TWar

Puel got 46 points from a team that had previously made top 8 three years on the bounce. Ralph got 52 points from a team that had just had the previous two seasons narrowly avoiding relegation. I hate to think you consider context "spinning it". Also why do you keep crying about the 9-0 results? It's two freak results in an otherwise good tenure. I'm sorry they bother you so much but from a purely results based stand point its not that much worse than a 3-0 loss, a hit to the GD to be sure but rarely does that come into play when deciding league position. Net spend over 5 years we are bottom, net spend over 10 we are second bottom. I said it in the above comment. Not sure how its particularly hard to grasp, or what you mean by "what is it, 5? 10?". The team has been underfunded over the last decade, and especially over the last five years. Our chance of getting relegated is like 40/1 in the odds. It's very very unlikely. Sometimes unlikely things do happen, such is how statistics work, so no one would "look like clowns" but its nothing to get worked up about now. No one worships him, we observe he has had a good win rate and has given a good identity to us, as well as having markedly improved us since we took over. We think people who write that off after a small bad patch of a couple of months after a full year of being a quality side are a bit reactionary. It only seems "cult-like" because you have come to a conclusion based off a very small data set and are getting a bit upset when people try to refer to the bigger picture, that he has a good PPG across his time here given the investment.

I honestly think goalkeeper is easily our weakest position. We lack depth in fullback and attacking mid and could do with a bit more quality making chances but we do not have a single premier league quality keeper in our squad. Would love to see us drop £20m and get someone quality and reliable.

I'm not concentrating on anything, my stats were taken across the entirety of his stay. I spoke about his points per game across the entire 90 league games. Feels like you didn't read this bit: "The reality is that if one uses a small enough sample size they can prove anything, he was overperforming for a couple of months and now he's way underperforming his quality. This is why you have to try to not be too reactive to short term trends" if you think I am only focusing on the good spell. Teams have ups and downs, that was a down, the entirety of 2020 was an up, now we are in a down again it all averages out to a decent midtable to lower europa league side. Which is impressive given the funds invested and the relegation threatened status of this club before Ralph turned up. Finishing 11th with the squad he has is an achievement, as shown by the net spend over the past 5-10 years. We'll see, i think he'll get 12th or so and the semis which is a decent return really. People have mad short memories as to how well our previous couple of managers did before Ralph was on the scene.

And when we are top 4 in the table after 12 games, was that a sign that Ralph is one of the best managers in the league? And if so what happened in the month or so between these two periods? Did he hit his head and forget everything he knows? The reality is that if one uses a small enough sample size they can prove anything, he was overperforming for a couple of months and now he's way underperforming his quality. This is why you have to try to not be too reactive to short term trends, especially with extenuating circumstances like the injuries we'd had. Fortunately our board will judge him over his whole record rather than either the flukey winning run at the beginning of the season and flukey losing run now. Also something happening twice in two and a half years doesn't mean it isn't a freak result.

The average league position if one were to play all 19 other teams, (assuming we are mid table) is 10.5. Teams played in those 12 games (current league position): Leicester (3), Arsenal(10), Villa(9), United(2), Newcastle(17), Wolves(13), Chelsea(4), Leeds(12), Everton(7), Sheffield United(20), Man City(1), Brighton(16) Average position faced in that run = 9.1 Remaining teams (current league position) Burnley(15), West Brom(19), Palace(11), Leicester(3), Liverpool(6), Fulham(18), Leeds(12), West ham(5),spurs(8) Average league position played till end of season = 10.7 Therefore we have played a harder set of teams in the last 12 than we will in the final 9 and that run is markedly harder than average. Unfortunately two freak games happening in two seasons and a run of bad results over 12 games does not invalidate doing very well over 90 games. "points per game" isn't an excuse, it is THE objective metric. By what logic is taking his success across his tenure an "excuse" but taking his performance over a clipped out small sample size of 12 games objective fact? You are just being very short-termist and judging our manager by a couple of months of poor form coupled to a freak result in 2019.

