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Ralph Hasenhuttl


Edmonton Saint

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41 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

“Important figure” my arse. Hanging around for longer than other duds doesn’t make you an “important “ figure. Shows the noddy mentality at the club and within the fan base if anyone believes this pony. He inherited a shit show and has left behind a shit show. 

You really are mired in negativity, aren’t you?

What joy to you get in life?

We support Southampton, you plank. It is supposed to be like this. Like 90% of all teams in the country its a rollercoaster. We will always ride the waves at times and sink like a stone at others.

It makes no sense the amount of vitriol  you live with.

Ralph will move on, do really well somewhere and we will get another b team manager that we’ll sack in three years and the world still turns.

Rant over.

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Some fans have probably wanked themselves to death after hearing of his departure.

Ultimately a change needed to be made, it’s just a shame it’s come in the form of a sacking as opposed to him knowing his time was up and walking away gracefully.

Time for the club to step up now, and most of all those players, they’ll all be playing for their futures now.

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14 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Some fans have probably wanked themselves to death after hearing of his departure.

Ultimately a change needed to be made, it’s just a shame it’s come in the form of a sacking as opposed to him knowing his time was up and walking away gracefully.

Time for the club to step up now, and most of all those players, they’ll all be playing for their futures now.

Why on Earth would he or should he do that? He signed a contract. We agreed to give him employment for the duration of that and if we wished to end it early, we would pay out the rest of his contract.

Why should he forgo that? I certainly wouldn't.

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I don’t blame his for waiting for the pay cheque, I’d do exactly the same.

I think he’d have been better off leaving at the end of last season; I think deep down he knew he was struggling but probably not wanting to admit it and walk away.

He’s obviously a good bloke and has done all he can but ultimately it’s a results game. Time for him and the club to part ways and try something different.

The shit people have given him and the comments that are made on here about him, some are baffling and to a point totally disrespectful.

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35 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

Surprises me, the amount of disrespect Ralph gets on here. 

I thought the chanting yesterday was pretty appalling really, but then given some of the utter goons who sit near me i'm not surprised.....and everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

Yes, he's been paid a fortune. Yes, our form has been dire for a long time. But i think he'll have been pretty badly affected by what's happened and the vitriol thrown at him by some.

His time was up a little while ago, and a shame it's come to this.

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22 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

Surprises me, the amount of disrespect Ralph gets on here. 

I agree with this comment, despite having thought the club should have replaced him in the close season.  To me, he comes over as a very nice bloke but he hasn't been able to achieve the results needed, last season as well as this. He should have answered for this, instead he saw his foot soldiers sacked.  It leaves me concerned about the judgement of the Board but they have the opportunity in filling the job to show a determination to move the team up the table.   

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I'm a bit sad about this. I love that he came in with such a clear vision and had us playing football with real identity and purpose. Yeah there were some absolute horror results, but there were some bloody good ones as well, and I loved it when we went toe to toe with the likes of City. When we were at our best, we didn't fear anyone. We didn't sit back and try and squeeze a result, but we got in their faces and pressed them hard. Even when we were beat, the opposition were exhausted. Unfortunately we have lost much of that identity over the last 12 months. 

I think overall he has been an excellent appointment. I think we will look back at his years at the club and see the squad he had to work with was really poor. There are many, many managers who would have overseen relegation with this squad. The reality is that not only did he keep us up, but we have never had much relegation fear. And by relegation fear, I don't mean people doing absurd math that a Fulham will suddenly have title winning form to send us down. I mean that gut wrenching scramble for every available point like we felt in the 90s or the likes of 04/05. If you take a look at some of the sides that have gone down since he was here, some have had spent way more money. And again, for most of the time we did that playing largely entertaining football, even if the last 6 months has been horrific. 

I do agree now is the time to part ways. I will always consider him a Saint for his devotion and hard work in trying to make us the best possible team we can be. I have found some of the comments about him over the last few months downright shameful. He is clearly a good manager, he is just a good manager that lost his way and ran out of ideas. There is no shame in that. I feel some of it stemmed from some fans belief that men should not cry and never forgave him for that. For me it showed his passion for football and how hard he had worked for that moment.

So thank you Ralph and you will always be welcome at St Marys. 

