TWar

I already said it was unfair of me to say the Valencia and Benfica jobs weren't major here: "Maybe it is unfair for me to say his first "major job" outside of Holland owing to his stint in the Portuguese league and his failed stint in Spain, but we were certainly his first role that actually upped his status and his background was certainly a lot less impressive than Ralphs." In literally my first post after saying it. I have no issues admitting that "major job" is an unfair metric and Valencia does count as one regardless of his short stint there and poor league position. I tried to bring the argument back to my original point which was "Ralph had more pulling power than Koeman during their respective tenures with us because he had a more impressive CV". If you want to discuss that then we can, but this pedantic "gotcha" style argument where you hone in on a single sentence and don't discuss the overall point is really boring and only leads to pointless fights rather than interesting discussions. You are kind of proving this with all the "you've been found out" and "you made a chump of yourself". You can have a debate about things without immediately trying to make it into a childish squabble.

Hoping for an easy run over Christmas, we are much worse when we have fixture congestion so an easier period would be very handy.

Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Manchester United are a big side but finishing second is still an achievement as there are other big sides like Chelsea and Liverpool. RBL were a big side and hence a much bigger job than Koeman had had when he joined us but finishing above Dortmund, for example, was quite the achievement nonetheless. My sole claim with regards to this thread is that Ralph managed a club who finished 2nd in one of Europes top 5 leagues and Koeman only managed one that finished 15th. You can rate Portuguese and Dutch football as highly as you like, I don't, I think half the teams in those leagues are league one quality. Ralph was a lot more impressive a manager for me when signing. You can keep saying how big the Dutch and Portuguese teams are but I'm not going to agree, they are nothing compared to the sides you get in big leagues like France, Spain, England, Germany, and Italy. Anyway, this argument is getting tedious. Koeman is a good manager who went on to prove himself, and has now comfortably surpassed Ralph, and we were an important stepping stone in that process but our team (including VVD, Mane, Tadic, ect.) was easily the best team he'd ever been in charge of. Ralph had already proven himself at a much better club than us with a much stronger side and is now trying to maintain his reputation with a weak prem side. You can argue that Koeman had more sway owing to his name from his playing career, I don't agree but I respect it as an opinion. You can also argue you think teams like Ajax, Benfica and Feyenoord are bigger sides and attract bigger talent than RB Leipzig, and I'd say that is a crazy point of view. But I personally think we have gotten to the point where we are all just restating our opinions to point score and I don't think that in conducive to a worthwhile debate.

I think it still is, IIRC Diallo said something which alluded to us being a stepping stone. I think it's less focused on now as we haven't made a big sale in a good while.

The Athletic write about Koeman a great deal, he is the manager of Barcalona, what are you on about?

I do still think Ralph is a bigger pull as a manager, you will find several reports now from our players saying they were excited to play under Ralph. It is a pretty common thing for a signing to say. RB Leipzig seem to exist in a weird middle ground for you. When you are trying to argue he didn't do a good job they are a team with great financial means who would expect to finish second, but when you are trying to argue it wasn't a big, high profile job, it is just a "newly promoted team". Truth is, while RB leipzig were under Ralph they finished 2nd in a massive league. It is a lot more than Koeman managed, he did well in small leagues and poorly in a bigger one. Being an assistant manager for a big side is worth next to nothing imo. If I found out we were bringing in an assistant manager to a big side rather than an actually established one in their own right I'd be pissed.

The discussion is who was more accomplished as a manager when they joined though, and Koeman had never had a job as high profile as a team that finished second in the German league. Dutch jobs, a Portuguese job, and guiding a Spanish team to 15th are not as high profile by a long shot. Koeman went on to be more successful afterwards but that's not what I was saying.

If we have Perraud then I can't see why we would want Firpo. If we are spending €18m I'd far rather we sink that into a quality attacking mid and have our back up to Perraud and KWP be a lot cheaper.

Koeman is bigger now as a manager, we are not arguing about that. All I said was Ralph had a much more impressive managerial CV when joining saints than Koeman did. You keep trying to move the goalposts but that is what was said. Also "will ever be" is not something you can at all claim, unless you can see the future. Leipzig are where they are partly thanks to Ralph. But yes, Ralph was hired for what turned out to be a big job and did well in it. Koeman had never done a big job by then, his sole experience in the top 5 european leagues was finishing 15th in la liga. Not as impressive. Also I think a player would be very foolish to rather play for a manager who was a famous player rather than a manager who is famous for being a good manager. Tuchel vs Lampard springs to mind.

Seems we agree then. Ralph had a more impressive CV in the same way Nagelsmann is a more impressive hire than Advocaat, both managed the same clubs and had the same level of success. Ralph came second in the German league, neither Adkins or Wilder came anywhere near that in the English. Ralph won his side Champions league football, neither came anywhere near that. I know you don't like Ralph, but he was objectively more successful before Saints than Koeman was, and a tonne more successful than Adkins?! Koeman was better post joining, yes, that's not the argument here. It was whether Koeman had more sway as a manager coming in than Ralph did due to his success, and he most certainly did not. You can keep saying "hipster" all you like, but he came second in the German league with a newly promoted side and no one you've listed has even come close to such an achievement. History means nothing to that.

