TWar

OR has looked pretty poor in a number of games this season, his passing has been very suspect. Had a quality game at City but I wouldn't put him in our top 5 best performers this season (jwp, Livramento, salisu, Stephens pre injury, KWP) pretty telling they are all defensive players really.

Yeah I rate Diallo, was hoping Armstrong would come in and solve our massive creativity problem to be honest in attacking mid.

Thats the worst thing about today, the season starts now and we will be without our best and most important player for three games...

Can we get the lottery numbers? Also he has actually spent less than every other team in the league this summer in that we actually made a £20m odd profit. Regarding Ralph, if JWP didn't make a stupid tackle I rate us to pick up something there, then we would have played 4 of last seasons top 5 and emerged unbeaten. As is, JWP made an uncharacteristic stupid mistake and cost us. Not much the manager could do about that.

This is inaccurate though, we were very good for an entire calendar year under Ralph. We also had some good spells under Puel even though the whole wasn't as great.

Different people, I thought that was a silly criticism at the time, the same way I think it's not a good criticism of Ralph now. They both did have a plan B but we don't have the spending power to have a deep bench of gamechangers and probably never will. Teams will always have bad runs, can't always be joy, but that makes the good times better imo. Would rather that than winning all the time because we are only pitted against other low quality sides. No that's not what I'm saying, that's what you are saying. I think we looked excellent for a large chunk of Ralph's reign, looked great under Poch most of the time, and looked great under Koeman most of the time. 6 months is only you saying if we aren't good every game then it doesn't count.

Exactly! I love watching the highest quality football on the biggest stage in the world, I love watching saints who have been my team my whole life, being able to do both those things at the same time is incredible. Watching saints play low level games against League one and championship sides is still a good time and I like a win as much as the next guy but I like to see us be the best we can be.

We played lovely football under Poch and Koeman, and to be honest I think we played some really nice stuff under Ralph up until about January this year.

I can't remember if its you I had this conversation with before but assuming it isn't I like good football. Give me my team playing fast free flowing football at the highest level against the best players in the world over my team banging out results playing hoofball against Accrington Stanley every time, even if the latter yields more wins and cheaper tickets.

Same here, and games are markedly more enjoyable to me in the premier league than they were in the championship and league one.

Tammy went for £40mish to a team playing in the CL. Don't think that was an option tbh. JWP is well above our level in my opinion, we should hold onto him as in our current position no one else his level is signing any time soon.

Their objective could be to win the quadruple, wouldn't make it doable. With our squad and our funding the goal is to stay afloat and buy young in the hope one blows up and we make a tonne of money, but we can't do that if we aren't in the league and we can't do anything better without funding. You have to be realistic.

What's that going to do? We can moan all we like, won't effect much. They aren't going to pitch in the £100m or so it would take to really push on and be a consistent top 10/europa league side because we are moaning and are sad. We could not go to games but most money in football comes from TV money anyway now. If stadium attendance dropped by 25% that would lose them like £8m on the season in ticket sales.

The goal is to survive and achieve mid table. We have a lot of hope for the future (Livramento, Salisu, Perraud, Diallo, Armstrong, KWP, Djenepo) who are all under 25 so hopefully a couple of them develop into top top players and that's how we climb the table, either by playing them or selling them and reinvesting. But right now our team is average and it isn't getting better without funds so no point thinking about top half and europe, safety is all that matters.

3-1 Chelsea. Brace by Lukaku, one from a corner scored by a CV. Armstrong gets a consolation goal late on.

4222 starting with: Macca Livramento Salisu Bednarek Perraud Romeu JWP Elyounoussi Djenepo Armstrong Adams and then at half time or if we nick a goal convert to a 352 by taking Djenepo off for Diallo and Perraud off for KWP and going Macca Romeu Bednarek Salisu Livramento Elyounoussi Diallo JWP KWP Armstrong Adams With Ely and JWP playing as 8's.

Maybe he's close to back. It is still like 11 days until the internationals.

https://footylabs.com/premierleague-fantasy/schedule-difficulty.html This nifty difficulty ranker has us as second hardest after Norwich. Upside, our next 6 after Chelsea we have 5th easiest. And from now our next 10 fixtures are easiest in the league.

Sometimes I think fans see sacking and replacing the manager as just a thing to do when losing. Like something has to change and this is a change (and basically the only major feasible change) therefore it's what we must do. I think Ralph is a good manager and would still be if we didn't win for another few games. If we had a better option now I'd say sack him on the spot, if we don't have a better option then I would keep him. I don't think change for the sake of change is valuable, it depends on who we can get really. Like with Chelsea, they didn't sack Lampard for ages when he was underperforming but as soon as a better option came along he was out the door. That's the right way to do it imo. If he gets to Watford without a win and someone amazing was available then I'd get rid but I personally don't think the likes of Howe are really an improvement and I don't think him losing a few more games would change that for me.

I think we have been quite unlucky to be honest and had the hardest start to the league of arguably any team. We looked very competitive against teams around us (wolves, Newcastle) and we showed we can take points off the big boys (United, City). After Chelsea we have Leeds, Burnley, Watford, Villa, Norwich. With a bit of luck we should pick up 2-3 wins out of that and maybe a draw or two. If we get less than 5 points from that run it will probably be time to panic.

Not sure where this "Armstrong is really wasteful" thing is coming from. He has scored 1 goal from an xG of 1.52, so statistically he is only underperforming by 0.52 goals. Incidentally, he is underperforming his xA by 0.55 so actually it is more "Armstrong is creating chances and others are missing them" than the other way round.

I don't know if he did. Ings got 9 assists in the league in his entire time with us, which is like 3 a season. Adams, for example, played a fraction of the minutes, has only been with us for two full seasons and has 8. Ings was never really the creative one.

Exactly this. We have been pretty unfortunate at times this season, been on the wrong end of a few calls, had a couple of bad individual errors. The manager can't really account for that. If Djenepo could score an open goal from half a meter out, if Armstrong could head the ball into an empty net from half a meter out again, if Bednarek could do his job and not get outwrestled by Jimenez, and/or if VAR didn't absolutely shaft us against City then none of these things would be being discussed. Our luck will swing imo

We played defensively to counter and so did they. Were they toothless too because they only had one shot on target and it was going well wide until Vestergaard freakishly deflected it back into his path to have another go? We were unfortunate, it was a very even game.

This is a massive benefit though. It's no good being talented if you spend 9 games out injured and a further 5-10 looking well off the pace because you haven't recovered properly. Ings scored 12 goals last season, 10 non-penalty (which is a better comparison as JWP is on pens this year). I think there is every chance Armstrong manages that.