FA Cup 4th Round - Southampton 1 Watford 0

Winning?  Dominating? In Control?  Never Fear, Captain Chaos is Here

Transfer window klaxon and Saints have actually signed someone with Guido Carrillo coming in from Monaco for £19.1 million.  A 6 foot 3 centre forward who will hopefully mean that we’ve finally replaced Graziano Pellè.  It only took us 5 transfer windows.  Carrillo’s record can be read in a number of ways.  Goals per game is not so great but minutes per goal is because of the number of substitute appearances.   He’s a Pellegrino old boy which makes me suspicious and Monaco are one of the better French clubs so he won’t be used to a relegation battle.  The French league of course, is known for being a bit less physical than the English League but Argentineans can usually handle themselves though, so hopefully he’ll be decent.

Today is the FA Cup 4^th Round with the visit of Watford.  It’s a decent draw as is any home draw against anyone other than a top 6 club so we have to be confident of progressing and we would be if we were any good at winning football matches. On the positive side, 20% of the games we have won this year have been in the FA Cup and there aren’t many teams who will be able to match that percentage (West Brom perhaps).

Would it even be worth coming along today?  With the 6 pointer against Brighton coming on Wednesday and another against West Brom on Saturday – would we be risking any of our first team players.  Gardos and Bednarek at centre back with Obafemi up front?  Nope.  Our line up is relatively strong – there will be no Florin Gardos or Jan Bednarek etc and this tells me that Pellegrino knows he is severely under pressure and can’t afford to tank this game.  Having said that, he’s picked Shane Long instead of a striker.  JWP drops out with Boufal coming in and Davo comes in for Lemina.

Watford have of course sacked Marco Silva since we played them a couple of weeks ago but the new man Javi Gracia has also picked the cheating shitbag Abdoulaye Doucoure.  Happily for us, Troy Deeney is not in the match day 18 which is one less thing for Jack Stephens to shite his pants over.  “And the referee today is Bobby Madley…” oh joy of joys.  Kevin Friend last week, Bobby Madley this week… what have we done to deserve this?

Away we go in front of what looks like a fairly decent crowd, showing that the club have got the ticket prices correct.  Watford have brought down a decent number and the first thing they get to see is Boufal taking on the full back and being tugged back.  With JWP on the bench it’s down to Bertrand to put over the free kick which Long pokes goalwards, the keeper blocks and there’s Jack Stephens to pass it into the net from about 6 yards.  Get in.  You see… good on the floor, not so great in the air.

Watford look strangely not arsed and we stay in the ascendancy with Davis putting Long away and he takes a touch and then has to go and chase it 30 yards.. Due to his pace he gets there before it runs out and puts in a great cross which is just being Cedric who is steaming in at the near post.  What got me about this move was the fact that Shane was completely taken out once he’d crossed the ball and not only was it a foul and therefore a penalty,  he got smashed into the boards and we ended up playing with 10 for a few minutes.  Watford used this to make their first foray into our half and Romeu brought down Capoue giving them a free kick on the edge.  Up stepped Half-season Wonder Richarlison and it was shite from the moment it left his boot, high and wide.

Cheating shitbag Doucoure has hardly touched the ball yet but when he does get involved it’s good to hear some booing.  Not so good is to see Ryan Bertrand pull up and you know he’s going off and we don’t have a left back on the bench.  That’s a strange one when you think about it.  It’s easy to find a right footed player to fill in at right back so why not have a specialist left back to play on the bench?  Anyway, on comes Pied to play on the left.

We are playing some decent football, albeit against piss poor opposition as Hojbjerg works it across to Cedric and he and Tadic combine well with Cedric putting over a low cross which Long slides in and misses.  Once again though, Cedric is completely wiped out after he’s crossed the ball and it should be a penalty.  VAR would probably have given it and so would a vaguely competent referee and linesman.

oHojbjerg works it across to Cedric and

Right on half time Richarlison floats in a cross but it’s one of those which is overhit and dropping in and McCarthy does well to pack pedal and shovel it over the bar and with that we go in 1-0 up at half time.  It must have taken the Watford manager all of 10 seconds to get Okaka warmed up and the big unit is on for the second half.  Get ready for 4-4-2 and long ball.  I’m sure Pellegrino has it covered.

The good news is that as opposed to Deeney, Okaka is shit and so is the quality of hoof coming into him so there’s no immediate danger.  Up the other end, Boufal has them on toast and he tricks past the full back then slows up and Carrillo (their one) bundles into the back of him.  I wasn’t expecting it to be given in real time but when I saw it again it’s a shove in the back and so that’s 3 out of 3 for Bobby M.

Long, who has single handedly responsible for giving Watford any bit of possession they have then fires straight at the keeper from a Davis pass.   He then brilliantly pulls down a Tadic chipped ball through and just when you think he’s going to score one of the great goals with just the keeper to beat, he pulls out some sort of wanky chip which is neither shot nor cross and bollocks.  Is it any wonder we can’t kill teams off?

There is also bad luck involved in that as well as Tadic runs on left before teeing up Hojbjerg who absolutely pings one from 30 yards and it’s past the keeper and smacks off the bar.  From the next attack, Cedric gets over a cross and Long again looks to have a header at goal but has another brainfart and heads it across to no one and it’s cleared again.

60 minutes gone and Pellegrino has of course already had one sub forced upon him and now it’s time for him to influence the game. Yoshida is ready to come on so I assume that Cedric is coming off as he clearly has a knock and that Stephens will go to right back.  I kind of stop looking for a second and then I realise that Boufal, who I thought was going over to receive instructions, had gone off.  What the fuck is that!!!  I was so gobsmacked, I did what I never do and went on Twitter during a game I was watching and tweeted “That fucking substitution is insane”.  I just wanted there to be a record of the fact that even when a game is going perfectly well, Captain Chaos can throw a spanner in the works.  It’s like he’s sitting there stroking a white cat thinking “things are going so well, I must fuck it up”.  So anyway, we now have 5 at the back, three in midfield, Tadic at 10 and Shane up front.  No width at all so guess what, Watford’s full backs push up and start raining crosses down into our box.  Where’s Marco Silva’s number?

I Have an Evil Plan to Fuck Everything Up

I’ve forgotten my glasses today so it doesn’t help that the game has now moved 20 yards up the other end.  In an instant it’s all Watford.  Okaka works his way in from the left and has a blast from a narrow angle which is blocked and then Richarlison gets in a cross which Okaka misses because he’s shite.  Why are they getting these chances now?  Oh yes, Captain Chaos.

Captain Chaos has one chance to realise his mistake and fix it with his last sub – maybe take a defender off and put JWP on but instead he hooks Tadic and brings on Carrillo for his debut – and plays him out of position at 10.  Fucking hell.