RB Leipzig are a powerhouse in European football, playing in one of the biggest leagues in Europe. Feyenoord are not. You may not like that they are bigger now, but they are. If you heard we were signing RBL's manager last season, or Feyenoords which one would you be more excited about? Honestly? Nagelsmann or Dick Advocaat? You genuinely believe manager of RB Leipzig is a smaller job than manager of Feyenoord I don't know what to tell you, you've gone insane.

That is fair, undoubtedly being a big name in football yields positive results even if your managerial career hasn't been that impressive. I do think Ralph is also a big name in football, however, what he did with Leipzig was very impressive. I think Koeman is a big name in Holland which helped a lot with Pelle, Tadic, and Alderweireld (who had previously played there and got to know Koemans managing), I think Ralph is a big name in germany so it's a shame we haven't used that market more. Would like to see us go for Lookman, for instance, who Ralph has managed before very successfully.

An international job is not as impressive as a club job. That's why people like Martinez and Southgate manage top international sides when they failed in club management. Also look at the current dutch manager, Frank De Boer, do you know his club legacy? Remember palace? He had one of the worst stints the prem has ever seen, dropped down to the MLS, and then got the international job. Hardly a mark of quality. Feyenoord are not a huge club, no where near the size of RB Leipzig. No way "a decent season in the dutch league" is as impressive as "second in the german league". Ralph took a newly promoted team to 2nd in German league above Dortmund. Koeman hadn't managed some big names, he managed one side in the top 5 leagues and was sacked after less than a year. No way in hell Koeman had better pedigree than Ralph did when they both joined, absolute nonsense. Also a club isn't "hipster" because you are too behind on football to have heard of them. A lot has changed in the last decade or so, might be worth paying a little more attention.

I think the plan this season is one or two signings early and then hold back money for the end for when bargains become available.

Yeah I think this is more it, Koeman was able to sign the best from a league he knew as he was, relatively speaking, more backed financially to make signings, he did have a lot to replace.

I think he made good signings because of his knowledge base more than his "pull". He was at Valencia for one year, struggled to 15th with a side, and was sacked. His next job was with AZ Alkmaar so not exactly a storming success which raised his profile. He did ok with Benfica but that is a much weaker league than the premier league and again only for one year. Maybe it is unfair for me to say his first "major job" outside of Holland owing to his stint in the Portuguese league and his failed stint in Spain, but we were certainly his first role that actually upped his status and his background was certainly a lot less impressive than Ralphs.

I don't think Koeman had much pulling power personally, we were his first major job outside of Holland. Club pulling power maybe as our squad was better but as soon as Koeman had any reasonable stock he left us, same with Poch, we never made signings based off their names and if you think about it we never brought in any highly sort after big names under either of them. We made sensible good signings.

Ralph is a much bigger draw than Poch was when he managed us. Poch had done basically nothing before joining us, Ralph finished second in the German league and managed in the CL. Similarly, Koeman was a big name in football but not in management. Coming off the back of RB Leipzig is a lot more prestigious than Feyenoord or Espanyol. It has nothing to do with manager pulling power, it's mostly financial issues and poor signings when we do spend big. Maddison was even at our training pitch so was clearly happy to join and then Leicester just offered a lot more money than we could.

Tbh I think we were quite average. Didn't create much at all, had a couple of times Croatia were free in the box and shooting and skied it luckily, and Croatia looked awful. Wins a win but if we are going to go far in this tournament we need to do better than that.

Wouldn't surprise me Forster sold (our more sellable asset), macca 2 year extension on a pay cut, Gunn sold, new keeper signed.

I don't know how much attacking is supposed to come from that position. We have four forwards and two advanced fullbacks, the double pivot is more to advance play and screen the back four rather that cutting de Bruyne style through balls. Obviously they are nice, but I think Diallo and JWP will be fine if we improve our attacking mid and left back situation

Yeah Che being dropped infuriated me. Definitely Ralph's worst decision. Most of Redmonds starts weren't at Che's expense so I think those were generally fine though. I do think Redmond was an OK wingback to be fair, Djenepo had a go at it too and was much worse imo. I assume Tella/Mini/Walcott were probably tried in training and weren't up to it, makes sense as the former two are very lightweight and the latter is not as fit as he once was.

Its because despite what people say, Tella wasn't very good at all as a 10, and was a much more effective forward. On top of that Walcott was injured a lot and not much better than Redmond, Armstrong had to play at 6 a fair bit, Minimino was equally poor, and Djenepo was either injured or well off form. Redmond was also our third choice forward and Ings was injured a lot. Most of the time we just didn't have many options. There were a few times Adams was dropped for him and those were nuts but Ralph seemed to stop doing that after a few games.

Wonder who the three players are.

Agreed. If he was happy to be third choice for us then he would have likely gotten a lot of minutes but I can't think of a time in his entire time with us where if everyone was fit he would start. We have been strangely blessed with quality CM/DMs in Scheiderlin, Wanyama, JWP, Romeu, Hojbjerg (?), Diallo (?). It's a hard position to break into.