Having had a few hours to sleep - or not - on last night, a couple of observations.
1. Jankewitz will clearly be having an awful time today, and for goodness knows how long, as a result of his very public error of judgement. I should imagine his confidence will be shot for months and I would be amazed if he is with us next season. I would only add how many of us when we were 19 didn’t do things we regretted. Yes bollock him by all means but I think he will be suffering enough within himself knowing that his career at Saints I has probably gone down the pan
2. I am beginning to wonder whether Ralph’s high pressing game isn’t part of the reason why we are in the current mess with injuries. I really love watching us play when we go forward really fast heart-in-mouth stuff but, because of the massive cramming of fixtures due to COVID and the amount our guys run around, surely it has to take a toll. Yes we can blame Gao and goodness knows who else about lack of investment but then you can look at the likes of Burnley who haven’t got two cents to rub together and they seem to be able to keep going. So it’s the old thing about (not really having) a Plan B and perhaps at the end of all this we will have to decide what sort of team we want to be. Safer, more boring but we survive and carry on, or a touch of the Balaclava’s...
3. I cannot imagine what is going through Ralph’s mind this morning. I would be amazed if he does decide to go right now but that interview after the Villa game when he said we have no money I think was an expression of, if not exactly one of hopelessness, but certainly a warning that “you reap what you sow”. And last night the whole wonderful edifice came crashing down as he was inferring it would, if rather more dramatically than he or any of us was expecting. And therefore the Board really have to sit down and decide that, if they want to keep him, they have to find some money somewhere. Otherwise we’ll be looking around, trying to find the next Mark Hughes...
4. On the Mike Dean refereeing, I was amazed - but given what happened not surprised - after the game to hear that he has given out well over 100 red cards, was it really so far this season?. So if there isn’t some sort of red card for him by the refereeing body there really is no justice.

Couldn't sleep last night after that nightmare.

I just want to forget it and as JWP has said, it is the reaction that conts.
Most important, is to get Bednarek back and then get a result against Newcastle. A win and we can start repairing the damage with the knowledge that some of our best players will be back.
A defeat and we will start once again looking for the bottom three to keep losing.

It seems to me that whilst Ralph is a progressive manager and Saints appear to be his "project" the pressing style of play does not suit a club with such a thin squad. The injuries continue to mount up and when you throw in the odd suspension then too few players are being asked to give more than their bodies can. I hope that Ralph stays and continues with his plans but, he will certainly need more support from the board if the club itself is to progress. I was so disappointed over Jankewitz' needless foul. He really does have talent and, now it may be we never get to see what he can do.

Oh well, if nothing else we certainly do it in style. Not only do we hold the record for the biggest ever home defeat in English top flight football, we are now joint holders for the biggest away humiliation also.

Where do we go from here? Short term I don’t see a problem, we will complete our fixtures and gain the few points necessary to retain our Premiership status. Long term? Well, at least yesterday evening following immediately after our dealings in the transfer window has confirmed ( yes, now surely even to you Nick ) that our business model is no longer fit for purpose.

Will the manager stay? Personally I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Simply because of with our current owners and their now proven lack of ambition there is no way that the club can compete and function successfully long term at the top level,whoever the manager is.

How does a professional team/club lose 9-0 in consecutive seasons to teams in their own league?

Unfortunately Ralph is now going to carry this around as a legacy for the rest of his time at Saints, as well as probably the rest of his career, whereas the majority of us know where the real problem is, and yet there are still people out there that thinks our owner has done, or and is doing, a good job with OUR club....

As for Jankewitz, I would suggest he, or and his representatives, should keep their mouths shut because if that’s what he’s got to offer then we’ll manage without thank you very much!

