Barsiem

Lots of people claiming Ralph did brilliantly with the squads he has had but I am not sure I buy it. Great start and some great runs but so many poor performances. Even if the squad was poor (and I don't think at any point we've had one of the three worst squads in the league) a good manager should be able to instill some drive and bottle, and that's the biggest thing we've missed the last two seasons. I can take losing, I cannot take going down without a fight I guess we'll see in hindsight

You do realise he could resign at any point right??

I suppose it depends if you think Ralph is underachieving or not. If you do then Saints could be an attractive role for someone like Frank. But yeah he's got a good thing at Brentford so may well not touch us with a barge pole! We need a change though... Please go Ralph

I do feel we’re missing a little perspective here. In the CC table we actually have scored the second highest batting bonus points for the year (albeit 11 points behind Surrey, who obvs bat at the Oval). Only two teams in the league scored more batting points than bowling, which perhaps is a damning indication of the quality of batsmen in the game right now when considering you can get 5 batting bonus points and only 3 bowling. This is obviously skewed by how early and late in the summer the CC games have been played as well. Yes the batting is not quite there, and yes the last two games are a very disappointing end to a fabulous season. Hopefully we can get a very solid opener in and get that little bit better for next year.

Apparently today’s debacle has cost us £145k in prize money!!

Final game of the season then today. Disappointing team selection tbh.... I would have hoped Prest at least was given a chance, but we've put out a full strength team

I stand corrected - Vince was better than I thought, though by his standards that’s a poor average for the season. His captaincy has been spot on though. We’re very lucky to have him

Fair play to Surrey, they've been a juggernaut this season. I always felt we were a quality opener short of a championship quality team, but we're slowly getting there batting wise having added Brown this season. Vince has had a terrible year with the bat unfortunately. We've had a bit of bad luck. The Essex loss was a bit farcical, and not being able to play Surrey at home was unfortunate. We've had a great year overall though. Winning T20, semis in 50 overs and hopefully 2nd in the CC. Congrats to the boys, hopefully we can go one better next year.

Great morning for us. Kent 5 down and Surrey have lost their top 3 for 80odd.

I’m sure there was one on the transfer window thread that got over 30. It was the guy who posted a meme trying to summon mlg back to saintsweb if someone knows how to find it

It would take an amazing turnaround for Surrey to win from here, albeit if any team is capable of it it's probably them. Anyone know whether Abbot is fit? He obviously missed the last day of our last game but I cannot find any info about whether he's likely to be out for a while or not

If you watch our season highlights from the time Anders played for us you'd see he was involved in the majority of the goals we scored, but yes actually watching Saints at the time you'd hardly ever notice him.

Northants following the same script against Surrey as against us so far. Started really well with the bat, then started to collapse. Gone from 77-0 to 94-3

Suspect that's more to do with him being an introvert than being moody tbh. That's the sort of thing that would be my worst nightmare!

Except the advice he received from Saints would be biased, and he would be receiving equally biased information from Chelsea. He’s an asset that both clubs wanted and he will be well aware of that when considering the offers, so no surprise he wouldn’t be sure whose version of ‘what's best for him’ would be correct. Also, plenty of players have made the move to Chelsea at a similar age and made the grade, or City. Lavia moved to them at 16 and two years later had a bid for his services of £50m! And of course you can be patronising to a 16 year old… I get told off by my even younger kids for being patronising to them on occasions! anyway, my point is not that Ralph’s comments are incorrect, just that they are better made in private conversations with the next player who thinks to leave the club like this, not for the entire public to read how a 16 year old made a mistake

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised anymore by this team…. Beat both Gloucestershire & the weather! Huge to get maximum points from that game, and pressure on Surrey now!

Well I was right that many would disagree with me 😂 I guess I'm most aligned with Badgers point about whether it needed to be said publically in the first place. Strikes me very much "I told you so", which for me is not necessary. The example Tyler has set though will be beneficial the next time the big teams come calling for one of our youngsters

Ralph has been commenting on Tyler today it seems https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/21116748.hasenhuttl-addresses-lessons-youngsters-shock-southampton-return-chelsea/ I suspect many will disagree, but his comments annoy me a bit. Quite patronising to say Tyler should have listened to the club more and I also don’t understand the comment about the club doing everything for its youth players. Tyler did what he thought was best, and then brave enough to say when he realised he’d made a mistake. I’m not sure Ralph’s comments will exactly help Tyler’s reintroduction into the club

Given the weather forecast earlier this week i probably would have snapped your hand off if offered max batting/bowling points and a draw. Here’s hoping we can do even better from here.

£4m according to the Echo

What is all this about him being disruptive?? Never heard this before good luck redmond. Solid but unspectacular for us, but did give us many great moments over the years

Looks like it's going to be a dead match given the weather forecast... Hopefully we can squeeze as many bonus points as possible in the time we do have, albeit we really need a win to stand any chance of overtaking Surrey

I’ve made this point already… but why on Earth would any player agree to this? What’s in it for them? City say, we’ll buy you back, give you £5m as a signing bonus, and then sell you on for £80m. Whereas the club that is willing to pay £80m could just offer Saints £70m direct (which you have to think we’d accept if the alternative is to lose him for £40m) and the end club could give the £10m saving direct to the player. The scenario makes no sense…. Financially it will always be better for Lavia to go straight to the end club Only way City activate their buy back clause is if they want the player for their squad, and that tbf is a distinct possibility in a couple of years time

Little surprised we turned it down tbh!! Guessing it wasn’t anything like £50m upfront though. Probably heavy on the add ons

Definite 9 for me, just the striker piece missing but the way we have strengthened the spine of the team is huge imo, should mean we concede less, and in turn get away with having a few fewer goals than we would like. That said Che should get 8-10 a year, which is about standard as a leading goalscorer for teams outside of top 6. Aribo could well contribute similar, and we have JWP as well so think we have enough. If A Armstrong continues on his resurgence as well he should get at least 5. As others have pointed out, the way the club has been transformed this summer, both in players and back room staff, is very promising indeed! I’m the most positive I’ve been about Saints since Koeman