Diabolus Ex Machina

Well you're welcome to your opinion, if I was hoping to make a deal for a player I wouldn't have put out a line saying 'he's not going to Villa unless they offer the money to buy the club off Gao and they can't refuse' though. Sounds quite definitive to me rather than leaving room for a future offer don't you think? let me try and follow your logic here though... - Club gets Blackmore to send out message saying we won't sell to Villa to raise price of player - We then make a deal at around £32m which is considerably less than anyone is suggesting - which would be the complete opposite intended result of previous message - Or as you believe such a deal is already done in which case why send out a message saying we won't sell in the first place? While Villa's interest is obviously real and they no doubt have money to spend, i've seen nothing so far to suggest we are actually interested in selling to them. Maybe they do end up offering us an eye-watering sum that really is too good to turn down but in my opinion I can't see it happening and need something a bit more concrete before my opinion starts to change. Only way of knowing for sure is to wait until the end of the window though I guess.

Devils advocate - after playing every game throughout the past 2 covid hit seasons and also being on England duty right up until the start of the Euro's maybe they thought he finally deserved a bit of rest during a couple of meaningless friendlies, especially if he has picked up a small knock. To be fair though, such conveniently timed injuries do normally pop up during these sort of transfer periods so I can understand the concern. Adam Blackmore's most recent tweeting suggests we are not looking to sell though pretty much regardless of price so for now i'm not worried.

I'd imagine he simply doesn't know so can't give an answer. Everyone has their price after all, but being that JWP is on a long contract and doesn't seem to be actively agitating for a move then i'd guess it really comes down to whether Villa are willing to pay whatever price we set for him, especially as we know they will have the money from Grealish soon. Their first offer being described as 'derisory' may suggest they won't be willing to go as high as we would want for him though.

He started our first 7 games scoring 5 goals and getting 2 assists partnering Adams in all of them and was then injured for the next 3 games before coming back on the bench in the next one. I agree his performances tailed off towards the end of the season but we should be careful to assess players on what they actually did rather than what we 'remember' them doing. I wonder if the fitness issues are slightly overblown as well - he's played 91 league games in his 3 seasons here (including playing every game in 19/20), for comparison Kane for Spurs has played 92 (and has a history of ankle injuries) but you won't hear people calling him a sicknote kind of player or they expect him to be guaranteed to pick up an injury during a season.

Actually the accounts say we normally make a slight profit before player trading most seasons - the exception being last year due to the impact of covid which will also presumably be the case with the next set of accounts where I would expect to see another loss. The reason we have had such exceptionally large losses the last couple of years though is because we have also had a large negative net spend on player trading (-£32.8m in 2018/19 and -£49.7m in 2019/20). We don't know how the loan is being used currently or how much of it and again will have to wait for the next set of accounts early next year. If there's a large amount of it left and we're happy that incomes will improve with fans back in stadiums we may pay a bulk sum off to reduce repayments. How we deal with the rest of the repayments remains to be seen, player sales is a possibility but not the only one. There may be other refinancing options or what I suspect more is we will try and kick the can down the road until we can get a new owner and then pass it onto them which we then pay back to them interest free over a longer period. Considering our two biggest sources of losses are wages (which we've been reducing getting rid of some of the deadwood) and player amortisation (basically the money wasted from having players under contract but not used - also something we've dealt with by getting rid of the likes of Lemina, Gunn & Hoedt and bringing Mo back into the fold), I think the expected losses won't be as bad as many think they will. I don't think we're under any sort of financial danger in the near future though I also don't expect the whole situation to be resolved until we get new ownership. Just don't expect us to make any expensive signings as that is what will really put us into a hole financially.

We were 11th in the league in goals scored last season and 19th in goals conceded with a full third of our losses being by 3 or more goals. I can believe we are tracking strikers with replacing Ings in mind, either before the start of the season or in preparation for the end of his contract, but make no mistake our problem last season wasn't putting the ball in the net it was keeping it out our end (which has been a consistent problem the last 3 seasons). Strengthening our defensive depth so we no longer have to play the likes of Salisu, JWP or Dpenepo out of position at full back and can keep Armstrong further up the pitch rather than having him cover the midfield sounds like a good idea to me.

