Hodgey

Ralph has fallen foul of a disasterous youth system and broke club. He’s given it a go, but it was always clear to most that our youngsters are a long way short of the required mark. People slating him for letting fullbacks go who can’t get into poor championship / league 1 teams, he’s wanted new fullbacks for a while but the club hasn’t found any. Puel had a similar quality 1st team but a stronger squad (and had no direction - exactly the reason Leicester got rid as well). I also think playing games so quickly is having a negative effect - the automisms need constant training as does opposition study and conditioning. Yes it’s the same for all clubs but for us having such a strict system it’s having a bigger effect (you could blame Ralph having no plan B but he’s trying to do things a very set way)

I think what we saw today is why he will be better than Redmond. He’s slight but competes for the ball and isn’t afraid to take a wack - no half arsed efforts and doesn’t give up. He needs a proper run in the team though for me

Been impressed so far, but there are definite mistakes in him, one today that almost had Chelsea clean through. Just need to make sure we don’t lord then criticise him - looks like he could be a top player but has a long way to go and we need to support the dips and errors he’ll have, but also not build him up to be VVD so soon.

Good point - I naively calculated £50k per month - he probably is on something close to that sadly. I think out of principle I’d be refusing to hand that over - maybe that’s what it is !!

Good point. I just wonder if we are still weighing it up wrong. For example Elynoussi - let’s say he has another 2 yrs left on £50k a week - that means paying him off £1.2m, plus he is still worth £2.5m based on time left original transfer. We seem to play hardball and want xx when in my mind we should have a min price of £3.7m which would ‘write off’ liabilities. I don’t have an issue trying to get as much as possible, but if we cant get it for totally unwanted players on high wages (which has been proved) then we need to be realistic.

Don’t forget about Gunn - add him into the mix and you are almost at £100m. Another destined for a few more loan deals and a quiet £2m exit.

I’m not sure it’s a mental thing now - under Hughes and Pel it was lack of belief, now I wonder if it’s fatigue. It reminds me of MoPo team which if went behind that was it, however now more often than not we get our noses in front. They just seem to get overrun as the second half progresses, failing to close down creative players from the opposition and without the energy to break. This team needs to go at least 2 up, then we need sensible tactics to kill the game, or 3 quality players coming off the bench to keep energy levels high. Aside from Ings or a JWP set piece we rarely score, the amount of air shots or hitting straight at the keeper suggests a worrying lack of skill and composure that you cannot train. I’d go as far as say that if Ings goes we are clear relegation candidates. Let’s keep him even if it means he leaves on a free and we get another year in the Prem.

Think we are close to turning this round - it’s been marginal stuff with Newcastle / Villa / Wolves - any of those games could easily have been a point or win. Minimino clearly not Saints match fit yet, and a lot of players lacking confidence - Adams can’t buy a goal (and needs to use his left foot) and Djenepo and Redmond off form. I agree Forster should have started after recent McCarthy errors but honestly think it would have been the same result - couldn’t see Forster saving either. We have a big problem with a plan B - think this is both tactical and a very thin bench. We need another striker urgently or we could be in serious trouble next year.

1982 - Saints 4 Man City 1 - 6 yr old. Stood in the Milton End with my mate and Dads behind us so we didn’t go flying in the surge. Result at the time wasn’t a shock at all, how things change !!. Full kits, scarves everything - birthday treat for one of us, meant we went to 2 matches a year back then. Think it was £1 to get in....

It also led to our best chance and excellent save from Darlow. No point having big men upfront if you don’t give them anything to attack - even with 9 we were never going to go through the middle of them

Whilst it’s lovely to think that we should give others a chance due to some terrible performances, the reality is an off form Adams or even Redmond is better than anything we have at youth level. This is a free hit, chance to be the last 8 in a winnable cup and we should play our very best team and hope they play their way back to form, This is also no time to put Salisu in - he needs at least one B game - we should be able to play the team that gave us so much success in the 1st half of the season finally - remember that back 4 with Rom and JWP in front and how solid they looked ? The one exception is Forster, he’s played well in the other cup games and deserves not only to play this, but after McC shaky performances of late a chance to show he can be no 1. Win this and confidence returns - we’ll then see better league form.