He's been in charge of us for 90 league games, most people are judging him on more than 12 of them. In the league he averages about (32 wins, 19 draws, 39 losses in 90 games) 1.3 pts a game which amounts to about 49 points a season. This is mid-table pushing europe points total, our net spend over the last 5 years is literally bottom of the league (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/fuenfjahresvergleich/wettbewerb/GB1, over a ten year period we are second bottom after Burnley) so getting that out of this squad is pretty impressive. Maybe the people saying he's better than anyone we can get to replace him are judging him on more than 12 games where he has been missing a chunk of the squad, has had statistically harder fixtures, and is playing with a freakishly congested schedule which disproportionately effects teams like us (and liverpool) who play a high energy, high intensity style. We need investment, we don't need to ditch the guy overperforming with our paper thin squad.

People saying we should focus the league are insane. We are 40/1 odds with sky bet to go down and probably much longer to make Europe. 538 (stat analysis website) has us at 2% chance relegation and <1% Europe. Our league season ended months ago. Conversely we are through to the quarters of the FA cup, have a championship side, and some top sides (Liverpool, spurs) are already out. We actually have a decent chance at the FA Cup this year. Bookies give it 16/1, long but no where near as long as relegation or Europe. This is the perfect situation to go for it. If you find yourself in the "play for the league" camp you should admit to yourself that you will never want us to go for the cup, which is a fine opinion but be honest about it. Comparisons to Wigan are mad as they spent most of the season favourites to go down when they won it whereas we are not and have never been anywhere near even likely to go down.

Our average points in the last 17 games has been 0.58 points per game. Even if we keep that exact form up for the last 9 games then that is another 5.2 points putting us on an average of 38.2 points. This would be enough to keep us up every year since 2011, and every year before then since 2003. There is a reason the bookies are giving us 40/1. This panic needs to end. We are having a bad time, but our actual danger is pretty low.

Dunno why people keep saying this. If you think there is even a 5% chance of us going down stick some money on it, sky bet have it at 40/1. We are struggling at the moment but there is a very very low chance of relegation.

As it stands would have to get past Kane, DCL, Ings, Watkins, Bamford, Callum Wilson, Michael Antonio, and Tammy Abraham into three squad positions, maybe two if we think Foden/Rashford can fill in as a back up and bring an extra attacking mid. Basically 0 chance he starts for England for the next 5 years so nice he's getting a chance.

Great manager, poor squad depth, mentally weak players. We won't go down so just see out the rest of the season, slump to 15th, have a pop at the cup, and invest some money in the summer. The money spent sacking Ralph (who is still way way better than we deserve) could be better spent buying a quality attacking mid who could actually create chances. Anyone calling for him to go needs to seriously re-evaluate the quality of our squad depth beyond our starting 11. Any other manager in the bottom half of the table and we'd be in 17th-18th right now.

Don't know if Forster is the one to replace him but we need to move on from McCarthy.

Thought we played well going forward, not everyone gets two goals against this City defence. Mistakes at the back but against a team who aren't arguably the best in europe those don't all go in. One major criticism is McCarthy. People won't notice as he didn't make any absolute howlers for the goals but its another game where he majorly underperformed his xGA. He needs to do better, an average keeper would statistically have conceded 3 (xG of 3.1), he concedes 5. We need better in that position.

Personally I think we will retain Elyounoussi and try to sign Minimino, if we don't manage with him we'll probably spend 15m on a replacement, maybe someone like Lookman

Tella doesn't play in that role, he plays as one of the front two, Walcott might not be retained given that he is 32 in the summer and has clear issues with injury, and Redmond will probably be seen more as a front two player than a ten going forward. Owing to this we have Djenepo and Armstrong who will really play those roles next season and Redmond can fill in too, we definitely need atleast one but probably two number tens in the summer, we don't have much money so Elyounoussi could easily be 4th choice.

There was, no doubt, but even without those three Puel inherited a team markedly better than Ralph did including players like Tadic, VvD, Davis, Fonte ect.

