Barclays Premier League
St.Mary's - Wednesday 28th November 2012
Southampton 1
- Lambert 32'
Norwich 1
- Snodgrass 45'
Ref : Clattenburg
Att : 29,325.
Att : 29,325.
In the words of Gary Oldman in 'The Fifth Element' (with apologies to those that have never seen the film), "I ..... am ..... very ....... disappointed"
Firstly let me say that I stood up for Mark Clattenburg During all that nonsense stirred up by Chelsea, but very swiftly I changed my mind during this match. He was appalling. End of.
Next Norwich came to stop Saints strikers by playing two rows of four from the back VERY close together, which gave the Saints players virtually no room to operate. They were extremely well organised and Saints struggled to threaten the Norwich goal.
Next was another howler from Saints young keeper, Paulo Gazzaniga. He certainly is learning the hard way. He let a fairly routine free kick slip right through his fingers to gift Norwich an equaliser on the stroke of half time. As another reporter noted, Nigel Adkins stalked off down the tunnel wearing an expression that could freeze a chicken. He was not happy.
By way of change I am going to include the player ratings and conclusion from the ever popular "Crashhot off the Presses" on the itsbeautifuloutside forum, as this one time he pretty much reflects what I thought.
Crashhot Off The Presses Player Ratings:
Gazzanigga - there he is, the spirit of Bart has possessed him again, something at our club just can’t help grabbing young potentially good goalkeepers and spinning their heads around! This was rubbish… Let’s not beat around the bush, he has now cost us four points and it has to stop… There is no learning on the job in the Premier league the goalkeepers, play time is over. He let the ball go through him, he wasn’t even kicked hard, and even worse, he positioned the wall in the wrong place and with at least one person too few in it. Who is supposed to be teaching him how to do all this stuff, because they both want their arses kicking! 3/10, he did catch a couple of balls.
Clyne – he had a good half and probably could have been more influential but Clattenburg took an early dislike to him and I don’t really think he could ever recover from that. He didn’t foul Snodgrass, he clearly got the ball but, as someone commented to me at half-time, the reason we conceded a goal was crap keeping not dodgy decisions or tackles. I think he was a bit tired but he seemed to get some good penetration early on, faded slightly. 6/10.
Fonte – did well, made some important interceptions and was generally quite strong and where he should be, I think it’s quite telling that Grant Holt never managed much on target during that game and that was all down to this boy and Maya. 7/10, good partnership, keep developing.
Yoshida - as above and possibly even a little more influential, I like the fact this guy can kick with both his feet, very good. 7/10.
Shaw - a good performance from him, some very important interceptions and tackles although I thought he was a little more wasteful with the ball in this game than he has been previously, not sure though. I hope he is available against Liverpool, his replacement was a worrying counterpoint to this good performance 7/10
Firstly let me say that I stood up for Mark Clattenburg During all that nonsense stirred up by Chelsea, but very swiftly I changed my mind during this match. He was appalling. End of.
Next Norwich came to stop Saints strikers by playing two rows of four from the back VERY close together, which gave the Saints players virtually no room to operate. They were extremely well organised and Saints struggled to threaten the Norwich goal.
Next was another howler from Saints young keeper, Paulo Gazzaniga. He certainly is learning the hard way. He let a fairly routine free kick slip right through his fingers to gift Norwich an equaliser on the stroke of half time. As another reporter noted, Nigel Adkins stalked off down the tunnel wearing an expression that could freeze a chicken. He was not happy.
By way of change I am going to include the player ratings and conclusion from the ever popular "Crashhot off the Presses" on the itsbeautifuloutside forum, as this one time he pretty much reflects what I thought.
Crashhot Off The Presses Player Ratings:
Gazzanigga - there he is, the spirit of Bart has possessed him again, something at our club just can’t help grabbing young potentially good goalkeepers and spinning their heads around! This was rubbish… Let’s not beat around the bush, he has now cost us four points and it has to stop… There is no learning on the job in the Premier league the goalkeepers, play time is over. He let the ball go through him, he wasn’t even kicked hard, and even worse, he positioned the wall in the wrong place and with at least one person too few in it. Who is supposed to be teaching him how to do all this stuff, because they both want their arses kicking! 3/10, he did catch a couple of balls.
Clyne – he had a good half and probably could have been more influential but Clattenburg took an early dislike to him and I don’t really think he could ever recover from that. He didn’t foul Snodgrass, he clearly got the ball but, as someone commented to me at half-time, the reason we conceded a goal was crap keeping not dodgy decisions or tackles. I think he was a bit tired but he seemed to get some good penetration early on, faded slightly. 6/10.
Fonte – did well, made some important interceptions and was generally quite strong and where he should be, I think it’s quite telling that Grant Holt never managed much on target during that game and that was all down to this boy and Maya. 7/10, good partnership, keep developing.
Yoshida - as above and possibly even a little more influential, I like the fact this guy can kick with both his feet, very good. 7/10.
Shaw - a good performance from him, some very important interceptions and tackles although I thought he was a little more wasteful with the ball in this game than he has been previously, not sure though. I hope he is available against Liverpool, his replacement was a worrying counterpoint to this good performance 7/10
Lallana - looked good for 60 minutes, ran, moved, nearly volleyed us into the lead (that would have been fabulous if it had gone in) but became peripheral at the end and is clearly knackered. It’s a shame he can’t be rested, I don’t think our squad depth will allow it though? 6/10, for 60 minutes he was great.
Schneiderlin – given no room to move and looked uncomfortable because of it, seemed also not to be able to do anything about it, it’s a shame because without him we don’t tick properly. Never really got into the game and could have done with some help in the midfield that everyone was too knackered to give him 5/10.
Cork - as above.
