[Archived] Southampton 3 - 2 Rovers

[chris]

like an ostridge

[Modi]

It's ironic that in 1997, Souness resigned as Saints manager after one season, citing that he had been given only £2m to spend in the transfer market.

He complained bitterly at the time: "How am I able to keep the club competitive in the Premiership with that amount to spend?"

Reading the interview in yesterday's programme, it's clear the reason was the way the new board at Soton at the time shafted Lawrie Mac. As he'd brought Souey to the club, he clearly didn't want to be a part of the new set up.

Then again, I'm sure Souness could never do anything which was not self centred, could he, eh Jan?

[Ricky]

well last season we took 6 points from our next 3 fixtures, so lets hope we can do something similar this time around.

[krislu]

well last season we took 6 points from our next 3 fixtures, so lets hope we can do something similar this time around.

I hope so too, I mean we havent had a stronger side since Souness took over...

Edited August 22, 2004 by krislu

[FourLaneBlue]

The side we had for the 2001/02 season after we signed Cole was probably the best we have had since Souness has been here. With Duff, Dunn and a pre-accident Jansen as our three attacking musketeers and Cole at his best (it's fair to say he hasn't been as consistent since although he's a still a good player) blended with the experience of Berg as well as younger versions of Short and Tugay. Flitcroft and Neill seemed to remember what to do then as well. As good as Duff and Cole were, I'd still say our best player was Matt Jansen. We may have finished sixth the season after but if Jansen hadn't been in that accident...well, no need to dwell.

We probably have a stronger squad now but I don't think the starting eleven we can put out is as good as it was. A couple of quality additions before the transfer window could make all the difference though.

[Tango]

Speaking of Jansen, I found this on Skysports.

[herbergeehh]

Read that one aswell, Tango, was glad to read about him at least - I hate it when players are "forgotten" - and then suddenly you see him leave the club on a free or something...

[G Somerset Rover]

To add to somebody's point-can't remember who! I read literally every paper today and not one had a go at D'Urso about awarding the penalty!!! I think one papaer said it was "dubious" and that's all that was said about the poorest ever given penalty. If D'Urso had given that pen against Utd he would have been hung, drawn and quartered by now! It's unbelievable. They have a go at him not sending off Fergie, but yet fail to mention that weve just lost out on a point due to him being a right idiot. At least Alan Hansen gave us some sympathy "never in a million years is that a penalty" and the only other pundit to have sympathy was Graham I think who said "That happens 20 odd times in one match, so therefore why weren't 20 penalties given". Another case of little Blackburn I'm afraid.

[Krillin]

......not one had a go at D'Urso about awarding the penalty!!!

Unfortunately that is going to be how this will conclude.

All the NewsNow headlines of 'D'Urso under investigation' & 'FA to probe ref.' etc. are not going to do us any favours.

He isn't being called into question for a pathetic performance bordering on blatant bias, but more because he failed to make sure our player was removed from the pitch.

If D'Urso is relegated to the Coke leagues it will be because he didn't do something to hinder us further, and the suspension for Ferguson will still be applied.

(but I suppose it would mean we wouldn't get him at our games for a while )

Edited August 22, 2004 by Krillin

[tonygreenbank]

Slater, I leave spin to ther cricketers and Chris what is an "ostridge?" The prem season is still to formulate itself. Give it time. It is part of being a football fan to be optimistic. There are 8 months to go!!

[Philly Rover ®]

Please don't leave it 12 months Darth. Thoroughly enjoyed that post.

Agreed. Do come out a bit more often, Darth, as the messageboard is often in need of sensible, coherent posts like yours.

Another thing to add about D'Urso's performance... not sure if anyone else saw it, but Higginbotham should certainly have been penalized during his collision with Dickov in the penalty area in the 75th minute or so. There was a bit of contact between the two, and poor little Danny was crying that Dickov was holding his shirt, but the replay showed there was nothing really between the two... that is, until Higginbotham made an off-balance, flailing attempt at an overhead clearance that nearly wailed our diminutive Scot in the face. Say what you will about the contact beforehand, but Higginbotham's attempted clearance was a dangerous play in my book, and thus Rovers should have been awarded an indirect kick a few yards inside the penalty area. I suppose it's all academic now though...

