Saint86

Fernandes off worries me, he's been involved in everything good so far this game - offensively and defensively. Leicester just bringing on more pace

Taylor's bias in this game is beyond a joke. Appalling referee. I hope we complain.

Think saints need to seriously need to make a complaint about Taylor based on this first half alone. Dread to think whats going to happen second half if this noncery carries on.

Clear foul on dibling, and ball didn't go out and they gave a free kick. WTF is this.

Shocking refereeing from Taylor so far. Completely unfit to be a top flight ref. Error prone, clear bias/harshness, and inconsistent.

clear foul on dibling not given, then never a foul by downes. And if we're being consistent, that was just a foul on downes where the leicester player came through the back of him... joke ref.

Clear ref bias from the ref here. 2 yellows for us, one wasn't, and one was immediately after what should have been a foul on fernandes. Awful ref.

Surely its inevitable that if Leicester score, Vardy will score? Even you must know that Lighthouse. It is written 😄. (May or may not happen in the 95th minute to deny us our first win, and Vardy may or may not foul our best player (Dibling this season), injuring his achilies and putting him out for the rest of the season before he then demands a move to Liverpool - i'm not bitter against Vardy or anything).

What, worse than the last time we lost to the worst football team i've ever seen visit saint mary's? Hopefully not... Reading our forum and their's, its a wonder this isn't being called the graham potter derby...

Objectively, just no 😄. You can't just ignore Ipswich (£8-10billion net owners pumping money into them to build a team in the 3rd tier and then doing the back to back promotions). They were in the championship with us last year... they got 96 points and finished 2nd? 😄 There were 4 teams on 87+ points - that's more than any other season going back to 2014/15 (at which point i stopped checking tbh - but i'm confident its a trend that would continue for the overwhelming majority of seasons). So which one of the top 3 are you ignoring to make us part of an exclusive 3horse race? Leeds would get automatic promotion most seasons with their performance. We were far and away the worst of the relegated premier league sides and we then gutted the team of pretty much all talent.. so we were never favourites for top 2 (regardless of people's ignorance of how good Ipswich were going to be), plus the playoffs are always less than a 50% chance.... So if anything, Martin should probably be getting praised for getting us promoted, not beaten round the head for missing automatics. Specifically on your point about the tactics/defensive play: "an unheard of amount of goals for a promotion chasing team"... okay, so we were more attacking and less defensive, but still got the job done... we let in 6 more than Ipswich who secured automatics? We also didn't even have the most goals conceded of the playoff sides last season (your "promotion chasing sides"), and indeed looking back at previous seasons there are sides with more goals against than us (Reading came 3rd with 64 against, villa and west brom both finished in the playoffs with 62 and 61 against for example - so no, its not unheard of. If anything, your point raises the question of whether Martin be praised for getting promoted with his style of play over the more typical sean dyche / calderon / BFS styles that succeed in the championship - a devils advocate rhetorical question 😛. In Martin's favour - in each of the past 10seasons, our goals scored would be at least 2nd best - and more generally place us as top scorers (ditto Ipswich and Leicester - i.e., tough league last year), and goal difference wise we'd generally have finished in the top 3 or 4. So being overly critical over goals against in a successful season isn't really the biggest deal? Its also been said to death, but a significant proportion of our goals against came in the first 6 matches when we had massive squad turnaround and a drastic transition in style, take just 3 of those games out of the equation and include the playoffs and we were nearer to 1 goal against per game over the course of the season 🤷‍♂️. So given the previous 3 horse race arguments falls a bit flat on the actual evidence of last season, it comes back to the fact that fundamentally its a case of people not liking his style as opposed to him underperforming per se 🤷‍♂️. In the premier league, people dislike that we're not changing it "enough" (matter of each fans opinion) to stay up - and i guess many would rather give some Sean Dyche / BFS style football ago than continue trying with Martin's stlye - although there are no guarantees that would work either.

This 100%. Especially if you consider the complete turmoil that we had at the start of the season re player sales/arrivals and change of style, let alone the state of the dressing room morale and so many players not wanting to be here. Some people may not want to hear it, but Martin did a good job with us last season 🤷‍♂️. It was an incredibly competitive league with that top 4 chasing 2 automatic spots, and at the end of the day we got promoted. Within that, we beat Leeds 3 times over the season and justifiably so as were the better side on each occasion, the play off final was a very professional performance given the occasion as well. As for the 5th best team in the league... We played West Brom 4 times in the league/play offs, winning 3, drawing 1, and ending with an aggregate score of 7-2. We outplayed Ipswich both times we played them as well, those particular results were down to luck as much as anything else - not dissimilar to the draw against them this season. In summation - For people to sit here and take away last season from Martin is extremely harsh imo. Although I don't think there are that many seriously doing this. As for this season though, he's struggling (although perhaps justifiably so - given the damage PSR to the squads of relegated and promoted teams (i.e., our squads have been gutted by relegation and we're not even allowed to spend the same as the club that finished 17th last year). If there are managers available that have clearly evidenced themselves as being of a higher ability (i.e., the Potter rumours), the club may well pull the trigger and i doubt many would seriously argue 🤷‍♂️. However, if that doesn't happen, i take it to mean there; Ether isn't anyone better available, That the club think relegation is inevitable and there is an understanding in place that Martin will be our manager next season regardless of what league we are in, That the club think he's doing a reasonable job and has a chance of keeping us up... Also, do we know what SR's season expectations formally are this season? Are we under an "attempt to avoid relegation" mandate, or "avoid relegation". If its the former then Martin won't be sacked unless we fall well adrift - and even then it might hinge on how the dressing room is.

