S-Clarke

I've said it many times, but our most successful sides under Koeman and Adkins were never focused on a philosophy or style. We just recruited well and played the best players in roles and positions they were happy and comfortable in. Honestly, there is so much overthinking in modern football. Successful football truly boils down to recruitment (having good players) and using them within their means, not selling them out in roles they cannot do. The chat about philosophy and plans is bollocks and there for ego hunting people.

No, the big problem is that we cannot win games when we're 2-0 up on an hour. It's not about 'killing the game' at 2-0 up, it's about managing what you have. The big problem is that you cannot coach a team to defend Martin.

The lack of footballing know-how at the top worries me too. This is why our choices are consistently so bad and why our retainment is poor. I don't think they know what to do. On one hand they come in, strip out Matt Crocker and replace him with Shields and Mowbray - clearly at that point feeling they needed a couple of footballing/scouting heads around the place. Shields left after a day. So we went and got another DoF in Wilcox, which again shows that we were pretty wedded in that approach at the top level. Wilcox then left. But we've now changed tact and have promoted a load of commercial pen pushers into the job of dictating football strategy (Mark Bitcon - more of a performance background in football and rugby, rather than player recruitment and retainment). SR need to decide what their strategy is and what their plan is with us, I don't think they have a scooby. Last season was a fortunate and unexpected success and what happened last season should not make them any more credible.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. The unbeaten run was ultimately absolutley pointless, because we had too many draws littered in it. If we didn't have that unbeaten run we'd have still finished in the playoffs. We were a playoff team, full stop. I think we should have done better with the level of player we had and I still struggle to think too fondly of last season, I found it a proper slog most weeks.

That hasn't bothered them before tbf. (Thinking of Ralph > Jones)

As I've always said, the intention financially has been sound - cannot moan about that, Dragan has put his money down. The problem I have is that these guys have no idea about football or how to run a football club. Scouting is off the level shit, contract management is off the level shit, Managerial choices and recruitment of coaches is beyond shit, retainment of key staff is absolutley awful as well. It feels that even though financially Dragan has backed us, we are utterly rudderless in a leadership sense and no one seems to have a clue at how to run a football club. Forget all the hipster-stats-based bollock scouting, it's time to go back to basics and buy good players because...you know...they're good players. We have wasted an extortionate amount of money on poorly scouted absolute trash.

I know what you mean, but that's a pretty depressing target to even aim for or use as a reason for getting a new manager. For what it's worth I think it's time as Martin has clearly lost his way here, even the backend of last season included in that. Who fancies this job is the question though. Forget the likes of Potter/Moyes etc, we'll be looking at lower profile.

I cannot wait to see how the next manager handles the scar tissue left over from a Martin team...!

He cannot coach a team to defend, full stop. We gave teams so many chances last season, so many last min rescue acts after we let utterly woeful teams back in with a shout. Having the same approach at this level, with this entirely zoomed in focus on posession football, is going to lead to the inevitable. It's very naive, maybe a little too loyal to those players around him and he's wearing rose tined glasses. We don't have good enough players to do what we are doing at this level, full stop. As much as he wants to play this way, the success of this style boils down to the players he has available to him. Exactly the same as Pep. All these new wannabe Pep's dotted around the leagues are doing my head in, trying to replicate the same with vastly inferior players just for their own ego.

Because Russell Martin cannot coach or focus on defending, simple as that really. Our off the ball work is second, which is the opposite way around than it should be.

The simple fact upon all of this, no matter what is debated and how often - Russell Martin is incapable of tactically setting up a team to defend. Full stop. This was the same at MK Dons, Swansea and ourselves last season. Too narrow minded on possession football and what to do when on the ball, our off the ball work is as bad as anyone out of the 92. That's all on Martin and his coaches. 60 goals against at MK Dons, 60 at Swansea, 60 odd last season, 2000 this year? I think we all appreciate that this season is done, dusted and wrapped up. It's going to be a particularly galling experience for us all. The main worry I have around seasons like this is how the players and fans respond to it. This sort of seasons quite often have an enormous hangover the following season as losing just becomes ingrained, that's my main worry at the moment. I don't think we've ever been this bad, certainly comparisons with that Derby team, so it's a new experience for most of us. Onto the game we do have some bright spots in the side. I like Fernandes, always have done, Dibling is nice and direct, Suguwara hasn't put a foot wrong. It's hard to really pin these results on individuals per say, it's a team throw away most weeks. In the first half we were quite sensible with our use of the ball, but as soon as we started fart arsing around with it between the CB's (who were too close to each other) it all went to shit, Leicester got a sniff and that was that. I sense a lot of panic in the side from guys like Downes, THB, key for us last year but they are all over the show this. So, here we are - 1 point, 8 games. That 1 point game against Ipswich, and almost a second against Leicester - two of our 'rivals'. The rest of the games we've been involved in have been absolute food and drink for the oppo, not competitive in any of the others. Bodes well for the forthcoming weeks. As fun as that day in May was, I don't think we were ever in a place to get promoted. Batten down the hatches for a pretty chastising winter.

They seem as excited about their team as we are for ours..! That promotion feeling dried off fairly quickly. I'm somewhat relieved that they got their first win out of the way themselves, otherwise it was an inevitable result.

His role was more fluid than that, he would cut in as well - but in this league, he suited that left sided/drifty role more so than a pure 10. And as Lighthouse said, Davis was doing a pretty tidy role for us in the middle. I don't think we can criticise the club for not making the most of Tadic, we had the most successful seasons of my lifetime with him as a key figure in the side.