Carrillo (our one) kind of lumbers about with the air of a man who is delighted to be trying to acclimatise to English football and in addition, trying to acclimatise to a new position.  Meanwhile, up the end of the pitch where all the players are now, Pereya crosses and Okaka attempts the kind of bicycle kick which would be nearly impossible for a player with much more ability than him and it sails into the Northam.  It’s all them, it’s shite yourself time, long throws, panic clearances, crosses and a free header for Kabasele which he heads wide in abominably shit fashion in the last minute.  Blow your whistle Bobby – thank you.

A win is a win and into the 5th round we go. I guess that the end justifies the means because we won and kept a clean sheet but boy did we make it difficult for ourselves in the last half an hour. When I say that we may be difficult for ourselves, I of course mean Pellegrino made it difficult for ourselves.  Still, he got the win and this means that if we are 1-0 on 60 minutes, he’s going to revert to the 5-4-1 formation that we used away at Man City and drop back to the edge of our own penalty area.  It really won’t work often but there you go.

For the first time in nearly 2 months, we have won a game at St Mary‘s thanks mainly to the fact that Watford were absolute cack and unable to take advantage of the horrific game management of Mauricio Pellegrino. We also got lucky in that Troy Deeney wasn’t available for Watford for some reason.

The substitution on the hour mark when you choose to take Boufal off and replace him with Yoshida was the most negative, pointless and nonsensical substitution from what is admittedly a pretty big catalogue of questionable substitutions that he has made since he’s been our manager. To recap, we were controlling possession, we were the most likely team to score next and we were under no pressure whatsoever and Boufal was terrorising their right back Janmaat who was having to pull Watford’s right winger to help him out. We had already proved that we could handle Okaka upfront for Watford because he is absolutely bollocks. As Boufal was making his way of the pitch it was obvious to anyone what was going to happen. We would drop deep and the Watford full backs would now be able to get forward and sling balls into the box. Pellegrino completely gave up on attacking with half an hour to go. Because he played five at the back, any width was going to be provided by Cedric, who could hardly run and Pied who was out of position on the left. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen. Then, later on in the game he brings on Carrillo for his debut and plays him as an attacking midfielder so we didn’t get to see him in his correct position and even if we had, we didn’t have anyone putting in crosses for him.

The positives today well once again the performance of McCarthy in goal. The defence were not troubled by a pitiful Watford attack but you have to mention Jeremy Pied who put in a decent shift at left back after Bertrand went off. I thought the midfield pairing of Romeu and Hojbjerg were superb And totally eclipsed the cheating fuck Doucoure.  The negative today was obviously the injury to Ryan Bertrand which is when we can well do without with the two games that we have coming up. Not so great was Shane Long. So many of our attacks break down on the fact that Shane Long cannot control the ball. He is not an intelligent runner either. A lot of said about his running and chasing and all that but when the midfield is building up, he is quite often stationary and waiting for a ball to go and chase.  Maybe he still has the after affects of the illness that forced him to miss the Spurs game – if so though, why was he on the pitch with two fit strikers on the bench?

Brighton at home on Wednesday is next and that of course is fucking huge. If Bertrand doesn’t recover then I expect McQueen to start – well he has to really as Targett has been loaned out for the rest of the season. I would also anticipate JWP coming into the side in place of Boufal (even though we need Boufal against what will surely be a massed defence) and Lemina coming in for Davis. I hope that when Lemina does come in that he plays in exactly the same position that Davis did today, in front of Romeu and Hojbjerg. Personally, I would pick Yoshida ahead of Stephens but I can’t see Pellegrino doing that and likewise I can’t see Carrillo being given a start straight away so I expect it will be Shane bloody Long whilst seven players with more ability sit on the bench.  One thing is for sure - all pellegrino's decision will be made with fear and caution in mind.

Nigel Adkins always used to say that it was best not to get too high when you win or to get to low when you lose. We have won today but because of Pellegrino, his substitutions and game management; there is absolutely no danger of getting too carried away with it.

Anyway, 8th and a Cup Final....it's still on!

Premier League Match 24 - Southampton 1 Tottenham Hotspur 1

Jack Hindenburg Stephens - Shit in the Air

What an awesome transfer window it’s been a Southampton so far. Absolutely no one has left, if you don’t count the player who we got out of the door before the transfer window opened.  I wonder the club are using the excuse that technically, we haven’t actually bought in any money in this transfer window as a reason for not spending any.

Meanwhile, other teams of got on with it and Everton have signed the player who was allegedly our main target, Theo Walcott. The clubs favourite media outlet is trying to let it be known that Saints were virtually there with a deal but at the last minute, Everton came along and blew our offer out of the water. Whilst that is entirely feasible, I’m not convinced that that is the whole story.

There has been some acknowledgement that our position in the table may actually be putting off players from joining us. No shit Sherlock. It hasn’t been mentioned in the media but the fact that our manager is fucking useless may have something to do with it as well. The club is becoming a victim of its Boards inactivity. By not sacking Pellegrino a couple of months back, our league position has fallen to such a degree that as I write, we are in the bottom three so we are not in a position of strength. Even the thickest footballer is going to look at that and wonder if he wants to play in the Championship potentially next season. Of course, the player won’t care if we are paying stupid money which of course we are not going to do.

It’s a vicious circle because the board won’t want to splash all the cash because the ball game completely changes financially if we get relegated. The name of Guido Carillo has been mentioned. He is a striker who plays for Monaco Reserves and has worked with Pellegrino before. For starters, I wouldn’t take Pellegrino’s recommendation if I was asking him what to eat at a fucking kebab shop, let alone on a footballer and secondly, it appears we gone in with an offer which is well under the asking price despite having 20 days so far to try and get things sorted.  In all likelihood, it is probably going to be left to the players and the manager who got us into this mess, to get us out of it. That is a huge gamble.

Today we entertain (And are use that word ironically) a Tottenham side who only recently, thrashed us 5-2 in a game where a more accurate reflection would’ve been about 12-0. With a couple of exceptions, we were completely bollocks that day so it should be fresh enough in the memory of the players to put a shift in. This of course is taking Pellegrino out of the equation which sadly, we can’t do. Spurs are a team that close very quickly and aggressively in midfield and defence so we need to stand up to that. Steve Davis will not do that as he will get completely bottled out of things in midfield. Dusan Tadic will disappear after the first tackle on him so in my opinion, neither of those two should play today but I bet they do. It is the ideal game to play all three of our strong midfield players to at least compete against whoever Spurs have got in the centre of midfield, usually the excellent Dembele and either Dier or Wanyama. I just feel that if we set up defensively then we will lose so why not give Spurs something to worry about at the other end of the pitch.

I feel like starting drinking now and I’ve only just had my breakfast. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have to be responsible adult and drive the car then it will be very tempted to get completely fucking hammered before the game starts.