What happens next will see what our board and owners are really made of. They have decided to go down a route of bringing in young players, a high risk high reward strategy. As one of the smaller clubs in the league, there is only a certain calibre of youngster we will attract and that puts us at risk of going down. We get it right, and it could make the club a tonne of money in the future. What is critical is this next appointment. It needs to show ambition, it needs someone who can nurture them, but at the same time we can't have an inexperienced manager who takes a while to get going. That would almost see us cut adrift. I hope they've got someone lined up, because they have had months to sound out some names. 

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The main reason I thought his time should be up is that something about the set up seems to make the players deteriorate in quality over time. I don't mean like OR aging out of premier league pace, but the younger players who come on with promise just to stagnate and players that should be in their prime just slowly getting worse. At the beginning of this season we looked like we had a fine crop of recruits who would give us a good season, but as the season has gone on that early promise seems to have been coached out of them.

I think it's time for a new approach, because as a team we rely on finding quality players who will eventually leave. That doesn't work if we make them look like worse players over time. And as head of the coaching staff that is where the buck stops.

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1 hour ago, sydney_saint said:

I'm a bit sad about this. I love that he came in with such a clear vision and had us playing football with real identity and purpose. Yeah there were some absolute horror results, but there were some bloody good ones as well, and I loved it when we went toe to toe with the likes of City. When we were at our best, we didn't fear anyone. We didn't sit back and try and squeeze a result, but we got in their faces and pressed them hard. Even when we were beat, the opposition were exhausted. Unfortunately we have lost much of that identity over the last 12 months. 

I think overall he has been an excellent appointment. I think we will look back at his years at the club and see the squad he had to work with was really poor. There are many, many managers who would have overseen relegation with this squad. The reality is that not only did he keep us up, but we have never had much relegation fear. And by relegation fear, I don't mean people doing absurd math that a Fulham will suddenly have title winning form to send us down. I mean that gut wrenching scramble for every available point like we felt in the 90s or the likes of 04/05. If you take a look at some of the sides that have gone down since he was here, some have had spent way more money. And again, for most of the time we did that playing largely entertaining football, even if the last 6 months has been horrific. 

I do agree now is the time to part ways. I will always consider him a Saint for his devotion and hard work in trying to make us the best possible team we can be. I have found some of the comments about him over the last few months downright shameful. He is clearly a good manager, he is just a good manager that lost his way and ran out of ideas. There is no shame in that. I feel some of it stemmed from some fans belief that men should not cry and never forgave him for that. For me it showed his passion for football and how hard he had worked for that moment.

So thank you Ralph and you will always be welcome at St Marys. 

What happens next will see what our board and owners are really made of. They have decided to go down a route of bringing in young players, a high risk high reward strategy. As one of the smaller clubs in the league, there is only a certain calibre of youngster we will attract and that puts us at risk of going down. We get it right, and it could make the club a tonne of money in the future. What is critical is this next appointment. It needs to show ambition, it needs someone who can nurture them, but at the same time we can't have an inexperienced manager who takes a while to get going. That would almost see us cut adrift. I hope they've got someone lined up, because they have had months to sound out some names. 

Excellent post. 

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I for one will always be grateful for the job Ralph did for us :) He has kept us in the top flight on a very tight budget and improved players. I loved his enthusiasm, his love and care for the club and he worked dam hard to be successful. We had some great times including our charge to the top of the league during the behind closed doors season, our run of form during project restart and some great wins against the big six over the last four years. I wish him well for the future and I have no doubt he will do very well in his next job. 

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I've never read so many nice things about Ralph on here as I have in the last few hours. !!!!

  But yes, time was up, thanks Ralph for your hard work and loyalty.   As others have said 'those' two big defeats must have dented his confidence and put doubts in his mind, players would have sniffed that out,  now we move on. 

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A rather sombre day in the history of Southampton FC. I loved Ralph for his enthusiasm and respected that he appeared to have a plan. I may be wrong, but the players still seemed to be playing for him and he still had the dressing room. It was obvious that we needed a striker that could score us 10-12 goals a season and in my opinion if we had a Danny Ings of three seasons ago we would have been in the top ten maybe higher. I think that we have a lot of ability in the team and if we had not sold Romeu and had bought a striker in in January we would have been OK. The board has twisted on a queen and a four.  

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As I said on another post, I will always appreciate anyone who dedicates so much time to my club. He didn't come here with the sole reason of destroying anything, he tried his absolute hardest to make this a success and went through a severe amount of personal turmoil throughout the process I'm sure.

