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Who do we want to get behind?


ooh it's a corner

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It is has been a poor few years, we all understand that.

 

We have had the worst result in our history and we have all been on the receiving end of banter because of that.

 

There is a rumour of dressing room discontent and boardroom discontent.

 

Who do we back, as supporters of this club?

 

The board majority shareholder is Gao

The board minority shareholder is Kat

The executive decision makers are largely unknown, due to recent changes (Kruger, Reed, Ross leaving)

The first team manager is Ralph

The first team are clearly not a happy bunch and many of whom are earning wages above their level.

 

As a supporter, I can only hang my support on one of those pegs.

 

I have to put my trust in Ralph.

 

That may be disappointing, but who else do I support?

 

Trust Ralph to sort the dressing room and all will be good, or trust the player-power footballers to oust Ralph and all will be good?

 

(What would the unhappy players think if every home game we showed unerring support for Ralph)

 

(I do accept that this may be a choice of chicken-pox versus gonorrhea)

Edited by ooh it's a corner
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Gao has no money and doesn't know a football from a spring roll

Kat wanted out and no signs she wants in again.

God knows who the CEO is but dont think he has any experience of running football clubs.

Ralph needed Rohl and is lost without him, and a pair of goalkeepers as coaches is proving to be as ridiculous as it sounds.

And are squad is probably good for League One.

All I can suggest is save yourself.

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We need a figure to unite behind in hate. We will still go down but it makes everyone feel better if we burn effigies of a player or a chairman and sing for his untimely death. Turning on someone like jwp in this manner really has the potential unify the fan base. Gets my vote.

 

Glasgow?

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Ive no faith in any of them, I don’t understand the notion you must pick someone to support? I support the club, as hard as it is, because I have done for a lifetime and my father did before me. Hopefully it will still be here for generations to come, when these charlatans have found another body to prey on, if they don’t destroy it first. I feel Ralph is a terrible manager, however I can’t be sure, it’s hard to see the wood for the trees at our club. In any other scenario we would be screaming for his head. What if he is actually the one destroying team morale, how is throwing your support behind him going to help?

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Up to recently Ralph was the only one who had my support, but I am starting to doubt his ability mainly due to his player selections and strategies.

 

Unless Gao invests and brings in some quality I haven’t got a clue where this will end up.

 

I think the old expression used by your partner just before they are going to dump you comes to mind, “I love you but I’m not in love with you".

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Up to recently Ralph was the only one who had my support, but I am starting to doubt his ability mainly due to his player selections and strategies.

 

Unless Gao invests and brings in some quality I haven’t got a clue where this will end up.

 

I think the old expression used by your partner just before they are going to dump you comes to mind, “I love you but I’m not in love with you".

 

The only one ? Have a lie down mate! There are still many supporters of Ralph including myself.

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If we sack Ralph then I will likely give up supporting the club, we will IMO throw away any potential chance of recovery for the foreseeable future.

 

We won't get anyone better and will end up with a string of Sunderland level managers who will take us down the leagues.

 

Right now is a big point in the history of this club IMO, IF, and it's a massive IF, we stick with the manager, sign him some good support in the form of a DOF/player transfer expert or whatever they call it. Then we should hopefully pick up some points before xmas with the easier fixtures, then they back him in January with at least 3 key signings (CB, DM and full back), then I think we could comfortably stay up this year and hopefully then another summer to rebuild the squad, clear the dross, get player's suitable for his style we could finally look forward to a season of progress.

 

But if they sack him, get some caretaker type manager in then I think we will end up doing a Sunderland.

 

They backed the useless Pellegrino and bought him a useless lump centre-forward for a record fee, if they did that they can back Ralph with the defensive signings the squad needs.

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We have to support Ralph and the team. He is ultimately a good tactical manager and man manager, but he isn't a coach. Rohl was his linchpin, and he hasn't been replaced.

 

The club fundamentally need to address that.

 

He is also hamstrung slightly by the squad he has available. Its bloated and has a lot of dead weight, and that in turn has prevented us adding sufficient quality in key areas. Add to that the fact that Djenepo (who is easily one of our best attacking players) is out injured, and is it any wonder we are struggling? We can't defend, if we attack we leak like a sieve, and we aren't sharp enough currently to offset that.

 

At the very least, we should get in a defensive and attacking coaches to help with these aspects.

