A visit to the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham for the last game before the momentum killing three week international break which no one really gives a shit about or wants. This international break has seen a first call up for Kuryu Matsuki to the Japan squad and so he joins the likes of Cyle Larin, Finn Azaz and Ryan Manning as players who we desperately need to come back fit from the international break. At least we don’t have to worry about Ross Stewart anymore.

Wrexham Hollywood FC are coming off the back of a 6-0 capitulation at West Ham last week which has got everyone talking about Phil Parkinson and questioning his role as manager. This is on the one hand quite frankly ridiculous because he has overseen three promotions in three years and a really solid 7th place finish last year, but such is the way with ambitious football clubs. If they slide back towards a mid-table finish this year, it’ll be a test of the owners resolve, around their stated aim of taking Wrexham to the Premier League. Phil Parkinson is of course, largely responsible for them being where they are but then Paul Mullin was responsible for all their goals in the lower leagues and they soon got rid of him as soon as he got to a level where he wasn’t going to be useful. Maybe Parkinson has reached that level as well. Time will tell.

Because of the drubbing they got at West Ham, I can’t imagine that Parkinson is going to set up the same way that he did against us last year when we beat them 5-1. In that game we continually broke through midfield at pace and were on top of their back three and running through it. Parkinson will not be able to afford a similar heavy defeat so I imagine he will set up a lot more conservatively than he did that day. I expect to face long balls up to the centre forward and plenty of them, with a focus on set pieces.

Wrexham’s Hollywood owners Rob MacWhatsisname and Ryan Reynolds decided it was an ideal time to put a little video out about Firefox Internet browsers and its security features. They weren’t even subtle about it with the Middlesbrough training ground scenario and hiding behind a tree. It was very funny but I struggle to see how that helps Wrexham at this point. I’m led to believe that Phil Parkinson would’ve signed off on it but I imagine it will add to the motivation of the Southampton dressing room. Since the video, social media has been alive of course and the engagement has been huge, which was the point from the Hollywood point of view, but purely from a football point of view, Spygate has not been a major issue in the buildup to any individual game up until now. It’s been under the surface but Wrexham, who have nothing much to do with it, have made it front and centre in the buildup to this game. Get in there and make it all about you lads. It won’t even be the main issue when we play Pompey in a few weeks. Middlesbrough – of course might be different.

The siege mentality we have developed after five months of hammering from everyone, means that this is at least irritating to the fanbase. Tonda got asked about it of course by the media and it was a real damned if you do, damned if you don’t. He said he’d seen it and said that it wasn’t very funny for him, which of course got him slaughtered by various journalists like that fucking idiot Luke “weapons grade spy equipment” Edwards, who expected him to have a sense of humour about it. Tell me Luke, what would you have written if he’d said it was hilarious? I expect you would’ve congratulated him about laughing at the situation. Absolute arsehole.

The wider football journalism world has been aghast this week because of a couple of things going against Manchester United. First of all, they got a dodgy VAR decision against Manchester City and lost the game. All of a sudden, the national media narrative is that VAR is terrible and especially for match going fans. I’ve seen the likes of Martin Samuel and Scouse Potato Wayne Rooney pushing the “football is better without it” argument. Well done lads but where was the outrage two years ago? Off the top of my head from our last season in the Premier League, I can remember Leicester at home, Arsenal away, Brighton away, Wolves away and Crystal Palace away where we got absolutely mugged off by VAR. The outrage then was very, very non-existent.

Whilst we’re at it, where was the outrage when Max Alleyne was poached off Saints by Manchester City at age 15. Where was the outrage when Harrison Miles was poached off Saints by Manchester City at age 15. Where was the outrage this week when George Kift was poached off of Saints by Manchester City – I think he’s 15, he might even be 14. However, there was massive outrage this week because a Manchester United youngster JJ Gabriel seems to have had his head turned by Real Madrid and/or Barcelona and suddenly it’s a massive issue. Some aspects of football are absolutely fucking shit and national mainstream journalism is one of them. However, they are what they are. The bigger issues are that VAR is shocking from every angle you look at it and needs getting rid of and the practice of 14/15 year olds being tapped up and poached needs to be addressed. I don’t know what the answer is for that one but for starters, the compensation figures need to be a lot higher with maybe an automatic 50% sell on clause.

Back to Wales though, and Saints have to get their away form up and running and going into the international break firmly ensconced in the play-off positions. Before kickoff, there’s a minute silence in memory of the victims of the Gresford Colliery disaster in the region in 1934 and Saints fans show it the maximum respect, which is the show of class considering yesterday‘s lack of respect from Wrexham. It’s a difficult argument to get into because they are going to say that we showed no respect during Spygate. All we can do is suck it up I guess.

