DISCLAIMER: This is the blog that clearly illustrates
that the part from before the game, was indeed written before the game….
The League Cup seems to change its name every few years. Off the top of my head
I remember the Rumbelows Cup, the Milk Cup, the EFL Trophy, the Carling Cup and
the Carabao Cup and when we got drawn against Manchester City in the
quarter-final, it became the What’s the Fucking Point Cup. Well we can’t
complain really as we have managed to draw three League 1 sides to get this far
but we are all 99% certain that the run ends tonight.
Being the kind of club that we are, with no proper trophy since 1976, I would
normally be getting excited about a cup quarter-final but there is nothing
there. I seriously considered not going as it was £25 I could’ve spent on
something else but old habits die hard. I’m not expecting it to be sold out
tonight by any means and with the football we served up in the last home game,
I can’t blame anyone for making that decision not to go.
There is absolutely no point in looking back but if this had been a game with
Ralph Hasenhuttl in charge then there was always the chance that we could’ve
put in one of those performances that causes City a lot of problems. That’s the
thing, he had that credit in the bank. With Nathan Jones in charge, the thought
of him going up against Pep Guardiola in some sort of tactical battle is
absolutely fucking laughable. Maybe our tactic should be to play for penalties
from the first whistle and then if we go behind, just try and keep the score
down.
In the FA Cup at the weekend, Graham Potter, a man who I would certainly take
as Saints manager, had a go with his Chelsea squad and got beaten 4-0 by a City
team that didn’t contain Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, İlkay Gündoğan or
John Stones amongst others. Pep clearly sees us as more of a threat than he saw
Potter’s Chelsea. If we manage to keep it down to 4 tonight, I’ll be quite
pleased.
It seems that we are completing the formalities on another new signing with
Racing club of Argentina agreeing to sell us Carlos ‘Charly' Alcaraz, who sounds
like an all action midfield player. Don’t know how he’s going to get in the team
ahead of Elyounoussi and Diallo but there you go. Extreme sarcasm alert. Again,
on the face of it, like with Mislav Orsic, it sounds like a very good signing
by the Sport Republic recruitment team and I do wonder what on earth Nathan
Jones is going to do. Are we going to play through the midfield three of Lavia,
JWP and Alcaraz, like we surely should or are the three of them just going to
be doing shuttle runs, chasing the ball after it has been banged over their
heads.
Talking about Alcaraz, he’s on the pitch a few minutes before kick-off, waving
to the fans and wondering what drugs his agent had been taking. It’s nice to see him anyhow and it’s a nice
touch. Mislav Orsic is on the bench tonight as well. Once more it looks like a
back five for us and it looks like Djenepo is going to be at left wing back.
The Adam Armstrong, Sekou Mara strike force does not fill me with a lot of
confidence. Pep has given us a chance with his City selection because in
relative terms, there are a few weak links. Ortega is in goal and Sergio Gomez
is at left back. Interestingly, Kyle Walker is at centre back in a back four.
Kalvin Phillips is obviously going to be a bit rusty and let’s face it, we
would rather Cole Palmer was playing instead of Kevin De Bruyne or Riyad
Mahrez. The big news is that Erling Haaland is on the bench but his place goes
to a guy who’s just won the World Cup with Argentina, Julian Alvarez.
Away we go and once again, Nathan Jones has done the “Lyanco at right back”
thing and we are in fact playing a flat back at four with KWP on the left. The
other feature is that JWP is pushed up in a number 10 role With Moussa and Arma
on the wings. The good news from the
start is that we are pressing City and when we get the ball we are passing it
and not just going route one.
It’s already better than the Forest game as we actually force the keeper to do
something. The ball comes in low from
the right and squirts across and there is Caleta-Car of all people to wave his left
foot at it and it’s a decent effort heading for the bottom corner until Ortega
gets across to save it. Passing longer
is not a problem in itself if there’s an aim to it and Lyanco clips one over
the top which is bought down superbly by Mara but he turns and off-balance, lashes
it well wide.