On the morning of the game, Marco Silva got sacked by Watford. Usually I wouldn’t give a shit about a Watford manager but Twitter exploded with conversation about whether he would be any good as a manager for Saints. The only question you really need to ask is, would he be better than what we have?. The answer is of course a resounding yes. One of the best managerial decisions made in the history of Southampton was sacking Nigel Adkins and appointing Mauricio Pochettino. Yes it was a very harsh decision to dump the manager after two promotions and being in 14th place but the board at the time thought that Pochettino would be better and so it was conclusively proved. Besides, “Marco Silva’s Red and White Army” fits a lot better because it has the correct number of syllables.  We can’t even get “Pellegrino out” into a chant because of the syllable issue.

Our team on paper looks decent.  Maya Yoshida is still injured so Stephens keeps his place and he’s picked pour best three midfielders in Romeu, Lemina and Hojbjerg.  Tadic is on the left in preference to Boufal and Shane Long is ill apparently which means Gabbiadini starts and 17 year old Michael Obafemi is on the bench.  My experience of him is watching videos of the Under-18s and he seems to score a lot of goals once being put through and he’s rapid.  Spurs are missing Alderweireld who is long term injured and our other ex, Big Vic is on the bench.  Christian Eriksen is out which is good news but with Kane, Alli and Son, they still have plenty for us to worry about.

Away we go and what’s this?  We have a chance after about 10 seconds as Spurs don’t deal with a long ball and Gabbis tries one from 25 yards and which Vorm saves comfortably enough.  Gabbi appears to have been possessed by the ghost of Shane Long from our next attack as JWP’s wicked cross from the right evades everyone but Tadic fires it back over and Gabbi plays an air shot.  Spurs begin to get into the game and eventually a cross comes in from Davies and Stephens is ball watching and not marking anyone as it comes over and Hoedt has to leave his player and attack the ball and knock it our for a corner before leaving Stephens in no doubt as to what he ddid wrong.

Another Spurs attack is broken up by Stephens and he moves the ball left to Tadic who waits and feeds Bertrand galloping up on the left past the very average looking Aurier.  Bertrand fires the ball over low and the sliding Davinson Sanchez slides in and shows great skill to get just the right connection on it to poke it goalwards, off the inside of the post and in.  Great finish and we are now in the usual position of leading.

The predictability continues as Spurs go for an immediate reply and win a corner, Over it comes from Davies on the left and we’re all over the place, allowing Dier to smack a shot which bounces away off the near post.  Not heeding the warning, we concede another corner, this time on the right and Davies’ corner is met by Harry Kane, 6 yards out with a free header, 1-1.  We were ahead for 3 minutes. Stephens was supposed to be marking him but he’s brushed him off as one would brush off a feather landing on your trousers.  It’s that easy.  From the kick off, we play it back to Stephens who smacks it against the onrushing Alli and then just stands and watches as the ball balloons up in the air and we manage to panic clear it eventually.  Not a great couple of minutes for Jack.

Saints Demonstrate How Not to Mark Someone 

A feature of the first half so far has been the Bromance between Moussa Dembele and Kevin Friend.  The way this works is that Dembele can foul anyone he likes as many times as he likes and his special Friend won’t do anything about it.  I am waiting for the first tackle from Romeu to see if he gets booked.  Elsewhere, we nearly go behind as Davies drills in a low cross and Sissoko reacts and sidefoots wide on the volley.  Luckily, today is not one of the 5% of games when Sissoko is decent.  At the other end, Saints win a free kick as good old Dembele trashes through Hojbjerg.  No card of course but a free kick and JWP flots in a superb ball to which Stephens rises unchallenged and heads wide of the top corner.  Arse.  Has to hit the target from there and so we go in all square in what has been a decent game so far.

The second half starts and I realise that Dele Alli is playing as he lashes a shot just wide of the post.  Last season he was a horrible little shit but he was brilliant.  This season he’s dropped the second bit and has ramped up the first bit.  I remember him showboating in the last minute a couple of years back when they were 4-1 up against us or whatever it was.  Not so cocky today are you, you little shit.

We seem to be losing our way a bit and Hojbjerg is struggling a bit in his attacking midfield position so on comes Boufal in a surprisingly attacking move from the bench.  Boufal has gone straight into the 10 position which looks good with JWP and Tadic remaining where they are most effective.  Talking of effective – McCarthy does a simple bread and butter goalkeeper thing and catches a corner.  Why does this bring almost a standing ovation from the crowd?  Oh yes.

Having been impressed with his first bit of tinkering, I am scratching my head as Tadic goes right (where he’s shit), JWP goes central (where he’s shit) and Boufal is out on the left and then Lemina jogs off to be replaced with Davis in defensive midfield (where he’s shit).  It’s an even game but we haven’t created anything since half time and then Gabbis is off on 83 minutes to be replaced by Michael Obafemi.  This is going to be interesting.

Lamela and Big Vic are on for Spurs, replacing Son (who has done nothing) and Dembele (who finally managed to get himself booked).  Again, I cast my mind back to last year and remember Dembele giving Mike Dean a high five when he was substituted after another game of constantly fouling everyone.  Big Vic’s first contribution is to pick it up 30 yards out and try a shot.  Anyone who remembers him from Saints days will not be surprised to know that the ball ended up in Row Z.

We survive a scramble in our box as Lamela gets in but Stephens manages to block well and we get a break off the linesman as he incorrectly gives us a goal kick, the useless blind bastard.  The script is now waiting to be written by someone and it should have been Obafemi as Romeu plays Tadic in on the right and a low first time cross comes over and Obafemi swings a right boot at it and plays an airshot.  He’s 6 yards out so any connection and it’s a goal.  Balls.  Would Shane Long have scored?  No.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah..... Fuck it!

We have one more decent chance as Tadic picks out Boufal with a pull back but he takes a shit heavy touch which allows a Spurs defender to block the shot and having missed that, we have a go at conceding at the death as Spurs work it from Vic to Alli to Kane on the left and he, fortunately for us, shanks his effort across goal and wide of the far post.

The game is done and the players leave the field with the applause of the crowd in their ears as opposed to about 5000 people swearing at them. You could look at it in any number of ways. On the one hand, a point is more than what anyone was expecting at the start of the day. On the other hand, we really could have won it if either of the two chances at the end had been put away. Conversely though, no one would’ve been expecting Harry Kane to drag that left footed effort wide in the last minute which would’ve meant that we ended up with expected zero points.

