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Is anybody from here going? 

If so is it a question on the night from the floor or do you have to submit your questions beforehand? Not sure of format…having never been able to attend one. 

With the general unease amongst fan base an ideal chance to ask some difficult questions….. there will be the usual ground expansion, move the away fans, horrible kits brigade but surely team selection, tactics, why haven’t we addressed the glaringly obvious CB issues will be more what the fans want to hear. Well ones on here…..

If anybody on here is going and has had to send in a question show some balls, unlike our defence, and don’t ask it if it was a “nice” conformist question….. throw ‘em a curve ball and be controversial…. It’s what we want to hear! 
 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Backrow91 said:

Is anybody from here going? 

If so is it a question on the night from the floor or do you have to submit your questions beforehand? Not sure of format…having never been able to attend one. 

With the general unease amongst fan base an ideal chance to ask some difficult questions….. there will be the usual ground expansion, move the away fans, horrible kits brigade but surely team selection, tactics, why haven’t we addressed the glaringly obvious CB issues will be more what the fans want to hear. Well ones on here…..

If anybody on here is going and has had to send in a question show some balls, unlike our defence, and don’t ask it if it was a “nice” conformist question….. throw ‘em a curve ball and be controversial…. It’s what we want to hear! 
 

 

 

I have booked tickets and have not been asked to provide any questions so I guess it is open to the floor...

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Not going but It will be incredibly annoying if questions are asked about the stadium expansion, the ladies team, the kit, the catering etc.

The most important thing is the first team players, system, setup, manager...and it is a bit of a mess atm. 

I've no idea how it all works, but hopefully it will be more value than usual...

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It’ll be the same old shit…”how pleased are you with…” or “are you happy with the…”.

I’m not going but if I was it would be “Ralph, now the early optimism of new signings has been shown not to have had a positive impact on the manner in which the first team performs, can you help us understand how you will turn a 14 game losing  streak around?” or, “Ralph, would agree that the tactics and style of football we play is responsible for our long streak of losing games, rather than the players themselves?” or, “Ralph, how long will you persist in playing players out of position in the hope they will be able to change our terrible run of form?”. You get the idea!

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Who’s signings are these, the clubs or the managers?

How long are you prepared to give this clown?

Why do you persist with Valery and Bednarek when you bought a brick-shithouse in ABK for £12m last month?

Are you considering a formation with no strikers this season?

Out of ten, how would you rate the playbook?

Do you piss off all the players that come to play for you?

Why did you back the five subs rule when most of the time you don’t change anything until it’s too fucking late?

Would you agree this is now “your team”?

Will you be resigning tonight?

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1 hour ago, Kenilworthy said:

Surely someone has to ask the question of how many matches the club is prepared to lose before Ralph is sacked?

Pointless question which clearly won’t get an answer. 

I would be very interested to know if ‘the play book’ has been impacted since the new ownership - it seems that way, for example the sudden change to a back 3. 

That would be a very good indication of what the new ownership think of Ralph. 
 

If someone going could ask that, I think that would be a good question. 

Edited by Dman
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Hi there, my name’s Dave and I’ve supported the club for 52 years, started off at the Dell watching Charlie Wayman and loved it when we won the FA Cup with Lawrie in charge. What a day when the bus toured around the city. I was in Millbrook that day. Wonderful. Jumpers for goalsposts. Oooh, lovely.  Hmmm, I’ve forgotten my question…

Ah, I remember, my question for the manager is, how does Stuart Armstrong have such great hair? 

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I don't think asking about Ralph being sacked to his face is particularly worthwhile.

I do definitely think we need to find out more about the transfer policy at the moment, are we any closer to this attacker we've been talking about? Do we now need to make sales to counteract the current net spend? 

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I’m intrigued to know why we played a new default formation of 3 at the back for almost all of pre season, then after the first game of the season the manager stated that it’s not the right solution after all. What was the process involved in adopting this formation, and did we recruit players based on 3 at the back other than 4? If so, where do the manager’s comments leave us?

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So, given the array reps on the panel, by the time we get past fawning over the ladies football/ladies saints and Adam Blackmore waffling/back slapping the club...we will have a couple of questions of relocating away fans, prices and size of the replica shirts...we may get the odd semi-awkward question towards Ralph, before 'big Adam' returns to sucking the clubs teet.

