Diabolus Ex Machina

We were a bit better than we are now perhaps but Poch inherited a newly promoted team and we were sitting just 3 points above the relegation zone when he arrived. For Koeman, he had to deal with immediately losing Lambert, Lallana, Shaw, Lovren and Chambers which isn't exactly ideal for a new manager but I digress as that doesn't really have any impact on the subject of this thread which is Ralphs performance. If no manager can get us higher than 14th/15th over the space of a season then why is Ralph the man to keep on? Past performance isn't necessarily an indicator of future performance and the current poor run is yet to end. He's had 2 pre-seasons and 5 transfer windows already to set the team up in his image and bring in at least some players to help improve us. Who's to say that another manager given the same time and resources couldn't also get us higher up the table or are we just meant to accept that this is as good as it gets now and forever more? Don't get me wrong he did well last season getting us to 52 points but i'm sure Ings having the season of his life helped greatly with that. He did well the first half of this season as well to be fair and as shown that when he is willing to make changes that he can have a positive affect on results - he did it last season switching from 3 at the back to his preferred 4-2-2-2 formation, he even did it the start of this season - he began with an absolutely suicidal high defensive line that got us beaten by Palace, knocked out of the League Cup by Brentford and then spanked by Spurs which convinced him to change it back and lo and behold we started getting good results again. This run though all i'm seeing is the same ineffective tactics being trotted out over and over and over again and Ralph being shocked when it doesn't work. Now i'm no manager but I could make some suggestions - if your fullbacks are knackered or just don't have then fitness to do the overlapping runs (looking at Bertrand here) then change to a formation that doesn't use them in that way so they can focus on the defensive side more (alternatively don't let both of your backups leave in January so you have to weaken other parts of the team just to fill a position). Perhaps bench a player like Bednarek for a while as he's in the worst form of his career with us. Stop Vestergaard from trying to act as a playmaker every game making runs past the midfield and leaving the likes of Diallo to cover for him. Get the 2 players behind the strikers to actually look for the runs in behind and try a pass rather than ignoring them like I tend to see happen at least 3 times a game. When a striker scores 3 goals in 4 games don't immediately bench him for 3 games including an important cup semi-final. When we're chasing a game maybe don't bring on Djenepo who has 1 goal, no assists, only 2 shots on target and a 0% crossing success rate over 25 appearances this season - maybe bring on Minamino who has scored 2 goals in 6 appearances before he was for whatever reason shut out completely. Perhaps stick with a single goalie rather than swapping them on a whim every couple of games. There's probably more I could think of but you get the point, the idea that there this is just a bad run with bad players and there's nothing the manager can do just doesn't sit right with me and neither does the idea that we can just accept writing off the rest of the season and then giving him more money to potentially continue in the same form next season.

The highlighted parts are problematic for me, as i've mentioned before this isn't just a 'poor run of form' this is worst form since relegation to League One form and as a single period is worse than any other of our managers since promotion - this isn't opinion or based on emotion these are the cold hard facts. Glossing over it like this is a normal thing for managers to go through is at best trying to be overly optimistic and at worst is straight up trying to misrepresent the current situation. It's also worth remembering that this form is ongoing, it hasn't ended yet and nothing i've seen on the pitch has made me think it will end imminently or that it is just a case of bad luck or circumstance. I'm also very much of the opinion that it is his job as manager to find the answers to at least get a few more positive results by the end of the season. He's had 15 games already to try and work this out and has got 6 more until the end of the season. I don't expect a complete turn-around of form or a run where we suddenly win 5 or even 3 games in a row, but he's shown that this season that he can get results with these exact players and we just need to be reminded that he can still do that and that the spark he had earlier with us hasn't gone completely. Get us to 40+ points, get us safe and do it on merit rather than relying on the ineptitude of other teams and i'll happily give him another transfer window and start of next season to right the ship completely but if he can't even do that then I see no reason to trust him with another transfer window or to let him get us in a similar perilous position next season - perhaps without the early points cushion we got this season to keep us safe.

To be fair to Puel he had to deal with a squad that had just lost it's top two scorers in Mane and Pelle and it's midfield defensive rock in Wanyama. This was followed by Fonte going in January and Van Dijk being injured practically the day Fonte left and being out the rest of the season. He still got us to 8th and while not on a lot of points showed he was at least performing at the level of the teams around us. Again though there is a difference between saying a 'dip in form' and talking about runs of results that haven't been seen since we were relegated from the Championship to League One. People seem to be underestimating just how historically poor this run is and I see it getting worse after our next 2 games against Leicester and Liverpool. I want Ralph to turn it around I really do, seems like a good bloke and the players still seem to be behind him but the longer it goes on the less faith I have in him. It's just too long a run to put down to outside factors or just bad luck for me and he's had time during this run to try and stop the rot but it just hasn't happened. I dread to think how things would be if we hadn't managed to come back from 2 down against Burnley.

