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With 10 games to go, I looked at the Games against
West Ham, Palace, Bournemouth and today’s game at Nottingham Forest and said
that we would need 10 points from those four games to have a chance of staying
up. As we have the grand total of fuck all from the first three of those games,
I guess we need 10 points today. It’s even worse than it sounds because in
those three games against very limited opposition, we haven’t even scored a
goal so the omens are not good for today as we take on a Forest side two places
and six points above us. It is absolutely bizarre that if we win this game
today, we could actually be within three points of four other teams. Everything
suggests that we won’t win, however.
The main thing that suggests we won’t win, apart from our form against the
weakest sides, is the manager who has in those games, not even been brave
enough to pick one striker. Will the
handbrake finally come off today? Has anyone at the club actually realised that
we have to win this one? Selles himself
still seems to be completely deluded that things are going okay and that we are
building towards getting decent results. At the rate we are improving I would
say we will start getting some decent results in about 2027, by which time we
will be in the National League South. Whilst that may seem far-fetched, Selles saying
that he intends to be Saints manager for 10 years means that it’s probably a
lot more realistic than you would think. Please. God. No.
Elsewhere in Relegationland, Leeds have appointed Sam Allardyce and he presided
over his first of four games on Saturday and they were beaten 2–1 at Manchester
City. If ever a scoreline doesn’t reflect the game then it’s this because if
Manchester City hadn’t been playing Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday
and weren’t clearly just doing enough to get over the line today, they would’ve
won by six or seven because whatever Fat Sam would have you believe, Leeds were
shite and I still have them as favourites to go down with us.
Even if we win today I still don’t think we will have a prayer of staying up
because we have to string some results together which we haven’t done for a
year and a half but a win today would make it very interesting down the bottom.
Forest know that if they win this then there will be one team definitely going
down – us, and they will be halfway safe. Lose this and their last three games
will suddenly look much more difficult, and they will really be in the shit. As the game drew near, results from earlier
in the day came in with Leicester getting smashed 5-3 at Fulham and Brighton
phoning it in against Everton and allowing Everton a mind-bending 5-1 win thanks
to some hideous defending.
Saints team news arrived and for once, I’m not wondering who on earth is where
and why there are random names involved.
Macca in goal, KWP and AMN at full backs, ABK and Bednarek, Lavia and JWP
and what looks like a line of Stuart Armstrong, Alcaraz and Walcott behind Che Adams. Perraud aside – this is probably our strongest
side.
Saints started the game well with the Forest looking nervous. Stuart
Armstrong wins the ball on the left-hand side and passes forwards to Walcott
running into space in from the right side. He feeds Adams and he should hit it first time
but of course he has to cut in back to his right foot and Felipe makes the
block for a corner.
The next 15 minutes are really promising with us dominating possession and looking
the better side and then Che Adams gives away a free kick in the Forest left
back area which shouldn’t be any cause for alarm. Shouldn’t be really as it’s
80 yards from our goal.
A quick free-kick tapped forward to Gibbs-White who has no Saints player
anywhere near him and as usual when you don’t put any pressure on the ball, he
just turns and has time to play a ball over the top of the defence to Johnson
sprinting away behind Maitland-Niles. A
first time cross and there is Awoniyi to crash into the net as he gets the ball
in front of Bednarek who has had to leave his man to mark the player that ABK
isn’t marking. For fucks sake. 1-0. The
other thing to mention about this goal is that McCarthy is doing a very passable
impression of a hologram.
Once more, there should be no danger as Alcaraz picks up the ball in the left
back position but he dithers with it, rather than clearing it and gets robbed. When the cross comes in, it causes carnage
and Walcott half clears it and then KWP does the same but back it comes and
eventually the ball gets knocked for Awoniyi to hold off ABK’s powderpuff
challenge and smash it into the net. 20 minutes gone, 2-0 and Championship Here
We Come!
Forest attack again down the left-hand side but turn out and start to pass the
ball around in midfield and JWP gets a foot in on a heavy touch by Gibbs-White
and sends Adams away on the halfway line. Adams finds Stuart Armstrong on the left and
he superbly picks out Alcaraz 6 yards out who passes it into the net. Game on,
perhaps.
