Ralph Hasenhuttl

[Dusic]

There were a couple of players causing unrest ie lemina & Austin but now they are gone I don't think RH can use the excuse that we have a load of trouble makers at the club

 

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He hasn't used that.

 

But we do clearly have a lot of crap players, who should have been relegated the year Swansea imploded and nearly were last year.

 

Ultimately, no Manager that Saints could attract could make this squad into a good PL team.

 

The squad is flawed and lacking enough quality in certain areas.

 

The squad is totally devoid of confidence having struggled for 3 years.

 

The best chance we have is to keep Ralph, try and get a settled back four and sign one good CB in the window.

 

If we do that still go down then IMO its a consequence of a **** owner, lack of vision and utterly dreadful transfer windows for the last 5 or 6.

 

Not Ralph.

[Charlie Wayman]

Exactly.

 

The players have proven over a long tome that they are the issue.

 

Lets not make a big mistake. We must back Ralph.

 

Where is your evidence for this claptrap? If reacting to being buggered about, in and out of the team, played repeatedly out of position or sidelined at a whim is "causing trouble" then 'yes' we might have a few and you would too if asked to scrub the office floor as a qualified accountant. Has has had it frankly. Fall out with the senior players at your peril. Almost time for fond farewell's

[sadoldgit]

Where is your evidence for this claptrap? If reacting to being buggered about, in and out of the team, played repeatedly out of position or sidelined at a whim is "causing trouble" then 'yes' we might have a few and you would too if asked to scrub the office floor as a qualified accountant. Has has had it frankly. Fall out with the senior players at your peril. Almost time for fond farewell's

 

Wasn’t the claim that the reason Puel, Pellegrini and Hughes all struggled put down to the squad?

[pimpin4rizeal]

He hasn't used that.

 

But we do clearly have a lot of crap players, who should have been relegated the year Swansea imploded and nearly were last year.

 

Ultimately, no Manager that Saints could attract could make this squad into a good PL team.

 

The squad is flawed and lacking enough quality in certain areas.

 

The squad is totally devoid of confidence having struggled for 3 years.

 

The best chance we have is to keep Ralph, try and get a settled back four and sign one good CB in the window.

 

If we do that still go down then IMO its a consequence of a **** owner, lack of vision and utterly dreadful transfer windows for the last 5 or 6.

 

Not Ralph.

 

what has ralph done to deserve this blind backing and optimism though? he has been poor tactically favours poor players (jwp etc) the money he did spend is on the bench or in djenepo's case playing at left back half the time.

wouldnt you prefer a manager that at least is showing signs of awareness?

[Forester]

I see where your coming from here but should we allow him 20 games and it turns out nothing has improved then that doesn't allow any manager time to avoid relegation.

 

If it's true & the players simply have stopped wanting to play for him & there is dressing room disharmony, isn't it better to do something sooner rather than later? Think how long we stuck with Pellegrino? We were extremely lucky not to be relegated.

 

If there were signs of improvement than yes hang in there, but I've seen nothing from RH that says he's the man to keep us up, have you?

 

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I think you have summed up the reverse risk perfectly, which is to wait until we have played those games building up to match 20 may leave a replacement too late. It’s now, or not until after Xmas for me.

[Dusic]

what has ralph done to deserve this blind backing and optimism though? he has been poor tactically favours poor players (jwp etc) the money he did spend is on the bench or in djenepo's case playing at left back half the time.

wouldnt you prefer a manager that at least is showing signs of awareness?

 

Re JWP - who are the alternatives?

 

Re transfers - that isn't his job. I'm sure he wanted us to do much more business but he can'y sign players himself.

[doddisalegend]

I see where your coming from here but should we allow him 20 games and it turns out nothing has improved then that doesn't allow any manager time to avoid relegation.

 

If it's true & the players simply have stopped wanting to play for him & there is dressing room disharmony, isn't it better to do something sooner rather than later? Think how long we stuck with Pellegrino? We were extremely lucky not to be relegated.

 

If there were signs of improvement than yes hang in there, but I've seen nothing from RH that says he's the man to keep us up, have you?

 

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Honestly who cares? Even if we survive again we will just repeat this whole pointless saga again next season and Ad Infinitum until we finally get relegated. Is anyone actually enjoying repeating ground hog season every year? with the current squad and owner that's all we have to look forward to.

