Premier League Match 10 - Southampton 0 Chelsea 2

Cuco Shat Himself When He Read this Book

Chelsea were crap last season. It was probably their worst season since Roman Abramovich turned up and ploughed his possibly ill gotten billions into what had been a pretty average club at that point. They actually managed to finish below Saints last season which was quite an achievement considering the players that they have but many of them downed tools for much of the last campaign.  Eden Hazard was the major culprit last year but he certainly looked to be back on it a couple of weeks ago when Jose Mourinho brought his Manchester United side to Stamford Bridge and got their arses handed to them 4-0.  Maybe he didn’t like Mourinho much – just a thought.  Even though they were crap last year, they still handed us a 2-1 defeat at St Marys with a last minute goal from that tosser Ivanovic.

They still have some really good players like Hazard and Diego the Bastard and this year have added N'golo Kante from Leicester's title winner and David Luiz who is the mistake waiting to happen and a new manager in Antonio Conte who provided a great highlight in Euro 2016 by wellying the ball down the touchline. If you're an England fan, that sort of thing is a highlight.  John Terry is still there just about after the new contract shambles which ran and ran last season.  They always seem to do that – they did it with Lampard and Drogba as well.

Saints have been picking up more and more positive articles in the media recently and this week it's been about how we've rehabilitated players who have got lost in the player harvesting system operated by all the big clubs when you end up not playing at all or getting loaned out 10 times. Specifically, the progress made by Ryan Bertrand and Oriol Romeu since they left Chelsea and started playing regularly for a club that gives a shit about all its players, not just the ones in the first 11.  Chelsea usually have 50 plus players out on loan which ultimately serves no one, not even the ‘bitch’ clubs they seem to own who are dotted about Europe.  Anyone remember Josh McEachran – he was the next big thing about 5 years ago, England Under 21 caps, loaned out 5 times, now at Brentford.  Maybe under Conte it’s changing a bit as both Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Nathaniel Chalobah have featured this season.  Also, Chelsea have always been strange in the transfer market.  Buying Kevin de Bruyne for not much and then selling him for loads without him playing a game.  Selling Matic and then buying him back for three times as much, getting £50 million for Luiz and then deciding to pass £35 million back to sign him again.

Today then, would be a massive test of our improvement over the past few weeks.  It’s looking like it might be a good game as we start and we look as if we mean it.  Tadic is playing wide right and he immediately takes the opportunity to turn Alonso inside out three times before eventually putting over a poor cross which is easily headed away and eventually Romeu shoots over the bar. Chelsea look incredibly dangerous when they get the ball and on 5 minutes they break down the left after Virgil doesn’t clear everything out in a midfield challenge and Moses plays Hazard in behind Bertrand and Davis hasn’t tracked him and he can’t get close enough so Hazard cuts past him easily and then smashes it through Fraser at the near post for 1-0.  Fuck it!  How easy was that?

Back sit Chelsea and the game settles into a pattern of us having fairly pointless possession on the half way line whilst they have 11 behind the ball.  Our passing is ponderous and slow and there’s loads of sideways and backwards before we lose it somewhere and we look vulnerable to any Chelsea attack.  If we do make any inroad, once the ball goes any further forward than Romeu, Chelsea snap into the tackle and we lose it.  Clasie and Martina especially are looking completely out of their depth on the right.  It’s a great combination in that Clasie gives the ball away, either with a shit pass or by being lightweight in a challenge and then Hazard gets on the ball and Martina resembles someone who is trying to run in four directions at once.

We all know Luiz has got a mistake in him but we’re not getting near him.  Matic and Kante are closing the door in the middle and we’ve got nothing wide.  There’s a needless foul by Alonso on Tadic about 25 yards out but Tadic free kick is easily shovelled wide by Courtois and that’s about it from us for the half but Chelsea are dangerous on the break with Hazard easily drifting away from Martina and it all opening up for him but luckily his shot is straight at Fraser and then there’s some dreadful shit from Clasie who just gets steamrollered by Matic and Costa finds himself clean through with just Fraser to beat and the big man saves well with his feet.

Half time and thank Christ Claude can have a go at them and change some stuff for the second half.  We haven’t looked like getting back into the game at all and it’s all been too easy for Chelsea.  I’d have Clasie off now.  I mean, what’s the point of another 15 minutes of nothing before you take him off?  I’d maybe stick JWP on cos at least then we have a better chance of getting something from a free kick or corner.

At the start of the second half, Bertrand immediately fires in a dangerous looking cross and I’m at least a bit encouraged.  Chelsea are still the more dangerous side though as a crossfield ball totally takes Cuco out of the game (exactly as in the Man City away game) and Alonso’s cross is touched away by José for a corner.  Though we scramble the corner away we don’t actually survive very long as Diego the Bastard goes down like a sack of shit about 30 yards out and buys a free kick.  As Hazard goes to take the free kick, Diego the Bastard just walks away from his marker Martina and Hazard taps the ball to him and he curls a superb shot into the far corner of the net.  Brilliant finish but how fucking easy did we make it for him.  Martina, having realised that his man had walked away was doing so sort of hopping pirouetting dance in front of him and turned his back on the ball like a child who was scared of getting hit by it.  Fucking pathetic useless pub player defending – Jeremy Pied’s knee injury has a lot to answer for.  Hearing the Chelsea fans chanting out that horrible Costa Bastards name was a bit of a sickening moment.

