Patches O Houlihan

That's great news. Really pleased for Charly. One thing I love about him is his determination to get stuck in and try to influence the game. When he came on at Gillingham you could see how pissed off he was, you could see that he believed he could score four on his own to win us the game, even if the others on the pitch had given up hope. In the end he only managed to get one goal for us, but it wasn't for want of trying. Understudy to Messi, playing for Saints 😁😁😁

I just found the link. Yes you're right, it was at St Mary's, and I'd forgotten he'd had Covid too. Ings's goal was in the 2nd minute. So we'd been defending heroically for 91 minutes, and we know how emotional Ralph tended to be on the touchline even in the best of times. I'm more than happy to give the man a break. I met him unexpectedly, out of context in a shop while he was manager, seemed like a really good guy.

If I remember correctly there was more than just the usual club rollercoaster going on at that moment? Hadn't his wife been in hospital and nearly died? And then within a week he'd pulled a rabbit out of the hat to win at Anfield with that team. Also I think Liverpool/Klopp were the only team in the PL he hadn't beaten at that point so it gave him the complete set? Plus he had done his coaching badges alongside Klopp, and playing the same way, and with a Germanic background, everywhere he went he was called 'Alpine Klopp' which would have pissed anyone off. So to have achieved that result, and throw off that emotional baggage, the same week your wife pulls through: I would have welled up, and I challenge any of you critics to imagine being in that situation, and truthfully claim you wouldn't have felt properly emotional. Week after week we hear the neg heads on hear bleating about how the players don't care, and the manager doesn't care, and the execs/owners don't care. Then when they do show that they care you pull them to pieces...

In his interview with Adam Blackmore he said Mara had trained really well, was super fit and raring to go, and that he hadn't had the opportunities historically that he perhaps might of done. It sounded like Russell felt he owed it to him. There was a slight vibe of 'Che hasn't done enough recently to justify his place', but this was derailed by Che walking past at that moment so Russ had to blow smoke up his arse! Radio Solent Interview

With my professional seafarer hat on: All structures over 30m tall are required to have a red light; whether that's radio aerials, buildings, yacht masts, whatever. The lighting on the Itchen bridge wouldn't really affect pilots, but it crosses a commercial waterway that is in use at all times of day. When you are entering port as a mariner you keep the red navigation lights on your left (to port) and the green light on your right (to starboard). The yanks do it the other way around because they are awkward buggers. It is not uncommon in an urban marine context to have navigation lights on shore based structures, so there might be an argument that red lights on the bridge could cause confusion. British Waterways or the Marine Coastguard Agency would be the bodies that would have to decide that. It might be a case of red bulbs are ok as long as they are partially shaded, or maybe the wattage of the bulbs isn't too strong. Alternate blue and yellow might be easier & cheaper to organise.

Does anyone have a link to the full Russell Martin interview on Sky? Sounded interesting, but I was sorting something out for my wife so only half heard it, and then couldn’t rewind to it.

I bet he'll be gone in January if we get Stewart up to speed. [cynic mode]And if he's fuming all he needs to do to get a run out is perform how he does when the transfer window is open...[/cynic mode]

I was watching the game on a small screen, and it was difficult to tell Bree & Downes apart. Am I right in thinking Bree played right midfield when he came on, to help KWP defend that side?

Bloody Ipswich got an equaliser in the 87th minute

We had a BMW with run flats from the factory, and swapped them for normal tyres to improve the ride (and save ~£100 a corner at the risk of having to use tyre foam) With quite a lot of German saloons/estates you'll see the back wheels have quite a lot of camber (the rear wheels lean in at the top). This puts more pressure on the inside shoulder of the tyre. Our tyres always wore out on that inside edge first - not because they were inflated wrong, but because the car was designed like that. When a car corners at high speed the outside wheels tilt because of the grip generated by the tyres, if you tilt that outer tyre inwards by design when stationary, then it becomes flat when cornering at high speed; more tyre surface area is presented to the tarmac and you have more grip. The downside is that you wear the tyres out faster. Ideally you'd want the same brand and model tyre all round, but in this case I wouldn't bother changing. Both axles have quality tyres, with the tyres matching on an axle.