[austsaint]

Re JWP - who are the alternatives?

 

Re transfers - that isn't his job. I'm sure he wanted us to do much more business but he can'y sign players himself.

 

I'll offer an answer to your first question re alternatives to JWP.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him as a CM of two - play Romeu and PEH (better still would have been replacing Reed and Lemina).

 

For the times when Ralph has played him in a midfield trio - play any of the following attackers instead..Boufal, Djenepo, Redmond, Ings, Adams, Armstrong.

 

For the times when Ralph has a "wing-back" - Bertrand, Valery or Cedric.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him on the wing - Boufal, Djenepo, Redmond, Ings, Adams, Armstrong.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him as a full back - Cedric, Bertrand, Valery....even Stephens/Yoshida/Bednarek

 

As for the famed corners and free kicks - Bertrand, Boufal.

[Dark Munster]

Are you saying there was a falling out between Ralph and Rohl? That Ralph pushed him out?

As others have alluded to, there was a falling out apparently. Doesn't mean Ralph pushed him out, just that Rohl wanted out.

[Killers Knee]

As others have alluded to, there was a falling out apparently. Doesn't mean Ralph pushed him out, just that Rohl wanted out.

 

probably why another member of the coaching staff was recently shown the door.

[Killers Knee]

As others have alluded to, there was a falling out apparently. Doesn't mean Ralph pushed him out, just that Rohl wanted out.

 

probably why another member of the coaching staff was recently shown the door.

[pimpin4rizeal]

Re JWP - who are the alternatives?

 

Re transfers - that isn't his job. I'm sure he wanted us to do much more business but he can'y sign players himself.

 

so you think danso adams and djenepo were just forced on him then? here ralph haver these three guys abd work your magic?

yet under koeman we bought in likes of pelle clasie tadic martina etc all who koeman knew very well, under pellegrino we signed carillo.. mark hughes also said himself he had final say on every transfer. why would it be differant from ralph and surely he also could have tried to ask for what he wanted.. sounds like more excuses to me. if we wanna keep banging on that the players are the problem and theres nothing anyone can do we may as well have just stuck with pellegrino lol

[doddisalegend]

so you think danso adams and djenepo were just forced on him then? here ralph haver these three guys abd work your magic?

yet under koeman we bought in likes of pelle clasie tadic martina etc all who koeman knew very well, under pellegrino we signed carillo.. mark hughes also said himself he had final say on every transfer. why would it be differant from ralph and surely he also could have tried to ask for what he wanted.. sounds like more excuses to me. if we wanna keep banging on that the players are the problem and theres nothing anyone can do we may as well have just stuck with pellegrino lol

It's not that clear cut there have been signings that were clearly driven by the manager ( and most of those came under Koeman) as well as a number that where pretty obviously Reed/Ross pet projects like Juanmi, Redmond, Ings and Elyounoussi.

 

The way transfers were described in the past was a transfer committee, including the manager, would decide what positions they needed players for. Then Reed/Ross would go and find three players the club has scouted that fitted the criteria (and no doubt the club's price bracket) and get the manager to decide which one of those he wants to try and sign.

 

So the manager does have the final say but only on the players the the club transfer committee had picked to meet the criteria of cheap, youngish and saleable in the future.

 

The club's transfer policy is clearly less about giving the manager what he wants and more about carrying on the idea getting younger players that we can buy cheap sale high.

 

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[Maya's Dad]

agree- jwp is a squad player. not really surprising the teams form when jwp has started every prem game

only possible way he can be of any use is in a midfield 3 and that goed back to the point of how ****e our squad is currently

its the continuous sales of our best players over the years, crap transfer windows and lack of action to rectify those mistakes which is why we are where we are now

[Ed Rooney]

I'll offer an answer to your first question re alternatives to JWP.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him as a CM of two - play Romeu and PEH (better still would have been replacing Reed and Lemina).

 

For the times when Ralph has played him in a midfield trio - play any of the following attackers instead..Boufal, Djenepo, Redmond, Ings, Adams, Armstrong.