I'm no longer angry as I have no expectation of this team and manager; they're not actually bad, they're just nothing, non-descript, uninspired, there is no spark of any sort. The pre-match hope of winning has died and I will turn up out of a sense of duty. I'm thoroughly disillusioned, hopefully the board will act in some way. We've no money to buy players, there is only one choice.

What's truly sad, Paul, is that I consider you one of the most level-headed posters on here... this isn't rover6 or Capt Kayos saying they've lost faith in Souness (with no disrespect at all meant to those two), it's a fan who clearly was pro-Souness from the get go and has now completely lost faith in the man. I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet, but I'm slowly starting to move directly onto the fence between the camps.

For any of you familiar with American baseball... I'm a diehard Phillies fan, and thier manager, Larry Bowa, is one of Philadelphia's favorite children. I love the guy--he's fiery, passionate, and emotional, a real throwback guy (hmmm, sounds like another manager I can think of). However, he's now in his fourth season as manager and the Phillies are badly underachieving and will miss the playoffs for the tenth straight year. Do I think it's all Bowa's fault? Not by any means. But there's an old expression in baseball that says, "You can't fire the players."

My point is this: at some point, a coach or manager has taken a team as far as he can, and can't take them any further. It's never completely their fault, but for some reason or another things just aren't working out anymore. Perhaps the players need to hear a new voice; perhaps the team is stale and needs an injection of new life. Whatever the case, it's usually clear that something has to be done, and it's very true that you can't fire the players.

Larry Bowa will be leaving at the end of this season, I'm sure of it. As for Souness... I really genuinely like the guy and think he's done a great job for the club, but perhaps it is time for him to move on. I don't think it's completely been his fault, but he's verging on the point where he may need to go for the good of the club. I'm not ready to say that yet, but personally I'm giving him ten games and then evaluating from there.

Edited August 22, 2004 by Philly Rover ®

[Duffers]

I don't think it was just the result that D'Urso changed he seems to have ultered the reaction to Souness. At 2-2 we were coming back with a well earned draw, plently of positives and momentum - in the shape of the second half performance - going into the nightmare of the next two games.

However three slices of bad luck - 1. Dickov penalty, 2. Svensons (sp) mis-hit slice, 3. Beattie penalty - awoke the Souness out camp. In two games he has changed the direction of the game and if he doesn't quite have the starting XI yet - so what? Neither does the likes of Mourinio and a whole host of other managers and they dont have the players missing that we do.

I think we already look a better team than last year and there is certainly more to come - signings, injuries etc - but i think a majority of people on this MB have pre judgements on players -

Emerton -

1 assist means naff all to me, he is a liability now in my eyes

He produced more chances than any - any - midfielder last season and he was in the top five tables for assists. There were times last year when he was awful but there were also times when he was excellant so people who constantly say "Emerton wasn't awful today" are, in my opinion, jumping on a bandwagon.

Flitcroft

Along with Stead and - people forget - Amoruso the reason we stayed up at the back end of last year. I especially remember Fulham when he was stuck on the right wing but still instrumental and I always feel we play better with him as captain.

Ferguson

This is going to upset a lot of people but I don't see the player we were building him up as. He was shocking when he arrived and started playing better-than-shocking and sometimes well at the time of his injury. He played okay yesterday and he took his goal very well but was constantly over-shadowed by Tugay, hardly touched the ball in the first half and was pretty petulant when he should have got sent off.

Jansen

I love him just as much as the next Rover for what he did in division one and how unlucky he has been. However, whenever our strikers miss chances and/or we loose "where is Matt Jansen" is not the answer...

