Forester

I think you have summed up the reverse risk perfectly, which is to wait until we have played those games building up to match 20 may leave a replacement too late. It’s now, or not until after Xmas for me.

There is in my opinion a huge difference in the perception of posters on here dependent on whether they only see home matches versus those who travel away. Romeu and JWP are clear examples of players who have performed well on the road, our away form has been fine (wins against Brighton and Sheffield Utd, draw at Wolves and narrow defeats to Spurs and City) since the awful opening day defeat at Burnley. We suit the 352 that we typically play away where the onus in on the home team to attack, and we then use space on the counter attack. But understandably season ticket holders who don’t travel are sick and tired with the home form. We may need a different profile of midfielder for those games, and four at the back would enable more protection against away team counter attacks as we hopefully spend more time camped in their area. Ralph must be seeing this. We have now a run of very winnable home games coming up and I think a final decision should be made on him when we have played all teams once. 20 points after 20 games should be the objective (we play Chelsea a second time before we play Palace). It is easy to say “we won’t get twelve more points by then” but given our fixtures if we can’t then sadly a change of manager is an imperative. I feel that is a fair way of treating Ralph, not being disloyal and firing him now, but equally not leaving him immune from accountability.

Well that first half was as poor an attacking and creative display as we have seen for a long time. Understandably short of confidence and nervous of what reaction they may get from the home crowd after Leicester. However as others have commented it is hard to fathom what Ralph tactically has in his mind now. The attacking patter is deteriorating and I have seen no evidence of ability to coach and drill a back line. Quite frankly, what are they working on midweek on the training ground? Clearly root cause is squad quality, Gao funding etc. However it is not unreasonable to question whether, in difficult circumstances, Ralp is getting a reasonable return on the resources at his disposal. Generous route to take is to say that until we have played everyone once the league table is misleading and once we get past Arsenal we have a nice looking run in to the half way mark where we need to be at 20 points (albeit we play Chelsea bizarrely twice before we play Palace one). Four wins needed. And so pulling the trigger now is premature. However hawkish response is to say that things are getting worse not better, these upcoming fixtures are not to be wasted and that there is evidence that the players and Ralph are moving further apart not closer together. As I have repeatedly posted, until we get back to clean sheets we have no chance as teams outside the top six rarely score three or four goals. If you look at the stats, when we finished top 8 four seasons on the belt the truth is it was primarily due to the goals conceded column. My heart says give Ralph until Xmas, my head says get a replacement in who has proven track record in effectively drilling a defence. Big Sam is an obvious choice, despite the reaction from some fans.

Won’t be many teams that push Man City to the 87th minute at their place. Have been watching Saints home and away for decades and I can’t remember more blocks and interceptions. Great to see and this was main reason they had so few shots on target. Three centre backs all excellent, and I thought JWP, Romeu and Armstrong gave good protection in front of them. If being critical I would have expected us to do a little better when we did clear our lines, and felt front two made it too easy for City to restartanother attack. We won’t come under as much pressure most weeks, and if we defend as well as that we will start to collect clean sheets which for a club like ours is only way to win games consistently. Can’t be expected to score three or four each week to win in Premier League.

First half was a very negative performance, and while I didn’t enjoy watching it any more than everyone else it would be naive to imagine that a 9-0 drubbing dies anything other than move a team back into their shell. However second half was much better, not just the last twenty mins as some have said. Positives were Alex, Danso (defensively, but not great distribution), Stephens and Redmond as sub. When you are under such pressure you need someone to hold the ball up and Long and Boufal struggled to do that.

Did not post last night as like many people was in shock. Stayed to the very end as was keen to see the reaction amongst players and managers at the final whistle. Total embarrassment. The three generations of my family that sit together are split between firing Ralph and backing him. I am in the middle (kind of). I would sit him down tomorrow 9am (not today as he needs to think things through himself) and ask him what he thinks the issues are and what he plans to do. My support would be dependent on the coherence of the answers. There are several possible plans, and I would be more focussed on the level of confidence that he shows rather than having a single view of what the answers should be if that makes sense. Is he in the right psychological space top continue for me is the key quiz question. If he goes I think we have to bring in a coach who can drill an effective defensive unit, and change the style of play at home. We fortunately watch all away games and so have had some decent days out but I feel for home supporters only who really must be beyond despair. Rafa would be perfect but doubt he would come, Big Sam would be very good (I know this would be unpopular but he has proven track record) but key point is that until we change the defensive personnel we have to coach them more effectively. That should be obvious. If he stays then he has to make some big decisions on personnel. Gunn, Valery, Vest and JWP all need taking out of the team for a period as they appear pretty damaged by recent months. Hopefully Cedric and Moussa can recover quickly. While Bertrand is suspended try Vokins, and give Danso a run of games in a back three alongside Yoshida and Bednarek who were excellent at Wolves. Something like: McCarthy Bednarek Yoshida Danso Cedric Bertrand/Vokins next three games Hoj Romeu Boufal/Moussa Ings Redmond

Good away day, looked so much more solid at the back with three centre backs. Yoshi and Bednarek are out and out defenders and find it easier in possession when they always have a lateral pass option to one of the other two. Positives today for me were season best performance from Bertrand and Hoj, Redmond looking like he is returning to form and Ings on a hot streak. To keep Wolves down to one shot on target shows how well marshalled we looked today. Encouraging ahead of more tough fixtures before we get to end of November when things look a bit easier.

