We certainly are a strange team, draw home and away against city, can beat spurs away , then get thumped by Villa, then lose at home to Newcastle and Watford. But still definitely Ralph in.
Our surprisingly good results - like Spurs and West Ham away - are sadly far fewer in number than the surprisingly bad ones. Norwich away, Watford home, Villa away, Chelsea home, and so on.
We are a bizarre team under Ralph. He either gets it very right or very wrong, very rare its inbetween. No doubt we are a better team than when he first arrived and feel overall he has been a positive force at the club in some challenging times. It will be interesting to see how he fares as the Dragan era develops. Today the strategy was wrong, but equally the players put in such a pathetic effort that I dont think it would have mattered one way or another what instructions they were sent out with. Tuchel basically told Werner to run directly at the CBs and that did us for four goals in the first half, such a pathetic effort from Salisu and Bednarek. I have felt before that regardless of instruction the players should be able to think on their own two feet and adjust their play accordingly, I just wonder if some of ours lack the intelligence to do so.
Ralph totally ****ed up with the formation today and stubbornly refused to do anything about it until after the fourth goal. Neither Che or AA were going to do much today, so not sure why he played both when a DM sitting in front of the CB's would have been a sensible option. Ralph gets it wrong too frequently for me to be overly positive about him. However, we are a lower half EPL team and we are not going to get someone better given our lowly stature. He gets my vote still, but if this pathetic run continues up to the seasons end, l might change my vote.
I certainly understand where you are coming from and I,m not totally convinct with Ralf. Kloppy & Tuchel are much better trainers, but we are who we are Being born in Southampton I have no choice I must suppport them!
I'm still a Rinner, a disappointed one for sure. There may be someone out there that can improve team performance but who that is and whether they would come is beyond me.
Ahem, I think you need to be comparing the Ralph with the managers of clubs around us in the league rather than those two He might not be as good as Pep either (Can’t do blue on the phone)
I think to a certain extent you’re right… however, as much as it’s important to look at RHS sometimes mystifying and sometimes spot on formations…. And as much as I still maintain that because we are who we are (lower half team in an untrendy part of England) I look at the opposition and how they’ve improved year on year…. Not just us and if we’ve improved. Have we made progress on the players front in terms of quality in the last year…. It’s a yes from me…. Have Chelsea done the same…. Again, a yes from me…. But the overall question for me every single year…. Is do Saints keep up with the progress and rate of improvement across the PL…. And because of Gao… we haven’t…. I seriously think the is the area we need to improved on with new owners….
We might need another poll to distinguish between the Rinners who prefer the swashbuckling Ralph, and those who want more of the pragmatic Ralph that yesterday's performance indicated is in there. The answer is probably a mixture of the two, more defending like yesterday but with better attackers.
Generally I prefer watching the Saints that lost 4-1 to City in the Cup, to the Saints who beat Arsenal 1-0 yesterday; but I wasn’t really up for witnessing another crushing defeat so I’ll take the three points and thank you very much Ralph and the players. Job done, as they say.
In some respects yesterday's performance and the outcome, exemplified my frustrations with Ralph. We had a LB and a RB on the pitch. We played with a single striker with two roving attacking midfielders (Mo and Stuart). The formation was spot on for the Chelsea game, never mind yesterday's. Ralph for me, still does not know his best formation(s) and who to play in them. He has had a limited deck to play with and has, overall, done remarkably well considering, but he still seems to not have all the fundamentals of setting up a team and, importantly, making in-game adjustments to mitigate the opposition changes in tactics. Will he get it, finally? l am not so sure as he seems so stubborn in his views. Do l want him out(?) - NO. What l would wish for is for him to have a seriously good tactician on his staff, someone who he would be willing to listen to to minimise the times he gets it so wrong and to make sound tactical adjustments in-game.
Very good post and points, and pretty much sums up how I feel, dont want him gone, and if he can get some help and be less stubborn (those 2 may go hand in glove together). But I cant also cope with much of the bits Ralph gets wrong, such as Chelsea last week etc. I get we are a mid table team and such, but when Ralph gets things wrong he goes all in wrong and it is nothing short of spectacular.
Wouldn't want it any other way. Get wacked by Chelsea then grind out an unexpected win against Arsenal with Fraz having his best game of the season. Roller coaster with corkscrew and water splash.
Sadly it didn’t look pretty out there. Saints defended the whole game and frustrated Arsenal all game. I still wish saints would try more forward attacking balls than continually passing backwards for the long ball which rarely met our players. From where I sat continually the ball was played back to the defender even though other players were open for the shorter ball in an attacking position.. balls were played backwards even though we had 4 players in the box with good opportunities. Mind you just my view of course. Have next seasons ticket already so come on my saints. Will be my 73 season as a Saints fan! Coys.
Beddy, l did not mind too much that it was a defensive display, l found it compelling to watch the defensive unit perform so well and FF in particular. I also liked the manner in which the 3 CB's supported and encouraged each other. I did feel that there were 3 or 4 occasions where we had the opportunity to break but we lacked directness to take defenders on. Mo, in particular, had a couple of opportunities when he had the ball with the last defender to beat and chose not to take him on. He had nothing to lose, because slowing and cutting inside allowed defenders get between the ball and the goal. I thought Mo yesterday put in a great performance, each match his contribution is growing.
If sacking the Manager is the way to get a few points perhaps we should try it? Currently fifth in the odds to be next to go at 33/1 if you fancy a wager.
I'm changing my vote from IN to......................................... ..............................MOST ****ING DEFINITELY IN!!!