[des]

Havingh had time to think about it a number of points come to mind

first it was never a pen, the refs have a hard job, but that was a bad one, I do not nornal shouted at the tv, but I did this time

however we were beated by two soft goals, last season we gave away goals and I had hoped that we had learnt from this, to date we have not.

there first goal, the two centre halfs did not attack the ball and the fall back who had the player in front of him was ball watching and let the forward run into the six yard box unmarked to score.

second goal we have two goes at cuting out the ball at thje near post both center halfs missed it, a no no in any ones book,

the game as a whole we played quite well, however a 3-5-2 I thuink would suit us much better.

over the last few weeks there has been a lot of talk about us needing new forwards, well in any good the team the first thing you need is a very good center half and I do mean a very good one. All the ones we have are not bad but that is not good enough, you do need at least one who can read and boss the back four, this type do not come cheap and are hard to find as newcastle will find out.

Paul D I stated at time of his signing that he will come good and to date he as and I expect this to carry on.

Stead played well

midfield once agin we have players who can defend or attack, but not many that can do both and good teams have players can do so.

A long season ahead, but we should end up mid table which will not be bad considering the money we have spent so far

[Ewood Spark]

And there is the most bizarre massive poster between two of refreshment bars in the away supporters stand. Did you see it? Is it a south coast twist on Munch's Scream? Maybe it Le Tiss wailing at the state of his club?

Don't you think you should report this to the authorities in Oslo!

[RevidgeBlue]

I'm not a fan of Souness's constant excuses involving refs, nor do I feel there's a widespread conspiracy re the club but the managers previous run ins with D'Urso obviously came home to roost on Saturday. At some point in the second half GS was ranting as usual on the touchline about something pretty innocuous, shortly thereafter D'Urso started giving every decision against us.

Ferguson received his first caution for a nothing tackle, Johanssen his for a clean challenge and I don't believe Ferguson would have received the second card on another day or if he was wearing a Manchester United or Liverpool shirt.

The penalty decision was a joke. Short is entitled to defend that situation and did nothing at all wrong. I remember 1974 World Cup Final referee Jack Taylor saying you couldn't give a penelty for every bit of contact in the area or every game would finish 12-11. Unfortunately that's what happened on Saturday.

All this hard luck stuff though overshadows the bigger picture regarding the club. Last week I called for Souness to be given fifteen games to be judged fairly this time round. I still stand by that to some extent but it has to be subject to him knowing his best eleven players, fielding a settled side, and playing a workable formation. I won't repeat what everyone has already said about individual players but you don't have to be one of the manager's "know it all" fans to recognise that playing players out of position generally doesn't work.

The worrying thing for me is that Souness seems to have lost his nerve. After the opening games against two of the poorer sides in the division I am sure we would have had four or even six points had we gone out with a positive line up (see second halves) to try and win the game rather than stop the other team playing.

Souness has said (again) this is his strongest squad yet so why is he showing so little faith in them? Whilst we aren't going to win the League we're certainly capable of giving any side a match on the day on equal terms. So why are we starting games as if we are a Conference side playing a 3rd round FA Cup tie at Highbury?

Souness has to show confidence in his players or they will not perform with any confidence themselves. We've seen already the negative tactics simply don't work.

[johnradfordsubbuteo]

Well at least D'Urso knows he is so poor that he daren't have a web site like Herr Maier......(I've just looked - purely for research reasons you understand, I don't advocate virtual violence even against him.)

I think the outcome on Saturday is some kind of spooky Karma for us nicking their best players in the last decade (Shearer, Flowers). I've always though they must really hate us for that, albeit we have also helped them with Lardass Davies, Egil and Jeff Kenna to the tune of a few bob for nowt in return.

Arsenal? Be afraid. Be very afraid. (I presume they play Cygan as a sort of self imposed handicap to make it less one sided.)

[American]

The sad part is, for the first 60 minutes or so, he was doing a great job reffing.

I still refuse to admit they scored the penalty and we lost. I blame Brad for diving the wrong way.

[Biddy]

I blame Beattie for being on the pitch at all when he should have been injured. I just knew he would do something against us!

