S-Clarke

It was certainly closer than we'd have hoped in the end, but it's a fair assessment to say that we've not really been involved in the battle at any stage. We've always been 6-10 points away from it at all times and never in the discussion. That's been the case most of his tenure here, it's like we're close to making that next step but we just trip over ourselves all the time.

I can 'somewhat' understand the McCarthy deal. I don't think it was safe for us to lose every single goal keeper. Lewis, Willy, Forster, McCarthy. It leaves a lot to do. As long as McCarthy is going to be backup, there is sense to keeping at least one of them around. Forster I think was offered a deal but didn't take it, certainly not on the reduced wage.

We will almost certainly need to find a fullback, even if it's just a temp cover. Tino won't be seen again until the start of 2023 at the absolute earliest. The Walcott deal last summer is the one thing which makes me doubt the likes of Crocker and co, I like to think they're more switched on than who came before...but that one deal makes me question them big time.

We improved full back, that's pretty much it. We went with Stephens, Bednarek and hoped that Salisu would step up. He did, but he's young and will have moments where he needs some quality to see him through. He had Bednarek. Goalkeeper continues to be an issue as well. Need to rip the heart of the defense and GK out if we are really to improve defensively.

Long, Theo, Willy and Romeu are our 'over 30's'. Bar Romeu, the others aren't starters and would struggle to make the bench in any other PL team, maybe even some champ teams. I'm not calling for us to go and buy lots of 30 somethings, but we need to look in the market of 24/25 year olds who have already 'achieved' things and are ready to take the next step. Similar to what we did when we signed Mane, Tadic, VVD, Wanyama, Lovren etc. We've got to get back to that, and for that we need to spend more money than we have been sadly.

You've got a good record of these sort of posts turning our form around. The last time you posted to tell him to F*k off was in December 2021. The rest was history for the next 3 months. Shame about the end though.

Don't jest. I'd expect our new owners to have a bit more sense!

I agree, Romeu's legs are going now and we need some freshening up in there. Keep Romeu around for rotation, but we need better in there (that's how you improve a squad, saints - you evolve positions) I think we'll see a lot of changes in attack too, we have to. Long will go, Broja has gone, Redmond, Moussa, Theo up for sale. That potentially leaves us with Adams, Armstrong, Armstrong S, Tella and Ely in the attack. Down before a ball is kicked. I guess N'Lundulu will be back though...🙃

I think most clubs sign players with the hope of getting a decent sell-on, but I agree that we do it to the extreme and openly admit that's what we're doing. I found Semmens comments very depressing a few months ago. ''for us, it's not important about where we finish in the league, that's not what it's about for us, it's how we develop and how the players we've signed have improved''. Doesn't that kind of admit it's not about the fans and building a good side, it's all about developing players so we can get profit? Sad situation really. I hope things have changed now.

Another pitch invasion and yet another player attacked.....Villa's keeper attacked a few times as he was helped off the pitch.

I'd agree that this is more of his team now, certainly more so than last year. He's had a chance to mould it and with more depth this year, sadly he's done even worse. But...to add some realism to that, he's done it without a goal scorer as we had to sell our best player (Ings) to fund the deeper squad. So we create more problems by trying to fix others, it's not a great recipe. I think we've kept Redmond, Stephens, Long on newer contracts because we didn't have the finances to replace them with anyone else, so we kept them around in hope they could get better and live up to 'potential', but that hope was always misguided so we now need to give up and use the new ownership as a catalyst to finally improve.

Ralph's post match comments on the OS.

Definite spine of the team upgrades required. Priorities are simple for me. New GK New CB New CM New ST New Wide player. Bonus additions - another new wide player, full back cover and another striker. I don't have a problem with buying 'young players', but they should be the 'bonus additions' rather than the spine additions. The spine players need to be already established players who can step into our team from day 1. We need to move on from buying 'potential, that we can polish' to buying polished potential that we can make even better.

