But not before his two disastrous passes before you posted One from RB near half way line that went back behind our LB.
If they don’t look much different at the end of January, it’s the Championship next season with the skill level available. Every team that plays us knows we will give them at least one goal, every time. Seeing that we cannot score more than two, what other outcome is there? Perhaps we need to get used to the idea that we just may end up with a few weeks of draws, until the new medicine starts to work?
How is it defeatist? It's simply saying I am meh with Saints as I have gotten to the point were I don't care as much. End of the day there are more important things in life than worrying about footy. That is the stage I am at. Tbf , I just think I have become a casual supporter instead of hardcore one I use to be. I was crazy invested in Southampton, but now value other things far higher.
Yeah agree - I actually do like Stephens as a player, so maybe I’m giving him too much slack. I don’t really know where we go from here watching that. RH has so much work to do
It’s going to take time. I’m still excited by this appointment and although the clock is against us, we need to be patient and give him a month with this squad. We could be adrift by then but still not impossible. Leicester were something like 7 points from safety with 9 games to go and survived. It can happen and we still have 22 games left. He can have a free hit for the next 4-5 to see what he has and get his message across, but then very quickly these players need to understand and deliver and/or the Board need to dig deep to get Ralph what he wants in January.
Huddersfield on the 22nd. West Ham on the 27th. Hessenhootle will have all of two weeks before then, but he'll need them up to speed. We simply cannot afford to drift any further behind. We're exceptionally fortunate that we aren't a totally lost cause already (we're on pace for 21 points!), but through no fault of Ralph's he has been thrust into a spot that comes with a fierce need for urgency.
Fair comment Beef , I agree 100% about other things being more important . I have not been to a game in years . So maybe you are posting without the same passion as before , that makes more sense ( to me ) .
Working hard towards survival and further hard work in the Summer throughout the club is what it is all about now.
I wonder what Ralph made of it. More of the same for us - a draw turned into a loss/win turned into a draw by defensive mistakes. And the clubs around us are maybe better geared up for the battle than we are.
These defensive failings have not seemed to have been addressed at all by the previous management, I think most of us have faith that Ralph WILL sort things, and that it will happen sooner than some may think.
No shortage of effort. Not a great deal of quality. Atrocious conditions. **** result, no luck. Pretty much as expected really. Ralph will get us out of this, I reckon. Still feeling the new manager buzz here. Oh, and the fans who booed at the end; absolute ****ers.
Christ, I've just seen Fulham's remaining fixtures this month: West Ham (h), Newcastle (a), Wolves (h), Huddersfield (h). Forget about potentially being cut adrift of 17th going into the new year, we could be cut adrift of 19th.
Couldn't agree with you more. I think some people were getting carried away expecting us to make a miraculous improvement with our new manager in place for just 2 days. He probably can't even remember everyones names yet! He did make a couple of curious decisions for the starting team though.
Interesting thought patterns emerging with fans. When we had five great years ending with the departure of Koeman, everyone was down, ignoring the fact that we had 5 brilliant years. Now we have a quality manager that no one thought we could get, who is clearly determined to put things right, everyone is down because we forget the promising future and dwell on the past. Maybe people are just down cos they can't blame Les Reed or Mark Hughes anymore. If we are going to take a little time to be lifted, is it such a leap of thought process to suggest that the same applies to the players?
If Ralph is someone who can coach defenders, then I would certainly like to think Hoedt will improve under him. I've been quite vocal on here in my support of Hoedt, and belief that there is a good defender in there, if only he could cut out the errors. But I don't have such confidence in any of the others being able to improve. They just come across to me as poor defenders, end of. (As always, Bednarek is excused from my criticism due to lack of chances to form an opinion. Consequently, Bednarek-Hoedt is a partnership I've been wanting to see for some time - if for no other reason than it means the other CBs aren't on the pitch.)
I'm afraid I saw no positives. Defensive frailties aside, we still never looked like scoring - against Cardiff.
One good thing that happened was Ralph coming all the way across the pitch to applaud the Saints fans. Never saw Hughes do that. Appreciated that Ralph.
