Match Day Thread Everton v Southampton 01/03/21 8PM Sky Sports

Ralph is a victim of his own success and the lack of funding to upgrade his squad.
I think most people acknowledge that when we have a fully fit squad to choose from we are a match for most and better than many.
IMO our success stems from his system of playing, but I also think that our failures stem from his system.
I have previously said that, again IMO, for his system to work well the outfield players need to be putting in performances of 7+.
Once you get 2 or 3 dropping below that level, we start to lose control of games, we leave massive gaps across the pitch which (added to tiredness and injuries to key players) is why I think we are conceding the lead so often.
Unfortunately for Ralph he still hasn’t been able to bring in enough players for him to switch players in or out of the team and maintain the highest standards and some of the players he has to rely on, week in week out, just aren’t consistent enough.
I said yesterday that I am more concerned with our inability to create and score goals, than I am with our defence.
The nearest we have to a midfield flair player is Armstrong. He is our most direct midfielder, taking players on and creating space for others. Whoever plays as the second No10 needs to be matching him for directness and not keep stopping and going backwards. I can even accept them losing the ball if they are making genuine attempts to go past players. We need an Adam Lallana type player to supplement the work being done by Armstrong rather than try to convert wingers into becoming that player, especially when their skill set revolves around pushing the ball into space (which is lacking in the centre) and using their pace.

 

We had a great two seasons under Ron's guidance and nothing should diminish that.
I believe his knowledge of Dutch football had a part in the signings of Dusan VVD and Pelle (plus Cuco, Elia and Steklenburg!). He was clearly not a coach that liked to develop younger players or value the cups and therefore was not the perfect fit for us and it should be remembered that he had his own mid season crisis similar to our current one.
Shane Long had probably his best time as a Saint under him and he is still our most successful Manager since Lawrie Mac and therefore deserves to be remembered fondly despite the cloud he left under.

 

This is the same Ronald Koeman who caused parents to remove their kids from our Academy because in his words “they weren’t good enough”, and effectively closed the pathway to the first team. This led to a downward spiral in quality products which we are only now beginning to climb out of. As Laces says, I would love to see what Ralph could achieve with the team which Koeman had.

One thing you can be sure of, though, if Ralph had been here in 2015, we wouldn’t have bought Jordy Clasie.

 

I missed him.

 

Forester 6.5 Composed in everything he did and looked confident (not much to do to be fair. Great save even though the chance wouldn't have counted.

Bednarek 6 Better than against Leeds but won't bring anything to the plate in that position
Vestergaard 6.5 Pretty solid
Salisu 6 Got bullied a little bit. Least impressed I've been with him but is a good addition to the taem
Bertrand 5.5 Disappointing deliveries. Feel as one of the most senior players he should drive the team on a bit more

JWP 6 One of his quieter matches. Does he drive the team on enough in his role as captain?
Armstrong 7.5 Our best player as he has been since xmas. Only player making consistently intelligent runs in possession

Redmond 4.5 Very Poor. Can't remember a positive contribution he made to the game
Djenepo 7 Thought he did well. Provided a few moments that caused Everton difficulty. Defended very well when moved to RB

Adams 5 Devoid of all confidence
Ings 6 Good first half. Seemed to tire/get frustrated second half. Cuts a forlorn figure at the moment

 

I don’t.

 

I’m not getting the Adams grief at the moment. I really thought he was very good first half against Leeds; everything stuck.

Last night the service wasn’t very good to the front two and so both were fairly anonymous. One of them gets the stick.

 

I thought both Adams and Ings were a bit off last night. Granted they didn't have much service (they haven't for a while), but when they did get the ball they both lost it more often than usual. The lucky bounce or ricochet never fell their way either. They weren't the only ones though and we had a few players with a lot of bad first touches or who just passed it straight to Everton/out of play.

 

Agreed

 

Don't we have a young French kid that can step in at RB... oh just remembered we loaned him out, oh well.

 

For those interested, here are those in the running for Celtic job, which I presume would be fairly similar to the managers available to us. Names are shortest odds first.

John Kennedy
Enzo Maresca
Eddie Howe
Paul Lambert
Steve Clarke
Roberto Martinez
Frank Lampard
Sean Dyche
Bruno Lage
Martin O'Neill

Selected others:
David Wagner
Thierry Henry
Rafa Benitez
Leonardo Jardim
Mark Hughes

I wouldn't sack Ralph by the way, but the only ones I'd be interested in on that list if he did go would perhaps be Rafa and Lampard. But neither of those are coming to us without a guarantee of big funds, and they just won't get that.

Maybe Eddie Howe but I'm not convinced. Roberto Martinez did okay with Wigan but not so well with Everton and has been in international football with Belgium for a while now.

I know far too little about European football to know who the next Poch/Ralph style appointment is.

 

Another thing to consider is that while Ralph is responsible for tactics, confidence etc, the players are the ones out there actually kicking the ball.

He isn't telling them to pass it to the other team, or to **** up their first touch

Ralph is rightly being questioned, but the players need to stand up and be counted too.

 

But when he came in at RB last time, he got skinned and a load of people said he wasn’t up to it. He was better as a wing back when he didn’t have to think too much about defence (because he had KWP behind him). Clearly Ralph feels (as a lot of people on here did) that he needs “toughening up” by a loan period in a lower league. I still feel that we were close to getting a FB from somewhere and it didn’t work out - possibly due to money, but we won’t ever know. All we can do is, as long suffering Saints supporters know only too well, get behind the team and manager and hope that they can turn the corner (which they can, I’m convinced) - knowing Saints, they’ll lose to Sheffield then beat City ...... who knows? I read all the stuff here about “should we replace Ralph?” and “why are the players underperforming?” and I agree that there’s an issue with the thinness of the squad, lack of really good academy players coming through and the horrendous run of injuries. Then I see the posts from fans of our opponents who say we gave them a good game, we were unlucky, etc and I’m a bit more confident. The players know what they have to do. Ralph knows what he has to do. As someone (Fats?) said “if it hadn’t been for our cracking start of the season we could well be down with Sheffield United now ......
We WILL turn it around - I’m just glad the players don’t have to put up with the barracking from so called “supporters” in the stands who seem to prefer to criticise rather than support. I am as frustrated as anyone, but, one thing I recall is the embarrassment of listening to people abuse Saints players before we’d even kicked off and I will never accept that.
A bumpy ride, up and down, is part of being a Saints supporter. The last time I went to St Mary’s I thought I was at the Emirates ......

 

Sean Dyche. I could get a lift then.

 

Stick him on ignore. Forum gets better.

 

Good for you @SaintinNZ

****ing legend.

 

That's completely unnecessary.

 

You do you Tom, i find him to be a gaslighter of the highest order whether it’s politics or football. Prefer to read people’s actual contributions and avoid the constant vaguely veiled insinuations that maybe your an idiot. It quickly turns into something aggressive and obnoxious.

 

I respect your opinion and accurate portrayal of my character. Couldnt have described despicable me any better myself.

Great assassination