Farmer Saint

I will continue to scream this until I'm blue in the face - inability to cope with pressure is not a coach managed skill - it is a mental skill that needs to be dealt with by a shrink. Our defence are too weak mentally, and it is an issue that has plagued us for the last 4 years or so, regardless of which players, managers and coaches are at the club.

Imagine the meltdown on here if we had the form of Leicester...all I've heard all season is how amazing Maresca is, even though last December the Leicester fans were calling him out for being slow, ponderous and boring, and only caring about possession 🤣

#saintsfansdontknowwhattheyretalkingabout

But Manning has cost us so many goals this season it's been ridiculous. This is where the difficulty is. I knowartin brought him in but even Martin has realised that he's fucking shit defensively.

This more than anything, but if Bree or KWP is out, do we play Manning or Stephens? This is where we have fallen down a lot this season.

2-0 up, for that scoreline we must be playing THB and *checks notes* Stephens(??) at CB?

Is anyone old enough to remember when we went on that 25 games unbeaten run - those were the days.

This is a joke yeah?

People have really been wound up by Martin, outside of his performance, haven't they? If this was Adkins he'd be getting far more leeway (and to be fair we were 1 point better off with the same amount of games and a much better team under Adkins, and the next game we lost 3-0 away at Blackpool!). I think it's this perceived arrogance. Personally I don't find him that way at all, but I guess each to their own.

So been doing important stuff and not had time to read about what happened, so I assume everyone is happy cos we done a clean sheet? Everyone has been complaining about the defence and keeper so I assume Martino tightened things up as we were playing the League's top scorer?

Manager and Captain getting on shocker #Martino

He played against Huddersfield.

I'm not dissolving him of all blame, but conversely he is also not completely to blame for us being behind 2 teams with better players and Ipswich who clearly have a very, very good manager. As said, if we had a better keeper and striker we'd probably be top. We'd have beaten Millwall, Rotherham, Boro, Ipswich the other day just off the top of my head, so what is that, an extra 10 points? What does make me chuckle is the amount of shit he gets for breaking a settled back 4. That settled back 4 conceded 3 against Huddersfield at St Mary's, 3 at Bristol City, 0 at WBA, and 2 at home to Hull, averaging 2 per game. Maybe that's why he changed it, because we were doing pretty shit with that amazingly settled, highly talented back 4.

We are 4th - if the board had equipped Martin with a good keeper and striker we'd probably be top, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Bednarek is shit though, and has been for years. When 60% of your back 5 is not very good, that is an issue.

I think we'd have seen a few better results if we didn't have shit defensive players. I thinkartim has been stitched up with the fact that we have to play a combination of Bazunu, Bednarek, Stephens, Manning and Bree, and then have all the good chances we create missed by Adams. If you concede too many, and miss too many chances, you're not going to get promoted. If we had a decent keeper, a decent striker who could score a decent percentage of his chances, and some defenders who could actually defend, there would be no doubt we'd be top.

So 7 to 9 from the Adkins team. Shows how well Martin is doing with this side.

Both judging by the geniuses on this forum.

Your avatar now looks like you call him Martino, as if he's some foreign master. You really are a fucking joke pal 🤣

Probably not, but I already know Cooper is out of his depth there. He's proven that.

Why have you used a mix of upper and lower case letters? Looks like a child has done it.

What, and then sack him if we get into the Prem? FFS.

This is not a coaching thing - no manager has to tell a professional football player to mark up or not stand off. This is football 101,and points towards the players not being good enough.

Oh, yeah, so you've seen him training them not to mark up? Maybe, again, our CB's are just a bit shit. We know Bednarek is shit, and we know Stephens is shit and everyone was saying earlier in the season about how shit Bree is, and Manning. Maybe we just have shit defenders who don't do as they are told.