International break has come at good time as our season needs a major reboot. Looking at our fixtures if we don’t change approach radically we will be in bottom three by end of November, which is when easier set of fixtures arrive. Suggests following: - replace Gunn with McCarthy. Needs to regain confidence, Alex is keeping clean sheets in cup and Gunn’s distribution and leadership qualities have dipped. - stick with three centre backs, would try Danso alongside today’s two. - drop JWP. Not delivering and needs to be taken out for a while. - drop Redmond. Not same player since injury. - play Boufal behind Ings and Adams and let front two build a partnership. And hope Moussa gets fit quickly.

Two season ago we finished 17th. Last season we finished 16th. If we finish someone between 12th and 15th I would take that as positive progress. The thing is, inevitably if you are finishing around that place wit say 43 points you will at some stage of the season appear to be a relegation candidate and looking at the next five fixtures I think we may be in the drop zone or close to it at the end of November. But then from the Watford game onward we have a good set of fixture which hopefully will see us north of 20 points at the halfway mark which is minimum target. I imagine we must have one of the youngest teams in the league and so the hope should be we will improve year on year

Firstly the match (the part I saw, see below): - poor quality game, but who cares, albeit to be fair surface very wet down our end on side of pitch where dugouts were saw some struggling to keep on their feet - Yoshida and Bednarek excellentg and should be nailed on to start at Spurs - Romeu a real physical force, and Cedric good form rewarded with a goal - never for one moment felt they would get back into it in the second half and only a matter of time before we added more. Felt we were in cruise control mode - The moron who ran across the pitch to deliver hand gestures to 2000 Saints fans as we were all kept back is I am sure the pride of his family. Truly embarrassing In terms of off field matters, had no option but to get train coming from work expecting to get to Fratton an hour before kick off, but Pompey fans got on the mainline and managed to stop trains and as a result Network Rail switched off power. As a result many Saints fans arrived very late after Ings’ first goal. After the match fair play to the police who dont get too much thanks. Did a great job of safely getting everyone back to station past the maronic Blue Few, and despite some attempts at some “action” by a few locals on the other platform managed it all brilliantly and got those of us who did not need the non stop service back to Soton into sections of the train away from skates. Well done Old Bill, and I hope they lock up the jerk who punched the horse and throw away the key

Whoever we pick from a Premier League squad will have more technical quality than they will. And so I would therefore go with the most physically robust/tallest team as the most realistic reasons for us losing would be to bottle the atmosphere/physicality and/or fail to deal with aerial battle or set pieces. So would go for: McCarthy Valery Bednarek Yoshida Danso Bertrand Hoj Romeu Adams Long Ings 3-4-3

Very poor first half, doubtless Ralph has learned some lessons. It was the sort of defeat though where there are genuine positives to be drawn when the dust settles, which for me were the second half creativity, Boufal and Romeu outstanding again and good to get Redmond back. And great to see Bertrand back, hopefully for good.

Another thoroughly enjoyable away day. Starting to become hard to score against which is key to teams like us if we want to be competing in top half any time soon. Think some of the posters have been harsh on Vest who admittedly got caught out on header first half but equally did lots of good things too. Thought Romeu and Hoj were superb, JWP and Cedric both did really well playing out of position for the team and Boufal looked the classiest player on the pitch. Special mention to Adams who had his best game so far and looked a real handful as a centre forward today. You could see the potential that made us sign him today.

Excellent point given circumstances. With hindsight the Burnley game feels like an outlier with two wins, a draw and a good performance against Liverpool that deserved a point. Am happy with how things are shaping up, and we have already played two of the top six from last year (albeit I will be surprised if Manure finish top six this season). By the way, contrast the work rate of Romeu with Pogba who I estimate is on four times the salary....

While very sympathetic to the argument about prioritising tickets for those who travelled to Fulham, I think that it is far more likely that tickets will be issued a la away game to Bournemouth, ie those who have bought most tickets for away games over the last year counting downwards (perhaps ten away games, then nine etc). People will have different views on how fair this is (I think it is fair because some people will have had a genuine reason why they could not make Fulham this week) but I imagine the over riding focus will be our most “known” fans via customer number. And so logic will be if you have not been found out as a lunatic in ten games you are low risk.

