sydney_saint

Your contempt for JWP is utterly bizarre.

Real battling underdog performance this to pull a goal back. Still got another 45 minutes to weather....

Exactly. Why on earth are people complaining that there is no stream for this game?

I do sometimes wonder if there are more inventive ways to give a manager space and time to recharge. Manager's pretty much get no off season, and the intensity of the job is probably higher than even the players (at least in the premier league). We often hear about the short tenures of managers in the premier league as a problem, but I wonder how long most of them can realistically go without burning out, unless you have unlimited resources like Pep. Is it possible or realistic to give a manager say 6 months gardening leave, to give them time to regrow and recharge? Because I feel that's something would do Ralph a huge amount of favours. I also look at Klopp. All these years of getting Liverpool competing at City's level and he now looks a shadow of the man. Something like 6 months off would probably do him and Liverpool alot of good. Instead he has to push push and push his way out of the slump. Might work. But might burn him out even more. Same goes for Ranieri the season after Leicester one the title. He was totally burnt out, but did he need to be sacked? Or just time away from the game? I know the concept has alot of issues, like who do you appoint as interim, what happens if interim does well, what happens if interim does badly, what if the manager chooses not to come back. I just think that maybe there are other ways of retaining managers who are good managers, but are just a bit burnt out.

I'm a bit sad about this. I love that he came in with such a clear vision and had us playing football with real identity and purpose. Yeah there were some absolute horror results, but there were some bloody good ones as well, and I loved it when we went toe to toe with the likes of City. When we were at our best, we didn't fear anyone. We didn't sit back and try and squeeze a result, but we got in their faces and pressed them hard. Even when we were beat, the opposition were exhausted. Unfortunately we have lost much of that identity over the last 12 months. I think overall he has been an excellent appointment. I think we will look back at his years at the club and see the squad he had to work with was really poor. There are many, many managers who would have overseen relegation with this squad. The reality is that not only did he keep us up, but we have never had much relegation fear. And by relegation fear, I don't mean people doing absurd math that a Fulham will suddenly have title winning form to send us down. I mean that gut wrenching scramble for every available point like we felt in the 90s or the likes of 04/05. If you take a look at some of the sides that have gone down since he was here, some have had spent way more money. And again, for most of the time we did that playing largely entertaining football, even if the last 6 months has been horrific. I do agree now is the time to part ways. I will always consider him a Saint for his devotion and hard work in trying to make us the best possible team we can be. I have found some of the comments about him over the last few months downright shameful. He is clearly a good manager, he is just a good manager that lost his way and ran out of ideas. There is no shame in that. I feel some of it stemmed from some fans belief that men should not cry and never forgave him for that. For me it showed his passion for football and how hard he had worked for that moment. So thank you Ralph and you will always be welcome at St Marys. What happens next will see what our board and owners are really made of. They have decided to go down a route of bringing in young players, a high risk high reward strategy. As one of the smaller clubs in the league, there is only a certain calibre of youngster we will attract and that puts us at risk of going down. We get it right, and it could make the club a tonne of money in the future. What is critical is this next appointment. It needs to show ambition, it needs someone who can nurture them, but at the same time we can't have an inexperienced manager who takes a while to get going. That would almost see us cut adrift. I hope they've got someone lined up, because they have had months to sound out some names.

Is Aribo quick? I have absolutely no idea because I genuinely have never seen him sprint.

Also, I don't understand why the players at that level expect perfect refs. Of course you are gonna make mistakes, in the same way that a player is gonna misplace a simple 5 yard pass or topple over their ass whilst running for the ball.

Well um, thanks for the contribution i guess. So your answer is to get people over 6ft tall, who are already fully grown adults, who can intimidate children into not arguing back? So shrink the reffing pool into an even tinier amount? The point is that it is many young referees who are getting abused and quitting. These are the refs that we want to encourage, as they are the ones who could make the top level. Not you picking up the whistle later on in life. And yeah, they may not have your 'life experience' to be able to handle it that well. But also, why should they?

