Saints 1-2 Brighton - Match Thread

[Viking Saint]

5 minutes ago, whelk said:

Get Scott Parker 

a) Would he even come here, and

b) We can't afford to sack Ralph. We're staying paying off the last three managers we sacked. 

[Dangerspoon]

Unfortunately when a side makes a tactical change Ralph doesn’t have the ability to understand what to do. First time I’ve really started to question his managerial ability

Edited 14 March, 2021 by Dangerspoon

[DT]

2 minutes ago, BotleySaint said:

No team spirit at all. No communication. All playing for themselves. Surely it's down to Ralph to develop in a better direction?

Are th EY all playing for their next club already?

[stknowle]

Just watched the Adams chance again. Fuck me what a brainless welt that was. Just fucking place it in ffs.

[whelk]

3 minutes ago, BotleySaint said:

No team spirit at all. No communication. All playing for themselves. Surely it's down to Ralph to develop this?

No you must realise these are league one players assembled by Gao. Ralph is a genius who is ensuring they overperform being very geniusy. Enjoy while we have him as he will be poached v soon. Not getting caught by Fulham woudl be miraculous achievement. Worthy of a big cry

Edited 14 March, 2021 by whelk

[egg]

4 minutes ago, Chez said:

this. There seems to be a complete lack of awareness from Ralf that perhaps our formation isn't helping us. Brighton suffocated us thrpughout the entire game. What was the response?

Absolutely. Our way of playing is so simple. His only tweak today was to give Minamino a Marsden type role pulling inside and leaving Bertrand to give width. They changed tactics and nullified us completely. Ralph, again, had no idea how to change it. 

[madge]

I’ve been firmly behind the notion to keep Ralph in and we’ll turn a corner but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that is gone wrong. I truly believe our coaching set up is an absolute shambles. 
Brighton were miles better than us today, we just played in front of them, side to side, without absolutely any risk in our play. Why not go Direct and put vestergaard up top for the last 5 mins? 
if we do stay up I have no confidence next season, best players gone whilst the club will Pin their hopes and expectations on youth, which quite frankly looks weak.

 

[spyinthesky]

We were just about OK first half but awful second half.

As Danny Murphy said we spend more time on the ball and less on getting the ball in the box.

We are also a small side so every ball pumped forward in the air is food and drink for the opposition.

Adam Lallana best player on the pitch

[bpsaint]

Said in the build up that Brighton couldn’t wish to face a better side to end their unfair run of results when they’d been playing well and we didn’t disappoint.

Thanks for some good times Ralph but it’s time to go.

[Ed Rooney]

Absolute shite 
No leadership 
No drive 
Supposed key players tossing it off with not a care in the word 
Captain that clearly can’t motivate 
 

one of the poisonous players Redmond having a little chat and laugh with lallana during the game... nice 

[BotleySaint]

Can't see us getting anything from the next 3 games. Burnley have way too much fight for us. West brom will be keen to improve and will see us as a winnable game. Palace also have players with pace and energy.

I fear the worst for next week against the Cherries. Could be humiliation.

Edited 14 March, 2021 by BotleySaint

[OttawaSaint]

All this talk about plan B. But do we even have a plan A. No one looks like they have a clue out there. When we do somehow spawn our way through we’ll choose the wrong pass or fluff an easy 10 yard ball anyway.

[obelisk]

11 minutes ago, Wallington Saint said:

Why did we wait for injury time to start pushing forward!!??

 

Did we push forward in added time?

[Micky]

Just now, BotleySaint said:

Can't see us getting anything from the next 3 games. Burnley have way too much fight for us. West brom will be keen to improve and will see us as a winnable game. Palace also have players with pace and energy.

I fear the worst for nest week against the Cherries. Could be humiliation.

Losing against them may actually be a blessing in disguise,  let's face it,  whoever we get in the next round is going to smash us anyway.

[Baird of the land]

We seem to have gone back to the mentality that players first thought is to stop and pass the ball backwards. While i don't think Tella was particularly effective today he was the only one willing to run at opposition and resulted in one moment in 2nd half where we looked like we might score.

[Uncle Albert]

If we don’t go down this season than we will almost certainly go down next season unless something dramatic changes.

[saint michael]

Whether we go down or not will not be down to us. The points we have may or may not be enough. It will all depend on whether Fulham, Brighton or Newcastle can get ahead of us. we are literally in free fall and hard to know if we can get another win. 
 

