S-Clarke

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.

Stuart Armstrong hasn't been great, it's been stop-start due to injuries though. Even though he's still our best, but that pretty much sums up the state of our other options. I'd have dabbled with the idea of starting Small today, but he's gone with the experience of Redmond (not that he's a LB). Not sure Ralph is a fan of Small, he arrived to much of the same fanfare as Tino but doesn't get a sniff. So there's obviously some amiss with him.

1) - I guess it's because we know Broja won't be with us, whereas with Moussa he may still be. We might struggle to shift him. 2) - He needed a game time, nothing wrong with him starting. The criticism is that it feels as if he's been thrown to the lions den with very little support behind him. That's why Adams should have started with him, in my opinion. 3) - Romeu was always going to start. I personally think he loses fitness once the season reaches the end months, so we manage him a bit more. Need to replace him in the summer for sure. 4) - No idea, he's probably one of our better attackers in terms of touch and movement but he's painfully slow. 5) - Stuart Armstrong is our best number 10, so if he's fit he always starts for me. 7) My criticism as well, would have been good to see some young lads with at least a chance rather than trying the Long/Theo/Moussa dance again. Only reason I think we're lacking academy lads is that we want to protect him, and the state of the squad is so bad at the moment that we're not confident enough or in good enough form to be able to 'carry' any young players.

We could stick him in the window of John Lewis, with a big 50% off sale sticker on him and we'd still get no takers. The only way he goes is if we pay him off.

At least on the bench, I'd agree with you. What's the point in filling the bench with Theo, Moussa and Long? Might as well give the youth a 'chance' to taste game time. One positive is no Bednarek though, feels like the penny may have finally dropped about his shitness.

All Leeds need is Ralf Kruguer as Chief Exec and they'll win the irritating soundbites league.

Hmmm, this is not how you get the best out of Adam Armstrong. The main, glaring, obvious weakness in his game is a lack of physicality and height. So playing him as a single striker doesn't make a great deal of sense. The only player we have who can play that lone role is Adams. I feel he's going to be totally isolated with that nothing attack behind him. If we had quality in the 10's who can break the line with their pace and get to the bylines etc it may be different, but we don't so it's going to be a slog. Feels like Armstrong has been sent out to fail so we have an excuse to give up on him.

That's exactly what he's always been really, we don't know what to expect from him and neither does he or the players around him. It's a shame it hasn't worked out as he seems like a great character, but he has always lacked the physicality to really boss full backs and defenders in this league, wants too much time on the ball and struggles to beat a man. In a lesser league he'd be class, as he'd have the time to skin players with his quick feet.

Great effort, nice to see some success in this club for a change. The womans team are on a crest of a wave right now, only way is up.

Yep, true...! He'd certainly add some pace and power to our attack, not really sure Burnley is ever going to be the club to get the best out of him.

I can see Leicester and West Ham being in the mix if he becomes available. Rumours are that Leicester are looking for a replacement for Kasper this summer, and WHU need to replace Fabianski sooner rather than later. I think Newcastle have snapped up Henderson, so that's them out of the mix.