It saddens me to say that we must have the poorest team by far in the premiership. That is mainly because of injuries and now the red cards. I think that once we get our 'A' team together it will take a while before they perform as well as they did ,and they may not play well again. Every team in the league would fancy putting a hatful of goals in against this weakened team, and weaker still with the red cards.
I wonder what Minamino thinks about joining our club now and Salisu will be hiding in the shadows. Valery and Long may not have played or influenced this result but I bet they are glad to be out of this mess.
Ralph looked a broken man post this pounding, I'm sure he will give everything to improve our performances but with our depleted team we are going to be thrashed for a month and by then we will asking where the next points are going to come from and looking over our shoulders.
Bournemouth have just sacked their manager, will RH walk away or follow suit?

Much has been said about the obvious decisions, that said was it just me who thought Man U's 5th was offside AND handball?

It doesnt change the result in terms of points, but it changes the course of the game, decisions made and goal difference.

Seriously falling out of love with Football

PS. Djenepo was woeful last night, gave Ramsey an even harder night.

A severely depleted team, who are tired out due to lack of rest time, containing players nowhere near ready for the PL & a man down inside 77 seconds.
It was difficult to cover the weaknesses we had with 11 & almost impossible with 10.
Ramsey at RB needed help & Djenepo is not defensively minded, Utd attacked that weakness. Ings is not a left sided midfielder Utd attacked that weakness. The problem was wherever we had moved an experienced player from, would have created a weakness & Utd had the intelligence to exploit it.
We play an extremely taxing style of football physically and have a thin squad, which under normal circumstances could cope.The recovery equipment at Staplewood is out of bounds, due to covid, which, due to the items mentioned above, punishes us badly.
A very inexperienced young player made a massive mistake and is probably feeling much worse than any of us right now & in reality we lost 3 points.
I think we are safe this season, always an important part of being a Saints fan and until we get back to a full squad will suffer. We will live to fight another day!
I am unable to mention Dean without resorting to a foul mouthed tirade, hopefully be will get his comeuppance!

This thing about 'recovery equipment' presumably applies to all teams? I fear halftimeorange is right about Ralph's way and a thin squad not being a perfect match.

Two disastrous 9-0 defeats in successive seasons is just too much of a coincidence for there not to be some common factors underlying these results and, self evidently, those factors have not been addressed.

I want to make it clear that like most supporters I strongly approve of what Ralf has done for this club, relatively successfully, since his arrival. You might care to remember the three managers who immediately proceeded him and they were uniformly hopeless.

But you may also remember that Koeman was considerably more capable than the three who followed him and quite a few others who had gone before. But the reason that we lost Koeman so early was exaxactly the same reason as we may well lose Ralf now...that we display a recurrent inclination to demonstrate to good managers that we as a club do not sufficiently support their plans for hoisting Saints, at least into the top half of the table, because that will involve some greater measure of investment in the squad. It's hardly surprising that capable and ambitious managers lose heart and go on elsewhere to advance their careers

We have to recognise that losing a very good manager is far more destructive of our stability, consistency, rhythm and development than losing a top class player for large sums of money (although we often don't re-invest it all that well )

It's clear in my mind that Ralf said at the end of his first part season with us that he preferred to work with a smaller squad of first team regulars and to give young players more chances to compete for first team players. Did he really mean that or did he say that because it was in fact the parameters that he had been told he would have to work within? I thought at the time that he was rather naive to think that a) he would be unable to improve the skills of some of the players he inherited (and he has proved me wrong in that, thankfully) b) that he probably overestimated the talent in the academy ranks (still to be determined) and c) perhaps most significantly, that he seriously underestimated the grinding relentless pressure of the PL fixture list and the competitive, physical stress placed on the fitness of a small squad of players. At that time I had not anticipated the extent to which he would put pressure on his limited playing resources by adopting what has now become our trade mark pressing game...so effective when we have our first choice 11 on the pitch, so exhausting when the unique circumstances of Covid entail such a condensed fixture list week in week out that players have little opportunity to recover their energies, let alone overcome the inevitable injuries in such constricted timescales.

So in some respects I think Ralf has misjudged the situation. On the other hand it may be that when he said this, c18 mths ago, he was simply making a virtue of a predicament forced upon him by the higher management, working to Gao's policy of "sell first and then replace more cheaply" by gambling on unproven talent that may occasionally blossom, but often seems to have disappointing outcomes.

