Mauricio Helps an Old Man to His Seat
After
the dismally shit performance against Watford, we travel to Selhurst Park to
play a Crystal Palace side who have made it being dismally shit the norm over
the past year or so. Fat Sam masterminded their survival last year and then
fucked off in the summer for slightly strange reasons to be replaced by Frank de
Boer who was given the task to change the way that Palace play which is
basically always been long ball and chucking in loads of crosses from the
wings. De Boer introduced a more
possession based game which lasted for four games and four defeats and no goals
and he was then sacked. Rumour has it
that he told various players and the chairman that they basically weren't
fucking good enough to play in a team that wanted to keep possession of the
football and the writing was on the wall from that moment on. So, chairman Steve
Parish who had appointed de Boer and given him his instructions, decided to
appoint Croydon boy and pensioner Roy Hodgson - last seen masterminding a truly
pathetic 2-1 defeat for England against Iceland in Euro 2016.
For
all the talk of Hodgson having a decent managerial record, let’s not get away
from the fact that he was fucking useless as an England manager taking four
years to not build a discernible pattern of play, getting knocked out of the
2014 World Cup after two matches and being equally fucking abysmal at Euro
2016. To cap it all, he was fired and then sat in the in the press conference
after the tournament saying I don't know why I'm here. He looked and sounded
like a resident in a rest home who was sitting in a puddle of his own
piss. There were 7 million reasons (per
year) why the hell did he should've been there to explain himself. Anyway, off
he went into the sunset and I assumed that no football club would ever be
stupid enough to give him another job. Granted his record and club football is
not too bad with medium-size clubs but at 70 years old, has he really still got
it? If you could ask that question of
Roy Hodgson, you could also ask it of John Motson who has mercifully decided to
retire from commentating on football matches. This is at least 10 years too
late but at least he has taken the decision and fair play to him.
I've
always thought that Palace had a slightly strange squad in that they appear to
have players who commanded either a huge transfer fee or would be on huge wages
like Benteke and Cabaye and they offset those with players who quite frankly,
would not get in any other Premier League team like Jeffrey Schlupp, Jason
Puncheon and ex-Skate Joel Ward.
As
for us, this week saw the return of the Virgil van Dijk to Saints colours as he
played for the under 23’s is against Aston Villa, where he was crap, partially
at fault for at least three of the goals that went past Alex McCarthy in our 4-0
defeat. Still, he played 90 minutes and all the indications are that he would
be involved in some way at Palace this weekend.
We
of course had massive issues with the front half of our team last week against
Watford so it would be interesting to see what Pellegrino did this week. In my opinion, even if not in anyone else's,
there was a huge question mark over Jack Stephens as well. In the event, the
back end of the team looked very strong with Yoshida preferred to Stephens and
Lemina coming back into the midfield. The front for saw Davis preferred to JWP
and Tadic instead of Boufal. I have been
calling for the inclusion of Shane Long but assumed it would be in one of the
wide positions but he took Gabbiadini’s place upfront.
One
of the rules I hate most in football is the one that allows you to loan players
to/from clubs in the same division. With
the money available to clubs these days there is absolutely no reason why this
should be allowed but it is and Palace have two – Loftus-Cheek from Chelsea and
Fosu-Mensah from Manchester United.
There’s
the reassuring presence of Roy Hodgson on the touchline as the game
starts. Reassuring for us that is. Palace have the first attack with the Chelsea
player chucking in a cross that Townsend can’t control. Palace haven’t scored all season and we only
have one from open play so no one’s expecting a goal fest so what happens on 6
minutes is a major surprise. Davis
drives forward from midfield and slides in Tadic on the right, he takes on
Schlupp on the outside and fires it across first time with his right foot,
Hennessey pushes it out and there’s Davo to pass it into the corner of the net,
past the ex-Skate who is on the line but going to wrong way. Get in.
Hang
on – we look superb in midfield and in defence.
Lemina is playing like a machine and the back four are well
drilled. Yoshida is competing well with
Benteke and Hoedt is spraying the ball about.
