Saint86

Fans need to stop giving them anymore money until they start to seriously improve or get out. Don't buy merchandise / tickets etc, stadium walkouts / boycotts, protests etc. We're clearly down this season, so actually they've made it easy for fans to vent their feelings with no fear of negatively impacting on pitch performances.

Not sure how realistic that really is when you consider the lack of quality in our attack and us missing key players, but fine. But despite having those key injuries, gelling a new young team together, and having played all the best sides, Ralph was only 3 points off 12th when he was sacked... (game week 15) We were 13th for xG, and 15th for goals conceded. With winnable games like Fulham, Everton and forest etc still to come... Obviously being 18th for goals scored highlights the real issue - the absolute derth of Premier league attacking quality. Personally, it was absolutley not worth torpedoing the season and club's future over it, not unless we had a top quality mananger waiting in the wings at anyrate. We were dropping points by fine margins and we are absolutely worse off now. Anyway, it is done now.

Easily one of, (if not the) worst squads relative to its division in the 92. Well done for highlighting that. You dodged my question where do you think this squad should finish with kwp, ABK, lavia, and Livramento out inured?

Sacking him is going down as one of the biggest mistakes in the club's Premier league history 🤔. Also, who said I ignored the form? Personally I just apreciated the limitations in the squad, and aknowledged we were dropping points on fine margins with obvious mitigations. To copy your tone, it's amazing how you ignore we had kwp, abk, lavia, Livramento out for most / all of this games. With Che Adams and Adam Armstrong as the only strikers after ings and broja were never replaced. Neither is good enough to score enough goals and keep the side in the league. Plus ofc a fan atmosphere that was increasingly over expecting of the squad and manager, and then in turn blamed the mananger for not meeting those expectations - despite it very clearly being down to recruitment and lack of funding. It was sadly very detached and unrealistic from the fans. I have no idea where exactly you think this squad should finish at full strength? let alone with 4 of its best players out injured for key games? But we were in touching distance despite all of the above and despite playing all the top sides... It was the wrong call to sack him - and certainly if we didn't have a top mananger on hand to come in. He was the main thing keeping us in the league in recent years... Just needed ings to be replaced. Regardless, Jones has to go ASAP. He doesn't come close to Ralph's performance metrics and appears to have never had the players on side. It's one thing to be involved in relegation scraps, it's another entirely to be dead certs to finish 20th with an established team at the halfway point. We've got no identity, no penetration, and no cohesion.

With the same squad of players, Ralph beat Chelsea and narrowly lost to united despite outplaying them. Overall he had kept us in touching distance so far this season... and that was despite gelling a young team together and key injuries to important players. Jones has a full strength squad and couldn't muster a shot on target vs one of the worst prem teams I can remember in forest. Put simply Jones has to go - we cannot afford the damage he will do to the club and fanbase over the rest of the season, let alone having him in charge on the championship. Sacking Ralph was a poor call, one that becomes increasingly indefensible with each passing day. He just needed a striker and CDM cover and the narrow draws / losses would be points on the board, likely seeing us rise to comfortable mid table. As it was, ings was never replaced, the fans blamed Ralph 🤣, and they got what they wanted re his sacking. Sadly though, if we continue like this (with Jones) we will rot for years in the lower leagues for years whilst our finally revitalised academy is stripped by prem sides. The years where Ralph has staved off relegation under gao have been utterly pissed away overnight. But yes, I agree. Unlikely to matter for our prem survival now. Keep Jones and you can certainly stick a cork in it, we're done. With Ralph we'd have got points from these 3 games. Instead we've given one of the worst prem sides I've ever seen (in forest) a crucial win in a relegation 6 pointer at home, without even hitting the target. What an absolute shit show.

Some fans still trying to defend sacking Ralph. Going to have to wear that for a long long while!

Ralph would have kept us up, fans can keep telling themselves he had to go if they want, but they should have no illusions over what a terrible call it was - one that will be a key decision in relegating us - along with not signing a striker or cdm cover... Its impressive just how fast our metrics have dived off a cliff since that sacking.

This has been said to death on here. If those players are fit and he doesn't pick this 11 and loses, then he deserves whatever flack he gets.

Just logged in, we've got people implying we're too good for a Croatian world Cup semi finalist now? They've seen the position we're in and the strength or our attack / midfield? Did any of our current crop even make it past the groups?

FWIW, and for some inane reason that i cannot quite put my finger on, i think we'll beat forest 😅 But yes, agreed. total f'ing shambles!

Hope it isn't this... But sadly feel like it is. We try to do all our business, "quietly" after all, and we have tended to use the telegraph as a press/PR mouthpeice historically.

Club seems utterly rudderless and rapidly drifting onto the rocks at present. No excuse not to have got a key signing in for forest, it really is do or die time - fail to pick up winnable points and we're as good as gone.

That was clearly the right call.

How confident are you that we still have it? It was allegedly there for Gakpo/Ramos (no real proof we had the money in all seriousness), but since then we've paid of ralph, and paid for Jones etc. Part of me wonders why, if we had those extra millions, we didn't just pay the few extra that was allegedly required in the summer - and if we did have them, how much is left?

So you agree the players are shit, but think Ralph should have gone for it? Fair enough. All history now.