A thoroughly enjoyable sun drenched away day, and with England beating the Aussies today a perfect weekend! My reflections would be: - Great to get a clean sheet. Easy to say it was lucky given post and VAR, but equally we played well last week and got nothing so that is the way the cookie crumbles - Above particularly impressive given shift to back four and Danso playing out of position on debut. Thought he was excellent second half. - Ralph wants “football played in a hurry”, and many of our fans hated slow patient build up of Puel. Think we need to get used to seeing the ball given away more than previous years and less possession but the flip side is we defend higher up the pitch. You can’t have everything unless you have Man City resources. - Unlike many posters I thought Ings did well in terms of work rate and pressing, whereas Adams particularly first half was disappointing and appears to be struggling to generate movement off the ball to create space. - Boufal and MD outstanding impact subs. Can they translate that into starting against Man Utd? Must be huge temptation to replace Adams with one of them. - Unless Bertrand picked up his injury within 24 hours of kick off, or Ralph was telling porkies at press conference when he said no injuries, something doesn’t add up in the “Bertrand was injured” explanation. Think he has been well below par first two games but he is a class player when on it and naturally left footed.

Not totally convinced by him yet, but seen some good moments from him including Saturday. He is, along with others, paying the price for our defence being so weak that we have to play three centre backs. Otherwise he would be a good fit for Ralph’s preferred 4-2-2-2

This is a very lazy comment on so many levels. Firstly Puel achieved good away results, it was home form that cost him his job. Secondly he always played a back four, who were well drilled (look at the goals conceded stats) and had at least three and sometimes four midfielders initially in a diamond before going to 4231. I don’t think there is a perfect formation, Chelsea won the title under Conte playing 343 which was really how we were set up yesterday. It’s the quality of defending that was so poor at Burnley, not so much the formation, albeit I do think that when you have someone as athletic as Kante he can help cover the gaps that just two central midfielders face. I don’t think we have anyone that good

A long journey to get soaking wet and see a total capitulation in second half. Trying to be balanced so... Positives.....not many, but thought Romeu did well and for the first part of the second half before they scored we actually looked like we were getting into gear. Yes the conditions played a part and undoubtedly helped the more direct style of play, and finally it was the first game of the season and both Wet Spam and Palace have had awful starts in last couple of years and gone on to have good season. Right now onto the concerns.....felt we looked like a kick and rush team for much of today and got sucked into Burnley preferred type of game. Playing just two cents! midfielders doesn’t help this and I would bring in Hoj for zings next week and play two not three up front. Then there is the defending, truly awful. Errors from Vest and Bertrand for first and third goal, felt Stephens (first) and Gunn (third) could still have helped prevent the final outcome though. And the second goal is truly awful. Old give ball watching. If this is what we see against usually goal shy Burnley then god help us against top six teams. Finally why is our must reliable defender left in bench? Unless Danso is a twenty year old hero (let’s hope he is) am seriously worried about how we will keep the ball out of the net long enough to chalk up wins. All in all a very worrying day

This is a great stat. The seventh longest current stay in the Premier League. Not to be sniffed at. I think four top eight finishes on the trot was exceptional. I do think it is credible to get back into Europe every so often, but equally it is likely we will face more disappointing seasons like the last two as well. So all in all survival alongside a cup run and every few years challenge the top seven feels good to me.

I agree with Whitey. The headline which got most people supporting it was broadly “this will turn subjectivity into black and white facts”. But as folk can now see, that is not true. It simply moves subjectivity somewhere else, ie the bloke doing VAR. There are numerous situations where you think “why wasn’t that referred to VAR”. I agree with the comment re keeping it to factual things, to build on the goal line technology which has been good (and also does not rely on a delay with everyone hanging around). So ball out of play or mistaken identity perhaps. It’s awful when you are at the ground and everyone is stood around waiting and I suspect when many paying fans experience that first hand they will be less enthusiastic.

2 out of 10. Love and light

Fully understand the sentiment about how he left etc. To be honest I have, sadly, long lost the perception that players love the club etc, kissing the badge days before securing a move and all of that crap. However my opposition to him returning is more a cold hard look at the facts. He is 31, he has now developed a trend of being injury prone, and that is only likely to get worse. So it’s just a no on those grounds. The player I want in that number ten position who I think has potential to be as good if not better than he was in his prime is Lookman from Everton and I am hoping the Ralph link may do the job.

Agree with all of this other than I would retain Vest and Long (the latter has one year left on contract and would tell him he has until Xmas to get an extension)

Hate slagging off referees as they get far more right than wrong. But it wasn’t just Friend’s decision making that was poor today, it was his whole control of the game. Whistle happy, officious, really did make himself unnecessarily the centre of attention.