As per the last posted accounts in February this year for 2020, revenues came in from… · Broadcasting - £93,458,000 (includes merit payments for number of matches shown on TV and final league position) · Match Day - £14,466,000 · Commercial - £17,047,000 · Other - £1,511,000 · Overall turnover = £126,482,000 Operating costs for the year came to £150,431,000 of which £114,163,000 was on employees (£99,927,000 on wages/salaries for players, coaches and other staff). That led to a loss of around £24m prior to any player trading. Turns out running a Premier League club is quite expensive. Forget about making any money for other signings through other revenue streams – unless we get into Europe it just ain’t happening. Long term we should be looking to reduce costs (namely wages) while also finding ways to increase commercial revenues but that won’t happen overnight. So how can we afford to bring players in? My expectation is that we will either use some of the loan money as a stop gap (yes I know it is there to cover the effects of the pandemic but if it is business critical to get a player in I’m sure they would dip into it a little) or we are planning to move more players on in the off season (of which Vestergaard and Ings are the most likely candidates with their contracts running down). I’m sure there’s some accounting practices that also occur such as deferred payments or other deferred revenue due to timing of yearly accounts submission (for example this set of figures didn’t include the revenue from our last 6 games of that season as they fell within the next financial year due to the pandemic shifting the end of the season to later). That may allow us to spend more now by spreading out the cost but may restrict us in future years.

That wage stat matches what’s in the officially published accounts (these can be found on the companies house website if you ever want to check them out yourself) though it is the combination of wages (around £100m) and other staff costs (social security, pensions etc…). Keep in mind this is for all staff and not just playing staff. Agents aren’t stupid, as soon as the T.V rights value went up they made sure to push for higher fees and wages for their clients and so the benefit to the clubs of the new T.V deal isn’t as significant as people might think. Overall turnover for the year in question was £125m while operating costs were about £150.5m leading to a loss of around £25.5m. These figures do not account for player trading where we made a significant loss for the second straight year as well. Matchday revenue was the big loss due to the pandemic and deals with LD sports and Under Armour haven’t helped either. In turns of making money then you have to rely on Cup runs, getting into Europe (dominated mostly by the ‘Big 6’ anyway), getting more of our games on T.V , league position (which is only around £2m per place) or via commercial revenue (which we have a relatively small amount of and have been historically poor at increasing). Once fans are back in stadiums i'd imagine our finances will look a little rosier - especially if we can lower the wage bill a bit by getting rid of the players we keep loaning out.

Doesn't seem to be the case for Saints unfortunately - based on the ‘Southampton's signings over the past decade’ thread, the list of players we’ve spent £15m or more on are Dani Osvaldo, Sofiane Boufal, Mario Lemina, Wesley Hoedt, Guido Carrillo, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Jannik Vestergaard, Che Adams and Danny Ings. Only those last 3 – Vest, Adams and Ings – have made any sort of lasting impression on the team and the rest have proven to mostly be huge wastes of money. We know you don’t rate Adams either so would you say that only Ings and Vest have been successes of those with high fees? Even your example of Djenepo being a bad low cost signing is a bit odd as he cost twice as much as Armstrong. On the other hand you drop down just a bit in price and we got the likes of Tadic, Pelle, KWP, Romeu, Armstrong and even Van Dijk. There's value to be had if you can find it it's the finding it that has been problematic lately.

