CanadaSaint

I’m trying to get a bigger picture “read” on the rollercoaster ride of the last two games. It seems to me that we’re in the mental transition phase between Martin’s painfully slow, possession based approach and a more aggressive style focused on getting the ball forward earlier. But the Russball mentality is so deeply ingrained that it’s almost instinctive. One of its most frustrating characteristics shows in the passing – even simple passes to open players. Instead of playing the ball ahead of the target, allowing us to maintain forward momentum, we still play it to feet and often even behind the target. Aribo does it a lot, but he’s far from the only one. Sure, some of it is an ability thing but it’s just as much a mentality thing. When we revert to the Russball instinct we look awful but when we make the mental shift from a possession focus to a penetration focus we look far better. Same players but totally different mindset, and the more creative forces like Dibling, Sulemana and Fernandes get a chance to show their skills.

That’s a lot of what’s going on here. As fans we just want to win the game. Juric wants to win as well but he also needs to figure out who he can rely on and who he can’t. Now he knows.

It’s pretty impressive that Juric has flushed the Martinball instincts so quickly - I thought it would take longer. But to inject that rapid player and ball movement up front is even more impressive. Long way to go but this is major progress regardless of the final score.

As many have said, we won’t know how good our squad is until Martin is nowhere near it. It isn’t top half but it’s nowhere near as bad as Martin made it. Hopefully we’ll keep taking it to United because they can’t deal with the pace and movement.

And another 'novelty' is that he represents an early out-ball target. That will temper United's attempts to push up and trap us in our own half, and throw everyone forward for set pieces. Keeping someone "high" normally forces the opposition to keep two back - with Dibling it might be three. Sure the odds are stacked against us, but at least we're doing things to stop stacking the odds against ourselves.

I don't disagree - I said it would be a project, but it's one with a high upside. It's difficult to see a downside when you look at the table and watch us trying to defend. I didn't claim to know best - I just offered an opinion. If you'd criticized me for talking out of my arse I would have been more inclined to accept it because I know that's your area of expertise. Was it the criticism of Russ that got your panties twisted?

Whether or not the “rumours” are true, I think we’d be a much stronger side with ABK at the back, allowing KWP to move back to his best position. Right now they’re both devalued assets who have been highly rated internationals. ABK’s a player who needs a strong manager who will call him out if he steps out of line. Selles wasn’t strong enough, and Martin only picked players with blind allegiance to him and his system - even if they ball-watched incessantly and took halfwitted red cards. Juric has a project on his hands, but there are big “upsides” to taking it on. A better-performing side, higher valuations for two good players we’ll probably lose when we go down. What’s the downside for a team with six points after 20 games?

I was just typing some similar thoughts when your post popped up. There’s no way we’d hire a Croatian manager unless it was what Dragan wanted, so I think he’s been taking control for a while - this move just formalizes it. He’s had a gutful of the current lot and he’s now putting his people in place. I can’t see Juric committing if he would be required to adhere to Rasmus’s ideological bullshit, so hopefully Rasmus is in the group now being marginalized. The next moves should be interesting.

It doesn't qualify as a talisman but one thing I think we've really lacked in the last two years is a good dressing room leader. The best ones are respected by the other players for their contribution, commitment and consistency - not necessarily silky skills. They're willing to call out players (on or off the pitch) whose standards drop below required levels - or who keep making the same mistakes, and they support younger pros who are learning their trade. While they are loyal to the manager, they have a good finger on the dressing room pulse, and they're willing to have frank conversations with the manager, in private, when they think he's missing stuff he should be seeing. A good captain can make a team better, and can make a manager better - especially a manager with narcissistic traits. If ever a manager needed a strong captain to help him make his theory-football work, it was Russell Martin. He needed to temper his possession-obsession with some pragmatism, but I suspect that he valued loyalty to him above everything else (including ability), and picked his captain(s) accordingly. So I'm not sure that he ever got to hear any of the "home truths" he desperately needed to hear from the players.

This is exactly what has been doing my head in. We supposedly went after Marsch and were in discussions with Juric two years or so ago, and both of them are committed to fast transition using both flanks. Marsch's Canadian men's team is exhilarating to watch, punches well above its weight, and gave fits to some of the best sides in the world at Copa America, including a full-strength Argentina. Just what a club like Saints needs to be, not Russell Martin's version of Monty Python's Fish Dance. The point isn't that we didn't hire Marsch or Juric, or even why we didn't, but that we went after them in the first place - and then settled for Jones, Selles and Martin. That's not a carefully-orchestrated philosophy at work, being guided by people who know football. Hopefully, we're now on the right track but a lot of damage has been done.

I suspect you’re absolutely right on both counts. There’s no way this would have gone ahead without Dragan’s sign-off, and it may even have been at his instigation. The credibility of Rasmus’s ‘master plan’ can be gauged from the tactical diversity of the managers we have seriously considered and/or appointed - Marsch, Juric, Jones, Selles and Martin, and now back to Juric. That’s not a masterplan, it’s a fart in an egotistical thunderstorm, and I think/hope that Dragan has rumbled him. He doesn’t have to get rid of Rasmus, just stop letting him make the big decisions.

I think Downes’ game will start improving when he can focus more on his main role - protecting our back line from the opposition, and breaking out when safe to do so. A lot of his time under Russball involved trying to protect the back line from itself. So much so that he became part of it and started falling victim to the same failings.

Archer's moment of directness and positivity, so alien in Martin's approach, seemed to inspire others to adopt a similar approach, and then the whole tide of the game turned. We were looking to move forward instead of sideways, and even Sulemana was working his ass off defensively but always looking for the chance to break. I think we need to get used to having Tall Paul in the side - he looks like Bambi on ice at times but he adds dimensions we really need and he's quite a handful; I wish he'd started tonight. At times it was hard to believe that they were the same players. Getting Ramsdale back into the team and utilizing his long, flat out-ball more frequently should blunt the opposition press and make us much more enjoyable to watch.

Same players, drastically different intensity and positivity. Trying hard to suppress anger that Martin wasn’t shown the door after Bournemouth.

Big moment, that - aside from being a cracking goal. It’s the kind of take responsibility, go at ‘em mindset that had no place in Russball. Now that mindset needs to spread.