From the horses mouth... “Before the season, a lot of people had us on the list for being a relegated team, but if you want to make the next step you have to change a lot of things next summer and that is what we will do. “We must come to the point that we concede less goals, definitely. We will have some new players in the defence what we are looking at and then we will hopefully be more compact next season.”

Are you going to bother responding to the other points made, regarding you running away when your mistakes are pointed out?

Both of those teams have better players than us though, they've both underachieved this year so even without radical changes for both of those I'd still expect them to improve.

No, we've not been involved in any direct battles at such, but we somehow managed to get ourselves onto the periphery of it. Another month of games and we'd have been done for. I think it has been too close for comfort when you look at the final standings, and it doesn't stand us in great stead for next season should things stay the same.

I honestly don't think any other manager will get anything else from these misfits. So if we do get a new manager, we'd still need to change up most of the squad. I'm not sure what our players have ever done to achieve such ratings my our fans, bar KWP/JWP/Romeu/Salisu/Adams/Armstrong S I'd say the rest are bottom half of the table quality and even championship quality. Valery, Stephens, Lyanco, Moussa, Redmond, Armstrong (A), Tella, Smallbone, Theo, Long, Elyounoussi, Bednarek, McCarthy etc wouldn't get starting places for any other team in this league in my opinion. If we do decide to get rid of Ralph, we potentially waste a month at least searching around for a replacement whilst missing out on any targets we had identified, thus increasing the risk of us starting the season with the same as we have. If we keep Ralph we can at least push ahead with our plans and re-build this squad early.

Agreed, big test this summer. Everton and Leeds aren't going to be as bad next year and automatically that's two teams below us out of the equation. I cannot deal with another season of Redmond, McCarthy, Moussa, Theo, Long, Bednarek, Stephens. I just can't. It would finish me off.

Certainly a huge summer and a real test of their intentions and ambitions. If we've been searching for years for the 'right' investment and have passed up numerous other opportunities, then let's see why we went with these guys. I'm positive about them. But to be honest, it's all I can really be positive about at the moment as it's a bit of an unknown.

We are way too close for comfort this year. Eventually this is going to catch up with us if we're not careful, if we lost the freak win we got (Arsenal) or lost the couple of sneaky draws we got (Brighton/Leeds) we'd have been gone.

Tarkowski is off to West Ham I think, all but done bar the announcement from what I've read. Burnley want £40m for Pope. If we spend that much on a single player then I'll eat my hat, that's all we usually spend in the entire window.

Slightly over the top. I assume you've not had to watch Stephens for the last 5 years? He's enough to send you to an asylum.

It's hard not to be fed up, but there needs to be a tinge of realism appointed so we don't get too carried away. Over the last few seasons Danny Ings goals have been the reason we've got to 40+ points, his goals alone kept us up. Once he was sold for big money, the club were quick to pat themselves on the back for achieving such a fee, but we needed to replace well or we'd inevitably face a struggle. We didn't replace well. Our ings replacement needed to be a success, or we needed Redmond/Moussa/Tella/Adams to step up into the fore. Neither happened. Trying to compete in this league by selling your leading players and replacing them with duds is never going to work. I accept we're a selling club, no problem with that, but having to sell before we could even buy (and not even able to reinvest the entire fee) is a true recipe for disaster. And because we were shopping in the bargain bin, we were only looking at PL academy teams and mid-table championship sides. So, we've got substantial work to do. Not the odd young player here and there, nope...we need a root and branch rebuild of the entire squad if we have any ambitious to do aim for the Top 10. In terms of the manager, I still maintain that no one else would do any different with the bunch we have. Next season will be the bigger test for him with (hopefully) much more quality and all of the lingering bad smells gone. We'll see where we are come the pause in November, but without a radical route and branch reset of the squad a new manager will make no difference. Personally I'd rather spend the millions it would cost to pay him off on improving our squad.

This is what happens when you shop in the bargain bin, you get rubbish that others have given away as they have no use for it. He's committed enough, but is braindead. So in that sense he fits in really well with our squad.