Dman

I actually think Bednerak is one who has regressed since Ralph has come in, specifically since the start of last year where at points his confidence seemed completely shot. Not that I particularly rated Him in the first place, and do agree that he’s pretty bang average He’s a decent throw sticking body on the line and throwing yourself in front of the ball / last ditch type, however in the main this is because his marking and positioning is pretty poor; the best defenders don’t need to make those last ditch tackles as they’re much better at reading the game.

I really don’t think 4222 is a formation that is suited to this league. It’s far too attacking and the pace of the game is too high to maintain the intensity to press and overwhelm the opposition for a full 90 minutes. A team like wolves will just sit back, contain us and hit us on the counter attack when we start to drop off the intensity. As they did at St Mary’s. Added to that, other than Armstrong, we have no players suited to the ‘10’ role. JWP has looked a better player when ‘free’d’ up a little with a 3 man midfield, as well. I’d much rather us go 352 / 4411 and try and control the midfield a little more. The key man in our midfield is Romeu though. Without him, JWP and diallo struggle a bit with the physicality in there. He’s not a stand out, he does the dirty stuff and he does it bloody well. I don’t see why we change anything up from Tuesday, other than maybe lyanco out for stephens, if I’m honest.

Nor do they have the same physical attributes. Austin/Michu we’re good finishers, gabbi and Puki were quick and decent off the shoulder. Broja has it all. It’s not all about goals or stats, they’ll come in time as will his understanding and intelligence of the game (providing he has good coaching). Players of his size and Strength with his pace are rare. it shows TWars lack of understanding of the game I’m afraid. I’ve no doubt he’s a very smart lad and is probably a great football manager player. However, real life doesn’t equate to stats and computer games, as shown in this example.

They’re one of the worst out there imo. Seems to think they’re a huge club with unrivalled fanbase because they have a 50k seater stadium. Strange from a club who’ve not won a major trophy in 60odd years.

Hang on, you think it’s luck that I predicted a striker, who’s highly rated at Chelsea, tall, quick, strong and can finish, is and will be a very good player? 😂😂😂 and FWIW, I reserved judgement until I saw him in the flesh, I didn’t base anything of games at vitesse. as for the others, JWP has improved in recent weeks (he was very much below par at the start of the season though). I still don’t rate him as highly as you and think he’s about our level in terms of being one of the better players at a club from 10th - 15th. But football is a game of opinions. Ralph - I’ve given him credit many times this season, in the main my gripe was his continued persistence with that shocking 4222 formation (see United now, it doesn’t work in this league. Teams too easily bypass the press once the intensity drops off and you’re left exposed at the back). Lone behold, we change style and formation and we errrr improve. If I remember rightly, you were wetting your pants over Perrud, his stats were amazing, I thought we were getting Roberto Carlos. The bloke can hardly get in the team. Fair you called Tino as being a good player, but if we’re gonna call luck….. unless you’re an avid Chelsea U23’s supporter.

I’m not putting them down bud, It’s you I’m putting down by calling out the utter nonsense you spout… like the above. Kinda goes to show that watching a player to base a judgement is far more important than their ‘stats’. It was obvious from minute one that Broja is, and will go on to be, a far better player than those 2, to everyone other than you.

To be honest, that wouldn’t be the worst deal for us. Yeah 40m will look low in 2/3 years, however, He’s clearly destined to go right to the top and we’d sell him anyway. We may as well get a couple of good seasons out of him and get 20m profit for the pleasure. There aren’t going to be any striker better than him who are available to us.

It’s okay, we’ve got Armstrong and Adams who have a higher ceiling than Broja, anyway. After all, Armstrong scored more, in a harder league than Broja last season. Therefore he must be better, innit.

Really, really poor. No better than under Ole and half the squad unhappy with the manager. Now it’s failing at a big club, let’s hope the hipsters finally realise that Ralph ball 4222 is a dog shite formation in this league.