My point is - we could have pep himself and our attack is still shite... Ralph had us 13th for xG but 18th for goals scored. Who knows if Jones can better that by the end of the season... but the reason we are in this mess is because SR failed spectacularly to buy good attackers in the summer - we got Mara, Aribo, and Edozie. - The latter was basically a trade for Romeu.

As with Ralph, the mananger isn't the real issue... Our attackers are appalling and cannot score. It's irrelevant outside of that - we need wins, and without goals we won't get them...

Seems a reasonable scenario in all seriousness... Well apart from the fact we didn't sign gakpo / ramos (/ openda 😪😜), or anyone else of Premier league quality! 😔

Entire fanbase presumably unanimous in this?

Yeah agreed. He badly needs support in and around him in the romeu / lavia mould - it gives him that extra bit freedom and takes more of the defensive work. That and some increased quality / fluidity up top to actually make use of his passing. Said to death on here. But its beyond crazy that we've played most of this season without an obvious defensive anchor in midfield. I can't remember the last time we tried that for a significant part of season. Such a stupid position to have gotten into.

Hard to disagree. I'm curious to know what our wages are like. If we go down then we obviously lose significant money short term. But against it we've shipped out so many senior players on large wages now, some that are left will likely leave regardless next few years? (salisu / kwp /Stu armstrong)? The promising youngsters were all signed fairly cheaply, are on long contracts, and I suspect are in relatively low wages - they'll be the first team next season - regardless of league... Plus I reckon jwp will still be here. So financially, could we cover the income drop by selling some of the senior players knowing that if we get promoted, the long term business plan is to sell the kids for a profit - which won't change? And ofc we get parachute payments. So is there some kind of scenario where SR think we're cleverly cushioned from relagation?

Personally, I didn't think it was that likely when I first started to think about it, but then a prominent itk on here liked a comment suggesting that it's from SR, and it's something I pondered a bit more since. So could be nothing, but my general musings; Frankly it is just weird that Ralph (basically a career 4-2-2-2 high line high press fanatic) changed to the 5 at the back and extensively ran with it in pre season (even though it clearly wasn't working). He then stuck with it for all of 45min of competitive football - its surely pretty weird for a mananger to so quickly abandon the entire pre season approach like that? Its also weird that this tactic is at odds with the club's attacking / pressing ethos (which ralph is largely credited with implementing at all age levels over lockdown / project reatart), plus we've lost a lot of backroom staff related to the academy / coaching etc under SR. Also our transfer policy this summer re cb's and restructuring for 5 at the back. Maybe that was all on Ralph (we'll likely never know but I doubt it personally). So then okay, they sacked Ralph, they could then go out and get any mananger that they wanted, one that you would imagine is comfortable playing a formation and style practiced at all levels of the club and which the players are familiar with... Nope, that didn't happen, instead we've specifically gone out and spent significant funds on the lesser spotted Nathan Jones, who seemingly plays 5-2-3 with direct / long ball tactics, and instead of a high press and ball recovery, seems to stand off, let's the other team have the ball, and targets nearer 25% possession each game.... And we're again seemingly after CB's this window. Whatever the reason, it's a notable change in direction after the summer of SR taking charge starting to ring (almost constantly ongoing) changes, and spending a significant amount of money to restructure the team no? Plus right now with Jones, we're using up valuable "winnable" games to practice a formation that the players are certainly not used to. Anyway, probably all just circumstantial and reading too much into all the changes that are going on. And there are bigger issues right now than what formation we play (hmm, well maybe) 😅. Whether it ends up being a good or bad change in direction?... Hopefully it works this year and we go strength to strength (only time will tell I guess). The fact remains though - this is a significant change in approach for the club and one that ties in with the overall restructuring... if it didn't come from Ralph - where did it come from?

I may or may not have wanted openda 😅 I don't really get the mara signing, don't seem to be giving him much opportunity and we could not afford to waste that money on a player that wouldn't help us this season sadly. Not saying I don't think he can be a good player - but we've not had a chance to see it, which means we've basically spent £12M on a striker for the reserves 😕

Openda continues his good season in ligue 1 with lens - scoring to lead PSG 2-1 atm. Available for £5-10M this summer... No excuse for the failure to get a good attacker this summer. Edit - now 3-1 (goal and assist), he made a good move, 2nd in ligue 1 and likely to be playing champions league and with a bigger club likely to swoop in in the future.

Can't agree on jwp at all, but ofc you are welcome to the oppion and it's interesting to hear it. For me he's having to play with very little support in CM, and with dross in front of him. Despite that, he's still dictating a lot of our plays, with some great diagonals and through balls recently even - issue is he's covering so much ground, playing deeper, and has limited movement / space / quality to hit in front of him. A couple of good examples of good through balls were evident vs fulham (to put edozie through on goal from the wide position where he was then narrowly beaten out by the defenders) - a fully grown 22-23 year old athlete gets an extra yard of apce / strength to score those... I don't think enough of his detractors notice these plays personally, they just get lost in the general malaise / lack of quality from our attacker's re doing anything meaningful with them... Or more to the point, people remember the horrendous misses and not the passes that create that chance. Anyway, its an interesting oppinion on him ofc, I just don't think we desperately need a jwp replacement at this point in time. By the point that becomes a priority we will have a very tidy side - or he'll be in his mid 30's... I still remain glad we've got a player like him in the side, and one who is so committed to the club.