Ralph Hasenhuttl

[Toussaint]

Maybe he’ll go in the summer anyway? Given he’s announced his intention to retire in a couple of years it seems unlikely the new owners are going to allow him to become too involved in any rebuild project, assuming that rebuilding is their intention.

[pimpin4rizeal]

Very strange how we are so streaky under Ralph. Managed to pull off a couple of unexpected results over Xmas then looked great for a couple of months but now seem to be reverting to type.

For me his time here has been that of a average manager.. I believe if we had the right man in charge we could actually push for Europe . With the wrong one we could go down he is somewhere in between but can look very stubborn and naive sometimes 

[Chris cooper]

22 minutes ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

Very strange how we are so streaky under Ralph. Managed to pull off a couple of unexpected results over Xmas then looked great for a couple of months but now seem to be reverting to type.

For me his time here has been that of a average manager.. I believe if we had the right man in charge we could actually push for Europe . With the wrong one we could go down he is somewhere in between but can look very stubborn and naive sometimes 

More naive .. he certainly doesn’t learn from previous..back room staff do not help him in games either ! Just sit there ! Look at other clubs like Newcastle and villa .. wolves .. all up and barking instructions… we need a complete new regime. Do the right think Ralphy and slip out the back door at end of the season! 

[Teddeer]

1 hour ago, Chris cooper said:

More naive .. he certainly doesn’t learn from previous..back room staff do not help him in games either ! Just sit there ! Look at other clubs like Newcastle and villa .. wolves .. all up and barking instructions… we need a complete new regime. Do the right think Ralphy and slip out the back door at end of the season! 

Agree about our coaches on match days. There is no evidence of any passion or involvement from them or interaction with the manager. Can only assume this is the way Ralph likes it.

[Sarisbury Saint]

9 minutes ago, Teddeer said:

Agree about our coaches on match days. There is no evidence of any passion or involvement from them or interaction with the manager. Can only assume this is the way Ralph likes it.

Or they don’t agree with him.

[LuckyNumber7]

23 hours ago, Billy the Kidd said:

I agree, apart from the last part - id suggest on a very average note.

I dont thi k we have over achieved with him, maybe for the first 18 months of him in charge, now I’m not sure we are progressing.

Still, happy for him to have a summer, quality players and some less quality hopefully leaving, and give him 10 games. 

Trouble is, i think i said the same this time last year…

And what did you expect this year?

We are miles clear of relegation (again), only a point off the top half and got to the FA Cup QF (again). All after once again having one of the lowest net spends in the league.

True under Ralph we are very streaky, have good runs and bad runs and a handful of truly awful games, but the bigger picture is we are performing at least to par if not above, whilst also trying to play attractive attacking football..

Not saying Ralph is perfect by any means but I think he's a good fit for us, and until we start showing more ambition in the transfer market this is our level. To all those who want Ralph out I'd say be careful what you wish for, because it absolutely can get a lot worse than this.

[Turkish]

2 hours ago, Chris cooper said:

More naive .. he certainly doesn’t learn from previous..back room staff do not help him in games either ! Just sit there ! Look at other clubs like Newcastle and villa .. wolves .. all up and barking instructions… we need a complete new regime. Do the right think Ralphy and slip out the back door at end of the season! 

He really doesn't have anyone capable. Davis and Watson are both goalkeepers, Fleming was brought in as an academy coach but has somehow got himself a first team role and Kitzbichler is more an analyst than a coach so he doesn't really have anyone able to help him. Personally i'd like to see us add some experience and quality to the back room staff during the summer as i dont think any other premier league club would have a set up as weak as we do.

[Bad Wolf]

Ralph's time at Saints reminds me of Peter Griffin's description of Russian women - All either 10's or 1's

He's a proper 'form' manager and at any given time we're either amazing or utterly embarrassing.

[stevy777_x]

26 minutes ago, Turkish said:

He really doesn't have anyone capable. Davis and Watson are both goalkeepers, Fleming was brought in as an academy coach but has somehow got himself a first team role and Kitzbichler is more an analyst than a coach so he doesn't really have anyone able to help him. Personally i'd like to see us add some experience and quality to the back room staff during the summer as i dont think any other premier league club would have a set up as weak as we do.