Tino and KWP play in the same position and 99% of managers wouldn’t play them both, it’d be 1 or the other (but I do agree both are better than Cash).. which means errrr 3 maybe 4 players, like I said. Cheers for confirming. Watkins maybe overrated, in your opinion (I disagree but so, so), Ings is significantly better than any of our strikers at the moment, anyway. And Couthino made 23 appearances for Munich last season…. Yeah a complete ‘joke’ lol

Still standing by this nonsense then. I think 3 maybe 4 of our regular starting 11 get into their side (not including Broja who isn’t there just yet, but obviously will be). On that note, How about Armstrong having a ‘higher ceiling’ than Broja…? Now that’s a pretty poor take. Other than Rice and Teilmans, who are obviously the stand outs for Leicester and West Ham (as is Couthino for Villa), there isn’t a huge amount between the sides imo, should they sign Digne, a DM like bissouma and a CB to replace mings. Im fairly certain you also claimed Gerrard would be a flop, so to be honest; I get the impression you just don’t like Villa. I don’t know if that’s because they took our best player, that you’re jealous or just daft. Maybe all 3.

Fair play to them though, they’ve got a really decent squad and a good manager. If they can get a CB to replace Mings and a DM, I’d say they’ve got one of, arguably if not, the strongest 11’s outside of the traditional top 6. Based on their recruitment and their manager; I actually think they’ll be more of a West Ham / Leicester in a year or 2 than Everton. But I guess time will tell. I actually think Gerrard will go right to the top (most probably Liverpool) of management.

So does Ralph. Once again another really poor performance when going down to 10 men. Swansea we’re shockingly bad and we sat back and tried to cling on to a 1-0 win. Thankfully, we pulled out finger out and showed a bit of fight when we went 2-1 behind.

1 time you could argue is a ‘freak results’, 2 times, not so much. Also the trouble is, we had a more than 9 1-0 (or narrow defeats) that followed the second 9-0… so it’s something he would be very, very bothered about I expect. Rather than ‘freak’, It is (or at least was) a mentality issue. Our squad was weak as piss mentally and a manager who was unable and/or unwilling to adapt his tactics to play more defensively when we went down to 10 men. Thankfully, I think we’ve now got rid of a few players who simply gave up and couldn’t be arsed when the going got tough and Ralph seems to have learned from his mistakes.

So he might turn out to be a good player, he might not. Fantastic insight from our resident football expert. Again, I don’t think anyone was calling for him to get a start when we had a full strength team playing well. The only time, was when injuries got to a point where we were playing CB’s in CM amd we’re losing practically every single game. Which again; I’ll repeat, goes against the ‘pathway’, right? FWIW, I agree I don’t think he’s ready to be a regular starter in the premier league. Neither is smallbone, for that matter. I do think he’ll go on to be a better player than smallbone though, from the little I saw of him playing for ours and national u23 team. So yeah, again, not sure what you’re getting out of digging out a young lad who wants to play football (and is willing to drop a level to get that). Unless your trying to make out it was some master stroke by Ralph to not start an inexperienced 18 year old….

Just for clarity, the following we’re playing for X club at a similar age (19/20)…. Beckham - Preston Vardy - FC Halifax town (that mighty northern premier league side) Kane - Leyton Orient The list can go on…. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make my digging him out for wanting to go on loan to find first team football.. that’s the complete opposite of ‘workshy’ in my opinion. He was/is a highly rated youngster and the only time anyone was calling for him to get a chance starting was when we had multiple players out in his position to the point where our manager even put CB’s in his position, ahead of him. For a club that loves to promote ‘the pathway’, that doesn’t quite align, does it. As a direct comparison, where would someone like, say smallbone, end up if we were to Loan them out? Mid table championship at best?

I’m not sure where this delusion of people has come from, to be honest. Everything I’ve seen has suggested that we’ll maintain a ‘sustainable’ business plan. As part of that, that’ll include selling players. Hopefully this new chap will provide some much needed investment to allow us to have some cash in hand to shop in the next bracket up (20-30m), however I doubt we will (i think we’ll continue to see cheap young potential), but even so we’ll continue to sell to fund those transfers. If someone offers £50m for JWP we’re taking it, without a doubt. Reports are that this geezer is only worth 1B, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a significant amount of money to football club owners in the premier league. Some of the names spouted out on here since the take over (Ramsey, Couthino) are laughable.