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DJ Toast your comment may well have been tongue in cheek it may not but no need to ask that question, other than choice, as the following is a genuine response to a recent complaint (copied without permission but father in law won’t mind! 🤪

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for your negative experience at the Villarreal match.

 

We are aware of the challenges that have been in place for a number of seasons. Each matchday we have a member of staff within the concourse to assess what is going on. Last season in partnership with our catering provider, Gather and Gather, we have introduced more till points, cashless payments only, and increased the number of staff on a matchday working within our kiosks. The problem we experienced this match, like we do during the majority of our pre-season matches and matches during University holidays, is that a large number of our staff are University students. As a result of this, we always struggle with staff numbers during these times – Gather and Gather are working on how we can address this.

 

Normally staff pre-pour pints before kick-off and before half-time, to ensure that queue times are reduced – with us being short on staff, this was also impacted. As well as the speed of restocking all of our concourse units.

 

We know that this isn’t the level of service we wish to provide, however as a club we will continue to work hard with Gather and Gather to ensure that we continue to see an improvement moving forward.

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4 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Who’s signings are these, the clubs or the managers?

How long are you prepared to give this clown?

Why do you persist with Valery and Bednarek when you bought a brick-shithouse in ABK for £12m last month?

Are you considering a formation with no strikers this season?

Out of ten, how would you rate the playbook?

Do you piss off all the players that come to play for you?

Why did you back the five subs rule when most of the time you don’t change anything until it’s too fucking late?

Would you agree this is now “your team”?

Will you be resigning tonight?

Brilliant.

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Probably been covered buy I hope these sort of questions are asked.

1) To Ralph...

Why do you continue to play square pegs in round holes?

why do you continually "experiment" with formations and selections?

When are you going to do the honourable thing and resign?

2) To The Club

When are we going to sign a decent striker?

When are we going to sign a 2nd decent striker?

When are we going to sign a decent CB

When are we going to sign a decent No.10.

When are you going to replace Ralph?

 

To the Owner(s)

1) when are we going to sell or give away the shit holding us back? 

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9 minutes ago, MarkSFC said:

Probably been covered buy I hope these sort of questions are asked.

1) To Ralph...

Why do you continue to play square pegs in round holes?

why do you continually "experiment" with formations and selections?

When are you going to do the honourable thing and resign?

2) To The Club

When are we going to sign a decent striker?

When are we going to sign a 2nd decent striker?

When are we going to sign a decent CB

When are we going to sign a decent No.10.

When are you going to replace Ralph?

 

To the Owner(s)

1) when are we going to sell or give away the shit holding us back? 

It's strange that half the fans on this forum complain that Ralph experiments too much (as in 1) above) and half the fans complain that he is too obstinate, too rigid and won't adapt. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't

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8 minutes ago, Dellman said:

It's strange that half the fans on this forum complain that Ralph experiments too much (as in 1) above) and half the fans complain that he is too obstinate, too rigid and won't adapt. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't

But that's almost the whole point. He sticks when he should twist and twists when he should stick so to speak. 

He gets it wrong, far more than he gets it right. 

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Should be an interesting listen. Why anyone would become hostile to Ralph though and ask him about resigning is beyond me.

We may not always agree with his decisions but his commitment and passion about Saints and making us better is undeniable. He doesnt deserve to get abuse from Brian from Bitterne.

Hopefully he will be asked about the balance between youth and experience, the rationale for 3CBs when they are the weakest individuals in the team, and why some players are continualy given chances when they have proven not to be up to it.

Equally to Semmens...we have lost out best striker from last season, when will you give Ralph the attacking tools to make us more of a threat? Can we push to a £25-30m fee for the right forward? If not, why can almost everyone else?

Edited by Dusic
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1 hour ago, Dusic said:

Should be an interesting listen. Why anyone would become hostile to Ralph though and ask him about resigning is beyond me.

We may not always agree with his decisions but his commitment and passion about Saints and making us better is undeniable. He doesnt deserve to get abuse from Brian from Bitterne.

Hopefully he will be asked about the balance between youth and experience, the rationale for 3CBs when they are the weakest individuals in the team, and why some players are continualy given chances when they have proven not to be up to it.

