Wow, lots of people seemingly getting a bit testy over yesterday. Last week we were looking forward to seeing how Ralph shapes his squad ready for next season. Same position for me today.
Well exactly. I expected us to lose yesterday, although not as badly as we did. It’s legitimate to give the fringe players one last chance, and Ralph will have had a lot of questions answered now. The fans who went perhaps deserved a better performance though, and they might have some cause for complaint, but yesterday was the first step in the rebuilding process.
Indeed. Ralph project continues. We aren’t alone in being inconsistent this season. He will need to work on that and deciding who he can improve and who he can’t. This summer is all about improving as much as poss. Recruitment failures will take time to resolve and we will have to see what the club can do. I do believe that Ralph and the board have something of a shared vision otherwise why would he be here? An average squad can be improved by a couple of good signings as they can make lesser players better May as well start summer optimistically, costs nothing
It's Worry Sunday. I'd just like to mention that we're going to stay up by a fairly massive 10 points. This EPL thing is easy.
Chilco I agree in some respects but would have thought Ralph would already have known who could and who could not perform at this level when he rotated the squad shortly after he first took charge and especially in the FA Cup matches. Someone made a comment earlier in this thread about his choice of who to retain and who to ship out is risky and that it might be considered frightening. I have the impression that character is of as much importance to Ralph as ability. He just wants to surround himself with players he can rely upon. I cannot see any of the big name loan players returning and the comment that he might take another look at Boufal highly unlikely seeing as he alienated his playing colleagues last season. I am convinced that there players either have attitudes or have made comments which have implied that they do not fully buy in to his philosophy and suggest that Ralph does not want them around his core squad. As I said earlier, I do not believe we will recoup much money for these players and would not be surprised if some had their contracts cancelled just to get them off the books. What I would say is that the higher we finish up the table, the more money we earn to be reinvested. By all means experiment with one or two fringe players but I feel we need to field a decent squad on Sunday. With regard to transfer targets, does anyone really feel that Ralph has not done any homework? I am convinced he knows who he wants to bring in but could not make the move in January as it was not decided that we would stay up. Without doubt we will have a significantly different squad for next season regardless of if it is reduced in size. It is quite staggering how we have accumulated so many players that are not really up to the task and disappointing that the income from the sale of our better players has been fritted away in this fashion.
Only because the three relegated teams have been so poor this season. Yes, we could finish 10 points clear next Sunday but I would suggest a haul of 41 points this season is far from acceptable. For the first part of the season, we were little better than Cardiff, Huddersfield and Fulham. Time to be realistic. How many points do you think we would have had if Ralph has not been appointed?
We would have seen a stronger team if we were still chasing safety and perhaps got something or lost by fewer goals, but Ralph hinted he might change the team and also said that he thought there would be a reaction to the excitement of last week. And he repeated that post match...the players urgency fell away...that little bit of effort that would have been there if we were desperate. This was not unexpected and tells us little we didn't already know. Must work harder, room for improvement.
What is worrying me though is we seem to be letting too many goals in during the last twenty minutes or so of play. The points we have dropped over the last two seasons during this period is astounding. I accept in some games to lose and that if you go for it throwing caution to the wind you are going to be zonked. I gather yesterday performance was very lack lustre? Ralph has a lot of work to do this summer.
We knew that, Beddy. Nothing has changed....especially after a game that didn't matter. Some will say that all games matter to the fans and they'd be right, but the players just sagged after achieving the main goal of safety. Nothing much more to read into it.
Does anyone think Long may have a pen? Just watched MOTD and Fredricks was nowhere near the ball......but the pundit said great tackle?
This is the one thing that worries me about Ralph and takes the shine off what he has achieved. I do not feel he has been able to address our defensive frailties and they remain largely the same as under Mark Hughes. I cannot see much improvement in our defending albeit the attacking style has been enhanced considerably. Ralph has achieved a lot in his short tenure but he has failed to resolve this issue. I concur that he does not have the tools to sort this out within the current squad and his central defence is seldom reliable even when there are three of them playing together! The problem of conceding from our corners is a basic error. In my opinion there are serious frailties with the players he has available but either the coaching of the defence is not good enough or the players do not understand how he wishes to play . The fact that he continues to play three central defenders means he does not trust a simple pairing. For all his improvements in so many aspects, Ralph can only apply a sticking plaster to our defence. For these reasons I think that any new recruits to the central defensive positions are likely to be players Ralph has managed in the past and , as I said above, am pretty sure the players he want to bring in have been targeted already.
He was never going to last, but we'd have still stayed up. Our players are far better. Us and Brighton even gave Cardiff a 12 point head start, and they didn't make it to the final day.
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/1...after-the-3-0-defeat-to-west-ham/?ref=mr&lp=4 Ralph talking post match. Said Fraser and Ely had played their part in us achieving safety by working hard and pushing others in training so deserved a chance.
We did look appreciably better when we had a back five of Valery-Bedders-Yoshie-Vester-Berty but with just Slow Coach Bedders and Calamity Stephens in a back four we look like an open door against Bompey and Wet Spam.
The first three I agree with. But Armstrong was one of our better players yesterday. And Long had scored four goals in four games. You don't drop a striker on form.
