derry

Ipswich just beat Spurs 2-1. We're now 4 points behind. Ipswich, high press, high tempo and fast breaks. Still it's a lot easier to stroll, pass short and slow, lose and pick up loads of money. Something wrong somewhere.

If that's a quote the man is a deluded idiot albeit on a rock star's salary. The club seems full of con men, can be the only conclusion. As he rightly says the guys at the back take all the risks. So stop taking the risks because as soon as they start rotating the ball opponents breathe a sigh of relief, form up and put the whole team in front of the ball making it incredibly difficult to pass through. If he wants to break the line, change the focus, pass the ball quickly forward thence to the breaking forwards maximum two or three passes into the space behind the defenders. Use the whole width and attack out to in. Equally in defence defend in to out instead of kamikaze wing backs leaving spaces for opponents to exploit. Never mind three centre backs defend with a back four. What we are currently doing will never work at this level unless we do it with the best players in the world and that can't happen. We have some good players that aren't being used to their natural strengths and are currently wasted. We need a manager that throws away the dogma and looks at the players and puts them into a framework that brings the best out of them, supports colleagues and provides the team with it's best chance. At the moment they are like actors reading from a script and daren't adlib. Sad to say they are getting the results their play deserves. Everything is so slow. High tempo, hard press, physical challenge and hard running is the way to go. It is long past the time for change.

That was a hypothetical figure circa £12m and covered all the costs of the existing contracts and replacement contracts. In my view worth every penny.

I think this particular train has hit the buffers.

How would he be if we made him the focal point and gave him the service he needs and stick BBD alongside. I think that might well rattle a few cages.

I just wanted to check he had left Coventry but we could do a lot worse than Mark Robbins.

All through the week we had a number of Martin style supporters trying to argue the science of the style I have long labled garbage. At either end of the pitch there is the only reason to play the game one you defend to stop the other team scoring and at the other you do your damnest to score. Endlessly recycling the ball five yards at a time mostly in one's own half is total nonsense. Today 71% possession and 9 shots 0 on target. That isn't football it's the absolute opposite. Probably 90% of our passing was worthless and led to the endless recycling. The team lacks shape and apart from the passing seemed to have no idea how to mount attacks and if they do it has taken us so long we are still facing the whole opposition closing us down. Onuachu and BBD come on but still no crosses into the penalty area. Multiple corners just aimlessly crossed. There seems an obsession with full backs running wide and leaving us open, we'd be better served with a back four that concentrated on defending and used attackers and midfielders to attack. Martin needs sacking but the knobs who advocate and condone this garbage probably won't.

Arsenal. Downes pass to Saka for Arsenal's first goal. Fatawu tore us a new one v Leicester.

I've just been watching the U21s, two quick breaks 0-2 up at Woking. Playing the same garbage indiscriminate possession at the back. Mess up numerous times going nowhere, two quick goals against 2-2 at half time. The U21s are worse at it than the first team but not much!

I absolutely agree. I've got coaching badges which in the main bear little resemblance to managing. The only thing I can say in my opinion successful management is "keep it simple, stupid" something all the really successful managers do. Look at the players, see what they can do, put them into a shape that complements their abilities, and look for blend and balance. What we are seeing is garbage and doesn't work. We are the worst team in the league that concedes three times as many goals as we score. We have been worked out and are easy to play against. Very few of our goals for were multi passing goals but either set pieces or quick breaks. Thanks to our goalkeeper and a quick break which all the other teams do we scored and clung on to win v Everton. Abysmal defending cost us 5 points against Leicester and Ipswich. Downes gave the ball away v Arsenal and a couple of passes later their equaliser was in our net.

I saw the Fernandes - Young incident live. Young recklessly pushed the ball into Fernandes's face with both hands. Never mind the yellow card to Fernandes Young should have been sent off. It was violent conduct. Andy Madley made a poor decision. VAR should have intervened.

One thing we did better was defending corners, I noticed for once that we were covering the D at the edge of the area. Everton weren't easy because they had three good headers of the ball.

