tajjuk

Not really unexpected, it's PSG's version of the Galacticos and they have appointed a manager known for pressing football and developing young players, then given him a forward line that don't press at all and half the team are over 30. I can see him leaving in the summer to even go back to Spurs to be honest.

I'd say similar from watching him from a similar time, I suppose you'd say this no.10 or second striker type role with a lot of tactical freedom.

People raving about Countinho, but he is (so far) following the pattern I expected and that James Rodriguez followed, start well and then drop off. He scored against Utd, then 2 assists and goal against Leeds, but since then he's done sweet FA in 3 games, being pretty anonymous in two of them, despite playing Newcastle, Watford and Brighton (so hardly quality opposition). As for their team as whole their is a whiff of Man Utd or Everton about them, a collection of individuals that on paper are good, but don't form a very good team. I also think defensively they are pretty weak, Mings is massively over rated IMO, Konsa seems average, Cash and Digne are good going forward but no so good defensively and they are often bailed out by the quality keeper. They then have players like Ings, Buendia, Bailey that are good players but don't seem to have gelled or found a place in that team. Plus playing Coutinho if he's not on it, he's a passenger, he doesn't offer much work rate or pace or pressing etc. Of course they could beat us, they have some good players who could hit it off on the day, plus they are at home as well, but their form has been mediocre despite a very easy run of fixtures. They have recently played Brighton, Watford, Newcastle, Leeds, Everton, and Brentford (with Man Utd in there as well), all those teams aside Newcastle are in awful form, yet they have only picked up 7 points from those games and only managed 7 goals. Those 5 teams are the bottom 5 of the PL form table.

English and an established PL player, that usually means high fee, I reckon Arsenal would expect upwards of £25 -30 million for him and I don't think he is worth that. He's a decent PL centre-back, Bednerak is a decent PL centre-back, even if it is an upgrade its not much of one, for a big fee, who wouldn't likely have a high re-sell. Unless we sell Salisu, I don't see a centre-back being bought. Salisu is very good, Bednerak is decent, Stephens is decent and maybe there is some value in Valery adapting there and fulfilling his potential, Lyanco has shown he's decent, plus we have Simeu waiting in the wings as well. First choice GK, upgrade at no.10 and new striker are what we need. (that presumably based on not getting Broja)

I think they have been running on a sell to buy path anyway, the transfer ban and them having horded so many players has put them into a good position financially to spend. Like Lukaku was basically bought with sales, they recouped more than £100 million on academy graduates last year. The main issue they have I think is contracts, with Rudiger, Christensen and Azpilicueta out of contract in the summer , which is basically most of their defence, leaving a soon to be 37 Thiago Silva.

If Burnley go down we should go for Pope, quality keeper, some his saves last night against Leicester were stunning. Also I wonder if Werner would want to link up with Ralph again? Get his career back on track, prove himself in the PL, if Chelski are looking to offload might be able to do a deal.

I also wonder whether this counts actual academy players or poached players that then develop between 16-21, because the big clubs do that a lot, like Sterling is on that list for Liverpool but he didn't come through their academy, he came through QPRs academy and Liverpool bought him for a fee rising up to £2 million. Again for like Man City Iheanacho joined their 'academy' at 18, so hardly like they developed him. That is the issue, plenty of genuine ones there obviously like Athletic Club, Ajax, Anderlecht etc. but many of those big clubs just buy players at 15-18 and then they become homegrown if they stay there for 3 years, so count as the 'academy', which obviously the wealthiest clubs can afford to do more often, when we are only spending £15 million or so on players for the first team, we can't exactly spend £3-5 million for the 'academy' that often. Although this practice should in theory struggle a little more now because Brexit I think has made it so British clubs can't sign players from the EU who are under 18, plus the loan rule changes mean clubs can't 'loan farm' players out which will either clog up their squads or mean they have to stop hoovering up so much talent.

It's a conference league place I think and will go to the league anyway. And yeh offside and foul IMO, he holds him back from making a run to track the guy that heads the ball, VVD knew exactly what he was doing.

Thanks though Armstrong has not worked out, at least yet. I was never worried about relegation, I think JWP said it on interview last night that we had (last year) a good first eleven but if we lost 2-3 players with injuries then we struggled a bit (and obviously lost 9 or even 10 at times last year) but this year the squad is stronger and its showing. 100% go for the cup IMO, West Ham's form has been a bit up and down, plus they have a lot of games, with fellow European places challengers Wolves 3 days before and then Liverpool 3 days after, and a last 16 Europa league tie as well a week later, their attention might be elsewhere. I am sure West Ham's fans would love a cup win, but I reckon the club might be more focused on top 4, so maybe we see some rotation?

He wasn't really, but he was also really bad for the last 18 months or so with us, but the managers we had were complete crap so that didn't help either, but can't just blame that, he just didn't play very well. He needed a fresh start and has found his form because of that and has done it in a new position as well, playing as striker quite often with Ajax, especially in his first season.

This is a very 'Saintsy' game to lose, though I don't think Norwich have it in their DNA to park the bus and be defensively solid with a low block, which is something historically we have struggled with at home so I think it will come down to who takes their chances more. Would be also nice to jump over the current 'media darlings' that are Brighton and move up into 9th. This also has to be the 'easiest' run of games we have had in a long long time, considering the level of these teams and their form at the moment. Got to be at least 3 wins and a draw or two from this run otherwise it would be quite a let down considering our form and that most of the team is uninjured.

Chelsea really don't play to his strengths though, seem to not put many balls into the box or in behind for him to attack. They are just using him as like a hold up player which is a bit odd.

