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You Get What You Give

You Get What You Give
By Patrick Surlis • Issue #10 • View online
That was bad.
That was Ian Branfoot in the dugout bad.
Before a cup semi-final too.
Sickening.

You might have saw National Rail turned its whole website grey to honour Prince Philip.
Somehow that wasn’t the most baffling to happen last week.
No, because Saints went to relegation-threatened West Brom and put in the most half-assed, lily-livered, sad-sack display we’ve seen for what, three weeks?
Since Brighton at home anyway.
I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised considering some of the dross served up by the lads in 2021.
Teams with a big game on the horizon often get caught up looking ahead to Wembley, and they get caught out in the matches prior.
This didn’t feel like that to me.
We didn’t look sluggish.
We didn’t look like we were trying to avoid injury.
It just looked like a bad football team playing badly. It’s a cliche, but you get what you give, and we gave nothing.
There was so much space for West Brom that if you popped the Evergreen down on the Hawthorns turf, I reckon its captain could have manoeuvred his vessel between Jan and Jannik with ease before steaming down the canal to Wolverhampton.
In midfield, Diallo and JWP were outplayed, out-numbered and most obviously, overpowered.
They are talented players but Big Sam is going to look at that central midfield and lick his lips.
“Gimme your lunch money, James, like a good boy.”
The best thing about Monday is the fact it happened on Monday, the one day that pretty much everyone has agreed to write off anyway.
Imagine getting smashed by Big Sam at Saturday lunchtime?
It’d be enough to make you do something stupid, like forget your responsibilities, break COVID protocol and just get hammered with your mates.
Speaking of which, Leicester at the weekend then.
James Maddison, Ayoze Perez and a bottle of Captain Morgan.
If they were concerned about heading into Sunday a bit of a shambles, their fear was misplaced.
We took one look at their disaster and said:
‘Ayoze, great party mate, now hold my beer’.
A much-needed dose of optimism
OWTS contributor Ben Thompson is back with his fifth column for Game’s Gone…
Ben is a Saints fan who is currently studying at the University of Edinburgh.
You can follow him on Twitter here.
It’s January 2020.
Southampton face Leicester for the first time since that game.
Before the match, the Foxes flash up highlights on their big screen. Goal, Goal, Goal, Goal. You get the picture. There were goals.
Only this time it’s different. The game kicks off and 30,000 Foxes watch Danny Ings beat Kasper Schmeichel for the winner.
Life is good.
It’s been a rollercoaster since then.
Beating Manchester City in July.
Top of the league in November.
Old Trafford.
A rare come-from-behind win against Burnley.
But let’s return to the 2-1 victory at the King Power last season. Hojbjerg captained us that day.
Aside from him, I’d say our squad this time around is stronger. Vestergaard instead of Stephens, for one.
Walcott (or Che) in for Long. The only other change we’ll probably see is Forster between the sticks over McCarthy.
Despite Fraser’s wobbles at West Brom, his FA Cup clean sheet record doesn’t happen by accident.
The key is for this team to separate cup form and league form.
Tielemans and Iheanacho look to be the key players for Leicester at the moment, and keeping them quiet is imperative.
Per 90 minutes, Tielemans makes 5.55 progressive passes per 90. Iheanacho scores 0.7 goals per 90.
Compare this to Ward-Prowse’s 4.2 progressive passes and Ings’ 0.44 goals.
Youri and Kelechi are dangerous.
They’ll come for us, especially after seeing Monday’s performance.
But we’ve seen Brendan Rodgers’ teams drop off slightly at the end of seasons before.
Liverpool failing to win the title springs to mind. Leicester falling into the Europa League last year.
And they’ve slowed up this season too.
We will be underdogs for this game, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.
If we roll over, like we did on Monday, then I fear it will be a long 90 minutes.
But this is a cup semi-final. We cannot see a repeat performance.
It’s time to show a bit of fight, like we did at the King Power all those months ago.
If we do that, we’ll be in the match and that’s all we ask.
Game's Gone
Absolute bumper week for Game’s Gone.
First Keysey.
Then Reidy.
And finally, Ole.
Sky Sports News
😤 "The game is gone, it's absolutely gone!"

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is not holding back after more VAR drama! 🗣️

https://t.co/DSiAsuvSrw
Lovely stuff.
Episode 62 - The Nightmare Before Wembley
Episode 62 - Analysing a dire Southampton performance at West Brom and looking ahead to the FA Cup semi-final
Episode 62 - Analysing a dire Southampton performance at West Brom and looking ahead to the FA Cup semi-final
Oh When The Saints podcast breaks down a dire 3-0 defeat for Southampton at West Brom in the Premier League.
ohwhenthesaints.captivate.fm  •  Share
Up Next
Sunday 18th April, 6.30pm
  • Leicester, FA Cup Semi-Final, BT Sport
OWTS Pick of the Week
Reebok 1998-99 Athletico Madrid Away Shirt from TrueVintage.
Worth it for the ‘Marbella’ sponsor alone.
New Radicals - You Get What You Give (Official Music Video)
New Radicals - You Get What You Give (Official Music Video)
Thank you for reading!
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Patrick Surlis

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