In theory drawing those attackers in and delaying the pass out creates more space for the midfield receivers to work in, but there's a definite risk/reward to consider that we've been often getting wrong, but mostly did ok with today

Well we all spotted that September would be tough, and so it turned out to be. Back in June we agreed that playing Norwich, Plymouth(A), Sunderland (A), Leicester, Ipswich, Middlesborough (A) and Leeds in the first nine games would be a big ask for a squad that was likely to go through a wholesale change. We've got through that period having won 4, lost 4 and drawn 1. I'm sure we'd all have preferred a couple of those losses to be draws or a win, but I'm in a pragmatic mood after as enjoyable a first half as I can remember so I'm going to say we are more or less par for the course at this point bearing in mind who we've played and all the change. Our next nine games are: Stoke (A) Rotherham (H) Hull (A) Preston (A) Birmingham (H) Millwall (A) West Brom (H) Huddersfield (A) Bristol (H) Three of those teams are currently in the top third of the table, so seeing where we are at the end of November should be much more representative of where we are likely to finish the season. The key to me seems to be a) The balance between playing out/bravery & pragmatic play. We largely got it right today. b) The midfield/attacking balance. Personally I'd be playing Charles in the midfield anchor role, but by playing an offensive, creative set of forwards that were willing to run and play quickly we gave them too much to think about. However I think that group of players may get found out if we had still been at 0-0 after 25 minutes... So where do we think we'll be going into December? I think we'll be 5th/6th somewhere there. Thoughts?

He’s keeping the press on - Claire Rayner would be proud

Listen to the Solent Sport Interview.

I think THB and Charles will do fine. But agree Fraser seems to have no speed, creativity or trickery, just a willingness to graft. Holgate and Downes have both been shockingly bad. Charles needs a proper DM partner. Can we re-coach Aribo into being a DM shithouse?!

Flynn Downes has been fucking toilet all game

I don’t think he’s the only one with his head in the sand! Our current situation is far from ideal but there is no way we’d be a better team right now with Selles at the wheel. I’d rather have Peter Selles - and he’s dead!

Look at you! All your anti-hipster raving and it turns out you're a regular listener to the most lefty hipster podcast in Britain 😁😆😂🤣😅 You'll be telling us than veganism is the way forward next 😁 Cheers for the link!

Because when you have a good team likely to get promoted that is playing well, all the 'also rans' will set up defensively and you'll need to play through 10 players packed in the box in order to score goals. Playing on the break, or Ralph style pressing doesn't work then.

Do you have the link for that pod please?