I haven’t seen a worse defence than ours. We are clueless when we have the ball. We are like rabbits in the headlights in attack. 
 

I can’t see anything negative about changing Ralph. We can’t get anything less than we are. 

[Super_Uwe]

So angry with that performance. Just not good enough. A golden opportunity to put any relegation fears to bed, and they perform like that. And Lallana MOM too 😄

[kpturner]

8 minutes ago, Dangerspoon said:

Unfortunately when a side makes a tactical change Ralph doesn’t have the ability to understand what to do. First time I’ve really started to question his managerial ability

It wasn’t even a tactical change - Burn was injured 

[Cabrone]

That 2nd half was pure Pellegrino, played at a glacial pace, plenty of silly mistakes and absolutely no urgency whatsoever. Completely unwatchable.

I *think* we'll survive because we have the points but based on that performance we'll be crawling over the line rather than breezing past it as we were looking back in January.

I'd like to know what has happened, have the players decided that the season is already over? Has Ralph lost the dressing room? Are the tactics wrong? (same tactics that got us a load of points pre January?). What on earth has happened?

[CanadaSaint]

I've been very pro-Ralph all along, but:

when a team defending a lead has more attacking intent and urgency than the team behind,

when one of your central defenders is being used as a main creative midfielder,

when you are perpetually stuck in a recycling vortex,

when you’ve forgotten what an early ball looks like,

when your manager is too obstinate about his style to change, even when you’re losing again and in freefall,

and when it’s too late to change him and no clear replacements …

… all you can do is hope to god that there are three worse teams.

Edited 14 March, 2021 by CanadaSaint

[gammon cheeks]

That was nearly a full strength side so no excuses .......We are not improving we are getting worse . It is down to Raplh and the way we play and he has to take the blame .

[Winnersaint]

This was so predictable. Playing a team we knew we had a good chance of beating, some silly scoreline predictions on here prior to the game and you just know its going to go tits up. Cue meltdown on here.

[OttawaSaint]

Do they watch the game back with the players and I don’t know show them the ball they should have played or where they should have been defending or is it a case of, “oh that was unfortunate, see you all on Monday for a kickabout, laugh and shooting practice against our shit keepers”?

[DT]

 Can we give Chris Wilder a call?

[Lone ranger]

Wonder if Mr Wilder would like to help out with a different set of red and white stripes. At least players would play as if their lives depended on it...

[saintbenny]

1 minute ago, Baird of the land said:

We seem to have gone back to the mentality that players first thought is to stop and pass the ball backwards. While i don't think Tella was particularly effective today he was the only one willing to run at opposition and resulted in one moment in 2nd half where we looked like we might score.

This. We look terrified of passing the ball forward. We break at pace. stop. pass back. recycle it for a minute and then lose the ball. What does Ralph do with them during training? At least under Puel we were well organised. It's panic stations every time a team attacks us.

[Chapel End]

2 minutes ago, DT said:

 Can we give Chris Wilder a call?

 

2 minutes ago, Lone ranger said:

Wonder if Mr Wilder would like to help out with a different set of red and white stripes. At least players would play as if their lives depended on it...

Why when Mark Hughes is ready and waiting .

Same standard 

Edited 14 March, 2021 by Chapel End

[Roo1976]

Where was the urgency after conceding after 56 minutes?  we fucking show no ability to be able to get anything goal worthy in attempts to try and unsettle teams.

Relegation very much starts to loom in sight after this dreadful inept display . No desire to take chances just fanny around passing to defenders across the back with  no movement in front running  .All our second half displays have been dreadful this season and that seemed to start with being 4-0 up away to villa ,we only just got that.!!!!!.

Who else was screaming at the telly when from our throw in in their half near the corner flag ,who would have thought it would find its way back to Forster(who by the way) was shocking for the first goal . We constantly keep killing our own self belief by making so many unforced errors we cant adapt to the situation and become scarred to move the ball quickly enough to make chances. We are letting the likes of Fulham  get closer to us and YES OUR GOAL DIFFERENCE is now becoming a big problem.

Anyone see how good Burnley were yesterday?.......if we continue to play like that in anymore of our remaining fixtures were going to go ,if not this season then certainly next .

Fuck im pissed off now so angry wow shit happens and were covered in it. Dose  Ralph have any motivational speeches left?,if so they arnt getting through, again Bertrand collects the ball traps it pauses waits for nothing to happen and passes it back from where it just came from.

