With confidence high in a belief that we are now turning into a team that might actually make a run at the playoffs, today we play Watford at home at the start of a run of favourable looking fixtures which will define the season. It’s no word of a lie that we should be aiming to win a very large proportion of the next eight games. We have learned though not to look too far ahead because that has a way of biting you in the arse.

Watford never look too far ahead because even more so than us, if you go more than a couple of weeks into the future they are probably gonna have a different manager, such has been the case since the Pozzo family took over a few years back. The latest incumbent is Javi Gracia, who has been there before and took them to an FA Cup final once… oh no it’s not, he left a week ago having had a conversation with the owners and finding out it wasn’t going the way he wanted it to go. Really fucking weird considering he been a manager there before so knew exactly what the owners were like. Anyway, in the dug out this afternoon for this 1231 kickoff are Charlie Daniels and Dan Gosling, returning to the south Coast having previously been players at Bournemouth. Charlie Daniels was a left back and Dan Gosling was a twat, a reputation cemented by him giving it the big one when Bournemouth scored at St Mary’s a few years back. Anyone from Bournemouth who tries to stoke that game up as some sort of rivalry, is a twat.

Watford are the sort of club that I never know too much about because of the ridiculousness of the revolving door of managers. Having said that, Sport Republic must be pretty close to matching the average matches per manager that the Pozzo’s have presided over. When we played them at Vicarage Road earlier on in the season, a player that caused us a lot of problems with this direct running and power was Irankuda, who smashed a free kick into the top corner in that game. The good news is that he managed to get himself sent off in the 93rd minute last week so he won’t be available. They had a midweek game as well this week, earning a very respectable 0-0 draw at home to Hull. They had this game because they called the original off about half an hour before the kickoff. As an aside, our dear neighbours from down the road were supposed to be playing a similarly rearranged game against Ipswich in midweek but they called it off again. The official reason was because the pitch was waterlogged a day earlier than the game but the alleged reason is probably because they’ve got a lot of injuries. I don’t know what’s worse actually but calling a game off because of a waterlogged pitch in the championship is fucking embarrassing and ridiculously tin pot, especially when you bear in mind at their pitch is in part, waterlogged because of all their fans spitting on opposition players like a bunch of inbred cunts that they are. Interestingly, last weekend there was another incident of opposition supporters and the fourth official getting hit with coins thrown by those amazing fans at Fratton Park. The media will still peddle with the line that they are amazing and it’s a fantastic ground, however though the truth is that the front three rows down both sides need to be closed down.

The hope is of course that Tonda doesn’t fuck around too much with the starting lineup today, but the bench will be different with Cyle Larin expected to be present. Hopefully the St Mary’s crowd give him the benefit of the doubt. It would be somewhat pathetic if they didn’t.

Team news and Tonda has answered atheist prayers resisted the urge to do something clever and we are unchanged from the Stoke game. Canadian Cyle with a C is on the bench, as is Sam Edozie, fresh from not being pushed out the door in Junuary.

Saints start confidently enough, knocking the ball around and there appeared to be no danger as the ball gets rolled to Peretz, but the lack of movement in front of him causes him to buffers and gets closed down and a Watford striker gets a foot in and the ball goes through to the edge of the box to Kayembe, who should take it first time but instead, takes a touch which allows Finn Azaz of all people to get back and get a foot in to stop him shooting and we and Peretz get away with it.

The game is a bit attritional and no one is really creating anything. Both sides look half decent through midfield but no one appears to have any attacking quality. Watford win a corner they shouldn’t have got because the ball bounced off of their player after a challenge by Welington. and Louza swings it in from our left and they win a header at the back post and knock it down, but it’s fired wide.

Saints first attempt on goal comes when Flynn Downes finds himself on the right wing with Fellows by the goal line and his low cross is scuffed clear by Louza as far as Stewart on the penalty spot and he measures a left footed effort towards the far corner but the keeper gets down well to push it wide. Fuck.