 

For the times when Ralph has a "wing-back" - Bertrand, Valery or Cedric.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him on the wing - Boufal, Djenepo, Redmond, Ings, Adams, Armstrong.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him as a full back - Cedric, Bertrand, Valery....even Stephens/Yoshida/Bednarek

 

As for the famed corners and free kicks - Bertrand, Boufal.

 

 

this

[Shance]

It's all well and good blaming the owners and recruitment staff (both deserve a lot of criticism) but when you are ****ing around putting attacking midfielders at wing back whilst leave wingbacks on the bench and playing them on their weaker side then you're asking for trouble. It's something he's done a lot and hasn't learned one bit from it at all. Some of his formations/selections and subs have been absurd to say the least. For that, he deserves to be crticised. He needs to learn fast but i'm afraid he's lost the dressing room by the sounds of it.

[doddisalegend]

It's all well and good blaming the owners and recruitment staff (both deserve a lot of criticism) but when you are ****ing around putting attacking midfielders at wing back whilst leave wingbacks on the bench and playing them on their weaker side then you're asking for trouble. It's something he's done a lot and hasn't learned one bit from it at all. Some of his formations/selections and subs have been absurd to say the least. For that, he deserves to be crticised. He needs to learn fast but i'm afraid he's lost the dressing room by the sounds of it.

 

Surely the reason he is ****ing around with wingback/fullbacks is because we have one LB who has been, for whatever reason, missing for half this season. Do you not think Ralph would happily play a decent left footed fullback if he had one? who ever he plays there is out of position. So as far as I can see that's down to ****e recruitment we got rid of Targett and didnt replace him.

 

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[Archangel]

Surely the reason he is ****ing around with wingback/fullbacks is because we have one LB who has been, for whatever reason, missing for half this season. Do you not think Ralph would happily play a decent left footed fullback if he had one? who ever he plays there is out of position. So as far as I can see that's down to ****e recruitment we got rid of Targett and didnt replace him.

 

That's about the size of it. It's hardly the managers fault if Cedric decides to spit his dummy out.

[Dellman]

I am hoping that when Ralph has the support of a new DoF things will improve and proper recruitment will correct some of the recent shambles and new talent will lift everyone's spirits. When is the new DoF to be announced? Soon, I hope

[Sheaf Saint]

Surely the reason he is ****ing around with wingback/fullbacks is because we have one LB who has been, for whatever reason, missing for half this season. Do you not think Ralph would happily play a decent left footed fullback if he had one? who ever he plays there is out of position. So as far as I can see that's down to ****e recruitment we got rid of Targett and didnt replace him.

 

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This is all well and good, but it doesn't explain the absurd decision to play Armstrong at RWB. That's the one I still can't get my head around. I get that Valery had a 'mare against Leicester, but surely it's still better to play an actual fullback in that position than an attacking midfielder who has never (to my knowledge) played there before in his professional career?

 

edit: Or if he insists on playing somebody out of position, then he could at least have played one FB in their natural positions. We had both Cedric and Valery available, but he stuck one of them on the left and left the other on the bench, so we ended up with two WBs playing out of position. As others have already pointed out - FB/WB is a highly specialised position, so to experiment with players not used to that specialty in a crucial PL match against the team just above us in the table, is utterly absurd.

Edited 12 November, 2019 by Sheaf Saint

[doddisalegend]

This is all well and good, but it doesn't explain the absurd decision to play Armstrong at RWB. That's the one I still can't get my head around. I get that Valery had a 'mare against Leicester, but surely it's still better to play an actual fullback in that position than an attacking midfielder who has never (to my knowledge) played there before in his professional career?

 

edit: Or if he insists on playing somebody out of position, then he could at least have played one FB in their natural positions. We had both Cedric and Valery available, but he stuck one of them on the left and left the other on the bench, so we ended up with two WBs playing out of position. As others have already pointed out - FB/WB is a highly specialised position, so to experiment with players not used to that specialty in a crucial PL match against the team just above us in the table, is utterly absurd.

Wouldn't be my first choice but I wouldn't call it absurd Valery has been off form most of the season. One thing Armstrong has is a bit of pace and engine to get up and down the line.