I think very unlikely, we have to catch up 5 points on Wolves and 7 on Spurs, with both having two games in hand on us. We would need a very impressive end to the season basically hitting top 4 form for the rest of the year. I think top half would be a good season, push on for maximum points we can and then hopefully add 2-3 quality players in the summer and then next year we should be in the mix I reckon for 6-8th.

We've not kept a clean sheet in 13 games and Richarlison seems to always score against us, so I think we'll need at least two goals to win this. Everton are crap away from home and whilst they have had a couple of decent results, overall they have still been pretty bad.

It also has one of the biggest football clubs in the world vying for that support. We also likely have 2.5 million people within less than an hour from the club and no competing club really in that area. Yes we would need more success and reaching the heights of City is unlikely, but people seem to be suggesting just because we only get about 32k as a lower middle PL club (also one in recent years that has had a terrible home record btw) that we wouldn't get more as a top 6 regular, top 4 regular etc. It won't suddenly attract a load of 40 year olds to change club what it does is stop more kids becoming Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. fans. who then grow into adults and start turning up at the stadium.

Leicester are a 'medium sized city' (and actually one with far more local competitors) but they are increasing their capacity to 40k pretty soon. It's quite obvious if you have some success, you'll get more fans and outgrow the stadium. Man City's attendances in the early 2000s in the PL were about 35-40k, they now get about 52-54k average attendances. Pretty much any club in the UK within reason could grow their fanbase significantly over time with sustained success, certainly one like ours with basically no local rivals. It's like 50-60 miles in any direction to even get another PL club.

If we were a bigger club we'd fill a much bigger stadium, the population of Hampshire alone is like 1 million and aside London there is no top flight club in like the entire south west and Bristol area, if got 'Man City'd' then I think we'd easily be filling 45k-50k. It takes like an hour on the train to get from Bristol to Southampton pretty much, and much less than that in most other directions. There are loads of fans from here who regularly travel to multiple London clubs.

It was a really good listen and very honest, pragmatic etc. and shows how well run the club is, but its also a little dream destroying to be honest. I know its realistic these players move on etc. but you'd hope to hear a little more about building a team, pushing up the table and trying to hold onto as many as possible. I mean if we got an unexpected top 6 or even a surprise top 4 place, you'd really hope we'd build on it and invest if possible but listening it sounds more like even in that situation it would be very much business as usual.

Clubs watch players for two years in some cases, so don't see why a manager would be any different, you'll see their progress, how they handle ups and downs, different players etc. You'd get a very full picture.

Stu Armstrong was one of our best performers against Utd, his finishing was wayward yes but have to remember he is still working his way back to sharpness, but he is one of our best attacking mids and replacing him with one of our right backs seems an odd decision to me. Tino and KWP are right backs, they can probably both do decently at left back as well and might do a job in midfield but no idea why we would replace our best attacking mid with a right back.

Good hope some of their other signings go down, it would be karma for their scummy 'gaming' of the covid rules to get those games moved when they only had like 3-4 Covid cases.

I reckon he cares, I reckon he wanted to go to the World Cup.

Forster seems to be pretty important, the big old lump is getting his big old lump in the way of things again, which seems to give confidence for the rest of the defence. He even seems to be coming for stuff, he's not entirely convincing about it but he is doing it. He even manager a left foot pass about 40 yards whilst under pressure that helped start an attack as well. Man Utd had something like 2.5 XG but only scored one, so shows he is doing something right. Several players seem to be in peak form, JWP and Romeu (Ward-Prowse definitely started the season a bit slugglishly imo), Salisu is performing top level so we have a genuine quality centre-back which we haven't had for a long time really. All 3 full backs playing very well, Perraud obviously starting to show his quality as being rated as one of the best attacking full backs in the Ligue 1 last year, now getting used to the league. KWP stepping up the challenge of Tino, and Tino to come back into the team. Broja offering raw pace and power which means we offer a lot of threat on counters and worry teams, Adams also stepping up and finding some form after being out of the team. Stu Armstrong coming in, we know he's our best no. 10 and is not even back to his best yet (by his standards should have scored 1-2 against Utd), but offers something the others don't. But credit as well Elynoussi as well who seems to be finding his niche in the team. And Ralph putting it all together better, tweaking, reacting and helping us manage games better than he has in the past. He's changed formation in games more often than he did in the whole of last year I think (though playing devil's advocate he has more players he trusts to do this and use his subs better), even little tweaks to our attacking play like JWP moving to that right channel to get crosses in, means we are creating more open play chances of our own play, rather than just relying on turnovers. Lots of little things basically clicking and gelling, but basically a together, well drilled, hard working, tactical solid squad with plenty of fit and in form players.

Watched the first half of the Newcastle Villa game, annoying Newcastle won but Villa were really bad, really flat and looked lethargic, half them looked they hadn't played together. Also think it showed the issue of Coutinho, if he's not on the ball he doesn't offer anything at all, defensively he's poor and can't press, he's not that quick and just looked a little lost if they couldn't link to him. Also can't help but laugh at Ings, 13 starts all season, just the 4 goals and now seems reduced to 10-15 minute cameos, good career step there Danny, grass is not always greener and all that.

I thought it was an odd exchange, I've always liked Ralph for being refreshingly honest in his interviews, very few managers seem to be. Like Murphy said he was asked a question and answered it. I've not seen Jenas's comment echoed anywhere else, Car Anka (who used to cover Saints for the Athletic and was very good) used Ralph's comments as basically a base to his article on Man Utd - https://twitter.com/Ankaman616/status/1492778068347211776?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet He didn't seem to see it as disrespectful or that he shouldn't have said it. Maybe there is a little a spat between Ralph and Ralf but didn't see much evidence of that at the game, they seemed to greet each other warmly.