds Malen on the right and he drills it
across Ramsdale to kill the game off at 2-0.  Excellent efficiency of finishing by Villa but
absolutely shit from us and all over the place.

Sugawara is on for Manning because of the clause that he’s obviously got his
contract, but he wins a corner which is headed out as far as Fernandes who
drills it through the crowd and Martinez is forced into a save. Sugawara’s resulting
cross from the rebound is headed wide by a defender who the referee mistakes
for THB and gives a goal kick.

89 minutes and on comes Jay Robinson for his debut for Fernandes and another Villa
attack with the ball bouncing about and Stephens trashes through the back of McGinn
and that’s a penalty as well.  Watkins
wants it of course but it’s Asensio again and it’s same again, carbon copy shit
penalty and Ramsdale saves again but this time, no one follows it in apart from
McGinn, who runs it into an empty net. Ramsdale is fucking furious and
absolutely deservedly so.


Well that was a game of two benches.  They bring on three players who all score and
we succeed only in making our team progressively weaker and today was a classic
case of proving that we should not make substitutions when the starter is still
able to move.  Simon Rusk made the same
mistake that Russell Martin and Ivan Juric have made before him in not
recognizing the importance of the midfield to the defensive effort and not
realising the glaring limitations of some of our players.


For an hour, our set up had frustrated Villa, and we were
looking good for a goalless draw, until we took Matty Fernandes out of the
central midfield.  His partnership with
Big Les had played a major part in restricting Villa and no change was
necessary in that vital area of the pitch. 
The second part of he equation was of course bringing on Will Smallbone
to play in a midfield two.  How much
evidence do these highly paid football people need to come to the conclusion
that HE CAN’T FUCKING DO IT!!! It took about two minutes for a bad touch to put
KWP in the shit and give the ball away which led directly to the first penalty,
which of course we got away with as Rambo saved from Asensio.  A few minutes later and Tielemans has the time
that he’s not had all game to chip the ball over the defence that Watkins volleyed
in.  Straight after that the game is dead
with Smallbone trying to win the ball too high up the pitch, getting turned and
not being able to get back as Villa simply play Malen in, bang, 2-0.
Sixty minutes of good defensive work undone by bringing on the substitutes and
changing the foundation of the defensive effort.

It really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this stage.  It’s almost the same as putting Ryan Fraser in
goal– you are putting an unsuitable player in there and guess what, that area
of the team is vital.  Once again, you
can’t play Smallbone in a two-man midfield, you can’t really play Aribo in a two-man
midfield but here we are. Everyone tries it and it never fucking works and it
was obvious last season that it would never fucking work but still we do it. I
know Will is a nice lad and he’s one of our own but for fuck‘s sake, you are
asking him to do something that he just cannot do. It’s not Will’s fault, it’s
yours and Will gets hung out to dry every fucking time and today it undid all
the hard work and all the work that was done on the training around during the
week.

A word for Aaron Ramsdale who was again completely powerless
for every goal that went past him and to save two penalties and still lose 3-0
just about sums his season up.  The
dereliction of duty from the defenders to allow McGinn to get to the rebound
from the penalty save in the 93^rd minute was particularly shit and
not backing up your team mates whatsoever. There were some good performances before
we went behind, with Jack Stephens being the pick of the defenders and the
aforementioned Fernandes doing some excellent work defensively.  It was nice to see Jay Robinson get some minutes at the end as well, just a shame that like with the second penalty save, there were only about 15,000 in the ground to see it.


A predictable on the negative side was Cameron Archer.  Coming in from the wings is probably his best
position and one that I was keen to see him in once up on a time, but not anymore.  The lazy bastard was given an undeserved start and
rewarded the manager with a performance which involved about two runs into
space all game and little making himself available and just general
cluelessness with anything involving not having the ball at his feet.  Absolutely petrified of any contact from
defenders, doesn’t shield the ball and no idea on linking play. Absolutely none
of it. Tall Paul was clearly not fit and he’s clearly a player who needs to be
100% fit to take the pitch, or else there really isn’t much going on. Ross
Stewart played half an hour and looked as rusty as you would expect a rusty
player to look who had been caked in rust for three years.


So whilst we were solid until the substitution from hell, we
offered nothing much going forward, struggling to string together even a couple
of passes with any regularity.  In the
first half we worked a couple of good crossing positions for Manning, who then
skidded the crossover about six inches off the ground instead of trying to pick
out the fucking giant Centre forward we’ve got.  On the other side, Archer had a glorious
chance to find Paul for a tap in but instead picked out the goalkeeper and
Fernandes, whenever we took out time from defending, wasted a couple of breaks
passing the ball straight to defenders instead of into the gap to allow KWP to
run onto it. 

Referee Thomas Bramhall was predictably fucking hopeless being as he was, the
referee in our fiasco up at Wolves earlier on in the season. Ridiculously
uneven handling of the first half, when Villa were basically allowed to dive about
and get every decision go their way.  I
have no issue however, with either of the penalty decisions.  Neither challenge took out the Villa player
with the tackling leg, but the back leg trashed Watkins and McGinn respectively
on the follow through.  Always going to
get given.


If we are to pick up the two points that we need to not be
the worst team in Premier League history, then Simon Rusk and Adam Lallana need
to find a way for us to have more goal threat, as keeping it tight will only
get you so far. This isn’t going to be easy, given the shower of shit that we
have at the top end of the pitch, but we all knew the game was dead once we
went behind today.



Overall, as said though it was a game of two benches.  Their squad is amazing right down to the twentieth
player and ours stops at about ten, on a good day.  They were always going to be too strong for
us but we don’t help ourselves, and the positives are that we were decent for
just over an hour and that this is one more game ticked off in this godforsaken
season.  Next up is West Ham away, who
have moved into the ‘Worst of the Rest’ position of 17^th in the
table.  Lose that and Leicester will
probably go down next weekend but we of course have our own targets.

6 games to go, 2 points needed.