Considering most of my pre-match venting was aimed at Pellegrino, I have to be fair and say that I don’t think he got a lot wrong today. I wouldn’t have picked Tadic from the start but to be fair, he did a decent job. I have a bit of an issue with Hojbjerg being played further forward then Lemina who I feel would be much better suited to that role but that’s not too bad. The only time I was mystified by something that Pellegrino day today was when he bought on Davis for Lemina. I hope that was because Lemina had a small injury and not tactical because if it was tactical then it was questionable.

Overall, we played pretty well and made a very good Spurs side look pretty average.   Having said that, some of our defending was of the panic stations variety and our defending of set pieces was generally dreadful.  The biggest problem that we had was showed perfectly by the goal that we conceded where a simple corner, a few yards out, was headed in unchallenged by Harry Kane – the one player who you really should be marking closely. Kane simply outmuscled his marker, who was of course Jack Stephens and scored easily. For all his strength as a ball-playing defender, Jack Stephens is a fucking nightmare. You have to go back to the Hindenburg disaster to find something worse in the air than he is.  Before we conceded there was one cross into our box that he completely ball watched, leaving his man and forcing Wesley to leave his own man and head clear. Straight from the kick-off after the goal he just stood there and watched as his own clearance cannoned off a Spurs attacker and looped up in the air and every single time the ball went into the air he just looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. This is against Spurs, who are not a team that frequently put the ball high into the strikers. At the other end of the pitch there was the free header wide, to be added to the free header against Fulham when he hit the bar from three yards.

It is not Pellegrino’s fault that he has to pick him because with Yoshida injured, Stephens is all that we’ve got. This one is completely down to Les Reed who knew that Virgil was leaving way before he actually did and he has not got us a replacement yet.  You could easily argue that this lack of preparation has cost us 4 points over the last two games.  We 100% percent need another centre half before the transfer window closes.

Talking of Les. Today we had to bring on Michael Obafemi up front because we had no one else because Charlie Austin and Shane Long are injured and ill respectively and our next two strikers off the rank, Sam Gallagher and Ryan Seager are out on loan and Gallagher at least has no recall option. Having scored a few goals for Blackburn last year, I fully expected Gallagher to be part of our squad of the season, particularly when we gave him a new contract and particularly when J Rod was sold but no, someone on the football side decided to loan him out for a second season of battling away at the bottom of the Championship because, I assumed at the time, we were going to bring in another striker. Needless to say we fucking didn’t and boy can we do with Sam now. Name me a single manager anywhere in English football aside from Pep, who would not want a big striker option, at least off the bench. It looks like maybe we are about to punt £20 million on Carrillo (I’ll believe it when I see it), a similar type of player without first seeing if the academy striker in that mould that we have is good enough. I’m reminded of the Southampton way and pathways and all that shit that doesn’t apply any more.

Overall today, considering we were up against the usual standard refereeing that we always get from Kevin Friend, we did ok.  As is usual against Spurs, Moussa Dembele is allowed to foul at will with no yellow card until it becomes embarrassing.  We don’t look anything like a side but should be in the bottom three but here we are. I think we caught Spurs on a bad day for them with Christian Eriksen out injured.  They seem to have a couple more dodgy players than usual with Aurier and Sanchez looking very average but they still have Dembele refereeing the game so all will be well. 

As for us, if we can keep playing with that intensity and Pellegrino can keep us on the front foot and attempting to play further up the pitch then we might be okay, as long as the aforementioned new centre half turns up along with the new striker. We cannot get too optimistic though. It is just one game and at the end of the day, it is another home game gone that we did not win and we are now no wins in 11 and one win in 15 so it is still quite remarkable that Pellegrino still has a job. He did show a sense of humour in his post match interview though which illustrated that he knows he’s under severe pressure, describing his situation as like being sat on the electric chair. They have a curious turn of phrase in Argentina.

Next up is Watford in the FA Cup where I expect Mr Doucoure, the basketball playing cheating fuck, will get a lot of stick if he’s playing. The dilemma for Pellegrino is to either pick a team reserves to save the first team to Brighton at home on Wednesday night or to try and build on this slight little bit of momentum that we have. Personally, I would play a mix and match side – for example, I would rest Wesley Hoedt for this game to give Hindenburg some practice playing against Troy Deeney. I would partner him with Florin Gardos who is after all, a 6 foot 4 centre back who has had decent games for us in the past.  I would maybe rest Lemina because of his ankle and play Davis or maybe take the opportunity to play Gabbiadini at 10 behind Long or Obafemi.

The next League game at home to Brighton on Wednesday is huge.  Win that and today was a springboard to something decent.  Fail to win it and we are right in the shit and digging deeper and any goodwill that Pellegrino may have earned from today, will be completely lost and the clamour for him to go will be deafening.

PS – It’s now the 24^th January, 29 days since we sold van Dijk to Liverpool and stll, no one has arrived.

Premier League Match 23 - Watford 2 Southampton 2

Doucoure Punches Final Nail in the Cofffin

Spoiler alert.

So, the game happened on Saturday and it’s now Tuesday and the only reason I can be arsed to write a blog entry about it is because I’m a completist so leaving things half done is not an option.  You could basically take the top and bottom of virtually any report I’ve written this season and change the actual match description in the middle.  It’s fucking crap.

The transfer window is rolling on and so far we’ve done nothing – all entirely predictable.  The trail on Theo Walcott has gone cold with him looking set to sign for Everton because they’ve got more money.  To be fair, I never really saw this one as a runner anyway because it’s exactly the sort of thing we leak to the press to take attention away from who we are really after.  It’s perfect for that – he’s English, a World Cup is coming up, he’s current with a big club and there’s the ex-Saint angle.  All this is ideal for journos to make copy out of.  We appear to be after a striker called Guido Carillo who has played for Pellegrino before.  Carillo might be a good player but the most worrying thing about this is that this implies Pellegrino is here to stay.

Anyway, to today and Watford away.  They pissed all over us at St Mary’s which was probably the game when the alarm bells first started ringing about Pellegrino.  Marco Silva comprehensively out-managed him that day but Watford’s season started to fall away as soon as Silva was linked with and prevented from moving to Everton.  It’s fallen away to such an extent that they are second bottom of the Premier League form table.  Guess who’s bottom?

Tombola time and Boufal gets dropped of course and Tadic gets brought back.  There are welcome returns for Wesley Hoedt and Cedric with Bednarek and Yoshida making way with Maya being injured.  Shane Long is again preferred to a striker who can actually score goals.

Saints start quite well as Watford don’t really look very good and Romeu bursts through a tackle on the edge of the box and finds Long in front of goal.  Shane predictably hits it straight at Gomes, only for referee Roger East to give an offside, even though it wasn’t offside and the linesman hadn’t flagged.  Then the linesman flagged once the ref had given it.  Great officiating all round.

The shiteness of the officials is forgoptten after 15 minutes as Long does what he’s good at and outpaces the left back and the covering Watson and bustles to the bye line, pulling the ball back via a deflection to JWP who neatly passes it into the far corner of the net.  Get in.  Two goals in two games for JWP and now on a veritable streak.

