I think Ralf has an awkward situation in that as a coach he is clearly wedded to pressing. That's his whole concept of football, that's what his reputation is built on, every interview and piece of footage prior to his arrival emphasises that point. So now it looks as if he's realised we don't have the personnel, fitness, mentality to do that for 90 mins. We do it in spots but no way near with the consistency and quality required. It's hard to imagine the coaching of a press is poor, I don't buy that whatsoever. Why would everybody that admires RR be spouting bollocks. He may not be a top tier coach in winning things but he is renowned for coaching.
So I'm guessing he is trying to adjust that slightly, looking at the game today. It didn't work at all but something looked a bit different. Could just be a half arsed effort, but we seemed to noticeably sit off. So maybe his idea now is to pick his moments to get into the team and press high, that's my assumption.
I get the impression Ralf is a bit of an ideologue so it's a weird situation to have a manager that seems in contradiction of the players abilities on a short term results orientated contract. But then again, would any style of manager work with this lot? I guess we have to hope we can bundle over the line.
I agree with your observations about today's game. I think he might have realised that it's a bit of a losing game to get them to press for 90 mins at their current level. We were clever and picked our moments to press much more.
Doing a press poorly can be worse than not doing it at all, especially when tired (Southampton). Also when Brighton are so well versed with it, observed our match with Southampton, and will come expecting the press ready to counter any gaps we present. So a bit of that I would guess.
I don't think his contract is results orientated. We've been told that Ralf has been brought in by the club, to speed up the bedding in process, in order to lay the foundations for a modern pressing game for the next manager in the summer, whilst also evaluating the players in the process, ready for his move upstairs in assisting the next manager.
This makes huge sense. Pressing football has been an alien concept to us for at least the past 5/6 years, so bringing in someone like ten Hag in the summer without this bedding in process would be worthless.
We've seen it with Rangnick, he wouldn't be able to implement his ideas properly until the following season realistically. It also cuts out the time evaluating players before removing as Rangnick would have done the work already (his time now).
Where it gets a bit confusing, is that Ralf in his first press conference here, said he might advise the club to stick with him instead as manager next season too if the right manager isn't available, as he done the same thing at Leipzig.