 

My hunch is that Hoj (yet another player having to fill in due to lack of LB options) was due to play LWB and Cedric at RWB they probably trained all week with that in mind then Hoj gets concussion. Point is if we had two decent LB options we wouldn't be in a position where the manager is scrambling around trying to shoehorn players in at LB/LWB.

 

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[Baird of the land]

It's all well and good blaming the owners and recruitment staff (both deserve a lot of criticism) but when you are ****ing around putting attacking midfielders at wing back whilst leave wingbacks on the bench and playing them on their weaker side then you're asking for trouble. It's something he's done a lot and hasn't learned one bit from it at all. Some of his formations/selections and subs have been absurd to say the least. For that, he deserves to be crticised. He needs to learn fast but i'm afraid he's lost the dressing room by the sounds of it.

 

Yep that(saturday was beyond belief, won't play the right back that did well against city & puts the other right back at left back(then subbed him)) and the repeated times this season he's let the game get away rather than use substitutes have soured me to him. Coupled with Adkins is actually available as a replacement.

[Dellman]

Adkins? That is sheer nostalgia. He has failed at every place since he was here and not even in the Premier League. Nice bloke, good memories but that's not enough for the present situation.

[VectisSaint]

Adkins? That is sheer nostalgia. He has failed at every place since he was here and not even in the Premier League. Nice bloke, good memories but that's not enough for the present situation.

 

He didn't fail at Hull. He left because they had a stupid owner, he probably wouldn't be daft enough to come here where we have one as well.

[manji]

I am hoping that when Ralph has the support of a new DoF things will improve and proper recruitment will correct some of the recent shambles and new talent will lift everyone's spirits. When is the new DoF to be announced? Soon, I hope

He will be announced just before first game after international break , should have ****ed off our old boy hanger on coaches by then as well.

Ralph approves of the DOF too.

[doddisalegend]

Adkins? That is sheer nostalgia. He has failed at every place since he was here and not even in the Premier League. Nice bloke, good memories but that's not enough for the present situation.

Not only that he had a bunch of players that put the current lot to shame a number of them where better than what have now ( Lambert, Lallana, Morgan, Fonte, Cork) and the less talented ones worked their ****ing dicks of every game. Not like the current shower)

 

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[Sheaf Saint]

He will be announced just before first game after international break , should have ****ed off our old boy hanger on coaches by then as well.

Ralph approves of the DOF too.

 

Very interesting info - cheers for sharing.

 

Any chance you can give us a name?

[pimpin4rizeal]

It's not that clear cut there have been signings that were clearly driven by the manager ( and most of those came under Koeman) as well as a number that where pretty obviously Reed/Ross pet projects like Juanmi, Redmond, Ings and Elyounoussi.

 

The way transfers were described in the past was a transfer committee, including the manager, would decide what positions they needed players for. Then Reed/Ross would go and find three players the club has scouted that fitted the criteria (and no doubt the club's price bracket) and get the manager to decide which one of those he wants to try and sign.

 

So the manager does have the final say but only on the players the the club transfer committee had picked to meet the criteria of cheap, youngish and saleable in the future.

 

The club's transfer policy is clearly less about giving the manager what he wants and more about carrying on the idea getting younger players that we can buy cheap sale high.

 

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Yeah I mean we can’t be fully sure of the fine details, and some of what you say could be right, but he probably does have final say on the deals and also really should be able to have some influence on the board into getting what he wants.does seem strange how the koeman era seemed full of his kind of signings.

Gotta say though this Danso deal seems really nuts to me, if me or you were Ralph and we managed last season recognising the defence was terrible would you really sanction the signing of a player you don’t see as ready to step in and do a job in our most needed disastrous position.. seems a massive disconnect with something here.

 

Also Ralph was on record of saying he only was interested in young players under a certain age so all three were in that category , it’s just the main problem is the team doesn’t really improve until we are bringing in players that are better then the ones we have. So if Ralph’s final say brought us this situation it’s another concern .

[Baird of the land]

People seem to need there to be one simple issue but there just isn't.

 

Ralph has been poor this season. No consistent team or tactics, failure to get them properly motivated, out of position players and too many off form.

 

But that doesn't make him a bad manager we should ditch. He's not Mark Hughes, he's shown plenty of good things both here and in his last job. Managers can learn and improve too. .

 

Failing at such basics is pretty damning though.

