Charlie Wayman

What this topsy turvy season has shown is that the season is long, clubs have good spells and bad and expectations should not be judged by a few games. It looks likely Saints will end up pretty much in the same situation as last year as that is our true level over a full season. In the same way we knew we wouldn't be PL Champions when top of the league so we should be confident we will not get relegated because of this bad run. I cannot see us losing to the Blades we do have more quality than them even if it is not always on display. A 0-0 or 1-1 draw will gain us a much needed point and for now a few scrappy draws will ease worries while the odd win will come when least expected. Expect us to end in 15th place on about 38 points.

Why be so generous 😂?

If people want change then they must hope that Ralph steps down voluntarily because there is no way Semmens can sack him. There is no money to pay off his contract and he and Ralph are too close and in this together right up to the armpits. Mr Gao has stayed out of sight and left it to these people to run the club sustainably but even he must be on the brink of saying enough is enough! You don't get rich by being Mr Nice Guy and the only surprising thing is that he hasn't intervened before. Laissez faire and wishful thinking are luxuries that management and fans have afforded themselves since this bad run started but it has got us nowhere. Something needs to change and change soon if the season is to be saved. On a positive note, big shout out for Stuart Armstrong 👏! Pity we don't have eleven of him.

It wasn't the main point of my post. You should have read it all before making a facetious comment. I get that you think we only lose because of bad luck or lousy refereeing. By all means carry on deluding yourself if it makes you feel happier.

Indeed. Even Ralph has changed his view on this. Having always advocated a small squad it was notable (press conference) that he commented on the need for a much bigger squad next season, having been caught out this season by the intensity of the fixture list, injuries to key players and the need to rest them. Mind you saying you need a much bigger squad is one thing but where will we find the players or money to build it?

Interesting to watch the Villa v Leeds & Newcastle v Wolves games last night, all between teams that have beaten us comfortably recently. Two good games to watch and all four sides playing fast open football. Once again we saw how modern defences are so well organised as to give little away and how much harder it is for all teams to score. So much of the play was in the middle third of the pitch. What was highlighted was how poor our defensive tactics are and how our gung-ho pressing style leaves the back line hopelessly exposed and over stretched. We need to watch these teams playing defensively and learn from them even if it means we are less gung-ho in our pressing. We are not scoring anyway but at least we might pick up a few points rather than lose out every time. Even Matt Targett looked competent at times although I didn't like the cynical (dirty, cheating) play that has crept into his game. I was surprised Bamford didn't floor him last night, must have been sorely tempted.

......and he is always caught ball watching. It's a bit sad when you're paid £50k a week yet can't concentrate on your job for 90 minutes per week!

Do we have even have ten outfield payers left who are not crocked? Team selection will be a nightmare; Forster; Bednarek, Vestergaard, Salisu, Bertrand; JWP, Armstrong; Tella, Djenepo; Ralph, Ings. Djenepo & Tella because they are brilliant chase-back tacklers. JWP & Armstrong are going to need all the help they can get! Actually Adams but it must be getting close to bringing on the big man

That's all we need. Poor lad must be gutted. Armstrong any good as a holding midfielder?

That old mantra eh? Saints (and Puel in particular) only ever beat poor teams. Wake up!

Ralph knew the situation he was letting himself in for when he signed his new contract. If something better had been on offer at the time do you think he would be here now? It must have dawned on him that this was probably the best he could hope to do in the Premier League at this stage of his career. He must have believed also that he could extract far more from this group of players than a superficial review of their talents would have revealed at the time. Whether that was arrogance or genuine insight remains to be determined. To some extent he has made progress with Romeu, JWP and Vestegaard improved beyond measure and if indeed he has had a major input into signings, the arrivals of Walker-Peters, Diallo and Salisu also signal some notable successes. If you factor in that senior players like Armstrong, Bertrand and Ings have blossomed in patches as well, irrespective of who else makes up the starting XI that cadre of nine players surely are as good as most squads in the PL as they have demonstrated at the end of last season and in the first half of this and Ralph can claim to have had a lot to do with this. Where then has it all gone wrong? That is why I point the finger at the coaches and Ralph in particular and his stubborn refusal to change methods. One could easily suggest that this group of players is far better than he can get them playing because of the inherent limitations of his methods, too much attention on physical fitness, sprint times and winning back the ball and too little focus on skill, vision and creativity. As I have said in other threads something has to change and change quickly; as we are not in the happy position of making wholesale changes to the playing staff, the spotlight must inevitably fall on Ralph. If Ralph has no other way of playing than his 4-2-2-2 headless chicken scramble or has no intention of altering his method than he ought to go. Sooner or later the players will feel that they deserve better and will either seek the exit door or more simply will stop playing for him.