We ve been having this conversations for 3 years now

[saint1977]

24 minutes ago, Turkish said:

He really doesn't have anyone capable. Davis and Watson are both goalkeepers, Fleming was brought in as an academy coach but has somehow got himself a first team role and Kitzbichler is more an analyst than a coach so he doesn't really have anyone able to help him. Personally i'd like to see us add some experience and quality to the back room staff during the summer as i dont think any other premier league club would have a set up as weak as we do.

I feel this has a problem throughout much of his time with the club. Certainly, a better coaching staff with some teeth as well as expertise would have reduced the damage on Saturday, changed the shape and flooded the midfield after 10 minutes - not as if there weren’t quite a few obvious let offs even before the first goal!

I can understand during the Gao days minimising non playing budgets but surely this has to be a priority with the takeover if the new owners think Ralph is the manager they want? During games other teams seem a lot more proactive eg last season strong first half and awful seconds. Thought that had got better this season with that but other coaching teams have sussed us again and RH seems to be drowning a bit.

It might also help with the major summer rebuild of the squad required as whilst Crocker and Ralph haven’t done too bad recently on recruitment, with the scale of what needs doing some new voices and networks on targets might help us get the 3-4 starters and 2-3 development players in the squad we need.

[stevy777_x]

9 minutes ago, adriansfc said:

I'm a little tired of the football to be honest. He's done a decent enough job, we've always stayed up pretty easily and had some good spells. 

But when on form, we're just a very hard working side. We press well and force mistakes, while relying on set pieces. We're a poor to average possession side. The moment we're safe and lose any edge, we've nothing to fall back on. Effort levels dropping 1% means we become very easy to beat. 

I don't believe we have to play this way to survive. And I don't think we can progress much playing the way we do. I'm sick of the 2 up front obsession. We don't have 2 good strikers, we barely have 1. Most clubs don't play this way as it leaves a player not contributing enough and a midfield overrun. Would it be so awful to try 433 again and actually focus on what we can do with the ball?

I find the current and recent Saints sides really dull and uninspiring. There's no flair or creativity. Our most creative players are full backs and JWP. It feels a long, long way from the days of Tadic. Yeah we don't have much money but does it mean you can't seek out more creative players at any level?  This team doesn't need more workhorses. 

For all Ralph's done I wouldn't be sad if he left now. It's so stale and really needs new ideas. But that next appointment will be vital. I hope it can be someone who'll actually play football. I'd honestly bring Koeman back if he hadn't taken the Dutch job. Yeah he's terrible everywhere else but it seemed to fit for him here and he plays 433 at least. 

Whoever is in charge, stop messing around in the summer and get a proper centre back. Not prospects and back ups. Get a new central midfielder who can go right in and improve things. A new no10/winger who might actually create and a striker who stands a chance at this level. Happy to let McCarthy, Bednarek, Stephens, Smallbone, Long, Walcott, Djenepo, A.Armstrong, Redmond, Moi all leave now. 

Remember post Ralph how we had so much trouble scoring and creating?

High press means we get the ball back when the opposite team is not well organized. I like this style it suits us and at least we are creating chances.

Granted the teams needs to be on the money effort wise all the time, and when it doesn t work it can go pearshaped but all teams have blips during the season.

[FarehamSaintJames]

I must admit I’d love us to go back to a 4-3-3. I feel it allows for more creativity.

The forward dropping in; wingers pushing in centrally; a midfielder pushing up; dropping between the defenders; allowing the wingers to press forward.

So many options.

[Nemi]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

He really doesn't have anyone capable. Davis and Watson are both goalkeepers, Fleming was brought in as an academy coach but has somehow got himself a first team role and Kitzbichler is more an analyst than a coach so he doesn't really have anyone able to help him. Personally i'd like to see us add some experience and quality to the back room staff during the summer as i dont think any other premier league club would have a set up as weak as we do.

If the back room staff are the issue, doesn’t reflect very well on Hasenhuttl’s capabilities if he can’t figure this out after 3 years or so

[Piran]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

He really doesn't have anyone capable. Davis and Watson are both goalkeepers, Fleming was brought in as an academy coach but has somehow got himself a first team role and Kitzbichler is more an analyst than a coach so he doesn't really have anyone able to help him. Personally i'd like to see us add some experience and quality to the back room staff during the summer as i dont think any other premier league club would have a set up as weak as we do.