I wish we were England

As I'm sat here today, I genuinely feel we were very, very fortunate to be promoted ahead of Leeds. We were the weakest of that 4 and just another also-ran in the playoffs. We did have a flirt with the autos, but if we're honest we always looked set for the playoffs. So, I think we've somewhat surprisingly ended up in the PL without the quality or structure to really do anything here. We did have a splurge in the summer, but we didn't fix the key area which hasn't been addressed since 2021 - a PL goal scorer. Adam did great for us last year, but he thrives on space for his runs. If he doesn't get space then he's pointless. We could change the manager, which feels somewhat inevitable, but my feeling is that very little will change as we have too many Championship players in key positions.

Christ, that's rubbish. I wouldn't class myself as an old man, but this isn't football anymore. Absolute corporate bollocks. All this is doing is serving their international audiences where they make their $$$. I hate it, honestly. Even the EFL is going to go a similar way. This sort of thing just makes me lose interest even more.

Translated - ''I'm a football romantic & I like tradition in football & all that stuff. I don't like the multi club ownerships and wouldn't want to be involved in anything like that, unless they pay me $$$ and then I'll love it''

The bloke is a contradicting machine. Absolute loon. "I'm experienced enough to know you can't panic, you can't listen to noise. "There's been a lot of noise this week. I got abused by my own fans the other day, absolutely abused by my own fans, who questioned our selections. If Charlton fans want to pick the team, I'll move.''

I was a big fan of Ralph, but we've had stacks of good times this century above anything he cooked up for us. Poch, Koeman, Adkins and even some of Burleys moments surely have to equate to better memories than what Ralph delivered. Football goes through eras though and this is an odd one. Lots of progressive young managers trying to be the next Pep and emulate tika-taka with players a million levels below what Pep has available to him. Personally for clubs without the best players I've always been for an aggressive high pressing approach, you don't need to have the best technical players for that - you just need to be fit as hell, run, press and understand the triggers - then 1 or 2 bits of quality up top can be all you need. This tika-taka approach with inferior players to the ones Barca had in their pomp, or City have today, is a recipe for disaster for all the lesser clubs who are trying it. There's a reason this approach was successful for Spain, Man City, Barcelona - think Messi, Hallanad, Xavi, Iniesta, Silva, Pedro, Busquetts etc. It's all about player quality and picking an approach that suits the quality at the disposal.

Obviously it's still early doors and in normal circumstances I'd say that things are still salvageable, but ultimately I just don't see anywhere near enough quality to be competitive in this league. The last time we came up there were glimpses with Lallana, Morgan, Lambert, Davis etc that we had something about us in the final third. My main issues, as have been for many years, is the lack of real star quality at the top end of the pitch. If you look at all the teams who have struggled, but ultimately have enough, it's those with firepower. We don't have any firepower and that's why I don't see anything changing no matter what we do. We have a selection of absolute misfits. We could go more pragmatic and harder to beat, but we still won't score enough goals. Our main CF options are Archer, BBD, Armstrong and Stewart - not one of them has a league goal, the closest any of them have come is Archers missed penalty. The fact that an 18 year old can come in to our attack and look like our best player is very, very telling for me. There was probably some belief that Adam Armstrong was re-born with us, but he still doesn't look anywhere near good enough for this level. I generally think we have many shortcomings, defensively we are piss poor, but the fact that we're equally piss poor up top just hammers home the situation. There's no way we finish higher than 20th. I would call it one heck of an effort if we get 19th or 18th. Hold onto your hats, as this is going to be an absolutely bleak season of Sheffield United/Derby levels.

Not sure we can really put anything on Wilcox specifically, he wasn't here long enough. He was in charge when we sanctioned the moves of Charles and Stewart though, just saying. I do agree that we have a gap at that level now though, I feel all clubs need someone from a footballing background with a general overseeing of the structure. Since Wilcox has gone, they've shuffled the deck and have Martin working much closer to the decision makers, with Mark Bitcon taking on the role of football operations director. He's from a commercial background. It does kind of sum up SR's approach, just really confused. They thought we needed a DoF so they got rid of Crocker to bring in Shields, who left, then replaced him with Wilcox, who left - and now they seem to think they don't need one. They have no real idea.

I found it hard to truly, truly enjoy last season, I'm not sure why - I've never really been able to put my finger on it. It could be because we never were really comfortable against anyone? It felt a bit of a slog, when it shouldn't have been. I can count on one hand our really comfortable wins at home, Blackburn home, Swansea home, Sheff Weds home, PNE. Swansea away should have been comfortable, but we also made hard work of that. With the players we had available to us last year we should not have lost two games 5-0, and one game 4-1. It may be those results that also dent my feeling of the season. For sure, promotion is promotion and days like that will live long forever, but a season like this will nullify the feeling I had of it for sure. I'll be honest I'm still surprised we are here because I never thought we were anywhere near good enough last year.

Personally I think he should focus on coaching the players to 1) be in the right positions to receive the ball when we are passing and 2) defend the edge of the box a hell of a lot better than we have been. There are huge flaws in his coaching, there were last season, but there is nowhere to hide in this league and managers are eating him for their dinner and then spitting him out.

Predictable bollocks about the 2nd half then. We should not be reading anything into it, the most predictable 2nd half ever as Bournemouth stepped off a bit as the game was won. Of course we'd look better on the eye, it's irrelevant though. I note his comment ''we have the characters to fight, some need to be back on the pitch'' - welcome back Jack Stephens?

The more I watch the more I'm convinced there isn't a shape or setup as such, I'm convinced the number 1 focus is ball retention, with the daft belief that if we keep the ball we'll win games - which is all well and good, but when you've not really got a shape or setup it's all a bit pointless because you're forced to keep the ball in harmless areas or make silly mistakes as the players aren't where they 'need to be to receive the ball. For PL teams this kind of approach is food and drink, teams won't even have to break sweat. There's a fuck load more to football that 'posession' and Martin doesn't look as if he's grasped that at any of his clubs.