He’s unashamedly arrogant and was too stubborn for his own good but looking back, I wouldn’t say the football was shite or he didn’t know what he was doing.
For me, on the face of it he underachieved. They squad at a glance was as good as Leicester and Leeds, and I think the disappointment was that we were always off the pace from them much of the time and when we did shoot ourselves back into contention, we would always muck it up.
Add to the fact we ‘threw’ so many points away with the silly Russball stuff and you can kind of understand the frustration we all had with it.
However and as someone alluded to above, the situation is far more complex than that. Martin did do a fantastic job galvanising a demoralised squad, didn’t have the backing we bestowed upon Still this time around and unarguably had to compete in a far tougher Championship this time around. That said, to counter act that he did have a stronger squad. It’s all swings and roundabouts.
I think the football we played was at times brilliant (some of the sequences leading to goals were a very enjoyable watch) but the season was tempered with frustrating periods of nothingness in games (the backwards, sideways, backwards cycle of the ball) somewhat unnecessarily and of course, some capitulations that should never have happened. That was the risk of Russball.
Another frustration I had with RM was that for me, he could clearly ‘adapt’ his style when he wanted to; West Brom away twice, Leeds away and in the playoff final with the hybrid formation but would often choose not to through stubbornness and belief in his way. If he wasn’t so wedded to his philosophy I’ve no doubt we might have had a few more points and in turn, he might not be such a polarising figure among the fanbase.
Plusses and negatives to RM - and I think there always will be.