You may think that net spend is low but the reality is that as a club we just don’t make a lot of money that we can afford to buy lots of players. We’re on the lower end for commercial revenue for Premier league teams meaning profits are heavily affected by league position, number of games aired on TV and player sales. The pandemic has heavily affected match day revenue and the messes with the LD Sports sponsor and Under Armour have also hindered us. Add on to that a relatively large wage bill due to poor high-cost signings, having to sign their replacements while they are still under contract and the overall increase in contract values with wages pushed up by agents due to the increased money in the league and you can see why we would be struggling. To try and add some sort of a benchmark for people - our best year for profits without accounting for player trading was 2016-17 under Puel where we made profits of around £31.5m. This was due to it being the first year of the new TV contract, us getting 8th in the league, reaching a cup final and also being in the Europa League group stages. All of that and we only made enough money that season to buy a player like Buendia in todays prices, hence the reliance on player sales normally to improve the team. During those best years I think we were averaging about £11m profit a season which all ended up going back into players trading eventually. The past couple of seasons we’ve even been making a loss pre-player trading. This is also the reason why people saying we need investment makes me chuckle a bit. Any substantial money put into the club by an owner would not be easy to get back without us getting into Europe consistently and with the ‘Big 6’ not to mention the likes of Everton, Leicester and West Ham challenging for those positions even getting into the new (presumably less monetarily rewarding) Europa Conference would be a huge ask for us. It's less a request for 'investment' and more a request for 'free money'. Hopefully with the new shirt suppliers and sponsor sorted if we can also get the wage bill down by moving on players such as Hoedt, Lemina, Elyounoussi, Gunn, Long etc…and also getting fans back in the stadiums then finances should be looking a little rosier in the next 12 months. Anyone thinking we will be going out and spending £30m on a new player will be severely disappointed though I think as we are just not in a position to do that unless we get a new owner in who is happy to lose their money. As an aside, for anyone actually interested in the actual financials of Saints I strongly recommend checking out the annual reports on the Companies House website where you can see for yourself things like yearly turnover, operating costs, overall wage values and pre/post player trading profits. Really helps to give an overall understanding of where we actually are as a club currently.

I'm sure this is true in some cases so that people can push an agenda but thinking a player isn't very good and questioning why they are dropped when they are actually in a good run of form don't have to be mutually exclusive (I personally do rate Che). On the other hand there are some people on here who act like until Ralph has a fully fit squad, is given a large transfer kitty and has brought in a full teams worth of players that we shouldn't be able to critique his team selections, tactics, substitutions and man management as if we can't take issues such as squad depth and fitness into account before judging him on his own merits as a coach/manager.

Then perhaps this is not the correct thread to be posting in. Was just pointing out that our '16th best squad in the league' had us top 5 form for the whole of 2020 and in European contention the first third of this season and so while maybe not top half quality are not as bad as many are making out. I can appreciate that you do not share this opinion though. I don't but I also don't think that sticking with something that blatantly isn't working will somehow make us improve either. That doesn't necessarily mean getting rid of Ralph but changes need to be made. I'd agree that under Gao we are not going to move up much further but I also don't think you can blame the owner for the on pitch problems that have affected the latter half of this season. Hopefully new ownership will come in and we can get some proper investment which can help us move up but any new owner will also be a risk.

The majority of this squad managed to be the 5th best prem team over the 2020 calendar year. Early season form was at a level equal to our best year under Koeman. We may have been overachieving during that time (a good part of which was probably down to Ings great form last season) but the players have shown they are capable at least of getting results. I'll say the same as I did earlier in the season - we have (mostly) the same players, playing roughly the same tactics with the same manager and we've gone from one of the best teams form wise to one of the absolute worst in less than 12 months. Injuries have played some part but to me such a big drop in form suggests that the tactics are no longer effective and need changing, but people seem to be resistant to this idea and they don't want to admit that Ralph may have got it wrong. For them the answer seems to be to just chuck money (which we don't have) at the squad to improve quality which while it would help improve things is not the core issue at play in my opinion. Teams have found an effective way of playing against us and have exploited it for the past 6 months and we have not adapted. At the very least Ralph needs to address the defensive issues in this team - 68 goals conceded (to go with 60 last year and 65 the year before so this is very much a Ralph trait rather than just this season), 19 losses, 11 games where we conceded 3 or more goals and of course another 9-0 collapse. The funny thing is we've shown we are capable, we grinded out a 1-0 win against City last year, did it again against Liverpool this season and managed to hold out with only 10 men against Leicester. Funny thing is I believe Ralph is acutely aware of this (his comments on the OS seem to suggest this as well), the question will be is he willing or even able to make the necessary adjustments and if he isn't then should we be looking for someone else that might be able to?

Think i'd agree with that. First half of this season was the only time he's looked good for us (though he was very good over that period) the rest of the time he's looked no better than any other of our other CB's and I think he leaves us open at the back when he goes for dribbles up the pitch he likes to do. Lovely range of passing on him though I will admit. I like the looks of Salisu so far and i'm not as down on Bednarek or Stephens as others are (particularly Bednarek who while being pretty abject this season was the model of consistency the previous few and can still do a job I feel). Vest also seems like a player other teams are interested in so if we could get a decent price and bring in perhaps a more experienced CB with some good organisational skills i'd be quite happy with that.

