Ralph Krueger Interview Incoming

I was guilty of assumption there...I presumed the talk of decent length contracts meant high wages.

 

Haven't read/listened to any of it, as frankly I don't care what anyone at the club has to say, I judge by actions not words. But I have read this thread and seems the interview has gone down as well as normal then.

 

Now and then.

 

Virgil's performances may have been ok...but there has to be an effect on team morale of a player desperate to get away. Sometimes things come down to small percentages...a vague drop in team togetherness. I know that a minor irritant (will that damn fence man ever come and finish the job!!!!!!!) does change my general mood. Isn't that why a new manager can have a marked effect on a team....they buy into what he says and all pull together. And isn't that why Boufal was driven from the squad...no one wanted distractions...and even feeling you want to glare at a player when he comes into the room is a distraction.

 

But we got worse when he left.

 

We weren't very good when he was here in my opinion. The whole season has been poor. If we did get worse it was only slight.

 

The one positive I will take from this is that they want Mark Hughes to stay.

tbh we already knew the answer to a lot those questions.

Reed is always going to stay....

We are never going to start spending 100’s millions of pounds on players...

 

The only thing that matters is learning from what happened....we got away with it. RK said the team didn't work well together; we all knew that. Our players are individually better than they are as a whole. The only person who can sort that out is a manager who gets them to believe in his plan and each other....as Adkins, Poch and Koeman did. Even relative success couldn't seem to unite the team behind Puel....you'd think that getting to a Cup Final would make them believe....but in the end it came down to personality. And it all went wrong with MP2 (the unluckiest manager in Saints history)....fear of losing was his major fault....understandable towards the end of the season, but unforgiveable at the beginning.

I would love to think that Hughes and Saints are a match made in heaven and we will go on to win the title and several cups, but more likely he is the man to reunite the squad and get us back on our feet, make us attractive to those promising players that we like to bring into the EPL, and give us the odd stab at Europe. And after this season, that will be absolutely perfect.

 

A man with a grasp on reality.

 

First 17 games with toxic team-killing Virgil Van Dijk: 1.35 goals/game against.

Last 21 games without toxic team-killing Virgil Van Dijk: 1.57 goals/game against.

Losing him definitely had an impact, and it wasn't a weight lifted off our shoulders. If we had sold Virgil at the beginning of the year and didn't replace him, we'd be talking about our Championship squad right now.

 

I'm not suggesting having him in the squad didn't have some detrimental effect, but to apportion so much blame onto that is misleading, in my opinion.

 

The Virgil Van Dick Saga is being blamed for our lousy performances...........???? Strewth what ever do these people have for brains..........The board are there to make decisions and while we understand human nature has a part to play at the end of the day they live or die on their decisions!! Not this board it would seem!!! To me they are just a lot of hangers on!! Come back Cortese all is forgiven..........................

 

Hate to keep quoting Ralph (makes me out to be an apologist for him), but he said that it was many things and hard to point a finger at one mistake. And that is right....there were no doubt the obvious ones like hiring MP2 (but not all judgements will be correct) , then not replacing him sooner (and that was partly down to believing that he had it tough because of Virgil), and relying on a frequently injured striker to be able to carry you through the season.

It was a perfect storm...sometimes failures can be more valuable than successes....IF you learn from them.

 

Of course we didn't actually buy a new CB when Virgil left. Had we done so we may well have improved. Especially if we also used the money to by promes.

Instead we simply bought Carrillo because as i believe mp2 put it, he has similar qualities to the strikers we already have.

Benefit of the doubt I think he meant injured Austin, but still that frustrated the hell out of me when i heard it.

 

I think Hughes staying is the only positive to take!

There is a difference between spending 100s of millions on players and only spending some of what we make in player sales. That's walking a tightrope. It's led us down the road of not adding to and thusly not improving the team/squad, (there's no standing still in this league), AND only replacing parts of what we lose and hoping the rest sorts itself out. Some middle ground would be nice. After all, that was supposedly the reason Kat sold the club, to loosen the financial shackles and help us push forward...yeah right.
With all the mismanagement going on behind the scenes, the lack of direction and accountability (or even an understanding of the mistakes that have been made) coupled with the self imposed tight shackles that we are under makes me feel like Hughes can only stem the tide. We got a lucky escape this season, but if lessons really haven't been learnt, (and from the spiel we're getting it doesn't sound like they have), than we are back to the days of just aiming to stay in the league. You might stay afloat for a while, you might have the odd season where it all clicks into place, but ultimately under this management and ownership I can only see us heading one way. I hope I'm wrong, but that's the feeling I've had for a while and this latest interview only compounds that view.

 

All teams outside the top 6 and maybe Everton first goal every year is to avoid relegation. That is just the way it is. We will all get relegated at some point when we have a bad season, might not be for a few years but it will happen eventually. What would you like the club to be aiming for?

 

We should be aiming to be the best we can be with the resources at our disposal, that should certainly be above the likes of Burnley and Bournemouth with respect to them.

 

Everton have never been relegated. I would like the club to be consistently pushing toward the top six. We have the infrastructure and finance (if we spent the money from player sales alone) to do so, with competent and sensible leadership and management.

 

The only Chairmen I know who are transparent in their communication are Gollivan, and Tan and who'd want them anywhere near their club? Sound bites and vagaries are all you ever get from Chairmen, if anything at all.

Our squad is way better than its final position, a fact recognised by Hughes when he said the players are probably embarrassed and rightly so.

So, do we need any more assurance than the only actual assurance that RK gave? Namely that we would be able to reinvest all revenue from sales into the playing squad? This coupled with TV money will be plenty for us. If we can land Promes a CB and maybe even source a cheeky little playmaker I think we'll be back on track. Good players don't become **** overnight. It takes a couple of years of bland coaching to make that happen and we certainly gave them that.

That said, bales of bullshit is an equally valid statement.

 

I don't think that was a goal of ours a few seasons ago. Top 10 and aiming for Europe and as a consequence you take a wide berth from the relegation battle. If your main aim is to make money and stay in the league that'll catch up with you much sooner than if you're trying to consistently be best of the rest. Again, I'm not asking us to do an Everton with a 'war chest'. But at the moment we are trying to get by transfer window after transfer window by doing the bare minimum. We are handed so much money for being in this league each season, and yet we are seemingly unwilling to even spend what we make in player sales and are not replacing the positions which are left with gaping holes.