Watford still look like they can’t be arsed and we manage to stay on the front foot with Wesley striding up from the back and trying a ridiculous 40 yarder.  For a second it looks like it’s over Gomes but he gets back to tip it over.  Great effort though.  We have to capitalise on the opposition not being at it and Tadic, back in his best position on the left, skins Janmaat and sends the ball low across the six yard box but unfortunately it goes to Long who for a split second has an open goal but after deciding not to take it first time and take a touch, a covering defender blocks the half hit shot easily.

The Watford fans are getting really pissed off with their team and are grumbling at their manager as well as he’s hooked Cleverley after half an hour and their mood only gets worse on half time as a ball out of defence by Hoedt sends Long away on the left versus Wague.  Shane puts on the burners and is gone, squaring to Tadic in the middle who superbly tees up the arriving JWP and our main goalscoring threat buries it under Gomes to put us 2-0 up.  What the fuck is happening here?

Half time and a brief inspection of Twitter reveals thousands of Saints fans tweeting variations of “don’t fucking sit back”.  Surely to Christ we’re going to have learnt the lessons from all the other games we’ve thrown away.  Watford bring on Troy Deeney and stick him right up top with Andre Gray.  Silva obviously deciding to be pro-active and go for it now, rather than later.  We all know what’s coming – 4-4-2 Route 1, Mike Bassett.

The first ten minutes of the half confirm this and it’s worrying straight away as the balls start raining down on Deeney who is playing against Stephens who has shat his pants.  Retreat, retreat, retreat.

On the hour, a loose ball falls to Davo on the edge of our box and he tries to run it out, panics and then looks for the sideways ball which isn’t there and then loses it.  Deeney lays is square to Janmaat who belts one from the edge of the box with McCarthy superbly tips onto the bar and it flies up in the air.  We have three defenders in the vicinity compared to Watford’s one attacker but guess who reacts first and Gray heads down and in to make it 2-1 with half an hour to go.  If you were a better man you would put money on us losing now.

Having overseen the game completely change in Watford’s favour, Pellegrino makes what is basically a like for like swap with Lemina on for Davis.  Nothing else changes and we just give the ball away and Watford are all over us.  Corners and crosses come into our box and we just don’t compete for them and it’s left to McCarthy to be the only decisive one in there, coming out and claiming crosses well.  We are getting deeper and deeper and in addition, we are not stopping crosses coming into our box.  Silva is proactive again to try and force the issue and on comes Okaka who is another big unit to play up front.  He immediately starts roughing people up and the smell coming out of Stephens shorts is now ridiculous.  We get away with one with ten to go as more chaos in our box and Romeu falls over, taking the opportunity to grab and hold Okaka's shirt.  Clear penalty really but those aren't getting given now for some reason.

Stephens and Hoedt for that matter may as well not be there regarding winning the ball as Deeney wins everything but somehow we get to the 90^th minute still 1-0 up and then it happens.  A huge cross under no pressure from the right, Stephens falls on his arse and doesn’t even challenge Deeney who heads across and Doucoure messily bundles it into the net as McCarthy seems to bottle it.  All of our players are appealing for handball and the first replay confirms it.  McCarthy has left the ball because Doucoure isn’t getting it and then the Watford man punches it into the net.  Well spotted Roger East and linesman. 2-2 and nail in the coffin and another Pellegrino master class.

It’s not the end though as there’s a couple of minutes to go and the fucking idiot makes a double substitution to try and win it with Sims and Boufal coming on for JWP and Tadic.  He even delays taking JWP off because we have a set piece to take – so why are you taking him off if you want him to take all the set pieces then you fucking twat.  Enjoy your two minutes lads – I bet the ban counters are happy with having to pay out two appearance bonuses for that.

An interesting theme that keeps cropping up over the last few months has been the parallels between this season and the last time we get relegated out of the Premier League in 2004/5. The main similarity has been at the wasted points where we let in goals in the last few minutes and the games against weaker teams in the division where we didn’t win when we really should have done.

Another parallel is the fact that I’m almost feeling completely numb about the whole thing. When the second goal went in for Watford, the ball hit the net and I kind of just shrugged my shoulders because everyone could see it coming and you knew it was going to come. From the start of the second half, Saints just went further and further back with the manager not reacting to Watford’s change of shape and let’s be honest, it is not rocket science and once again, and opposition manager didn’t have to do anything particularly scientific to baffle our team and manager. Put on the second striker and lump it forward. Anyone who watched the Mike Bassett film could have implemented those tactics but it was beyond Pellegrino to do anything about it. Let’s face it, he’s faced this change a few times now in English football and it just doesn’t matter. Move the defence up and move the strikers away from our goal.  Deeney and Okaka aren't quick so they aren't going to run behind you and their headers will drop into midfield rather than onto the penalty spot.  It's not hard.

We and specifically Pellegrino totally fail to adapt. It's not just him though - where are the leaders ont he pitch.  Where's the centre back moving the defensive line into the right place. Pellegrino was an international centre back for fuck sake.  Mind you, it is not Pellegrino‘s fault that he has to pick Jack Stephens as a central defender, a central defender who cannot hit the ball. He has lots of other qualities but he can’t head the ball. At the other end of the pitch, we have a striker who cannot score a goal. He does loads of other good stuff but he cannot score a goal and surely a striker who cannot score a goal and the central defender who cannot head a ball is like having a goalkeeper who can’t catch or midfield player who can’t pass the ball. If we push the defence up then Deeney can win as many headers as he likes. He says that he tried to adapt by bringing Lemina on for Davis and dropping Romeu to just in front of the central defenders -basically retreating.

Whilst we’re on the subject of Davis, he really adds nothing to the team at the moment. Nothing going forward and nothing defensively. Apart from Pellegrino not reacting to when Watford changed the shape, the biggest single factor why we didn’t win today was Davis piss-assing around with the ball in midfield and losing it which led directly to the first goal.

The positives today start with the authoritative Alex McCarthy in goal. Commanding the penalty area like a goalkeeper is supposed to do, I now hold my hands up and admit I was wrong about him and he does look a much better all round keeper then Fraser Forster does. JWP got two more goals and he needs to keep this going and aim to school seven or eight by the end of the season. Though I am not his biggest fan and was punching the wall when I saw his name on the team sheet, Tadic had a good game in the first half, mainly because he managed to find himself some space, usually on the left hand side. What a surprise, the left footed player is better on the left. To be fair, he did turn up right across the pitch in the first half and contributed well everywhere. Shane Long what’s the usual 100% effort having a major hand in both of the goals but he was also 100% predictable when trying to stick the ball in the net himself. A decent striker smashes that in the net first time instead of taking a touch and allowing a defender to block.