I'd be a lot more tolerant if he wasn't behaving like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

[sadoldgit]

Yeah I mean we can’t be fully sure of the fine details, and some of what you say could be right, but he probably does have final say on the deals and also really should be able to have some influence on the board into getting what he wants.does seem strange how the koeman era seemed full of his kind of signings.

Gotta say though this Danso deal seems really nuts to me, if me or you were Ralph and we managed last season recognising the defence was terrible would you really sanction the signing of a player you don’t see as ready to step in and do a job in our most needed disastrous position.. seems a massive disconnect with something here.

 

Also Ralph was on record of saying he only was interested in young players under a certain age so all three were in that category , it’s just the main problem is the team doesn’t really improve until we are bringing in players that are better then the ones we have. So if Ralph’s final say brought us this situation it’s another concern .

 

Not sure that he the final say on signings. He did say he was involved in the process though.

[Dazza82]

Very interesting info - cheers for sharing.

 

Any chance you can give us a name?

There is Talk of Steve Walsh

 

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[Shance]

This is all well and good, but it doesn't explain the absurd decision to play Armstrong at RWB. That's the one I still can't get my head around. I get that Valery had a 'mare against Leicester, but surely it's still better to play an actual fullback in that position than an attacking midfielder who has never (to my knowledge) played there before in his professional career?

 

edit: Or if he insists on playing somebody out of position, then he could at least have played one FB in their natural positions. We had both Cedric and Valery available, but he stuck one of them on the left and left the other on the bench, so we ended up with two WBs playing out of position. As others have already pointed out - FB/WB is a highly specialised position, so to experiment with players not used to that specialty in a crucial PL match against the team just above us in the table, is utterly absurd.

 

Absolutely this. People are so blind at times.

[egg]

This is all well and good, but it doesn't explain the absurd decision to play Armstrong at RWB. That's the one I still can't get my head around. I get that Valery had a 'mare against Leicester, but surely it's still better to play an actual fullback in that position than an attacking midfielder who has never (to my knowledge) played there before in his professional career?

 

edit: Or if he insists on playing somebody out of position, then he could at least have played one FB in their natural positions. We had both Cedric and Valery available, but he stuck one of them on the left and left the other on the bench, so we ended up with two WBs playing out of position. As others have already pointed out - FB/WB is a highly specialised position, so to experiment with players not used to that specialty in a crucial PL match against the team just above us in the table, is utterly absurd.

 

Bang on. Anybody can see that playing one player out of position is preferable to playing two out of position. His full / wing back selections for much of the season have been plain stupid. Sure, he hasn't got the best squad to choose from but it's better than it was last year but he's doing a worse job with it.

[verlaine1979]

Regarding the decision not to buy a new CB over the summer, I suspect some of the club's business management thought that since we have five on the books, we could only buy a new CB if we sold one of the existing ones. As it was, we only loaned out Hoedt, so only went looking for loans and got Danso.

 

That's exactly the kind of reasoning I'd expect from an executive body that has no real knowledge of football. Presumably if you told Gao that all five bulldozers being used on a Lander construction site were broken beyond repair he'd sanction purchase of a new one to stop the project grinding to a halt.

[Charlie Wayman]

Danso was highly rated 'though and thought of as being a very good capture. Maybe they were convinced he can be the commanding CB we need. Trouble is of course we don't have time to wait now.

[kyle04]

As we can all see, despite a promising start to RH's SFC career, the team has decended into a complete shambles. Our last 2 home games we have conceded well over 40 goal attempts by the opposition. Leicester are a good side for sure, very good and top 4/6 candidates, but to be outplayed by a struggling Everton side at home shows what a mess we are in. I bet every manager under pressure in the PL must relish a trip to SMS at the moment. I have supported RH but lately I have to question everything about his management - player selection/positioning, tactics, man management and general demeaner. The players must take some blame for sure but I believe we have a squad good enough to stay up - just. There's no consistency whatsoever, a PL match is an intense unforgiving environment where every player needs to focused, organised and confident in his team mates. This can't happen when players are chopped and changed week in week out.

I fear the worst this season...

[Fookwit]

The fookwit forum demand a new manager each season to turn the non trying 0-9 home defeat useless players players into world beaters!