With Keiffer Moore in the Wrexham lineup we know what we’re going to get and the long ball predictably starts fairly early. Our tactic is for Woody to compete and for the BFG to sweep up behind. Once we get into the game and settle down, Saints look the better side, attacking the Cranes and Scaffold End and Matsuki plays a lovely ball behind the defence to meet the forward run of Azaz but there is very little conviction in his right footed shot which hits Patterson and bounces away.

Another foray down right involving Bree and Matsuki, sees us again find Azaz on the edge of the box and this time he tees up JWP to his left but his daisy cutter has no power and is a back pass to the keeper.

Onward and another effort comes in, this time from a corner on the left played short and swung into the box by Ryan Manning and there is Cyle Larin, rising above the defence but can only head the ball down and straight to the goalkeeper. We have a similar story from open play a few minutes later as Ryan Manning once again put a cross into the box which is met by Cyle but this time his header is comfortably wide. There is something not quite right about Cyle and you can tell it straight away. He looks kind of leggy which considering we’ve had a full week between games, is a little bit surprising.

He has another chance however, as Wrexham clear the ball and Flynn Downes steams into a tackle and knocks it forward and it goes over the top of the defence and Kyle is in on the edge of the box with a bouncing ball and he flips it high over the goalkeeper but gets too much on it and it clears the bar and hits the board in front of the Crane and Scaffold End.

Ten minutes to halftime in Wrexham have shown nothing yet and are clearly there for the taking. Long ball finds Moore and he shows that he can do something with his feet and lays it off inside to Callum O’Hare, who takes time off from flopping on the ground demanding free kicks to hit a left footed effort towards the far top corner, which Peretz claws away well with an over hand save. Corner and Moore gets away from Woody to plop a simple header into the net. For fuck‘s sake.

For the rest of the first half, we play like we’re in a bit of a daze and don’t create anything but there’s enough time for Kabore to bundle into Scienza and there’s a lengthy stoppage whilst he gets treatment. At half-time we go in behind. It’s almost an exact mirror image of the Bristol City first half last week, where we had all the chances of miss them and Wrexham score with basically their first attack of any note. The second half starts and Leo can’t carry on and is replaced, somewhat mystifyingly with Sam Edozie.

Ten minutes into the second half and Bree gets down the right hand side and puts the cross in low, which is deflected out to the penalty spot where JWP‘s effort is blocked by Edozie but when it comes back to him, our returning talisman rams it high into the roof of the net. Edozie actually gets an assist for that.

Virtually straight from the kickoff and having got back into it, we do our best to give it away again when Schlotterbeck has a real short circuit and gives the ball away under no pressure on halfway and Kieffer Moore, fair play to him, decides to have a dig from just inside our half and the ball sails goalwards, over the top of Peretz and bounces off the top of the bar and away. Brilliant effort it has to be said.

We win ourselves an opportunity in JWP/Manning territory as the referee actually gives a free kick for Cyle Larin as Hyam becomes the first defender punished to plough through the back of him. JWP’s effort is decent and up and over the wall but not quite high enough to beat the keeper who pushes it away.

Twenty to go and either team could win it though I would argue neither team deserves to. Fellows is on for Matsuki, who has looked leggy as well, particularly in the second half. Fellows immediately has half the pitch the break into if he goes on the outside but goes inside into the traffic and loses the ball.

Flynn Downes gets down the right hand side and digs out a decent ball to Ryan Manning who is about 18 yards out of the left and he sees it clear as day and winds up for the left footed sidewinder goal-of-the-season effort on the volley and he connects perfectly…. and the ball flies narrowly over the bar. Fuck.

Larin is finally put out of his lumbering misery and replaced with Mubama but it doesn’t do us any immediate favours as a long ball down our right by the keeper is flicked on by Smith and the left back sits Fellows on his arse before sliding the ball across towards O’Hare and BFG has to do something and unfortunately the ball flies off him past Peretz and off the crossbar. Fucking hell. Schlotterbeck has gone with the wrong foot and it’s flown off the outside of his left foot. Bollocks. Bree stands on and watches from where he gave up after the flick on.

Well what a shit result that is and hard to argue that Wrexham didn’t deserve it having been the better side for the last 20 minutes. To be fair, they didn’t look like they were going to score but some more completely dopey defending by us allows the cross to come in and Schlotterbeck has to do something and it ends up in the roof of the net.