This looks great. It gives us the
platform to build and following another Davo break, Tadic picks out Long with a
superb cross and he tries to lob a header over Hennessey but gets it wrong and
hits the crowd via the corner of his head.
This
is Saints though and we can fuck up any situation and after Hoedt wins a
challenge in defence, Redmond falls on his arse and Townsend plays in Chelsea
and his cross is met by Benteke five yards out but he’s scooped it a bit and
Fraser is there to block. Good save big
orange man.
As
the half goes on, Lemina is the king in midfield, winning the ball back and
driving forward. The usually decent
Cabaye and McArthur are nowhere for Palace.
Their only threat is Made in Chelsea and he combines with Benteke and
drills a good low shot just wide from the edge of the box and then produces
another decent driving run which ends with a shot which is well blocked by
Bertrand. For all our domination in
midfield we are not creating much with a Redmond scuffer which goes wide being
as close as we get. The half ends with
Townsend latching on to a Benteke flick and lashing it wide of the near post
with his favoured left foot. He’s crap
really isn’t he?
With
Saints having emphatically won the midfield battle in the first half, England’s
finest changes the Palace shape and decides that it may be better if there’s a
player somewhere near Benteke and pushes the Chelsea player forward. To be fair it works and Saints looks a bit
panicky. Romeu gives the ball away on
the edge of our box and Chelsea runs at the left side of our defence and his
low cross evades everyone. Palace
recycle it and Schlupp bends in a great cross from the left and Punch meets it
about 5 yards out but Fraser has made himself into a huge orange starfish and
blocks superbly. If de Gea or Courtois
makes that save then Sky are creaming off about it for years.
Palace’s
frustration is beginning to boil over and they start kicking anything that
moves. Saints break up the right and
Punch decides to just charge into Tadic with an NFL style block. He then moans about the yellow card he
gets. Ward is up next with a bit of
control that he obviously learned in Portsmouth and he rugby tackles
Redmond. McArthur takes time out from
being schooled by Lemina and dives is to two ridiculous challenges in quick
succession, seeing yellow for the second when they were both worthy.
It’s
about 75 minutes before we make our first sub with Redmond being replaced by
JWP. It’s not been a great day for
Nathan so it’s a solid looking substitution.
Roy then makes the managerial decision that has the most benefit to
Saints that he could by removing the Chelsea player who has been their best
player by a mile. To be fair, he has
been suffering with ‘qwamp’. I feel that
this game is comfortable for us now and then Yoshida smacks a clearance into
Lemina which luckily bounces straight to Fraser. Mario can even snuff our danger when the ball
is smashed at him from 5 yards when his back is turned.
With
6 minutes left of the 90 came the moment that the media will be talking about
over and above everything when Virgil made the appearance in a Saints shirt that
he was never going to make. On he comes
for Tadic and takes his place in between Yoshida and Hoedt which is a sign of
things to come for me. It looks a
tactically sound move as Palace are launching everything up to Benteke
now. I’m happy with this because Benteke
clearly doesn’t give a shit. Seriously,
I’d take him off and try and play some football.
There
are no more alarms as we get to 90.
Whilst the clock is ticking down and you have a 1-0 lead, it’s always
nice to be camped up the other end of the pitch and we eventually work it
across to Cedric who cuts in from the right and hits a shot at Hennessey which
is well blocked. With just seconds
remaining on the clock, Palace attempt to break and the game ends in the same
style as it’s had for the past 90 minutes with Lemina hunting down the ball and
taking it off a Palace player like he was taking back his own personal
property. That’s my ball, this is my
field, these are my rules, now fuck off. Game over and Roy
looks like he needs a blanket and warm milk back in the rest home.