Let’s get the dream team of Colin W@nker and Fat Sam plus Tony Adams as defence coach. At least we can blame the ref for defeats then. Free Saints coloured neck brace collars provided by the club to watch long high hoof ball football

[pimpin4rizeal]

Regarding the decision not to buy a new CB over the summer, I suspect some of the club's business management thought that since we have five on the books, we could only buy a new CB if we sold one of the existing ones. As it was, we only loaned out Hoedt, so only went looking for loans and got Danso.

 

That's exactly the kind of reasoning I'd expect from an executive body that has no real knowledge of football. Presumably if you told Gao that all five bulldozers being used on a Lander construction site were broken beyond repair he'd sanction purchase of a new one to stop the project grinding to a halt.

 

Trouble is though is that Ralph is still using the broken bulldozers..

 

I actually haven’t got a problem with the signings we made all 3 looked kinda quick and with decent potential on paper my bigger problem is why sanction these deals if you don’t think they are better then we already have as then it’s just adding to the squad instead of improving us

[pimpin4rizeal]

I’m actually starting to think Allardyce could be a good idea.. always sorts teams out, good defensively made a huge difference at the likes of Everton, and has only really took any flak from fussy fans complaining about the football a bit like Puel here maybe.. would be a good guy to steady the ship whilst we sort out new director of football etc and would be much less of a gamble then persisting with hasenhuttl

[verlaine1979]

Danso was highly rated 'though and thought of as being a very good capture. Maybe they were convinced he can be the commanding CB we need. Trouble is of course we don't have time to wait now.

 

True, but he'd only played a total of around 30 games across two seasons in Germany before joining us. Compared to the prior careers of our previous marquee CB signings like VVD and Alderweireld, he was always far less likely to immediately step in and start making a difference.

 

Plus, the club only have him on loan, so are less inclined to invest heavily in him. I suspect that the dedication to the likes of JWP and Gunn is as much about trying to develop and maintain their market values as it is about maximising our on-field performance. If revenue generated by player sales really is a life-or-death issue for the club, then I suppose it even makes an unfortunate kind of sense.

[verlaine1979]

Trouble is though is that Ralph is still using the broken bulldozers..

 

I actually haven’t got a problem with the signings we made all 3 looked kinda quick and with decent potential on paper my bigger problem is why sanction these deals if you don’t think they are better then we already have as then it’s just adding to the squad instead of improving us

 

You missed my point. If Raplh was told at at the start of the window that he could only bring in new defenders if the club were able to sell some of the old ones, what do you expect him to do? Refuse to play any of our CBs because they're all sh*t and go with a back three of JWP, Armstrong and Long?

 

You seem to believe that it's the coach that tells the board what to do at Saints. RH is operating under the constraints set for him by the people who actually sign the contract when millions of pounds change hands.

[pimpin4rizeal]

You missed my point. If Raplh was told at at the start of the window that he could only bring in new defenders if the club were able to sell some of the old ones, what do you expect him to do? Refuse to play any of our CBs because they're all sh*t and go with a back three of JWP, Armstrong and Long?

 

You seem to believe that it's the coach that tells the board what to do at Saints. RH is operating under the constraints set for him by the people who actually sign the contract when millions of pounds change hands.

 

No actually I think there’s a lot of truth in what you say about the constraints.. but it still begs the question of why was koeman allowed so much of his own players as transfers then? to add to pelle, tadic , Clasie martina etc, you even had the likes of Elia djuracic on loan even if you put Toby etc down to Mitchell or someone else., koeman stamp looked all over the club and it worked

 

To answer the first question no I don’t expect him to ditch all centre backs and a lot of this theory is based on the likes of Hughes saying he had final say on transfers and being able to see the influence of koeman etc, but If he has got the final say then it should be used on transfers or loans he sees fit to step into the side and improve us no ?

[Baird of the land]

Regarding the decision not to buy a new CB over the summer, I suspect some of the club's business management thought that since we have five on the books, we could only buy a new CB if we sold one of the existing ones. As it was, we only loaned out Hoedt, so only went looking for loans and got Danso.

 

That's exactly the kind of reasoning I'd expect from an executive body that has no real knowledge of football. Presumably if you told Gao that all five bulldozers being used on a Lander construction site were broken beyond repair he'd sanction purchase of a new one to stop the project grinding to a halt.

