Dman

Bit of a daft question, unless you’re suggesting that the manager has no impact on games, which of course isn’t true.

True though.. People like TWar will forever find excuses for the man. Injuries, no investment, shit players etc. Anything but his tactical judgement, which IMO is poor (I think he’s a good coach, just tactically not up to scratch). It’s like no other manager has faced similar issues. Many have, none have lost 9-0 once, let alone twice.

Having a different opinion doesn’t automatically make you a troll. On every forum, and walk of life, You have people who are OTT positive. People who are OTT negative and others who are somewhere in the middle. The reason I haven’t responded to your passive aggressive posts before is because I have 3 a day and I don’t want to get drawn into an argument with you. If you’re bored and tired of my posts and think I’m a troll, so be it, stick me on ignore pal. No skin off my nose. I’m not saying he responded due to posts from me but If you don’t think people within the club were asking Ralph questions about his style, then more fool you. Why you think calling me (SKD)Man is some kind of insult that would bother me, I don’t know. But I’d hate to be your wife if that’s your sense of humour. I don’t know if you’re dyslexic or something but Reading any of the shite you post would take a degree in Latin to understand. I beg, please, just once spell his name right. Regards, Dudman x

The thing is, it kinda does. Ballance’s main argument was that Rafiq himself had used racist words / terminology, so he (Balance) saw it as ‘Banta’ between friends. This backs up Balance’s argument. There’s also a picture doing the rounds of Rafiq with a big bottle of Vodka down his throat. Yet he mad complaints about being ‘forced’ to drink against his faith. More bullshit. Long and short is that Rafiq saw the opportunity for a pay out/book deal/Pundit opportunities. He was absolutely lapping the media up. The bloke is a grade A wanker. That’s probably why he was ‘picked’ on, not because of his skin colour.

Almost as if criticism of the manager and his open style was justified and he’s taken it on board and made us more solid this season. Whilst we do have a bit more depth in the squad now, I do still worry if we get a long term injury to Salisu and/or Romeu, we’ll get carved open like a hot knife through butter again though. As we’ve seen last season, Diallo and JWP are too lightweight when played together. And god forbid we have to play with Bednerak and Stephens / Lyanco** for a prolonged period of time. **I like Lyanco in a 3, not sure he’s quite right to play in a 2 yet though, looks very rash and dives in which would leave us exposed. It’s a toss of the coin to play Stephens (when fit) or Bednerak next to Salisu.. neither inspire me with confidence though.

I think this is where I’m at, if I’m honest. The trouble we have is anyone coming in is going to want their own leadership team and / or a more hands on approach; which often is a disaster. However, we simply have to have some more investment in the club if we want to progress. We cannot rely on a squad overachieving season upon season. We could do with a Leicester / Villa type owner who are willing to put money in, but are also willing to let others run the club. I can see this whole Newcastle thing going completely tits up, if these 2 are allowed to run the club. City, whilst clearly having the money to help, had the right idea. They wanted to become Barca, so rather than buying all Barca’s players, they just went and recruited pretty much all of their (footballing side) leadership team.

This. Avoid at all costs. Shit hole. if you’re looking at Egypt; I’m assuming it’s because your after something cheap and cheerful.. ruling out these suggestions of the Maldives etc 😂 Take a look at the canary islands. Temperature in the early - mid twenties and you can usually pick up decent deals around this time. If your budget is a bit more extravagant, and you’re after an all inclusive type holiday, then I’d back up Turkish’s suggestion of Caribbean (or Mexico) being the place to go.

I’m not Glasgow / heisenberg / kenya, if that’s what you’re getting at. So yes, a coincidence. I genuinely just don’t think Adams is a good striker. FWIW, I’ve not once said that he scuffs his shots. In fact, quite the opposite, he lacks finesse and just blasts his shots straight at the keeper 9/10. finishing / composure is generally a natural ability. Armstrong & Broja has it, Adams doesn’t. The Broja / Adams ‘potential’ argument is just a ridiculous one. Broja is, in my mind, already better player and clearly has more potential. Broja has everything. He’s quick, strong, tall and can finish. I see him as a bit of a poor mans Haaland in that respect. If you don’t think he is, ask yourself what the response would be if we went to Chelsea and offered them a direct swap of the 2. I can tell you now, we’d be laughed straight off the phone. As for suiting our style; I think Armstrong can do dropping in the hole and linking play, with Broja playing off the shoulder. Both offering us a goal threat.

