saint michael

I think some leaders are good in turnaround like when he came in after Hughes and some are good taking it on to transform a club. I think he did good job rallying and getting people together at start but it is way beyond his capability and has been for a very long time. concern now is the combination of the amount of change needed and the young players ability to deliver it. Just feels too little to late to me. Whoever comes in has an almighty challenge. Think we should not be surprised how difficult they will find it…. Whoever it is

Good piece Turkish and understand what you say. Just not sure what our patience is in service of. Isn’t the business model the same and only luck in purchases going to make it different. I wonder what their true ambition is.

It’s really sad because it feels it’s gone on longer than it should. You just feel like we have lost our identity as a club. Team needing to gel, team performances so poor and looking lost, rumours of player and manager fallouts, club making poor decisions on how they deal with issues in stadium whether right or wrong, paying below living wage etc etc the list goes on. Something drastic needs to happen to start a new positive direction and era.. it’s not going to be easy and without further fallout but goodness we need to start the new journey now

Agreed but he’s suffering from a stiff neck watching the ball be walloped over his head by keeper. The number of times he came short today only to see this happen. Think you are right though trying to fill gap left by Romeu

Last season I kept thinking he can’t survive another loss and he did. I thought they would pull the trigger at the end of the season. They didn’t. They have now bought a lot of young players in who clearly are going to take time to find their feet. I thought interestingly a comment made by Semmens aboutRalph was that Ralph didn’t rate experience, and that talent beats experience [paraphrasing). now this could be him saying that the players brought in are Ralph’s choice. Young with raw talent that needs developing. if they believe this Ralph stays in the belief he will ride the storm and the team will start performing. My biggest concern is that I have seen no evidence that Ralph knows how to develop and organise a defence. He believes defence is solved by formation not experience one thing is certain to stop this misfiring machine he needs consistency of structure, approach and team to embed a team. I’ve never seen great team building where there is little consistency in the people in the team, and too much change not being managed well.

I got the impression he is doing what he believes in, high press, working with people he believes in. Came across strongly that it’s about being in this league then doing best possible from there… so seems clear on the “what”. I didn’t walk away with any more confidence in the “how”. He was as clearly shocked by the poor run as we are but also not able to influence a change in that run..interesting that he mentioned Broja and younger ones looking around after having a few good games and mentioned their values. All in all my view hasn’t dramatically changed that he seems like a nice bloke doing what he believes to be the best…I’m just not sure I believe he is the right man to make a sustainable change to make this group good enough and organised enough to cope with prem league.

New striker Probably announced tomorrow before fans forum to stop any awkward questions. 12 year old world class striker on 8 year contract going to be worth fortune when we sell him in 6 years time.

Until the owners and Board think the premier position is in jeopardy he stays. If they were not going to back him they would have got rid in summer. Don’t forget success for them is survival so they will be delighted by what he has done so far. Whether we play well or not on top of this is a bonus. I think they will give him a lot longer than any of us believe at this time. They are not going to tell us they are happy with form or it will affect supporter behaviour, support / income. I think we are in for a rough ride to come yet. I only hope we can keep these youngsters heads up.

Any Striker we sign is going to need to be amazing to compensate for this defence and organisation . Sorting out structure, tactics, a defence along with goals essential. Another couple of big losses and the youngsters are going to struggle. I cant see how a good striker is going to score more than we let in. i cant see us letting in less than 2 a game

There was a lot more honesty that they were shit days… the overdrive today of spin where everything is going in the right direction when the football is complete shit. We’ve also got fans believing it…. Are you one of those?

I don’t feel angry I feel sad. First game in 67. I feel I have lost my club. Ralph is a real Charlatan. All bullshit now with prem and Ralph who is fi ing clueless. I would seriously be in any league with a set up that I can connect to than this shit

Could be good signing. Let’s hope so. not sure of our business model value sell on unless he truly is world class and we sell him after 2 years. 5 year contract. 3 years experience with us. Runs down contract. Sell him with 1 year to go to get value or he runs it down to go for free world class we sell him early. Turns out awful we have 5 years of him on high contract. clearly players running down contracts challenges our business model. Also great young players hoovered up as bit of a punt by big clubs and not so big clubs with more money.

I would only want him if he’s good at passing sideways and backwards. I think if we can keep the ball for 90mins we are in with a shout

So Ralph didn’t instruct them on what they should be training the players in and after all this time here has decided they are the issue and don’t have the skill to do it …….hmmm. I wonder what he is accountable for

I think the team are badly organised and don’t have individual skill to play the way they are being asked to. We see a lot of individual errors at critical times particularly defensively when they just can’t do what they need to. This means that they are not playing to their strengths as individuals and as a team. I think the form comes with their confidence, when they have had a period of low errors. As soon as they start to happen again the whole team seems to lose belief. They then don’t know what to do to regain it and Ralph just getting them to continue to do the same things in the hope it all starts to click again doesn’t help. This is where I think another manager would make a difference. I don’t think we are ever going to have the team with individual skills to do what he wants them to do and his reluctance to change style and tactics gives an inevitable outcome. It’s painful watching the slow and inevitable death happen.

