Saints Players Celebrate our Centre Backs Winning a Header
When the fixtures came out we had West Ham away which was good because they are shit at home at the Ann Summers Athletics Taxpayer Bowl and it would be good to play them away before they had chance to settle in to their ground for the season and whilst the demons from last season were still there. However, the World Athletics Championships were taking place a week ago so the ground is not ready for football yet. To cut a long story short it was switched which pissed me off, as I’m on holiday. Whilst my personal issue is a non-issue to everyone else, Saints agreeing to switch fixtures means that we start with two home games and somewhen in January I think, we have 3 aways in a row.
West Ham have what you might call a ‘scattergun’ approach to transfer windows and throw a lot of shit at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. In the last window it was Fonte and Snodgrass for about £25 milllion combined. Six months later and Fonte is regarded as terrible by the Hammers faithful and Snodgrarse is on the transfer list. This summer has seen Javier Hernandez, Joe Hart and Pablo Zabaleta arrived – all very good players in their day but how will they cope with not being at a huge club any more? Whilst those three signings look sound enough, they’ve also signed Marco Arnautovic from Stoke for (wait for it)… £25 million. This is a player who maybe does it one game in ten. Most media types seem to be predicting West Ham to finish around 8th this season – maybe that’s a London thing because I just don’t see it at all. They won’t be anywhere near relegation but I’d say 12th is more realistic.
There have been a couple of interesting developments down in Southampton since the Swansea game. Firstly, a statement arrive from Katherina Liebherr detailing that she had sold an 80% stake of the club to the Gao family for £210m. Mr Jinsheng Gao and his daughter Nelly are the family members in question and the deal is not with Lander Sports but with the individuals. The comforting thing is that it is business as usual with the existing board. I take this news with cautious optimism and it sure as hell isn’t going to make us financially weaker. I also on the other hand don’t see a sudden influx of money being punted around.
Kind of on that note, Ralph Krueger came out and gave a State of the Nation address which was basically that Virgil was not going anywhere this transfer window and it was laying down a marker that Saints were changing course, meaning (I assume) that we were moving away from being a selling club. This will of course not register with two factions – 1) The Media, 2) Liverpool fans. Anyway, he also hinted that we were not done with squad building as yet and it appears that an offer has gone in for Wesley Hoedt, a Dutch defender from Lazio.
As previously explained, I’m on holiday and the fixture switch means that my season ticket is not as good value as it should have been. Regardless, I’ve found a decent stream of the game in Portugal so away we go. Team news is the one change with Mario Lemina starting at the expense of JWP with Davo moving forward. Harsh on JWP methinks. West Ham, having been gubbed 4-0 by Man United have done what we all hoped and recalled Jose Fonte – how fitting bearing in mind I’m in the Algarve. They’ve binned that horrible fucker Snodgrarse but on paper, an attack including Antonio, Arnautovic and Hernandez might give us a few problems. No Andy Carroll though – good news as if he was playing, you’d be able to smell Jack and Maya shitting their shorts from where I am in Portugal.
It’s a bright and feisty start to the game with West Ham creating the first good chance with Antonio putting a nice ball behind our defence and Arnautovic has to take it on first time but he has no right foot and pokes it tamely wide. We haven’t of course, scored at St.Mary’s since man landed on the moon but it looks on the cards today and on 11 minutes, Gabbiadini picks it up in midfield, plays it to Redmond and takes off. The timing is perfect as Gabbi burst behind Fonte and Redders superbly plays him in and this boy does have a left foot and it’s across Hart and into the far corner of the net. Get the fuck in there – I love the way Fonte just stands and watches him run past. Still, think of the pay packet.
West Ham have two real threats in Antonio and Hernandez and they combine with Hernandez crossing, Antonio stooping to head goalwards and Fraser making one of those trademark saves where he doesn’t use his hands and the ball just hits him. There’s a bit of a moment as Tadic goes in for a tackle with Cresswell and manages to miss the ball altogether and kind of assault him. It’s a perfect example of why forwards shouldn’t tackle and it gets him a yellow card – no intent, just shit.