I really don't think we know what goes on behind the scenes, or what part each of the 'back-room team' plays. We can only judge the overall effect of the team performances, and the past few weeks have been pretty grim, but a couple of months ago, the same team was receiving praise from all quarters for results and the way our team was playing. Personally, I would be wary of appointing somebody just because they jump around and 'show passion'. We had all these arguments back in the day when Puel was criticised for his lacklustre press conferences, and someone suggested we should exchange him for Warnock or the clown Ollie whatshisname...

[AlexLaw76]

One thing is for sure, we are defensively terrible under Ralph.  60+ goals conceded every season.  Not looked, but will assume we are on track to achieve that this time

[Dusic]

We were on a clear path to relegation when Ralph came in.

We are now comfortably midtable whilst having an extremely low net spend and always selling our best players.

Thats a better than average job.

Edited 11 April, 2022 by Dusic

[saint1977]

21 minutes ago, Dusic said:

We were on a clear path to relegation when Ralph came in.

We are now comfortably midtable whilst having an extremely low net spend and always selling our best players.

Thats a better than average job.

Overall you make a fair point and grateful for what RH has done over the three years, along with Semmens. Relegation would have left a worse position than 2006-9 with Les’s two year crazy spell of wastefulness without Koeman, Poch or Nigel to keep him in check. 

With new ownership, whilst not a panacea and we will see what the impact is, the narrative around the violent positive/negative swings of form is going to be harder to justify. He also got lucky that Tuchel took his foot off our throat for the last 30 minutes on Saturday because that could have been 12+ conceded combined with the woodwork and Werner sitters and that would have been the sack and humiliation. Unlike the 9-0s there was no early sending off or injury crisis to mitigate - Tuchel pulls his pants down tactically and Ralph did not or could not pragmatically adapt. 

I do think a better back room staff will help him adapt when other teams work out our latest system and pattern of play. With respect to the current staff, I don’t see anyone who could read the game well enough at the top level. 

Edited 11 April, 2022 by saint1977

[notnowcato]

Before our recent streak of good form; I thought the time was right for Ralph to depart.  I do admire the loyalty the club has shown him to date, it will be interesting to see how the new owners will take to this piss poor run of performances that we're now on.  For the last few games we've been little threat up top and frequently exposed as a defensive unit, it's no real surprise that we've had a couple of thumpings. 

 

[Dman]

2 hours ago, Dusic said:

We were on a clear path to relegation when Ralph came in.

We are now comfortably midtable whilst having an extremely low net spend and always selling our best players.

Thats a better than average job.

We had 1 and half bad seasons under 2 really poor managers. Before that, we finished 8th and we’re a solid mid table side. A clear path to relegation is a bit OTT. Had Puel stayed, we’d probably be in roughly thr same position as we are now. 
 

As someone else said, under a worse manager we’d be relegated, under a better one we’d be top 10 maybe, at a push, even Europe. Ralph’s results have been average, imo. 

After the initial bounce of him coming in and improving us from Hughes / MoPo (not really a huge task), have we improved? I don’t think so. We can be great, or can be appalling, we’re consistently inconsistent. 

 

Edited 11 April, 2022 by Dman

[aintforever]

I wouldn't say we had a top 10 squad. Saturday was shocking but the important thing is where we end up at the end of the season and we are in a pretty comfortable position.

When you look at the amount spent by other clubs in this league, sacking our manager for being mid-table is a pretty risky thing to do. Reminds me of when Arsenal fans hounded out Wenger for only finishing fourth each season, now they would give their right nut for that.

[TWar]

28 minutes ago, Dman said:

We had 1 and half bad seasons under 2 really poor managers. Before that, we finished 8th and we’re a solid mid table side. A clear path to relegation is a bit OTT. Had Puel stayed, we’d probably be in roughly thr same position as we are now. 
 

As someone else said, under a worse manager we’d be relegated, under a better one we’d be top 10 maybe, at a push, even Europe. Ralph’s results have been average, imo. 

After the initial bounce of him coming in and improving us from Hughes / MoPo (not really a huge task), have we improved? I don’t think so. We can be great, or can be appalling, we’re consistently inconsistent. 

 

We've spent 2nd least in league since finishing 17th and 16th consecutively, who the hell would have us in europe? That is a silly expectation.

I do think we have a top 12 squad but thats all Ralph as we have spent fuck all.

Edited 11 April, 2022 by TWar

[Dman]

50 minutes ago, TWar said:

We've spent 2nd least in league since finishing 17th and 16th consecutively, who the hell would have us in europe? That is a silly expectation.

I do think we have a top 12 squad but thats all Ralph as we have spent fuck all.

