I partly agree. I wasn't expecting a full strength team - I was expecting the CB's to be rotated and Small to play and Adam Armstrong. But he made too many changes for me. Che and Adam played quite well together at Watford - I would have liked to have seen them play together again. And starting Theo was just baffling for me. Although I accept Tella wasn't available who may have started ahead of him.
Haven’t read any of this yet but just got back & I’d like to make a comment regarding the £10 ticket price today. Of course nice to have a full house & I actually thought was a good call before the game but to provide CC with 4.8k & shift the singing fans out & lose the atmosphere of SFC, v poor call. We lost the stadium today. Don’t really understand why either. It certainly wasn’t a financial gain;
I don’t completely blame Ralph for the performance today. We’ve all been (rightly) happy to state that we now have two good players in nearly every position and we have… however we learned today that we don’t have a decent 2nd 11. The back up players can slip into a slick team when required, but not replace the whole team. Ralph obviously saw enough in training to think they could, but now knows this isn’t the case. Poor performance but ultimately, we’re in the draw for the next round. Two big league games coming up and I’m sure we’ll see a completely different team and level of performance. Let’s get behind Ralph and the boys. COYR!
Yeah Che being on the bench alongside Ely was the only thing I raised at eyebrow. They presumably weren't both pencilled into starting vs Spurs (although they might now!), because one assumes that three of the four starters would have been Broja, Redmond and Stu - with wither Che or Ely joining them. Hence the other could have started in place of Theo. Such a shame to see he playing so horrendously. As you said earlier though, AArmstrong's performance was a massive concern.
If you can’t give a youngster a debut, and start Walcott and Stephens at home against Coventry in the Cup, when can you? Gambles don’t always come off, but we got away with this one in the end so I fail to see the problem tbh.
By the way Saints totally cocked up the turnstiles up AGAIN today, 15-20 min queues to get in down the Chapel End, just to explain why it looked so gappy at the beginning. They need to sort this mess out, it is utterly pathetic. /rant.
It wasn’t any individual selection that was the issue, but more a case that he changed the entire team bar JWP. Against League One okay, but not a decent Championship team.
3.08 I got into my seat. Third time this season that I've missed KO, which is three times more than every other season put together for me. Granted, I joined the queue at just before 2.45, which is about 15 mins later than I usually do, but it still shouldn't take that long.
Agreed. The players bailed Ralph out today. You just can't change that many players, especially to bring in young and inexperienced players. But we are through which is all that matters
Was a bit disappointed today the way saints played. Some of the movement off the ball was dismal. Build ups far too slow. Saints just about edged it but it needed the substitutions badly. Glad they won though. An eye opener for my first match back in 4/5 years.
I think it was just that Ralph deigned this game insignificant enough to vomit out an 11 who have barely played a game together against a decent Championship side, highlighted by the absolutely massive difference made by the subs today. In general this season our movement and control has been massively improved, this wasn’t a good example.
He tried something. It didn’t work. We still won though. After not very good Armstrong was replaced by ****ing brilliant Armstrong, and Small went off for KWP, it was a different game anyway.
