sadoldgit

I don’t know what a person’s political view or opinion on the handling of a pandemic has to do with his ability to kick a football. What ever his opinion on the Covid situation, his footballing ability is beyond question. That is what we are talking about here and that is what he should be judged by.

So do you think that we need more than two players for every position?

Nancy boys? The 1970’s called and want their homophobic stereotyping back.

But apparently theses are “excuses” and not “reasons” and don’t count. It is blatantly obvious that the first team, when on form, are a match for anyone. The problem is no depth so that long term injuries to several key players have led to below par performances and results. You can throw in our inability to play high tempo for a whole game into the mix. The manager is responsible for dealing with these problems but, as we know, has not been supported in the transfer market. That is hardly his fault. From day 1 he has talked about having two players for every position and we don’t have that (not quality wise anyway). If we are going to progress next year recruitment over the summer is crucial. It doesn’t matter who the manager is, without an injection of quality any manager is going to struggle for a whole season with this bunch.

Duckie, why the childish comments? I don’t see any cults or “fan boys” here, just people who are able to see the bigger picture, something you seem incapable of. The club have stood by him. They know him a lot better than any of us and clearly have faith in his ability. Would you call Selena a fan boy or cultist? There are a number of reasons for our poor second half of the season as well you know. Many of the were beyond Ralph’s control. These are not excuses as you would say, these are reasons. Ralph as also made errors, people can see that. Every manager does. Some lose the faith of their Boards, Ralph, so far, still has a job here because people who are paid to make high level decisions think he is worth persevering with. If it bothers you that much, instead of hurling childish insults around on a football forum, why don’t you take the issue up with the Board?

So you think it was down to the Spurs managers tactical nous as Duckie said and not the fact that he has a better squad of players at his disposal?

Remind me again about the difference in squads between Saints and Tottenham? You don’t think that perhaps having the likes of Bale and Son might have had something to do with it?

What is this “cult of Ralph” of which you speak? 😂 I can only see some people looking at a situation and making reasonable comments rather than just ignoring parts of a scenario which don’t fit an agenda. Ralph has been criticised, quite rightly, for errors made. Some people can also see that he did a very good job for a period of time getting the best out of limited resources. It doesn’t make him the “messiah” just as it doesn’t make him “pony”.

Yet not all that long ago we had amassed more points than anyone else in the league. Even you must be able to see that we haven’t been terrible all season. I’ll give the Brentford game but not long after that went an a brilliant run that only came to an end when key players picked up injuries.

I think you are right. They have blown it big time and I can see stringent measures being put in place to make sure it can’t happen again.

If he was going to be sacked due to this years poor form he would have gone by now. If he was going to walk ditto. I think that he wants to see this project through as much as possible and seems to have the club’s backing. He has hardly been supported in the transfer market but if we can get the players he wants/needs there is no reason why we can’t have a good season next time round. We have seen what this lot are capable of so we know that the potential is there with the addition of more quality in depth. I would certainly give him to Christmas so long there is some money to spend in the summer. If there isn’t then we need to buckle down for a bumpy ride because whether he stays or goes, without some extra quality we will struggle big time next season.

Gao must be absolutely delighted. It has gone from being all his fault to all Ralph’s fault.

Bankrolled to the tune of £3.5 billion. That is some fancy kite!

If this was an exercise to test the water, it couldn’t have backfired more spectacularly. It had all the guile of one of Baldrick’s cunning plans and has left them in a much weaker position than before. File under how not to have your cake and eat it.

There will still be a Premier League and they have contracts to honour. The price will come down in the future but the Premier isn’t just six clubs. If it means long term that some sensible money is spent all round, it won’t be a bad thing. If we think it isn’t a level playing field right now, just wait until the Greedy Six get their hands on ESL money.

I agree. I get the feeling that when they didn’t get their own way previously that went away and started to set up their breakaway league and it will be good to go in August. This sounds like a done deal which is why UEFA are not just rattling sabres. These clubs are owned by very rich and powerful people and they would have carefully scrutinised the legalities before launching the new league. As someone said on the news last night, this is going to get very bloody.

You could also say who made the big 12 owners gods? There currently is no guarantee that any of the clubs will qualify for the European competitions every season (which is what makes it interesting) so why do they get to call the shots. The competition isn’t there for the benefit of the big 12. The money gets used right across the sport. The big clubs have been responsible for paying higher wages and transfer fees and now they want even more money so that they spend even more while the other clubs can go whistle. Why do the big 12 get to dictate to everybody else? Without everyone else they would not exist.

Now watch him turn up at Bayern Munich. He has worked wonders to get an average bunch of players to a semi final and, briefly, to the top of the EPL. Imagine what he could do with a decent squad.

Leicester weren’t much better than us today. Both teams were poor. Vardy’s pace decided the match.

Perhaps they are expecting us to run out of steam in the second half and plan to bring him on to exploit that?

If I were you I would stay away from the rabbits then Duckie! Yes, I remember football in the 70’s too and fortunately the days of kicking lumps out of players or shouting in referees faces are long gone. JWP is a decent player but can’t do it all on his own. He forged a decent partnership with Romeu and was pivotal to our performances when we were playing well. There is a lot more to his game than just set pieces. Our problem is that we don’t have the fitness or depth of squad to keep playing a high intensity game. Even the mighty Liverpool are finding that is a tough call. RH needs to find another way of playing that suits this average EPL squad. There is nothing wrong with being a middle of the table side and we know that we can play a lot better then we have been this year but Ralph is struggling to find consistency and that is not down to JWP being a mummy’s boy. Our current way of playing makes it much too easy to get at the back four.

Did you ever cook for him?

It was a joke

And change their name to Alex Law?

BBC won the toss then.