 

Ralph clearly made a winger and a striker on top of the compulsory Ings purchases his priority. If ralph had of viewed a centre back as the immediate priority he could have prioriitised that instead. So in your bulldozer scenario blame the guy who told them the bulldozers were still serviceable.

[Roo1976]

I'll offer an answer to your first question re alternatives to JWP.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him as a CM of two - play Romeu and PEH (better still would have been replacing Reed and Lemina).

 

For the times when Ralph has played him in a midfield trio - play any of the following attackers instead..Boufal, Djenepo, Redmond, Ings, Adams, Armstrong.

 

For the times when Ralph has a "wing-back" - Bertrand, Valery or Cedric.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him on the wing - Boufal, Djenepo, Redmond, Ings, Adams, Armstrong.

 

For the times when Ralph has played him as a full back - Cedric, Bertrand, Valery....even Stephens/Yoshida/Bednarek

 

As for the famed corners and free kicks - Bertrand, Boufal.

 

Totally agree Jwp every time hes on a set piece the commentators rave about the delivery.............well how many goals has his dead ball situations got us over the course of 2-3 seasons?.........at best was a sometimes used sub with Koeman,

 

but it seems as the squad became more and more depleated over the seasons somehow hes remained at the club through good scouting from opposition squads,

 

who realise what a limited type player he really is. As for an alternative surley we can use Slattery?....

[doddisalegend]

Ralph clearly made a winger and a striker on top of the compulsory Ings purchases his priority. If ralph had of viewed a centre back as the immediate priority he could have prioriitised that instead. So in your bulldozer scenario blame the guy who told them the bulldozers were still serviceable.

 

Mostly because our whole fleet of heavy machinery is ****ed the bulldozers, the diggers, the crane even the ****ing cherry picker is ****ed sadly Ralph wasn't going to be allowed to buy a whole new machinery fleet.

[verlaine1979]

Ralph clearly made a winger and a striker on top of the compulsory Ings purchases his priority. If ralph had of viewed a centre back as the immediate priority he could have prioriitised that instead. So in your bulldozer scenario blame the guy who told them the bulldozers were still serviceable.

 

Again, you're missing the point. If rh was told he couldn't buy any more CBs because we already had five in the squad, then of course he looks to strengthen other areas rather than just sitting on his hands.

 

We've spent around £40m on CBs over the past few seasons (Hoedt (16m), Vest (18m) & Bednarek (6m). I can more easily believe that a board that doesn't understand football looks at that level of investment and says 'no more' than I can imagine RH telling the board that what we've got already is good enough. After all, he didn't come here intending to play a back five - he had to resort to it after realising that our CBs aren't good enough in his first few games.

[beatlesaint]

Totally agree Jwp every time hes on a set piece the commentators rave about the delivery.............well how many goals has his dead ball situations got us over the course of 2-3 seasons?.........at best was a sometimes used sub with Koeman,

 

but it seems as the squad became more and more depleated over the seasons somehow hes remained at the club through good scouting from opposition squads,

 

who realise what a limited type player he really is. As for an alternative surley we can use Slattery?....

 

what happened to the guy on here who thought JWP was THE team and used to come out with all these stats in an effort to prove he was good. Would love to see how he spins his contributions now !

[Dangermouth]

what happened to the guy on here who thought JWP was THE team and used to come out with all these stats in an effort to prove he was good. Would love to see how he spins his contributions now !

 

I think he's practising his free kicks.

[doddisalegend]

what happened to the guy on here who thought JWP was THE team and used to come out with all these stats in an effort to prove he was good. Would love to see how he spins his contributions now !

 

Mosin. He had this deep felt desire to prove JWP was better than Redmond (who he absolutely hated) ….though to be fair Redmond has been pretty ****e this season to

[Convict Colony]

Managers can make a difference even with what can be thought of as mediocre PL squads, look at the current job Chris Wilder is doing at Sheff Utd.

 

I think maybe Ralph's man management is his weakness, not getting that extra out of the players and getting them to not want to work hard and be flexible for him and the team is the biggest delta he could effect.

 

Anyway like everyone else I pray something good happens in the next 2/3 months.