Golac's Cunning Stunts

The cult of Ralph is never going to dis their idol, even if / when he gets us relegated

I remember chuckling over the summer when some leicester mug was on here gloating about getting vest and bertrand. it has turned out exactly how i expected.

Once again a one sided view of things from you. It could very well end in tears I give you that. However, I don't agree Villa have little quality. They have some more than reasonable players. They are on a bad run at the moment, Ings is out. They will turn it round. As for Gerrard, managing Rangers is not a bad start. Lots of pressure and expectation there which he lived up to. European competition too. It's a very logical move for him to make, the jump thats required if he wants to manage the Scouse some point in the future. It's a risk, but you don't get anywhere without taking on risk in life. Ideal situation for me is he does just well enough for Villa that the Scouse come calling when klippety fucks off and then he fails miserably there. Would be lovely to see.

Thats as lame a response as the team was in the semi final last year. There's no excuse for how lame they played that day. One game from wembley they should have played their hearts out. They didn't.

The key question is do any of them own a yacht we can track the movements of?

It does seem you have a bit of a weird infatuation with Howe. He did more than ok. Christ, he got Bournemouth into the prem and kept them there for a few years. No mean feat. He hardly had the pick of the world's best players did he? Wouldn't be surprised if he does ok at Sandcastle

Yes they did. I think they'll go back for him. But you're right, you'd think they would have someone lined up before they sack him. Of course, the ones who should really be sacked are those who installed Santos in the first place...naming no names...

think they will go for Conte

There's an easy answer: just stop reading it if it annoys you! You need to be a little careful though, as you were accusing people of being wrong on the stadium thread and it turned out you were wrong. I know being pedantic is your thing though.

Agree with this and what Sheaf says. It would be really interesting to have a discussion on here about who people think would be an ideal replacement for Ralph given our position, budget, constraints etc. Problem is, people get polarised very quickly and it all degenerates into arguing and insults. A problem with most footie forums I would guess. So out of interest, if you were doing the scenario planning for Saints replacing Ralph, which candidates do you think would be a good fit and why?

I agree - bit of a non subject really. I just felt you should give the man credit where it was due. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Saints under RK. You would think the board must be seriously considering replacing Ralph. I would expect them to already have the replacement lined up. All businesses plan for future scenarios, replacing the manager is one that would be planned for and discussed on a regular basis. But maybe I'm just seriously deluded in thinking that!

I agree it won't happen, but that's a seriously one sided view of Koeman. You mention signing Cuco but not Van Dijk, Tadic, Bertrand, Mane. Also, are you saying we should keep Ralph because he has finally built the squad he wanted? That squad isn't exactly setting the world on fire is it?

Why have you made up a story that it was never due in October when it was due in October? 🤫 Get your facts straight before you write posts accusing people of getting their facts wrong smarty pants.

Don't start! They'll all be posting "The season starts now" again and making themselves feel good about the shite we've had so far.

"one point below par" All this tells me is we are one point below a bottom 5/6 performance overall based on your expected points?

Years ago I did some I.T. work for him at Palace. Got paid for it in the end, but it was a struggle getting payment i seem to remember

I see. Thanks for that I didn't need you to tell me who finished in the top 6 last season and who won Champs league. Do you not think there's more to it than saying "don't worry, we had some hard fixtures, the season starts now lads"? We took 1 point from 6 in two very winnable games so far, the one point being rescued in the last kick of the game. Do you not find that worrying? Do you think games against the likes of Burnely, Brighton, Leeds will be easy? Do you think we have the creativity to break those teams down? Do you think Ralph will change the way we play in order to give us a better chance of beating "park the bus teams" do you think we have enough fire power? Not asking you to answer by the way - these are just things I think on. We'll soon see. I worry the answer is no to a lot of these questions.

The season starts now because sporting life says we started with some hard fixtures? phew. we must actually be good then.

Because if we had him as manager I could change my username to Xisco Inferno

Why on Earth would Watford want Hassenhutl as their manager?

A lot of people saying how well we have done against the top teams and therefore we are doing ok and will hopefully pick up points against some of the "lesser" ones. I think the way we are set up, pressing and playing on the counter suits us to do ok against the better teams. Lets' see how well do when we play say Burnley who will come and park the bus. I foresee disappointment mainly because we do not possess the creativity or flair to break those kinds of teams down. Can easily see that result being a 0-0 or a 0-1

So looking at Ralphs salary and the 21 points haul so far this year, it comes in at something like £215k per point. Pretty expensive!

Why? Serious question, not a poke...

I'm not sure it is. I was looking at the teams in the league trying to identify 3 obviously worse teams and I really couldn't. We'll see what pans out and hope I'm wrong. We will surely be fighting relegation if you follow the form book. I was really hoping we'd improve our defence and GK for this season and looking at it man for man, we haven't. I hope we can turn our brittle mentality round - when one goal goes in we lose all fight and before you know it, one becomes three etc. We could do with a Jimmy Case, Razor Ruddock or Terry Hurlock in the side!

It absolutely does. Last season, we could be 3 up and still be worrying if we would get the 3 points. That isn't changing this season for sure.