To be honest, that is something I could massively get behind. Whilst, of course, spending millions and competing for the league each year would be fun, but it would also result in losing your fan base and pricing the average (dare I say, league one fan) out. Ive never felt more disinterested as a saints fan these past few years, to the point where I no longer go, which I would ever have said a few years back. A never ending cycle of selling and massively underfunding and progressively getting worse and looking like relegation is inevitable. The Poch / Koeman years were one of the most exciting times I can remember as a saints fan, great players and great football. We’re not a million miles away from that, but need some much needed investment in the club to achieve it. Personally, I’d much rather we done a Leicester and put together a very good young, exciting squad (I.e us under koeman), who win a FA cup or 2 and compete in Europe each season, than a city and win a trophy every year, they start to become meaningless. we need to be in a position where we’re selling our best players to the top teams, rather than the mid table ones (I.e Ings to villa). It’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t be too arsed if the big 6 fucked off and joined a super league, it’d make the league 100x more exciting for everyone else.

I get the impression (and this is just an assumption) that Ankersen is there to oversee the group rather than a specific club, with Kraft there to run the club. Certainly seems like it’ll be a step down or at least less responsibility for semmens. Who knows, that might be what he’s after? If not; I’m sure he’ll find himself a nice job elsewhere. I’d imagine there would be a few football clubs who’d have him.

Of course it makes a difference. To run a successful group of clubs which are looking to compete in Europe, you’ll need to spend around £500m over 4/5 seasons (you’re probably looking 3/400m alone for a club just in the PL - including purchase). That’s roughly of his net worth, where as 500m is minimal to someone of the worth of £10B. This transfer window it won’t, but over a prolonged period of time it’ll make a difference. Personally, I’m expecting more of the same from this guy, but hopefully a little more astute in the transfer market. For me he doesn’t appear wealthy enough to be a premier league owner, but Fingers crossed we’ll have a little more wiggle room in the market and will have capacity to break our current 20m price bracket on players. Not hopeful of that, but let’s wait and see. If Semmens / Crooker stay at the club in some capacity; I don’t see any real down side though, perhaps just not as good as was hoping.

I like potter, I think he’s got a big future ahead of him and has done a decent job with Brighton, specifically changing their whole style of play. However, talk of getting the city / Liverpool job is clearly nonsense, which doesn’t surprise me considering who’s touted it. His next job will be at a Everton, Leicester, West Ham type club who are competing with top 6 but not just there. My money is on Leicester when Brendan leaves.

In my opinion Forster dropped (or started to drop) the ball in anticipation of the contact, which was minimal. It was soft, I can see why it was given, but also wouldn’t have any complaints had it not been given.

That doesn’t mean they have a better interpretation of the rules though.

Am I missing something…? Didn’t Hypo say they are American with links to NFL / Texas? Doesn’t tally with Ratcliffe…

I think it was a soft and we got away with one. I don’t think there would be many complaints (and certainly wouldn’t have been over turned on VAR) if it wasn’t given as a foul. However, it just shows how much protection keepers are given in the modern game. It’s ridiculous really. For me, the contact was fairly minimal and a keeper of Forster’s stature should be cleaning everything out there. Having watched it a few times, it looks like he dropped the ball whilst anticipating the contact from the attacker. I’d say it was poor keeping rather than a blatant foul. There is another part to this, there’s an argument that the only reason there is contact, is because Valery bends over causing Doherty to almost go over the top of him. I think we got away with the offside as well, very harsh decision in my book. The rule really needs to change, Kane has gained no advantage there even if his armpit is slightly ahead of Bednerak. No complaints about the red card, first yellow was for a couple of late tackles second a clear, clumsy foul.