Russell Martin

[Weston Super Saint]

6 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

Think some of this is aimed at me because I suggested he'll manage in European football one day. Nobody was suggesting he'd be at a club like Bayern or was on the same trajectory as Kompany though, I think that was widely mocked by most including Martin himself from memory.

 

You should revisit some of Gio's posts about good old Rus.

Something about us reinventing football and destined to reach the highest heights?

[CB Fry]

2 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

Think some of this is aimed at me because I suggested he'll manage in European football one day. Nobody was suggesting he'd be at a club like Bayern or was on the same trajectory as Kompany though, I think that was widely mocked by most including Martin himself from memory.

We've got worse by almost every metric btw.

This is getting really boring though, I think everyone agrees the clubs a mess. Some think the manager who got us back here did a good job and maybe completely throwing him or at least some of the principles he installed and recruited for completely away after a bad few months was a bit silly especially as it's been replaced by a whole lot of nothingness. Some think we're miles better off because of it. They'll never agree. Hopefully we can get back to some joined up thinking again in the summer, get promoted and be better next time. Not sure anyone is going to come out of this particular arguement with any grace until then at least.

Anyway as we're being hot on what people were saying..this is getting a lot closer than you imagined isn't it? 

  

 

You've gotcha'd me there and no mistake. Turns out Russell Martin really was the very best available manager on the planet.

Sincere apologies.

[The Kraken]

Fabrice saying “they’ll” never agree 🤣

A man so entrenched in his own opinion he can’t even see where it began. And making up lines such as “Some think we're miles better off because of it [getting rid of hero Russell]”. 

Such a disingenuous little weasel. 

[gio1saints]

13 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

You should revisit some of Gio's posts about good old Rus.

Something about us reinventing football and destined to reach the highest heights?

No, your memory is incomplete. Rewriting  history is common practice but just to refresh your mind : Rus did not reinvent anything - he just took some commonly approved ( not so much as of this season) and successful football principles - see Barca, Man City, Spain, - and applied them to there extreme with Saints - with sufficient success in the Championship level - but abject failure in the EPL.

Aspiring to reach the highest standard of football possible and destined to do so are not the same. Nobody has said it was destiny. But not daring to dream is not worthy of a Saints Manager, imo. Being pragmatic is not cowardly either I hasten to add - but few have the willpower to know what you can do unless you try and persist until you get the chop like he did? Russ was victory or die trying. He and team - and support let’s not forget - died trying. Should not be a matter of scorn but of pride. 
 

Aspiration is a dirty word for some if you lose matches whilst on the journey. For others it is a reason why we support the team. There has to be some hope some thought some reason for the team and why/how it plays. With Russ in the championship he achieved that. Did not work in the EPL. Currently with Ivan I’m struggling to determine anything- good or bad. Also struggling to find positives despite my instinct to be optimistic unless there is a big reset. 

I think it was obvious now that the Board should have made better decisions in close season - especially with regard to replacing Wilcox. Hopefully lessons  learned ahead of our Championship season next time out. 🙏

Edited Saturday at 08:28 by gio1saints

[CB Fry]

14 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

No, your memory is incomplete. Rewriting  history is common practice but just to refresh your mind : Rus did not reinvent anything - he just took some commonly approved ( not so much as of this season) and successful football principles - see Barca, Man City, Spain, - and applied them to there extreme with Saints - with sufficient success in the Championship level - but abject failure in the EPL.

Aspiring to reach the highest standard of football possible and destined to do so are not the same. Nobody has said it was destiny. But not daring to dream is not worthy of a Saints Manager, imo. Being pragmatic is not cowardly either I hasten to add - but few have the willpower to know what you can do unless you try and persist until you get the chop like he did? Russ was victory or die trying. He and team - and support let’s not forget - died trying. Should not be a matter of scorn but of pride. 
 

Aspiration is a dirty word for some if you lose matches whilst on the journey. For others it is a reason why we support the team. There has to be some hope some thought some reason for the team and why/how it plays With Rus in the championship he achieved that. Did not work in the EPL. Currently with Ivan I’m struggling to determine anything- good or bad. Also struggling to find positives despite my instinct to be optimistic unless there is a big reset. 

What a load of bollocks.

I'll let you into a tiny secret. Every professional football manager on earth, and forever is going for victory. 

As usual on all your posts on this topic you are piling on grandeur, nobility and higher meaning on nothing more than a football manager who got a team promoted through the play offs. Like countless bang average managers before.

