Ralph sacked as Saints manager

This was a guy who convinced the fans that he had to play grinding, depressing football because he didn’t have the budget to play attack. Sounds perfect for our model! Now seen doing and saying the identical thing at Everton. He’s a charlatan in the Mourinho model. The game has passed him by.

 

I haven't voted Ralph out either. It's not like we actually make a difference voting here, you know. The board aren't waiting on our decision. It's all just a laugh.

 

I’m perplexed as to what part of my response made you thing that :

- this makes a difference
- the board care
- this isn’t just a laugh

The answer is none of it. What an utterly bizarre response to the factual statement that Rafa, Dean Smith and Eddie Howe are all employed

 

That the game has passed him by, is an argument I can listen to. But I don't think anyone can be compared with Mourinho in the hero-to-zero stakes. Mourinho's an anomaly. A special one, haha.

But even if the game has passed Benitez by, I'm still not convinced whether Ralph-at-his-peak, is a better manager than a passed-it Benitez.

 

Has he really convinced everton fans of this? If so it doesn’t seem to have worked for long

 

My original comment (about Smith, Howe etc) was basically an indirect way of stating how much I rate (or don't rate) our manager, which is exactly what this is all about.

Don't know why you single something out for being 'moot', when the majority of the comments on this forum are based on hypothetical situations.

 

I am baffled by how mourinho teams all fall apart at about the same time in his tenure

must be a personality thing

Prime Rafa was superb. Rafa at Newcastle would be an improvement on Ralph. Rafa now ? Much more debatable. As tight as their budget is he has a much better squad than he did at Newcastle and is underperforming

And he has several better players than we do. Unsure of the squad overall

But we’d all take Pickford, Richarlison, DCL, Digne and likely a few more. They are underperforming so I’m not convinced he would do better with a worse squad / players

 

Agree he seems to be ballsing things up superbly there. But, the Everton job is a poisoned chalice at the best of times. When the fans f*cking hate you before you've even sat in the dug out, there's really only one way that's gonna end up.

 

You see I am working on the assumption that this thread is saying Ralph should go now. And as part of that who could actually replace him now is very relevant. Even as a hypothetical

For the record I’d not take Howe or Smith. Both underperformed. If Smith couldn’t get that villa side including our best striker playing better than us then he wouldn’t do better for us in the long term.

And Howe can’t coach a defense. Last thing we need is for that to be any shakier

But it’s all opinions

Rafa I have mentioned in another post. Much more borderline

 

It was poisoned for him due to his liverpool connections. Do you think it is poisoned for everyone? Due to overinflated expectations perhaps ?

 

Newcastle fans. At Everton he’s just complained that the team isn’t good enough and he needs five new players but there’s no money. Boo hoo.

 

Put it this way, when looking for a forward over the summer, I’d much rather we had Ralph and co looking for young players with potential that we felt could be developed, than a 32 year old Rondon, back from China on a huge salary to fire long balls at.

 

If that is true of them then he’d be utterly useless in the hypothetical scenario that he was our manager. If he thinks everton need 5 new players imagine how many he would think we would need? 8 or 9?

yes I am aware that there are some people out there that agree with that!

 

Fair enough. Personally I haven't voted yet because at the beginning of the season I said give Ralph until xmas at least, but that if we had less than 20 points by then, I'd support the board taking action. So that means we've got the next three games to get four points! Maupay really screwed things up because I really, really want Ralph to stay and do well. I'd rather survive this season with Ralph in charge, than to survive with someone else in charge.

To be honest I mostly comment on other managers just to get a reaction. I find it amusing how people on here love to sh*t on others, when in all honesty our own is average at best. I wouldn't really take Smith, but yeah I'd probably take Howe. Have always liked him.

 

Both us and them were rumoured to be linked with the Sheffield United youngster. And instead he went on loan to lower league

i guess they didn’t get him because of having literally no money so had to do a loan.

 

Ours is average but so are many many others. So the negative reaction is more at the idea of the upheaval and financial cost of sacking ours and replacing him with someone who is arguably not markedly better

it shouldn’t always be read as “Ralph is better than Dean smith , Eddie Howe etc”. But I can see how it could be read that way

 

I might be wrong but I thought the young players we were recruiting were more down to Semmens and Crocker than Ralph. And for every Rondon, we could throw in a Demarai Gray, who has been a very decent purchase at only 1.7m.

 

I get that, but when Red Bull take us over...

 

For me, Ralph is the one as still, there is no one out there managerially that could take the reigns and do a better job.

He fits our club very well in the way he’s prepared to work in a budget but also adds value to most players by coaching them.

We’re stuck until we sell the club to someone prepared to invest and then we can judge him properly.

He works well with Semmens and Crocker and with his hands tied….

 

I was just thinking about Newcastle - if you did a combined 'best' team between us and them, I think the player ratio would be pretty similar. Everton have a much better first team than we do, and yet they're struggling horribly with what some consider an 'elite' manager.

Same with Leeds. Elite manager, similar quality squad.

So, y'know, maybe a lot of it is down to quality of players rather than the manager, and that Ralph is doing a very good job by keeping us above water. For some reason it seems people think we should be challenging the top six or something, with Armstrong and Chadams as a strike force.