TWar

You also think Pompey are better off than us and Ralph is a worse manager than the guy in charge of San Marino, so what you think doesn't have much value. Salisu, Tino, KWP, Romeu, JWP would all walk into that team, Redmond has outperformed Buendia too, Watkins is wildly overrated and on current form I'd have Broja. If you think Coutinho is a "stand out" for Villa on the level of Rice or Tielemans you need your head examining, or you havent followed football for the last three years where Coutinho has been basically a joke. They also didn't take our best player, our best player is JWP, was last season and still is now.

On the scale of Tino for £5m to Carrillo for £20m, I'd say its significantly closer to the insane value of Tino. Maybe not quite as insane as Tino who is 10 years younger and a fifth of the price but definitely comparable to some of our better deals, like Salisu for £11m.

One or two games does not a good manager make. He made us shite for the vast majority of the season.

Digne is a banging signing for Villa if they pull it off. Would be taking probably their worst player and replacing him with someone who would become their best player, or atleast top 2. If Digne and Coutinho get firing then they probably bump Villa up a level from midtable with us to top half/europe challenger. Best starting 11 outside the strongest top 6 is a pretty poor take, very few of their players get into West Ham or Leicester when both are fully fit and they could only dream of having players the quality of Rice, Tielemans, Vardy, Antonio, etc. in their side. Definitely a big step forward though this window. First half of the season our squad was stronger than Villas but the signing of Digne and Coutinho would change that.

I back us to take points off of one of spurs or united. We didn't lose to either of them in the first half of the season and honestly there is an argument that united have gotten worse and spurs might be without Son.

Great analysis. People rarely consider context in situations like this. I do think Broja had a poor game, was pretty static, blew a key chance to go two up when on side and on his own in the box, and should have cut it back better to Tella in the box. He doesn't get a mention, yet Armstrong who was brought on out of position with 10 men and missing a creative CM suddenly is getting flack for not having an impact? Agree on Perraud too, he had an off game but he had a lot of work to do with Tella ahead of him who isn't the best at covering and one of our holding mids out. There was a constant overload onto him. He has looked very solid for the rest of the season so seems a big overreaction when people in the match thread call him crap and a waste of money.

I don't know if that is true. I think there have been a number of times, both in the Swansea game and before, where players have tried to put him through but have hit the defender or underhit/overhit the pass. Long in the dying minutes, for example.

I don't think he's had the service tbh. I don't remember the pass you are referring to personally but I think there were two instances where Long could have picked him out but didn't have the quality.

I think a striker doesn't need to be strong and able to win physical duels for the ball to be effective. His strengths are clearly not ball into feet (or head in the air) while marked, he wants the ball into space to run on to. Or cut back to him when in space. If we can provide that a bit more I think he'd do very well.

Maybe, I mean, Ings also was pretty poor in those areas where he had to compete physically for the ball and he had a 22 goal season. If we have a set up where a support striker (Che for instance) competes for the ball, wins physical battles, and turns and puts him through (Ches biggest strengths) then he could be very good as a pacy, two footed player, if he sorts out his shooting boots. This was probably the thought process when signing him to replace Danny

I think his strengths aren't, as it stands, particularly well catered for. He is quick, and likes to run in behind and finish. We need more quality putting him through on goal really, he doesn't want the ball to feet or played into him in the air really, that's not his style of play. Playing off Che and Che setting him through is what his ideal would be but Broja has been too good to drop and Broja is not a creative forward particularly. While this is the case I don't think he will have a great time in the side unless we get a very good creative 10 or one of our existing ones steps up.

In what way is getting relegated having spent 9th most in the league a "bloody good job" but being safe and achieving 11th and 15th having spent second least not a good job? Is it because one of them is English?

He did a bloody good job being relegated. But Ralph is doing a poor job having not been relegated. I remember. It, like your crazy vendetta against JWP, are being proven to be dreadful takes as he leads a second team towards relegation

Definitely not under Gao, I think relegation could have been the death of our club as a top flight entity for decades under him as I'm not convinced with a "sell to buy" policy we would have found it easy at all to get promoted again. He probably would have cashed out to any old chancer too, not the sort of investor who looks at premier league level teams. With new owners, still probably not, I think if we stay a prem side for long enough we will eventually win a cup, but if we go down to the championship and don't come back up again pronto then our quality will drop dramatically, and we will never be able to seriously compete again. Also the standard of football would drop dramatically. Having said that, if we did bounce back after a year or two it would be worth it for the feeling on the day.

Ah yes, good shout. Be nice if Small came in and smashed it.

Loan could be handy but we have 3 senior RBs and Stephens and JWP who can do a job there. Not sure I'd want a permanent RB if it means not spending on a keeper, 10, back up for Romeu, or better partner for Salisu

Yeah the depth we have now is excellent. Last season Ralph said something like "I'm glad we have so many points already as we have a bunch of injuries and are going to struggle" This season I think we would be fine short of a freak injury crisis. With the takeover this is the most positive I've felt about saints since Koeman.

Pretty sure that is true, lining up just in front of our cb pairing: Bednarek and Tella

I thought it looked a bit like a grab, not a hard one at all and it was a definite dive but Valery is utterly stupid for even reach out and contacting Oba's shoulder. There is very little chance the ref will be able to judge the force of contact at full speed from afar. Why give him a decision to make? Very immature play, was right to admit responsibility. Not worth focusing on the negatives though. Diallo, Long, and JWP were class and really dug us out of a hole.

Forster Stephens Bednarek Salisu Perraud Jwp Diallo Redmond Elyounoussi Armstrong Broja I think Diallo deserves a start and Romeu just ran 120 mins running the midfield alone and looked knackered and error prone because of it so a little rotation is in order imo

JWP is class, always has been since Ralph came in despite what some on here might claim as he isn't manly enough

Here's one now. Howe fan club here to deflect away from his incredibly poor result by bringing up an unrelated manager (who actually won today)

And how long after he does will nutters call for him to replace Ralph again 😂

I think maybe people are being a bit harsh on Perraud. When we had a player sent off we just moved one CM to Rb, this ment Perraud had a lot less support and often had players overloading him. He had a poor game and made some silly mistakes but that fact certainly didn't help as he was overloaded on quite often. He's been pretty solid mostly this season so I wouldn't judge him based off his performance when down a holding mid.

Stephens at rightback and salisu/bednarek in the middle would be sensible. Then again, Diallo was class today so maybe diallo romeu in the middle and JWP at rb. I'd prefer the former personally, we miss jwp in the middle too much when he isn't there.