nta786

Villa are 3-0 up away to Burnley

Armstrong with a clinical finish but standing offside…

He has some decent experience too!

Honestly should be 3 or 4 right now. Sadly for the first time I am now in the Ralph out camp at end of the season. I think he has taken us as far as he can, and appreciate the relatively stable campaigns he has given us albeit in a streaky manner, but this latest run is just one too many. I have nothing against him, I don’t think the players are responding to his methods anymore and unfortunately in this day and age it means the manager gets the cull. I wanted it to work out so badly, so to be honest it pains me to say the above. There are some decent free agent options out there, though I would like to think the board have replacements lined up.

Brentford 2-0. Wissa.

Brentford 1-0.

One long punt forward and we look fragile. A good spell for them at the moment.

Djenepo/Walcott still not in the squad. I really wonder who sanctioned the Walcott 2 year deal on £75k a week. A waste of £7.5m-£8.5m in wages over 2 years Having said that I am happy to see Adam Armstrong start, want to see what he can do on the pitch today.

JWP should join Leicester, they’re a cut above us and will play in Europe next season.

Surely we've not been stupid to agree to something like that for a player who had 12 months left on his contract? Our pants often get pulled down when players have 12 months left, no fault of our own of course if you can't force a player to sign so we accept a lower fee, but surely we shouldn't be getting played on when we purchase a player with just 12 months left too.

If Adam Armstrong starts and scores, Ralph will get abuse for not playing him in our recent games. Keeping him on the side-lines means we can only complain about his man management on how he has handled him.

Yep. Also for when people say "I would pay £1,000 to see Southampton win this game", in which case placing a £1,000 bet on your own team is one way of putting your money where your mouth is.

I agree with you, only time I say a team doesn’t deserve it is when there has been terrible refereeing decisions such as penalties and red cards.

I agree with you but what I do think that Puel didn’t have on his side is that we fans had expectations through the roof. I do think now in last 2/3 years we’re coming back down to earth and PL survival is the norm ultimately. Having finished 6th, we went from 63 pts to 46pts, so looks like someone who declined badly. On the other hand, Ralph took us over following a shit start with Hughes and has been made to look a saviour by keeping us up. We then had that 2020 calendar year which we had the 5th best record in the division which bought him more goodwill and sympathy following the first mauling. Last season’s ending was put down to lack of depth, but this latest run is really leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

The counter argument is what if someone else could extract more out of the following? (I’m with you though, not that I am holding my breath) Or equally, would players like Eze, Olise, ASM, Buendia etc etc etc flourish under Ralph? Right now I find it hard to call…

Especially when that club is Everton. There is a reason why they've never gone down yet.

What is our best team out of interest? Other than Shane Long starting yesterday I'm not sure what else to complain about? Everyone is so off the boil bar JWP/KWP. As for the bit in bold, without looking at running stats and number of sprints etc I can't tell you if the players didn't try yesterday... what I do see though is some incredibly limited players? If I will beat Ralph with any stick though it's probably his vision of football doesn't suit the players at disposal - he needs to adapt to what we have because a lot of these players lack that killer instinct, positioning, vision, knowing when to press and general technical ability. We don't even have as quick players up top. Also, Ralph's sub irk me quite a lot but he already bought this up yesterday how disappointed he was by them.

I'd be more than happy to keep him on as a 3rd GK, on a 3rd wage salary too to be fair.

Have to say if we had to do a poll or similar of some sort, sacking Ralph now would be the majority of Saintsweb? On Instagram there are a few Ralph outs, facebook it seems more vitriol to the players then Ralph. Dare I say for the first time Ralph’s popularity is falling below 50%? All the goodwill generated is gone and now the 9-0s + recent form is proving a case to sack him now…

You do realise there are also 11 players on the pitch (well 10 in both cases). Not saying he isn't at fault but those results aren't 100% solely attributed to him, nor is it when we win.

Only if you are lucky enough to get a ticket! Otherwise, only positive I can think of is that this season is now nearly coming to an end. McCarthy, KWP, Stephens, Salisu, Perraud, Romeu, Stuart Armstrong, JWP, Diallo, Elyounoussi, Adams I’d play the above in a 4-1-4-1 shape. Give Adam Armstrong a run around too please at some point. Long is a joke and Broja has truly gone off the boil. Drop Fraser, nothing against him but he ain’t staying with us after this season so let’s give McCarthy the minutes so he remembers what it’s like to be in goal again in a match. I think this will be Brentford 2-0 Saints. Eriksen (who loves a goal against us), and then Toney too. We are joint 3rd on Eriksens list of teams which he has the most goal contributions against and there is no team he has beaten more than us.

“You can see how we conceded the first goal, how easy we give it away,” Hasenhuttl said. “We are in some positions at the moment lacking quality, this is not only for the players who have started but also for the players that are coming on. “They are far away from the level they have shown and this is the reason why we are not good enough to play what we have shown.” He continued: “It’s not bad if you have something like that (Zaha as a substitute), I must say I expect more from my guys coming on. "This is what we are lacking at the moment, Broja is not the same like he has been a few months ago. This is the difference at the moment. "It is very hard to take but this is the realistic thing that we are always coming into this situation that we can make this up and we fail. Maybe there is a reason for that, and maybe because we are not good enough.” “We haven’t been exposed, we had fresh players on the pitch and we had a situation where a guy gets the ball around the box with four players around him and can still turn and shoot into the corner,” Hasenhuttl said. “For me, this is not really a goal situation. Not something where I think, ‘this is getting dangerous’, and we concede a goal. “I can speak about everything, the shape – the key is that we hardly win games when you concede two goals and that is a fact, and what is different from other home wins this season.” ——————— Now if a new manager came in and said this, I can sympathise… but something needs to give we look fragile at the back and can’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.

I’m not Ralph out either, I acknowledge that we have a lot of dross in our squad, but if I was Crocker/Semmens I would be keeping a closer eye on the free agent manager list. The likes of Benitez, Nuno Santo, Rudi Garcia, Favre are currently available right now, perhaps someone with fresh ideas can rejuvenate this side. Things are getting stale, to me the front line in that second half really weren’t pressing at all. In Ralph’s words, “when the automatisms are not working it looks like this”

Armstrong/Broja are now on for Shane Long and Che Adams

Feck sake