Ralph - Stick or Twist..?

I'm going to disagree on Koeman, though. He's a good manager. Not an incredibly innovative one, but a good manager overall.

 

Koeman also had the luxury of a squad full of quality players. Tadic, Mane, VVD, among others. Genuine quality all over the pitch. But of course you totally ignore this.

 

So the performances after "project restart" do not count ? What about avoiding relegation after taking over from Hughes?

It would be interesting to look back through the aggregate of posts since Hassenhutl's appointment to see that the comments will largely have been favourable with a common theme being shackled with mediocre players he could not get rid of and the frustration amongst fans that he has not been able to recruit adequately under the auspices of Gao's regime.

The thing about all three managers who were in charge before Ralph is that no one really wanted them here. Pellegrino and Hughes were dreadful and would have taken us down. Puel was too pragmatic and the football was a pain to watch. None of these managers have produced the quality of football that Ralph has produced when everything has clicked. Can't recall any of Hughes' teams ever performing like Saints in the second half of 2020. How quickly some have forgotten that we finished 11th last season - our best position for three years with our highest points total in four.

If we start of 21/22 as we have finished this season, I would agree that Ralph has to go. However, i just feel the trend has largely been up. Some of the criticism that have been levelled is justified but I think he can only be judged on his first half season and 19/20. This year is such an anomaly that any kind of judgement needs to be forwarded with a caveat. Not beating Newcastle when they were down to 9 men was poor just as the WBA result was unacceptable. The aim for this season must be to finish above Wolves. I would like to see us finish with a flourish although I will just be grateful to get over the line.

 

What has Ralph won/done?

 

FC Ingolstadt 04[edit]
In October 2013, Hasenhüttl was appointed as coach of Ingolstadt 04,[14] replacing Marco Kurz. In his first season, he took them from bottom of the 2. Bundesliga to tenth place. In the 2014–15 season, Hasenhüttl took Ingolstadt to the Bundesliga for the first time, finishing the season as 2. Bundesliga champions. In the 2015–16 season, he was successful in securing Ingolstadt's Bundesliga survival, finishing in 11th place, but chose not to extend his contract.[15]

RB Leipzig[edit]
In May 2016, he was confirmed as the new manager of newly-promoted RB Leipzig. He took over on 1 July 2016.[16] His first match was against Dynamo Dresden in the German Cup.[17] Leipzig lost 5–4 in a shootout.[18] In his and the club's debut season in the Bundesliga Hassenhüttl guided Leipzig to a 2nd-place finish. The following season the club finished 6th with Hasenhüttl asking for his contract to be terminated as he was not comfortable acting as an interim for incoming boss Julian Nagelsmann.[19] In May 2018, Hasenhüttl left RB Leipzig.[20]

Cheers wikipedia

 

Ralph certainly benefits from the fact that he took over after the drab Pellegrino/Hughes seasons. If he had followed after Koeman, he would have gone the same way as Puel by now.

For me, while the squad is thin, the first eleven itself, is decent. A few players of England-squad quality, a long with a mix of other very good individuals (Armstrong, Vestergaard, KWP). I don't like that the players often take the blame for our poor form. We know how well they can play at times. There is a good team there, if given the right instructions.

Re; transfers. It's all well and good to complain about having no spending power, but then we bought a guy who was injured for 6 months, and a guy who was no better than the player he was replacing (Diallo - Harrison Reed). I understand that they are both players for the future, but we can't really afford that luxury.

I like Ralph because he has balls, and he has the attitude of win-one-lose-one rather than draw two. He has also proven at times that he knows how to get our team playing well. But he deserves a lot of criticism at the moment, because he isn't coming up with any answers, and we look so tired and stale.

Basically he's on thin ice as far as I'm concerned. I'd give him one more window and a target of 23 points by Christmas.

 

The Leipzig comparison is the interesting one on Ralph's previous experience as they have money and he got them into the Champs League in their first season in the Bundesliga (although I think Paul Mitchell was there at that time and he is the GOAT). If we can raise funds from selling players it would be interesting to see what he could build if given the chance.

 

Makes you wonder what Ralph could do with the team that koeman had here

 

Precisely.

 

Hurrah. More sense.

And also people seem to forget that the worst spell previous to this one was with Koeman WITH all the significantly better assets at his disposal.

 

Of course those things aren't taken into account by the Ralph-out brigade. They never are.

And I bet if I could be bothered to go through the records, I could find equally "unacceptable" results as the Newcastle and WBA games under Koeman.

We had "unacceptable" results (usually in the cups) under Pochettino too, and by anyone's reckoning, he's a top, top quality manager.

With Puel, Pellegrino and Hughes, there were players who were itching to get them out. I'd be very surprised were that the case with Ralph, as the players (and, thankfully, the board) are aware that he's a class manager.

As you say, absolutely not perfect, and there are justifiable criticisms, but he's very good (as has been shown, for the nth time, at every club he's been).

 

I remember people (including me, I hold my hands up), were screaming for Ron's head after a very poor run. I think it's a fair assumption that Lincoln Saint was one of them.

 

Well quite. As he was for Ralph pre-2020 run, then suddenly changed his tune and admitted he was wrong about him. But, hey presto, he's back on the 'Ralph is ****' brigade again.

Must be bloody painful having to do all those about-turns all the time.

 

Yes exactly that. Add his Bundesliga success with properly funded clubs which shows he's the man for the job. Where the money to move forward is going to come from is another question.

 

I’m pretty much on the fence with Ralph really. I don’t think looking at previous work is a great indicator of how good/bad a manager will do at a club. Similar to players really. Almost all of the managers/players at PL teams will have done a lot of good in their careers because, well they wouldn’t be at a PL team if they hadn’t. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will do well at a different club

 

Forster
KWP, Vest, Bed, Bert
Diallo, Romeu
JWP
Redmond, Ings, Armstrong

You could argue the above formation would be similar to our current 4-4-2 if you just put JWP wide, seeing as the wingers move inside: JWP, Diallo, Romeu, Armstrong as the midfield four might be worth a try?

I think it's time to mix up the formation though. We lack creativity. You could argue the 4-4-2 has not worked properly at all this year. Aside from the Liverpool win we've only beaten poor sides in the league who you'd expect to beat, then weakened sides in the cup.

 

I’d swap Redmond for Minamino, but otherwise I like that formation.

 

It's also entirely possible to press from such a setup. You just focus less in getting two players on the CBs, and instead funnel play into a trap where you have numbers. Both Poch and Bielsa have proven adept at generate pressure with a lone striker.

 

Yes but Minamino may not be here when Romeu returns!

 

There is that, yes!