The Kraken

Does it? I can quite easily see Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong being on the list, don’t think anyone really wants rid of them. Wouldn’t be surprised if KWP was one too. Broja likely told the club what he thought of Ralph before he left, I think this has been mentioned before. If JWP hasn’t expressed concerns I’d be somewhat surprised.

KWP definitely has. Romeu as well, he was very good early in the season before his legs gave out later on.

I wouldn’t say Calum Wilson is a strange person, but if he doesn’t want to take the knee any more, I wouldn’t classify that as having a issue with making a stand against racism.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62493260 BBC article where Calum Wilson confirms that players were instructed to take the knee. "Doing it week-to-week, just because it's something we've been told to do, I think it's probably faded and lost its impact," said Newcastle forward Wilson on the latest episode of the Footballer's Football”.

There weren’t a lot of options at left back / left wing back, we all know that Ralph had one hand tied behind his back. Personally, I’d have taken the option that Perraud was fit enough for the bench therefore fit enough to start. But we didn’t lose this game just because of Djenepo, he was merely contributory to it. We did have some other options though, including switching KWP to the left which gives options of Valery at RWB (not ideal at all but more defensive that Djenepo), or even JWP and shoring up CM with Romeu from the start. Like I say, none of those were ideal options. The problem I have with the Djenepo ‘solution’ at LWB is that we all saw it for what it was in pre season. Djenepo was ok going forward and against lesser teams, but in defence we looked completely vulnerable on the counter particularly down the flanks, Djenepo’s side mostly. Some of that was tactical, getting the wing backs to play high, some of that was the player just not being a defender (KWP for instance in pre season made the right side work a bit better). Playing away against one of the best sides in the division, we were on to a hiding to nothing with that system and the players we had to fill it.

I hope Ralph knows that 3-5-2/5-3-2 and 4-2-2-2 are not the only formations allowed in football.

AA was subbed off at half time, so that’s bollocks.

What you said and what @FarehamSaintJamessaid are not mutually exclusive. Salisu would definitely develop with someone good and experienced alongside him. He’s quite good now but 23 is still young for a CB, playing alongside someone better and more organised would give him a very good licence to learn and improve. Salisu may be the best we’ve got but he’s got a lot to learn himself. Same for Ketchup.

That’s the opinion I got about playing 3 at the back, it was almost like Ralph was saying “there, “we” think it’s the answer but it’s not”. Mara being binned off after after 45 minutes and thrown under the bus seemed like a reaction to a player he didn’t want.

I’m intrigued to know why we played a new default formation of 3 at the back for almost all of pre season, then after the first game of the season the manager stated that it’s not the right solution after all. What was the process involved in adopting this formation, and did we recruit players based on 3 at the back other than 4? If so, where do the manager’s comments leave us?

Have we actually initiated a moneyball strategy? I’m yet to see it if we have, yet I see a lot of references to it on this board. Moneyball is not about buying players cheap and selling them for a profit. That’s a strategy we are certainly going for, buying some young players and providing a route to the first team with an indication that we’ll happily sell players to bigger sides if they do well for us. Good strategy, but not in itself moneyball. Moneyball in baseball relied on detailed sabermetrics to identify high value, low cost players via a different scouting and assessment criteria to that commonly used. Basically picking up players that were undervalued and less popular to other sides, backed up by a massive amount of analysis and statistical evaluation. Are we doing that? Don’t know but it’s not instantly apparent to me that we are.

This is my thinking, we’ve spent a lot so far and are talking of spending more. So, are we spending all the money that was loaned in under Gao, are SR financing us, or are we going to look to balance the books with sales? One would hope that money can be generated by offloading Elyounoussi, Bednarek, Redmond etc. but that’s going to very hard to get meaningful cash for them. The other options are selling the established players, Adams unfortunately seems like a possible contender there. The nuclear options are JWP and KWP, but obviously we all very much hope that they are not even in consideration. I’ll remain concerned until the window closes, there’s a long time to go yet.

Not surprised. The club has spent a good deal of money so far this window and is talking about spending more. I’m still expecting one or two players to leave to at least in part finance that. Worst case solution, JWP goes, and towards the end of the window. Just my opinion.

Or “Never play chess with a pigeon. The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over, shits all over the board then struts around like it’s won.“

Yeah, I’d be surprised too. I did note Ralph’s tone in his BBC interview, where he said: “We tried it with a back 5, but it is not about this” and ”we thought that we are better with defending in this way, but the reality is different”. Like I said, probably over thinking it, I was just struck now negative he was about 3 at the back considering we’ve done it almost all pre season.

It would also mean playing 4 at the back after almost a whole summer of playing 3 CBs at the back. I’ve been thinking (probably over thinking) the whole 3 at the back move. I know we’ve played it before, yet pre season seemed like an absolute determination that this would now be our default shape. In his post match interview Ralph was very quick to throw the formation under the bus and say it doesn’t work. So I’m wondering if he’s been directed to move to 3 at the back by the new owners but he isn’t exactly on board with it. Given how stubborn he is about his own ideas and reluctant to take blame, it struck me that in the first game of the season he declared the formation as being flawed.

One more Brighton goal and we’re off the bottom.

It’s about the only benefit from today, I suppose. Pre season should have told him this though, so that’s five games and a whole summer wasted trying to play a shape that even he says doesn’t work.

Just watched Ralph’s interview with bbc, bottom of the page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62358043 Im more convinced than ever that Ralph will be off soon. He sounded totally lost and basically said that he knows our defence is poor so he chucked in an extra defender to sort it, but that doesn’t work either. The inference i got from it is that he doesn’t really know what to do.

The third goal goal did seal the game, but only insofar as that it finalised the flow of the game and let Tottenham relax. After we scored our goal we were totally under the cosh and looked like doing nothing going forwards. Granted, for a few minutes before Spurs’ third we started to look a bit better, but we never really threatened doing anything. Let’s not forget that, almost immediately after half time, we let sessegnon run through (offside) to score, and that set our pattern for the second half after being well under the cosh for most of the first half. Ralph tying to claim that the third goal was any sort of turning turning point is utter nonsense.

Sadly, this sums it up for me.

He’ll play LWB instead of Djenepo.

I’m starting to think he will, and maybe rapidly. He was forced to get rid of his coaching team and hire new people. I don’t believe the summer signings are his idea, they mostly fit the SR model and the new guy from Man City has clearly been instrumental. I think Ralph is on borrowed time, I think the club know who they want to replace him with, and I think we’ll have that change sooner rather than later.

The more I think about it, the more I think he’ll be gone by September. We look like a team in disarray. I think he’s a dead man walking, and I think our whole transfer strategy this summer has been done in spite of him, not because of him.