City haven’t got going yet, probably due to all the changes in their team, but we know they are just waiting and when JWP gives the ball away 40 yards out, the break is on. Laporte strides out of defence and tries to play it to Grealish but Lyanco steams in and ends up reading it perfectly before charging up the pitch himself. He gets to about 30 yards out on the wing and flashes the ball across hard and low and Mara nips in front of Walker and clips it superbly past Ortega and in at the near post. Fucking brilliant goal and what a way to get off the mark for your new club. It’s also a brilliant goal from the point of view of breaking quick and getting a shot in once you’ve won the ball. Laporte waves his arms around to blame someone – he’s a bell end.
The expected City onslaught doesn’t really happen and good work by KWP sees the ball go to Lavia in midfield who bodies Kalvin Phillips out of the way before laying it in to Djenepo. The Malian man of Mysterious Choices easily shrugs off the attention of Cancelo and sees that Ortega, City’s very small looking reserve goalkeeper is on the penalty spot in complete no man’s land and from 30 yards, Moussa just clips it over his head to put us 2-0 up. This is fucking ridiculous. When Moussa Djenepo is scoring goals like that, surely it has got to be our day.
It is with great amusement that the chant of “Pep Guardiola, your football is shit” goes around the ground for a little bit but everyone is just deep down, a little bit scared of what’s going to happen next. Lyanco goes sliding in like a mad bastard to try and pull off another interception but this time doesn’t quite get there and Grealish is away down the left but with players to pick out in the middle he tries to shoot and he runs into a parked car, a Caleta-Car no less.
Having made that mistake, Lyanco resorts to what he’s good at it, which is winding up opponents. He leaves a late one on Grealish, having chased him across the pitch, which is very amusing but Saints are digging in strongly with JWP leading from his number 10 position and Lavia and Diallo snapping into everything in midfield. The comparison between Lavia and Kalvin Phillips is delicious. Anyway, half time.
At half-time, thoughts turn to what Pep will do because of course, he has some big fucking guns on the bench but conversely, it would be just like Pep to send out exactly the same team in the second half. He does decide to make changes though with De Bruyne, Ake and Akanji all coming on with the disappointing Gomez, Palmer and Walker departing. Laporte is still on which is good because he's a bell end. Saints come out for the second half unchanged but there is a definite change information with Djenepo having gone to right wing back and we are switching to 3 at the back.
De Bruyne immediately makes a difference, getting on the ball and sliding it in between defenders for Álvarez to run onto but it’s clearly easier to play in the World Cup Final than it is in the Carabao Cup Quarters because Alvarez drags his shot across the goal and wide.
There is thunder a lightning as City bring on promising youngster Erling Haaland for the last half an hour. There isn’t but you know what I mean – the deep sense of foreboding. He soon gets on the end of a cross which is behind him and hooks it over the bar. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Haaland up close and you realise how fucking big he is, especially when he standing next to Caleta-Car and you know our guy is 6 foot 3. City do look a completely different team with Haaland on the pitch and a sweeping move from left to right ends with de Bruyne putting a dangerous ball across the box and unlike a couple of times recently, Baz’ dive away from his goal to intercept the cross is successful before Haaland can have a tap-in behind him.
City are attacking more and more now and Saints are relying on breakaways. I feel we are a couple of decent passes away from scoring a third but it never quite happens. Baz hurriedly hacks away a through ball and the ball goes to Elyounoussi, who is desperately trying to check out and pass backwards but with all options blocked, ends up running diagonally forwards cause he has nowhere else to go and we eventually set up a chance for JWP which hits a defender and bounces to Adams who puts it away but is clearly offside. We come as close as we have been to conceding a goal as Gundogan burrows into the left hand side of the penalty area before squaring and the ball which is half hit by Álvarez and we get lucky as it hits Salisu the rolls to the grateful Baz.
There are 10 minutes to go and we might actually fucking do this. The defending is 100% committed, embodied by Lyanco streaming into a challenge against Foden and smashing the ball at 100 miles an hour into the crowd. If Foden had been in the way he would’ve ended up in the crowd as well.
It’s another encouraging moment with the first appearance of Mislav Orsic from the bench, to replace Adam Armstrong who had his usual game of 100% effort. By this time though, Orsic is almost relegated to doing shuttle runs to try and close down the City player with the ball. Saints are defending all the crosses that are coming into the box pretty well until one ends up with Rodri on the end of the box and his chip in looking for Haaland is fortunately missed and drops into the grateful hands of Baz.