Lamina has made a steady start in midfield, given the ball away a couple of times but generally looked strong and he doesn’t pull out of a header and catches a Hammers player. The ball goes free and Lemina is after it and Noble hits him with a leg breaker, studs up, late, ball nowhere, dreadful tackle, clear red card bearing in mind that the whistle hasn’t gone for the original foul. Nope. Free kick to West Ham for the original clash between Lemina and Arnautovic which hadn’t been whistled for at this point. Bizarre.
West Ham get the red card they deserved a few minutes later in quite absurd fashion. Stephens brings the ball out of defence and passes it and after he does so Arnautovoc steams in and elbows him in the neck. It’s only in his neck and not his face because he’s mis-timed it. Absured and outrageous and Lee Mason has no choice at all and off he goes. Mark Noble is trying to referee the game still but Arnautovic has to go. As he goes off he kicks out at a kit bag or a water bottle or something and wellies it into someone in front of him. Additional ban to be added to the automatic three I would suggest.
Saints (in a change to what we saw under Puel) look like they want to get this game done and press for a second. Redmond slides a good ball into Davis on the edge of the box and he turns, the ball pops up and Davis gets hauled down by the neck by good old Jose Fonte. As clear a penalty as you like. A quick scan round reveals that neither JWP or Autin are on the pitch so it falls to Tadic. He’s like a two year old in a swimming pool – he thinks he can do it and has far more confidence than is safe and everyone else is panicking. Up he steps, farts it low down the middle but it hits Hart’s foot and flicks up and into the net. Phew! 2-0 up, hot day, 10 men – should be a walk in the park. My arse.
We still look good, keeping possession and looking purposeful but all it takes is one attack. Antonio turns against Romeu which he shouldn’t have been able to do, shoots, Fraser palms it out and there’s Hernandez doing what he’s made a career of doing, 2-1. For Fucks Sake.
Half time and Bilic uses it to change tactics with Antonio playing up front. This means he’s fighting in the air against Maya and Jack as West Ham go long. Antonio is also useful for a long throw and it’s bombscare time as no one wins the first header and it flicks off someone and hits Stephens on the arm. It’s not a full throttle appeal and we get away with it. West Ham smell blood though – we can’t head the ball and even routine meat and drink straight punts into the box are causing carnage as we don’t win the headers.
We have a few chances of course with our numerical advantage but usually we get into position and then the cross is woeful from whoever is out there. Gabbi then decides that he doesn’t need crosses and pick it up in midfield and leathers one with no backlift from 35 yards which sails over a late reacting Hart and smacks the bar on its way over. We have another chance as Tadic cuts in from the right and shoots but Hart saves comfortably.
JWP is on for Lemina but no sooner that’s been done, Cresswell launches a cross in from the West Ham left, Sakho loses both centre backs and heads goalwards, Fraser pulls out an amazing reaction save to flick it onto the bar but Hernandez is there again to bury it for 2-2. 2-0, 10 men and we fucked it up.
After that it’s frustration. Austin and Long are on for Gabbi and Davis and Cedric is lashing chances into the crowd. On 89 minutes, Redmond does a Gabbiadini and lashes one from miles out which pings off the bar and over. 91, 92 and JWP hoists a cross in towards Maya. It’s too high for him and down he goes under a ‘you get away with this playing for a big club’ Zabaleta shove – penalty.
Swilling his beer and taking a last drag on his fag – it’s Charlie Austin and mercifully not Tadic. After West Ham’s players have stopped being dicks around the referee and the penalty spot, he calmly sidefoots it past Hart to make it 3-2. Charlie’s penalties always shit me up because if the keeper goes the right way then he saves it but in it rolls and we got out of jail there. Thank fuck and Mauricio is off down the line having a party. No time left, 3 points, have it.
Well we certainly made heavy weather of that. You could argue that we were lucky as fuck all you could argue that the correct team won in the end. The fact is that with an hour to play against 10 men and a 2-0 lead, we should of won this game absolutely comfortably without all of the teeth gnashing and the gift of a last-minute penalty. When I say gift, I don't mean that it was the wrong decision. It was clearly the correct decision as Zabaleta's challenge had nothing to do with the ball and everything to do with shoving Yoshida out of the way. The most ridiculous thing about it was that Yoshida was never going to score from that cross.