Saints fans I know had "aspiration" not to be on 9 points in April. But there you go.

Keep spouting fucking garbage.

Edited Saturday at 08:39 by CB Fry

[Dark Munster]

20 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

Think some of this is aimed at me because I suggested he'll manage in European football one day.

  

 

That’s definitely a possibility. He could get an offer some day from an Andorran second division club. 

[suewhistle]

Do they have a third division?

[Holmes_and_Watson]

16 hours ago, suewhistle said:

Do they have a third division?

His second division Andorran team will find out at the end of his first season. 🙂

[Osvaldorama]

23 hours ago, gio1saints said:

No, your memory is incomplete. Rewriting  history is common practice but just to refresh your mind : Rus did not reinvent anything - he just took some commonly approved ( not so much as of this season) and successful football principles - see Barca, Man City, Spain, - and applied them to there extreme with Saints - with sufficient success in the Championship level - but abject failure in the EPL.

Aspiring to reach the highest standard of football possible and destined to do so are not the same. Nobody has said it was destiny. But not daring to dream is not worthy of a Saints Manager, imo. Being pragmatic is not cowardly either I hasten to add - but few have the willpower to know what you can do unless you try and persist until you get the chop like he did? Russ was victory or die trying. He and team - and support let’s not forget - died trying. Should not be a matter of scorn but of pride. 
 

Aspiration is a dirty word for some if you lose matches whilst on the journey. For others it is a reason why we support the team. There has to be some hope some thought some reason for the team and why/how it plays. With Russ in the championship he achieved that. Did not work in the EPL. Currently with Ivan I’m struggling to determine anything- good or bad. Also struggling to find positives despite my instinct to be optimistic unless there is a big reset. 

I think it was obvious now that the Board should have made better decisions in close season - especially with regard to replacing Wilcox. Hopefully lessons  learned ahead of our Championship season next time out. 🙏

LOL

 

They should have been ruthless and sacked Martin the second we won promotion. 
 

He was obviously not good enough for the PL. Writing a load of nonsense doesn’t change such an obvious fact 

[gio1saints]

On 22/03/2025 at 08:38, CB Fry said:

What a load of bollocks.

I'll let you into a tiny secret. Every professional football manager on earth, and forever is going for victory. 

As usual on all your posts on this topic you are piling on grandeur, nobility and higher meaning on nothing more than a football manager who got a team promoted through the play offs. Like countless bang average managers before.

Saints fans I know had "aspiration" not to be on 9 points in April. But there you go.

Keep spouting fucking garbage.

You’ve missed the point. Arguably because your aggressive impulse to hit out at me got the better of you. 

What you call grandeur nobility and higher meaning I call what every Saints supporter actually really wants. IF they had the honesty to admit it. We all want Saints to win more than lose, of course but, and this is my point, ideally, to win playing the game beautifully. 
 

I get one man’s meat is another man’s poison and for many his style of play was poison not even close to beauty but that’s not the issue. 

We had a Manager who tried to win and win well - and it was successful enough in the Championship but a failure in the Premiership.  Russ carried on playing the same way with pretty much the same players hoping to replicate it in the EPL. He made some minor adjustments but went down with his ship rather than abandon them. Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

Edited Sunday at 09:27 by gio1saints

[TheAlehouseBrawlers]

20 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

You can scorn him for his idealistic beliefs though if he was unable to accept they were hopelessly failing and then couldn’t/wouldn’t change it.

[CB Fry]

52 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

You’ve missed the point. Arguably because your aggressive impulse to hit out at me got the better of you. 

What you call grandeur nobility and higher meaning I call what every Saints supporter actually really wants. IF they had the honesty to admit it. We all want Saints to win more than lose, of course but, and this is my point, ideally, to win playing the game beautifully. 
 

I get one man’s meat is another man’s poison and for many his style of play was poison not even close to beauty but that’s not the issue. 

We had a Manager who tried to win and win well - and it was successful enough in the Championship but a failure in the Premiership.  Russ carried on playing the same way with pretty much the same players hoping to replicate it in the EPL. He made some minor adjustments but went down with his ship rather than abandon them. Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

What a load of bollocks.

Russell Martin does not have a monopoly on winning beautifully, it's not some magical thing that only he thought of. There are countless managers in my life time at Saints who have delivered winning and winning well, from Chris Nicholl to Alan Ball to Nigel Adkins to Ronald Koeman.