In
the end it was a win that showed exactly what we are about. We are resilient
defensively and with the two beasts in midfield we should be able to dominate
quite a few games. We still haven't got it going quite upfront because if we
did have, this game would've been dead and buried at half time whilst we were
dominating it. In the end it took two really good saves from Fraser to ensure
that we won it. If Palace had got anything out of the game it would've been a
fucking travesty but it’s an odd game in that if you just watch the highlights
and incidents near the goal, it looks like we’ve survived a battering. Having
sacked a manager who actually dared to play some football, they've gone back to
a manager who instantly just reverted to smashing it long to Benteke who didn't
have any players around him whatsoever, especially in the first half. In the
second half, Made in Chelsea got close to him and causes a few problems but
then he came off and Roy brought on a defensive midfielder. This pushed Cabaye
further forward but to no effect.
Saints
dealt with the one Palace tactic, the long ball up to Benteke, by Yoshida getting
as close as he could to Benteke and not letting him bring the ball down and
when he flicked it on either the full backs or the seriously impressive Wesley
Hoedt tidied everything up. The area we completely dominated was in midfield
where Lemina was absolutely immense. Romeu did his usual thing and that enabled
Steve Davis to roam around, read the game and get the team moving. One thing I
will say is that Palace were dirty bastards and fully deserved the five
bookings that they got. Some really cynical horrible play combined with moaning
about it to the referee afterwards. I know Jason Punch was the captain but he
acted like a whiny little bitch right the way through the game.
Shane
Long did what Shane Long does and hassled and harried and was a complete pain
in the arse for the defenders and you have to say that team selection totally
worked. Dusan Tadic had a decent first half before fading horribly on the
second but Redmond was poor. He did have a couple of half breaks and efforts on
goal but more often than not he was falling on his arse and just giving the
ball away. Maybe bring Gabbiadini in to play on the left and make him and Shane
Long interchangeable?
We
have to talk about Virgil I guess. He came on for the last 10 minutes for the
inevitable aerial bombardment and whilst I have no doubt his presence did help
matters, his timing was way out getting our jumped for virtually every ball.
It'll come I guess. Even though he
didn’t win much, his presence enabled us to have more players to sweep up the
flick ons and he did look interested.
So,
a great result for Pellegrino in terms of the fact that he obviously thought
about what went wrong the previous week and changed it and today was much
better. Mind you, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put Mario Lemina in the
team. He was absolutely fucking outstanding today and it was the easiest
decision for the man of the match that there can ever have been. The useless
wanker that is Philip Neville was saying on Match of the Day that some of the
big clubs will already be looking at Lemina. It's so predictable that it's
fucking hilarious. You have to laugh or else you get angry about it. To give today a bit of context, which Phil Neville
is obviously totally incapable of doing, it is the first game that Mario has
played 90 minutes for us and we are playing against a team who are bottom of
the league having lost all five games. Hey, I think Mario was absolutely
brilliant today but it is only one game. Let's see how he gets on against a
good side, like the Manchester United side that we play next week.
It
was a good day for Mauricio - the charge upfront with Shane work very well as
did the central defensive partnership. We just have to work out how to play
home games now. It was great for Steven Davis to actually get a shot on target
but the best bit of today for me was the two saves by Fraser. The Twitter army who
have been slagging him off for quite a long time at every opportunity, were
conspicuously absent straight after the game.
They’d still prefer us to pick McCarthy, who let in 4 for the under 23s
in midweek and is never fit for longer than 10 minutes. They also wanted to pick Mouez Hassen last
year who no one had ever seen play.
Straight
after the game, due to it being an early kick-off, we had shot right at the
table to fifth-place which is rather cool. I was looking around at Ronald
Koeman and Everton but they were fucking nowhere. I looked for Juergen Klopp
and Liverpool and they were below us as well. It looked different at 5pm and we
had dropped to 9th but for now, happy days.
Next
up, as mentioned, it's Manchester United at home and the moaning fuck that is
Jose Mourinho. Bring it on. Someone's got to hand them their first defeat of
the season so why not us. I see us
playing 3-5-2 with Virgil coming into the side in place of either Redmond or
Tadic.
You Want This Ball? Come and Take It.
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