coalman

Out of curiosity - what would need to happen or you to see in order to change your opinion of Russell Martin as a manager? What would be the tipping point for you to think that we needed a change? How long should we keep persisting with our current approach both with Martin and also as a club under Sport Republic?

I have it on good authority that the chimpanzee just accepted an offer from Jim Radcliffe to join Man Utds back room staff. It also had an offer from Todd Boehly to join Chelsea but thought there were too many monkeys there already.

You're assuming they're not just using the player stats from Football Manager...

We can get another 3 attacking midfielders to play out of position for that.

I think we need to be aiming for more this season than simply "beating" Derby's all time points record. This is a Russell Martin team that can achieve anything so why not make sure we alone hold the record defeat with a solid 10 or 11-0 loss as well?

Imagine what that group could have done with the money that Dragan has poured into the club.

Well, fuck.

So you're saying Russball can't work?

Why the fuck are you watching Saints with your eyes open?

At it's heart, Russball is about possession. And, when we hit that magic 100% possession, combined with our deliberate and patient attacking play, we'll be on course for 38 nil nil draws a season and 38 points has a great chance of keeping us up. Thus ensuring perpetual Premier League survival and for Rasmus and Henrik to flip lots of promising youngsters for big profit. Hell, we may even score the odd goal and get even more points. Trust the process.

I'm assuming that's taking into account Pep leaving City for Southampton and getting a 500M war chest in January.

He made Stephens captain when he started and in true Russell Martin style doesn't feel any need to change his approach. Luckily he can play Stephens at left back so that he can get Manning as a budget winger up the left. That way he ensures we aren't going to attack at pace up our left wing and aren't going to be able to defend attacks down it as well. On the other side it's a bit harder because even if KWP is injured then Sugawara has a natural tendency to want to stretch play and get early balls into the box. However that's something that can be coached out of him.

Totally agree. This quote sounds like it came from a man shortly after being kicked in the head by a horse.

You want the players who are the worst with the ball to see the most of it. It's the only way they'll get better. The players who are good on the ball have already had their turn. Common sense.

David Ornstein now giving his opinion on Martin. "No doubt it's precarious there, but I don't know of him being in imminent danger of being removed from his position, and that's because he's highly thought of. He bought Southampton into the Premier League. Their ambition was to stay there, and they very well could do so this season. The view of him is high, not only inside Southampton among the ownserhip, but outside as well. There's a feeling that perhaps the players have not been good enough, and they're going to need to do something in the January transfer window." So that's it. The players, who aren't good enough and are going to be replaced think highly of Martin. As do the ownership who are high on something and the solution is to let him buy even more players in January to turn things around. I'm guessing these same players, who aren't good enough, are feeling really bad that they're the thing holding Martin back from achieving his vision. It's unclear who the people outside Southampton (also clearly high) that like Martin. At least that's what I got out of this. In fact, this situation might be more easily explicable (and even forgivable) if it turned out that everyone at or involved with the club was totally bollocksed out of their fucking minds on a truly incredible cocktail of substances. Meanwhile Russmus comes late to Southampton as Martin and Ankersen are set for another shopping spree in Jnauary to fill our squad with more randomly scouted players that we don't need and will in no way form the financial millstone that causes us to financially implode again (a la Redknapp).

It's more that the very real possibility of Leicester, Wolves of Palace going for him keeps him from going for us now.

Fixed that for you.

You don't understand the genius of it. There's a run of games that no one expects us to win (admittedly one might reasonably state that any run of games these days are games no one expects us to win) so no pressure and time for Russball to finally flourish and everything magically fits into place. Failing that we can string together a series of "heroic" defeats and Martin gets his dream job at Barcelona or something.

I think that Russell and Rasmus (aka Russmus Mankertin) demonstrated over the summer that they shouldn't be allowed to spend any more money. Every team we play must feel like Russmus has come early.

It's Dragan's money. He's the majority shareholder. If or when he loses patience I imagine he can replace them. Agree that finding another manager is going to be a challenge. Both in terms of attracting them and also finding one that's competent with Mr Football in charge.

Get rid of Martin now. Get RVN in. Then Martin is available when Leicester need a new manager on the million to one chance they haven't been paying any attention to the league.

The Octopus is holding out for the Leicester job. He wouldn't return our calls.

Last season we played some lovely stuff in patches. That being said the seeds of this season were there to see. I was hoping Martin would build on last season and adapt to the higher level of intensity and quality of the Premier League but he hasn't.

Of the three people at Sport Republic, or "the gang" as Martin described them I have a lot of sympathy for Dragan as he's continued writing cheques despite the incompetence of the people who are meant to be running his football empire. As an owner he's been everything you could want except maybe ruthless his leadership team but at the same time as least he hasn't gone full Boehly so he's given the manager, CEO and Mr Football a go of things without interfering.

You're right. I should've written Potter and Moyes. Sloppy work.