A great team performance again
Intro and Team News
IBO Reporter - Sir B3na1i
|As a Saints fan born three and a half years after our most famous day I have to say that the FA Cup has never really held much hope for me. For Saints there are usually more pressing priorities, namely topflight survival, or even in very dark times second tier survival, or seeking promotion back to the higher leagues. I started going to games in the 1988-89 season, since then only 9 different teams have won the FA cup, and in those 30+ seasons there have only been three occasions when the winner hasn’t been Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Tottenham (themselves only managing one win mind), Chelsea and Man City. The three that have broken through the big six barrier are Everton, Portsmouth (spit!) and Wigan, and only Everton can really say they’ve had any sort of success since – but to be honest from where they were when they won it in 1995 (one of English football’s big boys) to where they’ve been since (Premier League also rans) it doesn’t feel like winning the FA Cup is necessarily something smaller clubs can cope with. Wigan were relegated in the season they won it and have fallen further since and Portsmouth basically bought the cup with money they didn’t have and their fall from grace is well known (and enjoyed) by Saints fans. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that unless you’re backed by a mega-rich owner it’s rarely the start of something, and in fact for the smaller clubs (especially the really small ones, like Portsmouth) it seems to signal the end of things.
We have of course had a couple of close calls since the turning of the millennium, most memorably the final in Cardiff in 2003, against this weekend’s opponents – a day that will live forever in the memory of every Saints fan that was there, because it was so rare a thing, something to be cherished and because the Arsenal fans on the day seemed so bored by the routine of another final that many couldn’t even be bothered to stay for 30 seconds beyond the lifting of the trophy. And of course in 2018 we lost the semi-final to eventual winners Chelsea. But other than that good FA Cup memories are few and far between for many modern Saints fans.
And yet, despite all of that I really would love to see Saints lift the FA Cup one day. This is the man who cried when we lifted the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy back in our League One days. It might well have been only competed by teams in the bottom two leagues. We might well have been the only decent team in it that took it seriously. We might have had a team of players that were far too good for that level and would in fact go on to win international honours and European trophies with their future clubs and countries but it was magic. My team, a team that had been through so much shit had a trophy and I was there. I should confess now that I’m a hugely emotional football fan. I remember in 2015 when, again this weekend’s opponents, Arsenal beat Aston Villa in the FA Cup final and that result meant Saints, who’d finished 8th in the Premier League would be going to Europe – I was watching that game in an airport hotel bar (ah, international travel – good times!) and I started crying, Saints were in Europe! We’d been on the brink of extinction and a few short years later we would be competing on an international stage. My wife looked at me and said, “Are you fecking crying?” before telling me to “Sort yourself out.” To be honest, apart from the lack of fans in the stadium, this season feels similar to that one. Saints are in no trouble in the league and yet unlikely to qualify for Europe and so, why not have a go for the cup – we can worry about what happened to Wigan and Portsmouth another time! The trouble was we were playing Arsenal, and not only do they have FA Cup pedigree in spades, but Saints had never beaten them in the FA Cup in their whole history. Now I guess there’s a very small chance that there are some strange individuals out there that haven’t seen the game and are reading this report blind, so spoiler alert, this is the second match report I’ve done for IBO, and the second time we’ve made history! My last match was when we beat Liverpool to become the only team to beat each of the PL defending champions in the following season.
I switched on the TV late to avoid as much of the awful BT Sports coverage as possible. I was pleased to see that Ralph seemed to be sharing my thoughts, let’s try to win this thing, and had picked the strongest available line up of outfield players, with Forster in goal who although not first choice had done well in recent outings. The most interesting inclusion was Bertrand who had been linked with Arsenal in rumours over the couple of days before – I understand he’ll turn them down as he’s indicated he wants FA Cup football (smug winky face!). Arsenal on the other hand had rotated heavily with seven changes. This told us two things, they are prioritising the league (and have to as they’re below Saints) and Arteta respects Saints enough to do that as we play them in the league on Tuesday. I saw enough of the BT Sports coverage to hear Peter Crouch back the Saints for the win, but I was more distracted by his overlong hair – I know we’re in lockdown Crouchy, but that’s a shambles!
On commentary we had the completely unbiased (cough), Ian Darke (Portsmouth) and former Arsenal centre back Martin Keown.
It was good to see Danny Ings back in action after his period of self-isolation
Southampton
- 44 Forster
- 2 Walker-Peters
- 35 Bednarek
- 5 Stephens - Booked 56'
- 3 Bertrand - Booked 83'
- 17 Armstrong
- 8 Ward-Prowse
- 27 Diallo
- 32 Walcott
- 9 Ings (Long 85')
- 10 Adams (N'Lundulu 78')
Substitutes
- 7 Long
- 18 Valery
- 29 Vokins
- 31 Ramsay
- 40 N'Lundulu
- 41 Lewis
- 64 Jankewitz
- 65 Watts
- 72 Chauke
Arsenal
- 1 Leno
- 2 Bellerín (Lacazette 72')
- 16 Holding
- 6 Gabriel
- 17 Cédric
- 25 Elneny (Partey 58')
- 34 Xhaka
- 19 Pépé
- 12 Willian
- 35 Martinelli (Saka 58')
- 30 Nketiah
Substitutes
- 7 Saka
- 9 Lacazette
- 13 Rúnarsson
- 15 Maitland-Niles
- 18 Partey
- 21 Chambers
- 23 David Luiz
- 28 Willock
- 33 Ryan