Maybe, I just feel that when you look at how well we performed the second half of last season and the first half of this season compared to current form - the tactics are the same, the players are the same and the manager is the same so what has changed? How other teams play against us. Changing players may improve us a little but I think the tactics are what really needs a tweak. Having said that having a left back that can regularly overlap rather than have to rely so heavily on play down our right side would certainly help as I think we are incredibly lopsided at the moment with KWP and Armstrong on the right looking significantly better than Bertrand and Redmond/Djenepo/Tella on the left.

Problem is it seemingly doesn't work anymore does it, teams seem to have figured a way to counter it and we haven't adapted at all to this change of circumstances. We are literally on the worst run of form since we got relegated to League One in 2008/09 (yes I checked). That includes a 9-0 loss - our tied worst result ever (the other also being overseen by Ralph) and a 6 game losing streak which is the worst streak since we've been promoted. In the past 19 games (i.e. half a season) we have only got 12 points. Think we've lost 21 points from winning positions so far this season as well. A poor run of form is fine for a smaller team like us, a run of 15 going on 20 games barely being able to pick up a point is not just poor form it's a sign of a straight up problem with the team setup which falls under the remit of the manager as far as i'm concerned. For all the criticism the likes of Puel, Hughes or Pellegrino got they never had a run as bad as this. He's also had more time than any of them to put together a squad and implement his tactics and formations. Many of the problems we have - lack of funds, lack of squad depth, injuries, fatigue etc... are all just as applicable to the other bottom half teams so we should at least be competing with them. As has been pointed out this isn't the first time we've had a poor run under Ralph either - we only got 15 points in our first 17 games last season. You admit yourself he got the tactics wrong then and I think you'd agree he took too long to change it and it looks like now history is repeating. I've said previously i'll wait to the end of the season to give final judgement - he has turned things around previously after all and I don't believe he is a bad manager - but the poor run is already worse than the last one, he's running out of games this season to show he can do it again and from what i've actually seen with my own eyes there's nothing suggesting an improvement in performances is imminent.

We are on the single worst run of form since we got promoted back to the Prem (and by some margin) – 7 out of a possible 45 points and haven’t got points in consecutive games at all in 2021. We are on track to have conceded 60+ goals for the 3rd season in a row under Ralph having only done that once previously in our promoted season and are currently sitting on a -18 GD which is only better than the -19 under Pellegrino/Hughes in 2017-18 and -20 under Hughes/Hassenhuttl in 2018-19 though with 6 games to go we could easily end up with a worse goal difference than both those seasons. He’s had 93 league games in charge to get the team to play how he wanted, more than any other manager since our promotion. He’s been able to bring in players such as Djenepo, Adams, KWP, and Salisu with the only major outgoings being Hojberg, Targett and Reed so he’s had some backing and not exactly been stripped of his star players. The overall picture of his time here also shows a streaky nature to our results – we only got 9 points in our first 13 games last season and looked like relegation candidates until the turn-around that saw consistently good form and results for the rest of the season and carried over to this season up until our current run of torrid results. People talk of ‘confidence players’ but we seem to have turned into a ‘confidence team’. If things are going our way we can play some genuinely great football and when they are not we can look absolutely atrocious. What I’m not sure about is how much of these changes in fortune are down to our Manager and his tactics. From the matches I’ve watched this season though it looks like other teams have either figured out Ralphs tactics or the players can’t play the way Ralph wants them too effectively (probably a bit of both). Either way it’s up to the Manager to adapt strategies if things aren’t working based on the players he has which Ralph hasn’t shown he is capable of. It looks like we’ll limp over the finish line this season but if the performances and results don’t significantly improve over these last 6 games then I think we really need to look into a replacement for next season because the way things look currently things won’t get any better under Ralph unfortunately.

