Match Day Thread Saints v Burnley, Saturday 23rd October, 3pm

Weirdly he did exactly the same last week, injured himself scoring a goal then hobbled around for about 20 mins before being brought off - actually needed support to move about after the game. Was quite surprised to see he was fit today.

 

Theo is nowhere near the player that broke through into the Saints team as a teenager when he relied on a blistering turn of pace to get beyond defenders. He has never been blessed with the best football brain and often chooses wrong options in promising positions.
It appears that he is getting game time to justify his salary but to be honest he hasn't pulled up any trees in the PL for a long time.

 

He was one of our best players in the purple patch first half of last season and mostly absent for the dire capitulation, but he hasn’t been the same since his injury, so far.

 

I was sat behind the goal, and I sort of agree. But he shouldn’t have been forced to try and make that save in the first place; the goal was entirely down to the standard Saints CB blunder, from Bednarek this time I think?

Tbf to Cornet, he took his chance well.

 

I'm admittedly a big Theo fan, but he is not a starter. He's an impact sub, I strongly disagree though with those who suggest he should have been subbed at half time. I was looking at Ralph in hope around 24 minutes....

My problem, and the reason I thought this game was ugly, is that I think we have a really good team this season. Had we played football on the ground then we would have easily won but head tennis plays right into Burnley's hands. I thought after 10 minutes we would struggle. Diallo was nowhere near his level last week. Perraud and Redmond (who otherwise had a decent game) delivered pathetic crosses and set pieces. I lost count of Salisu's misplaced passes and Cornet and Wood pretty much owned our centre backs. The best players by a country mile were Ely, Tino and Broja.

No criticism, on Ralph - the players let him down. OK, Stuey could have replaced Walcott earlier but Che and Adam Armstrong had little impact. Che was introduced simply because Broja was struggling and Adam came on just to make sure we ran down the clock and did not concede a late goal.

We lacked courage in front of goal today and for me that means we missed Adam Armstrong who shoots on sight. Let's move Redders out wide and pair Armstrong with Broja next week. Oh, and whoever said we did not miss JWP last week: think again...!

 

Which makes it all the more worrying Ralph wanted to sign him.

I’m not saying Ralph should go btw, but I’m not sure he will be here in a couple or three weeks. We beat a poor Leeds, and whilst we played well, it is the complete inconsistency that is doing it for me with Ralph, so frustrating.

Burnley were there for the taking today, and whilst it could have been worse, it could have been better.

 

You think that's bad? Check out the main Everton forum tonight. **** me they're a little bit cross

8th place and 14 points and their toys are right out of the pram. Imagine being ****ed off with that sort of season already!

 

The voices wanting rid of him are getting louder, he won't be sacked though, the club haven't got the bottle.

 

It was always going to be the odd bad result that saw them getting discontented with the old LFC fat Spanish waiter.

 

Their fans are absolutely odious tbh, worse than Liverpool - they have the same high opinion of themselves, but with absolutely nothing to back it up.

Won’t forget their utterly pathetic forum raids when Koeman left us for them.

 

I genuinely think it's a Toss up between them and the geordies for the accolade of most entitled fans in the Prem. Rafa is a top manager

 

I think we are a long way off of sacking form tbh.

It hasn’t been a great start, but it has been reasonably acceptable.

Clear improvements have been made.

With Saints the question in my mind is always could someone do better with this squad? I can’t think of a single manager who is in our realistic range that could improve us at the moment. Even if Ralph can be somewhat frustrating at times.

 

I think for the majority of fans, there is very little good will left in the tank for Ralph after the second half of last season. He needs to start putting some decent results together or I can see St Mary’s becoming quite toxic. This is his team now so I don't think there are any excuses left

 

He is probably the hardest manager to judge in Saints history.

Originally he came in when we were at a real low and turned an absolutely awful squad into something capable of survival.

Last season he managed both the best run and the worst run of form in Saints PL history.

I would say whilst we haven’t been spectacular so far this season, we have definitely been acceptable with some pretty good performances, current results aren’t grounds for sacking.

Although he probably can’t afford another poor run.

 

My feelings on RH are well known, as a Saints fan I want us to do well, of course I do. But I'm hoping his days are nearly done. I don't think this seasons results are good enough to be honest (1 win from 9) and we're not particularly enjoyable to watch. I appreciate that I'm very much in the minority here though.

 

People really need to stop looking back. Does no one any good at all. I've been reasonably pleased by what I've seen this season. We're much harder to beat and I'm not concerned about the number of draws. We're going to turn more of those draws into wins - we've been the team on top for most of those draws, just need to be more clinical. Which is where Broja comes in. He's getting better and better by the day. Quality finish today - very Ings like finish. He's also quick and a handful in the air. I wish Ralph would try Tino in front of KWP - if it doesn't work fair enough but Tino's strength is his attacking game. Now Stuey is coming back I think we could go on a really good run like we did in the first half of last season.

 

I believe Mick McCarthy is available

 

Has he lost 9-0 twice?

 

It's not all down to JWP obviously, but our tempo in possession has been noticeably higher the past two matches. As it needs to be...if we're going to waste chances (and good golly do we like to waste chances) then we need to generate a lot of them.

 

FFS give over. Ralph is not going to be sacked. He fits our business model perfectly.