Ralph Krueger Interview Incoming

Are you related to Dell by any chance?...

 

‘The Asian market is waiting for us to pounce on it'

Oh, I'm sure it is, Ralph...

 

Ralph getting confused between football and ladyboys again...

 

I’m glad someone read it as I did; it’s skightky frustrating when people spew bile about Ralph being a PR spinning motherf¥cker.... that’s his job and the sole reason he was bought in.

I was reasonably impressed with the details he mentioned about how many teams were in the relegation battle. It was a poor season for anyone below the bottom 4, about how he talked about less draws and more wins.

He acknowledged the season was poor, acknowledged that several mistakes had been made, although we owe them nothing, I’m glad he didn’t throw Puel and MoPo under the bus-whilst I resent the style of football they bought, not constantly slagging them off at board level separates us from the seedy undertones of West Ham and their comedy approach to “running” a club.

Before the last 2 seasons, many people were calling for him to be knighted, but now because his predictions haven’t come to fruition they are calling for Reeds head. I got bored of the rhetoric, so I’m glad he’s piped down, but the trade off is that he works twice as hard behind the scenes. It’s an easily overlooked point that Ralph made, but where Saints were pushing the boundaries 3 years ago, a lot of bottom half clubs copied our coaching, scouting, recruitment, etc and the advantage gained was lost, that combined with other issues left us vulnerable to this season happening. If not Reed, then who...?... I can’t see many other candidates with a track record.... Cortese anyone...??!!

With regards VVD saga, we were damned if we sold him, damned if we didn’t. Let’s not overlook the real issue as I see it, Liverpool have a track record of tapping up international players from lower league clubs, there’s very little us smaller clubs can do apart from pick up the pieces. We were never going to see the whole VVD money spent as clubs knew we had money burning a hole in our pockets.

I’m glad the season is over; poor managers, poor individual performances, our top 4 highest fee players have all underachieved on a big scale, the Liverpool saga, a takeover muddying the waters financially and a club communication strategy that backfired.

Way forward..... appoint Hughes, back him financially including getting rid of the dead wood, aim to replace clubs like Everton who want to be best of the rest in the league, re-engage with fans...

 

Puel was dull but not agony. Hughes at least got stoke playing football rather than hoofball.

I predict mid table mediocrity/stability. If he is backed. Leader in defence, winger to replace boufal, striker to replace carillo. And a sub keeper.

 

Well that's an absolute crock of ****e as expected.

If there's no changes at board level this season then I only forsee another relegation battle as I have zero faith that they have learnt from their mistakes.

A penny for your thoughts Mr Gao.

 

"May 15th 2018 and we’re doomed next season already. Strike me, just as Ralph hits new levels of bullshit, the fans hit new levels of negativity.

You deserve an award."

FLT

 

Dont get me wrong. I wasn't maligning Hughes, I was aiming it at the board and what already looks like **** ambition and tight purse strings

 

Yeah. What we've learned from this episode is that we need to be less ambitious, more aggressive in selling our better players, and more transparent in the way we duck the media (Les) or utter gibberish (Ralph).

 

Thanks. Saved me typing.

 

Good post. Saints for years have been banging on about their policy of constantly having a plan to replace key people should they leave, have their heads turned, death due to a thousand cuts. This season has clearly not been the case. Hughes was a long shot punt that happened to work. It very nearly didn't!!!!

We know we aren't a big club in the shape of say Man City or United, but we should definitely be better than Huddersfield, Watford and bournemouth.

Its almost like the only gauge that Ralph looks at is how much money we make. As a business man he should be keen on that, but as a sportsman he should also have an eye to how well we are doing!

 

**** knows. Does he? Presumably he's been working his own brand of magic on various audiences for donkey's years. Has no one ever told him to stfu?

 

Yes, particularly as we very nearly lost £120m a season in revenue...

 

I can forgive people in power being ruthless, especially if their ruthlessness is for the common good. But I can't make a case for cowardice being an acceptable quality in a leader.

 

But most have a degree of competence which at least hides their nefarious other side.

 

I get what you’re saying, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m personally fed up of the pacifying, see through bullshit that he rolls out.

Two things in your post - people two years ago calling for him to be knighted? No. Most people have consistently thought him a berk.

Cortese anyone? Yes please.

 

Just to clarify on that Cortese point. Just as Trump is benefiting from financial decisions made by his predecessor, I absolutely think that the club massively benefited from the processes (and people) that Cortese put in place, which rolled through much of the Koeman era (and helped him a large amount too). Then, as these things do without the originator still around, they began to dissipate. And here we are.

 

Tongue in cheek with the knighthood stuff, we were punching well above our weight a few years ago but that then was found out.

It seems that you have the two extremes in terms of leadership... Cortese or Reed, opposites of the same spectrum. Cortese needlessly pushed us financially, but I loved him having the cahunas to stand up to people.

Reed saw the development Cortese didn’t.... but has gone off the boil after several successful seasons.... Krueger also keeps Reeds cahunas in a jar in his fridge....

It’s wooly words.... but it’s something...?just for decide which way we want

 

The *club* tells us Cortese was putting us in a difficult financial position. I would strongly suggest that is a lot of PR spin and wasn’t the case (and I have been told that by someone close to the club). NC was a ruthless SOB but he cared more about the club as a successful sporting enterprise than (or at least as much) as a business. That swapped around once he left.

 

Of course the club was always going to feed us a line regarding NC, it’s where you personally see the future.... with a touch of manically obsessive or with a touch of Uber, Uber safety bordering delusion....