Saint86

I personally don't hope we lose just so he can be sacked. Heard a couple of weeks ago that we were waiting for a Premier league manager to become available... If true it was unlikely to be someone like Frank becuase he is in zero danger. If it wasn't Cooper, it could well be bodgers. Could also have been lampard or gerrard I guess. Given our players, I actually think lampard would have been a good fit... But no chance now. I actually think it's irrelevant who we get atm. Without lavia and romeu we have no midfield anchor, and we don't have good enough creative attacker's / strikers to seriously threaten. Our defence is fairly good, but we don't carry a meaningful threat which means teams can punish us without too much concern. Any manager is going to struggle to keep us up with this squad.

Not yet no, guess we're committed to him for the big week ahead. Needs to get 6 points I reckon... Should be interesting given we have no cdm and don't look remotely like scoring.... 😅

We so badly need a striker. All our good form under Ralph has been when he's got someone who can be relied on to finish chances - be it ings, or Broja last year. SR are seriously guilty in that regard. Instead we've got a manager thats been roasted over the coals for attacking in the past (and suffering the odd bad loss), and so has resorted to defensive boring football, with no identty, and seemingly no confidence in anything anymore. Ralph has been good for us, but this does now seem like the end of the line - both with the fans and the players. Its just not working and its going on for too long. But I certainly have my doubts than anyone else will keep us up with no decent strikers and no CDM. West Ham at home is now a massive game for the club. Really need to win that.

No, and no one is saying we should be "pleased"... but we can still be grateful it wasn't worse. Put it that way, a 4-0 loss at the Ethiad won't be the worst result there this season.

Fair play to the saints fans that are up there. Finished 4-0 because man city were in training mode for much of it. Clear we never had any belief in getting a result today, maybe the intent was only ever to limit the battering.

We have two youngsters on the pitch. One is in goal and has done well all things considered. The other is ABK and has done well. Bizarre comment. We're losing becasue KWP is having one of the worst games i've seen him have for us, and because Diallo is a passenger and certainly not the ball winning CDM that we badly need. If KWP had played a bit better it would likely be 0-0 to be honest!

I mean, we were robbed there last season, should have been 2-1 and vs 10men

Think we'll put in a good performance actually... but winning at the Etihad... vs this city side. You'd be a bold man to put any significant money on that.

What do you mean Steve? Are you implying that a finish of 7th place in each of the last 3-4 seasons was in some way unrealistic? 🤣

Said it before, his connections come out when the club need some positive media spin put out. Nothing against the bloke (i like him and enjoy his coverage), but he isn't a good sports journalist. He reports on and is basically a fan of saints (i know he's mainly a villa fan above that).... but whatever he says about saints is from an angle that's either approved by the club or may as well be imo. Don't try to read anything else into what he writes beyond that imo.

I'd actually love Poch to return... Can't get away from that. He's available, he's being linked with premier league jobs (lately villa), and we have young players that fit his style of play. Plus we can whip out the old "we signed pochettino" chant. I do realise it isn't happening. But i'd still love it.

Huge difference between allowing the club to continue running itself and stepping in to sack the manager. I think the call will be with Semmens, although they'll be pressure from above i'm sure, and he'll likely have to act at a certain point to protect himself.

I thought SR weren't going to take a hand in the day to day running of saints? In which case its on semmens like as not?

Yup, agreed, especially if you look directly at promotion rivals West Ham who had a significantly better squad and yet we pipped to automatic promotion after taking 4 points to them - "yet he was consistently out coached by his rivals". Struggling to understand how over a 46 game season we can finish second with a thin squad largely new to that level, and it be described negatively. The entire fanbase bites your arm off if you offered them that 5minutes before kick off vs leeds in August... (still remember Hammond's goal, was sat right behind it, beautiful start to a season 😍). As for, "its amazing how people's impression of his abilities improved over time".... - the only reasonable assumption one can take from this view, is that there was a raft of people saying we were going to win the league before a ball was ever kicked, and anything else was an under achievement. Do the old pre season prediction threads still exist? Can't remember anyone saying "win the league or he's shit" that pre season 🤣 Also, you can say what you want about the ability of some of those players - but Adkins coached them to that level over his time with us 🤷‍♂️.

Such little faith in ABK. Tut Tut.

Just to add to this. I'll support him whilst he's here and trying. The decision ultimately needs to come from above. If he somehow finds the way to turn it around then fair play - i guess it may happen given it is a young team. But no lavia, no striker, wavering confidence in the team, a very young squad to bed in, and a manager who is struggling himself - it all suggests its only going one way from here on out and i really do think he's waiting for the axe to fall. I think Everton was the key game. Win that and it would have been an okay start still - we'd continue in the halfway house of 50/50 confidence in him with patience to see if the team would improve, but losing it was very very damaging for him and our prospects. He is a shadow of his former bullish self and i think he is paralysed somewhat by the guillotine hovering over his head. Whole situation is neither ideal or fair for anyone involved.

I've backed him for a while. But he's lost his identity and confidence as a manager, and unless he miraculously recovers those quickly he's finished. I find the abuse he gets from some of our "fan" base very distasteful as ultimatley he's done a lot for the club over the years, and he continues to try his best. But I think we're at a point now where the board really do need to put him out of his misery. What Jordan says is right, the club have stuck by him very admirably. But he looks lost with no way back at the moment. Would be a tremendous sign of faith / gamble to back him again through this patch - at the moment we're in relegation form. That everton game is the tipping point and I'll be surprised if he is still here beyond the city away game.

Think this Everton game was probably the one he absolutely couldn't afford to lose. He's utterly lost his way as a manager, came in playing a distinctive attacking 4-2-2-2 with a high press and the ability to beat teams. I don't even know what we've been doing these past 3 games. I wouldn't blame the board if they were approaching another manager now and got the paperwork done whilst Ralph gets the team ready for city. Urgh, we have to play city away next. Going to be grim.

Yeah... FFP definitely hurting their spending ability on the wages front...

Bad result this one. City away next, confidence is low, 6pointer to Everton potentially and certainly points we needed that have been dropped. Team selection was poor and the first half was appalling on the whole. Defence imploded after we scored.

Man City are going to score a minimum 5 goals against us i reckon.

Is the answer (ANM) playing? 🤣

Interesting line up - excited to see how it goes - but then I'm in the group thats enjoying watching a young saints team with potential have a go at teams. Is it a 4-2-2-2 with Mara and Che up top, or 4-2-3-1 with Mara and Aribo on the wings? Sensible to use CC vs Everton's lack of pace with his enhanced ball playing as well. Clear that we've settled on ABK as #1 CB!

Gary neville? Stay quiet on something political? More chance of saints winning the Premier league this season. He'll use that position to draw attention to it. Why do you think western TV companies won't highlight the horrendous abuses of the Qatari regime? I would say they'll be a backlash vs anyone that doesn't.

Interesting Hypo. Your other quotes demonstrate that the players still backed him even after the 9-0's? Or as least that was the internal view. Which is interesting and positive in fairness. He may well have a man management issue, but i think that (and the lack of trust in / ability of the support coaches) has been addressed hopefully this summer. Results and performances have been pretty reasonable so far this season. We're neutral after a fairly tough start and you'd like to think that such a young team (with so many changes) will start to gel and develop as the season goes on... Still think he's one the fence Job security wise - we don't know what the expectation is from the board, but at some point the form has to go one way or the other. Time will tell!