Saint Fan CaM

As usual the hope is that somehow our weak attack is magically transformed into one that can penetrate a well drilled and organised defence. However, the reality is that Ralph will have us playing safe keep ball, lots of backwards/sideways passing, putting Bazunu under more pressure than necessary leading to hoofball with midfield bypassed and few chances being made. And the most frustrating thing is that Everton are nothing special, just like Wolves and Villa, but they will probably come away with a relatively straightforward win as tactically we are so easy to predict. Result: 1-0 Everton. If any of the above is correct I hope the Board have the gumption to do something about it asap because it will surely provide the evidence that persisting with Ralph could put us in real trouble before the end of the year.

I was under the impression you had faith in our full of potential squad, but you want to bin off Adam Armstrong? I don’t think he’s going to score too many this season, but then Che Adams is hardly looking prolific so should he go too? Is Delap actually likely to do any any better under Ralph and his tactics?

But that’s the point I’m making. The squad maybe good and yes it’s got potential - it’s that I’m highly sceptical that Ralph is able to utilise the players he has at his disposal to best effect. There’s a perfect example of the poor tactical decision making in utilising JWP, bearing in mind that he has the ability to score goals. What we see at the start to games is him sitting deep distributing the ball sideways backwards mostly, however after we’ve gone behind and chasing the game, he changes to being more forward thinking and attack minded, moving the ball quicker and making himself available further up the pitch. In my opinion that’s due to instructions from the Manager who sees less risk in us playing keep ball.

Absolutely hypothetically! Trouble is I believe our win rate is currently circa 11% over the last 27 games (28.5% from just this seasons games), with little sign of improvement if Wolves and Villa are suitable examples. It could be argued that the trajectory is declining performances in relation to investment. To counter that, we could see Lavia and Tino return to the 1st team which might improve our win rate, but 11% is most definitely relegation form (and so is 28.5% as I doubt less than 35 points will mean survival).

Given it was clear the 70% referred to were those who voted in the forum poll, your attempt to out-pedant MLG has spectacularly crashed unfortunately. Having said that, it’s a damned good impression of MLG’s irrational hijacking of a thread, so well done. 😉

Thing is and this is important, it’s not just the Villa game. It’s not even just the Wolves too - it’s been 12 months of poor performances - 3 wins in 27!!! The steady decline in strange team sheets, substitutions, lack of progressive attacking football, loss of the high press (even though we’ve improved the defence), the astounding lack of creativity (when we’ve got some very exciting players), lack pace in transition/attack, regression of some players, potentially serious (career defining) injuries to two young players (Tino and Lavia). The list goes on. Ralph must be on borrowed time now. And it seems 70% of us think he should go, it’s just when. It will not be before Everton I suspect, however I’m not expecting a win as they're just the type of team that we can’t seem to dominate, so we’ll see if he gets to the WC intact.

Yes, this is covered by the second option, although admittedly it could equally mean ‘mind is made up now but sack him later because there is advantage to making a change around the World Cup break’. I was leaning towards this option, but history does suggest nothing will realistically change.

Agreed, but the concern is that for months and months now we’re not seeing any attacking ideas other than a trundle up-field, pass it backwards/sideways a few times and try to get someone to cross into an already crowded box against sizeable defenders most of whom are stronger than any of our ‘attackers’. When I watch us advance I see a flat front 3-4 players, no movement off the ball, no-one willing to take a risk and/or players not working for each other to get an assist. Rinse and repeat.

So the option of ‘make a change later in the year’ is not what you’ve suggested there? Obviously if he’s not sacked now and he manages to turn things around in the games before the World Cup, most fans will be very pleased to be proved wrong although I suspect they will still be doubtful of sustained success as performance history is not on Ralph’s side. For me personally the issue is as much about the increasingly dismal performances as it is the match results. Every form of creativity and skill seems to have been sucked out many players. For example, JWP is looking a shadow of himself when he was at his best and it’s reasonable for fans to question why.