Having repeated the trick they pulled in the first half, Chelsea are content, not surprisingly to sit back and soak it up.  It’s all so Italian and it’s great stuff from them to be honest.

Right on cue and with crushing predictability, Clasie is off on 60 minutes to be replaced with Boufal and there’s immediately 5 minutes where no one appears to know where they are supposed to be playing.  We don’t create anything even with the new man on the pitch and it’s nearly 3-0 as Moses cuts in from the right and shoots, Fraser parries it out and Chelsea make a mess of trying to turn it into an empty net as we scramble like mad to get it clear.  From Romeu’s clearance we break up the right and it’s a chance to catch Chelsea with a few players forward but we fuck it up and we’re back to playing it around nicely on the half way line with everyone in blue back behind the ball.  Depressing stuff.

Like a terminally ill patient who is basically flatlining with the odd sign of life, we put together a decent move down the left and Bertrand crosses and Austin heads over.  Hazard is having a field day down the left and he runs at Martina who just shits himself, allowing another shot to be pinged at Fraser which he saves in none too convincing fashion.

Bertrand is knackered and is replaced with McQueen and Tadic, who I remember from the first three minutes is also off, with Højbjerg coming on and the two new guys combine to create our best chance with McQueen’s low cross coming in, Austin beating a defender to it, the flag going up and Charlie sticking it in the net.  Would have been great but for the bit about the flag.  I didn’t even get out of my seat as it was that obvious.

85 minutes and somewhere between 25 and 50% of the Saints fans in the crowd fuck off home.  Thanks for your support, Sunday dinner’s calling I guess.

Well that was as comfortable as afternoon as Chelsea will have all season.  Goal at start, goal just after half time, keep opposition in front of us, easy.  Brilliant performance by them and fair play.  They definitely look like the kind of team that can win the title on that performance.  Claude took a few games to get his idea across to us and get us playing the way he wanted and Antonio Conte was obviously the same with Chelsea.  If you get higher grade players to play as a team and for each other then you are in business and Chelsea certainly are.  Players that were average last season like Hazard, Diego the Bastard and Matic were right on it today and the new players like Kante and Luiz did their jobs efficiently.  I have to say that Luiz was superb at the back and could have had a deck chair and a cigar.  You have to give Conte huge credit for a finding a player in Victor Moses who was a player that Chelsea ‘harvested’ with no real interest in him up to now.  We gave then problems last year with pace up front but Conte has sorted that as well – Luiz is quite quick and so is Azpilicueta which is why that Terry and Ivanovic are not starters any more.

So, on the one hand Chelsea were very good but we were not.  We were shite and flat and made it very easy for them.  The early goal was obviously a key moment and we had a few players who didn’t cover themselves in glory with that one.  Virgil didn’t win a challenge in midfield, Ryan and Davo made it absurdly easy for Hazard to cut back and Fraser got beaten at the near post.  The Bastard’s goal was a great finish but how much time and space did we give him?  Look again at Martina’s dancing, prancing effort at closing down – embarrassing for a grown man to defend like that.   You get paid a fortune so don’t be scared to block it you twat.  Going forward we were ponderous in the extreme.  Loads of passes of the ball and after a minute of possession we’re still on the half way line with 11 Chelsea players in front of us.  We hardly got down the sides and we couldn’t play through the middle.  Today was the first day that I’ve though that we could really have done with Graziano – there’s no space so let’s go over the defence.  We were flat – really flat with too many poor performances from individuals and we just have to write it off as a bad day.

On my shit list today are Jordy Clasie, Cuco Martina and Dusan Tadic.  Of those three, at least Tadic had a good three minutes at the start of the game as he turned Alonso inside out.  That was it though – the next time I noticed him was when he got substituted just before the end.  Jordy Clasie did his usual hour and by ‘usual’ I mean he was a complete nonentity, contributing nothing except burning a substitution in the most predictable way.  He gets outmuscled in physical challenges and is not creative at all – what does he bring to the party when it matters?  Harrison Reed should be in the rotation ahead of this guy.  Then you have Cuco who was a joke player today – permanently off balance and in the wrong position – maybe we have a kid in the Academy who can do a McQueen and step up – Yan Valery looked good in pre-season.  I hope all those who were saying that Cuco was better than Cédric have given their head a wobble.

On the plus side was Oriol Romeu who was a monster in midfield again despite a lack of help around him.  He was huge and José Fonte and Virgil were decent as well.  Up front I thought Charlie Austin worked tirelessly and looks like he’s getting fitter and fitter which is a good job because we need him with J-Rod and Shane’s continuing injury problems.  Ultimately I think this game will be a good game for Fraser.  Yep he should have done better with the goal but he made 3 or 4 decent saves after that which will give him confidence.  He hasn’t had too much to do in our recent good run so he’ll feel good for making a few saves, even if a coupe of them he probably should have held rather than pushing them out.  Anyway, it’s done now and we’re still handily placed in 9^th in the league so it’s not all bad – just a bad day.

Who’s looking forward to Thursday then? Frank de Boer is…. not giving a shit about it…