You don't get to claim that for your man and your "beautiful" people. Fuck off with that.

All I will remember is a manager woefully out of his depth who ill equipped his team for the challenge we faced - which he has later admitted when he confessed he did not realise how physical the Premier League is. The Premier League that is the biggest, most high profile and visible football competition in the world. Pathetic from the manager.

Russell Martin is a bog standard manager who promoted a team from the Championship. A dime a dozen. He did a fine job for that level, and fucked up at the higher level. Not because he was some wonderful principled man making a noble principled stand for beautiful football that he couldn't possibly betray. It was because he wasn't up to it. 

Edited Sunday at 10:18 by CB Fry

[StrangelyBrown]

2 hours ago, gio1saints said:

You’ve missed the point. Arguably because your aggressive impulse to hit out at me got the better of you. 

What you call grandeur nobility and higher meaning I call what every Saints supporter actually really wants. IF they had the honesty to admit it. We all want Saints to win more than lose, of course but, and this is my point, ideally, to win playing the game beautifully. 
 

I get one man’s meat is another man’s poison and for many his style of play was poison not even close to beauty but that’s not the issue. 

We had a Manager who tried to win and win well - and it was successful enough in the Championship but a failure in the Premiership.  Russ carried on playing the same way with pretty much the same players hoping to replicate it in the EPL. He made some minor adjustments but went down with his ship rather than abandon them. Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

I think you've missed the point....

Half the time Russ' football was anything but beautiful - it was often incredibly tedious. We so often lacked the courage in the final third. So often played the ball backwards in good positions. So often gave the ball away in the same old positions in the same old way.

Give me Koeman, Poch, Ball or Nichol over Martin any day - those guys knew what good looked like and knew how to entertain.

[Whitey Grandad]

4 minutes ago, StrangelyBrown said:

I think you've missed the point....

Half the time Russ' football was anything but beautiful - it was often incredibly tedious. We so often lacked the courage in the final third. So often played the ball backwards in good positions. So often gave the ball away in the same old positions in the same old way.

Give me Koeman, Poch, Ball or Nichol over Martin any day - those guys knew what good looked like and knew how to entertain.

Only half the time?

[StrangelyBrown]

4 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Only half the time?

To be fair I the championship we sometimes swept teams away brilliantly, but we were inconsistent at best often riding our luck rather than putting inferior teams to bed.

[Wade Garrett]

3 hours ago, gio1saints said:

You’ve missed the point. Arguably because your aggressive impulse to hit out at me got the better of you. 

What you call grandeur nobility and higher meaning I call what every Saints supporter actually really wants. IF they had the honesty to admit it. We all want Saints to win more than lose, of course but, and this is my point, ideally, to win playing the game beautifully. 
 

I get one man’s meat is another man’s poison and for many his style of play was poison not even close to beauty but that’s not the issue. 

We had a Manager who tried to win and win well - and it was successful enough in the Championship but a failure in the Premiership.  Russ carried on playing the same way with pretty much the same players hoping to replicate it in the EPL. He made some minor adjustments but went down with his ship rather than abandon them. Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

A manager too myopic to be flexible does not get my admiration.

[Osvaldorama]

7 hours ago, gio1saints said:

You’ve missed the point. Arguably because your aggressive impulse to hit out at me got the better of you. 

What you call grandeur nobility and higher meaning I call what every Saints supporter actually really wants. IF they had the honesty to admit it. We all want Saints to win more than lose, of course but, and this is my point, ideally, to win playing the game beautifully. 
 

I get one man’s meat is another man’s poison and for many his style of play was poison not even close to beauty but that’s not the issue. 

We had a Manager who tried to win and win well - and it was successful enough in the Championship but a failure in the Premiership.  Russ carried on playing the same way with pretty much the same players hoping to replicate it in the EPL. He made some minor adjustments but went down with his ship rather than abandon them. Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

You have to be on a wind up 😂 Fair play 

[ApprenticeBillionaire]

8 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Scorn him as a loser scorn his as obstinate but you cannot scorn his idealistic beliefs. THAT was/is admiral imo. 

How very very fucking admirable.

What was it? Something like 6 fucking points at the time we sacked him?

Very likely to beat the worst points record for a Premier League club in 18 years.

How very fucking admirable.

[Miltonaggro]

On 21/03/2025 at 21:04, CB Fry said:

You've gotcha'd me there and no mistake. Turns out Russell Martin really was the very best available manager on the planet.

Sincere apologies.