Saint86

In my mind I always had Carillo at £22M - What's important is that its basically impossible for us to top that and get a worse return 😙

Forster 6 years at £100k wasn't it? And I'd argue that that players like Boufal/Lemina/Hoedt even having contracts was both "long and excessive"... 😆. I bet Redmond has earned a pretty penny for his overall return on the pitch, and isn't Stephens on 50k per/week? Didn't someone say on here that Macca is currently on £70k as well? We've had an issue paying players their worth historically imo, and when coupled with a similar affliction with transfer fees, its definitely hurt our ability to spend competitively 🤷‍♂️

Transfermarket report is as Ings at £22.59M, and Vestergard at £22.5M, then Mane at £20.7M and good old Carillo at £19.8M 😭 I imagine those include realised add ons as I always thought Carillo was our record buy.

In fairness to them, the past 2 seasons they've had a net spend of circa £5-7m each window (excluding wages). This window they currently have a net spend of circa £55m as it stands. Which isn't that dissimilar to saints so far? However, we now seem to be struggling to flog our squad players to fund further additions, whereas some reports indicate wolves are just going to casually pop another £40-60m on their net spend then... I don't know how the rest of the finances work out though - We historically had a lot of "prem" players on long and excessive contracts, whereas I doubt that is the case for Wolves, who probably still had some players on more championship sized packets over some of those windows. Teams like Brighton are sat on a £70m wedge...

Oh come on kraken 😂. Yes, obviously i think every saints supporter who is negative about the team is a pompey fan... Or maybe I was making a faceitious point about the toxic atmosphere in the fanbase lately? 👍

Nailed it for me. Sometimes wonder if there are now posters on here who've just reached the point of actively looking out for this new/young team making mistakes / dropping points / losing, just so they can pile on / be right if he gets sacked. Almost makes you wonder if they're either Portsmouth fans or just toxic saints fans given their "support" 🤣. The board are certainly capable of making informed decisions on that front, and with a view to future strategy for the club as well, without the toxic atmosphere from the fans. But regardless, whilst the manager and players are still trying and show passion for the club, the fans should show them support imo. If the manager isn't up to it then he'll get sacked ultimatley - but we'll still owe him better than some of the abuse he's been getting lately. We'd likely have been in league 1, with an impoverished Chinese owner, record debts, and no pot to piss in without the job he's done.

The fact that we can't shift half of last season's first team squad suggests they should tailor their expectations somewhat 🙄. That and it is widely accepted that last season's squad quality was relegation scrap standard. Don't have much time for people creating a toxic atmosphere for a young team that is clearly still putting the effort it.

It was very even.

Trying to give an unbiased view of the game today. First half was a tight affair where we matched Leeds, second half Leeds made some tweaks and started very well, whilst we started poorly. But... Ralph conversed with the coaches and acted decisively to Immediatley get us back into it. Last season we would have lost that game for sure. That right there is him doing something we've all wanted last season - I.e. Having access to / listening to good supporting coaches and using them to make good tactical changes in games. And the players clearly were still there playing for him given that comeback... Also, United have just given us all a perfect example of what an unhappy squad looks like. Ultimatley, we've lost to spurs and drawn with Leeds. In response, every single day so far has people calling for him to be sacked. Any talk of giving this young team of new players a fair chance this season seemingly out the window? 🤷‍♂️ As for the formation. I don't think any of the fans likes the 3-5-2 / 4-3-2-1 Formation. I do think 3-5-2 has its uses and we've implemented it well historically - But not with these players (young / new), our injuries at wing back, and the strikers we currently have. It just doesnt work (for me) - we invite pressure and under utilise our attackers. Maybe Ralph will realise it isn't working after today, or maybe he'll stick with it 🤷‍♂️. But eitherway, I will reserve judgement on that until we see what happens in the next game. There was promising signs today if people care to see it. Fwiw, I don't think we would have lasted fitness wise if we'd tried to play our 4-2-2-2 pressing game for 90min vs Leeds in that heat. We've seen Ralph do more defensive first halves before, before going for it when the oppo tires. Maybe that was part of the plan today, but it went astray and we changed it? But who really knows for certain just yet... We're only 2 games in at the end of the day.

Another good point. Its hard to say we were only set up "not to lose games" last season - basically every week we get the "points dropped from winning positions" stat thrown in our faces 🤣. Didn't see much sign of that team not trying today - but i think we all know that 3-5-2 formation needs to be used as an exception, not the norm. That or significantly tweaked. Some exciting promise for the season ahead at any rate - provided we stick to our 4-2-2-2 yolo pressing.

Spot on. KWP was superb as well. We've just outplayed and outlasted a very fit Leeds sides in pretty ridiculous heat, and in doing so we secured a very credible comeback point. We saw so many of the summer changes come together today - the new coaching support for Ralph that has been sorely missed in previous years, and numerous new players demonstrating what they can offer.

Or he spent last seasons with Kelvin Davis and Dave Watson for support and decided things needed to change 😉 Reality is that first half was okay, start of the second half was dire, and the rest of the half was superb. We absorbed a lot of what Leeds through at us, they got tired, and then we stepped it up and put them to the sword.... or, he finally realised the 3-5-2 doesn't work for us and wastes our attacking players whilst relying on our wing backs to do everything.

Boom - 4-2-2-2 lets go!

This formation and tactical setup is so bad.

Every single corner has gone to the near post for leeds - and they've won basically all of them with a header on goal...

Important the fans back the team.... But who knows what it will look like 🤣

Not good!! https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2022-08-12/holidaymakers-told-avoid-popular-beach-as-large-fire-breaks-out

And to think, Openda was right there for less than £10m ☹️

It wasn't quite that bad...

Eh? What's more consistent.... putting together regular wins of consistent form, or showing no signs of progress/potential by flip flopping between losing one week and winning the next? You're either happy with the table at the end of the season or you're not... Everyone knows that Ralph is streaky... consistently streaky in fact.

"Made a move"? 🤣

Really does highlight that whoever leaked this was out to somehow damage the club. Which in itself is interesting.

Can he play wing back?

Also agreed. Bazunu, aribo, lavia etc are still good players / prospects regardless of the manager. And imagine we'd hire a manager to suit the style. Don't think it's particulary shambolic to give Ralph a chance with this team - he has earned it in fairness. But it has to be his last chance. Your last point indicates that its only going to be fringe players, and almost certainly the ones we're trying to shift. Says a lot that we can't even manage that 🤣😭

Yes agreed, we are where we are and patience is the order of the day - at least for a while yet. Although I do think no wins in August will likely seal his fate in reality (when paired with fan sentiment). But regardless, you won't find much patience on here atm. With the best will in the world, the reality is we have some very vocal fans with strong views - and right now some of them have truly had enough of Ralph and are always going to go in hard after losses this season. I suspect that even say a draw at spurs and win vs Leeds wouldn't have made a difference to the die hard Routists come the next loss 🤷‍♂️. Once a football fan's mind is made up, its ofte. terminal 😅🤷‍♂️ But as fans we need to now show patience and give this new look team of young players a chance. SR clearly aren't afraid to make changes, so imagine that if the time comes they'll pull the trigger regardless of the fans. But if we jump straight on the toxic bandwagon now, we will create a terrible atmosphere and damage confidence for the entire season. We're saints fans and we've got a young promising team to support this year. That's bread and butter for us - even (especially?) if we end up being shite 🤣😢.