Fabrice29

It's probably worth remembering that Russell Martin didn't criticise Spurs for playing out the back tbh. In fact here's the video where you can judge for yourself whether he's criticising Spurs for playing out the back or whether he's questioning the decisions made when to and whilst doing so. Tottenham Hotspur vs Bournemouth: Jamie Carragher and Russell Martin break down how Cherries' press caused chaos for Spurs! | Football News | Sky Sports

There’s an arguement that if he wanted to go down the German football route he’d had found himself a job there instead of Wednesday. Don’t think you pick up a job at the bottom of the English Championship unless you see it as your best route to impress teams in the English PL personally. Might have changed his ambitions or preferences though or I might be way off the mark (I’ve tee’d up the obvious response for you..)

You remain convinced that someone you’ve barely seen play would be better than the bunch of players you have seen play and struggle. Which sums up nicely where are our squad is at this season really. If Wood had gone out on loan and Edward’s had been put into a poor team then it would be the other way round.

Well there's been 6 over 2 seasons in the PL. I think blaming managers and style is such an easy cop out and doesn't actually tackle the root cause of the issue. The idea that we're losing again so it must be the style and manager is exactly what leads us into a 3rd manager in a season again. Yeah I think you're bang on here. Don't actually think having a style is an issue, I'm personally in the camp of we should be having one instead of "adaptable" but the key is recruitment and patience and then having a manager to implement it/and or help themselves whilst finding the time to implement it. Don't think we've had enough of any of those things at this level over the past two attempts. Players not good enough, bad results, managers getting stroppy/and or stubborn and recruitment done to pacify them before very quickly binning them off and doing something different. Now we've finally replaced Wilcox I'm hoping we'll go back to some joined up, long term thinking again. Going into the PL without anyone heading that up was a terrible idea and just resulted in us attacking the season which a bunch of players the manager naturally felt loyal too but also was full of players we'd seen fail at this level before. We really need someone to be thinking with a much bigger and more objective overview of things and hopefully Spors can be it.

How many styles and managers will we have to go through in the Prem to establish that they aren’t the root of the problem in your mind out of interest?

Yeah I really wouldn’t trust a word Lambert says anymore. How’s his talking to water going?

Wouldn’t rule Carrick out if he fancies a change of scenery but I’d say most signs point to Rohl.

The past few weeks he’s on record as saying that both he and the players have it easy at Southampton and in this country. And he’s said it more than once. He’s literally been telling everyone he’s not had a rough ride.

I'm not saying sign a player who will be good enough to have an impact in the PL to replace Armstrong now, I'm saying that to motivate players into a promotion season you'll need to convince them they are part of the journey. Not sure we can do that a 2nd time round with some of our squad, including Armstrong and I'd be surprised if they wanted to be part of next season if they know how it ends. If players play for money then I really hope this isn't you expecting anything different in a different thread...

The idea of Championship specialists is fine in theory but say he is our top scorer again next season, it's a tough call to then cut him out of your squad again if promoted. You'll have a manager who will naturally feel loyalty to him for his performances as well. It's up to Spors to be ruthless this summer and start a new cycle and it shouldn't be 1 season focused. We should be cutting ties with quite a lot of players this summer and also they should be wanting to cut ties with us too IMO. Don't see any reason why Armstrong would want to perform again for us next season knowing he'll be cut adrift the season answer if we're promoted.

Plenty of space to be had behind Spurs defence so should be a nice game for Sulemana especially.

Yeah man, you keep dreaming of "your boys" finally playing a big part in something for us that isn't a relegation when they enter their fourth season here but write off a 19year old lad in his first because he isn't MLT. Good stuff.

Good luck trying to convince anyone sane that Onuachu and Sulemana bring more value than Dibling fella. You obviously prefer your few mazy dribbles and tap ins to cost around 40 million euros combined.