The six minutes of injury time are going by without too much alarm with Saints doing some quality shithousing in the corner mainly through Che Adams sticking his arse in the way and refusing to be moved. 94, 95, 96 and we are comfortable, ridiculous, but comfortable. Final whistle, fuck me we won.
And through we go to the semi-final. Pretty mind blowing to be honest that we’ve relatively easily beaten the best team in the country. Nathan Jones has masterminded a win against a Pep Guardiola team, one week after thinking the best way to beat Nottingham Forest was to hoof it up in the air for 95 minutes… and the world is not really spinning on its axis at the moment. Mental.
Did we deserve to win? Yes. Were we lucky at all? No. What were the better team practically all the way through? Yes. I am struggling to understand and maybe I just shouldn’t bother trying. I repeat, how the fuck have we gone from hoofing the ball up in the air for 95 minutes against Nottingham Forest to 1 week later, passing and pressing Manchester City off of the pitch?
All 11 of the starters put in a superb shift today from Gavin Bazunu through to Sekou Mara. Baz hardly had anything to do in truth and even when City brought on De Bruyne and Haaland in the second half, the defence, superbly marshalled by Caleta-Car, gave them no opportunity whatsoever. Out of all the centre backs that we have at the club, Caleta-Car has the priceless gift of being calm and consistent. ABK, Salisu and Lyanco all have the tendency to doze off or to do something rash so they all need Duje as a partner. We bought him in as the more experienced defender to help the others so that shouldn’t really be a surprise.
There were some ridiculous performances elsewhere by players I didn’t think were capable of it. Lyanco again was superb at right back and as a right-sided centre back and as said before, he’ll stay in the team to add some bite in amongst all our nice lads. Ibrahima Diallo had a great game in the centre of midfield and looked like a genuine option there – maybe another midfielder being paraded on the pitch beforehand gave him a kick up the arse This midfield three with JWP in front of Lavia and Diallo was what we had in our other big win this season, against Chelsea.
To the goalscorers and to say the source of the goals was surprising is an understatement. Moussa Djenepo scored a brilliant goal and from that moment until he was substituted on the hour mark, looked like a proper player for once and it's so frustrating that he so rarely does it. Sekou Mara scored his first goal for the club with a brilliant instinctive finish and can hopefully take that on. For the first time really, he looked like he wanted to impose himself on the defenders
Jones knows that the challenge is to take this on and we cannot afford to get beaten by Everton at the weekend and we can’t afford to go back to the performance levels that we showed in games prior to this. Today is an incredibly positive day, not just the result but also the new signings, the attitude and performance levels. It’s remarkable how things can turn on one game. I have a pretty much 100% attendance record for home games over the best part of 45 years but I was struggling to find the enthusiasm to go to this one. In the end of course, what a brilliant decision that I decided to go. I don’t know why I particularly decided to go because all logic was telling me not to bother but of course, that’s the rock ‘n’ roll of being a Southampton fan. Though they will of course be regretting it, I repeat, I don’t blame anyone for not going because of what had gone before.
City are used to having things or their own way and they clearly thought that they were going to have things or their own way today. Pep seemed to expect us to just smash the ball over the top so didn’t really bother with the midfield. On top of that, Kyle Walker playing centre back in the back four was a bit of a stretch and up front, the only player who was even vaguely up for it was Jack Grealish, Palmer and Álvarez producing very very little. Then there was the goalkeeper? What the fuck he was doing on our second goal is totally beyond me. City started the game at 80% think it was going to be simple and once we went ahead they had to up their game which is very difficult to do if you start sluggishly. Even the best have to be on it for the whole 90 minutes and the start of the game is absolutely crucial. It was good to see Pep go to the bench early and bring on De Bruyne and also for him to give Haaland over half an hour. It was even nicer to see that it didn’t work. However, I expect that they will absolutely smash Manchester United at the weekend.
In the hat for the semi-finals were Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest and Southampton. If they wanted to fix the draw then Newcastle and Man United would be kept apart and if they wanted to fix it even further, Newcastle and Man United would be playing at home in the second leg which is largely seen as the advantage. Guess what happened… not saying the draw is fixed but Nottingham Forest versus Manchester United and Southampton versus Newcastle.
That is of course for another day. Next up is an even more important game. Everton away.
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