Leicester
got promoted to the Premier League last season and a blaze of arrogance and a
belief that even though Enzo Maresca had left (they didn’t like him much
anyway), that they would adapt with no problem to the Premier League and finish
around mid-table. Maresca‘s replacement was the experienced Steve Cooper and he
had the Foxes in about 16th place but this wasn’t enough and the fans all
kicked off, which seemed to sit in motion the series of events that led to him
being relieved of his duties. Replacing Cooper may not have been the wrong
decision but appointing Ruud van Nistelrooy certainly was.  Big name though, isn’t it?

Apart from the fact they got relegated not long after us, the main feature of Ruud’s
tenure has been the fact that it is nine home games since they last scored a
goal. I remember us going five home games without a goal under Claude Puel at
the end of his tenure and ironically, he then went to Leicester after we’d
sacked him.  It is very much the usual
state of affairs for any player who has a long run without a goal or any team
who has a long run without winning, to welcome to Southampton with open arms.
We will see. Leicester‘s form has arguably been worse than ours over the past couple
of months, but they are still seven points ahead of us and even if we win
today, we are not going to catch them.

Leicester of course won the Championship last season and they beat us twice,
very convincingly. This season at St Mary’s we were comfortably ahead until we
got our first case of referee wanker and VAR shambles. 2-1 one up with 20
minutes to go and Anthony Taylor was an unobstructed five yards away, looking directly
at Jordan Ayew hitching a ride on Tall Paul’s shirt for a good five seconds, and
he didn’t give it and VAR didn’t either. Absolute fucking joke and a few
minutes later we had lost the game. The main architect of us losing that game,
apart from Anthony Taylor in the VAR, was Russell Martin who brought Will
Smallbone on in the centre of midfield and Ryan Fraser on the left-hand side to
help Ryan Manning deal with the threat of Abdul Fatawu, who had scored a hat-trick
the previous time he played against him. That particular rematch which Russell
set up, totally fucked us in that game so, we have lost the last three games
against Leicester, but we might even be going into this game as favourites,
especially as Leicester have four injuries from last week with Hermansen, Perreira,
Docordova Reed and Buononotte all missing.

Leicester were of course, very very dodgy financially in the year they got
promoted along with us from the Championship, and that may well be the case
that the EFL are waiting with some charges when they get relegated. They got
away with their financial impropriety by basically arguing with the Premier
League that they had no jurisdiction because they committed the offences whilst
in the Championship. Having used that defence, surely they are admitting that
they committed offences in the Championship.  One thing they have done to possibly try and
add some of this off is released their highest earner with Jamie Vardy having
just four games left for Leicester which means he has four games to get the two
goals he needs to make it 200 in a Foxes shirt and as I said earlier, which
opposition do you want to play when you are desperately seeking a goal? No one
really seems to know whether Vardy is being released or whether he is leaving
of his own accord or whether he is retiring. One issue which you may wish to
consider if he decides to retire is that he will have to spend more time at
home and for a number of reasons, I can’t imagine he’d want that.

The vultures have started circling around our players, or have they… or is it
the silly season and agents are getting busy… or is it that people are just
making up shit for clicks. Jan Bednarek apparently has a £6 million release
clause, which is a strange thing for someone to casually drop into a
conversation. Needless to say, there are a lot of our players who I don’t give
a shit about, with regards to whether they stay or go (https://leagueoneminus10.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-great-l1-10-player-review-of-202425.html).

Team news and we are unchanged, so Ross Stewart starts again, with Tall Paul on
the bench.  Other news is that we’ve got
another virgin referee, with David Webb doing his first Premier League
game.  I wonder if he’ll get a trophy
with El Crappico written on it.

There’s an early Leicester chance, gifted to them by the linesman not noticing
a clear hand in the back of Ryan Manning but McAteer’s cross avoids everybody
at the far post and drifts out of play. 
Saints then begin to look like the better side in the early stages with
a corner coming in from Fernandes which is met by THB and headed down powerfully
down but saved by the Leicester keeper with the unpronounceable name.

