I find that I disagree with a fair few parts of this. If we finish around 15/16th then keeping him or sacking him are both guesswork (i.e. more evidence required / could go either way) and not based on a fair review of the evidence surely (imo)? Not unless you think Saints have a right to be top half having played a fair chunk of the winter with circa 12/13 fit "first team quality" players?
You say he's had two poor runs? Yeah that's fair obviously. But he also got Saints to the top of the prem for the first time ever, and over a 38 game stretch had us sitting top 4.... So to term your review as "Slightly negative" is the understatement of the year imo. You've basically ignored anything good he's done 😆!
The fact is that he's had to sell players to buy others, resulting in bugger all net spend, and a series of poor quality legacy players that he can't shift - The baulk of the team are not signings made by him, and those players were in danger of relegation since Puel - long before RH even came along? And under Ralph we've been clear of relegation for the past 2 seasons. I'd also say that his signings have been fairly decent. Che is useful for the money, KWP is a cracking buy, Salisu looks a propsect etc.
Don't get me wrong. If we do finish the season poorly and drop lower in the table, then there is an argument to be made for not keeping him - and i totally get this view from a lot of our fans. I still remain on the "keep ralph" side of the line because i think i take a broader view of his management and can look past the recent run - although if continues with us dropping to only finish a few points above the relegation zone i suspect i'd be on the other side. However, the reality is that to make that decision as it stands, it would be a choice based on a broad emotional unhappiness at Saints' overall quality, paired with a gut feeling that another manger can come in and get more than Ralph - Who himself is better than Puel, Pellegrino, and Hughes? It really would be little more than a gut shot imo.
As it stands, to actually justify sacking him would require people to highly weight the awful run of form/injuries/refereeing decisions we've had this season, whilst simultaneously basically ignoring the very impressive runs we've been on. And i have zero doubt that if we hadn't had the injuries and/or ref decisions we've had this year, we would be a lot higher in the table. Ditto, if we had had greater first team quality squad depth we would be higher in the table - and this is down to the club's finances. None of those things are on this manager. You could perhaps try to make a case on the injury front. But by the time that materialised we had very little prep time between matches and a severely diminished squad. I don't think it is overly reasonable to expect us to have successfully and significantly changed style with everything else going on.
So saying to sack him based on the recent poor run which has been governed by a congested set of fixtures, small squad (compounded by significant ongoing injuries), limited prep time, and awful refereeing "luck"? Its not yet justified for me. And i do think there is a significant argument to be made for the fact that Saints play a high tempo press game, have had a very small squad, and the players just haven't had sufficient rest between games - they must be jaded imo.
If we finish where we are now, it will come down to how twitchy the upper management are? Do they wait and see if the summer break and transfer window can refresh the squad? Or do they think he's had his time and boot him? I would say that given finances and the general uncertainty in football, we are going to keep him unless we really do finish just above the relegation spots. But, at the time of writing i remain happy to keep him and think he'll come good again with another summer. Although what the squad will look like after we lose Ings and Bertrand, possibly vestergard, and after trying to mitigate the covid losses - well i have no idea!
Ultimately what is the real Hassenhuttle? Is he very run based? Is he the guy who got a fully fit saints playing fantastic football, beat man city in project restart, and had us sitting at the top of the league? (Do some fans view this as just luck?) Or is RH the guy that's barely won any points in 2021 - and is that his fault or is it down to other circumstances? Surely on the balance of fairness, he's carrying more credit than debt even now?
