Daft Kerplunk

Unfortunately they’re not near the level required, whether that’s in ability, application or the mental aptitude required. If they were, they’d make a consistent impact in the first team, or at very least show regular signs of being able to cope with first-team Premier League football. Anyone who has been good enough does this and gets a move away, or in the case of JWP, cements his place in the squad, then moves to be a regular. It’s great to see young players make it, but it’s okay to acknowledge when they’re unlikely to ever cut it.

What is absolutely crazy from Ralph is this idea that players need time to understand how to play ‘our’ way. Each of these players has come through an academy, and first team football in some cases where they’ve learned how to play football. Needing a long time to understand how we play is all complete bollocks, and the fact that he is trying to overcomplicate it shows that he isn’t clear enough to players, and players will see through the nonsense. The chopping and changing of players and playing players out of position is a nonsense. Semmens and the other board members will think Ralph is a top man because they think their own efforts are too complex for the little people to understand, and that Ralph is like them and nobody else understands the difficulty in their work. All the players we’ve signed should be able to play for a well organised team by a man who provides clear and straightforward instructions, and who motivates players to play to the best of their abilities consistently. Football is most definitely not rocket science.

And chips too

Hi there, my name’s Dave and I’ve supported the club for 52 years, started off at the Dell watching Charlie Wayman and loved it when we won the FA Cup with Lawrie in charge. What a day when the bus toured around the city. I was in Millbrook that day. Wonderful. Jumpers for goalsposts. Oooh, lovely. Hmmm, I’ve forgotten my question… Ah, I remember, my question for the manager is, how does Stuart Armstrong have such great hair?

You have to hope this is the case. Martin Semmens is a marketing person, capable of selling the narrative, but thankfully SR have football people. This should mean they’ll see through Ralph if he can’t turn it around very quickly.

Dreadful. No other word for it. Yesterday’s selection, mad substitutions and players giving up surely means that Ralph is on borrowed time. He’s no tactical genius and players aren’t playing for him. Tick tock.

And it has all gone very quiet on the incoming transfer front. Despite the hype about us being quiet in our business, the players that join have always been on the rumour list prior to signing.

Letting KWP go with the current squad would also be a faulty move.

Another striker should add to Adams ideally, not replace. Adams Armstrong Mara plus another new/Broja Sell Tella if anyone would take him.

Hibs fan says he couldnae gav a shite

Not sure he knows his onions that well, last season he got shallot wrong

They get massive advances. They’re doing okay from it compared with us.

Ralph.

Ings was a player who could create out of nothing and this helped us big time. Apparently he used to get frustrated at the tactics/ability of teammates to get the ball forward in time for the forwards to take advantage. This problem continued without him.

Agreed. We had the two most glaring problems for a football team bar some purple patches of form. Conceded easily, couldn’t create and score. If we get another attacker in and this is the team Ralph wants, then he’ll have to go if they aren’t performing by November. I like the look of most of the signings so it’s promising but if it doesn’t work, then it’ll be clear it’s the manager who can’t get a tune out of his orchestra.

My prediction for 2022/23 is that I will definitely have increasingly brutal hangovers due to the ageing process. Man City to win the title Manure to hopefully finish 8th or below and the main news sites finally realise they’re aren’t the biggest club anymore and don’t deserve stories about their ball boys above other clubs activity. Looking at you BBC, you’re the nation’s service, not Man Utd website. Tottenham to hopefully be shite. Everton finally relegated. It’s basically Revel Roulette for us with Ralph. Could get an occasional toffee but mostly a duff packet with orange dominating. We will probably get a weird parma violet flavour in there as well during the season. New coaches will hopefully be listened to by the rabbit house. We are still seriously lacking goals so give me 17th today and I would take it. I wasn’t far off last season being happy with the same thing and ending up with 16th. That said, a couple of strong signings and I’d revise to 12th to 15th. The new players are too inexperienced and surrounded by average squad for anything more. It’s a rebuilding year as long as the foundations don’t collapse around us.

It doesn’t look like PL experience is overly desirable to the current Saints leadership. With Delap, maybe the board are more able to deal/learn from the Broja situation, where we might have been able to buy him last year for £20m. If we get Delap, that might be it as it completes a strengthening of key areas, however untested.

Max?

Andy Cole?

Pedri?

Looks very promising. Let’s hope he follows in the footsteps of previous Toulon Tournament top scorers like Thierry Henry, Jean-Pierre Papin, Alan Shearer and so on.

We will see how Ralph does this year because it’s been getting progressively worse with him in charge. Fingers crossed better coaches will have fill in the man management gap in Ralph’s skills, and stop him being so erratic or trying to be too clever. He ends up looking stupid most of the time when he does that. As for goals, it would be a very tough season ahead with the current strike force. Almost certainly relegation or very close to…but it seems that we are going to invest in a decent strike force. Needs to happen, and really should happen in the next week. It is not nearly enough yet.

Total [shit] football. Also, if we are having the same amount of pre-season games as in previous years, but playing experimental sides, when do the first team players get match fit for the start of the season?

Most of the players we have signed are those that none of us really know about, let alone others. Whilst excited by some of the talent we’ve signed, from what we really know, we are still quality players short of being good enough to avoid a relegation battle. The potential might turn into excellence 😆 but we could use a bit of excellence now to make avoiding relegation an easy expectation.

Agreed. Most MLS teams would probably struggle in League One, and the better teams are barely championship level. If someone was banging 40 or more in from all over the place and showing they can shoot early, utterly dominate and be totally unplayable then they’d be worth a look.