Amazing to think that this thread has been in existence for the best part of eleven months. The fact that it has lasted so long is testiment to the travel off the club under Ralph for the last two seasons. I agree that we have played some scintilating football under him and that, at his best, the pressing quality of the team is a joy to watch. However, I just feel that it is now a long time since we have watch one of Ralph's sides with much pleasure. The criticism about getting a striker is something where I have sympathy although I was convinced that the additions in the summer were destined to make us more attack minded. In Che Adams and Adam Armstrong we have one forward who squanders too many chances and another who is skillfull but who will never score at this level. Both signings were made by Ralph and probabaly both need to be moved on. I think the main issue is the lack of progress. There are too many players who are not good enough and have been recognised as such by Ralph. The team he is playing is one he has largely assembled himself and other than the disappointment of not getting a proven goal-scorer in the summer, I really feel that the squad he has is under-performing and should be doing better. Someone like JWP has been a shadow of his former self and probably needs to be cashed in before his stick falls any further. It is evident that the problems with the defence have largely been addressed yet you never feel that one of Ralph's sides is ever going to put their opponents to the sword. Not sure why Tella was moved out as we are so ineffectual up front. Elyanoussi looks like a good Championship player yet has no goals or assists to his name. Diallo is miraculously still getting selected. I cannot see how we can progress under Ralph. There are too many issues that need addressing in this current team that you feel they are beyond his ability to address. Like some on here, I feel that the Ralph - worshipping is a little odd. He has coached some terrific performances in the past but we have not seem anything promising for a complete gate for the whole of 2022. Although I was pleased with the signings, the club should have been braver in the summer and said their thanks to Ralph and got someone in with fresh ideas. People in here seem to conflate Ralph's initial games in charge with what we have witnessed for the last ten months. The writing has been in the wall before that. Not sure if Ralph is the man to take this young club where it should be. If we get a decent strikeforce in January, you feel that a new and inspiring manager could do a lo with this team. As it is, I just feel everything is a little jaded and needs to be re-freshed. This is not really a reflection of Ralph's ability , rather recognition that he is unlikely to be able to coax the performances of yore at St Mary's.
I still think we are a goalscorer away from upper mid table at the very least. Score some goals, get some points and the whole team plays better. We have (famous last words) definitely shored up in defence as we are only losing by the odd goal (ignore City). If we could score more than one a game we would be winning. And by more than one I mean 2, that is all. Not a big ask.
I agree with this. If we had two better strikers, I would be more confident. What worries me is that we are building for the future and that we could be relegated before the benefits of the intelligent recruitment can be appreciated. I just wonder if we will make a cheeky bid for Broja in January ??
A modern coach has relatively little input on recruitment. He will ask for particular qualities and have some say between a few targets, but in most clubs you can't blame the head coach for poor recruitment. That is DOF and a recruitment problem. No surprise that our recruitment improved when Matt crocker returned and then again with Joe shields.
My hope right now is that Ralph himself knows he's done what he can and is eyeing the door. so that when the inevitable happens and he is replaced its not a painful blow. I'd like him to leave on the best possible terms.
Wasn't Ralph going to retire when his contract expires? That's not great really as he has no investment in the future. He should have gone in the summer, and judging by our "progress" he's not the man to be in charge now, let alone in a few months. He seems a lovely guy, I'd love to sit in a bar and chat with him but he manages a team who can only play for 45 minutes. That's down to him - not the players, not the owners, just him. I don't know who should replace him, but he isn't the man for us, anymore.
I've been saying this for what feels like years (though probably just since Ings left). Even when everyone thought our squad wasn't good enough, I maintained that it was, and that we were only one quality player away from being a decent team. No one seemed to agree, and instead everyone persisted with 'poor Ralph, our players are so sh*t' etc. Now that we've had a good window, people can't use the 'sh*t squad' excuse anymore for Ralph, so it's 'if only we had a striker'. Well we had Broja last season who looked quality, but it didn't work out in the end. Of course that had to be Broja's fault. Bottom line, Ralph is the damn manager; it is his responsibility to get the players he needs. He must have agreed to Adam Armstrong, Mara etc. That's 25m right there for next to no goals. He must have prioritised getting in 2 CBs and a GK this summer over a striker. That's another 35m. The money was there; we can't use the 'if only we had a striker' excuse. That's Ralph's fault. BTW - I'm not slagging Mara, Bazunu or any of the other signings. Think our recruitment has been top-notch. Just the wrong positions were prioritised.
That's literally not his job. Ralph doesn't handle player recruitment at all. Few managers in the modern game do. You might as well blame him for the service at the concession stand.
I'm sure he has some input, as other members of the staff do. But is it his job to go out and get a striker? Absolutely not. Is it his job to decide how our transfer budget is allocated? Absolutely not. As to how he works like that, the vast majority of managers work like that today. There's a reason we have a Director of Football and a Head of Senior Recruitment. And that reason is that managing transfer business is a full-time job, and managers already have a full-time job that doesn't leave a tonne of time to adequately evaluate transfer business.
Well the service is pretty poor, we used to have high intensity servers now they only seem to be able to serve quickly for the first 10 mins then they drop off.
Whilst I expect he does have some input on transfers, it is likely restricted to highlighting which areas need strengthening and identifying squad depth etc. The actual players/negotiations he certainly won't pick/handle, he may get a "what do you think of x?" at best. And to say Ralph prioritized certain positions over a striker are just not true. We all know that the club wanted and were willing to spend on a striker - that is where Ralph's involvement would have ended. It is the recruitment teams fault for leaving it to the last minute with Gakpo after failing on other targets such as Delap/Ramos. We can blame Ralph for a number of things on the pitch but transfer dealings are certainly not his fault.
I do feel it's weird that Ralph was happy for Che to go in the summer though, he may not be perfect, but he is by far the best we have and for our level a great option or second striker! And given that we failed to get a PL ready striker in at all, that would have left us needing two!
According to the Athletics Saints reporter we were happy for Che to go! He talked about it briefly on the latest TSP.
Even there, it's a situation that kinda answers itself. Why did we take Gakpo down to the wire? Because we targeted Delap, Ramos and Sinisterra (that I can remember, there were likely others) and got turned down by all of them. One of the issues, no matter our manager and no matter our recruitment team, is that we aren't a hugely desirable destination. That leaves three options available: - Target players who are good, and hope to convince them of our project. - Target players who might become good, but are unproven in high-quality environments. - Target players who are proven in lesser environments and hope that translates. We did 2 quite successfully, while our attempts to do 1 all came up short. We've had some good results with 3 in the past, but also a lot of bad results. Our bad results with 3 are effectively the reason that, yet again, we need to go out and find an attacker or three. For better or worse, the recruitment team didn't want to do 3 again, and decided that we were better off waiting for another opportunity than to roll the dice on another player of that ilk. I can understand why, even if it means limping through half the year with an obvious hole in attack.
Not saying it's his job to actually recruit the players. I said it's his job to get the players he needs to improve the team (whatever that takes; begging the board of directors etc). You think managers don't coordinate with the board and make requests about positional needs? They just say, "hey-ho, this is what I've got is it?"