Scienza loses the ball in the penalty area and Watford break up through the middle and Downes does his job and come steaming across to win the ball but he’s done himself there and looks in real pain. Saints pick up the ball with Stephens driving forward but we lose it and Watford break and a few in the crowd seem to think that Watford should put the ball out, but why the fuck should they? Down our right they go and it’s worked back into the middle before the shot is here straight at Peretz face and he deals with it easily.

It takes a good couple of minutes for Downes to get up and then he tries to hobble around and get going again but it’s not gonna happen and so off he goes to be replaced by Shea Charles. It’ll be interesting to see how a combination between Charles and Jander works and initially at least, it looks like Jander has gone back to number six and Charles is playing slightly in front of him.

We have a sniff of a chance as we go back from the halfway line to Peretz and he bombs the ball forward and just for a second it looks like Stewart is going to get in between the defender and the goalkeeper as everyone converges and somehow the ball ends up bobbling past the keeper, but it hits Stewart on the knee and runs out for a goal kick. I think it would’ve been handball anyway to be honest, even though he was shoved onto the ball by a defender. Half time.

To be honest, that first half has been pretty incident free. Two well matched teams struggling to get anything going upfront. No changes at halftime for us but we get a chance at the start of the second half and a free kick about 20 yards out, but Scienza steps up and curls it well over. One of those that was going over as soon as he started his run up.

The long ball up into the swirling wind has caused defenders problems all day and there’s another one which Stewart competes for and a Watford head skews it backwards past the last defender and suddenly Leo is clean through against the keeper but he gets forced wide and gets the shot in, but the keeper gets down well to block his effort

Watford really aren’t threatening us very much at all but they do win a corner when Welington does that thing that our fullbacks don’t usually do and actually blocks a cross. The corner comes in and is cleared to the edge of the box and rifled back in low, but luckily it’s about 2 foot wide of the post.

Substitution time on 65 minutes and it’s two substitutes who we haven’t seen play all season. One is Canadian Cyle with a C, which of course is not surprising he’s only just arrived, but Sam Edozie is coming on as well for his first involvement of the season. Stewart is coming off of course, as is Leo Scienza, who has not been at his best today and has been well marshalled by Jeremy Ngakia, who has done as well as any right back has done all season against him.

Canadian Kyle with a C looks like a big lad and immediately doesn’t look the most mobile as the ball ends up in his vicinity without him getting touch. Cyle’s nearly gets his first touch as Charles picks the ball out to Edozie on the left and he knocks it to Welington and the ball into the box is heading for the big man but a defender gets across well to clear it out for a corner.

With Leo off the pitch, the responsibility falls to Jimmy Bree to ping the corner across, which he duly does and there is a great delivery, good movement and a big fuck off diving header and the ball rattles past the keeper and into the roof of the net. Canadian Kyle with a C is over in front of the Northam giving it the big one after taking one touch to score his first Saints goal. Fucking get in you beauty.

So, what have Watford got? Not very much it seems. They’ve thrown Kjerumgaard on to try and force something to happen but they don’t look capable of creating anything unless we fuck up. There’s one bouncing ball in the penalty area that Peretz comes out and claims easily enough, but that’s about it. As the clock ticks around to 90, Tonda brings on Nathan Wood for Tom Fellows to see the game out. The four minutes extra don’t produce any drama and Watford are about to sling their last ball into the mixer until Wellington does that stopping the cross thing, flattened the guy with a great block tackle and then sets up off the left wing with Watford players trailing in his week until he reaches the corner and the final whistle blows. Brilliant stuff.

Well that’s a game that won’t live long in the memory and no one will really give a shit because we won. It was scrappy and horrible and lacking in forward quality from both sides and exactly the sort of game you need to win 1-0 if you want to achieve anything in a season in the Championship. Job done.