So I’ve managed to write this much post-match without mentioning the handball. How in the name of fuck do both the referee and the linesman miss possibly the most obvious handball ever. It’s not as if it was a slight deflection. He is basically caught the ball one-handed and then threw it in the net. There are two movements, a first to stop the ball as it came across and a second to push it into the net. The question is been raised as to whether Doucoure should face a charge for deceiving the referee successfully. Well of course he fucking should. He’s deliberate put it in the net with his hand.

After the game, the conversation was all about VAR and whether it should be rushed in because that fits the current narrative. There is no way however that you can say that the result was unfair nand in no way should the VAR chat detract away from the fact that Pellegrino is fucking useless.  Watford deserved a point for the way they had come out in the second half and the way the manager was proactive. Saints didn’t deserve to win because of the way we totally sat back in the second half and because of the way our manager did absolutely fuck all. What other manager in the history of football makes two game changing substitutions in the 92nd minute. By game changing, I mean substitutes that are not designed to just waste time.

So, what have we learnt from today? Probably nothing that we didn’t know already. It’s nothing new but it has been reinforced the Pellegrino does not have the slightest fucking clue what he’s doing and he should be sacked straight away. We have also had it reinforced that we need new players with a centre back and central striker being absolutely vital. We know that Pellegrino will have learned absolutely nothing because he’s been taught the same lesson six or seven times already this season and he carries on doing the same things. We’ve learnt that Doucoure is a fucking cheat. It’s all very well saying well what if one of our players had done it. The fact remains that it wasn’t one of our players who did it and Doucoure is a fucking cheat. However, if that goal means that Pellegrino gets sacked then Doucoure will have actually made a positive effect on our season. The board have to be decisive and get rid of the idiot now. It is not too late but if he is still in charge by the time we play Brighton at home then it will be too late and we will be playing football in the championship next season.

Hello Mr Gao – your investment is going to shit!

FA Cup 3rd Round - Fulham 0 Southampton 1

Top 8 and a Cup Final... It's Still On!!!

Nearly a week into the transfer window and nothing is happened in terms of the incoming players which we so desperately need. Nothing is also happened regarding the manager that we desperately need to get rid of either and so we arrive at the FA Cup third round and an away trip to Fulham where we are probably the underdogs despite being a league higher.

Before we played there was a game on the Friday which was Liverpool against Everton and what do you know, Virgil Van Twat scored the winner when he bounced a header off his head with his eyes shut. Needless to say, in the Liverpool wankfest that went on, no one mentioned how he had behaved for the last year or how Liverpool were a bunch of scumbags. All will be forgotten as history gets re-written. Seeing all the Liverpool fans kicking off the next day when Coutinho finally got is move to Barcelona was amusing and unsurprising in equal measure. Van Dijk was a hero for forcing a move to Liverpool but Coutinho is not thought of in the same heroic terms. What a surprise. What are bunch of wankers.

I was looking forward to Pellegrino’s selection with a mixture of interest and dread as usual and I can’t say that I was too impressed. Bednarek was in for his debut which was not surprising given the unavailability of Pied and Hoedt.  It wasn’t too long ago that a £5 million signing making his debut would’ve brought great excitement but not this time.

As the game started it became apparent that instead of playing Stephens at right back where he has actually played before, as recently as two weeks ago, Bednarek was shoved out there where I don’t think he’s ever played, certainly not for Saints or for the Under 23s.  Yes, Pellegrino had decided to stick Bednarek at right back, playing against Ryan Sessegnon who is Fulham’s best player. This can only end well. Again, it seems a very fucking strange decision, in fact almost like he hasn’t thought about it at all.

The start of the game was predictably cagey with no one having any efforts on goal until the ball found its way to Steven Davies and he cleverly back-heeled through the defence to Shane Long who actually looked like a striker for a second that he lashed the ball into the net. Trouble was, he was offside as usual but you can’t be too harsh because it was fucking tight but it was the correct decision.

We weren’t taking the game to Fulham but waiting for their attacks to break down and then hitting them with quick counter-attacks. At least this looks like some sort of plan and from one of these, Boufal broke down the right hand side and fed JWP who fired wide from the edge of the box.

So half an hour gone and and we haven’t had a  fucking shot on target and then Yoshida play the ball over the top to meet a good run from Davis. He found Boufal who committed a defender.  Then we got lucky as his pass was mis-controlled by Long but ricochets off a Fulham defender to JWP who swept it into the net left footed to give us the lead.

If we score I the first half then you know we have about 10 minutes more of attacking before Pellegrino sounds the retreat and we switch to 9-0-1, defending our own 6 yard box.  Boufal then tried and succeeded in pulling off a ridiculous bit of skill in the left-hand corner to skin the full back along the line and with absolutely no fucker trying to get into the box, he was forced to try shot from a narrow angle which the Fulham keeper deflected wide without knowing too much about it.

Half time and for me, the second half was going to be a huge test.  Could we stay on the front foot and learn the lessons from recent mistakes or would we just be passive and allow Fulham back into it?

Into the second half and we nearly scored again after driving run by Hojbjerg, a pass to Long, a decent ball back in but Hojbjerg was by this time too close to the keeper  keeper who managed to smother his shot wide for corner. It’s amazing the Pierre wasn’t in the side for the first 15 games of the season as he is easily one of our better players now.  He’ll probably get dropped next week.

From JWP’s corner, Shane Long flicked it on and Jack Stephens had a free header into an open goal from 4 yards and displayed the marvellous heading technique that we usually see at the other end of the field and headed it against the bar. It’s a quite shocking miss.

You knew that despite being pretty awful that Fulham wouldn’t have a chance at some point, probably from a set piece and so it proved as Norwood slung in a cross from the left wing and McCarthy bucked the trend of usual Saints goalkeepers by actually came out for the cross.  The trouble is that the defenders are not used to this kind of goalkeeper behaviour that they don’t know what to do and Hojbjerg got in McCarthy’s way and the ball ended up at the feet of a Fulham centre back who luckily, showed why he is a centre back and lashed it over the bar.

Substitution time was upon us, late i the game as usual and Pellegrino managed to get himself a blast of  'you don't know what you're doing' with the removal by numbers of Hojbjerg who had been our best player. Lemina, Gabbiadini and Redmond on for Hojbjerg, Davis and Long and the three combined as Gabbiadini put Redmond away on the left he fed Lemina who backheeled into the path of Gabbiadini who showed exactly why he’s not playing at the moment by lashing it into Row Z. In fact it may have been row ZZ as it was that high.

First the good news, we won again and in truth we won it quite comfortably even though it was only 1-0 in the end and any win is a good win, especially in our situation.  This has to be put in context though.

