Wolves
decided to replace the manager Bruno Lage at roughly the same time that we decided
to do the same with Ralph Hasenhüttl.
The difference is that Wolves appointed a proper manager and Saints didn’t.
Since then, only one team has been heading in the right direction and it’s not
us. However, despite moving off the
bottom of the league and putting ourselves there and moving up the table, Wolves
are still in danger and or of course one of the teams we need to try and drag
down, so today is yet another six pointer against a team around us. Nathan Jones of course doing his best to use
up all of these winnable games and I would find it amazing if he doesn’t win
this one and he’s still in a job by the end of Monday. For now though, we just have to hope that he
gets it right today and given his word-salad at the end of the game last week, I
anticipate a very attritional, very meat and potatoes Saints side out there
today.
Over the past few years, especially since the injury to Raúl Jimenez, Wolves
have always been short up front and struggled to score the goals that their
usually excellent midfield warrants being scored. They have signed a couple of new strikers
there in this transfer window in Sarabia and Cunha and immediately went to work
on Liverpool last week and won 3-0. They still have the excellent Ruben Neves
in midfield and have supplemented the defensive unit by signing Craig Dawson to
partner Max Kilman. Dawson of course is an unspectacular player and he did try
and kick Che Adams head into orbit but he undoubtedly makes their defence
better, replacing as he does the erratic Nathan Collins.
Another player Wolves have signed as a course of the legend in his own mind
that is Mario Lemina. Mr Tonic like Leminade himself. Utter prick. You know, the
worst kind of player who has all the ability in the world but is an absolute
fucking waster. Apparently he played well last week against Liverpool so we
will see how he gets on today on his big return to St Mary‘s.
This promises to be a very weird atmosphere today. You could easily be forgiven
for taking the defeat today as long as it got rid of Nathan Jones. On Saturday
at 3pm though, every one of us of Southampton persuasion in St Mary‘s will be
hoping for that win to kick-start a highly unlikely looking escape bid. That could happen of course but I would say
it’s much more likely that we go behind at some point and we are in for another
fucking grim afternoon. It will be interesting to see how Jones’ promise of
going back to his own style will play out. If this is anything like the
Nottingham Forest game I can see me walking out after an hour.
Personally, I think that if you’ve got to the stage where a manager’s job
depends on one game, you already really know that he has to go. Ironically, everything in Rasmus Ankersen’s
vision is about the longer term but if you’re going to make a decision based on
what happens today, you must already know that the long-term is fucked with the
current set up.
Team news, looks like 5-3-2 with Maitland-Niles on the right with Bree as a centre back, preferred to both Caleta-Car and ABK. Tall Paul is in, as is Kamaldeen Sulemana, I assume as the front two. The bench is weird, containing Caballero and Lyanco, along with seven attacking midfielders, wingers and strikers - Aribo, Stuart Armstrong, Mara, Adams, Adam Armstrong, Edozie and Walcott. Batshit.
Even stranger, AMN is a right sided centre back with Bree at right wing back. Anyway, a positive start with Sulemana bursting down the
right flank and putting the ball across which goes all the way across to Perraud.
As per usual, he gets it on target but
it hits Craig Dawson who clears it well.
Wolves first attack wins a corner on the right hand side but when it comes in
it’s cleared up in the air and Alcaraz tries to bring it down on the edge of
the box but he’s taken it out by Lemina who stands on his ankle. Tonic like a
yellow card and deserved too, with only 6 minutes gone.
It’s pretty basic but we are looking a handful, with Wolves struggling to cope
with Tall Paul up front. You can tell
that the defenders are not used to playing against someone quite that big. He gets his head on a Perraud across and
causes some chaos and from the resulting cross back to the edge of the box,
Sulemana tries a snapshot which is just wide. The new guys are looking good.
Wolves are certainly not shy of sticking in the foot in and Semedo leaves one
on Perraud which brings another yellow card from Jarred Gillett. In comes are free kick from JWP and Tall Paul makes
a nuisance of himself with the ball eventually dropping to Alcaraz who has a
swing and when it bounces back off a defender and comes back to him, he hits a
first time snapshot which flies through the crowd, hits the inside of the post
and nestles in the opposite corner. Fucking
hell, we are ahead. What the hell is Nathan Jones going to do with this unknown
scenario?
No need to change anything for now... just hit it up towards Tall Paul and then fight like mad for everything. As one such ball drops, Lemina tries to run it out of defence with JWP and Lavia snapping at him. We win it back and Perraud’s cross is cleared. Neves and Moutinho are bitching around the referee and Mario comes running over and has his say, probably to get a picture looking like he cares on instagram … and gets a yellow card. Hilarious. Tonic Like a Red Card. Looks harsh to be fair but off you go, dickhead. However it has come about, we are now 1-0 up after half an hour against 10 men. The first thing to ensure is that we don’t end up with 10 men as well.