This is a really interesting point, and I have always been curious why it isn't enforced much at the top level. I would love to know why. Is it because they feel that pissing off the players and managers would have too heavy an impact on the EPL 'brand'? Is it because they don't feel they have the support from the media and FA if they do? I would love to know why. Although it only helps to a certain extent. The Laws of the Game would help with onfield abuse. But if pundits, fans and the media continue to hurl out abuse, then that behaviour will still continue to the grassroots. It still won't stop old Joe on the touchline hurling abuse at a 17 year old for making a wrong decision (and refs are allowed to make mistakes).

Fair point. This person in particular ended up in jail for abusing women, so he was a proper wanker. I just always found it interesting how he was the only one of our cohort who managed to stick with the reffing, when the rest of us just quit. For me and two others, it was simply cos we were fed up of the abuse.

I think we all agree that there is an enormous issue with the standard of refereeing. There are a few issues around this. One is, imo, Mike Riley who has only been utterly incompetent in the top role, and was never a very good ref himself. Then there has been the issue of some grossly incompetent refs (Mason) and some power and attention seeking (Mike Dean). However none of this really gets down to the real issue is that the standards of refs are just not good enough, and no amount of getting red faced and bellowing into a tv screen is going to change that. I notice today that there has been a report into the high levels of abuse that refs receive at grassroots level. To me, this is where the real issue is. We don't have the talent pool of refs, because far too many talented refs quit before they even get going. When I was much younger, I was fast tracked to officiate higher level games, along with a cohort of 4 others. Within 2-3 years, all but one had not just quit the program, but had quit refereeing altogether. The one who continued was a power driven utter ego-maniac who seemed to relish being the pantomime villain, who seemed to have very little love or understanding of the game like the rest of us. I get frustrated at all the anger directed at refs, when in many cases their incompetence is not their fault. Because they shouldn't even be there in the first place. It's like getting angry at our bunch of youngsters that got relegated from the Championship. Those youngsters shouldn't even have been in the squad , let alone the first team, and note how the fans rightfully turned their anger towards the way we were managed at the time, particularly Lowe. I get pissed off at the pundits who lay into the officials every week. Not only are they not suggesting any solutions to the problems (which they are paid to be as pundits), but they are normalising that it is okay to abuse refs. For the life of me I will never know what possesses a full grown adult to yell at a 16 year old doing their best as they referee their 9 year old. But it absolutely happens. And it is impacting our game, because I do not believe that until it stops that standards will improve. We need the biggest catchment of refs we possibly can, and the current standards are harming the game. So I guess I just wanted to open a thread where people can discuss options to improve ref standards, rather than just saying they are all a bunch of corrupt wankers. Cos I don't see how that shit improves anything. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61425471

I'm still in the 'In' camp. But only just. Realistically this season our objective is to stay up and hope enough of our young talent progresses. With so many clubs spending big, it's difficult to even see a top 10 finish as much as I want that. Ralph has managed to keep us pretty comfortably each season, and even now we already have a buffer between ourselves and the bottom 3. So he has a track record of keeping us safe. Do I think we can do better than him - yes Do I think we could do worse - yes. By doing worse, we could go down, so it is a difficult decision. If we have someone amazing lined up sure. But change for the sake of change could be catastrophic. That said, I will shift quite easily to the out camp if we continue to play defensive turgid football, and if he continues to play awful players like Arma and Moi. If we get our mojo back, press teams, put players in the right position and attack swiftly like we have done under Ralph in the past, I will remain in. But he doesn't have enough credit in the bank for me to have too many performances like the Villa one

Players are allowed a poor game. But with Moi, I can barely remember a truly good game since he has been here. It was quickly determined after he arrived that he lacked pace, physicality and decision making skills to make it with us and was shipped on loan. He has come back with none of that improved, so why on earth he is starting games is beyond me. Also, for a player whose technical skills are meant to be his strength, I find he scuffs the ball alot.