I no longer know whether Ralf has all that much say in the selection of transfer targets; but it is clear that some of our recent recruits look to have been good eg. Ings, Armstrong, KWP, Diallo while others who shall remain nameless do not seem to have reproduced the form (or goals) which we anticipated And some of our purchases/ loanees do not very convincingly seem to be chosen with a clear view of what problem they are being recruited to solve.

I do not see much point in banging on about referees, VAR, the effect of Covid guidance on our Physio facilities etc. But I do think that the wholesale movement of players out on loan over the last week (and in particular the despatch of the only two reserve full backs with any first team experience seems suicidal (tho' I did think Ramsay made a reasonably good job of being handed a really tough assignment without any significant help/guidance from other members of the team.)

Bu why did this happen? I can't believe that this was Ralf decision, so I have to assume that it was forced upon him , as he intimated during the week, as an expeditious means of reducing the wage bill in the short term.

If this is so then we have probably damaged or lost his commitment to the role and we can as like as not expect to see him resign (on principle) at the end of the season or be prised away from our approving gaze by bigger bucks and a club that know where it is going. And we will be back where we left off with Koeman's departure and that means grubbing around in the lower reaches of the PL with mediocre management like Puel, Pellegrino and Hughes...assuming that we can reverse the slide down the table asap

Couldn't agree more, a great summation of the situation.
This isn't the same as the LC game.
Bad decisions and very poor rules application, along with the huge injury list, caused the result.

As for those throwing their toys out the pram about the transfer window and Gao.
Just look at how much business was done by any other club.
A total of 70m compared to 230m last year all told.
Most of it loan deals.

A certain section of our fan base need to grow up and smell the coffee.
To be honest I think part of the improved Saints lockdown results at home, is down to the absence of those doom and gloom, so called fans.

The biggest shock last night was that I wasn't particularly shocked.

After about 10 minutes I said to my lad this could be another 9-0.

I hope Jankewitz develops into a great player. Unfortunately young players make mistakes. It wasn't his fault that the team capitulated in such an embarrassing fashion. However I hope this experience provides a lesson for him.

Similarly VAR was at its random best. However Cavani's non penalty was a very close call so to my mind we should factor that in before screaming too loudly.

Certainly someone needs to take a look at Dean and his refereeing. I hope the FA see sense and rescind Bednarek's and Luis's suspensions. The law is wrong if not tackling is penalised more severely than making deliberate contact.

Injuries and loans deprived Saints of all our experienced defensive cover and the club gambled that we didn't need anyone to be brought in to give cover in defence for a very short period. Sometimes gambles don't pay off.

On reflection I think we should have scaled back on the high press system once we lost several players. As Liverpool used to find the injuries mount up this time of year. Certainly this year it seems a bit foolhardy to keep playing such an intensive style week in week out particularly when some of the recovery facilities are unavailable due to the COVID restrictions. I think there are times to play the 'Puel' system, sit back and look for a counter, a season is a marathon not a sprint.

I don't feel as shell shocked as I did after the Leicester Nine as we came back well after that. Though given our resources the next few games are going to be tricky.

Positives - Ramsay looked good, Djenepo did a good job in the second half and MU didn't get into double figures.

COYR

For me its not just about who the chairman, board or manager is.
Its about who is resposible fro the time of the first whistle. Why put any players out on loan when we are so short of back ups is beyond me. Why can't we recall players. who are out on loan? Football teams are ruined by money deals and bad business men. When managers are employed they should be so on the understanding that they have a non negotiable/ non dismissal clause. for 3 years. Once again we are the laughing stock of the footballing world. If RH doesn't survive this it will be another shite manager that takes us down. Same old same old.. VAR should be scrapped once and for all andreferees should be made to be more accountable for their incompetance. Face reality peeps, we don't march on and we will never be anymore than a mid table championship club with players to match. There must be a reason why Che Adams is not scoring goals for fun like he was at Birmingham and why Ings isn't the prolific player like Rickie was.