Whilst Wolves are still trying to adapt, we put a bit of pressure on as the half comes to a close with Perraud’s cross being half cleared and Bednarek shooting and seeing a shot deflected for a corner.
Half time and have to be happy with the position hat we are in. Now we have to manage the game whilst still maintaining a threat and of course, don’t let them have a sniff. They haven’t got near our goal so far with Baz’ involvement restricted to launching bombs up to Tall Paul or for variety, out to James Bree on the right to get his head to it.
Greased Up Body Building Sprinter Adama Traore is on for the second half and it starts encouragingly as Kilman‘s pass forward is intercepted and Saints break through Maitland-Niles. He tries to put Sulemana through but makes a mess of it but Kilman subsequently makes a mess of getting it back to the goalkeeper and Sulemana gets in and chooses to try and skip round Sa, who pulls off an excellent block with his hand. The incident is right in front of me and the bloke behind me, who is a fucking moron on a weekly basis, actually makes my ears pop appealing for a penalty for what was a very clean challenge.
Dunno who this player is we’ve got instead of Maitland-Niles but he plays a great ball down the side for JWP whose pull back finds Sulemana and he throws himself at it and heads wide.
With that the game just begins to turn a bit. We seem to take a step back towards our own goal and let Wolves have the ball. They suddenly look more comfortable and our long balls forward are not connecting and we’re just giving them the ball back. On 70, Bruno goes down the Wolves left and easily makes himself enough space against Bree to fire over a low cross. Absolute carnage with Diego Costa trying to kick fuck out of everything including the ball and it eventually breaks to Adama Traoré who scuffs it goalwards there is Jan Bednarek to block the first effort and then do some wanky dance moves around the ball before knocking into his own net. Need a goal, just get it in there and let Bednarek do it for you. Fucks sake.
Jones make some substitutions at this point and it’s absolute fucking chaos because he’s taken Perraud off and brought on Lyanco but no one seems to know who the hell is playing. The intention is for Salisu to go left back and AMN to move across and play four at the back but we wnd up with four centre backs and a right wing back as Wolves go down or left through Diego Costa and his low crossfield ball is met by Sarabia who can only put it wide but he looked miles offside anyway. Everyone is looking at eachother and at the bench and performing the universal ‘WTF’ signal.
Looks like Bree is now right wing but he comes off along with Alcaraz, to be replaced by Aribo and Edozie. Sulemana is still our main threat down the right hand side and skips across the top of the penalty area before hammering in the shot with his left foot which goes just wide. The boy’s electric.
It’s a rare moment of intent from us though as there now only looks like one side that might win it and it’s not the team with one more player. Wolves lob a hopeful ball forward, which Bednarek, under pressure from no one just cushions down into the midfield. Maitland-Niles and Sulemana end up facing each other and neither go for it, Wolves win it back through Gomes. His first effort is blocked by the turned back of Bednarek but the rebound drops kindly for him to cushion volley into the net. For fuck‘s sake.
We have nothing. Our one attacking play of ‘launch it to Tall Paul’ is no longer possible and Jones has moved Sulemana out wide. We have one chance in the last few minutes as Che Adams is chopped down on the edge of the box. It’s right on the edge, to the left of centre and it’s JWP time. It does look a little bit close but it’s never stopped him trying from there before but unbelievably, he passes it to the right to Maitland-Niles who tries to feed it into the middle and it gets cleared. Mind blown.
Just when you think you’ve reached the bottom and you can’t possibly go any further, we manage to dig another layer down into the dirt. 1-0 up and playing against 10 men for an hour, courtesy of some mad refereeing and we still manage to fucking lose.
The first half was decent. Tall Paul was a complete nightmare for the Wolves defence to handle and Sulemana was all over the place and no one seem to know him was supposed to pick him up and even if someone did, he just sprinted away from them. The midfield three of Alcaraz, Lavia and JWP snapped into everything and the defensive unit was solid enough and meant that Baz didn’t have a save to make. Lemina getting sent off for what on the face of it, didn’t seem very much, certainly loaded things in our favour and of course we were already ahead by then due to Charlie Alcaraz’ first goal for the club.
Sent off for being the 3rd Player Round the Referee. Mad.... but funny.
At the start of the second half, Lopetegui made a couple of changes and Wolves looks a lot better and began to look slightly more threatening, even though they weren’t peppering the goal or anything like that. We seemed to sense this and dropped back towards our own goal and from their first incisive attack, Bednarek end up doing the fucking wanker dance and putting it on his own net. It’s only taken him three games back from his loan spell to do that to be fair. That goal was built up down our right hand side and the full-back made space against James Bree far too easily to get the cross in that caused the chaos in the box.
