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Ralph to stay?


Bstokesaint

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Not trying to burst everyone’s bubble, I think the guy has worked miracles to keep us up and reminded me of my love for football. Can’t praise him enough.

 

However...... any chairman in Europe looking for a manager next year must have Ralph in mind? He came here with us in a right mess, worst squad we’ve had for years and then got no backing in his first window with a club in relegation crisis?? In his MOTD interview yesterday he said all of the players that left must be replaced and the squad rebuilt this summer. From what I’ve seen so far from our unknown owner I’d be surprised to see significant investment and therefore why would Ralph stay?

 

If buts and maybes I know but we’ve finally been given a bit of hope and belief! It’s the Saints way to balls it up!

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Of course Ralph will be here next season. He's done a great job but is still learning in the Prem and his planning has already started.

 

I'm sure if he progresses like he looks like he will, in 1-2 years bigger clubs will be in for him, but not yet.

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I hope the owner backs him. This seems like the best opportunity the club has had in quite a few years to push forward with some purpose.

 

Agree. This is one summer coming up where we don’t have any leftover residual money from a big sale, though.

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The key issue is ‘can we offload the dross to make way for new blood’ ?

RH has clearly identified who should be discarded but given the high wages and long contracts that some are on, that could prove to be very difficult !

We could easily run with 4 or 5 less players in the squad and bring through some youngsters but much will depend on the outgoings before we get to that stage !

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Not trying to burst everyone’s bubble, I think the guy has worked miracles to keep us up and reminded me of my love for football. Can’t praise him enough.

 

However...... any chairman in Europe looking for a manager next year must have Ralph in mind? He came here with us in a right mess, worst squad we’ve had for years and then got no backing in his first window with a club in relegation crisis?? In his MOTD interview yesterday he said all of the players that left must be replaced and the squad rebuilt this summer. From what I’ve seen so far from our unknown owner I’d be surprised to see significant investment and therefore why would Ralph stay?

 

If buts and maybes I know but we’ve finally been given a bit of hope and belief! It’s the Saints way to balls it up!

The stats suggest that the decision to reduce the squad in January was the right one with only 1 win out of 14 games under Hughes to 8 wins since, out of 22 games. When Ralph came in December, he made sense for him to assess a bloated squad before buying even more players. He said publicly that the January window would be used to offload and that he would be developing some of the younger players. Throwing money around works for the clubs that can spend £50m plus on one player but at our level, £15m is no guarantee of getting anything better than what you already have. Some of last summer's transfers in haven't made as much impact as was hoped, something that is also true for other clubs. I seem to remember that Huddersfield signed a raft of players last summer and look where that's got them. So, lets not judge the owners' support for the manager just by the transfer budget. It's exciting to see what Ralph intends to do to rebuild and to what extend that will be departures and promotions from the youth team as well as moving in the transfer market.

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Not trying to burst everyone’s bubble, I think the guy has worked miracles to keep us up and reminded me of my love for football. Can’t praise him enough.

 

However...... any chairman in Europe looking for a manager next year must have Ralph in mind? He came here with us in a right mess, worst squad we’ve had for years and then got no backing in his first window with a club in relegation crisis?? In his MOTD interview yesterday he said all of the players that left must be replaced and the squad rebuilt this summer. From what I’ve seen so far from our unknown owner I’d be surprised to see significant investment and therefore why would Ralph stay?

 

If buts and maybes I know but we’ve finally been given a bit of hope and belief! It’s the Saints way to balls it up!

 

There's quite a bit of inaccuracy in this. He didn't say all the players have to be replaced. Just said rebuilding. Pretty sure that will involve 90% of the players currently active in the squad.

 

Departures are very dependent on anyone wanting our cast-off's. I'm guessing no more than three or four incoming, and no big money buys.

 

And he seems happy here and I'd be surprised if he doesn't want to show what he can do with a full season, a lot of coaching and just a bit of tweaking.

 

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Agree. This is one summer coming up where we don’t have any leftover residual money from a big sale, though.
It's not about a big transfer kitty. Ask Fulham.

 

It's about developing and improving the current squad, signing players with real potential and keeping together a team who are playing for the club, not just their own reputations and chances of big money moves.

 

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I think he's a project manager, look what he said about 'less stress', I don;t think he'd want to go straight away into another job where he was to start rebuilding/firefighting again.

 

I think he'll be here a good couple of years at least and whether he stays will be on our progress and how much the owners back him.

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It's not about a big transfer kitty. Ask Fulham.

 

It's about developing and improving the current squad, signing players with real potential and keeping together a team who are playing for the club, not just their own reputations and chances of big money moves.

 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

Its absolutely that.

 

Squad management keeping players motivated and positive.

 

His job in the next few weeks is unenviable. He had to shrink the squad to a size where there are chances can be seized by the u23s.

 

And we need to rebalance. (3 lwb and 1 rwb is unsustainable for example).

 

This could be potentially the most interesting summer in many years.

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This is the first summer I am not fearful. We have no stars to lose, a few departures will be a very good thing. And this manager knows what he wants from any new signing. We have a coach, not a wheeler dealer.