Life is full of What - Ifs, Should - have's and If - only's! So how come according to many fans, Saints encounter more than their fair share of these judgements? Blame bad luck, blame the officials, blame injuries, blame VAR, blame the weather.... It is none of these, it is simply poor football and if the people who are charged with putting things right cannot change their thinking and methods then isn't there a certain inevitability about the likely outcomes?

What an ageist, arrogant remark to make to any poster. You have no idea who I am or what my age is. In any case what the hell does age have to do with ones's views and comments? Try coming down off your high horse and face reality, as many have said before play the ball not the man!

Good try but wide of the mark. How many more times will you "let him off" and when will it be too late?

A shambolic performance without purpose or cohesion. Frankly at times we looked as though we were making it up as we went along. Have they stopped listening to Ralph? As many have said before there is a time when goodwill has to end and reality confronted. That time is now. This manager with this group of players is not working so something has to change. We have no money to make wholesale changes to the playing staff so the spotlight inevitably falls on the coaching staff. Ralph and his team must go. There is time for a new manager to come in and get this group of players winning again so that the big R does not become an issue, it can't be allowed to drift any longer. Who then? I would argue a case for Chris Houghton who has managed smaller clubs on limited budgets very well in the past and has proved himself to be an effective Premier League manager. Right now he is busy turning Forest into a half decent team but his talents are being wasted in the Championship.

I'm assuming the Brighton match will be on Sky although it is not marked up as such yet, BT are doing a slightly earlier game on the same day.

I am so confident that we have turned a corner I have invested in a Sky Sports Monthly pass. There are at least 5 games on Sky in the next month so seems like good value. All we need now Ralph is for your lads to deliver the bacon starting tonight!

A little circumspection might be in order bearing in mind Salisu has only 1 FA Cup and 1 Premier League appearance to his name.

So how will we fit him in? Bednarek & Vestergaard are not going to give up their places easily and probably won't be happy with rotation.

Nothing wrong with Theo, certainly better than Redmond. I don't understand why so many people on this forum still imagine that there will be wholesale changes in the summer when recent history has shown the exact opposite. The odd one in, the odd one out is about as good as it is likely to be on our budget and bear in mind many other mid-table clubs are in a similar situation. We may lose Ings which will be a blow. Liverpool has insisted that Minamino is not for sale. I agree the need for a new keeper to freshen things up at the back.

This one will not live long in the memory that's for sure. Film editors will have struggled to make any highlights from that. A moment of magic and a moment of madness from the Saints pretty much sums it up. Like most I am grateful for a point from a match we looked odds on to lose. There still needs to be more directness in our play as well as the familiar intricate inter-passing build-up that allows the opposition too much time to reorganise. Our goal came from a superb direct through ball from Redmond that split the Chelsea defence apart and left Minamino in the clear with time and space. Feeling slightly more confident about Leeds this morning.

...and you really believe that do you? Which planet did you say you came from?

Ralph starting to make excuses in his press conference today, injuries, refs decisions. That's trend I don't like to see.

Tosh! Things weren't the same at all. We had a bucket full of injuries to our best players and we had to field half a team of inexperienced and largely ineffective B team players. Even now we are not fully up to strength - Diallo, Walcott, Walker Peters. This led to a collapse of our automatism on which Ralph's tactics depend.

Of course they are. Not sure what was running through eelpie's head when he wrote that, it has not the slightest connection to PFC