I like Eddie Howe. Eddie Howe would not be a terrible choice if Ralph left.
I'd never even consider firing Ralph to hire Eddie Howe.
I'd never even consider firing Ralph to hire Eddie Howe.
Match Day Thread West Brom v Southampton, Monday 12/04/21, 6pm, Sky Sports
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As per my next post, lots of these people are also slating Ralph for not sorting the defence but are calling for a bloke who's awful in that regard. Which is baffling; be like wanting rid of Sam for the football being bad but wanting Pulis.
He did a good job getting them up to the PL for sure but he also spent huge sums of money on absolute dross, they spent far more than us in that period iirc. Don't think he's the messiah people make him out to be and it's telling that he's not yet at another PL club imo.
Total meltdowns on FB. Sack Ralph, sell or give away the majority of the squad, hysterical over the top reaction by some. It was a poor performance, one of the worst I can remember, a hangover and tourettes all I got from the game.
It's still my team. We've beaten Liverpool and Arsenal, played some lovely football along with the awful and have a semi final coming up. Big underdogs but we're in it and can win it, will we is another question.
Not sure I agree with this. Fair enough if it was a cup final. But one eye on a semi? We have been pretty poor with some good patches for a while now
I know it's very, very, very unlikely that Fulham will overhaul us but if the players last night "couldn't be arsed" then that is highly unprofessional and I hope that Ralph is letting them know that it is not acceptable. The league position is important and anyone that steps onto the pitch wearing a Saints badge should always give their all to the cause and just imagine going down on GD when we shouldn't really be losing 3-0 at WBA and it might've been a lot worse. just because it's highly unlikely is not an excuse not to give 100% in any match when selected.
Fulham have six games left. If they win all of them they'll get to 44 points, but their problem is they don't look like winning any of them.
If we beat them, we'll be on 39 points and they can only get to 41 and that's if they win all of their five other games.
If the teams below us were any good then maybe we'd be in trouble, but I definitely can't see Fulham getting the wins they need, let alone the wins to go above us.
If we beat them, we'll be on 39 points and they can only get to 41 and that's if they win all of their five other games.
If the teams below us were any good then maybe we'd be in trouble, but I definitely can't see Fulham getting the wins they need, let alone the wins to go above us.
We aren't going down, I'm not worried about that all.
However, thats no excuse for the players "giving up" and "protecting themselves" for a ****ing semi-final. I want to see 100% from every game I watch, and last night, I saw barely 5%.
However, thats no excuse for the players "giving up" and "protecting themselves" for a ****ing semi-final. I want to see 100% from every game I watch, and last night, I saw barely 5%.
They are, but only because after 14 odd games we have finally run out of excuses
There's such a thing, though, as wake-up calls, learning from and improving on what we just did wrong, and making amends - that holds equal merit to momentum in this case imo.
Unfortunately, Leicester got the same wake up call themselves.
I'm not condoning last night's performance and the half-arsed nature of it but at the end of the day it was a dead rubber for us. I'd much rather this then lose a key player to injury for our biggest match since the Swansea game.
We won’t have a Cup Final to watch?
There's a piece in The Athletic today about how some of the players need to realise, they weren't just playing for their place in the SF, they were playing for their futures at the club.
I think there's a real desire for a major overhaul in playing staff this summer.
Aside from Bertrand and Fraser though, who was really playing for their future last night? Or not as it turned out. Theo possibly but Ralph has come and and said we want him to stay. Danny's future is almost entirely up to him. I suppose Redmond could be one. The rest are safe.
Southampton’s performance on Monday shouldn’t only make players nervous about a chance of featuring in an FA Cup semi-final. It’s become about much more than that.
Some members of Ralph Hasenhuttl’s squad are playing for their future at the club and losing 3-0 to West Brom in the manner they did isn’t going to work in their favour when it comes to deciding who stays and who goes this summer.
Although an anti-Hasenhuttl agenda has started to creep in on social media, which is never a good yardstick to measure how a fanbase feels, it’s incredibly unlikely that the Austrian is going to be relieved of his duties before wholesale changes are made to the squad.
The former RB Leipzig manager retains the club’s full backing despite recent results and will be given this summer’s transfer window to freshen things up within his team.
While it’s clear that the second half of the season has been poor, there is still plenty of belief in what the 53-year-old is trying to do on the south coast. It is underperforming players who will likely be moved on.
The Athletic recently detailed how Southampton hope to attack the upcoming transfer window, yet some within the club wish they were able to act sooner when it comes to making personnel changes.
It should be said, however, that if Southampton beat Leicester in the FA Cup semi-final this weekend, then nobody will be discussing the shambles that was their performance against West Brom on Monday.
But when the chips are down, as they have been plenty of times throughout the 2020-21 campaign, Hasenhuttl will not forget who at least attempted to help turn the tide.
If you are being generous, then you could almost forgive Monday night’s display and put it down to human nature. Yes, the 3-0 drubbing to Sam Allardyce’s relegation battlers was a “non-performance”, as described by Hasenhuttl. Yet, should we have expected it? Southampton won’t go down and they aren’t fighting for the European spots. All they have to play for now is the FA Cup.
With that in mind, is it not normal for them to have one eye on Wembley’s semi-final tie against Leicester?
“I don’t know,” said Hasenhuttl when asked whether he felt his players were distracted by Sunday’s game. “I didn’t have that feeling when we went out, but with the first duels lost, yeah, you could see we haven’t been that sharp to compete with a team that was fighting for everything.
“The best test for the weekend was a strong game here, so the players could get some self-confidence. This was a chance but we didn’t take it.”
At the other end of the human-nature spectrum is the fact that sub-standard performances are becoming a regular occurrence. Think back to the recent games against Brighton and Newcastle. When a reaction was needed, as it was in both of those matches, it didn’t arrive.
Beat Leicester on Sunday, then any negativity will be overtaken with FA Cup final chat. But if they lose, then this week’s results will become amplified, with the season all but over with seven league games remaining — and that in itself is a problem Hasenhuttl and his players have created by rolling over against West Brom.
Despite it being a poor team performance, there were multiple solo efforts that left a lot to be desired. Theo Walcott, Nathan Redmond, Danny Ings and Ibrahima Diallo all struggled to make any kind of impact. Jan Bednarek and Ryan Bertrand were also left wanting in defence.
Moussa Djenepo, a second-half substitute, added more verve and guile in attack than all the other forwards combined while Che Adams, who also came off the bench, looked lively throughout his cameo.
To buy into the human nature element of dropping your levels ahead of a big event, you have to perform on the day it matters most. Win at the weekend and the players may be thinking that this performance was just a slightly bitter pill to swallow.
Their problem, however, is that nothing points towards Southampton beating Leicester because they haven’t won against a top team since shocking Liverpoolat the start of January. The FA Cup wins over Arsenal and Wolves were helped by both sides resting important players.
And would you bet on them showing a positive reaction to Monday evening’s setback?
“When I see a player not really investing against West Brom, then he doesn’t have a good chance of playing Leicester in the cup,” Hasenhuttl said ahead of Monday’s match. While this statement isn’t likely to be acted upon, mainly because he’d be fielding kids if he stuck to his word, some players may come to rue very poor performances on Monday.
Players are fighting for their future and the reasons to keep them are dwindling with each poor performance.
That article sums it up nicely for me. My instinct tells me the players were distracted by the upcoming semi-final. And I would certainly get rid of non-committed players before we even think of sacking Ralph.
If you care about your sanity stay away from social media particularly FB and twitter.