Dibling has 4 goals and 2 assists in all competitions. "Sully" has 2 goals 1 assist. Pauk 4 goals 1 assist Fernandes 2 goals 5 assists. The 19yr old isn't MLT though so he's pretty much nothing whilst two players we spent big on 2 years ago to keep us up and now face their 2nd relegation with Saints deserve their place more. Perfectly normal stuff.

He’s slightly out of form but I’d say a combination of a) being in a team that is piss poor b) a team that is no longer set up to get the best out of him c) being asked to play a disciplined role in a structure that he probably hasn’t played in all his youth career d) coming up against clubs that know him and his game more and more than they did and e) playing against established PL players for the first time are all reasons why he might be ‘a shadow of his earlier self’ personally. I’ve said on here before under Martin he was in a side which for all its faults was set up to get Dibling and Fernandes on the half turn in the middle of the pitch. We’re completely different now and they are both asked to play more disciplined roles and the team is going very direct to the lad up top. I’d be surprised if Dibling has played this way before but it’s no surprise that the more rounded, more experienced and more flexible one of the two is adapting better and more consistently and lasting longer.

No, what I’m saying is the kid is 19 and there’s probably some mitigating factors as to why he should be spared wild assumptions about effort and attitude. You don’t know him or his attitude and there’s not enough body of work to have expectations for him. The only expectation anyone should have for him is the expectation they’d have for any 19 year old in any normal situation, inconsistency and learning.

Prevent maybe not but he would really help. Exactly this. There’s people in yesterday’s team who are about to have a 2nd relegation with Southampton on their CV. Some consistently played every week of those two relegations, some considered not good enough on one or both occasions, some fell out with people during those relegations leading to them leaving and some were drafted in specifically to help us get out of relegation trouble who haven’t done so and still continue to not do so and continue to come up short of the required quality…but is there a 19yr old kid whose running style or body language I don’t like? Did he fail to do exceptional things against established PL players in the 15 minutes he was asked to play yesterday!? Yes!? Pile in on him instead and make sure everyone else is noted down as ‘busting a gut’..whatever that means.

Yeah yeah yeah, all those busting a gut and giving us something when all hands are at the pump actually failed to pick up the striker in the box again but lets blame the kid who didn't run past everyone like you wanted him too. I think you're angry at the wrong person pal.

848. Which is 200 minutes more than Mara got last season, who scored 3 goals and I don't remember people arguing he should have been given a whole season in the Championship playing to his qualities.

I think the value of him getting us back to the Prem would exceed that value and weirdly the longer Dibling and his team don't sign a new contract then better for the club because his salary outlay wont be that big so Saints will be weighing up holding out and letting him run down that contract but benefitting financially from his performances rather than a fee. Then it becomes a test of Dibling and his team and how much they want a pay rise knowing to get it they'll have to add longer to his contract. Think the club hold a lot of cards here if they frame it like that but the risk is starting next season badly and then having to cash grab on Dibling. Obviously, but the point is, I don't think clubs will care too much that he didn't settle at Chelsea considering both City and Liverpool have benefited significantly from signing players that didn't settle at Chelsea.

Some of the best players in PL history haven't settled well at Chelsea to be fair.

Think Bednarek and Stephens being considered brilliant and fine is part of the problem why we have less than zero belief we can win a game to be fair.

"All fair and I don't want to knock him too much but when we really needed a spark I looked at the kid in the team who is playing his first full season in professional football, has lost a manager he described as a second dad and has a team around him that is not only crumbling at every moment it's asked to step up but is predominantly asked to play a kick and run style that isn't totally suited to him and then I got annoyed when he didn't run with the ball past fully grown athletes like I expected him to"

There’s nothing in that post that we weren’t doing last year. The problem is the moment the head of everything left all the joined up thinking seem to dissipate and never replaced the head ‘talented person’ (Wilcox). Not sure 3 years is fair in that sense. Challenge now is to get back to where we were at the end of last season and do the equivalent of this season better with more clarity, more structure and more joined up thinking…when we get there.

In video form here for those interested