[TROOPER]

It's now late Monday evening & the highlights have just been on Fox Sports again & I can't believe that nobody on here as had a rant about the actions of James Beattie. OK he is a professional footballer & paid to do a job, but when he claims to have been a lifelong Rover who cried when he was told that he had been sold... well he has certainly had a change of heart. I know he didn't claim for a penalty, but he didn't in any way defend Craig Short as we have seen other players do. Also after he had put the pen away he didn't just turn & run back to the half way line as Robbie Keane did against Wolves last seaon. Oh no Beattie certainly enjoyed seeing that one going in & cheating us out of a well deserved point. Sorry Beattie but your actions on Saturday disgusted me. Ok you have a job to do & if you are happy with the way you go about it then thats up to you, but you need to learn a little dignity & respect - suggest you have a word with Robbie Keane.

[Biddy]

Perhaps he was just celebrating his last goal for Southampton?

I've no problems with the way Beattie dealt with the penalty. He didn't claim for the pen but took it nicely which is what he is paid to do.

[Lathund]

Really no point for him in saying that it shouldn't have been a penalty as the decision stands anyway. I've seen players deliberately miss when they thought it really unfair, but while this should never have been a penalty it wasn't the worst I've seen so Beattie himself doesn't have to feel bad about it.

Although it is nice in other sports when people do these kinds of things. Some Swedish handball player told a ref that his goal should've been disallowed because of some rule violation despite noone really protesting, and it's possible to reverse decisions there. Stuff like that is always nice to see

[TROOPER]

Or how about Nathan Blake when the Portsmouth Goalkeeper collapsed? Lathund if it wasn't the worst decision you have ever seen then you must have some bad refs in Scandanavia, or are you remebering the Henning Berg decision against United at Ewood? I suppose we should feel glad the Short wasn't sent off as well.

Sorry but i stand by my point that me personally as a Blackburn supporter born bred & branded for life I would never treat my home town club in the way Beattie treated us. He is a disgrace to every son of Blackburn & maybe now he has revealed the 'character flaws' that lead to him being shown the door at Ewood.

I vividly remember going down to Brockhall in the days before the academy was built & watching the youth teams. One saturday morning whilst I was there I saw Ray Hartford showing a young lad around with his parents in an obvious move to try & impress him. Beattie had been subbed & was on the touchline whenHarford came over & was beaming with pride when he introduced Beattie to the young lad & was glowing in his praise of the home grown talent. A talent who this week should his obvious distate for every body connected with the Rovers. I don't really have a problem with his play - It was his jubilation that really annoyed me.

RANT OVER - lets move on.

Edited August 23, 2004 by TROOPER

[Biddy]

Just because he is Blackburn born and bred does not mean that he shouldn't also do his job.

No matter how bad the penalty decision was, Southampton needed the points, Beattie is paid by Southampton and Beattie had to try and score. If the press reports are correct, Beattie is trying to move to Villa. It would not have looked good to them also if he had deliberately fluffed the shot.

Edited August 23, 2004 by Biddy

[CAPT KAYOS]

I expect Souness to go with a very defensive team so expecting a line up consisting of Neil/Amoruso/Johannson/Short/Matteo/Gray and Flitcroft and Douglas.

In addition other things don't bode well

- Andy Arsehole -whoops D'Urso is reffing.

Don't say I didn't warn you

Haven't quite lost faith yet PhillyRover - but as you can see there is a growing band of disatisfied Rovers fans.

What is more gauling on this is that D'arsehole is a joke of a referee - suspending him is not the answer and neither is demoting him to the lower leagues - its not fair on them.

I haven't seen anything of Saturdays game and don't want too,which is why I have not commented - but he is totally incompetent anyway and should not be allowed to ref another game - as for us I don't think Wednesday can come along quickly enough.

As for Beattie, as I have said I haven't seen anything of the game but does he owe Blackburn anything - he was let go to allow us to get Davies (good move that turned out to be)- and considering the so called turmoil at Southampton - to me he had a job to do and he did what he is paid for.

[Ricky]

Trooper, In your opinion then Ormorod and Dunn shouldn't even play against us in the future out of " a lack of respect for their hometown club". God forbid Dunny should ever score a goal past us....

I think you're well over the top with your criticism of Beattie. He is paid to do a job, he didn't appeal for the pen he just got up and took it.