Dusic

Good for our stepping stone club sales pitch. That loan at Burnley has made his career.

Charles was poor in the Bristol City game which was the first one Downes missed I think - so essentially fluffed his opportunity and was subbed after less than an hour in the WBA game. I think RM lost a bit of faith after this and unfortunately his weakness seems to be that he isnt as reliable in possession as Downes or Smallbone and therefore think he doesnt want to risk him in that position and ahead of that he isnt getting game time ahead of Armstrong, Aribo, Smallbone and Rothwell has made an impact as a sub when needed. Seems a good player but jury out on whether he will make it long term IMO - although worth considering this is his first pro season of any kind. Certainly don't think its some kind of ludicrously poor management that he hasnt featured a lot.

If you want to be critical just do it, your constant on the fence routine is a bit tiresome. Do you think we won in spite of Martin? (FWIW Manning was a great sub today)

Have a day off!

Playoff wise I think we would b better finishing 4th than 3rd. For autos it such a shame we don't just have 3 points more. We would be right in the mix then. Such fine margins and for that reason find it hard to understand the strength of critisism for Martin - we could score in the 90s which everyone would have said was a top season if offered in August, and not go up.

Do you actually think that playing Stephens and Manning (who he has actually left out quite a few times) is the reason we won't finish in the top 2?

Clearly he should stay: - Likely to achive a pts tally that most other seasons would get auto promotion. We will be beaten by 2 teams who were better than us last year including one who have breached FFP and clearly have the strongest team for many years in the Championship. Ipswich have just had a freak season, fair play to them. - Has successfully changed the style of play as requested by the club after SR and Wilcox rightly recognised that even on the odd occassion we did win games there was often no clear reasons why in the data, i.e we had no repeatable plan. Now we have a clearly recognisable approach which players enjoy - Has overseen a club record run without defeat, which is some achievement - Entertaining football where we try (and largely suceed) in dominating. Personally would prefer this kind of aspirational style versus a more attritional approach. That we have scored stacks of goals (despite late sale of Tella who got 20 last season) yet still bemoan finishing is telling. - Utilised the whole squad very well and seemingly created a positive team spirit which has been sorely lacking in recent years. By all accounts many players wanted to leave in the summer and he has reinvigorated players like both Armstrongs, Bednarek, Aribo etc. - In what is likely to be a summer of change (again) we need some stability. If we were to remove him after a season of 2pts/game then imagine how much pressure would be on his replacement...would be ridiculous! I am amazed as many as a third must feel he has done a poor job, quite staggering.

Why? Most play a totally different style the one that the whole club has moved to adopt and recruit for (have you seen how dull Corberan's WBA are?!) and Cooper aside none have been promoted out of the Champ either.

Its almost as if when clubs hire managers and sign players they analyse the context of the manager/players performance and the methods used/reasons for it rather than simply expecting them to do exactly the same as previous in totally different circumstances.

You have misunderstood - my point is that Russell Martin came in and said that he wants his team to dominate possession and play in the the style that he coaches. He managed to do that quickly, even inheriting a team that for the last 3 or 4 years were almost entirely focused on an out of possession style. That was evident from the first game against Sheffield Wednesday and pretty much every game since. Even vs Liverpool at Anfield you could see it was a team playing the way he wants and has coached. Many managers talk the talk about how their team plays and then performances don't match with what they say. The one thing RM has consistently showed at all his teams is that he can quickly and effectively get a team playing the way he wants them to. That skillset is quite valuable when it comes to recruiting a manager as any prospective club knows what they are going to get vs say a Nathan Jones where for all the chat he couldnt show any specific style of play on the pitch. You may not like the style, but he is very good at getting his teams to play it.

Obviously each to their own but personally would say that this season has been anything but boring. We have scored joint 3rd most goals (from fewer games) including multiple late winners etc. In the vast majority of games we have been the dominant team. Overall its been (so far) one of the more fun seasons of the last 30 years I would say. Naïve and frustrating at times, absolutely. But not boring. I think that is just one of the lazt stereotypes about the style from before the season even started. Re Brighton links, they have a recent history of recruiting managers who play a very specific style and place more of an emphasis on that than results in particular. With RM you get someone who clearly gets teams playing his style, quickly and effectively. Within coaching circles that is a very strong attribute. Compare with Nathan Jones for example who mumbled many things about what his team would be, had 6 weeks to implement something and even after 2 months there was nothing obvious in terms of patterns of play. He may be an outside candidate but I can see why they might be interested.