After several attempts, it appears the Pellegrino finally got what he wanted which was to score a goal in the first half and then defend and keep a clean sheet in the second half. It’s a shame we had to play against the Championship side in order to do it. All the decent chances in the game are created by us with Fulham only really looking like scoring from the old set piece, especially the one when McCarthy came flying out and crashed into Hojbjerg.  Defensively we were solid enough and Bednarek was ok in that regard but it really would have done no harm at all to play a proper right back from the academy who may at least have added something going forward.  Failing that, play JWP at right back and Sims on the wing.

The negative from this game for me is that we decided to sit back again after an hour and spent the last half an hour just containing a very limited Fulham side and quite often, banging the ball forward to nobody. It’s this lack of learning from our past mistakes which drives me nuts. The win is a bit of a papering over the cracks situation but as said earlier, in the situation we are in then any win and against any opposition is welcome.

It’s been the case recently that the team have been fucking dreadful and letting down the fans. Today, the fans showed up in numbers which was impressive but quite of few of them let the team down. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it that booing a player on your own team and singling out an individual on your own team for sarcastic applause or booing whenever he comes onto the pitch or touches the ball, is a cunt’s game. That’s what you are and that’s what you deserve to be called. No one would miss you if you weren’t there so just fuck off.

Anyway, through to the 4^th Round of the Cup and maybe Pellegrino will deliver a top 8 finish and a cup final appearance after all though you’d get better odds on Shane Long scoring 30 goals this season.

Premier League Match 22 - Southampton 1 Crystal Palace 2

The Audiobook Version is Particularly Nauseating

So will the first game at 2018, a home game against Crystal Palace be another two steps back after half a step forward or would it be the start of better times ahead for Southampton Football Club after the Annus Horribilis that was 2017.  As if everyone wasn’t feeling positive enough after the Manchester United game, the club wheeled out Motivational Hockey Guy Ralph Krueger to answer some questions from the local journalists.   

I saw the link come up on Twitter and before I listened to it I was thinking that this is bad timing because if we get beat tonight then it’s all going to get thrown back at him big time.  Anyway, I think the local journalist, Adam Blackmore knew that he couldn’t fuck around with his questions so when he piled in on question one with ‘finishing eight and the cup final got the last manager sacked….’, it was a test for Ralph and his talent for Management Bollockspeak but one which he passed with flying colours, coming across like one of those annoying fuckers you see on LinkedIn and coming out with phrases that you never hear anyone in football come out with like “we finished in single digits”. I assume what he means by that is that we finished between first and ninth. You see, it all makes perfect sense. When you actually wade through the Bollockspeak and look what he actually had to say, it is clear that we are no longer selling the top four dream to the fan base which anyone with half a brain new was completely unrealistic anyway.   The trouble was that he got this message across in a rather patronising way by repeatedly stating that we are a ‘small club’.  Yes Ralph, compared to the super rich Wanker Clubs at the top, we are small but don’t say we’re small compared to 7^th – 20^th in the Premier League or anyone else further down.

The annoying thing for me was that he wanted to blame the Virgil van Dijk situation for everything.  It has cast a cloud over the squad and the managers work apparently.  Oh ok then.  Personally I do subscribe to the ‘one bad apple’ theory to a degree, especially when it’s a player previously seen as a leader (see Fonte also).  Personally, I could have done with him making a reference to the last three transfer windows which have all left issues unresolved.  He’s never going to make a negative reference to the current manager or the Board’s record in appointing the last two managers but the inference that all would now be OK with Pellegrino because van Dijk has now gone is completely laughable. Despite saying that finishing eight was fantastic for a small club like Southampton, he justified the Claude sacking by saying that it was based on a feeling or the big picture, rather than an individual event (ie, finishing 8^th, getting to a Cup Final). I guess what he means is that Claude wasn’t a right fit for the philosophy of the club, whatever that is these days. If Claude sacking was based on a feeling then I do wonder how he cannot have a feeling that Mauricio Pellegrino is totally out of his depth and/or a fucking idiot.

So to today and now that Virgil has gone, I assume everything will be okay. Well it didn’t start terribly well with Wesley Hoedt being ruled out with a concussion, I assume picked up when he nutted the back of Lukaku’s head on Saturday. This raised a horrifying prospect of replacing him with Jan Bednarek, one of the embodiments of our last crap transfer window. As it turned out, the tombola brought in the lesser of two evils, Jeremy Pied, with Jack Stephens moving to centre back to partner Maya Yoshida against Christian Benteke. Fucking hell this is going to be fun.  Elsewhere, Ryan Bertrand was back with Sam McQueen dropping out altogether and up front, in a game we have to win, so scoring nil is not an option, we have a striker who hasn’t scored since February.

Crystal Palace have amazed me and Roy Hodgson has amazed me in that he has produced a really good recovery from probably the worst start in Premier league history and they will comfortably stay up. They don’t have much of a defence especially without the injured Dann and Sakho but they have goals in their team, they have battlers and physicality and they also have pace in the side in Zaha and Townsend and most importantly, they all seem to be pulling in the right direction and playing for a manager who they respect.

Away we go on a pitch that looks quite heavy and our first ball forward is not cleared properly and Tadic chests it into the path of Shane Long who has a clear sight of goal and the opportunity to give us a dream start but he smashes it into Row Z.  Crap.

Another decent chance goes begging and I can’t remember too much about it and I can’t be arsed to rewatch the highlights and then Bertrand gets sent away down the left and whips a great ball over which is ends up with Pied over on the right.  Instead of chipping it back he takes his time and sends it across low into space and a Saints player reacts first and cracks it into the net past a stunned Hennessey and a disbelieving crowd.  Why disbelieving…. It’s Shane Long.  Fuck me it’s a new year.  I had no idea who scored it as I was up the other end and I forgot my glasses.  It was all slightly blurred which I find, is the best way to watch Saints these days.

For the rest of the half we don’t do much.  Palace are fucking woeful but we seem content to just sit there and let the half play out.  You know because of this manage that this is exactly what he wants us to do.  Just sit back, be passive and try and win 1-0… against a very average side at home.

So, 1-0 up but it really should be more but we’ve sat back once again after scoring.  There’s no way Palace will be as bad in the second half so we may have missed the boat here.  Sure enough, as the teams emerge for the second half, Palace have removed the ineffective Cabaye and brought on van Aanholt which I assume will mean either he or Schlupp to the left wing and Zaha up front with Benteke.  We predictably start with the same team though how Tadic has done enough in those 45 minutes to stay on the pitch is beyond me.