Ralph has to take the blame here. We do not vary our formation for the opposition and he does not tactically react during the game. Which results in playing square pegs in round holes and wondering why things go wrong... Djenpro at RB. Diallo at LB. Ings left midfield. The last two lead to goals conceded. Playing from the back whilst being pressed against Arsenal, conceding a goal and not changing it.
Yes the squad is thin but let’s not forget 5 prem teams didn’t sign a player in Jan. whilst Vokins and Valery may be fringe players they would be needed in our next game and played against Arsenal and didn’t do that bad. So why let them go?!
In the last 9 league games we have won once, scored 3 and conceded 17. But watch us play the same formation and tactics in the next game.

Nick, as, if and when we meet up I can assure you i shall rebutt your insane defence of Gao..as for kat"*ç%&/

Can I just make the point that according to talk sport Alex Jankewitz has been racially abused because of his sending off and the consequences it caused last night. And this by a section of so called Saints fans. This is our player and he shouldn't be subjected to such vile abuse. You hear about it happening at other clubs but I've never heard of it at Saints. Nick, if you read this post, can you run a thread and condemn these disgusting individuals.

Can I just make the point that according to talk sport Alex Jankewitz has been racially abused because of his sending off and the consequences it caused last night. And this by a section of so called Saints fans. This is our player and he shouldn't be subjected to such vile abuse. You hear about it happening at other clubs but I've never heard of it at Saints. Nick, if you read this post, can you run a thread and condemn these disgusting individuals.

Firstly to Elijah K .. Not to be too "finicky", but Jankewicz is actually from SWITZERLAND not SWEDEN. They are the country in central Europe between Germany, Italy and France who have all the Nazi money in their banks. Sweden is up in the frozen north.

Now onto the game. I don't want to repeat my opinion of referee Dean, which I wrote on the other thread, and which some others have posted with even better comments.

Even if injury-free, our best starting XI would have been glad to come away with one point from this fixture, and given the fit players available Ralph probably chose the side by putting all their names into a hat just before kick-off.
Aside from the obvious catastrophe of losing a player inside the first two minutes, I think the club had overlooked a few key issues. Jankewicz must have some talent for us to bring him in from SWITZERLAND (2018) and put him through the Academy, but someone must have missed telling Ralph ...that the lad has " a bit of a disciplinary problem"that should not have been ignored. He is no stranger to cautions and last night was not the first red card in his Saints career. In 11 " B team" starts this season he had already picked up one red and 5 yellow cards, and through ambition or arrogance had convinced himself he was worth a place in the Prem. side and having failed to do so, even demanded a transfer to force the club to take notice. Well... he got his wish.
Having got the nod for a game of this magnitude, he wanted to show the manager what he is capable of, and in one respect he has succeeded. Either through bad judgement, nerves or just pure carelessness he has contributed to even more unwanted media attention and caused embarrassment to both the manager and his employers.

Red card bans cover three games and so he will be "unavailable " until early March, and then what ? Should he be considered for future selection again this season ...or will he want the move he so forcibly threatened the club with ? Unlike his clubmates , he will not be " tainted " with the 0-9 result, as he wasn't a part of it - after the first 80 seconds.
Someone needs to forcibly point out to him that this is not "schoolboy football " but the biggest league in the World, and he has already made his mark in it.

As for the game, bad luck doesn't describe the eventual outcome and even Adams´ consolation goal was ruled out by millimeters, and a ridiculous second red card when in fact Martial should have been booked for " diving ". Plaudits are deserved for those players who showed character and gallantly tried to create attacks - despite being 6-0 down . They will not forget this match and neither should the fans.

Firstly to Elijah K .. Not to be too "finicky", but Jankewicz is actually from SWITZERLAND not SWEDEN. They are the country in central Europe between Germany, Italy and France who have all the Nazi money in their banks. Sweden is up in the frozen north.

Now onto the game. I don't want to repeat my opinion of referee Dean, which I wrote on the other thread, and which some others have posted with even better comments.

