Saint86

Liverpool 64th, Tottenham 62nd, United 59th 😅

"That was one of the tough ones tonight. The performance was a disaster today and I have to apologise and take 100% responsibility" I'll let you guess the game ^_^

Sorry if I slightly misunderstood your meaning, i think your "slightly negative" summary and the tone of your last paragraph persuaded me you were already saying he should be out. But yes in short, I think we agree on his current position but arrive at it from opposite perspectives - I.e. Ultimately the jury's out on whether he should go this summer, but they're likely to find in his favour at the moment. Hah cheers. Got one right eventually! 🙈

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?

Saints store down for maintenance? 🧐

Can't have a thread about Mike Dean and not take a few minutes to really digest the subject matter surely?!?!? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq1Ozo0Zhn8

The cynic in me would say its because he didn't think we could get anything and just wanted to avoid another drumming. Whereas if he thinks we can win he doesn't give any attention to keeping the goals against tally down 🙄

Been a lot of comments lately about Ralph's inability to change, to be solid, that there was no effort or battle in the team. For tonight at least, we did all the things that have been missing! Credit where its due.

This. All VAR has done is given them a 2nd (and even more opaque) chance to ensure the required EPL Narrative/Script plays out.

We've played well since the joke decision. Fair play to the team and manager for that. Probably should be 1-0 up given Tella's chance.

Yeah saw this. He's off in the summer, and the manager probably is to...

No No No. you misunderstand. This is a dummy. We're going to trick Leicester into thinking we aren't playing counter attacking football - all by taking off our fastest player and most creative winger for a CB.

Bad substitution. Tella is probably our most dangerous player in the attacking 4...

I was thinking when he came off that that was his last goal/game for saints.

10 years ago we were a League 1 club that had just come off the back of administration, having our academy and supporting staff pilfered, and suffering a reduced level / quality of youngsters as a result of our financial position and lowly league standing. Fast forward 10-11 years and all of those 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 year olds that would have joined as schoolboys when we were a premier league team did just that - to another premier league team, not us. Then you've had a first team that had 12 senior players fit at the start of the year 🤷‍♀️..... and people are surprised that our youth teams have suffered even more? seriously? Some of you can call it "excuses" all you want. But the reality is that the quality in the academy sides is not what it was, and the academy squads have been stretched even further by the need to promote players upwards to help the first team.

Exactly. People who can't see it are just looking for a pattern to suit their agenda.

If Semmens is on his way then i'd say its fairly likely that Ralph will shortly follow/precede him.

So, has there been any solid news which implies someone with actual money being involved in buying us? Or is my private musing of, "We're going down with no money in the bank", a fairly reasonable expectation for the next couple of seasons? 😆

They're top of Ligue 1? 🤷‍♀️

15min mark for anyone who is interested. He also sounds like he'd be a good man to take over given his very impressive record at lille. I can't see Gao accepting a £100m loss on the club however, purely from a face saving perspective. More likely that he'll hold out as long as possible to get as much money out of the club as he can, and then sell.

This feels like a great opportunity to share this video on youtube. Think its the best Le Tissier video on there imo, and given all the ESL rubbish recently, just a great vibe flash back to some of footballs true glory days imo. So many sensational goals, runs, free kicks etc. From his frankly insane run on a quagmire pitch (3min mark) to his United chip and everything in between - Enjoy

Obviously this. Anyone who thinking otherwise is burying their head in the sand. The sport urgently needs reform and regulation to protect competition.

The winger is walcott presumably? And I'm surprised youvre surprised. Our on the books "wingers" are tella, redmond, djenpo, and Armstrong. That needs strengthening as even with walcott and minamino on loan we've struggled. I would enjoy it if we did actually go in for Daka (although I think it's unlikely), if only so we can be excited about a signing again.

Obviously it's not good enough. But the only point I do want to make, is that we played an awful lot of games in quick succession with basically 12 fit first team players. Our sqaud is jaded beyond anything I've seen before.

2012/13 onwards.