Even Bruce knew about our rb issues - targeted from the start- you don’t get away with that at this level. Sometimes you need a plan B - pointless bringing on a big lump up front if you can’t cross the ball in. We should have put 3 times the amount of crosses in that we did in those conditions but every time it was laboured slow passing to the wings and hit first man crosses. We should have pushed Vestigaard up front, Jwp our wide to cross and bombarded them. Everyone is upset not by this game (annoying though that is) but that we seemingly can’t think of ways to score against 10 or 9 men - it really isn’t good enough

We’re in a very tricky place - next 5 years are crucial. squad size is right - make up isn’t - having 3 first team gks and 2 full backs is madness - that is a recruitment error. Scouting has also let us down - £55m wasted on Hoet /Gunn/Lemina/Elynoussi, if we had a competent cb/cm/am then we could be more tactical in bringing kids on / covering positions. this has been done - but the Burnley bloke had a point about our youth, the quality and aptitude of players we are producing isn’t good enough - especially if the aim is to have half the team from the youth set up. This for me is the biggest worry And then there is finance - Covid hasn’t helped, neither has awarding Forster and Long big new contracts. That loan means we need to make £10-15m a year from transfers - for that you need some quality youngsters or great scouts. Finally we have literally put all our eggs in the Ralph basket - if he goes we have to start again, giving him that much power has worked so far as he is such a talent, but I can’t see a succession plan if he leaves. The hope is that we finally clear the deadwood, use some of those wages on patching up the squad, and that the new youth set up starts producing results meaning we can stabilise as a mid table team who make a small transfer profit each year to eat into our debt. If we can do that for a few years I’d think we’d get investor interest and we can move on from there if we go down, we probably drop again and end up bankrupt and start again - at least it’ll be a bargain price then for someone !

Didn’t feel like a 9-0 oddly, in some ways the bizarre decisions have masked the score line. A big concern for me is what is going on with our youth - we have stated aim to have half the team made up from the youth and yet seemingly have neglected our youth set up in terms of both talent and aptitude- they all look utterly lost to me. Given we don’t have a pot to piss in so can’t buy talent this is of major major concern

Fair enough MLG if I misunderstood. Just out of interest - do you think our youngsters (ie trying to come through our youth system now) are better than l1 standard or not ?.

MLG - after your statement that our young players were significantly better than l1 standard - this perhaps another indicator that they are not ?. My take is that sadly this crop of youngsters are some way short of the mark, aside from Smallbone I don’t see any of them being Prem level and most will end up in l1. Using the loan system makes sense if that is the case until either they improve or new talent comes through - we can’t afford to buy. also assuming Vest or Salisu are fit shortly then Stephens could be used at full back as an option who we know can defend at this level.

No - also Italian clubs always do this, especially to us. They get players in on loan, with a ‘right to buy’ for xx, then at the end offer a fraction of that or nothing and look for another loan. I’m hoping we have learnt this from Cedric / Ramirez / Osvaldo and just accept getting an unwanted player away with subbed wages is a bonus. We do need a massive relook at our strategy for offloading unwanted players - it’s not just the money but the resources put into trying to offload could be used in acquiring better players.

That Valery and Walcott right side is going to give me nightmares tonight

It’s mental - and does suggest an educated gamble by our recruitment team. im also confused why some posters have been so adamant that he is going to be the next big thing / future of our club having never seen him play for us ! For those Stephens haters out there - can I point out that he is playing, injury free, keeping clean sheets, and if he wasn’t we’d have been without a cb (even if he hasn’t had one good season in la liga and once marked Messi etc)

Ah - MLG, excited to see if you are right about our youngsters being significantly above l1 level tonight. Be a good yardstick to see

Longs star has fallen dramatically, Ralph would rather play 2 players out of position than play him...

Agree to disagree on both those points MLG - obviously hope you are right but think you might have rose tinted ‘Saints’ specs on. My reasoning is u23 level is below l1 and none of those players have done anything of particular note there. As for Long - I think you are thinking of Long a year ago - looks totally shot to me (no better than our young strikers - possibly worse).

Sorry MLG but that imho is a pretty baseless assessment. If we play our ‘reserves’ and youth on top of small squad / injuries etc then we have every chance of going out in a competition we could win (first silverware for 44 years). Why are you so confident N’lundulu, Vokins, Smallbone and Valery are better than l1 level? aside from being at a Premier League club what evidence is there ?. Equally long is probably l1 level now. I hope Ralph rests a few key players (Jwp, KWP, Ings, Berty) but should still play rest of 1st team - and I think he will, he’ll want to win this and Arsenal after is winnable and post that the big boys will have Europe as well as COVID to deal with.

We’ve all wondered what the long term damage would be of that disaster of a transfer period where we spend on Hoet, Elynoussi, Carrillo, Lemina, Gunn and new Forster contract. £80m fees and another £15-£20m in wages - £100m gone there. At least recent windows have been much improved - equally costly has been the failure to get rid of any of them (even pre Covid)

Combination of changes in manager / style, poor coaching and poor strategy. I think the last lot genuinely believed their own hype in our academy when it was clear that standards had dropped. Think they are addressing now but yes, 5 years of underperformance where we have basically produced nothing for Ralph to work with (and he clearly wants to). Lowest point being when we were sending out 20-21 year olds to non-league (and renewing their contracts) a horrible but accurate indication of the quality on offer. Hopefully in 2-3 years time the production line will be up and running again but it’s not exactly helped our cause in terms of squad - lots of youth players now around the squad who are way short of the level required.