Now we’re throwing players forward which is all well and good until Armstrong’s
pass doesn’t reach AMN on the left. One pass
and Johnson is away and ABK really has to take him out but he
tries to outpace him and get shrugged off it and again Bednarek has to come
steaming across to bail out his centre back partner. ABK isn’t getting up because he’s made of
biscuits and not for the first time I’m wondering how ABK always manages to get
injured when he’s having a shocker of a game and it’s just all a bit too
difficult. That’s four times this season
that he’s had to be substituted in the first half of games now. On comes Lyanco who is definitely not made of
biscuits.
As we approach half time, Aurier’s simple throw-in is flicked over his head by
Yates and AMN appears to have dealt with the situation but as he goes to clear
it Johnson gets a toe to the ball from behind him and AMN boots his foot. There
is no way that that’s not going to get given as a penalty and sure enough,
there you have it. I know it’s unlucky
because AMN has just gone to kick the ball but it’s somehow typical for a
player who is totally unaware of anything that is going on around him
JWP Tries to Argue the Penalty on the Grounds that AMN Never Knows Where Anyone Is
Gibbs-White is on the penalty and I wonder if he knows like I do, that McCarthy
is just gonna collapse on the ground at the corner of the goal… Oh yes he does,
straight down the middle, 3–1.
Half-time and 3-1 down in a game we have to win. Well that’s fucked then isn’t it. Regardless of how you attack, you are going to
lose any game where you defend like we have. Absolutely pathetic.
So, relegated though we are, we come out well at the start of the second
half and put Forest under a little bit of pressure again and Stuart Armstrong
wins a corner out on the left-hand side.
In it comes from JWP and Lyanco muscles his way away from his marker before
bulleting a header straight at Navas in the Forest goal and he flaps into the
net to give us the slightest hope again. 3–2
Sulemana is on for Walcott and in a season where hope never seems to last very
long, it doesn’t again as Saints have the ball twice and twice they try and
play it forward, once to Sulemana who loses it because the defender wants it more and then again to Adams who
loses it because the defender wants it more and Forest attack down our right hand side with the aid of a lucky
deflection the ball finds Johnson in behind AMN who is kind of wandering about
and Johnson’s cross is superbly flicked by Gibbs-White into the path of Danilo
who crashes it past the hologram to make it 4-2 and it really doesn’t fucking
matter anymore does it?
I can’t even be bothered to get annoyed about the latest edition of ‘Selles
Subs’, where he changes three players and makes us instantly worse. On comes
Tall Paul, Adam Armstrong and Sam Edozie and off go Adams, Stuart Armstrong and
Alcaraz.
With Paul on, of course we stop crossing the ball and start taking short
corners. Edozie doesn’t cross the ball
because it as he has to do 15 step overs first, but he does find Sulemana, who
hammers in a shot from the left-hand side which is shovelled away by Navas. The rebound falls to Adam Armstrong but
instead of smashing it at the goal with a goalkeeper on the ground, he smashes
it sideways and it hits Tall Paul on the ankle and bounces off for a goal kick.
It’s the best cross he’s been given so far, three inches off the ground.
It looks like another shambles at the back as Gibbs-White takes free-kick on
halfway and finds the centre back Felipe on the penalty spot and he knocks into
the net and does a somersault and all that shit before it’s confirmed that he’s
offside, so he looks a bit of a bell-end.
The offside is more by luck than judgement, with Onuachu being behind
the rest of the defensive line.
Having given Forest a somewhat fortuitous penalty at the end of the first half,
it’s our turn at the end of the second as Navas pushes a ball out towards Lavia
who takes a touch, before being impeded by the clumsy Sam Surridge. It’s as
generous as you like from Michael Oliver but there is contact and VAR isn’t
gonna overturn it and up steps JWP to smash it down the middle with Navas diving
out of the way.