Equally to Semmens...we have lost out best striker from last season, when will you give Ralph the attacking tools to make us more of a threat? Can we push to a £25-30m fee for the right forward? If not, why can almost everyone else?

Agreed. A better way to handle it would be for a supporter to stand up and highlight the fans' concerns over the spurs loss - the lack of defensive nous, the mistakes, the ease with which spurs played through us etc. and then ask Ralph for his thoughts, and whether he's concerned, what he thinks are the core reasons behind it and frankly the perceived lack of progress over it, and whether he has considered a different formation or how he plans to address it. Frankly - someone should ask some polite, intelligent, but more awkward questions - i'd expect BBC solent to do this but for whatever reason Adam blackmore doesn't OR won't.

Regardless, Ralph doesn't deserve abuse, but many more games like spurs and his clock will be running low - and tbf i bet he knows it and feels the pressure as well. Some of his more recent decisions do smack of a man who is under the kosh and the pressure is stopping him making proactive or correct decisions.

Edited by Saint86
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SOmeone should ask why they have made it a requirement for fans in block 1 and 2 to carry id.

They should also ask given that they have written to home fans to remain seated during games, even ejecting saints fans at the friendlies, presumably they will be applying the same rules to away fans given they have warned fans that standing will result in ejection, a ban and further action from the police. 

 

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On 08/08/2022 at 12:25, Kenilworthy said:

Surely someone has to ask the question of how many matches the club is prepared to lose before Ralph is sacked?

Yes if you're prepared to waste a question that literally no sports club in the world would actually provide an answer to.

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51 minutes ago, Turkish said:

SOmeone should ask why they have made it a requirement for fans in block 1 and 2 to carry id.

They should also ask given that they have written to home fans to remain seated during games, even ejecting saints fans at the friendlies, presumably they will be applying the same rules to away fans given they have warned fans that standing will result in ejection, a ban and further action from the police. 

 

They might even be considering a barrier ‘wall’ in the itchen north between home and away. 
just like West Ham have done. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Edited by saint lard
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1 hour ago, Turkish said:

SOmeone should ask why they have made it a requirement for fans in block 1 and 2 to carry id.

They should also ask given that they have written to home fans to remain seated during games, even ejecting saints fans at the friendlies, presumably they will be applying the same rules to away fans given they have warned fans that standing will result in ejection, a ban and further action from the police. 

 

When supporter / club relations are at a recent low, what a way to reward arguably your most loyal supporters. 
 

who on earth is running this club on a day to day basis making decisions like this. Idiots. 

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27 minutes ago, Dman said:

When supporter / club relations are at a recent low, what a way to reward arguably your most loyal supporters. 
 

who on earth is running this club on a day to day basis making decisions like this. Idiots. 

Just watch 3000 Leeds fans stand for the entire game and they wade in and eject a few saints doing it. I remember when they tried this in the early days of St Marys and all it did was cause more problems than it would have solved. Half of the problems in the Itchen north are due to away fans in the corporate boxes, get rid of that and the problem goes away, but they wont because that would cost them money, which we all know is all they care about. 

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22 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Just watch 3000 Leeds fans stand for the entire game and they wade in and eject a few saints doing it. I remember when they tried this in the early days of St Marys and all it did was cause more problems than it would have solved. Half of the problems in the Itchen north are due to away fans in the corporate boxes, get rid of that and the problem goes away, but they wont because that would cost them money, which we all know is all they care about. 

Virtually every away game I've been to the stewards / police are on away fan side of the segregation, generally use the fans alone. 

St Mary's on the other hand has stewards police on home fan side all too willing to go in and hassle someone for a few gestures whereas they turn a blind eye to the away fans happy to let them crack on. Safety officer is probably a skate. 

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12 minutes ago, JRM said:

Virtually every away game I've been to the stewards / police are on away fan side of the segregation, generally use the fans alone. 

St Mary's on the other hand has stewards police on home fan side all too willing to go in and hassle someone for a few gestures whereas they turn a blind eye to the away fans happy to let them crack on. Safety officer is probably a skate. 

Did you get that email earlier?