The highlights can possibly be distilled into four moments. Peretz nearly presenting Watford with a goal in the first few minutes, Ross Stewart‘s shot that was well saved by the keeper, Leo Scienza getting cleaned through and the keeper making a save and the goal, a bullet header from a corner.

So about that… Cyle doing an exact copy of Sir Rickie Lambert on his England debut. Comes on as a sub, hasn’t touched the ball, in comes a corner from the left, big fucking header, goal. Absolutely brilliant and I absolutely love goals like this. It’s especially good for Cyle because as mentioned before the game, he needed a goal to cut off the potential for him to be used as the latest stick to hit Sport Republic with. The fact that he’s stuck with in the net and one is three points straight away is absolutely brilliant for the atmosphere around the place and a big sigh of relief from Johannes Spors and the recruitment team was almost audible.

His goal is all that matters today, but we got a glimpse of what he’s like as a player and to be honest, he doesn’t look the most mobile but if he can give defenders problems and use his big frame to his advantage then he can certainly be an asset in the Championship as we’ve seen from many other central strikers. I would imagine that initially he’s going to be used in the last half hour of games against tired defenders and that should suit him. I’d say to leave him on the bench to get used to things and start him when Ross needs to have a rest.

We had an injury today with Flynn Downes having to come off after half an hour, as the result of a full-blooded clash in midfield which left him unable to continue. The midfield two of Caspar Jander and Shea Charles worked slightly differently in that Jander appeared to be playing the deeper of the two, but it looked competitive enough to be something that we could turn to, should Flynn not recover for Tuesday.

Elsewhere, the defence did really really well to deal with the albeit limited threat from Watford. Again, all four defenders stood up to be counted when they needed to and what a difference it makes having proper fullbacks in the team. They stopped crosses coming into the box and they are decent in the air and it just makes a massive fucking difference to everything.

With each passing game I’m beginning to think how annoying it is that both of our 32 year old spreadsheets and textbook managers this season have misused the squad at their disposal and all the time, it’s been pretty glaringly obvious what we needed to do in order to compete in the Championship. We’ve all talked about the need for proper full-backs who can defend and the need for a back four where everyone has to take responsibility and we all talked about how poor our goalkeeper was. One signing and the recall of a player loaned out was all it took to sort. Three clean sheets out of four.

We’ve all talked about the lack of a physical number nine to act as a focal point and about have Scienza and Fellows high and wide on the wings. All of these things are glaringly obvious but our two inexperienced, straight out of text-book, 32 year old managers have failed to see it or even if they had seen it, have not had the courage of their convictions to actually do it, until Tonda basically had no choice because he hadn’t won eight games. I’m delighted we are heading in the right direction and everybody should be congratulated for that, but why have people in football, in Sport Republic, and Southampton, suddenly found the glaringly obvious things so hard to put together.

A special word today for our full backs who were absolutely outstanding. Welington is a machine – he tackles everything and he heads everything and he has the energy to play 95 minutes without slacking at all. What said it all was in the last minute, when Watford we’re running out of time and on their last possible attack, and Welington wins a tackle and then heads up the touchline trailed by three Watford defenders and eventually ends up with the ball in the far corner as the final whistle blew. Absolutely fucking brilliant performance from him and again I’m pondering what the hell our managers have been looking at all season.

James Bree has returned from a loan at Charlton with Nathan Sheepshagger and returned with Charlton fans complaining about his dead ball deliveries. OK then. Outside of the assist for the winner from a corner, Bree has had his best 3 games since he signed for Saints when we were initially invaded by the inhabitant of the Welsh mining village. The right back spot is his to lose now, which again makes you wonder how we signed two right backs to replace him when he went out on loan.

Onwards and Leicester City away on Tuesday, a team that now resides right down near the relegation zone having finally got their points deduction, though it was an albeit surprisingly low number of points that got chalked off. Nevertheless, a good team and a tough game. Our more attritional approach should stand us in good stead against a team who have not looked like they fancy it at any point this season. Bring it on.

Up the Fucking Saints