baggytrousers

Surely quality matters more than experience. Mourinho got worse the more experience he got. Probably the same was true of Wenger. Potter didn’t have any Premier League experience when he went to Brighton but did OK, etc, etc.

Totally agree. Personally, I’m looking forward to this season more than any one in recent memory , not because I believe we’ll finish particularly high but more to see how this team can evolve now that we’ve got owners who are backing the manager and his vision. interesting times ahead.

The latest episode of Oh When The Saints podcast has an assessment of Salisu from a follower of Spanish football that’s well worth a listen

Maybe. There seems to be something decidedly fishy going on with that Newcastle takeover. All the press were reporting that contracts had been exchanged and the Saudis had put down a non-refundable deposit of $17million but the whole thing was held up on the EPL fit and proper persons test because of suspected involvement in the BeOutQ pirate station. So, if the EPL approve then deal done, if not then Newcastle are left without a buyer (or their main one at the very least). Given all that, how does it make any sense for Mauriss to offer $50 million over the asking price at this stage ? Either he's not going to get Newcastle at all or he's in a good negotiating position to get it at a lower price if the verdict goes against the Saudis. The whole thing doesn't add up if you take the press reports at face value. Can't help feeling there's games being played around that whole deal.

Happened to be watching Al Jazeera this morning (as you do) and they had a report on the Saudi consortium's WTO investigation in which they mentioned the fact that they (the consortium, not Al Jazeera) are looking to buy a Premiership club. Understandably, they showed footage of St James's with Newcastle players training and then went back to the WTO report . The interesting bit was at the end of the article they brought up a picture of a Premiership ground in their closing summary but this time it wasn't St James's but the ground of a totally different St. and the black stripes had become red. Now, the Grauniad are reporting that US businessman Henry Mauriss has offered $50m more than the Saudis for Newcastle. Not sure if the Al Jazeera picture of our ground was a mistake or whether they knew something and were giving some sort of weird hint. Even if that is the case the WTO report came down against the Saudis so they may not be allowed to buy any club at all so probably nothing in it.

I think the one positive about getting an absolute hiding is it highlights the pointlessness of some of the risk mitigation that Ralph has been engaging in. For me the most worrying moment of the season was before kickoff in the Spurs game when Ralph chose to replace a warm-up injured Cedric with Vestergaard and move JWP to right back even though Valery was on the bench. This highlighted a real concern over our central defence and a willingness to sacrifice our shape and attacking elements to try and cover for it. The 9-0 has exposed this as being self-defeating. Far better to accept the fact that we ‘ve got a leaky defence and play our preferred system (4-2-2-2) in the hope that we will cause problems going forward and out score the opposition and that a settled centre back pairing with a settled centre mid pairing will gradually start to iron out the rickets. Hope Ralph starts to have the courage of his convictions and really goes with the system that was so successful for him at Leipzig. Not all our players are as poor as some on here would make out but we do have obvious deficiencies defensively. Sometimes the best form of defense is attack. Time to drop the third centre back and get Boufal/Djenepo back on the pitch

Presume the plan is to use Long’s pace to expose Alonso’s out of position tendancies

No question it was a cross. If you don’t realise that then you’re watching a different game to me. Redmond is on record about giving precisely this advice to Sims as to where to put it when he gets in that position. If you watch Boufal’s highlights from Celta Vigo last season he was going on these sorts of runs and looking to play a pass but nobody was providing the option. On Saturday he knew Redmond would be in there which is why he played the pass. For a player like Boufal to be effective he needs to make good decisions but also his team mates need to read what he’a up to and provide the option, which Redmond did perfectly. They’d worked on that in training. When Boufal was last in our side he didn’t have the confidence to release the ball into an area because he wasn’t sure that anyone would be there so he’d hang onto it too long. Saturday looked like Ralph has been coaching him to be more direct and release earlier into areas where his teammates should be, full credit to Redmond for being there,

Every silver lining has a cloud on Saintsweb.