There are still four minutes to go and every time we get the ball there is
noticeable nerves from the Forest fans but relax lads, you’re playing against
us. We are now about long balls up to Tall
Paul and he brings one down really well on his chest and spins and hits it and
wins a corner. With everybody including
the hologram up from the back, the corner is crap and cleared and after 100
minutes, the referee has had enough and so a win that will probably keep Forest
up, but a defeat that leaves us eight points plus shite goal difference behind
fourth bottom Everton, with three games left. Yep, we’re fucked. The Saints players look crestfallen at the end. It's almost as if they finally realise.
They Are Looking at a Fat Lady Singing
Well that’s the end of that then. All you can say about today’s performance is
that at least we were entertaining and we at least showed some attacking intent
which has been missing for virtually the whole of the season. It was better than losing 1-0. It’s too little too late though because of
course when we tried to attack, we forgot all about defending. You have to do
the basics to be a functioning football team and the defenders have to be able
to defend one-on-one and three of our back four just totally gave up the ghost
today with only Bednarek standing out as having a decent game. ABK was absolutely pathetic on the first two
Forest goals, being totally unaware of the player who he is supposed to be
marking on the first and then getting completely bodied out of the way on the
second. It was absolutely no surprise to anybody when he went down injured
straight after that and had to go off.
That will probably be the last time we see him in a Southampton shirt.
KWP tried to attack but his defending was all over the place and what the fuck
can you say about Maitland Niles? Okay he was playing out of position at left
back but fucking hell. It was hilarious
to watch the plan that Cosplay Pep had obviously hatched which was for us to be a
Poundshop version of Manchester City using John Stones as the template for
Maitland-Niles playing fullback but moving into the centre of midfield when we
had the ball. Just what you need when your team can’t do the basics. The trouble is, as anyone watches Man City
will tell you, that whereas John Stones pops the ball around and can pass it
short and long, Maitland-Niles it’s just shit. There is a lot of variety in the
way he gives the ball away, sometimes overhitting it, sometimes underhitting
it, sometimes just passing it straight to an opposition player. I wouldn’t want
him in the Championship next season even if it’s a free transfer and he didn’t
want any wages.
The goalkeeper - Gavin
Bazunu got deservedly dropped a few games ago but McCarthy put in a hologram of
the performance today – four on target, four goals. We really need to move him
on next season and buy a better experienced goalkeeper to be number one, not
just because of today but because he’s not very good at the end of the day and
Baz isn’t ready to be a No 1 yet.
I hadn’t got too many complaints about the way Selles set up the team. It was 4-2-3-1
or 4-3-3 depending on your point of view.
The midfield three of Alcaraz,
Lavia and JWP were pretty good, especially in the first half as Stu Armstrong
and Theo Walcott both started the game well before fading halfway through the
second half. Aside from the AMN
bollocks, the only real criticism I have a Selles today was the substitution at
the end, bringing on Adam Armstrong ahead of Sekou Mara. If Adam Armstrong has
your answer then you’re clearly not listening to the question, especially as
Mara has actually been decent off the bench before. Selles has waited until we were virtually on life-support
before he decided to let the handbrake off a little bit and allow us to attack
but it was too little too late and it should have happened two months ago - it’s
now 10 games without a win and that is why we are getting relegated. If this team had been allowed to play this
way against Palace, Bournemouth and West Ham to name but three, we might ave
got more points than the zero we did get by playing False 9 Cautious bollocks.
Today, we started the game pretty well for 15/20 minutes before the double ABK
whammy and once we got back to 2-1, we of course had to score the next goal but
the penalty given against AMN killed us just before half-time. Once again, we
got back to within one goal with Lyanco’s header but ended up throwing in
another one to make it impossible. JWP’s late penalty just made Forest sweat a
bit. It was never going to be enough for us.
Fail to beat Fulham next Saturday and it will be mathematically certain and
thank fuck for that and it will be over and we can concentrate on the players
who actually want to be here next season and who are going to make some sort of
positive contribution in turning the Good Ship Southampton around. It starts of course with the Board who I hope
are hard at work lining up people to put in place in the senior positions at
the club, so we can at least have a chance of coming straight back. The manager is clearly the most important of
those positions so get it done and let them get to work on next years
squad. Not you Ruben.
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