 

I think Redmond will have gained a fair few admirers during this season and would not be at all surprised to see some interest there. Same for Lemina, despite his limited playing time, and PEH. Hopefully they have also bought into the Ralph project.

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He will leave eventually, we will sign good players and they will leave eventually, we will go down eventually as only a privileged few can avoid it. With football these days all you can do is live in the moment. If you've won your last game everything is wonderful and the players should all be playing for their countries. Lose your last game and everyone at the club should be replaced.

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I think Redmond will have gained a fair few admirers during this season and would not be at all surprised to see some interest there. Same for Lemina, despite his limited playing time, and PEH. Hopefully they have also bought into the Ralph project.

 

In addition to those the other ones who may attract interest are Bertrand and McCarthy. I hope Bertrand stays on as he is a class above Targett but wouldn't shock me that much if he fancied a move at this point. And McCarthy, having lost his No 1 spot may also be open to offers?

 

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We'll get at least a full season out of him. Ultimately, if he succeeds with us next season (definition of "success" is debatable, obviously), then bigger clubs will take notice and may be looking at him. If that happens, I'm sure he'll move on. Infinitely better to have other clubs interested in your players and management because it shows that you're doing well, rather than the last couple of years where nobody's been remotely interested because we've been crap.

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We'll get at least a full season out of him. Ultimately, if he succeeds with us next season (definition of "success" is debatable, obviously), then bigger clubs will take notice and may be looking at him. If that happens, I'm sure he'll move on. Infinitely better to have other clubs interested in your players and management because it shows that you're doing well, rather than the last couple of years where nobody's been remotely interested because we've been crap.

 

Let’s hope Les has taught little Ross all about planning for when your manager leaves so you know exactly who you want to bring in before they go. We wouldn’t want any panic appoints now would we. I wonder if Les left him the secret file of managers only Les had access to as part of his job handover?

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The important thing is that we progress. I don't think anyone will come in for him unless we did what we did under Koeman - i.e. finish 7th and 6th, and even then it was only Everton who came in for him. The big clubs want proven Champions League pedigree. I'd say only Spurs seem willing to take a bit of a risk with their managers, perhaps if Pochettino departs then it is Spurs who will be the ones to look our way, but for now let's enjoy what we've got and hopefully a positive 2019-20 season.

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The important thing is that we progress. I don't think anyone will come in for him unless we did what we did under Koeman - i.e. finish 7th and 6th, and even then it was only Everton who came in for him. The big clubs want proven Champions League pedigree. I'd say only Spurs seem willing to take a bit of a risk with their managers, perhaps if Pochettino departs then it is Spurs who will be the ones to look our way, but for now let's enjoy what we've got and hopefully a positive 2019-20 season.

 

What champions league pedigree does ole have?

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I think we will certainly have him for the whole of next season. Assuming he does well then he will be off. As long as he leaves us in relatively stable position with a better squad than when he started that will be fine. We just have to make sure we are already looking for the next. Less of the Pelligrino/Puel type, more of the charismatic type.

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Pretty sure he'll be here next season, not so sure about after that. Gut feeling is he'll follow the Poch trajectory and I wouldn't begrudge him that.

 

Absolutely fantastic manager, frankly to get 18 months out of him is punching well above our weight when you consider he went from Bayern sniffing around him to the shambles that we were in when he came. The transformation from corpse to looking like top 8-10 has been miraculous IMO.

 

However if Gao were to back him properly + he were to decide that he likes it here, wants a project is happy to stay longer (say 5 years) I could see him becoming a bit of a SFC legend, I rate him that much.

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Pretty sure he'll be here next season, not so sure about after that. Gut feeling is he'll follow the Poch trajectory and I wouldn't begrudge him that.

 

Absolutely fantastic manager, frankly to get 18 months out of him is punching well above our weight when you consider he went from Bayern sniffing around him to the shambles that we were in when he came. The transformation from corpse to looking like top 8-10 has been miraculous IMO.

 

However if Gao were to back him properly + he were to decide that he likes it here, wants a project is happy to stay longer (say 5 years) I could see him becoming a bit of a SFC legend, I rate him that much.

 

Good comments. For all the anxiety and nail biting the Club (and supporters) has been through in the past three seasons, it's remarkable that SFC has been able to recruit Pochettino, Koeman and Ralph since 2013. It would be a dream if Ralph stayed another season or two.

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Why would he not stay? He's got the side playing better on occasions but there have also been some awful results.

Can't see any really "big" side wanting him as of yet.

 

Agreed. I think that we will have him for at least one more season. It will depend how next season goes. Get the key signings in the summer right (CB, striker, RB cover) and continue to clear out the deadwood, then we could well be back in the top half again next season. At which point it is anyone's guess and summer 2020 could be interesting. All I can say is that I am enjoying going to SMS again and long may it last.

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Who's the big bloke with Ross Wilson ?

 

 

 

He was stringing you along

 

Still peddling the old jokes.

 

More seriously. Ralph has a contract until 2021 so next summer is the time to worry when he has one year left on his current one and the Club ask him to renew with another 4 year contract.

 

He certainly won't be resting on his Laurels, he is much more Hardy than that.

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