The reason we lost can be traced back to the first half when we were by far better side, in much the same way that Bristol City were the better side against us last week in the first half, but if you do the square root of fuck all in the opposition penalty area, then you are not going to win the game. It’s all about the penalty areas and we didn’t do either of them well enough to justify winning their game. If you look at the stats, I’m sure it looks like a bit of a smash and grab, but our performance level in both penalty areas meant that we came away with nothing when if we’d even got somewhere near the levels of the Bristol City game in the penalty areas, we win the game comfortably.

Let’s not beat around the bush, our forwards were all dreadful. It’s becoming a thing where they are all on fire in home games and all dreadful in away games. Larin and Azaz were way off it. Scienza got assaulted out of the game but hadn’t done much up til that point anyway, and Matsuki somehow looked tired. Sam Edozie got given yet another opportunity to back up his words and provided absolutely nothing, though ironically he will get an assist for getting in the way of JWP‘s initial shot because it bounced back to JWP who rammed into the net. Why not Tom Fellows at half time, bearing in mind we scored two goals with both Matsuki and Fellows on the pitch against Bristol City last week? Edozie doesn’t want to be here either – so why is he the first sub used?

There were too many who were simply not at it today. So – the main question I have over the winning goal is where the fuck was James Bree because he wasn’t competing with the player who flicked it on to the winger and he wasn’t marking the full back who then put the cross over that forced the goal. He has had a couple of good performances at home, but he has been largely average away from home and there definitely seems to be something not quite in his game that was there last year. Maybe it was a motivation of playing for a new contract last year or maybe it’s the fact he has no credible competition for his place. He has been sloppy and somewhat casual is a number of games this year, particularly late in games.

We should’ve been at least two ahead but we end up going in at half-time 1-0 down because we fail to mark the 6 foot 5 guy at a corner. Nathan Wood had a decent game but at the end of the day, he’s lost the man and we’ve conceded from it. Having got back into the game on the hour mark, we should’ve pushed on and won it and for about ten minutes it looked like we were going to, but then it fizzled out and we seemed to settle for a draw, only to lose it in the last minute.

Wrexham‘s game plan was as predicted, to let us have the ball which they did, especially in the first half and then to look for set pieces and scraps off of Moore and low and behold, they scored from a set piece. That performance from us was simply not good enough and the away form is becoming an issue now as we have not even put in a decent away performance yet, let alone got a win on the road.

Today we saw the weaknesses in the squad from the summer recruitment come to the fore again. I didn’t have any sort of feeling as we went through the second half that we had the players off the bench to make a difference and win us the game. Sam Edozie was already on and already doing fuck all. As the second half progressed you could tell that Cyle Larin for example, was not going to do anything and should’ve been substituted on the hour mark and last year he would’ve been. Last year we’d have had a reasonable expectation that Ross Stewart would’ve come on and contribute something, but this year, Tonda clearly has no confidence in Divin Mubama and only wants to use him for 10 minutes. It’s the same with Lewis Dobbin. Mubama and Dobbin are the key to our squad depth this season. We are going to struggle if they do not become consistent options.

Wrexham for their part, were absolutely there for the taking but we had no killer instinct whatsoever. An early goal today and they would probably have folded and we would’ve won comfortably but we blew it. In the end, they didn’t even have to be that good to beat us. Over the course of the 90 minutes, they didn’t have to create much in order to score the two goals necessary to win the game. The respect question turned up again after the game with a post from the official Wrexham account, agains referencing Spygate. As said, all we can do is suck it up though it doesn’t make it even more annoying that we didn’t beat them.

So, our away record reads two draws and two defeats from four games and we haven’t even played anyone good away from home yet because it would be a major surprise if any of Birmingham, Watford, Lincoln or Wrexham are up near the top of the table come the end of the season. Maybe it will be better for us when teams come out to play a little bit more at home because all four of the sides we’ve played so far have been content to sit in and wait for us to fuck things up, which we have obligingly done. We just don’t play quickly enough with enough conviction when we get into the final third.

So when we go to the international break in mid table. It’s an international break that will be significant because the FA are allegedly getting round to delivering their verdict on Tonda Eckert and whether he will be banned or not. This could be anything from a suspended ban or a fine, right up to an all-football ban for six months which would mean we would have to replace the manager. I am preparing myself for the worst sanction because that seems to be the way this is going and I have absolutely no doubt that we are going to get fucked over.

Finally, I’m only saying this because I hate the fucking thing but we have only lost 2 games in our last 29 in the league, and they have been the two where we’ve played in fucking blue, in the horrible oil slick kit. Get rid of it. We could’ve played in the ivory one today and we should’ve done.

At least we are at home in our next game… And we all know who it’s against.

Up the fucking Saints