Not sure this is entirely true either. Again looking at the actual stats of both for this season you see the following... Ings - 23 Appearances, 46 shots, 23 on target, 9 goals (2 penalties), 6 big chances missed, 3 big chances created, 4 assists Adams – 29 appearances, 46 shots, 23 on target, 7 goals (0 penalties), 13 big chances missed, 8 big chances created, 4 assists So they are pretty much on an even level this season overall - Ings has a couple more goals thanks to taking some penalties and has missed less easy chances but on the other hand Adams is creating more big chances for others. I think it's those easy missed chances that are tainting a lot of peoples opinions on him as they stick in the memory more, plus it is his recent purple patch that has boosted his stats whereas Ings had a hot start to the season and so has probably been given a bit more leeway during his leaner more recent spell (plus he's got last years great form to fall back on unlike Che). He's still scoring from as many of his shots in open play as Ings though so his finishing can't be that bad. Ings is still undoubtedly the better of the two i'd say but people seem determined to downplay what Adams has accomplished.

He's got 7 league goals with 8 games still to go this season. Apart from Danny Ings no Saints player has scored more than that in a season since the 2015-16 season (where Pelle and Mane were top scorers with 11 a piece and we finished 6th). He's doing just fine and at only 24 years old probably hasn't hit his peak either. He's got 4 assists to go with that as well a number which has only been topped since that 6th place finish twice by a Saints player by JWP this season (with 5 currently) and Tadic in 2016/17 (also with 5) so with 8 games left there's a good chance he could match or top that. To suggest he's not good enough for us is absolute b*llocks. I can understand getting annoyed with him because with the chances he's missed he should be doing even better, but to me though that only suggests that there's even more to come from him and that he can be a key part of our team going forward. By all means if people have suggestions of proven goalscorers they'd get instead in our price range i'd like to hear them (we'll likely need one if Ings goes in the Summer anyway) but then again I also feel people have massively overinflated expectations of what sort of striker we should be able to get (i.e. unless you're playing for a top 6 team or your name is Jamie Vardy you are not getting 15+ goals a season and any strikers that can are certainly out of our price range - even Ings has only managed it once in his career so I wouldn't deem him as a proven 15+ goals a season striker for example).

According to official premier league stats he's had 2 more shots than Ings this season and scored the same number of open play goals - 6 (Ings has 2 penalties as well taking him to 8 total) so are we saying Ings lacks composure in open play as well? He's tied on second in the team for Assists as well behind only JWP who takes our set pieces. Is he having a fantastic season - no, I don't think anyone is saying that, but he is certainly making a contribution which is more than you can say for the likes of Redmond and Djenepo who in my opinion are the main underperformers.

Ten games left of which only 3 are against teams in the top half and only one of the traditional 'big 6' (Liverpool, West Ham, Leicester) and 4 teams below us (Burnley, Brighton, Fulham, West Brom) with a 7 point gap already between us and that 3rd relegation slot. You'd think 6 more points would make us safe but I honestly can't see enough of those teams below us taking enough points to leap frog us anyway as despite our poor recent form I think we've got enough in us to pick up wins. Newcastle especially seem to have a rough run-in where if they lose any of the 6-pointers with the other teams down there then they may not recover.

I still have a theory that there was some sort of unannounced suspension for the first 3 months (perhaps something appearing in the medical that shouldn't have?). Would explain his training but not playing even for the B team. Suspension ends - straight onto bench as he has impressed but don't want him jumping the queue ahead of Bednarek and Stephens (who at the time had something like 3 clean sheets in a row) and has now picked up an unfortunate training injury that means he can't be involved again. I expect it's just a matter of time until we get to see him playing and see what he's made of but all noise seems to suggest Saints see him as a big part of the future still. Only a theory however.

I’m personally confident he’ll be fine and that there’s no long-term issue at play. Don't know any more than anyone else but got my own theory on his absence and thinking it’s more ‘regulatory’ than anything else (i.e. his absence may be more imposed than anything else). I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s available after roughly 3 months and that all parties have tried to keep as much attention off it as possible. I’m sure we’ll see him make an appearance in the first team soon and that this will all just be left in the past.

Actually, being we're currently 16th and not 17th we would have got £9.6m not £7.7m. Doesn't change anything except we'd need to finish 5th not 4th to cover the cost of 2 players but the point stands.

The problem with calling it an 'investment' is that it signifies something you can get a return from. We're currently in 17th which would have got us £7.7m in prize money last year. Say we'd got in Che Adams for £15m having not sold anyone off. In order to recoup that we'd need £22.7m in prize money which would mean finishing 10th which we are currently 10 points behind. Would a single player make that much difference? Let's say you also got a right back in as we arguably need cover there the most. Call it £10m. That puts the total prize money needed to cover your two 'investments' at £32.7m which equates to 4th place prize money which is currently occupied by Arsenal with 67 points (over double what we currently have). Not gonna happen is it. Yes you may be able to make money off the players by selling them at a higher price later but there's no guarantee of that and recent history has us taking massive losses on players rather than profits. As always it's not about how much money you spend but how you spend it that is important. Add in a bloated squad and a number of loanees still on the books and you can see why the idea of getting more players in before we move some out makes no sense. In fact if you want to make more money with your 'investment' in the club it makes much more sense to try and improve your non-player revenue sources such as the commercial side of things (which is exactly what we have been doing and is a big part of why the club continues to be profitable).

