West Ham United v Southampton

We've hit on this great idea on how to deal with Preview Percy. Basically if we use something like Photoshop (other editing software is available) maybe we could pretend that he doesn't exist or something. No the idea of a website editing people out of existence is clearly ludicrous. While we are working on that here's his look at this weekend's visit of Southampton...

Next up Southampton. Loads and loads of engineering works between Liverpool Street and Stratford, and also on C2C in the Grays area. If I were you I’d get the District line to, say Plaistow, say at 12:15 or West Ham around 12:30, or the DLR to Stratford High Street at 12:45 or Pudding Mill Lane about 1pm and take a bit of a stroll along the Greenway which is the lovely fluffy name given to the footpath on top of the northern outfall sewer. I dare say that you will bump into a few like-minded souls on the way. Just be aware that there is a dress code inside the stadium these days.




So Southampton then. They are sitting in the relatively calm waters of 12th place with 34 points from their 27 games played so far. Much has been said about the reversal of fortune that has taken place since they got thumped 9-0 by Leicester. However, even for the first few games after that their form was decidedly indifferent.

No the real turning point came after we beat them 1-0 at St Mary’s back in December. After that they won four and drew one of the next 5 – a sequence that included a 2-1 win up at the aforementioned Leicester. Having seemingly gotten themselves into a position of safety they reverted to type losing 4-0 to a VAR-inspired Liverpool and 2-1 at home to Burnley. They got back onto winning ways last weekend beating Villa 2-0 at St Mary’s, the second goal coming as a breakaway from a Villa corner for which Reina had gone up leaving an empty goal.

Daisy, my full-time personal assistant with the beautiful smile informs me that they did two bits of business during the January window, both of them in the loan market. They went to Spurs to pick up Kyle Walker-Peters to bolster the defence. Walker-Peters, who rejoices in the splendid middle name of Leonardus, has a deal until the end of the season, though everyone is being tight-lipped as to what might happen after that. KWP is rated as a doubt for this one – he missed the Villa match with a calf injury and, at the time of writing, is listed as having no more than a 50/50 chance of featuring this weekend.

Definitely ruled out is Nathan Redmond. Redmond has been struggling with a pelvic injury. His influence will be missed – he was last season’s player of the season.

The second arrival was Jacob Maddox who arrived from Chelsea’s loan stock. A bit of an odd one this. He originally signed a season-long deal with Tranmere but featured in only a couple of EFL Trophy matches. With no sign of him featuring in the first XI on the Wirral on the horizon it was agreed by all concerned that the loan deal should be cut short. Whereupon Chelsea shipped the player down to St Marys, where he has yet to feature. I guess it would be odd for someone to be rejected by Tranmere and make it at Southampton.

Catching the headlines at present is still Danny Ings. He was their top scorer back in December when we played them at their place and that remains the case – he now has 18 goals in all competitions and it would be something of a surprise if he were not to be included in the England squads for the matches against Italy and Denmark towards the end of March.

They gave a league debut to 20-year-old Will Smallbone in the Villa match. You can stop al that sniggering at the back. It was the central midfielder’s second first team appearance, his full debut coming in the FA Cup a few weeks back against Huddersfield Town. Great things are predicted for him with his manager describing him as “the future of Southampton FC” no pressure then.


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And so we move on to the wide and wacky world of Association Football where there was there fall out from the PGMOL statement that they might have gotten the Chelsea v Spurs game wrong. They have now asked for 527 other offences to be taken into consideration, rising to over 2,000 if you take into account matches involving Liverpool.

Meanwhile a row is brewing over the “interview” Gary Lineker conducted with Jurgen Klopp last week. It seems that Lineker heard about the Valentine’s card Klopp sent to Jonathan Moss and is more than a tad jealous. Meanwhile there is a little more information about Liverpool’s hacking into Man City’s data systems slowly seeping into the public domain. The FA’s comment was that they had “followed their established protocol” in deciding that there was no further investigation to be done. Which is interesting.

Three months ago they were seeking an integrity investigator whose role would be to investigate breaches of FA Rules & Regulations relating to the integrity of the game and to prepare detailed case files for prosecution. There is nothing within the FA’s protocol, written or otherwise, that prevents them from punishing misdemeanours irrespective of whether one side has paid off the other.

So yet again they have made up a new rule when Liverpool are involved. As someone who invests a significant amount of time and money in attending matches I am what they would describe as a stakeholder so, as a stakeholder, I would like to know why, given that there is evidence of wrongdoing, the FA is breaking it’s own rules in favour of a non-existent protocol the sort of which only seems to arise when Liverpool are involved.

