Match Day Thread Nottingham Forest v Saints playing for pride thread, Monday 8 May, 8pm

It's made me play that song on Spotify. Great tune! They were in the Eurovision last year iirc

 

Not in the slightest.

Football is meant to be entertainment and I have never been so bored as with him as manager. Depressed the life out of me and made too many changes in cups which was unforgivable

 

Wasn't it him who left Fonte out of Europa League games? That was absolutely outrageous.

 

Therein lies the rub - it should be (and was) a weekened's afternoon's entertainment for us the little people. With Puel that was not the case, and we had a good team, with this lot it also not the case but mainly because quite a few players are sub-par and the coaching and management equally so.

Such a shame.

 

I've heard some of that bandied about but where has it come from?

 

50 points to Gryffindor. But yes, good song. And nostalgic too as that was when I was at school

 

I am of the opinion that loosing Fonte that January because he fell out with Reed and Puel was the beginning of the end, we hardly won a game after that which led to Puel going

 

Yes. Not giving Fonte what he wanted was a big mistake. Yes he was knocking on a bit, but he had longevity. He was a leader.

 

Yep. The fact he’s still playing at the top level in France even now shows we made a huge mistake.

He was our leader and we threw him in the bin. One of hundreds of awful decisions the last few years.

A sane football club keeps their legends. Keeps the soul of the club. It unites the fans with the players.

There was a good post on saintsweb that said Southampton is no longer a football club with a soul, it’s an asset management company. Hard to disagree.

 

He wanted a 3 year deal and was offered a 1 year extension. Still playing for Portugal right up until the World Cup.

 

Redmond's interview is pretty telling. He basically says that at the beginning with Ralph things were good, but that after a while things became 'stagnant', because other teams had worked out how to play against us, and Ralph didn't know what to do about it. His words; "There were times when I would come off after games and think, 'Did I actually do anything? I felt like I'd just run around and pressed." He goes on to say that the senior players basically became frustrated.

And so there was a steady stream of these senior players who just left; Hjobjerg to Spurs, Bertrand and Vestie to Leicester, Ings and Bednarek to Villa, Romeu to Girona, Redmond. It was pretty clear from the body language of certain players, that they weren't enjoying the football (eg; Broja). I think just claiming they all moved for the money is fairly simplistic. (None of the players ever seemed to thank Ralph either when they left, which always felt a bit weird).

Redmond also stated that basically he became one of the only voices in the changing room who would give his opinion, and speak up for the younger players. Read into it what you will, but it seems apparent to me that the senior players became disillusioned with Ralph, and he didn't like to have his authority questioned. Redmond hardly played at all last season, pushed out of the team by Elyounoussi for f*ck's sake. So Ralph just basically wanted a bunch of passive players who would keep following his pressing tactics, because he didn't really have another way. The classic 'no plan B' that fans always used to go on about.

Then you have the interview with Jake Hesketh, in which he says he returned from loan, went to speak with Ralph, and Ralph didn't even know who he was, and didn't seem to care. I mean, yeah we can joke about Hesketh not being good enough and all that, but if the manager doesn't know who the youth players are - especially one that's been at the club for 17 years - that's pretty shameful. So is it any surprise that he was happy to let Harrison Reed leave, despite just being voted player of the season in a promotion-earning Fulham side? What a stunningly bad decision that was.

And then on top of all this, when things weren't going well at the end of last season, he throws the entire squad under the bus, and says we need a squad overhaul. How ridiculous is that? The guy has one way of playing, and yet he is blaming the players.

And then in the summer, when he should have been booted out, he goes and throws the entire coaching staff, including club legend (and another strong personality), Kelvin Davis, under the f*cking bus too. The guy was relentless. He clearly just blamed everyone and everything (including the grass at Elland Road), for the fact that his pressing tactics weren't working anymore.

So while Ralph is no doubt a fantastic coach, his tactics are limited, and he has serious flaws with his interpersonal skills. He is a manager with a short lifespan, because any manager like that, is eventually going to lose the dressing room.

 

I think I probably agree with this, on reflection. One of the oddest things for me (and yeah, I know he was ostensibly sacked from the role) was that we never even heard a peep from him when he went. I would have thought that after, what was it, four and a half years, he might have made some kind of statement or something. It smacks of everything going rather sour, along with, as you say, none of the players thanking him (bar, funnily enough, Alien Lucy).

One thing I would give him more of a pass on was that I think it was the board who committed to changing the coaching staff rather than the manager over the summer. Yet another poor decision from them, particularly when we could have had De Zerbi (and 100% then wouldn't have been relegated).

 

I'm sure the board spoke to Ralph about the issue though. If Ralph had wanted any of them to not be sacked, then all it would have taken would have been for him to say so, right? Who knows, it's a bit of a mystery so yeah, I admit I could be wrong.

I know I'm probably going over the top a bit with my criticism of Ralph, but I always just felt the players always got a raw deal. Everyone always pointed the finger at them, rather than Ralph, and it just annoyed me.

 

Didn't he come back from winning the Euros with Portugal, and ask for a transfer?

 

Yeah that’s what I remember. Mourinho apparently wanted him at Utd and his head was turned for a bit, no idea if any concrete offer was made by them

 

Fantastic post and great observations.

He 100% should have gone in the summer, the players weren’t playing for him anymore.

I didn’t really mind him not having a Plan B, but when Plan A is a busted flush then what choice do you have but to try a new manager?

It is a real shame. At first he was brilliant and a breath of fresh air but he seemed to forget that you need players that can actually play football instead of just running around.

One thing that is very annoying is Ralph wasn’t backed with attackers in the summer. Once they backed him they should have FULLY backed him. Given him money, let him get rid of all the players that hated him. It should have been the Ralph show. He may have been able to mould the club to his image and keep us up.

Instead we did a weird hybrid of keeping Ralph whilst taking decisions out of his hands. Then we sold good players like Redmond and Romeu that (we should have kept) presumably at least partly because they didn’t like Ralph’s methods.

 

....and then we left him a dead man walking for two months, knowing he was going, which isn't known to be one of the great ways of motivating people!!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to give a detailed answer. I have to admit that I'm coming from the "Ralph can do no wrong" camp and find it hard to accept he was at fault but there are issues in your post that were obviously his responsibility. Having watched some of the best football I've seen at St Mary's to some of the worst I always felt the players weren't giving their all and they got the blame in my eyes. I thought a clear out was necessary. But if, as you say, Ralph was the cause of the "can't be arsed" attitude that was obvious from time to time, he has to be held accountable.
The only thing I would maybe question is why the senior players left. I think you could give an alternative opinion for all of them moving on but that would be speculation on my part, obviously.
What I will say though is, IMO the biggest portion of blame for this disaster lies in the recruitment department. To have had so much transfer money available and to have bought so little quality is criminally incompetent at a professional football club. This season has been dreadfully managed from start to finish.
I won't being saying anymore about this season as I'm totally pissed off with Saints at the moment.

I plan to have a Saints mug, Saints scarf and Saints hat ritual bonfire shortly.

 

Kerrang circa 2003...A glorious time for music!

 

Don't give up on the Saints IOAG, we're all disappointed but (unfortunately) Saints are in our blood. Have a boring Sumer and look forward to the manager/team machinations.....await the fixture list. I've got over it already. COYS