Puncheon - not the same kind of influence he had on the last game, although they closed him down massively so that’s not really that surprising. He also looked tired, he managed well for a while but faded quite badly and just like lallana, we need somebody to replace him with but we haven’t really got anybody! Not half as influential and as he is our main source of attack at the moment really didn’t have anything as an alternative because Norwich shut him down. 6/10.
Lambert - I thought he had a great game, he was supposed to be carrying an injury but he looked better than he did the last game, very influential, won a lot in the air, if we only had someone running onto his knockdowns we could have got a lot more out of this game. Excellent game from him, 8/10 and a very important goal, man of the match.
Ramirez - Didn’t do more than play in flashes for me, I thought Match the Day made him look more influential than he was, but he did have a couple of good chances. 6/10, clearly knackered as well although he did play the whole 90 minutes.
Substitutes:
Rodriguez - can’t score him, he wasn’t on for long enough.
Reeves - looked bad, a worrying counterpoint to the competence he replaced, rabbit in the headlights and I hope we don’t have to rely on him too soon. 4/10
Conclusion:
I went to the game full of positivity, I left again thinking the same thought I had at the early part of the year, why have we got a “plan B”? The system we play is very good against some teams, when it is negated by others tactics, or tiredness, or whatever, then you need to do something else, we don’t have that at the moment and it’s showing again.
Norwich came for a point, they had all 11 of their players within their own half in under two minutes (I looked at the clock and it was one minute 58 seconds), you could tell what they were doing and they compressed the space to negate all the space our flair players needed, we still had a couple of chances but by and large Southampton looked a bit toothless on occasion.
Anyway, we got a point, we could have had all of them, for me though this is two points lost not one point gained and I think we may rue this by the end of the year.
Schneiderlin – given no room to move and looked uncomfortable because of it, seemed also not to be able to do anything about it, it’s a shame because without him we don’t tick properly. Never really got into the game and could have done with some help in the midfield that everyone was too knackered to give him 5/10.
Cork - as above.
Puncheon - not the same kind of influence he had on the last game, although they closed him down massively so that’s not really that surprising. He also looked tired, he managed well for a while but faded quite badly and just like lallana, we need somebody to replace him with but we haven’t really got anybody! Not half as influential and as he is our main source of attack at the moment really didn’t have anything as an alternative because Norwich shut him down. 6/10.
Lambert - I thought he had a great game, he was supposed to be carrying an injury but he looked better than he did the last game, very influential, won a lot in the air, if we only had someone running onto his knockdowns we could have got a lot more out of this game. Excellent game from him, 8/10 and a very important goal, man of the match.
Ramirez - Didn’t do more than play in flashes for me, I thought Match the Day made him look more influential than he was, but he did have a couple of good chances. 6/10, clearly knackered as well although he did play the whole 90 minutes.
Substitutes:
Rodriguez - can’t score him, he wasn’t on for long enough.
Reeves - looked bad, a worrying counterpoint to the competence he replaced, rabbit in the headlights and I hope we don’t have to rely on him too soon. 4/10
Conclusion:
I went to the game full of positivity, I left again thinking the same thought I had at the early part of the year, why have we got a “plan B”? The system we play is very good against some teams, when it is negated by others tactics, or tiredness, or whatever, then you need to do something else, we don’t have that at the moment and it’s showing again.
Norwich came for a point, they had all 11 of their players within their own half in under two minutes (I looked at the clock and it was one minute 58 seconds), you could tell what they were doing and they compressed the space to negate all the space our flair players needed, we still had a couple of chances but by and large Southampton looked a bit toothless on occasion.
Anyway, we got a point, we could have had all of them, for me though this is two points lost not one point gained and I think we may rue this by the end of the year.
Channonite 29.11.2012
With thanks to" Crashhot Off The Presses"
Teams
Saints
12 Gazzaniga
2 Clyne (Yellow 44')
3 Yoshida
6 Fonte
23 Shaw (Reeves 85')
42 Puncheon (Rodriguez 88')
4 Schneiderlin
18 Cork
20 Lallana
7 Lambert
10 Ramirez
Substitutes
1 Davis
5 Hooiveld
8 Davis
9 Rodriguez
21 Guly
24 Mayuka
29 Reeves
2 Clyne (Yellow 44')
3 Yoshida
6 Fonte
23 Shaw (Reeves 85')
42 Puncheon (Rodriguez 88')
4 Schneiderlin
18 Cork
20 Lallana
7 Lambert
10 Ramirez
Substitutes
1 Davis
5 Hooiveld
8 Davis
9 Rodriguez
21 Guly
24 Mayuka
29 Reeves
Norwich
28 Bunn
3 Whittaker
24 Bennett (Yellow - 75')
5 Bassong
18 Garrido
7 Snodgrass (Bennett - 88')
4 Johnson
27 Tettey
12 Pilkington
14 Hoolahan (Howson - 90+2')
9 Holt (Morison 81')
Substitutes
13 Rudd
2 Martin
8 Howson
10 Jackson
16 Morison
17 Bennett
20 Barnett
3 Whittaker
24 Bennett (Yellow - 75')
5 Bassong
18 Garrido
7 Snodgrass (Bennett - 88')
4 Johnson
27 Tettey
12 Pilkington
14 Hoolahan (Howson - 90+2')
9 Holt (Morison 81')
Substitutes
13 Rudd
2 Martin
8 Howson
10 Jackson
16 Morison
17 Bennett
20 Barnett
Match Stats
Possession
- Southampton 57.9%
- Norwich 42.1%
Shots
- Southampton 8
- Norwich 9
On Target
- Southampton 2
- Norwich 5
Corners
- Southampton 3
- Norwich 7
Fouls
- Southampton 11
- Norwich 7