That run from Mara just shows what is wrong. No one up there to support. No plan to attack. A positive run in a negative structure.

The worst thing is Villa have been utter garbage.

I really want Ralph to work out, and I think some of his achievements here get overlooked. But his obsession with Moi is gonna get him sacked. How on earth has he stayed on?

I think we have tried to be too cute with the keeper position. It is so vital to have a bit of experience there, especially with such a young backline. It's the one signing I don't get. 10m is really quite expensive for that position. Even if he does really well, what's his sell on gonna be? 25m? Which is far lower than what we expect of players like ABK or Lavia who will be looking at 40m. His distribution is woeful as well and stops us from retaining the ball. I say this every week, but I still don't get Moi. When we shipped him off loan, it was decided he was too slow, not strong enough, and for a player whose strength is supposedly his technical skills, he seems unable to strike a football cleanly. Nothing about his reintegration shows me we were wrong to shift him on loan

It's kinda amusing to hear the "Davis - underrated" comments all over again. Think back then there was just about a weekly thread with everyone saying he was underrated, which in turn made him incredibly rated and appreciated

This is where my mind instantly went as well. Would also add Higginbotham, Baird, Yoshida, McCann, Skacel (wasn't a bad player, but never hit the hype). Not sure whether to include Rasiak. Was very good championship, but a bang average footballer.

Agree he works hard. But if I think about our current squad, we have plenty of players on the bench who also work hard which is why I am confused why he plays. Djenepo I would argue works even harder. Armstrong does. From what I have seen from Mara, him too. I guess I just want to see good performances rewarded. I find it a bit sad Djenepo has been dropped.

Generally playing pretty well against a dour, but well structured Wolves side. Podence and Neto are little shits and spent most of the half rolling around. Just still looking for a little bit more from most of our attacking players. Moi I still don't get. If he's gonna be slow, he needs to fast in the brain like Tadic was. But he isn't, he slows things down. I feel a bit for Djenepo. Put his hand up to play left back when he definitely not a natural defender. Makes sense to lose that position for Perraud now he is fit, but how frustrating must it be for him to now be sitting on the bench whilst Moi continues to put in mediocre to poor performances every game.

He really hasn't. He's broken up the Wolves play several times.

If the season was starting this weekend and I hadn't seen any of the new players, I would have been giving it a 7. I think many others would have done so as well. But having seen the new players on the pitch, I would give it an 8 or 9. Which to me shows how clever the scouting has been. What I really like about the new signings so far is that they may be young, but you can quite quickly see why we have identified them. Working in our area of the market, there will always be duds. But what I like is you can see those raw ingredients. From the pace and power of ABK, the pace and skill of Mara, the strength and composure of Lavia. Sure, some won't work out in the end, but it's clear to see why we have brought them in. It reminds me of when we had that golden period of bringing in players like Tadic, Mane, Pelle, VVD etc. With those you could clearly determine why we had brought them in and what role they had to play. Contrast that with many of our signings from the last couple of years and with some of them you wonder if a scout even bothered to watch them. Hoedt was always going to be too slow, Carillo was a walking red flag, Elyounoussi, whilst in the team now, remains unconvincing as he's just too slow, Clasie too weak, Vestegaard jesus christ. Sure there have been some good signings from that period like Ings and KWP, but it feels like we are much more focused.

How to admit you have never watched us play without actually saying it. I don't think I have seen a worst take on a player on here, and there have been some absolute belters! He's always given his all, provided some aggression on the pitch, but doesn't quite have the consistency to be an EPL player. Always one howler in a game. The reality is it is probably one division too high for him. That's not his fault, I do feel he pushed himself to be his best, it just wasn't enough. We have shifted so many players on loan for attitude problems over the last few years. Why would we hold onto a mediocre player if he was stinking the place out.

Hmm I'm confused. That's not the sort of defending I expect from a bunch of son-in-laws....