Delighted with the win. The break for the goal was brilliant and cut Everton to pieces. Armstrong hit that perfectly coming in on his right foot and bending it away from the unsighted keeper. Fernandes was the best player on the field. Young should have gone for pushing the ball into his face. We were hanging on at the end. We played the ball around quicker in the first half and Archer made a couple of good breaks. All that game proved for me is the passing around really achieves very little. As with the Leicester game it was the full backs breaking quickly and getting in behind that opened up the defence. The back three defended well, however Stephens gave the ball away stupidly as he does. We defended better with the three centre backs. Going to two made us more vulnerable but led to the goal. That offside was too close for comfort.

Not what I think, but what Martin was quoted as saying on Newsnow.

It might be because RM was remarking how well Armstrong was doing and that his opportunity might come soon.

You are just a nit picking argument waiting to happen. I'm not your boy. I don't respond to stupidity.

You didn't recognise the change which was brought on by McCarthy not being able to pass out. The result was that we were much more direct and turned around a disasterous run of losses which had scuppered any chance of direct promotion. I gave Martin the credit for that however it may have been an unintended consequence, either way it worked.

If you don't even recognise that once McCarthy was in goal we couldn't play out from the back your opinion for me is worthless. Newcastle's goal was the result of McCarthy attempting to pass. Those four games were the variation that we needed. If we had retained the passing out with McCarthy we would still be in the Championship.

I think the way we changed our basic style for the Leeds away league game won well then went through the play offs in style and gaining promotion was great. The season started with us playing as if those four games had never happened. Back to the ball rotation at the back against much better teams has made us more porous and less potent. Our ponderous playing has been well and truly found out together with our lack of defensive organisation especially at free kicks and corners. For example the goals conceded in the final seconds against Ipswich and Leicester that were due to hopeless marking and a complete lack of awareness. Another thing that has hurt us badly is some of the late substitutions which have made us worse rather than improving results. Martin has imposed a straitjacket on the way we play and our lack of success is really down to that. A win would be brilliant. We have players who can hurt teams but the ponderous play neuters them. We have been well and truly worked out and need to adapt but I fear more of the same will just lead to more of the same results. Higher tempo, less passing around at the back and much quicker delivery to the front. A fast team press to win the ball back instead of just falling back. That is how Premier League teams play and it's how we should play.

If we are more direct and less negative at the back we could win but we would have to build on that. If we play our usual way and scrape a win it is welcome but only prolonging the agony.

The back four have been recycling the ball long before Martin arrived. It was easier for Armstrong and the team to score in the Championship. If we had Harry Kane he wouldn't get a sniff in the Premier League with the stupid way we play. Most passes we make come from behind and are behind the target so they mostly play the next pass back. Really only Fernandez and Dibling play the ball into the space in front of the attacker or behind the defender. Players for years have been making run after run but the ball is never played through. So they stop doing it. Even if a ball is played through it is so delayed and too late so there are only two choices keep going offside or stop and stay onside.

Strikers should play on the 45 with the goal in front on the opposite side to the ball always onside and timing the run to arrive with the ball in the box/area. Take the defenders away to create the space then cut back in. Most of all be two footed. Not as you say passing backwards. Passing the ball behind the players causes most of the attackers to have to come back. If Onuachu at 6'-8" is playing he does try to play in on the 45 from the back post to get a run at the ball he needs good crosses not recycling the ball. We never see any variation, In the dying seconds v MC a free kick with Onuachu waiting for the Hail Mary ball in it's passed sideways and the referee blows time. It needed the two centre backs plus Onuachu in there. I don't know what they are trying to achieve but whatever it is is over my head and it isn't working. God only knows what the strikers feel about the whole debacle. Against Leicester, get to the byeline twice and pass across the goal two goals.

BBD has been signed as a goalscorer which to be fair he has done consistently as has Onuachu, Archer and Armstrong. Personally I think it's the idiot manager's obsession with possession that is not only making us impotent and porous but is the most boring, slow negative counterproductive waste of game time. I think the players get this and are directionless. It really is an unwatchable mess.

I don't think he's trying to figure anything out. It's possession as an end result not tactics. The fact of the matter is neither do our opponents. We are so obsessed by this myth that we are totally predictable. The gift that keeps giving to the opposition.

That is all the costs including bringing in a new team. It was explained in the article in the Echo. I hardly think we are paying his team of four £12m. Besides just put him on gardening leave and pay his salary over the agreed term. If he takes another job that's a result.