It was only a month or 2 ago where people on here were saying we had an outside chance of Europe. Had we not imploded, again (as we did last season), then maybe we’d have a chance. A slim one I agree, but certainly a chance. 

[TWar]

9 minutes ago, Dman said:

It was only a month or 2 ago where people on here were saying we had an outside chance of Europe. Had we not imploded, again (as we did last season), then maybe we’d have a chance. A slim one I agree, but certainly a chance. 

Yeah, because of Ralph. Being within touching distance considering at any stage considering our budget is amazing. The fact you say he has done an average job and a good manager would get top half and maybe europe is potentially a bit spoiled by how well we've done.

In actuality, based off budget, a bad manager would see us relegated, an average one would see us successfully fighting relegation maybe 16-17th and a good one would see safe mid table 11-15. 11-15 being average when we spent 19th most is a bit delusional, in my opinion.

Edited 11 April, 2022 by TWar

[Holmes_and_Watson]

1 hour ago, TWar said:

Yeah, because of Ralph. Being within touching distance considering at any stage considering our budget is amazing. The fact you say he has done an average job and a good manager would get top half and maybe europe is potentially a bit spoiled by how well we've done.

In actuality, based off budget, a bad manager would see us relegated, an average one would see us successfully fighting relegation maybe 16-17th and a good one would see safe mid table 11-15. 11-15 being average when we spent 19th most is a bit delusional, in my opinion.

I had us down at 14th with a good season. So I have to check myself when we have matches like the Chelsea one. And we're falling to that position. Which is better, although not great watching, to struggling our way to 14th from a relegation dogfight.

[Billy the Kidd]

7 hours ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

And what did you expect this year?

We are miles clear of relegation (again), only a point off the top half and got to the FA Cup QF (again). All after once again having one of the lowest net spends in the league.

True under Ralph we are very streaky, have good runs and bad runs and a handful of truly awful games, but the bigger picture is we are performing at least to par if not above, whilst also trying to play attractive attacking football..

Not saying Ralph is perfect by any means but I think he's a good fit for us, and until we start showing more ambition in the transfer market this is our level. To all those who want Ralph out I'd say be careful what you wish for, because it absolutely can get a lot worse than this.

I didnt expect much of the same as last season, and this season is pretty similar, dont you think? Last season the apparent mitigating factor was injuries and no depth, well we haven’t had the injuries we had last season, and we have better depth, so why are we clogging along similar to last year? If you are happy about that, good for you, but dont expect everyone to be the same as you.

I dont expect to lose 0-6 to any team, particularly when the score line flattered us, and could have been a new record, which is going something considering the two heaviest defeats are under Ralph.

Im not even wanting Ralph gone, I think he should have another summer to get some players, to lose some players (albeit some he wanted - in giving Shane a new contract, Theo a new contract, Ralph brought Djennepo also), and I’m excited for the summer window. But after 10 games i hope we are doing well, otherwise i think the owners may think about a change.

And yes, maybe we will be worse under Ralph, I dont see why as I think he is performing pretty average, and bollocks to net spend as that is only half the story, we have a team of pretty good players. If Ralph is average, why would we worry about replacing him. You never know, someone else could do a better job. No one knows for sure, just think the jury is out on Ralph more than this time last year.

[Billy the Kidd]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

He really doesn't have anyone capable. Davis and Watson are both goalkeepers, Fleming was brought in as an academy coach but has somehow got himself a first team role and Kitzbichler is more an analyst than a coach so he doesn't really have anyone able to help him. Personally i'd like to see us add some experience and quality to the back room staff during the summer as i dont think any other premier league club would have a set up as weak as we do.

But why is ours so weak as a back room team - isn’t this up to Ralph to identify this and make the change? I always thought he liked it this way.

Maybe under new owners and stuff we will address this soon, I also think it could be part of the problem, surely Ralph could do with some fresh ideas and someone to challenge his thinking, as this helps us improve.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

Interview questions:

Do you know every word of the playbook?

Isn't it the best thing put into print?

Would you consider contradicting anything in the playbook?

Yes, yes and no. Well done Kelvin. Welcome to the coaching team. 😊

[Turkish]

Last season we didn’t conceded 5 or more in a game, 2016/17, under boring old Claude Puel who sent you all to sleep. At least none of you nodded off on Saturday, right 

[Dman]

20 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Last season we didn’t conceded 5 or more in a game, 2016/17, under boring old Claude Puel who sent you all to sleep. At least none of you nodded off on Saturday, right 

Those claiming we shouldn’t sack Ralph are the same ones who were calling for Puel’s head. 
 