If we don't cross the ball we simply don't get an opportunity to cause difficulties. We are so easy to play against.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BallBoy]

Very very disappointed by that. Ings & Romeu are massive miss and just afford to have so many play poorly. Diablo & Tell a very poor today. We just seemed totally unable to win a tackle. If you lose 80% of the 50/50 balls then you are likely to lose. As we did! Painful watch.

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

Beaten by a side who showed more urgency & wanted it more. Not acceptable. Not sure if it's Ralph, the players or both. Wouldn't be surprised if the😸same happened next week too.

Edited 14 March, 2021 by Ivan Katalinic's 'tache

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 minutes ago, Chapel End said:

 

Why when Mark Hughes is ready and waiting .

Same standard 

As is Ralph 

[Roo1976]

5 minutes ago, CanadaSaint said:

I've been very pro-Ralph all along, but:

when a team defending a lead has more attacking intent and urgency than the team behind,

when one of your central defenders is being used as a main creative midfielder,

when you are perpetually stuck in a recycling vortex,

when you’ve forgotten what an early ball looks like,

when your manager is too obstinate about his style to change, even when you’re losing again and in freefall,

and when it’s too late to change him and no clear replacements …

… all you can do is hope to god that there are three worse teams.

Well said i was trying to compose my reply about this and your absolutely right in all your points ..........wheres our creativity wheres it gone or are we deluding ourselfs by thinking were better than we know we really are?

[captainchris]

1 hour ago, Chapel End said:

We rarely do,zonal stuff

Ralph is now taking us backwards fast...

so many glaring tactical and coaching mistakes. 
Poor. 

Edited 14 March, 2021 by captainchris

[Wurzel]

2 minutes ago, gammon cheeks said:

That was nearly a full strength side so no excuses .......We are not improving we are getting worse . It is down to Raplh and the way we play and he has to take the blame .

Yep, on paper I'd pick our player against one of theirs in every position yet they showed more commitment and better tactics.

Ralph was a breath of fresh air when he came here, but football tactics are continuously evolving. It seems like 18 months is about the limit that any new style of play can catch teams by surprise, after that everyone has sussed out how to combat it. 

It seems that RH is still trying to perfect a system that other teams have already realised no longer works.

 

[Chapel End]

1 minute ago, captainchris said:

Ralph is now taking us backwards fast...

so many glaring tactical and coaching mistakes. 
Poor. 

We have always done zonal marking under Ralf

[Lone ranger]

I like this quote from Wilder:

"I think at times I'm quite angry and I want to fight my way out of corners. I'm sure I'll never change. We don't have the players that other teams have got but we have boys who want to track back, put a tackle in and stop a cross.

[S-Clarke]

13 minutes ago, CanadaSaint said:

I've been very pro-Ralph all along, but:

when a team defending a lead has more attacking intent and urgency than the team behind,

when one of your central defenders is being used as a main creative midfielder,

when you are perpetually stuck in a recycling vortex,

when you’ve forgotten what an early ball looks like,

when your manager is too obstinate about his style to change, even when you’re losing again and in freefall,

and when it’s too late to change him and no clear replacements …

… all you can do is hope to god that there are three worse teams.

What I'd say is a lot of that is down to confidence, players not being brave enough in possession and not being brave enough to make the movement out of possession, it's all very risk adverse. They play safe because they are petrified of making mistakes, I'm sure of it. The manager will tell them to be patient and probe, for sure, but he will be telling to be brave when they spot an opening.

Our problem is that we're not brave enough and the players aren't making the right movement out of possession, and if they do, we're not confident enough to play it. This squad hugely overachieved, like ridiculously overachieved, it's not fair to bash Ralph because we're not pushing for Top 8 - because no one would have this team pushing for top 8. The fact he even had us thinking about it with this group shows you what a job he's done, in my opinion. He seems to a victim of his own success.

Edited 14 March, 2021 by S-Clarke

[Chapel End]

6 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

As is Ralph 

Yep,all the time since he was here🙄

[Chez]

20 minutes ago, bpsaint said:

Said in the build up that Brighton couldn’t wish to face a better side to end their unfair run of results when they’d been playing well and we didn’t disappoint.

 

We didn't play well. no doubt about it. But Brighton have been playing well in recent weeks without the results they deserve. I watched them at Leeds and they completely nullified them as they did us. They don't look like a relegation threatened side to me. Perhaps they lack a striker, but they are very solid. We on the other hand look all over the place defensively, and when we are chasing games we don't have the quality in the final third to unlock  packed defence.