 

The people at the very top of the club need to put up or get gone. But that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

 

And as others have said, sack Ralph and we'll get in another manager who is tactically worse (but may be able to coach better) - a bit pointless when we could just hire a replacement coach and save millions!

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We have to support Ralph and the team. He is ultimately a good tactical manager and man manager, but he isn't a coach. Rohl was his linchpin, and he hasn't been replaced.

 

The club fundamentally need to address that.

He is also hamstrung slightly by the squad he has available. Its bloated and has a lot of dead weight, and that in turn has prevented us adding sufficient quality in key areas. Add to that the fact that Djenepo (who is easily one of our best attacking players) is out injured, and is it any wonder we are struggling? We can't defend, if we attack we leak like a sieve, and we aren't sharp enough currently to offset that.

 

At the very least, we should get in a defensive and attacking coaches to help with these aspects.

 

The people at the very top of the club need to put up or get gone. But that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

 

And as others have said, sack Ralph and we'll get in another manager who is tactically worse (but may be able to coach better) - a bit pointless when we could just hire a replacement coach and save millions!

Agreed 100% that Rohl needs replacing, but don't think it's the club that needs to address this. As I've said elsewhere I think this is up to Ralph. He's the reason Rohl left, and I'm sure the club would be happy to bring in a replacement if Ralph wants one. The ball's in Ralph's court.

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Agreed 100% that Rohl needs replacing, but don't think it's the club that needs to address this. As I've said elsewhere I think this is up to Ralph. He's the reason Rohl left, and I'm sure the club would be happy to bring in a replacement if Ralph wants one. The ball's in Ralph's court.

 

There was an interview with Ralph speaking about ledbicker or however it is spelled, and Ralph and adam blackmore were talking about him being the replacement of Rohl so I don t see how this has changed since then.

People are twisting their posts to suit their agenda and to see Ralph is nothing without Rohl but the truth is Ralph suceeded in every previous manager s job before Rohl and RB Leipzig so I don’t see what the fuss is all about.

Let the man work, be patient even if results are not coming, give him time to build his squad that is suited to his style of play. That could take a few windows, I know this is difficult for some who can t see beyond 5 games.

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There was an interview with Ralph speaking about ledbicker or however it is spelled, and Ralph and adam blackmore were talking about him being the replacement of Rohl so I don t see how this has changed since then.

People are twisting their posts to suit their agenda and to see Ralph is nothing without Rohl but the truth is Ralph suceeded in every previous manager s job before Rohl and RB Leipzig so I don’t see what the fuss is all about.

Let the man work, be patient even if results are not coming, give him time to build his squad that is suited to his style of play. That could take a few windows, I know this is difficult for some who can t see beyond 5 games.

Ralph's success prior to RB Leipzig were, with the exception of Ingolstadt, at lower league level. Rohl was already at RB when Ralph was appointed and the success during their two seasons was quite astonishing, far exceeding what Ralph had achieved beforehand. Not that he was bad before but success at RB was a different level. Not saying it was all down to Rohl, but clearly Ralph forged a good working relationship with Rohl and they clearly gelled.

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Why do we need to get behind one person? I know it’s an old fashioned concept, but what is wrong about getting behind the whole club?

 

Fair question, but the reason for the original post was to suggest that it looks (from the outside), that there is no unity within the club. Where there is no unity, there will be splinter groups. In our case it would appear we have different views of the world from within (Shareholder A, shareholder B, player group A, player group B, manager, coaches etc).

 

So my question stems from who do we want to come out on top?

 

Eventually somebody will come out on top and the club will have a de-facto leader and move forward under their stewardship. Until then, we have a tug-of-war amongst the rival groups.

 

And we are allowed to move our fan-base allegiance at any time.

 

We supported Lowe when he moved us to a new stadium and eventually we chased him away.

We supported Koeman until he had his head turned.

We supported the players in telling the board that Pellegrino wasn't good enough....

 

Each of these past acts was done in the vein of getting behind the club (but not getting behind the whole club, because someone was pulling in a personal direction).

 

So, given each splinter group will have its own agenda, which one do we want to win ?

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Why do we need to get behind one person? I know it’s an old fashioned concept, but what is wrong about getting behind the whole club?

 

Sort of agree, because getting behind one “thing” is divisive, which is along the lines of what I was trying to say above. But.... I do not seeing myself getting behind Gao under any foreseeable circumstance, and unfortunately he is a major part of our club.