The entire reign of Ralph is an odd one though. At the time, back in 2018 (feels like a lifetime ago) - he was seen as a coup. A former RB manager, backed with a very modern philosophy that we'd started to see take over the PL (Liverpool for e.g). I firmly believe that our massive defeats changed him, he lost belief in his actual philosophy and tried to change the only thing he knew. What really should have happened was that he was backed right at the beginning and I think we'd see a different story.

The biggest positive to our time under Ralph is that we have never been in any relegation trouble, this season is the first season it looks a bit ropey, but in all his other seasons we have been well clear most of the time.

In the main he has had to work with an absolute rabble of misfits. He's tried to make the best team he could with this group and I genuinely believe he's made players better, KWP being one. The problem he had was a lack of backing at the beginning, so he ended up having to invest his time and energy on a group which weren't really suited to his style of football. This is the first summer he's been truly backed, and it's sadly gone sour more than anyone could have thought, but I still wonder 'what if' he'd have been backed like this at the beginning.

At the end of the day everything comes to an end, but I'll stand by my view that anyone would struggle managing this lot without a striker and sometimes the grass really isn't any greener. We'll have to wait and see.

Edited by S-Clarke
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15 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

I understand the gig was up but time will tell if this man deserved to be hounded out of the club the way he was by some of you miserable sods 

What? The gig was indeed up, not as a result of being hounded out but as an abysmal run of form that was quite clearly never going to be turned around by him.

He goes with my best wishes, but thank fuck he is finally gone.

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7 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

He wasn't  'hounded out'. He was sacked because of a horrendous run of results. 

He's had an awful run granted but he did far more good than bad in his tenure... with our relative ambition in the league we're going to be at best mediocre or inconsistent over the course of a season. I will believe it when I see it should this managerial change keep us up.

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Hopefully he gets a good reception if he ever does return to St. Marys. We had some very good times, beating Portsmouth 4-0 and sitting top of the league where it seemed like we had discovered the perfect mix of talent and energy and could match most in the league. We did also have some very bad times, which you don't need to be reminded of as gets brought up most weeks, but we always seemed to recover, until the Aston Villa 4-0 last season. Since then it hasn't been the same, we lost all identity, despite mass coaching and player changers and unfortunately this sacking now seems overdue and it got toxic in the ground on occasion.

He was however the man who kept us in the Premier League comfortably each season, despite getting fuck all from above and for that we should be thankful. Shame this season was one season too far.

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3 minutes ago, stknowle said:

What? The gig was indeed up, not as a result of being hounded out but as an abysmal run of form that was quite clearly never going to be turned around by him.

He goes with my best wishes, but thank fuck he is finally gone.

Ok, I'll admit I believe this was a bridge too far for Ralph. But some of the SaintsWeb experts have said we're a cert to go down and sleepwalking to relegation for every single season since 17/18. By my reckoning we were 50-50 to go down with Ralph this year and I don't think Jones will make our odds any better.

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An honest, hard working man who, clearly loved the club and, with backing, could get us to play attractive, high-tempo football.
So thanks Ralph for your time and dedication.

Sadly, since the 4-0 away to Villa in March, we've been simply trash. 
Why the slump? RH, yeah - lost it ... but critically the players (past and present) and the board (past and present) share a lot of that responsibility too.

Time to move on and back the new man... Let's hope he can get something out of that team. 

COYS

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1 hour ago, SupersonicSaint said:

I understand the gig was up but time will tell if this man deserved to be hounded out of the club the way he was by some of you miserable sods 

The fans had nothing to do with the decision to sack Ralph. If we did then I want my share of his 6.5 million quid a year. Don't remember him ever picking up the phone and asking me about team selection, tactics etc etc.

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10 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

If the best we can do is Nathan Jones, should really just as well kept Ralph. Just be another in a long list of manager fuck ups this club has made.

Some reports are that we have basically chosen him, and it's more a coronation than an interview.

However, other reports are that he is one of a number we have shortlisted and hope to interview.

The comment from the club that we hope to have the new manager in place to face Liverpool makes me lean towards the first report. Personally, I see no rush and would rather they work to end Dec as the deadline and interview many decent candidates.

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3 minutes ago, the saint in winchester said:

Some reports are that we have basically chosen him, and it's more a coronation than an interview.

