goodymatt

I’d imagine it’s because Juric was even worse. We were right to change Martin but did it too late and brought in the wrong guy. But if you look at where we are today, would we have been any worse off sticking with Martin? I doubt it.

Agree, Martin was only a failure in the PL. 4th place wasn’t exactly our target but he got us up at the first attempt and that was success.

Timing will be down to the relegation clause, which appears to mean we can get rid without paying off the final year of his contract. The agreement we have come to will most likely be to just pay him for the last 7 games of this season. No point sacking him earlier and having to pay off his full 18 month contract. Not like we had any chance of survival at that point.

Thought our limited team (starting 11) gave everything to try and win last night. Other than the players that were cramping up/had knocks, I wouldn’t have touched the team. They were fighting to get the monkey off their back and players like Dibling just came on with zero interest. Welington came on with the right mentality tbf. In truth, it was really just down to THB making 2 poor clearances, which for the second meant he was out of position. That left Stephens in no man’s land trying to mark both his and THB’s player. Ramsdale could maybe keep it out but like with our Onuachu goal, they often creep in. We can add this to the list of games where we really should have got more points from. 25 points lost from winning positions tells the story.

Ross and Larios are seen as u21 players for the rest of the season apparently.

With Russ and Stu no longer in the building, we do need someone with great hair. Sign him up.

Does his smile say more than his words here? He also didn’t shut it down at all really, focussing on the short term rest of season’s goals. I’d say there’s a very good chance he’s our manager on 1/6. Juric has also changed his tune from ‘wanting to create something’ to ‘when you lose regularly you’re job is a risk, that’s football.’

That’s what I’d go with. I’d also pair Downes and Lesley in front and just defend for our lives, hitting sulemana, fernandes and Dibling for the counters when we can.

Looks like everyone is fit at least (excluding James Bree), plus Juric saying he needs to adapt more and it will be important to press well and low block. All of that combined ‘should’ make us a bit harder to score against. Liverpool with have one eye on PSG and League cup final too. We will lose comfortably but I’m hoping we can keep the score down. I’m going to this one, can’t say I’m looking forward to it!

Martin turned out to be a decent appointment for the championship and did achieve the target of promotion. Warning signs were there from the 4 consecutive defeats in September and the number/type of goals we were conceding at that level, but I bought into the idea of an up and coming manager learning on the job. Ultimately he either didn’t learn fast enough for our PL needs and/or wasn’t prepared to change his philosophy. The squad (he played a big part in recruiting) just wasn’t good enough too. He was let down by the club not hiring a director of footy to guide him, very much out of his depth. Juric has taken on an impossible job and looks to be positioned as the fall guy now taking the negativity on the chin so that any replacement can come in with a fresh start and a chance to build momentum. His track record suggests he can build hard to beat sides and I do think if he’d arrived instead of Jones he would have given it a better go. Hard to tell if his crazy team selections are his standard mindset or just trying anything and everything to prod us with a stick to actually do something. Man to man marking has been a disaster and our current players are not in any way suited to it. Another stubborn manager it seems. Rohl might have not achieved anything more in terms of league position than Martin but he’s kept a league one squad up under mental ownership and no money and now has them comfortably mid table and safe. He’s overachieving with resources, whereas Martin has worked to expectations. Experience of being an assistant manager at Leipzig, Saints, Bayern and Germany shouldn’t be ignored. His 4-2-3-1 is my preferred formation and he seems to be able to motivate a club in crisis. Having any sort of history with our club and our new director of football just makes this appointment seem logical. As others have mentioned, it’s always a good sign when the idea of a manager leaving a club is met with universal concern. Let’s see if it happens.