At that point Nathan Jones absolutely shit himself and the changes he made just made us immeasurably worse and the last 20 minutes were an absolute abortion of a performance which of course contained the winning goal for Wolves. Did I mention they only had 10 men?
Then a clusterfuck of a second goal, all set in motion by good ol' Janny B and his shit header. How ironic it would be if the player no one wanted except for Jones, is the player whose fuck ups ultimately cost him his job.
Everyone who knows anything about football knows that the key to playing
against 10 men is to pass the ball and make them run and starve them of
possession as best you can. Make them
run, wear them out. We of course are set
up to go direct with no regard for possession so Wolves couldn’t have picked a
better team to play against with 10 men.
You often hear about teams practicing against 10 men in training, making
the pitch as wide as possible, moving the ball quickly, keeping possession and all that.
Do we practice it? – I bet we don’t. With Jones making an absolute bollocks of the
substitutions, compare and contrast with Lopetegui, who made two changes at
half-time which completely changed the performance from Wolves and Adama Traoré
and later sub Gomez were responsible for the two goals.
Jones’ substitutions were of course limited by Jones‘ choice of substitutes in
the first place, having as he did seven attacking players on a nine man bench.
This is why he ended up bringing Joe Aribo on as a number six when the game was
slipping away from us. The mad selections on the bench were also compounded by
weird selections from the start. Maitland-Niles playing as a centre back
instead of Caleta-Car was interesting but to be fair the Arsenal loanee did
really well until the second goal. James Bree at right wing back is in the team solely because he
is good in the air and can head down all the diagonal long balls that around
towards him. He doesn’t offer much as a defender (3 goals at Brentford and one today down his side) and he offers even little as
even less as an attacking right back with his crosses never reaching and just
scudding along the deck. He looks like he would be a decent backup player but no
more than that without a lot of improvement.
There were some positives today in the way we played the first half. Tall Paul
Onuachu was decent upfront and has a decent touch and Kamaldeen Sulemana was
electric and caused no end of problems but he needs to get some end product in
his game of course. The midfield three looked
excellent as well.
I’m sure there is part of Sport Republic that would’ve liked Jones sacked
before he faced another interview but that didn’t happen so we had to put up
with him coming out with the usual bollocks about how playing against 10 is
difficult. Yes mate, it’s difficult if you don’t keep the fucking ball. He repeated his usual line about us being
front-footed… yep, until we started running backwards towards our own
goal. Moron.
There is a decent team lurking within the Saints squad but it’s never gonna
come out with this manager. We all know what our
weakest link is and it’s time to say goodbye. As I said at the top, Wolves appointed Lopetegui,
the same week that we appointed Jones. They were one point behind us and now
they are 8 points in front. Bottom line is, if we had appointed Lopetegui, we
would be mid-table by now and if Wolves had appointed Jones, they would be flat
last.
Sleep, Wake Up …. and he’s gone…along with Alan Sheehan and Chris Cohen.
“Celebrate Good Times, COME ON”
Ruben Selles takes charge against Chelsea next week. Well thank fuck for that. I wouldn’t normally rejoice in three people losing
their job but I’ll forgive myself here. Jones
has a little bit of every shit manager we’ve ever had. The football philosophy of Branfoot, totally
out of his depth like Wigley, Poortvliet and Gray and the delusion of Redknapp. Like with all those guys – thank fuck he’s
gone.
We are getting towards “needing a miracle” territory to not get relegated this
season. It doesn’t look too bad in terms of points but somewhen very soon, we
are going to have to string together a three or four-game winning streak or
something like that and with the way we are going, that would actually qualify
as a miracle.
This is shaping up so much like the 2005 relegation season in that we are using
up all the games that we should be winning at home and the more difficult
fixtures are coming now, starting off with Chelsea away next week. We will soon
be on our third manager as well which is another parallel with that season
I don’t know who would want the job or who we could attract given the shit that
we are in. I have a feeling now that Jones’ fate was decided by the Brentford
interview and that Rasmus Ankersen has been working since then to tie down whoever
is next, hopefull with a bit more thought than who looks good on a spreadsheet. Let’s hope he gets it right this time after
the unmitigated disaster of this appointment.
When Ralph left (and he needed to go) there was always the danger that
we would get someone worse and we did but surely no one could be worse than
Nathan Jones and even if they are, no one is going to point out anyone other
than Jones, and the decision to appoint Jones as the reason we got relegated.
So, Chelsea away next week and the game against the team who are still
attempting to gel following their splurge in the January transfer window. In
the words of the late great Joe Strummer, the future is unwritten.
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