For me the most important result was the loss to Villa back in January. I believe it was the turning point in our season where we were screwed over royally by several decisions and was followed up by two of our worst performances of our season against Man U and Newcastle. I think if we'd got something from that game like we should have then heads wouldn't have dropped so much and we would have picked up points more consistently over the rest of the season instead of going into a downward spiral we've only just barely come out the other side of. In terms of best win probably the comeback against Burnley for the same reasons beatlesaint gave.

Great chance to get points in back to back games for the first time in 2021. Despite all the jibes about this being a 'must-win' game this is one we really should be winning - at home to an already relegated team with nothing to play for, i'd be disappointed with anything less than the full 3 points.

I've only checked back as far as the 87/88 season (so the 88/89 season is included in this) but our record of 8 points in 17 games is the outright worst return for that number of games over a single season since 87/88 at least. Branfoot has a worse run covering the end of the 92/93 season and start of the 93/94 season where he only managed 7 points in 17 games and that run probably reached it's worst point at only 9 points in 19 games but as said that was spread over 2 seasons. Lose both of our next couple of games against Palace and Fulham at home and it will be a worse run then even that but i'd like to think we'll pick up something in the Fulham game at least.

Calf injury apparently. No return date to my knowledge. Ings and Romeu possibly ready next week.

Funnily enough despite the things we disagree on, this has been my position throughout anyway - i've never said i've wanted Ralph out, the good runs of form have certainly given him enough good will to allow for a bad run of form but a continuation of form this bad until the end of the season for me brings into serious question whether he is the right man for the job despite his previous good performance and whether he should be allowed another transfer window to turn it around. I guess I just believe that more responsibility falls on the manager than others do, that many issues plaguing us have also had to be handled by other teams, that these players have shown they can get results previously and that a run of form this bad can't simply be put down to outside factors alone. My analysis is not meant to minimize the positive impact Ralph has had on us previously, simply to just highlight the situation we are currently in as a lot of it simply seems to be downplayed or whitewashed completely due to previous performance rather than accepting that there might be deeper ongoing issues at play. The club have backed him throughout and the players still seem to be behind him and with us now practically safe I don't see us making a change in the summer regardless of how the rest of the season pans out, but to just write off this season as an 'anomaly' rather than taking a thorough look at our problems would be a huge mistake in my opinion.

It’s 2 poor runs of form actually taking into account the poor start last season and the second run has been even worse than the first and is on track to be our worst run of form in the Prem ever. He’s already got the records for worst loss (9-0 – twice) and worst run of losses (6 in a row earlier this season) and looks like we’re going to have conceded 60+ goals for the third season in a row under him showing that his tactics do leave us open defensively. Even with the good run earlier this season you can take a closer look at our results – out of our 10 wins 7 have been against teams currently below us in the table (Sheffield x 2, Burnley x 2, West Brom, Newcastle, Brighton) another currently in the bottom half (Aston Villa) and the others against Everton (who had a player sent off) and a Liverpool team who had Fabinho and Henderson as their 2 centre backs. I’ll admit that’s a slightly negative way of looking at things and it’s the points that really matter and not how you get them, but the idea that we were at any point world beaters or could beat anyone or our day doesn’t really apply this season either. Thing is I don’t think he is a bad manager and he has had some things that have restricted him this season – that run of 6 losses was during the height of our injury crisis where we were missing the likes of KWP, Bertrand, Romeu, Vestergaard, Djenepo and Salisu for example. On the flip side we should have been getting results against the likes of Newcastle, Brighton and West Brom once our players were coming back which we failed to do. I don’t expect the upcoming Liverpool match to shed any more light on things but the following games against Palace and Fulham should give us a better idea of where we are actually at. You’re welcome to your opinion that he is the right man for us going forward but given all the evidence available I’d like to think people could see why some of us have reservations about him and that a change could be better for us if things don’t improve before the end of the season.

