Do we want a manager who we need to force to take an additional coach/advisor for? If Ralph needs additional staff he should ask for them, and if he doesn’t know he needs help that’s really bad.
He mentioned it last month but I can't believe that it was a genuine target at the start of the season.
It’s not that long ago that Saints were being praised as being a good team, with good players by football pundits and fans alike. When we play a fully committed, high tempo pressing game we do, generally, look a decent/good team, even though we so frequently failed to turn good possession into points in the table. The reason for looking good was down to Ralph’s coaching and tactics and if we had enough better quality players we would have turned the possession into chances, the chances into goals and the goals into extra points. So on that basis I think it is fair to say that Ralph can coach. I am sticking with my hair brained theory that Ralph recognised the fact that the squad is built up with far too many average to poor players, and that his style of play was making look better than they are, which is why, IMO, we no longer play the high tempo, pressing game. Ralph needed to expose the lack of genuine quality in the squad and has done so. Boy, has he done so. I have a feeling that many of those players, still here next season, will be bench warmers, but only because he hasn’t been able to move them on. As I say, my hair brained theory.
Badge - got to say, deliberately making them look terrible so that he can rebuild over the summer might actually be the most mental thing he could do. Honestly, that's as hair brained as my 'bring Poch back' idea!
I agree that the only way most of our players can compete at PL level is to press like crazy and hope it pays off. The drop off in press and change in style has completely coincided with us getting “safe”. So I think it’s not a deliberate choice by Ralph to drop the style of play it’s a mental state of the players to not be 100% at it and if they aren’t 100% then we lose due to the lack of quality in the team Ultimately it is Ralph’s job to get them at 100%, and it is no coincidence that when we hit our target of “just stay up” it drops off in the last 2 seasons. We basically are the same as Stoke were when they were in the Prem. Get safe then sack off the rest of the season
We just need change for change's sake. Some new ideas. A kick up the arse. Bielsa is and was a better coach than Ralph, and yet Leeds just new his time was up. Time to go. Look at what happens to the majority of teams that get promoted and stay up. They lose the motivation going into the following season, other teams work them out, and they go down. That's exactly what has happened to us, for two seasons running. The motivation is gone, the ideas are gone, we've been found out. We are the easiest team to play against in the league. We might have earned the points to stay up by March, but in reality an injury to JWP, or a red card/deflected goal in a key game, and it could have been a very different story.
I have a number of similar phrases. For ****s sake What the **** ****ing bollocks ****erdy **** **** There's more of course. Mrs Jab asked what happened to the Saints? ****ed if I know I said, anything and everything.
As an old bloke who I knew once used to say about stuff that hadn’t gone well: This ****ing ****er’s ****ing ****ed. Could well be applied to the current Saints team.
A friend of mine worked in a Steelworks in Scunthorpe, in the long ago past. They decided to have a swearer of the week award, and got one of the office girls to print up a certificate (no easy desktop printing in those days). The story goes that they presented the award to a foreman who walked into the canteen, sat down at a full table, and announced to everyone in earshot "If that ****ing ****er ****ing comes in here and ****ing starts with his ****ing bollocks, he can ****ing **** right off, the ****ing ****..."
Reminds me of the bowler John Embury, when asked about the condition of his back replied. " The f***ing f***er is f***ing f***ed".
Going back to our somewhat leaky / non-existant defence, we could do a lot worse than to try and buy back Vest from Foxes... Him and Bed at least had a decent understanding as a pairing, something that doesnt seem to have been evident since Vesties departure ..
