Dusic

Papa for me...luckily no VAR as he looked a tad offside.

Its the last day of the season and Saints face Steven Gerrard's Barnsley needing a win to stay up in the Championship. Into injury time and with the game stood at 0-0, Olly Lancashire wins a tackle and hits a seemingly aimless ball forward which the Barnsley defenders make a total hash of... and Saints no 9 is clean through on goal. Who would you most fancy to hit the target and secure safety for Eric Black's men? Papa Waigo, Guido Carrillo or Adam Armstrong?

This. Obvious for anyone to see. The fact he has started so many games this season just highlights our lack of credible forward options. That moment today where he got onto the misplaced pass should be what he thrives on, one vs one with a retreating CB in a central area and he did what everyone expected...didnt even get a shot away. Works hard but that should be expected.

The Bmth performance felt a little like Villa's did versus us. Enough to win but not really a sign of any underlying change. However, its clear the players haven't downed tools on Ralph. Interesting times given that Villa, Wolves and possibly Leeds are also looking at the managerial market, and that the WC break is looming where surely we get a forward or two lined up and also hopefully ABK, Lavia and maybe even Livramento back available. With a kind run of fixtures immediately after the restart I am sure SR will now wait to make a decision. It probably gives Ralph the next 5 incl Sheff Weds game to show progress and if not I think they will make a change then, assuming one of those others doesn't take whoever we want.

Bottom half could be the most competitive ever judging by the start of the season. Forest aside all the teams have shown something and a few that were expected to struggle have already got a nice buffer to the bottom 3. Clear we will be right down there so need Forest to continue to struggle and quality wise after them its probably between Bournemouth, Saints, Wolves, Leeds and Everton you would think.

Telling thing is, aside from possibly Edozie its pretty hard to say that he is leaving out players who are better, or have shown better form, than those who are starting. In attack it really is a weak set of options at this level.

Someone look at our attacking options and tell me three PL sides whose are worse. Bournemouth is one. I cannot think of another. No wonder we struggle to score. We replaced Ings with a loan player who we then didn't replace and whoever is in charge will struggle to get goals out of players like Adam Armstrong, Elyounoussi etc. IMO I would be more concerned about what SR do about upgrading our attack in January than what they do Manager wise (and I'm not saying he shouldn't be fired just that a new manager won't make sub par attackers into good ones at this level).

What an odd take. I'm pretty sure most people can separate passion for a football team from impactful life events.

Bit of a worry when you look at the table, a few sides who people expected to be in the mix have already got 4-6 points more than us and of the bottom 3 Wolves and especially Leicester have got the players to end up well out of the relegation battle. Our game vs Bournemouth already looks huge - they could be 11 points ahead of us after we play them, or we could be a point ahead of them...massive couple of games coming up.

Massive transfer window approaching so whatever way you look at it the fact we are less than 3 months from that (and loads of stuff we get unofficially done during the WC anyway) and our head of recruitment is essentially banned from the club is pretty worrying. Recruitment is Ankersen's specialism so perhaps he will get more hands on, at least in the interim.

Chelsea's new owners haven't messed around in targetting the best people. In that sense it shows how good an appointment it was and his work in signing Lavia and ABK for less than £25m combined has been very high profile. The unfortunate reality is any employee, player, manager, recruitment person, will always leave for a better opportunity and this is a huge role at one of the richest and most high profile club. He would be mad to turn it down.

Could also argue that 3 of the players SR signed (ABK, Lavia, Aribo) have all been easily in our best 5 players this season so far, and possibly even the best 3.

Interesting to see which of thr coachingnstaff would remain once Ralph goes. Any decent manager wants to bring in their own people, quite understandably. Selles and Carl Martin are highly regarded in particular.

Simply because they will, rightly, be recruiting a manager to fit the club philosophy. A manager who is good at developing young players - as our clearly stated model is to buy this profile of player. Dyche usually had the oldest squad in the league at Burnley and doesn't fit what the job spec will be from a playing style perspective either. He is a good manager and will be interesting to see where he ends up next but it clearly won't be at St Mary's. Howe looks a bit like the obvious one that got away.

Regardless of manager situation this window will surely make the difference of staying up or relegation. An attacking upgrade, or two, is an absolute must. SR will know this and seemingly have cash so hopefully something will be done very early on given the WC break (and our kind fixtures)

Stating the obvious but assuming we aren't interested in any caretaker manager nonsense then its either a decision in the next couple of days or Ralph stays for West Ham, Bmth and Arsenal surely due to the tight turnaround. SR and Ankersen especially are not stupid, they will be lining something up in the background. Its probably a case of timing and also they need the right person for a 2/3 yr period not just an emergency 6 month appointment. Whatever happens hopefully its done quickly and respectfully as Ralph deserves that and it would be a shame to see the stadium turn on him in a very public way after the graft he has undoubtedly put in.

So essentially Blackmore saying the story might have come from Sport Republic because the article refences them and their role in the club. IMO thats a bit of a stretch. The point of the article is to say RH is going to be fired. Why would SR feed that to the DT? Whats the point? More likely its just padding out the article with contextual information about Saints, some of which is accurate and some less so - as is often the case with press articles.

I may be wrong but fairly sure some of our better results against them have come with a 4-2-2-2, theory being that if you play loads of defensive players and sit back with no counter threat it is just inevitable that they score.

Its about the only remaining argument in Ralph's locker but its still a very good one: - We haven't permanently or temporarily replaced Ings or Broja. - As Ralph correctly said, all our best spells have come when a forward has been in a period of good form (Ings and then Broja). - Currently our best attacking player is either Che Adams, Joe Aribo or KWP. - Thats not a recipe for success when many teams fans want us to compete with have a genuinely good attacker, and usually multiple. - It should have been addressed this summer and if its not in January we will get relegated whoever is in charge because its a stronger PL this season and of the sides below us Leicester will almost certainly finish well above us, Palace have had an horrific start fixture wise but have a great run til the WC and Wolves have a much better squad than their position reflects. Worrying times.

Nearly all the PL sides who use it look shit apart from the ones with top forwards like Spurs and Chelsea. KWP also much better attacking from deep in a 4 than when played as a wing back.

Cooper plays 3 CBs for Forest. Has he done that elsewhere too? Not a fan of that setup at all.

Good overall season, but on the Championship stuff quite a bit for the club to consider over the off season. Batting - clearly need a quality opener, but there aren't many around. Not much to pick between Holland, Weatherley & Organ but Holland's bowling gives him an extra string (assuming Dawson plays Organ's is less needed). Weatherley yet another who is mid 20s yet averages below 25. Bowling - Abbas, Abbott and Barker not getting any younger, yet also were very available this season. Who are the eventual replacements (a nigh on impossible job IMO)? Crane Conundrum - is he too much of a luxury player, seeing as CC cricket isn't played when pitches favour spin? But then signing a frontline CC spinner sends such a bad message to him. Perhaps he just isnt as good as was hyped?

https://twitter.com/TheSecretScout_/status/1576295777726365696

If Ralph teams aren't one of the most aggressive pressing sides in the league then whats his purpose? That is his game and he isn't doing it. He has been, understandably, impacted by past results but before I saw the circumstances and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Today, I expected us to lose. He has IMO done a good job overall, but after a long tenure in PL terms a change is needed. We don't have a lot of quality so we absolutely need a gameplan. We currently don't have one that works. This summer experiment with 3 CBs showed that he has lost his way and Chelsea aside, results this season show that its now more than a blip.

Before the Villa game I think the result of the poll would probably be quite different, so one game does seem to make a difference to the overall mood.