While I’ll admit to not being a fan of our starting line-up (not a fan of Redmond up top or Armstrong being played out of his best position), I will say that after the dubious red card sent us down to 10 men I think Ralph got things spot on and the team showed some real grit and determination to get us a valuable point. The key now is to keep the momentum going – I thought we might after the comeback win against Burnley but then we immediately capitulated against West Brom in our next match. I’m not expecting points out of the Liverpool game but everything after that is winnable and we may even be mathematically safe by the next time we play after that so here’s hoping we use this as a launchpad and kick on for the remainder of the season.

Forster KWP Bednarek Vestergaard Salisu JWP Diallo Armstrong Djenepo Walcott Adams Subs: McCarthy, Redmond, Minamino, Tella, Obafemi, Stephens, N’Lundulu, Jankewitz, Ferry Think that’s the strongest team we can put out. Ings and Bertrand both big misses but Walcott and Adams have done ok together previously this season when Ings has been out and as Bertrand hasn’t been as active going forward this season then the more defensive Salisu may not make his absence as noticeable. Redmond, Minamino, Tella and Obafemi all attacking options off the bench if we are chasing the game – I just hope that if Redmond is to come on then it isn’t at the expense of either of the front two as he’s proven to be completely ineffectual whenever he’s played there this season (same with Tella actually). Would much prefer to stick Obafemi up there if one of them comes off if he’s fit enough.

He's certainly been a miss as he was having a great season but I personally don't think Diallo has done too bad as his replacement. In games where he's partnered JWP in the middle we've won 3, drawn 1 and lost 4 which isn't too bad of a return. Jankewitz is still a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment as well as he screwed up his first major opportunity after a couple of minutes and hasn't been given another chance yet (though i'm hopeful he does get another chance in future). The real weakness is our fullback cover - especially on the left side with KWP. When he's not played we've only managed a single point in 8 games compared to the 35 points in the 24 he has played. We've actually tried 6 other players there this season - Valery, JWP, Ramsay, Stephens, Bednarek and Bertrand with Bednarek being the only 1 given more than a single game at RB (3 games). Valery may not have impressed Ralph much in his time here but he had played 34 league games over the previous 2 seasons and so has some Prem experience so to let him go in January and not get a replacement in has turned out to be one of our biggest mistakes I think.

Top flight for all time I can't say but i've checked for the Prem era (i.e. since 92/93) just to satisfy my own curiosity. Partly depends on when you talk about the start of our current run but I think starting from post Liverpool win as that was the last time we picked up points in successive games seems a suitable point to look from. Given that starting point, I can confirm that our haul of 7 pts over the last 15 games is outright the worst form we've had in the Prem over a 15 game period with the other closest runs being 8 pts by Hughes in 2018/19 and 10 pts shared by Pellegrino in 2017/18, Wigley/Redknapp in 2004/05 and under Dave Jones in 1998/99. We're not quite at worst run ever yet though as Hughes worst run ended at 9 pts in 16 games and Dave Jones had a period with only 10 points in 17 games. In summary, in the Prem era this is our worst run of form over 15 games ever and to avoid it being our definitive worst Prem run ever we need a win in one of our next two games against Leicester and Liverpool.

Think this is my last allowed post of the day so don't be offended if I can't continue this conversation afterwards but the majority of the argument here appears to be about the strength of our squad rather than Ralph himself and this is a thread about the manager and his performance. Again he's had more games than any other recent manager, he's had 2 pre-seasons and 5 transfer windows to improve these players already and bring in his own players so what are the reasons that if this form continues for the rest of the season he should continue and be given even more time and money rather than allowing a new face a chance to improve things? I assure you this is not meant as a trick question or to validate my points i'm genuinely interested in the reasons why people think this manager - if the poor run continues to the end of the season - is the right man to take us forward, but so far i've not seen any convincing arguments with the best i've seen being 'well give him more money to sign better players and results will improve' as if that doesn't apply to every other manager in existence or that he's got us performing well before to which I agree but he's also got us performing worse than any manager in a decade without an end in sight currently. I've given him the benefit of the doubt through the first 15 games of this run and have said i'll give him to the end of this season to turn things around as I think his previous form has earned him that but for me that good will cannot extend into next season if things don't improve this season.