This sums it up better than I could and outlines where we currently are IMO. I'd add that we're only 'broke' in terms of us having to have spent out as much/more in players than we're getting in. The club is still making a profit overall (which is a good thing as it's shows that we're secure at least financially). But these profits are likely being used for off-the-field purposes rather than being potentially wasted on adding another expensive player to an already bloated squad. The club have repeatedly stated that this would be the case for a couple of years now ("all funds from player sales will be put back into strengthening the squad", i.e. non-player sales profits won't be). And if anyone honestly believes these profits are going straight into our owners pockets then please i'd love to see even a single bit of evidence to back up your claims. Honestly even if some of it was going back to them I wouldn't have too much issue with it - what's the point in investing in something if you're not making money off of it? The caveat is that to make a profit we need to stay in the Premier League so i'm assuming the owners have enough faith in Ralph and the current players that they can keep us up.

As a bit of a follow up – my previous post was focused mainly on our incoming transfers versus our outgoing transfers and showing we’ve had a net negative amount (i.e. we’ve spent more than we’ve received on players). After a bit more research though this does not necessarily reflect the overall profitability of the club. In fact taking a look at previous accounts and reporting from the guardian about yearly club profits you can see that between the 2013-14 seasons and 2016-17 seasons we consistently made a healthy profit with figures of +£29m, +£15m, +£6m and +£42m following an -£7 million loss in the 2012-13 season (all figures pre-tax, last years accounts won’t be made available until March this year). https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00053301/filing-history https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/06/premier-league-finances-club-guide-2016-17 https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jun/01/premier-league-finances-club-by-club https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/25/premier-league-finances-club-by-club-breakdown-david-conn https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/01/premier-league-accounts-club-by-club-david-conn This would suggest that the club does have some money but that it is not being put back into the playing squad. The clubs mantra that any money from player sales going back into the squad would still technically be true with the caveat that income/profits from other sources is not going back into the squad. I suppose the big question then is how this profit is being used and is it to the betterment of the club? At a guess some of it has gone into trying to improving our commercial revenue streams (which if profits are rising would indicate it is working) but you’d like to think if push came to shove that some of this could be used on the squad if we were in danger of relegation.

Actually i’ve been having a look at this because the issue of funds is brought up so often from both sides of the argument that I wanted to know what the truth actually was. Looking strictly at transfers since we came back to the Prem you have the following figures year-on-year (all figures taken from https://www.transferleague.co.uk/southampton/english-football-teams/southampton-transfers) 2012-2013 – First season back in the prem – I’m not including costs of players this year as we obviously needed to strengthen to become a Prem quality team and this could skew the figures unfairly. For reference though we spent about £32.7m bringing in the likes of JRod, Clyne, Yoshida and Gaston. 2013-2014 – Buys = £37.5m, Sales = £1.75m, Net = -£35.75m 2014-2015 – Buys = £67.9m, Sales = £92.6m, Net = +£24.7m 2015-2016 – Buys = £39.2m, Sales = £36.5m, Net = -£2.7m 2016-2017 – Buys = £57.8m, Sales = £65m, Net = +£7.2m 2017-2018 – Buys = £35.4m, Sales = £89.7m, Net = +£54.3m 2018-2019 – Buys = £59m, Sales = £22m, Net = -£37m Add up those Net figures and you get a total of +£10.75m however for some reason that site hasn’t included Carrillo in their figures so you can take off another £19.2m for him. We also know we are obligated to buy Ings in the summer which takes off another £20m. Subtracting these 2 figures gives a final Net figure of -£28.45m. This suggests that in terms of transfer activity we are already in the red. Add on top of that the costs for replacing managers, costs of improved contracts / wages and the money spent on Staplewood and I think it’s fair to say that we’re not exactly swimming in money. The increased TV and prize money for being in the premiership obviously helps cover these costs and the shortfall but I don’t think it’s enough to give us some bumper transfer kitty that others seem to think we should have. I don’t believe the owners have / will be putting in more of their own money to cover transfers either. What this all means is that we are in the current situation where it appears we need to sell before we can buy (the bloated squad size is also a good reason for this). I’d imagine the biggest reason for this is that we still have a number of players we bought for considerable amounts out on loan that we’ve not recouped any money for in regards to their fees and yet we have still needed to replace them with further signings. Between Boufal, Carrillo, Clasie, Hoedt and now Cedric you’re talking about £61.8m worth of player signings that we’ve got nothing back for yet. Once we’ve sold some / all of these in the summer I’d guess we’d then see the fees we receive for them spent on new players to improve the squad.