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In a nutshell, that's all we can do, anything else will have a negative effect, fingers crossed the rest of the debacle sorts itself out.

 

I'm not getting behind the team, they are sh1t. There is no evidence that continually getting behind something that is st1t makes it better.

You have to think of the team (as opposed to the club) like a small child. Sometimes you need to encourage, sometimes you need to scold; and sometimes you need to sit back and say "go on then, prove me wrong". As responsible parents we should be at the latter stage.

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I'm pretty sure the problem is that Ralph came here with an idée fixe to re-create RB Leipzig at Southampton with the style of play and 4-2-2-2 formation that he developed there so successfully. The plan cam unstuck when he discovered that (i) he would be given no money to bring in the players he wants who could play his way and (ii) the players he did have at his disposal could not be adapted to fit his formation and style of play despite all the very many chops and changes he has tried out.

 

He has ended up of course with a bugger's muddle as he seems not to have any sensible alternative way of playing with these players. If indeed he is that inflexible then it might be better all round if both sides call it quits and move on.

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Batman and Heisentrolls protest against the club because us terrrible fans who go to watch games

are doing it all wrong we need to demand action from our armchairs/bedsit like they do...

 

That was before. Now Heisy drives his bus all round the country to pick up all his friends to go to games. It's just a matter of will.

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I'm not getting behind the team, they are sh1t. There is no evidence that continually getting behind something that is st1t makes it better.

You have to think of the team (as opposed to the club) like a small child. Sometimes you need to encourage, sometimes you need to scold; and sometimes you need to sit back and say "go on then, prove me wrong". As responsible parents we should be at the latter stage.

I'm not sure we are at the 'latter stage', there are another 3 league's to go through yet.

 

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

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I'm not getting behind the team, they are sh1t. There is no evidence that continually getting behind something that is st1t makes it better.

You have to think of the team (as opposed to the club) like a small child. Sometimes you need to encourage, sometimes you need to scold; and sometimes you need to sit back and say "go on then, prove me wrong". As responsible parents we should be at the latter stage.

 

It probably would make them better, either way it has more chance of improving things than getting on their backs, that has never worked. They end up paralysed be fear.

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We have to support Ralph and the team. He is ultimately a good tactical manager and man manager, but he isn't a coach. Rohl was his linchpin, and he hasn't been replaced.

 

The club fundamentally need to address that.

 

He is also hamstrung slightly by the squad he has available. Its bloated and has a lot of dead weight, and that in turn has prevented us adding sufficient quality in key areas. Add to that the fact that Djenepo (who is easily one of our best attacking players) is out injured, and is it any wonder we are struggling? We can't defend, if we attack we leak like a sieve, and we aren't sharp enough currently to offset that.

 

At the very least, we should get in a defensive and attacking coaches to help with these aspects.

 

The people at the very top of the club need to put up or get gone. But that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

 

And as others have said, sack Ralph and we'll get in another manager who is tactically worse (but may be able to coach better) - a bit pointless when we could just hire a replacement coach and save millions!

Could you explain how Ralph is ultimately a good tactician please?

So far his tactics have been as baffling as everything else he does.

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

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We have to get behind the players and the manager. If we don't then what is the point being a Saints fan?

 

Our home form is dire and I just feel RH and the players need to do something totally different at home. I don't think any away team comes away from St Mary's feeling surprised any more (well apart from Leicester!). They know if they contain us and get into the lead, the chances are we won't fight back.

 

Whether that involves going full pelt for the first 30mins and hoping they don't tire, I'm not sure. Tactically it would be naive. But it might change the atmosphere in the ground and we all know St Mary's can be rocking at times. That's historically when we have the best chance of doing well in our home games.

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We have to get behind the players and the manager. If we don't then what is the point being a Saints fan?

 

Our home form is dire and I just feel RH and the players need to do something totally different at home. I don't think any away team comes away from St Mary's feeling surprised any more (well apart from Leicester!). They know if they contain us and get into the lead, the chances are we won't fight back.

 

Whether that involves going full pelt for the first 30mins and hoping they don't tire, I'm not sure. Tactically it would be naive. But it might change the atmosphere in the ground and we all know St Mary's can be rocking at times. That's historically when we have the best chance of doing well in our home games.

 

White Witch spell has run out and we need her to recast her spell - as she did when we first moved to St. Mary's :-) Why not, we've tried everything else - except of course buying decent players!

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