12 Dec 2021 12:41:21
Arsenal match : new goalkeeper was awful, but let's be fair, he has only trained for a while and not played.
The defence : awful, poor marking, poor tracking of opponent, poor positional play.
Arsenals first goal was from a great breakaway. All it needed was for their three breaking players to back off and it created a huge space, and three unmarked players, for the cross! We stayed in a lovely line which was marking no one!

But this leads once again to Ralph's selections. Lyanco is a superb player. Very skilful, aggressive, good with his feet and head, reads the game well. Stephens come back from injury, straight back into the team.

Prowse suspended. comes straight back in team .

We will see the same with Romeu .

Playing KWP at left back . yes he looked good yesterday but we are not winning! We are throwing points away . play Perraud

Tino is looking absolutely exhausted at right back. Never played a PL game and has now played every game - he needs a rest. Again we are not winning, we are losing points .

Ralph seems to have no idea what to do.
KWP left back - is he playing left back because he wants kwp on the pitch regardless.
We know he sticks to his Romeu / JWP partnership
We know he sticks with McCarthy
We know he sticks with Bednerek
Are we know going to see Stephens ahead of
Lyanco?

But it's not working! Try something different Ralph . and I don't mean three up front versus Liverpool!

Break up the JWP partnership, have more dynamism in midfield .

Try (assuming available)

KWP Lyanco Salisu Perraud

Romeu

Tino S.Armstrong Diallo Ely Tella Redmond

(Any four from these 6 makes midfield faster and much more dynamic)

Adams Broja

1.) 12 Dec 2021
12 Dec 2021 22:07:37
Despite listing a 14 man starting squad I still think we’d struggle against most teams!

But mostly agree here. We need a new keeper. Get Johnstone for £15m. Our defence is, for once, fine. But they need better coaching. KWP, Lyanco, Salisu, Perraud. Backups of Bednarek, Stephens, and another full back we need to buy, or bring through the academy.

Tino will be good at RM. Stu is incredibly important for us but we need to get him off the physio’s table. Diallo will be a good player. JWP we need to get rid of. ElYounoussi, Redmond, Tella, are good as backups and off the bench players, but we lack a genuinely good natural wide player. Stu may even be best used as a CAM.

But the forwards are an issue. Armstrong does seem to look like a waste of money. Broja is excellent but we won’t get him on a permanent. Che is not yet a 15+ a season player, but will hopefully continue to improve.

That’s GK, FB, CM, AM, ST needed to improve the first XI. We are playing squad players in our regular first side, when they should be rolled out for the cup games.

The problem? We might get £30m if Newcastle come in for JWP. No-one else is really worth anything. So where are we going to improve this squad with zero investment? If it doesn’t come, Ralph is out of ideas with this squad.

And the key problem, as it has been for a long time, is no-one is scared of playing against us. No-one is looking at ‘Southampton (A)’ and thinking ‘that’ll be tough’. Just invite the press, back yourself to play through it, and score and you’ve won. Or get to HT within one and know that we’ll collapse.

I don’t know that changing Ralph is the answer. If Nuno would come to us, he would at least get us organised, and has experience with a small squad in the PL. But no-one can do much whilst teams like Newcastle, Villa, Brentford, Watford, Palace, Brighton are spending £50m+ every summer window whilst we have to sell to buy.

It’s stupid. We need an owner who will help and not hinder us. But it has been coming, and I do think that if injuries don’t improve, we will probably be in the bottom 3 come January and will do very, very well to get out of it come May.

2.) 13 Dec 2021
13 Dec 2021 00:43:21
You’d on the money GGsy/Rich but unfortunately nothing will be heeded.Following unacceptable results several Premiership Clubs decided to dispense with their Managers’ (recognising the tightening League positions)and replace to pursue achievement and stability in the EPL.With Ralph’s failure to blend together a settled team in almost 5MONTHS it begs the question: HOW DOES RALPH HASSENHUTTL NOW RANK AGAINST HIS CURRENT FELLOW MANAGEMENT PEERS IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE AT THIS TIME?—-19th/20th? IF He fails to perform his HOUDINI ACT and AVOID RELEGATION then CAPTAIN RALPH must take FULL RESPONSIBILITY and made to accompany his sinking crew to the Championship LEAGUE for one Season after which he will receive hisDISCHARGE PAPERS!

3.) 13 Dec 2021
13 Dec 2021 10:57:09
The two concerns I have about the squad I have raised previously - that we don't have any real star players that will keep us ticking along when times are hard or results tough. No-one to dig us out of a hole.

Secondly, where are the goals going to come from. Its always a gamble bringing a player up from the Championship because so often, they work out as Che has. Its early days for Armstrong still and perhaps premature to judge, but when you consider an attacking line-up with the likes of Armstrong, Adams, Walcott, Tella, Djneppo, Redmond, Moi, S.Armstrong, Broja, it leaves a lot to be desired. Armstrong may near double figures if he can have a good run, Broja too but the others? Adams will have had a great season if he reaches double figures in the league. The other attacking players simply do not do enough or are not good enough to provide the sort of return that we need.

You can lay the blame at the manager's door all you like but we consistently have long spells of dominance and attacking play in matches and we simply cannot score. The system is functioning better this season than last. There have already been several games where we took a narrow lead but failed to hang on, but if we had scored more when in the ascendency, the result may well have been different. Arsenal was the latest example of the team being on top for a good spell but failing to get the ball in the goal.

There are a couple of things that could be remedied by the coaches. Firstly, in the current system, there needs to be more fluidity and penetration from the front 4. We have plenty of shots in matches and work the opposition goalkeepers but more often than not, they are shots to nothing from a tight angle or from outside the box where the likelihood of scoring is lower. We need to find a way to work the ball in behind the opponents defensive line to cross or cutback from wide positions accurately, or play through balls to forwards in central positions so we have more shots from in side the box without a line of defenders between the striker and the goal. But that will also rely on the front 4 being quite fluid in their positions to make runs from deep harder to track etc.

Secondly, I find it unbelievable that after the success against Leicester from variations in set pieces, in the games since we have reverted to JWP swinging the ball in every single time. The result was the same as it was before Leicester. Harmless and easy to defend. If goals are in such short supply because our attacking players are low on quality, then we need to find goals from elsewhere and set pieces is the most obvious back-up option.

But beyond that, as I have stated in the past, we must accept that our team is low on quality at the moment in attack. This makes it much harder to win games but without funds to bring new players in, I'm not sure there is an easy solution. There is no-one in the youth set up or B team that is challenging for a chance. We have seen two of our better options leave the field injured on Saturday. So we must also temper our expectations to match the reality of a light squad made lighter still in attack by these injuries.

These injuries have arrived at the worst possible time with Palace and Brentford coming up before our game v West Ham. 2 matches v teams around us in the table where we stood a chance of getting something have now become much harder and could see us cut adrift closer to the bottom 3 than with the little group we're in now with a bit of breathing space. But then, maybe someone will step up and surprise us all. Fingers crossed.

4.) 14 Dec 2021
14 Dec 2021 21:02:15
Elfigo
Crikey!
I’d never even thought of the corners thing!
You are absolutely right! I can’t believe we have reverted back to the ‘same ol same ol’ corners, that have brought zero success.
But seriously. do you think Ralph is so fixated on certain players that he isn’t able to open his mind to changes in formations and players.

Stephens straight back into team .!Lyanco dropped . one such example!