And how much did those players cost Ajax ? They cost a lot now because Ajax have developed and been successful with a squad of players who cost next to nothing by today's standards. They've not been "inherited" as Shurlock would say. They've been developed. So, if we want to stand a chance against the big boys, either we buy the finished product at huge expense with no guarantee they'll necessarily perform for us (the Leeds route) or we buy talent and have the nouse to develop them as players and as a team (the Ajax/Spurs/Leicester route). I know which overall approach I prefer. You may see things differently.

Inflation has obviously run rampant in the case of Deli Ali, not to mention Kyle Walker and Eric Dier. Also, it must have gone into reverse the year they bought Eriksen as they'd pocketed 85 mill earlier that year for Gareth Bale, almost 8 times what they paid for Eriksen. I wonder if there's an alternate explanation. Also, isn't it funny how Spurs academy seemed to have unearthed hidden gems during the time when they've had a manager who was also lucky enough to previously had talented youngsters coming through from the academy at Saints and before that at Espanyol ?

Well said that man !!!

Here are the "inherited world class players" you talked about (quite how a club "inherits" a player I'm not quite sure) : Didn't exactly take a lot of money to assemble did they, which kind of challenges your suggestion that money is a necessary condition for success. A well-run club with an inspirational manager (something we used to have and now, thankfully, have again), good scouting and an above average academy can go a long way. Spurs and Leicester are good examples as to how to achieve success without having megabucks.

That's Gangzhou Evergrande that you're talking about. We played Gangzhou R&F who are the Eastleigh of Gangzhou.

While you lot have been bickering over some complete nonsense a really good article about our Ralph has appeared on t'net : https://thesefootballtimes.co/2019/07/23/how-ralph-hasenhuttl-inspired-ingolstadts-rise-from-the-cusp-of-the-third-tier-to-the-bundesliga/ Well worth a read and should inspire some confidence in our current direction

Ethan Ampadu about to sign on loan for Leipzig. Stay tuned.

Perceptive post amongst a thread full of meaningless nonsense. Agree with you that a more mobile DM should be our top priority for Ralph’a likely system.

Did you see the date ? Start of the season is still 3 weeks away. No Premier League team gives a monkey's about results at this stage. It's all about getting minutes in players' legs for the whole squad.

AVB is available.

Perfect job for him - lots of time for golf

There is a good comparison with Lampard to be made in that young Frank had plenty of games for the Hammers at a young age and had the fanbase on his back because he was a midfielder who wasn't a standout at anything - wasn't great at tackling, passing shooting, tracking back, etc, wasn't particularly strong or fast. He was however OK at pretty much all of those things, had a good football brain and a good attitude. This wasn't good enough for the gobby Hammers fans who wanted a young midfielder learning the game to be the finished article and weren't prepared to cut him much slack. In Lampard's case this was compounded by an unfair belief that Frank was only in the team because his uncle was the manager. And so they hounded him out, he joined Chelsea and the rest is history but Frank hates the club now because of the way the fans treated him, which is quite something when you consider who his old man was. Now JWP may carry on improving and become a very good midfielder or he may have plateaued and be destined to be an average Premier League player who is only really good at free kicks, time will tell, but I bet all those West Ham fans who wrote off the developing Frank Lampard and *****ed about how he was no good at anything and only got in the team because of his connections are feeling that they missed out on something pretty special now.

They got rid of the manager who put them in the relegation zone despite spending squillions

Typical Talksport. One month behind the times.

You really think there are none ? Ah, bless !!! The whole Pellegrino out, Les Reed out, Ralph out, have a go at Tadic, Foster, Redmond, JWP etc, etc. cobblers that's spouted on here and all the associated infighting are Skates' wet dreams come true. Be extremely naive to think that there aren't a few of them on here giving those bandwagons a good old nudge from time to time and stirring things up amongst our fanbase. I do agree with Lord Ducky that the main problem with the overwhelming negativity on this site at the moment is the desire of a lot of posters to have their uninformed opinions that they have proclaimed to the world as self-evident facts "proved right" and that, at times, this overrides their desire to see Saints do well. Manna from heaven for your cheeky Skate looking to sow bit of discord.

The best post I've read on this place for many a long time. Sums up the feelings of a lot of us Saints fans. Take a bow that man !!!