I haven't seen anything to suggest Ralph is leaving apart from the odds shortening which is based on betting levels.
Agreed Tom, but sometimes betting levels are a reflection of leaked/ inside information on the subject (even if it's DTLW )!
It would be an odd time to do it after backing him in summer, an average start to the season and a huge World Cup window imminent which would give a good opportunity for a reset if it was required. Unless a specific managerial target has become available. 1. Would Rodgers be an upgrade on Ralph? 2. Would Pochettino come back? 3. Would Thomas Frank leave Brentford for Saints? (This is the most likely in my mind) 4. Would Thomas Tuchel…. I’d probs best stop there. Anyone else I haven’t considered there?
If Ralph was to go then Frank would be the obvious choice for most of us. Minus the deluded, self-entitled morons on Twitter who think Pochettino would come back to us.
That guardian article was a good read but it seemed to suggest he was mainly focused on playing a 3 at the back system. I’m not sure any of us really want that
You think it is very likely he would leave Brentford for us? I wish I were that confident. We seem at a similar level right now but they have a more potent attack to potentially dig them out of holes. If a sale of Toney is on the cards then things are different - they might well find that the golden touch with striker trading is something that is harder to pull off when you need someone premier league standard compared to their success in league one and the championship
I don’t necessarily see it as ‘backing’. The club were going to make those signings no matter who the manager was. Regarding results. They’ve been okay. But there are so many other reasons why Ralph might have fallen out of favour with the board.
Yeah the backing thing isn’t that crazy tbh. I haven’t looked but where were we in the spend table? £50m doesn’t sound like a lot for a Prem team
Also this, seems like Joe Shields and whatever the other guy who used to work for the FA is called, Crocker? Had way more of an input on the signings. Still slightly weird timing as we haven’t had a terrible start
Was Ralph backed? For all we know, all of our signings could have been based on Joe Shields with minor input from Ralph. Impossible to say from the outside. Regardless our form for the whole calendar year has been abysmal and if they decide to get rid of Hasenhuttl there are plenty of promising young managers out there who would struggle to do much worse
The only scenario that would really explain the timing would be that a manager we thought wasn’t available in summer has now indicated they’re available, or has become unemployed.
There were 8 sides who spent more than us (net). And obviously more who spent more gross. Probably 15. So this talk of being “backed” is one thing when compared to previous Gao years. But nothing when compared to the rest of the league. It is even worse when you compare the combined spends over 3+ years. Anyone would think we spent 3 times what we did including breaking our transfer record. Indeed had we signed Gakpo or a similar high priced attacking midfielder and got a striker then it would be a different conversation. Say we’d spend an extra circa 50m on Delap and Gakpo. But that didn’t happen - and not for want of trying
The issue for me is that Ralph is not playing signings that were presumably meant to improve the first team that struggled so badly for the final third of last season, maybe it's an issue for the owners too?
I'm not in the 'Ralph out' brigade but something seems amiss. There are certain things that we all can see but yet still get persevered with ... 1) Ely is ok, but to persist with him ahead of Stu, Aribo and/or others with more mobility seems strange 2) Long ball to Adams is only effective if you have the players around him picking up the knockdowns. Against Villa, this just didn't happen 3) Adams on his own upfront leaves him massively isolated (particularly so with point 2) 4) Djenepo has really shone at LB and has knuckled down ... moving him back up field showed that he looks lost up there. He needs a stricter position to work with 5) We've seen 4-2-2-2 work with all the team having the stamina and organisation to do it. With 5 subs now, it should become easier to implement because you can swap out tired players ... has he abandoned it (again)?
Of the three obvious upgrades - two played and one was injured People, especially on Twitter, get very carried away over the others. You have people calling for an Edozie start after 20 minutes and for Larios to start the next game after 45 minutes. Mara was always supposed to be a squad player. No reason to break up the Salisu-ABK partnership with DCC Aribo apparently didn’t train in the build up to Villa (for the entire week). At least according to a SW ITK AMN is the only legit bizarre absentee in my mind Some of the Twitter line ups prior to Villa would have seen us turned over. The decision to go forward with apparently only one (18 year old) player who can play the loan number six role is a perplexing one. But one I’m pretty sure wouldn’t have been Ralph’s.