This is the weekend where we finally win. (confident that if i say this enough it will make it so).

Personally don't think they're about to sack him - sounds like the usual rumour mill fluff tbh. A lot of people are very vocal at wanting him out and have no issues creating noise to that effect. But equally facts remain he's a long way off being favourite for the boot - currently behind ETH and O'Neil. If he does go, would hope its for Potter of the names listed - bugger all point sacking him for another untested unknown. Needs to be someone with pedigree who knows what he is doing and will have the respect of the players.

We're gonna win !!! 👀

I don't think he'll get sacked even if we lose tbh. Our survival chances will look incredibly bleak if we cannot win this one though. Entering dead rubber territory for the rest of the season. You'd like to think the situation, the encouraging performance vs arsenal, and the fact that its one of our best chances to win at home will all focus the players minds on it - hopefully leading to a 1st win of the season.

Yeah agreed - think it was fairly obvious to anyone who'd actually watched him that he had what was needed. A great buy for Ipswich.

I reckon this is going to be one where it might be worth being "out for the day"....

The issue is Sports Republic. They're woefully out of their depth and have spent hundreds of millions to gut every level of the club to a level below even that of the penny less Gao / Semmens / Ralph years... In fact, i think our only saving grace last year was that they had Lavia and Tino on the books to flog for big money and tidy profits... one final gift from SR's predecessors? Martin looks like he is far from up to the required level, but i feel sorry for him... and when he does eventually get sacked, SR will find someone else who isn't up to it to replace him with no doubt.... All of which makes it a bit pointless hating on Russel Martin and hoping the team lose... Are you in a rush to have the next Selles or Nathan Jones at the club?! 😂

One on the one hand... "it could be worse, we could be pompey" springs to mind... and on the other, we play arsenal away shortly.... 😂

Plenty of people didn't need hindsight mate. And on that subject, how are people still going on about Broja like he is a reliable prem striker? 8 Goals in 66 matches (0.12 goals per game).

Its certainly notable that we might tweak things and get on top for 5-10min... but then the opposition manager makes a slight change and we're nullified until say half time... then we'll change things for 5-10min... and then we're nullified again. Too easy for other managers to counter out setups and then he seems unable to figure that out or realise the danger. First half vs Bournemouth it was obvious it needed changing urgently at 2-0, we did nothing and the game was totally gone with the 3rd goal.

Have reflected on that awful performance over night. I do feel sorry for him tbh. Was always going to be a tough ask keeping us up, but feels like he's totally lost his way the last few games. I don't think the transfer window has been as brilliant as some (we could have loaned someone like Kepa for example and signed a better striker with the extra £25M. He did give us a great season last year (albeit we did almost fail to get over the line), and Wembley was a fantastic day out for the whole fanbase! It was also notable that he did have his dark times last year (Leicester post match interview in particular - and he seemed to used that as a motivation to change up, seemingly with a Neil Warnock intervention occurring behind the scenes... Strikes me he seems to fluctuate between extremes when the pressure is on, which isn't good, but he is a young manager at the end of the day... and who knows, if he stays on maybe he'll push on again - and he did i think prove those particular doubts wrong last year in that he did show he could change for the final run in and playoffs. Ultimately though, I don't think he's going to keep us up. At times we've played well, but we're not good enough to score the goals we need, and the players are making bad mistakes to cost us (and that isn't just on Martin): Bournemouth yesterday: The free kick was pure naivety, and then its compounded by the players very poor / limp reaction to go behind - I also think that ball was likely still moving and i wouldn't be at all surprised if it had been disallowed had we scored it - i.e., it was a good goal that you don't often see come off, and we've just been ruthlessly punished for that error. Deflected second goal Ipswich's deflected goal last week, bad positioning for the defence sure... but again ruthlessly punished - straight into the top corner - keeper no chance Penalty Miss vs united - that's just down to the players... simply not good enough!! Newcastle we outplayed even with 11men, players made one mistake and again punished. And sure, teams make their own luck by being better, but does feel like we're being punished for everything atm. And saying all that, i'm not actually sure anyone else will keep us up either... So if SR have decided that Martin is our man and are committed to him long term, that they think he will continue to grow and develop etc., and they're going to stick with him regardless of relegation - then frankly they need to say it... Because otherwise he's basically being hung out to dry, facing the music every week with all and sundry waiting for him to get sacked... Which is a grim level of pressure for anyone to be under and won't help the team or the fans. Equally, if we're going to sack him soon, then for goodness sake get it over and done with - we're using up winnable games and he needs putting out of his misery, he's a nice enough bloke who gave us some good times and no one wants to watch it all fall apart for him in a long drawn out slow motion car crash...

PSR. Basically stops relegation by default. We were just unlucky enough to go down as it came in. Clubs that get relegated get wrecked by the turmoil it causes, then get promoted and can't spend the same as the worst surviving prem club. And clubs coming up from lower leagues (that avoid that mess) don't have the infastructure to really threaten because it takes years of funding to establish squad depth, commercial revenues, and quality training / academy setups. PSR is one foot into the world of removing relegation.

"Finally leaning" ... "towards thinking". Mate. Do you want any paint to go with that fence.

I think that's going to be it for our favourite vegan tbh. First half was absolutely dire. Looks like hes lost, no idea what line up or tactics to pick, totally scattergun and all over the place. Feel for him, but I just can't see how he can continue. Getting worse if anything.