He doesn't know there's a middle. NJ tactical genius is the only manager to get a Brazilian to play hoof ball. By cutting out the middleman(men) he is revolutionising football. This has never been done before. It will work eventually I'm sure.
Ok… after an initial knee jerk reaction and wanting him sacked before Xmas, I’ve decided to sit back and see what NJ brings…. The “metrics” we’ll call them. Are we playing better football under NJ?-No not over the course of his tenure so far, with the odd flash of something. Are the players playing better with him coaching them? Again, no, confused systems and labouring players. Are we scoring more goals? No…. To be fair, NJ informed SR that we needed a striker or 7 and one is coming( hopefully) but any passing random could see we needed a striker. Are individuals performing better? Some… JWP when he gets the chance to be more advanced, DCC seems to be coming good with games, Mara/Edozie getting game time and kind of improving . Do the fans like him? Not by a long shot, mixed fan base but seems a very divisive manager. Is he better than RH? Early Ralph, no… later Ralph…. About the same. Are we better tactically? NJ isn’t afraid to change things, possibly a bit too much and RH was far too rigid. Should NJ take credit for buying the players we have in January? No…. Ankerson has done this. Are we in a better position in the EPL? No… rock meet bottom And the question I now find myself asking as the January window has “slammed shut”… Would we be better or worse off without NJ? Difficult to know as we don’t know who could be bought in if they did the deed. If Ankerson and Semmens are as good as their word and worry about the metrics he brings…. I wonder if they are thinking….”hmmm… maybe we’ve ballsed this one up”?
I agree completely with the odd selection today. Bree starting over Perraud, in a defence that can't play as five even without debuting a newly-recruited Championship player, is odd. All I can hope is he values Perraud so highly, he's saving him for the league! But one thing that puzzles me is that presumably he has many interested stakeholders in this team - why are they not advising him that five doesn't work? Why did Ralph persist with this too? Is it an imperative from somewhere within the club that we play this formation?
Final point on this tonight: when he was appointed he was at odds to point out that he’s big on the metrics and so is Ankersen, he cited that he liked how they look beyond results at the metrics. I would be truly fascinated to see what these metrics reviews between NJ and RA are like. It must be slim on positives.
Whilst I agree with a lot of that I'd also add: Has he made us harder to beat? Undoubtedly. Look at our 2 performances against Newcastle vs Ralph's loss. Brighton aside, we have been in every game, lost by maximum 1 goal and would have taken points if it wern't for our crap strikers. NJ said himself that for this season he doesn't care how we play or what formation, all he needs to worry about is getting results. If we continue to stay competitive in games and these 2 signings add the goals that Adams & Arma lack, we might just stay up. Big if though.
I am also someone who has an interest in the statistical side of things. The metrics that Jones uses must be ones with which I am very much not familiar, if they speak highly of our performances. None of the metrics for chance creation/prevention, passing success, possession look kindly on his tenure. Our xG/xGA are basically identical to that under Ralph (1.04 xG for under Jones vs 1.05 under Ralph, 1.47 xGA under Jones versus 1.46 under Ralph), but Jones has played an atypically soft schedule in his six PL matches, too, having yet to face a team in the top five. So we're no better at holding opponents despite a favourable schedule. We're no better at creating chances, either. We're also miserably bad to watch much of the time, have only led under him for a total of 45 minutes in the six matches we have played, and just wasted a large portion of our best chance to get out of the relegation zone.
Im sure at some point pre Xmas, Semmens and Ankerson have had to meet with Solak and explain the state of play and their plan to change fortunes. Their big decision was to sack RH when they did and replace him with someone very inexperienced in so many ways. Ankerson will have said to Solak…. Don’t worry about your investment…. His metrics are great and Solak must’ve thought…. Ok… my investment is safe. But Solak would have every right to turn round and say; hold the phone, I’ve done my bit funding the place, you’ve done your bit finding the players Rasmus, Martin, you’ve agreed the contracts. And then he must look at NJ and say “exactly what have you bought to the party?”
Not sure, I'd say Man City, Fulham, Villa, Palace & Newcastle x2 are all decent considering none of them are involved in the relegation fight.
I don’t think he has. At least under Ralph we looked threatening, even when we lost. We just capitulated defensively. Under NJ so far we look to stifle teams, fail at that completely, but create absolutely nothing.
Still fuming. It's clear SR have at least tried this window, in that they've spent a chunk of money. But I don't understand their complete blind spot when it comes to Jones. He is massively out of his depth, he makes baffling choices with the first 11. He's tactically inept and then lies to our faces about the game we've all just watched. It makes no sense whatsoever keeping him in post. We will go down with him at the helm. The new signings won't make the blindest bit of difference. You can give a hobbyist cesena pilot an f35 doesn't mean he can ****ing fly it. My concern is that now he'll be given extra time for the new signings to bed in, it's going to be too late if they don't pull the trigger now.
It doesn't matter how many chances we create, currently odds-on will miss them. I wonder what our 1-on-1 conversion rate is? When I lived down south I used to watch ice-hockey and one team if a certain player broke away in on the goalie I tended to not get too excited because I knew he was going to shank it wide or over or straight into the goalie's logo. it is the same with Saints I'm afraid. I hope the tall fella can get up to speed quickly and convert the crumbs he does get. Personally, I feel we are a team already down, just waiting for the inevitable.
You had a meltdown for me calling Ralph a fraud, yet you can call Jones an arsehole The lack of chance given to Jones is hilarious! Ralph was given so much more space* to **** up yet that was ok. I seem to remember people were positive when we got spanked by city earlier in the season, because it was better that we expected Just walked into the local shop this morning, the shop owner is an Arsenal fan yet was impressed with us, said we were lacking a finisher but thought our all round game play was decent. Same goes for a colleague who text me after the game to say hard luck. The difference of opinion is amazing. I’m still on the positive train as there have been some positive shoots. It’s a big month coming up! UTS *apart from Lincoln
Blimey that post was liked by saintharry13. My brother a longtime Saints fan, longer than me and watched way more games than me (since the 60s) died last year (in June) and his nickname was Harry. Made me sit up for a second.
At least Ralph tried to play good football. Jones doesn't. It's awful to watch and isn't effective. He lost us the tie last night with his bizarre team selection and insistence on playing 3 CB's. For all our decent play in the 2nd half we created one chance so a good finisher wouldn't have made much difference. We were about as threatening as an extinct volcano.
And Ralph, for all his faults at the end, did get some good results and spells with us. He did have credit in the bank. I'm sure if Ralph had started with 7 defeats out of 8 (or whatever it is), riling the fans up and playing ****e football, he wouldn't have been very popular either.
He also built a good relationship with the fans. Jones has started off by adopting this me against the world attitude in press conferences and it's just pissing the fans off TBH.
That’s no reason to call him an arsehole his main focus is on the league. We also had a few good chances in the first leg that we didn’t take. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. As I said, the next month is big for him
Agree. Let’s not forget before last night the last team to score against Newcastle was….us. Ralph’s football was awful at the end. The 3 at the back with Jones is annoying as hell and his attitude is spikey but he doesn’t quite deserve all the vitriol so far and needs benefit of more time with the “new” squad to get a run of results that might save us. I’ve not lost hope and as fans let’s not go anywhere near the toxicity of Everton.