Saints Board will be looking at this season as incredibly successful. They have remained in the money league. So from business level tick. They will look at what little they could spend that would make a difference to deliver the same result or better next season. the big question is what does that need to be in terms of spend, what does that mean in terms of player turnover and how to reduce the balance of risk and to give assurance of return. I think the Board see changing him would be in the high risk category so don’t see it happening. I can’t stand watching saints at the moment and the set up around the team. Can we stop not blaming Ralph please. If he can’t make a difference on players by coaching and tactics etc. he shouldn’t be here. As stated a lot of these players are his, or he has had enough time to change them by improving or moving on. What does he add?

Ralph said at the end of the bbc interview there was a lot of business to do. So he clearly thinks a lot will happen. WhIlst he delivers prem survival I think he will have a job regardless of what we want or think. The last 15 games have been like watching the bottom Side perform and him getting off with it from the board because of earlier form and consequence of change. I still don’t see enough tactical nouse or individual / team coaching to give me confidence he can improve. As somebody said earlier it’s hard to assess what could be done with this lot with a different approach. Running them into the ground clearly doesn’t work and I can’t believe there is a whole team of JWP’s level of effort who can be bought that could maintain that style. I find his behaviour on the line irritating like he’s not associated with what’s going on, on the pitch and his pre and post match comments ridiculous and even more irritating

5points in nearly half a season… as another loss to come at Leicester yet…. When you say everyone said saints were for the drop Ralph how does this form prove them wrong? Imagine this is our start to next season 😬

I would be interested to know how much people think we will spend this summer and on how many players. I can’t really see this summer being much different than the last ones. They’ve stated the same business model is in place when they took over. Ralph is still in charge so will be similar players to what we have recruited recently. Most likely youngsters from bigger clubs. Out of contract GK. the most important info will be, is our squad better than 3 others for another year of fighting to stay in the super premier league

I’m afraid Ralph is going nowhere. At every opportunity they the boardalign to approach and continuing the journey. Maybe if next year starts with a wipeout they may change their views, but I hold little hope of a change. I think the Board alignment with him is part of this problem don’t feel like there is any real challenge to poor performance. The only real thing which will change this is financial impact. We look at it from football perspective they look at it from financial. Until the two meet failing football and financial impact…I think things will stay much the same. Will be interesting to see how season ticket renewal goes. For the first time in all my time I’m thinking of not renewing.

He simply takes no responsibility for poor performances. A complete detachment from his tactics, coaching, selection and in game changes. He reports on what he has seen as if an independent reporter. I believe that in his eyes he thinks he’s doing a great job but the team aren’t

The players either aren’t doing what he is coaching them in, or asking them to do, or he is asking them to do something they can’t because they haven’t the ability. This makes the continuance of these tactics even more bizarre. Does he just keep on in the hope it will all suddenly click and deliver the performances he clearly expects. I think he lives in cloud cuckoo and it’s time for him to go home. We’ve been shit for ages and he sees each week as a blip and doesn’t see the cumulative performances.

If you take it he has kept us up and never looked in danger this year then I think he deserves credit for this. We’ve comfortably achieved what probably was his target of staying up. I’ve supported saints for too many years to mention so my expectation isn’t unrealistic but I have to say he annoys the fuck out of me. Defence has been a problem since he has arrived and never been properly addressed. I mean tactically and coaching wise. Stats maybe show better this year slightly, but that can just be that the mix of teams are different this year. I don’t see any real development. starting teams, tactics and approach can be awful…that’s on him. I kinda know within a few mins what sort of game it’s going to be (Brighton was a cheery exception). Signing Walcott permanently, what was that all about. Not changing team v Chelsea until 4 down, then taking Romeu off. his antics are that after one of the awful displays, he doesn’t come out and explain what went wrong and why and what he did to change them..he describes all the events we have just watched… we started slowly, the players didn’t track back, we were poor defensively, etc. etc. no shit Sherlock many have asked how good the squad is, and I too don’t really know, are they out performing or could another manager make a difference. It feels like a real fear to change him out because of this question. My belief is there needs to be more than one tactic, the one trick pony for me is awful.

I think it’s the nature of the losses and the complete capitulation and lack of tactics organisation and the manager histrionics on the line as if it’s a complete shock to him that really sickens me. I find myself now always waiting for the slide to happen and never let down by them. being in the prem is not the be all and end to me… I know I will get slated for that but seeing a side that looks half like they know what they should be doing and capable of doing it would be an improvement. Change needed for me

We all get into arguments about Ralph. Can the Ralph supporters please explain to me what he is doing right as I have lost the plot