Tom & Gerry

I don't undestand the disrespect sometimes shown to him.Like most older players he needs minutes on the pitch to get up to speed and after injury it was hard for him. He seems sharp now and is obviously a class player. His movement is what we need if we are going to score more goals. I don't expect him to play the full 90 minutes though.

I think I'd rather be resigned to going down. It's just too stressful. Especially if you are not at the game, like the last two All that injury time at Chelsea and going behind late at Leeds. It doesn't seem so bad when you lose in the Championship, mind you you don't get quite the same buzz from winning either.

He picked his best team. Not our best team, his best team, not the best 11 players the best team, and they won, and he's been a breath of fresh air compared to the last manager. I said his main advantage was that he knew the players but could he inspire them? and he has. Yes I'm getting carried away by one result and it could all collapse next week at Leeds , but seeing the precarious position we are in do we need more disruption? Isn't our best bet to stick with him? We almost have nothing to lose.

Selles has one big advantage. He knows the players and must have a good idea what his best team is and what system would suit them. Any other manager would take time we don't have to wade through our big squad and would inevitably make mistakes, they all do. Jones was nowhere near getting to grips with it. Whether he has the inspirational skills and ruthlessness to be a Manager we don't know, he hasn't done it before. He might, we have to hope and pray he does.

And if he did keep us up, he'd be a hero. He has the coaching credentials , but who knows why some managers are successful and others not?, Look at Strachan , Coventry fans said he was rubbish.

Only 52 years ago

One of the few times even the opposition fans were applauding. If you've ever seen film of the home game against West Ham where we came from 3-0 down and drew 3-3 Tom wins a penalty. It was a similar run to that from half way but he rounded Bobby Moore and put the ball in the net.

One goal, I was there for but didn't see was in 1967 or thereabouts. Saints best Chelsea 6-2 at Stamford Bridge but Peter Osgood scored a late consolation for Chelsea that people said was the best individual goal they'd seen. By that stage I was more concerned about the Chelea fans moving ominously from the shed end threateningly towards us Saints fans at the other end and wasn't watching the game. Quite annoying when people are saying - oh what a goal. Did anyone see it?

And that is very much the exception these days

I wish we were top of the league but we're not. We could be Bristol City or Sheffield Wednesday. If we are badly run how bad must they be. Mind you they might bear us on Wednesday.

Ah, no patience these days, it's instant success or nothing.

As I 've said before he will either fit or he won't. I doubt he is less regarded at Stoke than Alan Ball for instance, at least by older supporters. He could be the new McMenemy or the new Sturrock. A fully fit squad and a good start would help.

Managers are neither good or bad, they all know the game backwards, it's not that difficult. They either fit ir they don't and nearly all have a shelf life and then are no longer effective, and hardly any achieve much after they leave Southampton.

Lowering expectations is a device often used by politicians so that what happens in reality doesn't seem so bad after all. Pay little consequence to what is said, either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic, only what happens on the pitch.

Yes a very fair article. I don't think there is a right or wrong in this. It's only right to sack Ralph if his successor does better and we've had plenty of bad ones. We once had a manager who in his first 4 seasons finished 20th in the top league then 13th, 6th and 9th in the second division and we kept him for 12 seasons. Mad, bonkers , how could you ever get high up in the top league like that. Well he did. His name was Lawrie something. I know times have changed and I'm not suggesting Ralph stays that long, just illustrating the point that whatever you do is a gamble

I remember his first game against Bristol City at Easter 1966. There were no stadium announcements in those days , or certainly not that day so we weren't 100% sure who he was, but he did score an important goal. He used to get quite a bit of stick in his early years but it changed when he scored two late goals against Everton which after a lean spell tranformed our fortunes. We knew then he was going to be a good player.

We didn't sign them because we signed young players instead but either way it will be the strategy that has failed if we have to sack Ralph and will not in any way be a cause for celebration.

In the summer SR took a high risk transfer strategy which meant that this season was always going to be difficult. Anyone can see that at times the team lacks experience and know how in handling some situations. As the young players bed in the situation should improve. Surely people were not expecting a season without setbacks? Of course if the team is near the foot of the table and is not looking like winning matches the manager should change but I think the above should be taken into consideration when judging Ralph. All mamagers have there idiosyncrasies so changing is not guaranteed necessarily to be a good option. In fact there are no good options.

Also his "views" seem remarkably similar to those expressed by Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday (what do Saints fans expect with youngsters and no old heads in the team?, who could do a better job with them than Ralph?) Just a coincidence I'm sure.

I'm not sure it is his view. I don't listen to Solent much but I can remember him criticising Ralph's tactics long before most people, and we have conflicting evidence of his view on the transfer window. Perhaps like most of us he changes his mind.

Isn't it the job of a phone in presenter to provoke a response from his listeners? Seems AB did a pretty good job.

I'd like to see us really working on set pieces. It seems to me we don't get enough rewards for the quality JWP provides. If we can't score any other way it's one solution.

If you are going to judge a Saints manager by his record elsewhere, god we've had some terrible managers (Lawrie, Ball, Hoddle,Strachan, Koeman etc)

You can have a whole year of good results but people tend to only remember your most recent ones, added to that when you had your good year no one could actually watch the matches in person and get that live winning experience , and if you lose 2 matches 9-0 that's a lot of baggage on the negative side to overcome. So to an extent Ralf has been unlucky. Does that mean he should stay as our manager, no. You can have great ideas and bags of enthusiasm but in football it just doesn't always work and it isn't working now. Does that make Ralf a bad manager? Some of our best managers failed badly elsewhere - Lawrie, Ball, Strachan, Hoddle - were they bad managers? Thanks Ralf for beating City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs but we couldn't take the downside.

I guess the priority is to get a manager that keeps us up, but how do we get a good manager that stays much beyond a season?