Let's take a minute to analyse Jose Fonte's contribution to that game. He decided that it was a good idea to haul Steven Davis down by the neck and give us a penalty that was 100% nailed on. Why the actual fuck would you bother bringing down Steven Davis in the penalty area? There is no danger. He never hits the target and is no goal threat whatsoever. Even if Joe Hart was out of the goal by the corner flag this still would've been absolutely no point in bringing Stephen Davis down. Fonte knows this as he's played with Davis for five years so why the fuck did he do it? Before that that was his stellar contribution to Gabbiadini's goal where Gabbiadini ran 50 yards in the time it took Fonte to amble about 3 yards. Like with Dejan Lovren before him, it's really noticeable that once he moves to a team with no real defensive structure in midfield, he gets repeatedly exposed and found out. Toby Alderweireld by comparison has moved to a Spurs team with a good defensive structure in midfield and this is why he still regarded as one of the best centre backs in the league.
Definition of Pointless: Bringing Down Davis in the Penalty Area
Charlie Austin's post match interview was comedy gold in that he revealed that Mark Noble had told him that Joe Hart knew which way he was going to put the penalty so he simply put it the other side. Now obviously Noble was trying some sort of double bluff but Austin has completely thrown him under the bus there – maybe he’ll shut up in future (no chance). Not the Noble should've been on the pitch to be thrown under the bus…. Let’s talk about Lee Mason.
The one decision that Lee Mason got completely wrong was to not send off the horrible little prick for that revolting tackle on Lemina. It'll be interesting to see if there's any retrospective action on that one because although the referee was looking straight at it, he can't have seen it. There is no way that Mason can say he saw that tackle and didn't think it was worthy of a card. If he does that he is basically saying that he is completely incompetent and he should be retired from being a referee immediately. In my opinion, Mason got every other decision is correct. The red card for Arnautovic was as easy a decision as you are ever going to have to make, both penalties for Saints were correct calls and the only one West Ham can have any complaint about was Tadic not getting red carded for that ridiculous jump tackle on Cresswell. I think that yellow was enough there because there was absolutely no intent, it was just absolutely shit that incredibly stupid from Tadic as gave the referee the opportunity to send him off.
After the game, Pellegrino said exactly what I've been wanting a Saints manager to say for the last six months in that he highlighted that West Ham won too many headers in our penalty area. I've been banging on for six months about how Yoshida and Stephens are not strong enough in the air and any team that lofts the ball in our box is going to have some joy because neither of them clear the ball and it always just plops down on the penalty spot. When West Ham went direct in the second half then they caused us all sorts of problems because it forced our midfield to play deeper as well, in addition to the fact that the ball always looks likely to break for the opposition. Of course, we have fit a centre back who would solve this problem but he is currently lost, presumably up his own arse. As said at the start, if the media are to be believed, Wesley Hoedt is on his way and this is his strength, not being up his own arse but being a monster header of the ball.
Back to today and there were some definite positives to be taken from the match. Both Gabbiadini and Austin scoring is good news and the debut of Lemina made the midfielder look a lot more solid. JWP changed the game when he time on, actually putting crosses into dangerous areas and giving our other players the chance to attack them. I really don't see how he can be left out at the moment and this will surely put pressure on Davis, Tadic and Redmond for this starting price. Tadic and Redmond had their moments today but I can't help but find Tadic an incredibly frustrating player. Redmond also falls into that category but when you look at it, he set up the first goal with a superb ball through for Gabbiadini, he set up the second goal with another good ball through to Davis for Fonte to haul him down and he hit the bar from 30 yards. That's the end product we've been needing from our attacking midfielders.
Four points from six from two home games at the start of
the season is a decent start. We have Wolves in the League Cup at home on
Wednesday and the next league game gives us an excellent chance to pick up
points on the road with a trip to Huddersfield, despite the fact that they've
started life in the Premier League with two wins out of two. You could argue that
Swansea and West Ham at home isn't the hardest of fixtures but I would argue
that a shambolic Crystal Palace and a terrible Newcastle are not the best
either. Still, two wins out of two has to be respected and Huddersfield will
see a home game against Southampton as an opportunity for three wins out of
three and so hopefully they will attack and give us chances as well.
A home win and three goals. Happy days are here again...
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