bpsaint

Voted no, purely because I don’t think this is the time to be fucking about with a gamble like this. A third of the season has gone already and we’re clearly in big trouble as it is. Perhaps if he’d been bought in during the summer and had some transfers behind him then it would be worth the risk, but by the time we find out if he’s the man for us it’ll either be safety or relegation, there won’t be another chance to make a change and keep us up.

Christ. This really is a weird fucking gamble, I sure hope SR know what they’re doing. Suddenly the thought of Sean Dyche, a man that constantly over achieved on a shoestring budget doesn’t sound so bad.

Nice big name signing to get all the players on board then. Fucking hell how underwhelming. A decision based on having one eye on requiring promotion next season it seems.

At least 4 months later than it should have been in fairness.

Exactly this, after our atrocious end to the season it should have been thanks very much for all you’ve done, golden handshake and a whole new coaching team bought in with a summer of transfer activity for them to build a squad. Instead we’ve allowed this to fester for far too long, and in the meanwhile thrown away very good opportunities to get more points on the board from some kind fixtures. Allowing it to drag on is just reminding me of 2004/05 all over again when Lowe persisted with Wigley for 14 or so games after sacking Luggy and gambled with our Premier League status claiming that it was worth giving young coaches a chance before the board forced his hand into a decision. It’s poor in SR that they’ve put Ralph in this position, I’m sure he’d love to walk away but it won’t be of his own choice as it’ll cost him a huge severance package. Don’t wait around until after the Liverpool game, just fucking sort it now and give the new boss the whole World Cup break, and some decent time with the squad.

With Ralph at the helm and no decent striker yes we absolutely are. There’s still time to save the season but SR need to act quickly.

Some line up that. Probably still get battered. With fairness we should be giving the bench players more game time in the B team, as football used to be back in the reserve team days when it was a good chance to see a mixture of first teamers returning from injury, bench players and youth team.

We haven’t played that differently in our last 3 games, we’ve just been lucky the opposition haven’t been on their A game. Those 5 points just paper over the same fucking cracks that are always there with Ralph in charge. Just fucking get rid of him please Saints for fuck sake!!

Easiest £50 I’ve ever won thanks to Lyanco. He needs to be hooked IMO, he’s a red card waiting to happen today.

Diving prick, where’s the yellow for the dive

What are we playing at!

Is that still the case? Seems like Zaha has really had our number in recent matches. Really hoping the team don’t get too complacent after holding Arsenal to a draw and they go for a win here. With 2 incredibly tough games coming up after against Newcastle and Liverpool this is our best chance at getting a result that would see us going into the World Cup break with a bit of breathing space from the bottom 3.

Harsh on Brett tbf

Yep. Shane would probably have scored more than AA in the same number of games too in fairness. It’s a shame, because I really want him to do well for us and for himself, but he just isn’t a Premier League quality player. You can get away with being a small striker in this league if you have the speed, awareness and skillset as history of smaller forwards has shown us. Using the example of our other Championship striker purchase, Che has grown into this league both physically and mentally, and despite his average goal return he looks a Prem player, AA just doesn’t. If we kept the receipt maybe we can take him back to Blackburn and give Brereton-Diaz a go instead 😂

I’d rather have Tella on the bench than Walcott tbf

Completely free hit this one. Anything better than a 0-3 loss is a good result.

Good result, huge 3 points exactly when needed and relieves the pressure for a bit. That being said we were woeful again second half, and I’m still in the Ralph out camp. Free hit for us on Sunday really, anything other than a comfortable away win would be a good result for us.

That’s not a particular high bar to be fair.

First half was good, second half dogshit. Decent striker and we’d have been 3 up at half time.

I’d love us to win this, yes it would paper over the cracks but there’s a dark cloud above the club at the minute that needs lifting. If Ralph had gone after the City game we might have had a bit of that new manager bounce, as it is I fully expect another away win, and I hope the St Mary’s crowd actually find their voice to show their displeasure should we lose instead of meekly heading for the exits.

Have Sport Republic bought a Greek club too then 😉

Fingers crossed. We absolute cannot keep going into these games where we are likely to get at least a point and coming away with a loss. Today was a foregone conclusion, but Villa away, Wolves away and Everton at home should have seen us come away with at least 3 points, we got none. With West Ham and Bournemouth on the horizon, again 2 games where we could come away with something, if Ralph remains in charge I can only see another 0 points. These are the games that will cost us come the end of the season.

We were lucky that City treated today like a pre-season friendly. Whether it’s because of Pep’s fondness for Ralph I don’t know but they definitely pulled back on the urgency, particularly compared to how they played against United last week. The triangle of ABK, Salish and Bazunu are the only people that really come away with any credit today. Everyone else was 5 out of 10 at best.

They didn’t have Haaland last season, but nice try 👌🏼

I’m just glad we didn’t have to go into this game with Bednerak and Stephens.