He faced the same restraints as golden boy Ralph’s arguably even worse given the players we lost that summer, finished 8th got to a cup final and yet was hounded out. 
 

his 1 season here was far more successful than any of Ralph’s 3.

[aintforever]

The Puel episode is a perfect example of why we shouldn't sack a manager unless we have to, I remember people then saying we could get better and we ended up almost going down. 

Edited 11 April, 2022 by aintforever

[farawaysaint]

2 minutes ago, aintforever said:

The Puel episode is a perfect example of why we shouldn't sack a manager unless we have to, I remember people then saying we could get better and we ended up almost going down. 

They said the same (including me) for Hughes…

That said I’m never one who likes change for the sake of change and I still really like Ralph current crap run notwithstanding.

 

 

[Dan Johnson]

I think Ralphs done a good job to be honest and I'd like him to stay, he's been limited by our lack of spend while trying to get rid of transfer flops over the last few summers, which makes the job even more impressive to be honest, it will be interesting to see how this summer goes.

We've lost 11 games this season, which is the same as West Ham who are having a great season. It's 1 more than Arsenal and Tottenham, 2 Less than Wolves and 6 Less than Villa, all of whom are above us. We've competed in every game we've played this season, except perhaps Villa Away and Chelsea at home. 

We've drawn 13, if we'd have scored just 7 more goals we'd be up challenging for top 4, Seven goals off challenging for top four... I'd take that any season.

The problem we have, some of our best performers can have a dip in form and we don't have the competition for places to pull them out. If Salisu, Broja, KWP, Romeu, JWP form dip our quality\strength is significantly weakened. For a club of our size that's something we have to live with, if they all performed at their best week in week out we wouldn't be able to hold on to them anyway, they'd be playing for bigger clubs.

 

[stevy777_x]

41 minutes ago, farawaysaint said:

They said the same (including me) for Hughes…

That said I’m never one who likes change for the sake of change and I still really like Ralph current crap run notwithstanding.

 

 

Never get too high when we are on a winning run and never get too low when we are on a losing run

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

Those claiming we shouldn’t sack Ralph are the same ones who were calling for Puel’s head. 
 

He faced the same restraints as golden boy Ralph’s arguably even worse given the players we lost that summer, finished 8th got to a cup final and yet was hounded out. 
 

his 1 season here was far more successful than any of Ralph’s 3.

No I’m not.

No it wasn’t. Unless you count success as sending everybody off to sleep and driving all your customers away.

[Whitey Grandad]

52 minutes ago, aintforever said:

The Puel episode is a perfect example of why we shouldn't sack a manager unless we have to, I remember people then saying we could get better and we ended up almost going down. 

He should never have been appointed. Dreadful anti-football. I’d rather watch my toenails grow.

Edited 11 April, 2022 by Whitey Grandad

[egg]

7 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

No I’m not.

No it wasn’t. Unless you count success as sending everybody off to sleep and driving all your customers away.

I didn't want Puel to go, but wouldn't have him back. That said, I'd have preferred to see a Puel organised team out there on Saturday than the shambles that we saw. There'd have been some fight and less goals. 

[LuckyNumber7]

2 hours ago, Billy the Kidd said:

I didnt expect much of the same as last season, and this season is pretty similar, dont you think? Last season the apparent mitigating factor was injuries and no depth, well we haven’t had the injuries we had last season, and we have better depth, so why are we clogging along similar to last year? If you are happy about that, good for you, but dont expect everyone to be the same as you.

I dont expect to lose 0-6 to any team, particularly when the score line flattered us, and could have been a new record, which is going something considering the two heaviest defeats are under Ralph.

Im not even wanting Ralph gone, I think he should have another summer to get some players, to lose some players (albeit some he wanted - in giving Shane a new contract, Theo a new contract, Ralph brought Djennepo also), and I’m excited for the summer window. But after 10 games i hope we are doing well, otherwise i think the owners may think about a change.

And yes, maybe we will be worse under Ralph, I dont see why as I think he is performing pretty average, and bollocks to net spend as that is only half the story, we have a team of pretty good players. If Ralph is average, why would we worry about replacing him. You never know, someone else could do a better job. No one knows for sure, just think the jury is out on Ralph more than this time last year.