I've watched every competitive game we've played under Russell Martin. Here are my thoughts. I apologise if this ends up being a long post. Firstly I'm as pissed off as everyone else with the last three games (and with the piss weak defence/midfield we showed even in the better results earlier in the season) We are being bullied in this league: Unsurprising really, that's what happens to all the younger smaller kids when they try to play playground football. We may have a squad to play 4-3-3 at some stage later in the season but at the moment I think a more pragmatic choice would be 4-2-3-1 which most modern players are familiar with: Baz - has played well the last few games. I'd stick with him. Bednarek - has been our best CB and immediately improved things last night. Captain's armband because when he's fit he plays, he's a seasoned international, and it doesn't block us from flexible decision making elsewhere in the team. We also know from his time under Ralph that he is a striver and will set a good example like JWP did. THB - Should be the other CB. Seems confident and I thought he's played OK so far. Has some leadership experience at England under and seems to still have some confidence. These two are also reasonably big guys so can support Baz who isn't. KWB - Traditional right back with licence to roam forward provided no one else in the defence is AWOL. Clearly better then Bree. Left back - Perraud. Bugger! We forced Perraud out having only played him whilst still recovering from injury at CB. 🤦‍♂️ Manning isn't a left back, but could do a job. That said the training videos seem to show a much stronger looking Larios than last season. He at least looks bigger than Edozie. Part of our issues in this three game run has been injuries. Bednarek out for 1.5 games and Downes out for 1.5 games, and Stephens out for all of them. This has created a personnel issue and here we come to the crux: Two defensive midfielders. I'd chose Morgan & Big Vic. 🤦‍♂️ Bugger, we don't have them. OK Charles is a solid lad and we definitely look a whole lot better when he is playing DM so he is in. So we'll play Romeu alongside him - he's a safe pair of hands with huge experience to pass on to our 19yo DM. Oh fuck. We sold him for £3m so that he could play in the Champions League for Barcelona 🤦‍♂️ Who else is there? Aribo's a big lad, maybe he can do it (nope 🤦‍♂️), what about Downes he's been playing with the cloggers at West Ham maybe he can do it (jury's out on this one). I still think he's the best defensive partner for Charles and the 4-2-3-1 shape would really help them both. Based on the recent press conference he should be fit for Middlesborough. OK so now we have a team and shape that isn't going to be cut though mercilessly without lube 15 times a game. That gives us a solid foundation to work with. At striker this a no-brainer let's get the Loch Ness Drogba in. "Ross is injured boss" Bugger, that sucks as he's the only striker we've got who can win a header. This means while he's unfit there's no point in slinging corners and crosses in from the byline as every team in this league is bigger and taller than us and will just head them away for fun. OK so Che plays as striker as he can hold it up and play a pass, but we all know Ross is in once he's properly fit. Right so we need two wingers and a number 10 who can play together without relying on airborne crosses. Wingers: Fraser - can do a job for us Sam Amo - can do a job for us (but probably only when we have solid control of the midfield) Edozie - good when played direct and beating players on the edge of the area. Sulemana - A big bloke who was the fastest player at the World Cup. Championship defenders will be scared to death of this guy. We need to shape the attack around his skills. He may not play every minute of every game, but that's fine we have different qualities amongst the other wingers that we can bring in. So who will be our creative 10? We only really have two proper ones: Stu and Charly. When either of them come on they show determination, intelligence and a willingness to drive forward and make things happen. Both get tired, and both give the ball away regularly. So we need to make sure we have a solid midfield and defence behind them (which we sort of have when Downes is fit and we play 4-2-31) So we'll plan to switch between the two during most games. This has the benefit of keeping Stu injury free and his flowing locks puts the manager's in the shade regularly. Plus maybe we can get Charly running with the ball in the threatening Bryan Robson style that we saw under Selles that bought goals. So that leaves Adam Armstrong without an obvious place. But to give him a spot you need to describe a role that he can consistently play really well, and as far as I can see he is only any good when playing as one of two strikers, or in a team that plays on the break, and we're not going to do either of those two things. Aribo can come on and be a big bloke to fill in when our little blokes are getting shoved off the ball. Smallbone plays as a sub in the 10 role when one of Charly or Stu is out injured. As you can see our problems stem from not having enough big strong experienced defensive midfielders, and generally being a small young team. But we can mitigate this if we set up pragmatically. Russell Martin has good communication skills, a good attitude and mostly seems like a good egg. When he comes off badly is whenever he gets into his possession philosophy. I seem to remember that the Swansea fans on here back in the summer said that the great run of 9 games at the back end of last season that got them to within 3 points of the playoffs was because Russ swallowed his pride, abandoned his system and played sensible football. He is going to be under massive pressure this week, and it will get a whole lot worse if we perform how we usually do in the north east at the weekend. So I bet we'll see pragmatic Russell Martin at some point soon. And if he isn't volunteering it then Wilcox needs to hold his feet to the fire until he agrees to at least try it (if nothing else to make us less predictable to play against) If we bin off Russell before mid October we're going to look like Watford, and nobody wants that. I think we at least need to see pragmatic Russ Martin failing before we send him packing. Not least because every single training hire in the last three months has been based in his thinking and nearly all of them are from bloody Swansea. Oh and the set piece coach needs to pull his finger out (or at least get listened to)

Plus we have the Loch Ness Drogba raring to go on the sidelines

Do we think that Wilcox could roll up his sleeves and make some telling defensive changes? Not as drastic as a sacking but done in a no nonsense - this has gone far enough, and you need a bit of guidance kind of way.

This is where I am. His man management and attitude seems good, good relationship with Wilcox, players seem to respond to him. BUT - The defence needs a screen. At one point Downes was playing alongside KWP next to the corner flag. No way you’d have seen Lavia there last year. He needs to set the full backs up much more rationally - by all means break forward, but not both at once. The three against none - I haven’t seen either. At 1-3 down in the 67th minute there is still half an hour to play. Just that one incident demonstrates the naivety with which we are set up. Smallbone looks like JWP under Koeman. Has some talent but no solidity. However I think the reason he didn’t take him down during that break away was because he was already carrying a yellow card having done it once already. As Franny said after - better to not dive in, try to slow things to let team mates catch up.