Someone suggested a poll, so here it is. Will close at the end of the month.

That we’re 14th currently glosses over the fact that we look like a team heading for relegation - the performances are just seriously awful now…there’s a rot set in and it’s not just the grass at SMS! I think you’re right unfortunately…the Club are unlikely to sack him now, but he must be on borrowed time. It’s very difficult to tell whether another Manager could get this squad working more effectively, but one thing is for sure…they can’t be much worse.

You may be right - make no mistake, I start watching each game with a high degree of expectation that the team will turn a corner and find the winning combination. But then we’re mostly disappointed and confused by the result. The trouble is it seems Ralph’s management record is a bit like that old saying “a broken clock is always right twice a day”… i.e. it’s starting to feel like a bit of luck that we get a result rather than by design and tactical competency. We don’t do the simple things like triangulation passing very well at all…or at all in some games. We don’t press as a unit anymore. We don’t attack at pace. The list goes on and on. And that’s the essence of my misgivings about Ralph’s continued tenure - nothing has significantly changed to suggest the extremely poor end to last season is going to improve at the start of this season, other than admittedly we’ve been blessed with a better CB pairing.

Really? So you’re confident he can turn around the most shocking record of a Saints EPL manager for quite some time? You’re really happy with the trajectory of the 1st team performances? I applaud your confidence and unparalleled knowledge. For me I see no change to, unfathomable squad selections, poor tactical preparation, poor team performances, lack of successful attacking tactics, strange demotivating speeches and above all distinctively poor results over the last 12 months or more, particularly at home. It’s time to move on with our thanks for his service.

At the moment it’s difficult to see where an improvement of the order needed to survive relegation is coming from. You can argue that we don’t have the quality in the squad, however until we attempt to play more attacking progressive football we’ll never know for sure. So for me the entire responsibility for our EPL survival or the lack of derby games next season lies completely with Ralph and his coaching team. They’ve got a huge job to change the course of direction in which we’re currently headed and so far there’s little to feel optimistic about.

It’s time for him to go - his managerial performance since halfway through last season has been terrible. I truly believe there’s a better squad in there if only they were managed and coached properly. Need to go back to basics of a 442 or better still a 433.

This is key to my thoughts. We ended last season playing a certain way which resulted in a terrible run of form. We spend big in the summer and yet we’re still playing really shit negative football. This guy is going to relegate us eventually and on tonight’s performance, this is the season. It’s as bad as I can ever recall - even the Pellegrino time.

I get that you’re as peeved with that performance as the rest of us, but you’ve completely got the wrong end of the stick here. How can my review of the first half of the game, at half-time, be pre-emptive? I think you’re taking yourself a bit too seriously if you’ve taken offence because I’ve asked you to comment on whether the second half was any better. Very MLG! 😉

He shot me down at half-time because I said we’d been dross, so I invited him to review whether we’d improved in the 2nd half. He obviously took it badly.🙄😂

Utter rubbish free kick…no intent, no skill, seen better in League One. Talk about the Emporers clothes.

Where are you then Trousers? Think this is not utter dross? You’ve had almost an entire game to disagree with my half-time analysis and things have actually got worse!

Just stop the utterly pathetic ‘long’ throws FFS. Ralph has to go now…he doesn’t have a clue to how beat a poor team.

Fook me, if JWP passes backwards once more when in plenty of space I’ll end up damaging the TV!

JWP - what is the point now? Can’t tackle, can’t pass, poor dead balls…I’m struggling to see what he brings. Alongside Elynonousy our midfield is shit.

Err, so you agree we’ve been better than utter dross all across the team in the first half? Really? I’m hoping of course that somehow Ralph manufactures a silk purse out of a sows ear at half-time…it may happen and if it does I’ll be the first to congratulate him for a stunning display of tactical genius. See you at full-time.😏😉

Utter dross all over the park. Seriously poor tactical management AGAIN from Ralph.