The Kraken

As desperate as it seems now, to be fair, we’ve never really been involved in a relegation scrap under Ralph. I’m definitely nervous of our future under him, but as abject as our form is,,overall he’s actually done ok by comfortably keeping us in this division year after year.

No, my point was quite clear in itself. Though of course I want them to be better players as well, that should be pretty obvious.

Yes exactly that, well done. Youll forgive me if you think Shane Long and Theo Walcott are the equivalents of the names I posted.

Completely agree. The top sides definitely tend to sign and/or keep hold of 30+s in their senior positions: Gundogan and Fernandinho with Man City. Thiago, Henderson and now VvD with Liverpool. Thiago Silva, Azpi and Kante at Chelsea etc etc. Older, 30+ players who play leadership roles and/or in the spine of the team. With Saints we’ve got Oriel who has just tipped 30 then our other main experienced players are Armstrong, Theo, Long, and the two keepers. Maybe it’s just a numerical coincidence but I don’t think so. We all saw the benefit of having the likes of Keegan, Ball, Case here when they were in their thirties. Football has moved on since then but I don’t think the principle has.

Promising I suppose that he recognises a major part of our problem. It’s not just the defence though. We definitely lack decent defenders, we also lack a depth of defensive midfielders (Romeu is great when on it, awful when off it), and in McCarthy a keeper not good enough for a starting spot. A decent defensive midfield setup also allows us options of playing a strong 3 in the centre and mixing options up, as we weren’t able to do in the calamitous away performance to Liverpool.

Somewhat likely. I see Alex McCarthy being number one, I think we might actually prioritise a centre back. Then a promising young midfielder from the Austrian league, and a young loan striker from a PL club such as Delap.

Spine of the team. Decent first choice keeper. Leader of a centre back. Strong centre midfielder. Goal scoring striker. We won’t get most/all of them, and we need other reinforcements, but that’s how I see it.

Seems a strange user name to give oneself. Matthew le false deity.

On a separate note, I think we all agree that our end of season has been an abject disgrace. I had to remind myself just how bad our entire second half of the season was last season. From game 18 we played 21, won 4, drew 2, lost 15. Not quite as bad a points per game debacle as our current dreadful run from the Villa drubbing, but pretty awful nonetheless.

I don’t disagree that our coaching setup looks to be very weak. The problem with your solution is that a manager and coach need to be on the same sheet and fully working together and off each other. Would that happen if Ralph was forced to hire a coach? It needs a shake up for sure but we’re (unfortunately) locked into Ralph, so hands are tied a little.

He’s done it before, he walked away from RB Leipzig with a year left on his contract. Albeit he has two years left with us. He could come to an arrangement for a year’s salary as pay off and still do well financially. So it’s not impossible, though I think very unlikely. His contract is supposedly up to £6m a year but with that topped up from bonuses, one of which is to win the league, so perhaps £4m-£5m actual salary as a guess.

I’m holding out for a miracle here and an absolute master stroke of selection by Ralph. Im not holding very hard though. Bizarre lineup.

Oh right, not very much at all then…..

Is this viable? Or likely? Just having a look through the championship table, it seems like a few of the sides in that league are semi pro at best. The cost of going fully professional is, I’d imagine, very high and not going to be offset by revenues in. I think it’s fair to say the side is already currently well funded by SFC, not sure if going fully pro is even financially possible without massive backing (revenues aren’t suddenly going to skyrocket just for being in the Championship).

Not a lot of meat on that article! But welcome home Gareth nonetheless…. I thought Spurs might be in the box seat for him, but if they keep their front three of Kane, Son, Kulusevski, that’s already pretty decent. Bale was half a starter half a sub when he was there before so maybe that’s in the offing, just not sure I see it this time round. Any club would at best basically be buying a player up to November, for World Cup prep (and that’s if Wales even make it). If Wales don’t qualify it becomes a less appealing deal. I’d have him in an absolute heartbeat though if his wages were anywhere near being in our budget.

Very much agree. It’s very rare that teenage glovesmen get thrown into regular premier league first team action. I like the idea that we’ll scout around for “the next Tino” from the top sides, there’s an awful lot of talent that City, Liverpool and Chelsea in particular send out on loan. It can’t be the cornerstone of our recruitment policy though, it needs to be secondary to signing solid pros with a bit of experience to them.

If we recruit based around the fact that McCarthy is our starting keeper for next season then it won’t be a good window IMO. I haven’t seen Bazunu play, I know Pompey fans rate him but some of the comments I’ve seen from them suggest his next step should be a Championship loan, they’ve said he’s good but still much to learn. I wouldn’t have thought he’d get loaned out to be a designated number two to Alex McCarthy, I’d imagine City would seek some sort of ambition for the loan club to make him a number one so he gets plenty of game time. We’ll see though.

Fuck off weirdo 😉

That’s three examples provided. Still no comment…..

And here’s another one on this page. https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/topic/57561-the-ralph-hasenhuttl-thread/page/127/ MLG erroneously stated that Ralph didn’t walk away early from his job at Leipzig. It was pointed out that this was an incorrect statement. No reply.

And John Sitton now drives a taxi for a living. Definitely what we need.

Correct but entirely forgivable, he’s just such a prat that sometimes you feel like you just have to respond.

They have for previous seasons, eg below. https://www.hampshire.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/hampshire-constabulary/other_information/hc-000174-18.pdf

Which pub? Its important.

It’s been like it for years, since we got back to the PL. OS said game sold out then, come game day, swathes of empty seats.