Much had been made of Leicester’s non-scoring at home but then the inevitable
happened on 15 minutes as they neatly move the ball neatly down the right,
playing a 1-2 around the outnumbered KWP and the ball comes in from El Khannouss
and Vardy is completely unmarked by all three of our central defenders and
smashes it into the roof of the net from about ten yards.  Fucking joke defending.  Three centre backs and he’s all alone.

Five minutes later and Jordan Ayew manages to run past the debutant referee and
smash him in the side of the head with his .Vardy takes the role of chief shithouse
and blows the whistle which is in the prone referees hand. Never a dull moment.
  Can we abandon the game as a draw?  The referee is clearly fucked and is looking
to be spared from watching the rest of the game.

Ten minutes go by,  a new referee found
in Samuel Barrott, which takes ages because of all the pissing about with the technology
that makes the game worse.  The game restarts
and Saints are still horrendous with Jack Stephens giving the ball away with a
five yard pass straight to a Leicester player and he then smashes a back pass
at Ramsdale that’s impossible to control, and it bounces off for a corner.  Stephens then gives the ball away again in
midfield and Fernandes brings down El Khannouss about twenty yards out.  Ayew’s free kick is shit and straight into the
wall, but bounces back to him and he drills it straight into the net . It’s
lucky in that it’s bounced straight back to him but it’s a good finish. We, on
the other hand are fucking embarrassing.

The rest of the first half is shit.  We work
ourselves into a decent crossing position with KWP on the right hand side, and
we have our 6 foot 3 forward in the middle but we don’t cross it of course, we
go back to the halfway line.  It’s
absolutely enraging.  What are you
waiting for, the perfect fucking goal? 
Leicester meanwhile get McAteer in on our left but he drills it at
Ramsdale rather than trying to cross it and then El Khannouss easily beats THB
and stands up a cross which bounces off the top of the bar.

In my head I’m making four subs at half time and changing to 4-2-3-1.  Stephens has to come off, so he can recover
from his big night on the lash and Dibling comes on and whilst I’d also bin off
THB, Manning and Sulemana, it’s Ross Stewart who departs to be replaced with
Tall Paul.  We have gone to 4-2-3-1, so
that’s a positive but it won’t matter a shit if we don’t up the work rate and
actually try and get to ball and some players into the box.

Ten minutes go by and El Khannouss then makes THB look a mug for about the tenth
time today and megs him on the edge of the box before shooting over. THB has
honestly been 2 out of 10 at best so far. 
We finally cross the ball into the box as Sulemana gets one in from the
left with his right foot and Tall Paul rises and heads it goalwards. It comes
back off the keeper, hits Fernandes and bounces into the net but up goes the bastard
flag.

Hi there Sammy Boy, Stockley Park here
Hi there chaps – potential offside then
Yes Sir, headed by the giant fucker who was onside
I’m sensing a but….
But at the point he headed it, Fernandes was offside and he scored after it
came back off of the unpronounceable keeper.
So, no goal then.
Nope, miles off.
They’re shit aren’t they?
Oh proper shit.  Make the most of the
comedy Sammy Boy cos we don’t get to do them next season.
Who are we going to blood the virgin refs against next season?
Bristol City mate – today’s virgin took a dive didn’t he?
Yes mate – ask Howard for more money. 

Another two substitutions upcoming as J-Rob comes on for Sulemana and fuck me… Smallbone
is coming on for Fernandes. Fucking baffling to take off one of the players
who’s actually trying and leave shit like THB and Manning on the pitch. THB
because he looks like he doesn’t give a shit and Manning because he’s putting
in an absolute League of Ireland performance. So, we are a team that needs more
urgency and pace in it and we bring on Smallbone.  “Matty, Matty Fernandes goes the Saints end
and the chant is building momentum, unlike the team.

Leicester make a substitution is to take off Ayew and bring on Jeremy Monga who
is apparently 15 years old. 15 for fuck‘s sake. He’s not old enough to have the
gambling sponsor on his shirt for fuck‘s sake. He’s up against Ryan Manning so
at least he’ll be able to prove that he can play at League 2 level.  Fifteen to go and Fernandes chants are still
going strong and Saints produce a decent break break up the left and it ends
with Smallbone gets outpaced by Oliver fucking Skipp, himself named after a massive
metal bin that doesn’t fucking move.