There is no chance he gets sacked in the summer. The last thing we need, especially with Wilcox going, is even more change. The club have committed to this style of play for the long term and I think we would have a strong promotion chance next season in a likely weaker division despite obviously losing players. I still find the level of dislike towards RM very strange.

He is obviously very good at what he does hence being valued by clubs who could pretty mu h go and get anybody. Understand some fans just focus on specific recent results but a lot of the scope of a role like this is not so well defined and in many ways the benefits of the work are in the future e.g scouting networks, academy restructure etc. He has effectively set the SR football vision, brought in lots of new people and doubtless done a lot behind the scenes that we will never know of. So reducing it to he sanctioned Ross Stewart so he is shit etc is pretty laughable. He is clearly very good at his job, it was a coup to get him in the first place and his departure leaves us short of senior off field footballing expertise at a critical time of planning and when we could really use some consistency and long term planning. A significant blow, surely?

If he is assessed as not able to play 90mins without perceived high risk then bench is exactly where he would be. Just like stacks of other players who are returning/have just returned from injuries. Probably the exact same as why Fraser was on the bench on Friday.

Just back from a muscle injury and intense schedule. Is surely due to that. Strong team, strong bench.

Interesting run in for so many reasons: - Now 2 places up for grabs in the top 2, obviously would need a huge run from us but not impossible - If we end up in the playoffs I think finishing 4th might be better than 3rd as think we match up better vs WBA than potentially Norwich or Hull - Wouldn't want to face Leeds or Leicester in playoffs, would prefer Ipswich personally

Unless we go on some kind of crazily awful run til the end of the season then sacking RM would be up there with the most bizarre decisions ever made in football. Would say there is a almost zero chance of it and rightly so.

The fact Brooks came on so late suggested to me he was carrying a knock into the game and seemed like he asked to come off. Bednarek did fine versus Moore who didnt really do anything. Both attacks were one paced and largely poor.

Consistent supply of dross on this thread still then. Whilst anyone sane can see he has done a very good job considering the shambles he inherited.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24007379.southamptons-ross-stewart-sidelined-end-season/ Widely reported as a hamstring injury. Russell Martin also commented on him pretty recently: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24051555.southamptons-martin-reveals-stewart-coping-latest-injury/

Added to the fact he was considered a HG player from an FFP perspective and the total fee would hit the books straight away then it was far from baffling and very logical, especially after the January window splurge.

I think some of this is more accurate than just reducing the fact we have conceded more goals lately to Jack Stephens playing more. I get that its disrupted the CB pairing and personally wouldn't have chosen to do that but IMO Downes absence was a bigger factor in the games we lost (Bristol City and Hull in particular) and as you say other teams have worked out some ways to target us whereas many teams over Dec/Jan seemed happy to sit back and wait for us to beat them. Huddersfield were the team that highlighted it and then Hull in particular carried out a gameplan very well - as opponents are entitled to!

Anyone with two brain cells can see his use of subs (and their impact) has been largely excellent this season. Good in game management and his overall management of the squad, keeping everyone motivated and involved has been a huge plus.

It was a must win game and we won it comfortably overall. Yes there are issues defensively but we also score a lot of goals and in the last two games could easily have had 6 or 7. The amount of games this season where we have really needed to find a goal or two in the last 20 mins and then have done is quite considerable. Amazed at the amount of negativity towards Martin, some of it is ridiculous - we are firmly in the race for promotion, have broken a club record for games unbeaten and quite possibly will end the season with our most ever wins in a league campaign. We are behind two teams who were already proven better than us and one that is having a freak season (and who I think we will finish above anyway - although playoff wise think finishing 4th may end up better than 3rd as would fancy us more over two legs vs WBA than either Hull or Norwich).

Thought both Cardiff and Ipswich very poor, especially on the ball. Ipswich got very lucky the other night, I have rarely seen them dominate an opponent.