[DT]

Would prefer three points than progressing one more stage in the FA Cup by a million miles. 

[CanadaSaint]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

What I'd say is a lot of that is down to confidence, players not being brave enough in possession and not being brave enough to make the movement out of possession, it's all very risk adverse. They play safe because they are petrified of making mistakes, I'm sure of it. The manager will tell them to be patient and probe, for sure, but he will be telling to be brave when they spot an opening.

Our problem is that we're not brave enough and we're not clever enough to spot those openings. This squad hugely overachieved, like ridiculously overachieved, it's not fair to bash Ralph because we're not pushing for Top 8 - because no one would have this team pushing for top 8. The fact he even had us thinking about it with this group shows you what a job he's done, in my opinion. He seems to a victim of his own success.

I hear you, but our recent run makes me think that bravery on the ball is not being drilled INTO them but OUT OF them. When we continually see "turn and recycle" rather than "take them on, get in behind, play it early", that has to come from somewhere. If Ralph thought turn and recycle was the problem, he'd have sorted it.

[derry]

That game looked like we were a team turning up expecting to pick up an easy three points and getting their pants pulled down by a side giving everything then not able to adjust. Passing the ball along the back line just helped Brighton consolidate and play on the break.

[Jonnyboy]

5 minutes ago, DT said:

Would prefer three points than progressing one more stage in the FA Cup by a million miles. 

I think we'll lose to Burnley but get something from Palace and West Brom. 

Beating Bournemouth could be a good springboard. 

[kenneth_kenobi]

Injury time and we have a goal kick, take it short and start knocking it across the back - WHY?!?!?   Stick Vest up front and pump in some crosses!!! 

[Chez]

8 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

What I'd say is a lot of that is down to confidence, players not being brave enough in possession and not being brave enough to make the movement out of possession, it's all very risk adverse. They play safe because they are petrified of making mistakes, I'm sure of it.

 

 

I don't see that many players not being brave enough on the ball except Redmond. I've always tried to back Redmond, but he is one of those who's confidence has gone. He struggled to control the ball today never mind get it, and penetrate. One nice weighted pass the Bertrand and that is all he did.

I do think our natural game is to keep the ball and not take a chance by driving down the line. That can quickly become a blind alley, but every now and then you have to at leats try it. 

[OttawaSaint]

I could forgive the team for a loss if, from the first whistle they laid siege to the BHA goal, really tried to make things happen, take on players, take chances but they don’t, they just recycle recycle recycle. It’s boring, timid and ineffective. 

We’re approaching MoPe levels of, a draw is a win type negativity. Other teams know how to play us. Just conserve energy in the first and wait for us to give them the ball and win in the second. Easy easy win for BHA today.

Edited 14 March, 2021 by OttawaSaint

[Chez]

2 minutes ago, Jonnyboy said:

I think we'll lose to Burnley but get something from Palace and West Brom. 

Beating Bournemouth could be a good springboard. 

I always think we will beat Burnley, they are pretty shite, but they looked bloody excellent against Everton so fear for us. I cant see where the next win is coming from. Are WBA playing poorly? I've not watched them. 

[Chapel End]

One more thing to add, i thing Bednarek looks low on confidence and form and could do with a game or 2 off

[redkeith]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

What I'd say is a lot of that is down to confidence, players not being brave enough in possession and not being brave enough to make the movement out of possession, it's all very risk adverse. They play safe because they are petrified of making mistakes, I'm sure of it. The manager will tell them to be patient and probe, for sure, but he will be telling to be brave when they spot an opening.

Our problem is that we're not brave enough and we're not clever enough to spot those openings. This squad hugely overachieved, like ridiculously overachieved, it's not fair to bash Ralph because we're not pushing for Top 8 - because no one would have this team pushing for top 8. The fact he even had us thinking about it with this group shows you what a job he's done, in my opinion. He seems to a victim of his own success.

When Ralph started out, we played low possession football, not worrying o=about giving away the ball, but concentrating more on winning it back and then moving it quickly  towards the opposition goal. I seem to remember some stat about getting a shot away within 7 seconds of winning the ball back. 

Maybe that is not always possible in such a compressed season, but we need to start doing this again. 

Lets hope that the lack of midweek games gives us time to get our energy levels up.