Cabrone

Derby are a pretty lightweight team that a half decent prem side would have battered. Unfortunately that's not us. Redmond, Gunn and Cedric aside the rest were sub-par to dismal. Moi is just not up to it and I don't ever want to see Long in a Saints team again. Defence was a permanent mistake waiting to happen, midfield never had control at any time and the strikers were, Redmond aside, toothless. Plenty of endeavour but they simply aren't good enough, 2-0 up and we couldn't put a lightweight Derby team to bed. At least Ralph should have a good idea of what he's got to work with now.

Looking forward to a decent game of football. Can't believe we have fans that would like to throw the game. Look to win, never go into any game looking to exit out. Confidence breeds success and all that, besides which I love the cup.

Harsh, they're just having a laugh at football. Not my thing or yours by the sound of it but each to their own.

Excellent result, yes we may be in the bottom 3 but we've definitely turned a corner and we are still very much in touch. If you'd have offered me 4 points from Arse and Citeh at home and Chelski away I'd have bitten your hand off. Ralph has navigated a nasty set of fixtures and come out of it with 7 points, fantastic effort. Onwards and upwards!

If he's the guvnor does that make the team the walking dead?

Losing to Man City is no surprise, will probably lose to Chelsea too. Ralph is on the right track though and by now he will be getting an idea of who he wants and who he wants to offload. Wouldn't be surprised to see a few German unknowns coming in. The real work starts now.

Couldn't give a toss who wins the league, just want to see SFC play some good football and finish as high as possible. Top 6 is a plastic circus, at least the vast majority of our support have a real connection to the area.

Citeh ripe for plucking? If Ralph can pull 6 points from the next 2 games I'm going to start believing he's some kind of supernatural being.

Used to be Everton, we had a huge run of games where we couldn't bear them back in the day. Now it's the top 6 but something tells me our new manager might be able to do something about that, hope so anyway.

La Natzione reporting that Gabbi wants a return to Italy, Bologna and Fiorentina interested, Fiorentina firm favourites. Ralph is fine with the move. CSKA were also interested but Gabbi only wants Italy. Looks like he's on his way. Shame as I don't think we ever saw the best of Gabbi but if Ralph needs the money then time to say goodbye....

3 weeks ago we looked dead and buried. Now we look like we can give anyone a game. Ralph's given us our mojo back and at breakneck speed too. I had high expectations from the guy and he's exceeded them. Not just the results but the spirit and optimism have flooded back way faster than I think anyone dared. He'll be on his way to the top 6 probably in 18 months. Hopefully this time the owner has learnt a valuable lesson and we get the next up and coming guy rather than the last 3 duds.

With the right manager Mario's a class act and I think Ralph is the right manager. Expecting much bigger things from Mario for the remainder of the season and a likely transfer this summer. He's a general if coached properly.

Fan behaviour getting 'worse' because it's getting more violent etc? No - compared to the 70s\80s and early 90s it's very well behaved now. Violence was a possibility at any game you went to. Some player getting a bottle thrown at them is a long long way from those days. Fan behaviour getting 'worse' because there's less atmosphere now vs previous decades? Yes, but I think one comes with the other. Want less trouble? Probably going to have to accept less passion as a side effect.

Looks at home in that seat doesn't he......

Damn, after 2 and a half years of dross that feels good. Hoped Ralph would get this team moving by Jan but he's started already. Going to be interesting to finally see what these players can do under a good manager. We may find we have better players than we thought. Kudos to the club for finding Ralph, already starting to feel like the good old days.

Couldn't agree more, fans need to realise he has a huge job on his hands just to survive. That is our only target for the remainder of the season.

Thought Gao was a total chump until recently but with the dismissal of Reed and the appointment of Ralph he looks like he's starting to get a hang of things. IMO we've punched above our weight with this manager, it would be criminal to see him go because we didn't back him at least a bit.

Sorry OP, don't believe it. Really happy with Ralph though, about time some ass was seriously kicked at this club. Gives me some hope we can pull this around - just.

Expecting a loss, we all know this ship is going to take time to turn but I am hoping for a better performance, more energy, intensity and sharpishness. This month is a steep learning curve for Ralph, we need to hit the ground running in 2019. A draw would be great and a win would be amazing.

If Saints can produce the form of a 45 point season from now on then we'd get enough points to have survived 50% of previous seasons over the last decade. Our current form is a 22 point season. Ralph has a mountain to climb.

Remaining 2018 fixtures coming up ..... Arse(h) L, Udders(a) D, Spam(h) D, Citeh(h) L IMO we're looking at 2/3 points from remaining 2018 fixtures giving us 11/12 points from 20 games played. Too much unrealistic expectations on here, going to take the new man some time to turn this rudderless ship. My hope is that he can mold the team into some kind of winning group by Jan 1st as IMO they will need at the very least 23 points from 18 games, equivalent of 49 points over a season, just to have a sniff of safety. Ralph has a big, big job on his hands. It's on a knife edge IMO.

Ralph out. What? Too early?

WH: I thought this new guy was an expert on German footballers? ML: He is WH: Then why did he sign the Pole.

A week ago I thought we were dead and buried but now I think it's finely balanced, the new manager has to get things moving and fast. Every game we fail to put points on the board makes survival incrementally harder. I don't expect instant results but we really need to start looking like a winning team by the end of Dec to have any chance. That means defence steadies and attack gets some bite. I still see us with 12-14 points and a mountain to climb come Jan 1st but if we at least look like a half decent team by then then we might just get the 24-26 points from 18 games to do it. We could also get lucky and find the safety threshold is quite low this year, maybe 34 points(?) but you obviously can't rely on that.

Nothing unexpected in that game, Spurs hammered us in the 1st half and then went on cruise mode in the 2nd. Glad Ralph was there, I just hope he knows of a few decent cheap strikers and CBs - we are in big need. Would be tempted to pick Charlie on Saturday, his entire worth is in goals and having finally gotten one I'd like to see if it triggers a little run. Up till now he's not really been worth a place in the team but a burst of Austin goals over the next month could be the difference between staying up and going down. It's not as if any of the others are scoring is it.