Nemi

He’s the victim of his own success by somehow making us look good for about 8 months or so. People’s expectations of this squad too high when we are just a crap team tbh

Can’t make any excuses not good enough again sadly

Can only blame ourselves for kicking it out.

Problem is they can’t string a pass together. Really lacking someone in midfield who can hold onto the ball

Still think there’s gonna be a few more goals for both teams

Not enough with our defence though

This has got a high scoring loss all over it, both defences are a joke

That’s the Adams’ one ticked off in a minute

5-2 spurs

I’m not really too sure why this is controversial. He plays for a bottom-half team, and no-one in the top half has ever been interested. You have to be pretty damn good to be a lower-half premier league player. He just doesn’t have that sparkle that’s required for a top-half player.

Considering that excluding the end of last season and the start of this season, our form for the last three or four years has been just as bad, it’s probably more likely we’re just reverting to our true level.

He gets away with it cause he runs around a lot doing nothing that bad but definitely nothing good. His only good moments come at set-pieces when the limelight is only on him, which makes him look a lot better than he is. Not a terrible but should be no more than a squad player in a PL team.

No leadership. He looks scared shitless every time he touches the ball, he’s probably relieved just to get off the pitch. Great at set-pieces but falls apart the moment an ounce of pressure is applied to him

I guess the option is play Redmond who rarely produces or play another one of our attackers who rarely produce.

The squad has a lack of quality, no leadership and most of all there are no winners in the team. No amount of good management will change the fact the players are serial losers. And there won’t be enough investment to change that fact

Yeah probably not going to happen. Shame as I like him and he’s talented but he’s not got the physicality to consistently produce in this league. That’s why we see a few moments of brilliance and a lot of nothing the rest of the time

Yeah a rebuild is unlikely. Saying that the ‘gems’ we signed under Poch and Koeman - Alderweireld, Wanyama, Forster, Van Dijk, Mane came from teams that were winning leagues (even Lovren would a trophy at OL) . Along with more experienced signings such as S Davis and Pelle who also came from league winning teams. Ever since, generally our ‘gems’ haven’t come from winning teams, and our team is desperately lacking experience and leaders. The balance isn’t there like it was in 2015, I know our business model looks at young players, but I also think one or two experienced options (could be on loan or on a free) would be a benefit for the moment.

Yeah totally agree, this is kinda the point it seems like I failed to make.

Guess I haven’t made my point very well off this is what the discussion is turning into. Not saying I have the answers but I think too many fans expect us to suddenly transform and improve by simply changing tactics or changing formation or replacing Hasenhüttl - we need to get real and accept this squad is only good enough to achieve 14th place at best. And I think too many excuses have been made in regards to injuries, poor decisions or fatigue - this is something every team has to deal with. Nothing is going to change the facts that our key-players especially have many flaws, and even if you want to disagree with me r.e. their talent, they don’t know how to win games. This is an undeniable fact, as we just don’t win many games, even when performing well. This won’t change unless there are big changes in the squad - and yes I know it probably won’t happen. But when we were most successful under Koeman, our squad had a mixture of players who had experience winning games and winning championships with young talent. Unfortunately now, our squad is full of players with a losing mentality who are unable to deal with pressure, who start every game in key positions. Unless that changes we can’t expect this football club to consistently win football matches. It’s time to get real and just accept this is club probably won’t be achieving much more than 15th or 16th place.

Unsurprisingly, it’s one of the very few options football teams have. However, I’m definitely one of the few people who probably thinks it’s a decent idea to ship off some of our bigger name players JWP, Vestergaard, Bednarek as they’ve proven over the last three years they’re not gonna get us back into the top 10. Don’t think enough have accepted that this team is realistically the 15th/16th best in the league.

I agree that is one of his flaws. I’d personally go 4231 with Armstrong at no10, but the issue is we’d still lack creativity, the CBs are poor and the DMs probably would still get overrun. I just don’t see who creates in this squad at the moment?

I think people are expecting too much from this squad. Ralph has his flaws, and has clearly struggled recently, but the reality is a change of manager or change of formation/tactics isn’t going to hide the fact this is just the 15th/16th best team in the league - we’ve been a bottom half team for three or four years under various managers. And we can’t make excuses about injuries or poor refereeing or fatigue as every team has had to deal with this. A big problem is that we used to buy players who knew how to win - Alderweireld, Van Dijk, Wanyama, S. Davis, Mane, Forster all came from teams who had won championships even if it was in a lower league. Compared to now, our main players like JWP, Bednarek and Vestergaard are average players who don’t know who to win football games. Unfortunately this squad has a losing mentality, and will just carry on throwing away leads and crumbling under pressure. Yes it’s unlikely to happen, but unless there is a big rebuild we can’t expect a new manager or a new formation and tactics to change the fact that the players we have - talented or not - just aren’t very good at winning football matches. I know fans aren’t content at the moment, but 15th is roughly our level with what we have at the moment. GK: Need to get rid of one of three out of Gunn/McCarthy/Forster. An upgrade would be welcome but Forster at least has proven himself under Koeman to be a top-half keeper. CB: The stats don’t lie, we ship an unbelievable amount of goals. Vestergaard is a luxury player who would probably look great in a team that doesn’t defend much but we concede to many goals with him. Bednarek is always on the recovery as his positioning is terrible and is easily overpowered. Compare him Fonte to Van Dijk who barely had to break stride because they would dominate the opposition. LB/RB: KWP needs some better CBs to help him defensively and we need a younger replacement for Bertrand now. CM: Unpopular opinion but Ward-Prowse is the big problem in my view. He covers ground and scores free-kicks but he doesn’t have enough composure on the ball. Always dropping back as a third CB in possession as he can’t operate under-pressure and it ruins the balance of the team going forward. Romeu is great on the ball, exactly what we miss right now, but I disagree when people say he’s good at breaking up the play - off the ball he’s always just a yard or two behind and it has cost us a lot of goals. Diallo has promise but it doesn’t work him and JWP. Would give him a run with Romeu next season or maybe someone new. AM: Armstrong is our best player this season. But it says a lot when we rely on Redmond for creativity. Desperately need someone in the mould of Tadic. Walcott is direct at least but we all know is end product is poor. Same issue with Djenepo and Tella but hopefully they are young enough to improve on this. The other issue is that we desperately lack someone who had the physicality of Mane - they are all far too weak. ST: Need Ings to stay but top players need quality round them. Adams has just about done enough so far but needs someone who can challenge him for the second striker spot.

He is a hard-worker but he just isn’t good enough. When Saints were a top-half team he was a squad player, as soon as he became a regular starter we’ve been fighting against relegation. We could have signed Maitland-Niles to challenge for his position, but refused to play him there; the difference between him and JWP yesterday was night and day.

Ward-Prowse was totally anonymous, and Diallo was all over the place trying to cover for him (and failing miserably). Then Bednarek rushes out into midfield and leaves the defence totally exposed. I like Diallo but our CBs and CDMs just aren’t good enough for this level.

I know we don’t have any other choice, but how does JWP get away without criticism? Free-kicks aside he contributes nothing.