saintant

I know and it just makes no sense to me. Wish someone could explain it. I'm sure there is a whole list of stat which prove if you mark zonally you are less likely to concede but it's never made any sense to me.

Nil, shots of any kind and nil corners is basically cowardly football.

What is the point of zonal marking? An attacker runs from one zone to another so the bloke who might have been marking him ends up marking nobody. Meanwhile the attacker has run into another zone and chances are he'll not be picked up cos nobody sees him coming. Weird system.

Get to half time at 2-0 and that's acceptable.

What is there to be scared of? We've already suffered two defeats by 9-0 it can hardly be worse than that.....or can it? Gulp!

For the vast majority of this game I very much doubt we'll even have one up front 🙂

Not much chance he'll take it easy on us and Haaland will just want to keep on scoring goals. Looking at their recent average goals per match we'll do well to restrict them to four or five.

Be interesting to see whether we manage to get through the first ten minutes without conceding. I don't think we will.

Very interesting read and he seems to be a switched on guy who has some innovative ideas. I see the second article mentions he had a spell working at Brentford. The only thing is his club's emphasis seems to be very much tailored on bringing players through their accademy into the first team. It might work for them but not so much in the Premier League. Still, one to keep an eye on for sure.

If we sack Ralph my hunch is that SR will appoint another foreign manager. Don't believe Cooper will be considered.

Fans of every team get on the players and manager's back when they are doing poorly or misplacing lots of passes - it's human nature and impossible to rank us 3rd worst with any certainty. I remember Man City fans chanting 'You don't know what you're doing' at their then manager before the big money extracted them from being a struggling side. It's the way of fans up and down the country - we are no worse or better than most others. Personally I think Ralph has gotten away quite lightly considering some of the crap he's presided over and I do get that he's never had the luxury of being able to spend big. I reckon the average Saints fan just wants to see some better football than we're getting and a few more wins especially against sides outside the top six. For whatever reasons, and many of us have speculated on what they might be, Ralph doesn't seem able to turn the ship around. He's had some good spells but more bad ones so, for me, we should be parting company with him and bringing in someone with fresh ideas. It would probably the best thing for Ralph because for a while now he hasn't looked like someone who is making a very good living from an exciting job due to the stress he's putting himself under. He talked recently about retiring so maybe the time has come.

Yeah and then he has a quick look at his bank balance and things don't seem nearly so bad.

Agree with all this.

How much is your mate willing to pay people to take the tickets off his hands?

City could score any number of goals unless we are right at it from the first minute.

I didn't read the Athletic article. Did it contain any new information in terms of Ralph's training methods and relationship with the players? If not I'm beginning to think they were short of something to write about so decided to just rehash some old news. It's strange that there has been no response from the club or owners unless I've missed it. I know the Echo said they're giving him more time but there doesn't seem to have been any denials or refuting of the claims against Ralph. He's run his course for me and it is time for a fresh start.

I accept those things but believe that Ralph struggles with man management and is an autocrat. Maybe those things didn't affect Ings' decision to join Villa or Broja's to return to Chelsea. You will disagree and that's fair enough but there have been more than enough rumblings coming out of the club along the lines that he doesn't handle the man management side of things particularly well. These stories persist and, if there was no substance to them, I think they would have gone away.

I would just say there is no smoke without fire and there has been an awful lot of smoke.

In the proverbial nutshell.

It'll break our own record then 🙂

Every time Sky flash up worst records of the season, no matter what the category, it seems we are one of the teams listed.

If you play the game the right way, move off the ball, play between the lines and reduce the negative sideways/backwards passing for passings sake, get the ball up the pitch quicker that will pressurise your opponents and lead to more chance for more players and more goals - ok, a good striker will increase the goal tally but I think the point is that our current style of football is not one that creates a lot of chances per game. In a way this puts more pressure on those getting the chances because they know they are unlikely to get many in a match so need to convert the scraps that come their way. It's our style of play that is the biggest problem because it is sluggish, turgid, uninspiring and easy to defend against.

Think SR might well live to regret their faith in Ralph.

Have a certain sympathy with Ralph but he does come across as a bit of an autocrat who will not listen to others and he also appears to struggle with man management which is a big part of the job. Not suggesting that's all his fault as we know what some players are like but other managers seem able to cope better than Ralph.

Well you have no proof of that as we have no real proof Ralph didn't speak with the players after Saturday's game. Either way I think a manager worth his salt should always have an immediate debrief after a game. I get that sometimes emotions are running high but even a few words should be said with a full debrief another time when calm has been restored.