Even if injury-free, our best starting XI would have been glad to come away with one point from this fixture, and given the fit players available Ralph probably chose the side by putting all their names into a hat just before kick-off.
Aside from the obvious catastrophe of losing a player inside the first two minutes, I think the club had overlooked a few key issues. Jankewicz must have some talent for us to bring him in from SWITZERLAND (2018) and put him through the Academy, but someone must have missed telling Ralph ...that the lad has " a bit of a disciplinary problem"that should not have been ignored. He is no stranger to cautions and last night was not the first red card in his Saints career. In 11 " B team" starts this season he had already picked up one red and 5 yellow cards, and through ambition or arrogance had convinced himself he was worth a place in the Prem. side and having failed to do so, even demanded a transfer to force the club to take notice. Well... he got his wish.
Having got the nod for a game of this magnitude, he wanted to show the manager what he is capable of, and in one respect he has succeeded. Either through bad judgement, nerves or just pure carelessness he has contributed to even more unwanted media attention and caused embarrassment to both the manager and his employers.

Red card bans cover three games and so he will be "unavailable " until early March, and then what ? Should he be considered for future selection again this season ...or will he want the move he so forcibly threatened the club with ? Unlike his clubmates , he will not be " tainted " with the 0-9 result, as he wasn't a part of it - after the first 80 seconds.
Someone needs to forcibly point out to him that this is not "schoolboy football " but the biggest league in the World, and he has already made his mark in it.

As for the game, bad luck doesn't describe the eventual outcome and even Adams´ consolation goal was ruled out by millimeters, and a ridiculous second red card when in fact Martial should have been booked for " diving ". Plaudits are deserved for those players who showed character and gallantly tried to create attacks - despite being 6-0 down . They will not forget this match and neither should the fans.

"Exiledsupporter" - Can't agree more with you especially with your last two paragraphs. I think the reason we loaned out all these players was solely to reduce the wages.

After reading more today, I think we will get screwed by the FA and JB red will not be overturned as the FA will not want to be seen as trumping the referees, even on a clear and obvious error (ala VAR). I also think the FA will take it as an insult if we do request that these two so-called refs are not part of any of our future games. Remember, we will be attack the "Institution of the FA" and that can't be tolerated because even though we maybe right in doing so, no attacks on the FA will be allowed. PERIOD. Watch, one of these two idiots will be reffing a game for us against the big-6. If that happens, I will be happy to support my team walking off the pitch in revolt and taking the loss. At some point you need to make a stand and since the FA will not get rid of poor referees, then it is up to the teams to push the issue. Please remember, the FA and all its management believe that the EPL is the greatest in the world and there are no faults in it.

Mostly agree with you Nick, apart from the chairman..

1- Mike Dean and Lee Mason are, and have been, a disgrace for a long time. Dean, the only referee today who has no subtlety in his bias, he has always wanted to be the headline maker, his lack of integrity is disturbingly obvious. Mason.. Even one of the nicest men in football Nuno Espirito had to accept a fine when describing his incompetencies and paunch. He gives free kicks for nothing so he can take regular breathers during games.

2- I very much look forward to seeing Alex Jankewitz in the first team again. A young lad barely 18, in a foreign country, locked in a bubble away from your roots, fired up with enthusiasm and determination and desperate to make a good impression. Sometimes these things happen and he will learn from it and come back mentally stronger. We should be giving him the support he needs and be looking forward to giving him another chance ASAP to redeem himself. I'd imagine he can't wait. So have some understanding for goodness sake!

3- I thought Ramsay did OK considering the circumstances, his length of time out of the first team and the early red card. Fair play to him.

4- This was more of a freak scoreline than that other game, the storyline arranged by Dean and the clown on VAR. No blame on the young lad, no blame on the rest of the players, no blame on Ralph and it's now history. The only issue I can see is a lack of leadership from the top. The money aside, Gao is invisible and silent 99% of the time, this is unacceptable and shows his real level of interest and passion for the club, supporters or the city.

5- We're gonna win at Newcastle! COYS! Chin up Alex Jankewitz, a better day will come!