egg

Devils advocate time. His contract is running down. Saints won't offer him what he thinks he's worth. Another club have indicated they'll sling him a mil or two as a signing on fee, plus Saints will have to pay a chunk as a loyalty payment on his transfer, then he gets another X thousand a week for a couple of years at least. Anyone can see that's tempting for the lad. The above, or something like it, may have been the case for a while. Our Danny might want it to happen, he's a hired gun after all. That would unsettle Danny, that's obvious, but I'm not sure why it'd destabilise the whole club. What we also don't know is what's preventing a move or new deal. It's a negotiation. Whether it's Danny being unrealistic, or the club, or a potential new club, or the agents, we don't know. What I do know is that I wouldn't be a twat and label Danny a twat cos it hasn't got sorted yet.

Paranoia, behave!! It appears to me that you're an existing member posting under a different name and you are, it's not a drama. If you really are new, welcome. On subject. You're essentially saying that the players need to be changed because Ralph' management and coaching of them means that he is is now getting poor results out of the very same players. How that becomes a player issue rather than a Ralph issue I can't fathom, and pointing to you're preferred evidence of the net spend table doesn't make your argument any better.

Thank you, I hadn't seen that. Interesting read.

And there's the rub. We have the same players as we did when Ralph was getting a tune out of the players. Thus, the lack of spending is irrelevant to our recent form. The team consisting of those players is now massively out of tune and Ralph hasn't been able to fix that, and doesn't look like he can. Not sure I'm feeling the new alter ego by the way. Slightly less abrasive, for now at least, than the old one though.

Had he just changed a forward for an inferior forward your point would be valid. If you think making 3 changes and disrupting us as a result of 1 injury was good game management we'll agree to differ.

Matthew, let's get back to spurs. Did Ralph's changes after Ings got injured help or hinder? Would just swapping out someone from the bench for Ings have been less disruptive to the team? Straight answers please.

For me it was part the poor decisions / changes Ralph made, and the changes tactically Spurs made. They didn't bring players on that improved them.

If Bale and Son came on when we were one up and changed the game you'd have a point, but they were already on the pitch. Ralph chose to make multiple position changes when Ings went off and we went to shit after that and lost.

Good post. There's no denying that he's done well previously. He's also done well here with this group of players. Thus, I don't agree that the run we're on is a funds issue. Essentially, the players are the same but the performances and results aren't. If the players aren't performing, that's a Ralph issue. If the starting tactics aren't working, that's a Ralph issue. If other coaches are making in game changes that we can't/don't adapt to, that's a Ralph issue. However you cut it the performances, results and tactics with this group of players under Ralph's command have declined.

Yep, that sub against Spurs was appalling. He needed to make 1 change up front. Just one. Instead he brought on a midfielder, shifted players around and essentially made 3 changes. It completely disrupted us and went towards us losing the game. Aside of the mess it caused on the pitch, a change like that sends a very negative message to the forward players on the bench. Poor.

Yes, he's a good coach in that his one system and style is ground into the players who all know their roles. The problem is that everyone else knows those roles and systems and that's why we're so easy to turn over. Whether he's tactically stubborn I'm not sure, but one you've only got one trick, you've only got one trick.

Nah, St George is the Saint of tea and cake, whereas St Paddy is the Saint of booze and debauchery. Imagine if the Cheltenham festival was based around St Georges day rather than St Paddy's, it'd be shit.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather Gao's mum took charge than Allardyce or Hodgson, but I'm not sure how or when anyone thinks Ralph can suddenly turn this around. He's a one trick pony, and his trick no longer takes teams by surprise. For me, he's taken us as far as he can.

It's bollocks, we have not had a stricter lockdown than countries where only 1 person has been able to leave the house at a time, or had to stay within 1000 metres of their front door, or had to be indoors between 9pm and 6pm, etc. Our lockdown has been much lighter than that.

That's ridiculous. In France people had to fill in permits to go the shop, and then got fined if they didn't go to the nearest. They could only venture a very short distance from home to for a walk. We've had families having outings to costco, and people going out on nice long bike rides. Our lockdown has been lighter than theirs by a mile. Other countries have had actual curfews from early evening, but we've had 24hr shops still open. Sure, it's been crap, but don't try and argue that we've had has been the most severe lockdown in the world.

What you don't do is assume. That's not how this works. You look at the actual evidence in the particular case, ie words said, etc. A white person beating on or killing a black victim does not on its own make the incident racially motivated. The assumption that it must be is wrong.

I get all that but that does not prove that this is a racially motivated incident. Sure, its a possibility, but there's no evidence in this particular case. Don't get me wrong, Chauvin may be a clan loving racist, but it's wrong to say that there was racial motivation just because America has a huge racial problem. For what it is worth, I'd hazard a guess that race was involved, but the point of the discussion is that there is no evidence of that.

That's poor by your standards. You're confusing a wider race issue with a racist incident. The former is indisputable, but that doesn't make the latter racially motivated.

Our tactical changes are so subtle and slight the opposition aren't hurt by it. Tell me when Ralph last made a tactical switch on game that had a positive outcome. Our changes can hurt us though. Take the semi final. Ralph's big tactical switch (before the mess at the end) was to push the full backs higher and press harder. What happened? Rogers clocked it, got his strikers to split and push into wide areas or the channel between CB and FB. Pretty quickly they got on behind, exposing Bednarek in the RB are and scored. Game over. Other than the above, our changes aren't much more than a striker dropping off, or Bertrand tucking in making it a kind of back 3, or the 10's either going wider or more narrow. The shape essentially stays the same though, as does our way of playing. No going to a 3 up top, or 3 in the middle with a central runner, nothing. It's shit. People can see the changes, and can see that they're not helping us. Our tactics are simple and Ralph has been found out.

Short answer to the question is yes and that's obvious from our accounts. Our outgoings exceed our income and we're having to borrow to bridge the gap. The only solution is to have an owner chucking in millions that he'll never get back (if he has it) so that ain't happening. The alternative is to sell players and use the money to plug the financial gap, but without players we kind of have a problem. Our model of buying players cheap, improving them and selling on has been hit hard by shit player recruitment. There's been the double whammy of players not only failing to improve to make us a profit, but they've not even been good enough so have needed to be replaced. There was always that danger though. So yep, without a sugar daddy with more money than sense, this league is too rich for us.

Everything about it was unfair. Millions of people on social media have been telling everyone that the fella was guilty. Millions of people hijacked it as a reason to riot and cause carnage. It was the catalyst to get sportsmen, our footy players included, to take a knee. It would have taken a brave juror to acquit the fella. Aside of whether he was guilty or not, he had no chance of a fair trial.

Who

Cracking finish to be fair. The change made no sense though, basically 3 changes from 1 injury. Minamino playing off Adams seemed obvious to me.

You have no idea what most of us are thinking. Enjoy the game treacle.

People like you go and watch the one show and leave footy to the rest of us hopefully.