Screenshot_2022-08-09-19-24-02-57_e307a3f9df9f380ebaf106e1dc980bb6.jpg

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11 minutes ago, JRM said:

Virtually every away game I've been to the stewards / police are on away fan side of the segregation, generally use the fans alone. 

St Mary's on the other hand has stewards police on home fan side all too willing to go in and hassle someone for a few gestures whereas they turn a blind eye to the away fans happy to let them crack on. Safety officer is probably a skate. 

What about the threats to remove/refuse entry to fans if they don’t bring ID with them? I don’t think it’s even a legal requirement to carry ID. I know ad a private entry they can request this but what grounds do they have for demanding it and refusing entry if they don’t have it? Club is run by a bunch of wankers.

Most of the issues are caused away fans in the corporate boxes, anyone going to challenge that? 

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1 hour ago, The Cat said:

Did you get that email earlier?

Screenshot_2022-08-09-19-24-02-57_e307a3f9df9f380ebaf106e1dc980bb6.jpg

Yeah it's nonsense, classic tactics by talking up the issue they've created an impression there's a serious problem that needs clamping down on, the stewards have been briefed on being tough like their trial run at the pre season games throwing people out for standing , I know a few season ticket holders in those blocks who have given up their tickets can't be doing with the hassle. Will probably be a ratio of 1 steward per fan in those blocks as so few fans have tickets. 

Edited by JRM
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19 minutes ago, Turkish said:

According to Illingworth on TUi he’s the former commander in the MET and stadium manager at Millwall. I guess that’s how bad things are 

Probably treating it like a counter terrorism operation 

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20 minutes ago, Saints foreva said:

I'd like to know why we give the away teams 300 tickets more than we're required to. It's probably the biggest allocation in the league, they could easily cut it down to 3,000 and have more stewards in that area on the away side of the segregation. 

Yes another good point. Saints bend over backwards to accommodate away fans , get the impression they'd happily give more to away fans if they could (cup a good example) absolutely no way will stewards go into the Leeds end on Saturday far too scared. 

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46 minutes ago, The Cat said:

Did you get that email earlier?

Screenshot_2022-08-09-19-24-02-57_e307a3f9df9f380ebaf106e1dc980bb6.jpg

Bottom of the league, spanked on Saturday and the club think people give a flying fuck about the new ‘safety officer’ who’ll do absolutely nothing about people standing, regardless of whatever threats they send out. 
 

As said above, this club is run by a bunch of out of touch wankers (on the non footballing side). 

Edited by Dman
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31 minutes ago, JRM said:

Yes another good point. Saints bend over backwards to accommodate away fans , get the impression they'd happily give more to away fans if they could (cup a good example) absolutely no way will stewards go into the Leeds end on Saturday far too scared. 

No doubt when Leeds score their fans will be straight across the netting, stewards standing there doing nothing but as soon as one of ours waves a few fingers around they'll be carted out.

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41 minutes ago, Dman said:

Bottom of the league, spanked on Saturday and the club think people give a flying fuck about the new ‘safety officer’ who’ll do absolutely nothing about people standing, regardless of whatever threats they send out. 
 

As said above, this club is run by a bunch of out of touch wankers (on the non footballing side). 

The club have learned their tactics from the government eg ‘save big/Austrian dog’ so this is their equivalent of Channel 4 privatisation and a culture war to distract from the shambles on the pitch. We’ve criticised the boardroom darling (Ralph) from the stands and suggested he should be sacked in the morning. ‘We March on’ you know, to the Championship it seems.

We therefore must be punished (as if 5 years of gutless and pathetic home league displays weren’t sufficient) and warned off similar behaviour. Never mind that McCarthy and Stephens were given long, costly, unnecessary and unjustified contracts that the board were too embarrassed to announce, and the first team manager has all the tactical and selection qualities of George Burley, a few people standing in block 1 and the odd hand gesture at opposing fans represents a far bigger problem. I never knew SMS was such a hotbed of football violence to rival Old Firm, Millwall etc.

Still, if the cost of living crisis gets any worse, the problem will resolve as there will be no fans at all in blocks 1 and 2. If Leeds do score 2 or 3 early goals, even these tactics won’t work and can see the atmosphere getting toxic. 

 

Edited by saint1977
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