I think we’ll be alright. I feel strangely positive after that second half, and the long drive home to North London hasn’t worn me down either. It’s all good, or it will be when it clicks; nothing’s quite working yet, but it will.
I haven't got the emotional capacity to do a blog today. Maybe tomorrow (especially if Charles wins to cheer me up).
Thing is, at 1-1 if Che puts that chance away, we go on to win that game, and the whole feel around the club and support is different. Fine margins.
I don't disagree. But I read a similar thing after the Wolves game too. And I expect to read it again soon. If Che is our leading striker for the rest of the season, we'll do very well to stay up. The board and the scouting team need to be working their socks off over the coming months, to ensure the issue is rectified in January.
Not for me to be honest. Although a lot of people have said “enough is enough” based on this result, many supporters reached that point a long time ago. I didn’t feel like things were going to drastically improve after the Chelsea and Leicester wins.
Not really, as per my previous post I feel quite sad that most on here seem to have reached the same conclusion. I don’t think anyone wanted Ralph to fail but it’s been clear for a while that he’s not the right manager for us.
There’s “fine margins” in every game but when it reverts to the basics we just haven’t got it. We’ve got strikers that have little confidence & actually are not PL standard. Ralph’s fault? No but the rest is. Said previously his job is to put a team out with the tactics to give a performance & get a result, even a draw if required. Keep reading better 2nd half performance or played well after going behind. This is the PL & if we keep dishing out a Villa or a Everton 1st half we’re going down the toilet. RH is the most liked manager here for many years. I think we all want him to succeed but looking at his WDL record over any period is pretty wretched. He hits the occasional high but being blunt I just don’t think he’s good enough at this level.
Interesting to see his win % isn’t much lower than puel, pochettino, strachan and Nichols. However, his loss % is higher than any of them by some way. His record is considerably worse than Koeman and Burley, it’s actually similar to Merrington and Dave Jones. His loss % is only just below Branfoot now. EDIT: I excluded adkins and pardew for obvious reasons and only really looked at managers over 100 games.
Yep, Ralph doesn’t do draws. Sort of admirable but tbh I don’t think that’s a tactic, very generally the inability to hold for a point or anything. Quite sad & shows limitations- yes in the squad but very much so in RH’s ability to coach & nurture confidence.
It's very nice to have a wildcard back in the team. Other positives (scraped from the barrel): Adam Armstrong looked dangerous when he came on. Didn't watch Villa (thank f*ck), but from previous performances I would hazard a guess that his dropping was the least justified. Perraud looked fired up and much faster/fitter/involved when he came on. Hopefully a sign that he's shaken off his injury finally. Larios a very competent back up LB. (Makes the Djenepo contract extension much stranger). Going into the next game, I'd play a front four of A. Arms (LW) - Aribo (CAM) - S. Arms (RW) - Adams (STR). Basically all the As.
Wasn’t there y’day, sunning ourselves in middle of Indian ocean but read lot about his lack of tracking back & that was my impression in previous games. Seems strange to me as RH generally prefers players that have that defensive commitment even as an offensive midfielder. Everything just seems all over the place at the moment. Whatever was RH’s play identity, we’ve definitely lost it. Maybe that’s his problem, good with a group of limited individuals, using a total press but doesn’t have the ability to coach better gifted (?) with different tactics?