I agree as a whole this season is very similar, think I heard we're on the same points tally as at this stage last season. Quite clearly last season we over achieved in the first half and under achieved in the second half of the season, in large part due to the injuries. This season it's been a bit more evenly spread although still streaky.

Of course I'd love us to be challenging for europe but I just don't think it's realistic to expect that given our financial constraints. We do have some good players but we also have an awful lot of crud still. No I'm not happy about losing 0-6 but it can happen even to the top teams in this division, whilst it's a concern I prefer to judge Ralph on his whole tenure rather than a few games in isolation.

Tbh I think we should wait and see where we are come the end of the season. If we finish 17th I will most likely be wanting a change as well. But we have just as much chance of finishing in the top 10 which would be a good season surely. Our form will return at some point, let's see how it pans out.

[Billy the Kidd]

14 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

I agree as a whole this season is very similar, think I heard we're on the same points tally as at this stage last season. Quite clearly last season we over achieved in the first half and under achieved in the second half of the season, in large part due to the injuries. This season it's been a bit more evenly spread although still streaky.

Of course I'd love us to be challenging for europe but I just don't think it's realistic to expect that given our financial constraints. We do have some good players but we also have an awful lot of crud still. No I'm not happy about losing 0-6 but it can happen even to the top teams in this division, whilst it's a concern I prefer to judge Ralph on his whole tenure rather than a few games in isolation.

Tbh I think we should wait and see where we are come the end of the season. If we finish 17th I will most likely be wanting a change as well. But we have just as much chance of finishing in the top 10 which would be a good season surely. Our form will return at some point, let's see how it pans out.

Yeah i agree with that and dont think we are far apart from our views on this. 

To be clear, i dont think we should be challenging Europe either, and let’s see what the summer window brings. I do feel though that some of the results under Ralph are not isolated, as in losing heavily happens each season, and i mean heavily in terms of score line and just how bad we play on such occasions. But whilst we also go on good runs, which we are a joy to watch, we also serve up on the bad runs games like Watford at home, Newcastle at home and could list others across the last 3 years, where i think many other similar level managers would have tried to make us hard to beat, and something just doesn’t seem to click with Ralph to be able to do that. 

I’ve no idea why he cant, but something at these times seems pretty off, and I’m hoping he stops the rot pretty quick (I’m not anticipating anything better than a draw, and fear another fairly large loss v Arsenal), but soon after he needs to pick something up, as our bad runs with Ralph could see us going into next season on a bad run, and id fear for him in this situation. Like you suggest, if we finish 17th, I’m not sure our Board would accept it.

[Chez]

On 10/04/2022 at 12:22, TWar said:

Talk of being more active in the market, being able to break our £15m cap on transfer fees, talk of being able to do what we already do but better, and the fact we seem to be freezing out players who in previous seasons likely would just be offered new contracts. Will have to wait and see as nothing is guaranteed till it happens but I can see us spending a decent amount this summer.

we've given McCarthy a new contract. Is that not like previous seasons? The only other out of contract player is Long. What odds he gets another contract?

Are the three dropped players being completely frozen out? Redmond and Walcott were both on the bench on Saturday.  Even of they are, we would still need to find suitors. Realistically, who is going to sign Walcott? I can't see Djenepo having a big market. Redmond is a bigger brand.

Have we said we will be more active? I thought the only difference now was that there will be cash flow available that allows us to spend first, then recoup that spend after. I don't recall there being any indication that the spend will be higher. Pretty sure the opposite has been suggested - no real change.

£90m debt and a £10m a year cost of debt, rising each year, means we will have less to spend, although we are one position better off currently, so that ought to balance that out, plus the increase in match day income should help balance the books. Three year losses totalling £140m obviously can't continue and won't. 

Importantly, we sold Ings and Jan in the last summer window, helping to fund transfers. Is there money left over or if not, who is being sold this year to fund transfers?

[TWar]

38 minutes ago, Chez said:

we've given McCarthy a new contract. Is that not like previous seasons? The only other out of contract player is Long. What odds he gets another contract?

Are the three dropped players being completely frozen out? Redmond and Walcott were both on the bench on Saturday.  Even of they are, we would still need to find suitors. Realistically, who is going to sign Walcott? I can't see Djenepo having a big market. Redmond is a bigger brand.

Have we said we will be more active? I thought the only difference now was that there will be cash flow available that allows us to spend first, then recoup that spend after. I don't recall there being any indication that the spend will be higher. Pretty sure the opposite has been suggested - no real change.