There’s a reason he chose to play for Scotland, pal. Both of those are much better finishers than Che. Che is fortunate in that we play with 2 strikers, so he can get away without scoring. He doesn’t get in as a sole striker for any team and he simply doesn’t score enough goals. Id put him in the same bracket as an Ashley Barnes. Che clearly isn’t a better player than Borja. That’s absolutely laughable and you’re talking absolutely biased (as usual) nonsense. You have an issue with Borja because he’s not our player. You even claimed he had less potential than Armstrong and Adams, which again, is clearly complete and utter nonsense.

Personally, I think Eduoard and Antonio are streets ahead of him and bamford, as a striker is also better. That being said, he probably would interest a lot of clubs as a back up, but again, his value will always be capped and I don’t think we’d get a great deal more than we paid (wasn’t it in the region of 10m?) He seems like a decent enough bloke, so a decent lad to have around the squad, however for me we should be starting with Armstrong and Broja. Broja is a top, top player.

His value will always be capped because no premier league sides other than a handful that are facing a relegation battle, would buy him. Other than Norwich, Watford and maybe Burnley and Brighton, he doesn’t get into another premier league side, imo. Great goal tonight though. Seems to be playing with confidence which can only be a good thing for us.

It’ll take a brave or desperate man to take that job. No chance at all they’ll stay up, so basically building for promotion in the championship next season. It’’s make or break for Lampard now. Norwich would have been a bad move for him.

I think it’ll be a really good move for him. He knows and has a working relationship with the CEO and unless it’s a compete disaster will be given a fair amount of time. He won’t be on a shoestring and he’ll be given enough money to improve the side where it’s needed, without having stupid, Newcastle esq, budgets which can really distabalize a dressing room. They’re a pretty well ran club and whilst they’ll have ambitions of breaking into the top 6, I don’t think they’ll have unrealistic expectations. It’s an opportunity to manage in the biggest league with a squad that is more than good enough to stay up. If he plays a decent style and cements them as a top 10 club (easily achievable imo), then in 2-3 years, bigger clubs I.e Liverpool will be sniffing.

It’s pretty funny, because if we had sacked Ralph in the summer and replaced him with the now RB Leipzig manager (previously at RB Salazburg), the exact same could have been said about us, but you’d be wetting yourself because he’s a trendy name from a trendy club. As for lack of quality, as previously discussed. It’s utter nonsense. If they lack quality so do we. Gerrard may or may not be a success there, but as soon as Ings is back, they’ll be absolutely fine. They’ve had a fairly tough recent run with the addition of injuries.

Possibly. Possibly it’s the same as ours when we went something like 30 games with a handful of wins. The difference being they considered their manager to be underachieving, we didn’t, it seems.

Pointless trying to have a well balanced, reasonable debate when people post biased Drivel like this. Buendia is significantly better than S Armstrong. McGin is arguably better than Armstrong, let alone Buendia, who is a very, very good player. I know you like your stats, In his last full season in the premier league, he created more chances than Grealish. 4th overall and that was for a very poor Norwich side. The midField does not need A ‘complete overhaul’. They’re a little light, I agree but 1 maybe 2 players maximum isn’t a complete overhaul. Mings isn’t the best CB (he’s a very good organiser though; something we miss), but he’s at least on par (imo an improvement) on Stephens and Bednerak. Salisu clearly being the stand out for both teams. Not many, other than a few happy clapping idiots would see Villa as foolish move from us. At the very least, he’ll get a pay rise and be in the same position as us. As I said, unless he knows something we don’t, there’s not a great deal more he can achieve with us given our current business model.