However, other reports are that he is one of a number we have shortlisted and hope to interview.

The comment from the club that we hope to have the new manager in place to face Liverpool makes me lean towards the first report. Personally, I see no rush and would rather they work to end Dec as the deadline and interview many decent candidates.

I think it's a done deal to be honest. Been said on here that they have been tracking him for months. Just pretty deflating all around to be honest. Wolves and Villa go all out and get huge upgrades on what they had before, yet we still persist in having to be different. Being different is going to cost us our Premier League place. 

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28 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

You can’t post full articles from behind a paywall, I’m afraid.

Thought you would let it slide this time, some nice juicy bits in there.

Am guessing the anonymous sources were both che and readers given they've given Jacob interviews in the last week or so.

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1 minute ago, Convict Colony said:

Yeah that's our job

May sound hypocritical but the journalism in the Athletic is like a glorified Daily Mail comments section. The parts i've seen from the latest article is much like SaintsWeb, with it's ITK "one source said" "another player said" ... blah blah blah. 

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50 minutes ago, ButtikonSaint said:

An honest, hard working man who, clearly loved the club and, with backing, could get us to play attractive, high-tempo football.
So thanks Ralph for your time and dedication.

Sadly, since the 4-0 away to Villa in March, we've been simply trash. 
Why the slump? RH, yeah - lost it ... but critically the players (past and present) and the board (past and present) share a lot of that responsibility too.

Time to move on and back the new man... Let's hope he can get something out of that team. 

COYS

It was summed up very well by someone on Facebook today. They were a team in his imagine. When he was up so were they, passionate and full of energy, when he was down so were they, dour, almost depressing, lacking any spark. 

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50 minutes ago, ButtikonSaint said:

An honest, hard working man who, clearly loved the club and, with backing, could get us to play attractive, high-tempo football.
So thanks Ralph for your time and dedication.

Sadly, since the 4-0 away to Villa in March, we've been simply trash. 
Why the slump? RH, yeah - lost it ... but critically the players (past and present) and the board (past and present) share a lot of that responsibility too.

Time to move on and back the new man... Let's hope he can get something out of that team. 

COYS

Exactly this. Liked his attitude to Cup games (never got over Poch's team against Sunderland) and if we had landed a half decent striker in the summer and a midfielder who could pass forward, not too sure we'd be saying goodbye to him now.

 

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12 minutes ago, SotonianWill said:

May sound hypocritical but the journalism in the Athletic is like a glorified Daily Mail comments section. The parts i've seen from the latest article is much like SaintsWeb, with it's ITK "one source said" "another player said" ... blah blah blah. 

Given that Jack Stephens knocks about with Fat Charlie, I would be inclined to say alot of these 'stories' have come from him, not Redmond like some have suggested online

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7 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Some fans have probably wanked themselves to death after hearing of his departure.

Is that even possible? Some way to go if you ask me - "... he died doing what he loved the most".

Anyway if it's Nathan jones it smacks of a panic move. Things like this should be planned way down the line, just in case. Do you think even the Man city or Liverpool boards haven't made little lists of potential replacements, even hypothetical ones. Not us, we bungle the sacking then flail around looking for a replacement. At the moment SFC can't do anything right.

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17 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

What about his team & performance against Leicester in the semi final? The attitude that day was pathetic. 
 

 

Granted that was a shitty performance but don't remember thinking WTF at the initial team selection...

 Anyway, thanks Ralph, you gave us some good times , some iconic times (not necessarily in a positive way) and there should be some players saying thanks too. Think KWP has already been mentioned but JWP has also had a new lease of life...until this season...

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1 hour ago, SotonianWill said:

The Athletics article from the snippets i've seen is a disgrace. Should stop giving them access all they do is talk shite and cause problems.

It is a pretty accurate account. Whether it was necessary to publish it is another question.

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2 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

The Athletic really have something against Ralph don’t they.

Is Dan Sheldon from Portsmouth? I’m sure I’ve heard that from somewhere?

Cracking write ups from Charlie Austin, Angus Gunn and Jan Bednarek. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣

Agreed. There has been some quite unpleasant stuff said today which is totally unnecessary. Someone with an agenda must be feeding them this. Completely uncalled for and in bad taste.

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  • Lighthouse changed the title to Ralph Hasenhuttl

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