Match Day Thread Burnley v Saints Saturday 10th August 3pm

Personally I think we need to ditch 3 at the back against most sides.
We could have 6 defenders on the pitch, but if they’re all Stephens/vest level we will concede.

4-3–3,
Gunn Valery bed Yoshida/Danso Rb
JWP Romeu PEH
Boufal Adams Redmond

Just go at teams. We can’t defend, so put more positive players on the field and go for it.

 

Personal defensive errors cost us dearly again, I don't think that we will see Stephens and Vester in the line up too often together again this season (I hope anyway!).

 

Ralph will probably admit that he got it wrong yesterday, but we know that he is a quick learner.

 

Full respect to those that made the journey yesterday. One of my favourite away grounds and was very sorry to miss it.

I've left it 24 hours before commenting as I would wanted to watch the highlights again. A few thoughts...

We were the better team in the first half without a doubt (although IMO Che should have been sent off for the tackle. VAR clearly knows best). Could not understand why Che and Ings did not do more runs into the box when the ball was about to be played in from the side.

Stephens had a decent game. A slip is not, in my book, a mistake. I wouldn't even blame Vest for the first goal since the wind played a big part. But his positioning and non-decision making for the second was horrendous. Likewise Bertie gave a very lame tackle leading to the 3rd. That said, we lost because the whole team showed very little energy in their play after the first goal. That's not something I have witnessed from Saints too often and it's so out of character, Ralph should be able to address it. Using Maya and Danso (and maybe Boufal) against Liverpool is definitely an option.

I can't help feeling that a lot of the negative comments on here could also be written before KO. If we win, Ralph is a messiah and at last we signed a proven goalscorer.... If we lose, it''s down to Vest, Stephens for being crap defenders (well they were for parts of last year anyway...) and Ralph for not picking PEH (who almost gave away a 4th goal BTW)....

Things can only get better. And will. Starting Saturday.

 

I agree. The top 8 finish expectations (although I don’t think many of them) are as daft as the Ralph is pants ones.

The point is, optimism whilst holding on to some reality is the sensible approach. The bit that really leaves me jaw dropped is propel moaning we haven’t cleared the squad out. Back in May, we were told Ralph wanted a complete overhaul of the squad, but at the same time we were told players had to move on first. Some fans think that it is easy to just shift players. When it isn’t.

Our hope really has to be that we shift a couple more this month, two or three in January and hopefully bring in a couple too. All this whilst progressing a little bit on the pitch and showing Ralph enough ambition to keep him.

Not easy.

 

Agreed as I just read that Stephens didn’t complete a single tackle yesterday...

 

I also thought he was caught ball watching for the second goal.

 

I completely agree that we'll get better as the season progresses.

But whilst I'm always hearing about how better we were last season after Ralph came in (and absolutely we were, no question), I rarely hear it mentioned that Leicester were better after Rodgers took charge. Or that West Ham were better after Pellegrini and new players like Anderson had a few months to get their feet under the table. Or that Burnley leaked more than a usual amount of goals early season, whilst Heaton and Pope were both injured.

We're not the only ones who can sit here and say that if you started last season at point X, then our points tally from then on would have seen us finish in the top Y.

 

We are staying up; We are staying up

 

This could have been written on the BBC feed of our game yesterday.....

 

Seeing as Burnley gave us so many problems with the high ball, lumped forward, I am going to comfort myself in the knowledge that Liverpool don’t play that way.
Nothing to worry about.

 

On a brighter note; we’re out of bottom 3!

 

I just rate Ralph as a better Coach/Manager than Rodgers, Pellegrini, Gracia and Silva and think that he will find ways to get wins from matches with his game management. A lot depends on how well the new kid at CB slots in alongside Bedders though I must admit.

 

Chelsea's season over.

 

I think the expectation are to be better than staying up. Not surprised he was dejected after that result and the manner of it. Most would be. I don't see the link to him comparing us to other teams and him being dejected. I think he mentioned before the game about not sure how good we will be, after having a good pre season. Maybe I got that wrong?

He's also been clear on our strategy regards what players we target, academy etc. To be honest the club appears to have been pretty transparent of late unless I'm being naive.

 

In matching blue ink too.....

 

I feel like people were so busy screaming about how bad Pellegrino was, they overlooked how awful our team was. And there’s been a delayed reaction and disconnect ever since.

The team we had last year was better on paper than it was the year before. Ignore what we paid or the fact that it still was not good. It was better than the 2017-18 team.

And I think the team this year has a good chance of being better than last year. If you can sort of get over judging the side in a vacuum and judge it according to previous teams as a baseline, I think people will feel a little better.

We survived last year. And the season before. It was ugly and we cut it way too close, but we still survived. This team, with a full season of Hasenhuttl at the helm and hopefully some help from the new players will be better than both those teams. There’s no one I would anticipate being worse, and many positions where we have improved slightly even if it is only something like no more Forster in GK or Hojbjerg and JWP maturing.

It’s still a very flawed team, but the issue has never been whether we are good. Just whether we are less bad then 3 teams, or perhaps even 6 or 7. The margins can be close. A couple of bad injuries or the signings don’t work out and we might very well be relegated. But that’s just how it was always going to be. I don’t see any reason to panic now.

 

The squad that Pellegrino had was arguably better (but no worse) than the one that Puel finished 8th and took to Wembley who also had the distraction of a crowded fixture list and long term injuries to key players and Jose Fonte problem.
Pellegrino absolutely was the wrong Manager at the wrong time for us and certainly out of his depth at that time in his career.

 

How about that out of the bottom three without kicking a ball. Like that

 

No one is saying that Pellegrino was good. But that was a ****ty team. Puel’s team was also kind of ****ty overall, but it had VVD. We had arguably the best CB in the entire world. Imagine how much better we would be right now if you replaced Vestergaard with a motivated VVD.

The supporters were unbelievably cocky. We finished eighth and people wanted the manager sacked because the football wasn’t exciting enough for them. And they thought they could hold on to VVD or that somehow that team without VVD was still a top ten side. I guess they got their wish because things have certainly been “exciting” since then.

Pellegrino did a good job with Leganes last year and got a new contract. Which isn’t to say he didn’t deserve the sack here. But I think it does kind of show he wasn’t the total incompetent boob people thought he was. A lot of the problem was we had a trash team. And we kind of still do.