Norwich is clearly a non starter. However, Villa on the other hand would be a really, really appealing job for a lot of managers, including ours id imagine. Talk of them being a backwards step is foolish and to be honest, they’d probably be a step up from us. Theyve got the fundamentals of being a really good team with an ‘ambitious’/wealthy owner, so whoever comes in will be backed in the transfer market. In Ings, Watkins, Bunedia & Bailey (yes I know they weren’t very good against us on Friday) they have a very, very good front 4 with a top class keeper in Martinez and players like Konza, mings (no doubt people on here won’t like this, but he’s an England international) and McGin who are more than capable premier league players. Imo they’re a little short at full back and CM but with a little investment, they could easily have a top 10 team without having to do a great deal. The only thing we can really offer Ralph is job security no matter results, as shown. I’m not sure how much of a factor this would play though, as any manager going in would back themselves to succeed. However, after 3 years, he must be looking at how much further he can take us without any real investment. Long and short, unless he knows something we don’t about a potential ownership change, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s looking at jobs like villa and thinking it would be a better option for him. FWIW, I think he’d do a decent job there and would be a top candidate if I was within the villa hierarchy.

That’s not what I said. I used that reference in terms of squad ability, I specifically said everyone in the bottom half could easily go down. Everyone is pretty similar to each other in one way or another. If you look at Ralph’s time here, it’s been very streaky. When he came in, we improved. Then up until the first 9-0 we were pretty bad. Things got better in 2020, especially after the covid break where Ings was firing and we seemed a lot fitter than everyone else. 2021 has been a shambles to date, but it has to be said is improving this season. Long and short is we’re capable of being very good (although I’m still yet to see that for 90 minutes) or very bad. Some time both in the same game (like Friday night). Unless we start taking our chances and putting teams to bed when we’re on top, which I think is due to a lack of quality, to be honest, we’re always going to be down there.

Nope. West Ham & Zouma.

Not only incredibly arrogant, but incredibly naive as well. History has shown that whilst we are capable of going on incredibly good runs, we’re also just as likely to be absolutely dog shit. We’re an injury away from having Stephens and Bednerak as our 2 CB’s and I fear that would cause the clean sheets to dry up (I’m a bit nervous about Lyanco as whilst he seems competent enough in a 3, I’m not sure how he’d fair in a 2 as they are very different roles… At this moment in time, I think it’d be a disaster, if I’m honest). I still think, Borja aside, we’re lacking goals and quality up the top end of the pitch. Norwich are gone. But other than that Newcastle will spend money and will no doubt improve and the rest (arguably Brentford aside) are much of a muchness imo. For me, after 10 games, I think it’ll be the 3 that come up who’ll go down, however, pretty much all teams in the bottom half aren’t safe imo.

And when Koeman was linked with Everton…. Villa isn’t a step down anyway. We’re probably level in terms of ability and he’ll get more financial backing. What he won’t get, is free reign to run the club with very little pressure of getting sacked though. Ings and Ralph’s relationship all but broke down towards the end of his time here, so it’d be pretty funny if he did end up there.

If / when he goes to Villa, who do we fancy? lucien favre, for me. If he’ll come.

Danny will be absolutely delighted if Ralph ends up at Villa… we might even get him back as part of the deal.

Tonight sort of sums up why we throw away so many leads and are down the bottom end of the table rather than the top. Outstanding first half, partially down to Villa being diabolical, and a lack of composure in front of goal (thinking S Armstrong) meant we made things hard for ourselves. Second half was very poor though and not for the first time. We seem to just run out of energy, which is a big concern. Fair play to Ralph he did change things up which seemed to help. A win is a win but I won’t get too carried away. If ings was playing tonight I don’t think we win that game. Credit where it’s due, we won against what seemed like 12 men (who was that idiot with the whistle??). I’m not one to blame the ref, but he was very poor tonight.

Agree both played very well tonight. Lead from the from and probably the best I’ve seen from Adams in a saints shirt. I do still Have my doubts about their composure in front of goal and for that reason I still think we should play Borja with probably Armstrong. But credit where it’s due, both very good and either could have been MOTM for me.