Just the four minutes of normal time pain to go through. Maybe we’ll start
showing some intensity and desire to score a goal in a minute, you never know.
Archer is on for Big Les in the very definition of a time-wasting substitution
and Tall Pall is walking around up front, allowing Leicester to play out really
easily.  Smallbone is now in a deeper midfield
position, dictating the pace the only pace he knows. Having caused outright
panic and having a goal disallowed after a cross into the mixer, twenty five
minutes ago, we finally try another and THB’s ball sees Tall Paul cause chaos
and win a corner.  In it comes and
another Paul header deflects wide.  93,
94 and thank fuck that’s over.  Wankers.

At the start of that game, we looked slightly the better of two very poor sides
until we conceded the opening goal, which in itself was absolutely abysmal. I
have no idea where THB was but once Leicester played the 1-2 around KWP, THB as
the right sided centre back should’ve been out there covering but he was
fucking nowhere so Bednarek tracked across and Stephens tracked across but
neither of them picked up Vardy, who smashed it in from about 10 yards. Three
central defenders, one striker and he is completely unmarked about ten yards
out. Fucking embarrassing.

The incident with a referee getting knocked out then gave us the excuse to be
absolutely shit for the rest of the first half.  I think it’s quite
possible that the distance our players were covering and the effort they were
putting in, didn’t actually go down whilst the referee was unconscious.   Once we restarted it was soon 2-0 and we basically
give up.  Yes, Jordan Ayew got a bit
lucky with the shite free kick bouncing back to him, but that was it as far as
we were concerned.  No urgency, no plan
of how to get a goal, bizarre substitutions, absolute fucking shit. I nearly
forgot, we did one thing in the second half, which was to bang in a cross from
deep to our 6 foot 8 centre forward and we nearly scored from it. Did it occur
to anyone else to do more of that after that goals got disallowed? Did it fuck?
That would’ve been common sense.

There was a basic malaise, apathy and lack of effort about today.  If we’d put as much effort in as we did
against Fulham, then we probably win this game but the basic heart and desire
to play with any intensity, just wasn’t there. Wankers.  I can only assume that with the effort levels
being much lower than in previous games, that there was something about the players
that thought they could just turn up and win this game because Leicester have
been that bad. Absolutely fucking useless.

There were some players out there who were an absolute disgrace today. THB
played like he completely didn’t give a shit. Jack Stephens played like he was a
Sunday morning pub player after a big one the night before.  Same old Jack – no consistency – plays well
for a few games and then abysmal.  Ryan
Manning put in in a League Two level performance and Sulemana was himself,
buzzing around to absolutely zero effect whatsoever.  All four of those would have been gone at half
time if I’d been in charge.

Simon Rusk decided it was a good idea to take off Ross Stewart, who had not
been given one single ball to compete for and then compounds it by taking off
Fernandes, easily our best player and one of the few who was actually visibly
trying.   He then acted surprised at the
reaction from the crowd.  An absolute
fucking shit show from players and management from start to finish. I would
excuse Ramsdale because he had no chance with either of the goals, Downes
because he seemed to be fighting a lone battle out there and Fernandes of
course.

Leicester were shit, but they were much better than us. We made El Khannouss look
like a world beater and we allowed a 38-year-old to score against us and a
15-year-old to briefly make us look like mugs.  Someone should’ve put him over the fucking
advertising boards in the first minute that he stepped onto the pitch, if only
to prove that we gave a shit about them feeling that we were so shit they could
bring on an actual boy. We don’t do things like that because we are a big bunch
of soft arses. As usual, we had zero attacking intensity, even when we were
behind and it really takes something to be embarrassing in the context of this
season, but that was it.

Well that’s the end of the chances of getting more than eleven points for the
rest of this season because there’s no way we’re getting anything out of the home
games against Manchester City and Arsenal and Everton away will be an absolute
shit show where I guarantee we will be a three down at half time.  The only thing that wasn’t apathetic about
that performance today was the fans chanting for Matty Fernandes for half an
hour after he’d been substituted.

Next up Manchester City, who are still chasing a Champions League spot and
Erling Haaland is now fit. Oh good.