Puel inherited a quality squad that just finished top 8 three seasons in a row built and refined by two top class managers (who are now the managers of PSG and Barca), Ralph inherited a team fighting for relegation for the previous two seasons built and refined by Pellegrino and Mark Hughes. Only comparing the money spent when they took over is unfair and doesn't account for the fact one inherited.

McCarthy isn't THE problem but he is a problem, we have been conceding well over xG over the last 10 games or so, he is not performing like he did last season and earlier this, no glaring mistakes but he is statistically below par.

They are missing all three of their first choice CB's, very much doubt a 0-0.

The academy isn't a "myth". We are currently number 1 for most former academy players in a premier league squad (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/eigengewaechse/wettbewerb/GB1/art/0/plus/1) and number 3 for most minutes. We have many top products playing in the league including Shaw, Reed, Targett, and AOC, plus players we still have like JWP, Stephens, Smallbone et al. People have unrealistic expectations for what an academy should do. Putting out one or two premier league quality players every couple of years is pretty good compared to everyone around us, and putting out one great player every 10 years is a good return really. Also as for "The last players to make it through is the James Ward-Prowse group and how long ago was that?" JWP was not highly rated when he was 21, he had potential just like Tella, Smallbone and N'Lundulu have now. Wait to see how they develop and analyse how good they are in a couple of years. As for recruitment. Our recruitment has been quietly brilliant for a while now. Since we gave Les Reed the boot in Nov 2018 our permanent signings have been Ings, Adams, Djenepo, Walker-Peters, Diallo and Salisu. I don't think a single one of them have failed, on the contrary getting that bunch of players for under £20m each is pretty amazing. Yeah Adams has struggled from time to time but he is still a quality player and still young so well worth the money we paid. If you look at the top three signings from previous years you'll see the improvement: 2020/21 Diallo Salisu KWP 2019/20 Ings Adams Djenepo **Reed Era** 2018/19 Vestergaard Elyounoussi Gunn 2017/18 Carillo Lemina Hoedt 2016/17 Boufal Gabbiadini Hojbjerg 2015/16 VvD Clasie Juanmi As you can see, our hit rate of signings has definitely increased post-Reed and will continue to increase when our rubbish crop of 2017/18 and 2018/19 (minus Vest) are off the books.

With a cup run, absolutely. Maybe it's different for different people but personally I would far rather see us finish 15th and make a cup final than finish 9th and see us dumped out in the 3rd/4th round. It is much more exciting to win silverware and if we aren't making europe (which we will always be an uphill battle when 12 teams have greater spending power than us) then I would like to see us actually have a pop at winning some silverware. In my eyes if we win the cup this season it is the best season I've seen since I've started following saints.

The suggestion of getting rid of Ralph is madness, we have had the worst injury crisis we have had in a decade coupled with some absolutely dreadful luck. Soon as our squad is fit we will be back to being a 8th-13th size club, which is fine by me. No need to panic. This season I reckon we have a good chance at an FA Cup final and we won't go down, offered that at the beginning and most would take it. Stop complaining, support the manager and the side, and watch us be better next season with a fit side and without this mad fixture congestion.

The optimist in me says maybe Forster goes back to Celtic given they clearly need him, McCarthy becomes our bench option with this new deal on lower wages, and we make an effort to sign someone new, Johnstone from West Brom has been ok and I'd take one of Areola, Darlow, Dubravka, or Pope (way out of our price range, likely) from the most likely third relegated side.

Small squad, high energy style. If you look at other teams with a high pressing, high running style like Liverpool they also look a lot worse than they did when games were less frequent, Leeds had also been on a downturn of form.

If a player does a hammy or something they could be out for 4-6 weeks, we have already lost important players in KWP, Theo, and Diallo to this and Ralph clearly is more fearful of it without access to our recooperation facilities. Maybe we will see players who are more prone to muscle injuries like Armstrong, Djenepo, and Ings rotated more in general now as we care less about the league.