Ralph sacked as Saints manager

Disappointed as I am over last night’s shambles, I'm still Ralph in for the moment - but I need to feel the fibre of the Boards' fabric in the transfer window. We simply need to see some significant first team signings (not necessarily mega-money signings) – easy to say, not easy to do, but that’s the job. We need to say ‘fare thee well’ to a few as well.

If some reasonable signings were to happen, perhaps that would lead to some tactical mid-game fluency (I can but hope) – I can’t believe that swapping one stranded striker for another is the pinnacle of our tactical thinking.

 

Yes, Ralph has signed some players he liked. But on a very tight budget. With a bigger purse he can sign more players he wants or better quality players.

 

Again the question goes back to money for me. Yes we signed more players that he would’ve had a say in, but we didn’t spend much/anything doing it (last summer we had a £15m profit on transfers)

Would he have signed the same players and lost Ings and Vestergaard if we had some money? An unknown really and it could be argued that losing our main goal scorer we have done well to survive this year

 

I don't disagree but it's a bit of an obvious statement. Every manager wants better quality players surely?

My point being that early in his time here it was regularly said about needing players suited to his style as hardly any of ours were and that's why we were getting dicked a lot.

Beginning of this season it was almost universally agreed that he had his own squad now and it was improved on last year's. Not to say that it was a brilliant squad but it was his with his players.

Yet we're getting worse rather than better. That's the big factor here imo.

 

Are we getting worse though? Beat Leicester and we equal last season's tally. Even if we doubt we only finish 3 points worse off max. I'd say we're about the same level.

 

Dunno. I got loads of **** on here for suggesting swapping Ings for Armstrong might not be the best move. Was 'brilliant business' iirc.

The striker situation was worse this season but the full back one was far better. Still think overall the squad was better this year than any of his previous.

 

Par at best then as I said in earlier post - that's still a big if though re Leicester. Tend to go backwards if you stand still in this league too.

Last season was also the most congested season we've ever played and probably the worst injury problems we've had too. So to not improve on that tally or to do worse than it is poor yes.

 

Dont remember anyone who wasn’t super optimistic saying it was anything other than a big risk with Armstrong and Broja as Ings’ replacement.

I do remember people saying as he only got 12 goals or whatever it shouldn’t be too hard to replace those numbers, with one game left we have scored 5 less and conceded 5 less than last season.

I guess bottom line for me is that money is absolutely everything in this league. You can look at combined spend of wages and transfers for vast majority of seasons (yeah Leicester lol) and the league table will almost mirror it. Until we spend anything like top half teams then I don’t really see why people expect more than we are getting in terms of league position. I can understand the performances/**** runs being questioned

 

Brighton:- net spend - 4m approx
Wolves:- net spend 2m approx
Palace:- released 9 1st team players
Burnley:- net spend - 4m approx
Huddersfield - Net spend - £0
Forest:- net spend - £3m

So two of my list isn’t bad. And take of Guehi for palace, all their other signings were in the Southampton price bracket. But my main point is that there are of course better options out their than the messiah Ralph.

 

Brighton have spent £220m in the past five years though, so…

And yes, Palace released nine players, but also spent a bucketload replacing them.

 

OK,fair enough, Ralph is the greatest and an absolute tactical genius.There is no one out there that would do better with the cheapest, worse squad in the premier league. He’s used his coaching ability to turn average players into £40 - £50 million players that other clubs are queuing up to buy. Let’s hope he doesn’t retire when he says, or we are doomed.

 

Eh? Who is saying that?

 

It's current form that gets nearly all managers the sack and ours has been abysmal for nearly 3 months and there can be no excuses for it this season.
I'm still Ralph in though because of the new owner situation and it will be interesting to see what changes may occur during the summer. Ralph and the squad will have to get it right in the pre-season and get off to a better start because there is no doubt that his position will be under scrutiny from the first game in August.

 

Not quite: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/fuenfjahresvergleich/wettbewerb/GB1

As I said, focus on PL teams as that is the division we are in - Brighton, Wolves have spent almost £200m and Palace have spent double what we have -they spent £77m last summer for christ sake!

I havent seen anyone claim Ralph to be the messiah, just that on our budget we should realistically be getting relegated. Finishing 15th is certainly not under achieving for a club that spends what we do on transfers and wages.

 

Well we are certainly playing like a relegation side currently with the only end to it being the final game.
If the season had been a month longer I would've worried.

 

Djenepo - 14m
Diallo - 12m
A. Armstrong - 15m

40m worth of, ahem 'talent', that Ralph signed and doesn't play.

 

I totted up how much our first team squad cost and it was £170m and that obviously doesn't include JWP and Theo's wages. I don't know how that compares with the rest of the league though.

 

With a peak Jose Fonte and VVD in this team I don't think that we would struggle, we have never replaced them adequately imo.
We have to find a way of not conceding so many avoidable goals.

 

How do you replace VVD adequately exactly?

 

With better than what we currently have, we are still leaking too many goals, Ralph's teams have the worst defensive PL record since he became the manager.