Charlie Wayman

Martin is a plodder and associates himself best with other plodders. A Saints team full of plodders will plod. He can't handle skilful players.

He is much better than Martin thinks he is. Give him 6 x 90mins and he'll have chance to show what he can do. Martin persists with donkeys like Adams, Manning and Stephens yet largely ignores his pacy youngsters who could develop into a first class team in a year to two. He will lose a lot of this talent in the summer by pissing them off if he's not careful. I guess as a journeyman himself that is the only style of play that Martin feels comfortable with.

Take off your blinkers, you are missing a treat.

It is good that Russ and his team have addressed the issue of sloppy defensive errors leading to soft goals. What a relief that is.

If there is the slightest concern that asbestos fibres have been released during the blaze, the whole area within the smoke plume would have been contaminated and that will take months to clear up. I don't know where they would start with that and who would pay for the clean up cost, which could be massive. Somebody joked about Chernobyl and mass evacuations but serious asbestos contamination within the locality of the fire would be no joke. It could put SMS out of action for the rest of the season. My greater concern would be for the heath and welfare of the local residents` and the impact it would have on their lives Of course the companies involved have had years to remove any asbestos roofing, if they haven't done so by now they might be caught out by their penny pinching

You melt! Not really but too tempting to resist.

This is why we love you. Dogs and bones! Dead horse flogging! As George Formby used to say "Keep it going until we get there!"

Tried to get through the SFC but switchboard unavailable.

If we don't go up there's a better than even's chance that Martin will get the boot and for sure any new manager coming in won't be so easily fooled by Stevens.

None of them look like slipping up so even if we win most of our remaining matches no way will we be catching them. Might as well stop striving for the nigh impossible, stay solid and ensure our position in the play offs v WBA (H and A).

You shouldn't rule out that he might be back here in the summer especially if we make it to the upper tier.

Some clubs live beyond their means just as some people live beyond their means. External controls are necessary because these clubs and people seemingly can't help themselves. The whole point of regulation is to curb their excesses and return them to a sustainable pathway. The temptations are self evident for both. It helps nobody if clubs end up destitute or going out of business. The Premier League financial model is deeply flawed and is in danger of spiralling out of control. There is mounting evidence that a tipping point is fast approaching. Lower wages and lower transfer fees must be the goal but how you get there is problematic.

Dread the thought. He's done all can do here, time for us and him to move on. In my view he is in for a tough future and will find it hard to pick up a new contract anywhere especially one that pays him near what he is getting at SFC. He is an appalling finisher, clumsy on the ball and has the vision of a blinkered horse. I doubt many FL clubs have a vacancy specifically for that type of striker let alone struggling PL sides who need goals, goals, goals.

Nobody could ever accuse you of going OTT that's for sure. Twitter works perfectly decently for perfectly decent people of which I am one.

I cannot comment much on the match performance as I didn't see it either live or streamed but I did catch Martin's usual post-match bullshit rhetoric about being angry, very poor defending and giving away sloppy goals while heaping the blame on himself and his coaches, saying that they need to address the problem! He's sounding more and more like a stuck record every week. Funny thing is that despite all of this verbal nonsense seemingly nothing is ever done about our defending and nothing changes. Should we conclude that he and his coaches are clueless when it comes to sorting out our defending problems or are the players incapable of adapting their game to improve the situation. 4-3 may sound exciting and probably was for the stalwarts who trekked up to Birmingham yesterday but it won't cut the mustard in the Premier League. Ah! I hear you say that in the summer we will buy better quality players than Manning and Stevens to improve our defence so all will be well. Wanna bet?

With my line up we would have won, with Martin's toothless front three we'll lose. Simple. 2-0 to Birmingham, over and out. Can only assume Manning knows for too much about where the bodies are buried 'cos sure as hell he ain't getting picked on football merit.

That red was one of the most appalling and stupid I've seen, deliberate assault on the Leeds player in front of the ref. Presumably the ref reports what he saw so hopefully there will be other sanctions on the Huddersfield player from the FL.

Bazunu Bree THB Bednarek Stevens Smallbone Downes S Armstrong Edozie Mara Sulemana The front three started well against the Scousers and deserve another chance especially as they are our future. Let's face it when he brought on the tired old brigade of CA/AA on Wednesday they contributed the square root of bugger-all and do not deserve selection ahead of our kids. I'm dubious about Brooks as a starter as he won't be here next season and hasn't set the place alight so far this. I am assuming Stuart A is fit to go.

Of course but when you're stuck with three of the worst strikers ever in Adams, Armstrong & Mara then it's not so easy.

With the caveat "when it works as intended". Obviously it doesn't work very well when teams press hard and give us little space and Martin needs to find a solution for this. Mindlessly dicking around at the back for 5 minutes when we can't find a way out thus giving teams time to re-set their defence isn't a solution. I think that is what Wade is trying to convey When we move the ball around accurately and quickly with people running into spaces at will as we did against Swansea then it is a delight to watch. Even Man City have off days but they are seem able to sort themselves out very quickly.

You've heard what Martin has to say about other team's players, he takes no interest in what their line up may be but concentrates on his own team selection and the type of opposition he is faced with; will they press, will they sit back etc. Opposition managers' probably have a very similar take to us in their preparations for the match. Very unlikely they are going to have a sleepless night worrying about whether Downes will be back or not.

Isn't he the bloke who is supposed to be training our team. You get out what you put in. It's all down to him. Maybe time for a change?

Once Sulemana went off our attacking threat completely disappeared. Martin doesn't like him that's obvious but AA should have replaced Mara and left our two wingers to exploit the wide spaces. Our subs were a disgrace, no effort, no conviction and no impact. AA did nothing, Adams was invisible and Smallbone beyond awful. If this was a shop window for some of our players then it was more Primark than John Lewis. That's 4 defeats from 5 and it will be difficult to turn this around at this stage of the season especially with a lengthening injury list. Sorry to say we look less and less convincing with every match. The promotion dream is fading quickly.

To be fair to Martin he has had only a single season at a totally new club to teach his methods, recruit a reliable and resilient team and hone their skills to play the way he wants them to play and be expected to gain promotion at the first attempt. On that basis he has over-achieved by any measure of reasonable expectation as witnessed by our recent record unbeaten run of matches. Bear in mind too the pressures on him of knowing that anything less than promotion this season will be regarded widely as failure and that he won't have the luxury of a second season with his current first choice squad of players as many will de-camp in the summer. By comparison our three challengers have had mostly settled teams this season that have played together for a season or two before.

We didn't miss it, his appointment might tip the scales.