And so to us. Well Monday night was a performance that matched the description Moyes gave to the Man City match. Here’s a thing for the coaching staff to consider: whilst we may have lost the games against the top two, the one in which we showed some attacking intent actually did our goal difference least harm.

Liverpool were their usual diving, niggly selves, benefiting once more from Jonathan Moss’s generosity. Again it was not the big stuff, it was all those minor decisions that add up – the failure to punish any of the three fouls on Antonio prior to the opener; the strange and deliberate ignoring of law 12’s requirements on simulation which contains the phrase “a player must be cautioned….”, the saving header which diverted the ball 90 both upwards and laterally which, somehow, wasn’t a corner.

Even the VAR decision that went our way ought to have been given instantly on the pitch. Knowing you are going to be cheated when you go up there doesn’t make it any easier to bear. Neither does the blind eye towards it all turned towards all and sundry from the broadcast media.


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I have just watched the match recording and was gobsmacked at just how one-sided the coverage was. The nearest anyone got to criticism of the darlings in red was Martin Tyler’s comment on one of the more disgusting attempts by Salah to con the referee “he’s got them before – but not this time”.

Incidentally Tyler, whilst you were technically correct in saying that Noble had been sent off during our last win up there, you could at least have had the decency to remember that the decision was rescinded as soon as the offices opened on Monday on the grounds that it stank even by Anfield standards.

While we are at it did I hear Tyler suggest that protests be postponed until the summer? What a good idea. Let’s all go march on an empty stadium. Clearly stupidity is catching and Tyler has been standing too close to Carragher for too long. Meanwhile it shows the depths to which the game has sunk the sort of tactics roundly condemned when deployed by Revie’s Leeds are now routinely accepted when employed by a club that uses hackers to break into rival clubs computer systems.

A word about Fabianski. He hasn’t been quite himself since the injury but I would say that some slack is due based on past performances. His apology to the away fans showed someone who cared. Hopefully he will be able to put it out of his mind and move on. Before I move on it would be remiss of me to not offer a doff of the cap to young Jeremy Ngakia who has now played two matches, both against Liverpool, and not looked out of place in either of them. Early days to be sure but the lad’s future looks promising.

Of course there’s always a new injury to consider. Soucek had looked ok since his arrival so it was inevitable that he would be injures. Given the nature of the knock – a groin muscle problem similar to the one that’s messed up Fabianski’s season – it seemed an odd decision to send him out for the second half when he was clearly not going to get any better. Hi Tomas – let me introduce you to Wilshere – you’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks. Yarmalenko and Fredericks will also be on the sick for this one.

Prediction? Well my natural instinct is to urge caution. We are masters of the false dawn and every bright performance seems to be followed up by a duff one. However, having said that there ought to be a double boost of sorts, firstly by having got Man City and Diverpoool out of the way in itself will be a relief. And if you look at the performance against the home XII at Anfield there was enough to suggest a green shoot or two.

So, I will ignore the swollen tonsils that are putting a damper on my normally happy go lucky demeanour (eh? – ed) and keep the £2.50 I was going to pay to send a copy of Law 12 to Jon Moss (let’s face it the yellow card for simulation will never be given against a home team at Anfield) and I’ll pop down to Winstone the Turf Accountant with a view to placing the lot on a home win. Let’s call it 2-1 shall we?

Enjoy the game!


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When last we met at the Olympic: Won 3-0

A brace from Arnautovic and one from Fredericks saw us pick up all three points in the penultimate game of the season. Comfy as it sounds.

Referee: Anthony Tayor

When you watch Mr Taylor in action this weekend consider this: PGMOL consider him to be up to the job of refereeing top level football matches. Which tells you everything about him. And PGMOL.


Danger Man: Danny Ings

The man with the incomplete surname is being touted for England honours in the absence of Harry Kane. It would be nice to have a striker who can do a bit more than take penalties I suppose.

Percy’s Poser

Last time we visited the archives of the Liverpool Echo from which the following headline was half-inched:

A shipwreck full of XXX once washed up on a Wirral Beach – and everyone got XXXXX

Well done to Mrs Norah Hyphenated-Surname of Laindon who correctly identified the missing words as “rum” and, predictably, “drunk”

This week’s Southern Evening Echo was similarly plundered for this week’s poser:

Man spends two years building XXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX because he couldn’t bear XXXXXX XXXXXXXX

Good luck all!

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