Maybe not but I actually looked into some of the stats earlier this year and over the past 3 seasons and up to about 13 games into this one, his goals stats were as you say 6, 7 and 2 but this compared to 3, 2 and 0 for Shane Long, 4, 5 and 1 for Gabbiadini and 7, 1, 2 for Redmond. For comparison over the 3 seasons to that point Austin was averaging a goal every 179.2 minutes compared to 227.5 (Gabbi), 665.3 (Redmond) and 681.8 (Long). His style / fitness levels may not match up to what Ralph wants and his attitude may put people off but he has been arguably our best and most consistent goal scorer these past few seasons until Ings turned up and I think he deserves some recognition for that. Having said that, if we really are offered 8m for him that would be a good bit of business for us considering how much we paid for him and how we our changing our style of play. Would still want to see another striker signed though as apart from Ings i'm not convinced any of our strikers can score regularly and he can't even finish a game for us (I'm not counting Redmond as an out and out striker as he doesn't tend to lead the line himself).

He was subbed half way through the game with Cardiff as well after picking up an early booking and putting in some questionable tackles in afterwards (I clearly remember Austin putting an arm around him and having a word with him as they walked off at halftime telling him to relax a little). Definitely something he needs to work on but I think it's more a case of youthful exuberance and more experienced pros trying to wind him up. He'll learn to cut it out i'm sure.

Funnily enough in that Crooks team of the week article he also has Stephens in there and basically says we shouldn't just be a feeder club for the top 4 and need to try winning something ourselves. Idiot can't even be consistent within his own article.

To be fair considering our strategy this season has seemingly been to always play with a single striker up top that would presumably mean that Gabbiadini, Austin and Long were all ahead of Sam in the pecking order. Perhaps the club thought it better to let him go on loan for more first team experience rather than spending most of his time bench warming? A decent fee obviously helps but i'm not sure anyone was predicting both our lack of form overall and the lack of form/injuries to all 3 of our first team strikers either.

Definitely an improved performance so far. Though i've been critical of him recently Davis has been having a good game (and not just because of the goal). Lemina the big plus for me though, really giving us a bit of impetus to go forward rather than just happy to sit with it at the back which is just what we've needed.

A bit of both i'd say. You can see it when he takes corners - they seem to be in a dangerous area but there's never anyone on the end of them. He'd be better off just trying to put it directly on someones head rather than aiming for a certain area and hoping someone will get to it.

I'd seen improvements in him towards the end of last season and in pre-season but he hasn't really stepped up in the games so far - then again none of our other attacking midfielders are either. I'd certainly be playing him ahead of Davis who for me was woeful all of last season and doesn't look any better this season. While a good part of that is being played out of position (he is most definitely not a DM) he hasn't looked up to much as an AM either recently and in my opinion is on the downswing of his career and should be used off the bench/as cover rather than starting. I honestly wouldn't mind giving JWP a few games as the number 10 to see how he does, though anyone playing that position needs the two wide players to pull their weight to be effective. That doesn't mean the wide players should be banging crosses in either as that's what our overlapping fullbacks are meant to be for. Rather they need to pressure the defense and help open up space for the striker (or make a chance for themselves). Honestly I think they all just need a good kick up the backside as lack of effort is hurting us as much as anything else. Tactics might be a contributing factor but the Watford display just showcased to me that we didn't want it as much as they did.

Probably more due to the fact that according to the stats he was our most proficient league scorer last season - scored once every 2.5 games compared to 2.75 for Gabbi, 4.8 for JRod and 10.7 for Long. He had a greater proportion of his appearances as a sub than Gabbi too so had less time per game to do it (4 out of 15 appearances as a sub for Austin only 1 in 11 for Gabbi). Admittedly 2 of those goals were Penalties but then again he didn't miss any of his unlike Gabbi and Long. People may not like his style but he knows how to get the ball in the back of the net end of. Personally I think Gabbi and Austin are both great options to have up front and it's the service to them both that is a bigger issue. Long's finishing was the other noticeable problem as there were many chances I can remember that he really should have put away last season. I would have also kept Gallagher as an option but i'm guessing if we are only expecting to play 1 up top that the club consider the trio of Gabbi, Austin and Long enough to cover it.