£90m debt and a £10m a year cost of debt, rising each year, means we will have less to spend, although we are one position better off currently, so that ought to balance that out, plus the increase in match day income should help balance the books. Three year losses totalling £140m obviously can't continue and won't. 

Importantly, we sold Ings and Jan in the last summer window, helping to fund transfers. Is there money left over or if not, who is being sold this year to fund transfers?

We gave McCarthy a new contract 6 months before the takeover to be fair.

Redmond and Walcott, yeah they sat on the bench as an option but have fallen behind smallbone. I imagine redmond will be off to a promoted side or similar level and Walcott will run out his contract as a 5th choice striker and 5th choice 10.

Regarding the debt, I dunno what's going on with it but the club said it shouldn't effect transfers.

I'm not sure we'll have more spending money but am personally optimistic 

Edited 11 April, 2022 by TWar

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, egg said:

I didn't want Puel to go, but wouldn't have him back. That said, I'd have preferred to see a Puel organised team out there on Saturday than the shambles that we saw. There'd have been some fight and less goals. 

But then we’d have nothing to talk about

[DT]

He’s still here then. So that sort of result is fine. Jeez. Reading Che’s comments they are so blasé.  Oh they finished their chances and we didn’t. I swear everyone at the club is shiteblind

[Toussaint]

7 minutes ago, DT said:

He’s still here then. So that sort of result is fine. Jeez. Reading Che’s comments they are so blasé.  Oh they finished their chances and we didn’t. I swear everyone at the club is shiteblind

Can’t remember us having many chances, one good chance Che missed, so if we’d taken all chances and they theirs it would have been 11 2 or the like, hardly a consolation 

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, Toussaint said:

Can’t remember us having many chances, one good chance Che missed, so if we’d taken all chances and they theirs it would have been 11 2 or the like, hardly a consolation 

but but but, XG, something, something, something, no one ever concedes that many, but XG, XG, but XG.

[Toussaint]

2 minutes ago, Turkish said:

but but but, XG, something, something, something, no one ever concedes that many, but XG, XG, but XG.

True, I also forgot the points and results smoothing formula which when applied shows we are over performing and should consider ourselves very fortunate to have the professor of turd polishing as our manager. Silly old dinosaur I am!

[Turkish]

If we can somehow scrap 4 more wins from somewhere across our last 7 games we are on course to match our total wins during the boring old Claudes season of 16/17. Still need 4 more goals though. For those that love a stat, boring old Claude who set us all to sleep we had 550 shots at goal during his season, last season under Super Ralph we had 424. 

Edited 12 April, 2022 by Turkish

[MAY-Z]

39 minutes ago, Turkish said:

If we can somehow scrap 4 more wins from somewhere across our last 7 games we are on course to match our total wins during the boring old Claudes season of 16/17. Still need 4 more goals though. For those that love a stat, boring old Claude who set us all to sleep we had 550 shots at goal during his season, last season under Super Ralph we had 424. 

Now now

 

these things aren’t comparable as Puel had the advantage of being able to play Forster in goal, Long upfront, Stephens at CB, and Redmond upfront, then he had the luxury of Cedric at RB.

 

on a serious note though, people keep saying how bad our current squad is and it’s a miracle we have any points at all, looking at our 2016/17 squad once VVD was sold, I don’t know how many players in that squad would get into a combined team

[DT]

1 hour ago, Toussaint said:

Can’t remember us having many chances, one good chance Che missed, so if we’d taken all chances and they theirs it would have been 11 2 or the like, hardly a consolation 

Exactly. Nauseatingly blind to the problems. Swallowed whole. I guess he's like his manager

[Charlie Wayman]

It may be time for a change. When we are good, we are not very good but when we are bad we are awful.

The buck stops with Ralph, his playbook may well suit kids but PL football is an adult's game.

It seems he is starting to believe his own bullish*t which is never a good sign.

Edited 12 April, 2022 by Charlie Wayman

[Holmes_and_Watson]

6 hours ago, Turkish said:

For those that love a stat, boring old Claude who set us all to sleep we had 550 shots at goal during his season, last season under Super Ralph we had 424. 

Yeah, but because it was Claude's team, all of those *must* have been random  efforts from within our own box, which apparently where the team lived. Super Ralph has embraced xG, so although there are fewer shots, they are of a higher quality. 🙂