It starts fairly even but Palace have the first good chance as Benteke gets the ball with his back to goal.  He turns with all the grace of an oil tanker but he still gets the shot away and McCarthy gets down well to keep it out by the post.  Palace have takjen over possession now and we’re digging in and not creating a thing.  Hodgson makes another sub, sending in the massive unit that is Sako and throwing him up front with Benteke, with Zaha going back out to the left.  This is so much like the Burnley game when they threw on a big striker it’s untrue.  Pellegrino gets Davis warmed up and ready to come on – surely the end of Tadic who has actually managed to get worse since half time.

Four minutes it takes – that’s all.  Palace win a free kick on our right after a horrible lunge and miss by Long.  The initial free kick is half cleared and crossed back in again.  It’s headed back across at the back post and Pied and JWP have totally lost the players they were marking and they’re queueing up at the back post to knock it in, MacArthur does and 1-1.  Predictable.  Davis is still ready to come on and on he comes for JWP so tadic gets to stink the place out for longer.  We need another goal so naturally, take off the set piece taker who is bar far not the worst player we have on the pitch.

With us struggling to get anything going forward, and losing the midfield battle and losing in the physicality stakes, Pellegrino decides to match up Palace with 4-4-2, even though we don’t have the players to do this, especially when you take Hojbjerg off who a) has been our best midfielder by a mile and b) is one of the physical players.  On comes Gabbiadini and he has one chance to rectify this horrendous fuck up with his final substitution.  Lemina is the only player who might make a difference to the situation but Pellegrino burns the last chance by sending on Redmond for Tadic who has finally done enough to get substituted.

It takes one minute.  The Gods of Football are looking down and they decreed that a manager can’t possibly be this stupid and inept and get away with it.  Palace go down the right and a low cross to the edge of the box where there is a Palace player in a very large Hojbjerg shaped space and Milovojevic curls it into the bottom corner, giving McCarthy no chance at all.  Forster would have been blamed for it if he’d been in goal mind you.

More predictability – we won’t do anything.  The closest we get is a corner which Romeu flicks on and it goes just wide with Gabbi failing to get a touch at the far post, due in part to McArthur having a big handful of his shirt.  Ref’s don’t give that these days though as the initiative only lasted a few weeks.

The last chance is for Palace and Zaha and it sums up where we are not good enough.  Hennessey launches it and Stephens waves his foot at it like an Under 8 player who has never headed a ball in his life.  The ball bounces and Zaha clearly can’t believe that a defender can be that shit and smashes it over the bar.

The second half was as crushingly predictable as anything has been over the last two seasons. It was obvious that there was no way the Palace would be as bad in the second half as they were in the first.  Hodgson beefed things up – Cabaye went off for van Aanholt, Sako came on for Schlupp so they had two monsters up front against our fragile defenders.  When they began to take over the midfield, it was obvious that they were going to score the next goal and sure enough they did. When it was 1-1, there was only one team that was going to go in front and they weren’t playing in red and white and once Palace went in front, there was no way on Gods green Earth that we were going to score. The managers part in this was to ensure that it happened, firstly by a lack of activity before the Palace equaliser and then some absolutely brainless shit once they scored.

The first half was pretty crap as well.  We have a great chance to take the lead in the first minute, then we scored, then we sat back and did fuck all for the rest of the first half instead of trying to put the game to bed when Palace were there for the taking.

The substitutions were incredible in their lack of effect and predictable lack of effect. Steve Davis had been ready to come on for a good three or four minutes when we were one nil up. I though the first sub would be Lemina for Tadic as Tadic had been wank but ok, Davis for Tadic might not be too bad.  Davis was still waiting to come on when we let the first goal in so the game has completely changed. It is no longer good enough to hang onto the score that we have and we have to go out and get another goal but he made the same change that he was going to make whilst we were still leading. I dare say that he may have dynamically decided (*** sarcasm alert **) to substitute a different player but somehow I doubt that. As it was, he took off JWP who wasn’t having a great game but when you need a goal, you kind of need a guy who can take free kicks and corners and he was also doing a good job helping Pied defensively. So Davis came on and Tadic, who had been a complete and utter fucking waste of space all game got moved to the right hand side where he has consistently proved to be utter shit.

Things started to look even more wonky from that point and then he bought Gabbiadini on and took off Hojbjerg who was easily our best midfielder and this meant that Steve Davis got moved into the the defensive midfield position, where he has consistently proved to be at shit. Subsequently, we end up playing 4-4-2 with Redmond on to eventually put Tadic out of his misery and it’s the same four midfielders, Redmond, Romeu, Davis and Boufal that played when we went 4-4-2 against Burnley and Pellegrino said afterwards, that it doesn’t work with those four players because three of them are too small. Why not try it again then you fucking idiot. We lost our Burnley game as well and we lost this one.  He did it in another game as well which I can’t remember but it didn’t work then either.

It’s not just Pellegrino’s fault as some of the players really need to have a long look at themselves. Dusan Tadic – fucking hell. When he plays in the number 10 position he is ahead of the ball quite a lot and he never moves. He makes a run away from the defender so what happens is that the deeper midfielders either can’t pass to him or if they do he just loses it because he’s not strong enough to hold off the defender and he’s made no move to get away from the defender. So is that Tadic just being a lazy bastard or is it Pellegrino picking him in a position where he is just not suited. To me, a simple change would have been to swap Tadic and Boufal over but no.

In fairness, Stephens and Yoshida weren’t too bad, possibly because Benteke is so out of form but the Under 8s defending in the last minute when Stephens waved his foot at a Hennessey goal kick that bounced in the edge of our box was a thing of beauty.  Jeremy Pied did well for the goal but he reminds me of a kids player who can’t kick a ball far enough.

As for the rest of the players, well I was impressed with Alex McCarthy and Pierre Hojbjerg was good again. It was of course amazing to see Shane Long score a goal but that’s probably his one for 2018. He should’ve scored after 15 seconds and again when we were to one down when he had a chance to chip the keeper and instead smacked out the fucking moon.

We have too many players who are bottom six players. Pied, Yoshida, Stephens, Tadic, Long and the likes of Davies, Redmond, JWP aren’t much above that.  Ralph can put as much Shiny Happy Motivational Bollockspeak as he likes around that and it won’t change a thing and nor will Virgil not being here any more.

Over to you Les – you have £75 million to spend and I suggest you do it quickly.  The only job to do before that is to get rid of the useless manager.  Barring a miracle, we are going out of the FA Cup in our next game away at Fulham so that is the season over as far as anything positive is concerned. We are in a relegation fight with nine out of our last 16 games away from home. Unless we sign some players and sign them soon then there is only one way that we are going. As it stands at the moment, I cannot see us getting ourselves out of it.  We have a potent combination of average players, a shit manager and suspect attitudes.  The only hope is that there is some utter shit in the Premier League this year but at the moment, we are one of the worst four teams along with Stoke, Swansea and West Brom.

If the manager stays – we are getting relegated.  Spin that one Ralph.