Russell Martin

[Tommy Mulgrew]

3 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Was it just me or did I imagine Saints broke our all time unbeaten record playing a possession based football last season. We got pretty good, apparently, at it. 

So good in fact this club has never gone so unbeaten for so long no matter what league. 

SO…obviously, RM, listening carefully to the hindsight pundits on here should now ditch the style our players know and that many specifically joined for - and can actually play well - in favour of not-that something else with a n other manager anyone anyways will do as long as it’s not possession football - because we lost three in a row. 
 

Sounds like many of you think acclimatising to the EPL is as simple as downloading your latest phone update. Wait a few mins and you are good. 

IF his crime 3 matches in is being too cautious in selecting 3CB’s , yup a frankly nuts U formation v Forest and the horrible-to-me insistence on playing out from defence every time ( which I personally hate but ho hum apparently we do also score from this) then the sentence for this that many here are pronouncing is sack the guy three matches in? Him and team that got us promoted first time ? That gave us that day at Wembley? His and teams bank of credit with you - INGRATES- is three matches before you have turned on him quicker than a Camembert on a sunny day. Loyal supporters my arse. 
 

I cannot recall anyone on here wanting to “ditch the style our players know”.  But many, me included, want Russ to vary the style a bit to avoid so much short passing between our CBs and GK in our own penalty area, let alone inside the 6 yard goal box, while under severe pressure from pressing opposition attackers.  And for our midfielders to receive more balls on the turn and go forwards in a fast and more direct attack instead of passing back to a CB or our GK, who are still faced with being pressed.  Preferably, the GK to spray some longer balls outside our penalty area, probably out wide in preference to up the middle, where we have no TP to harry oppo CBs into a mistake.  Call the latter Plan B if you like but it does not imply the complete abandonment of a fast, flowing PB style of football.  The turgid stuff that we serve up almost all the time will not do at all.

We had exactly the same vituperative conversation/argument last year.  Let’s not do it all over again.

Unless he is more pragmatic than he has been so far this season and for much of last season, Russ will be exposed by any other EPL manager and team as a one-trick pony and we shall be consigned to the Championship again well before this season ends.  Hardly any of us want him sacked regardless of what he does in the coming months; most of us are willing him to be more flexible in how we set-up and play, rather like how he adjusted for the last few games of last season.

Here is one of my posts from last season after our horrendous defeat by Leicester.  It received 23 likes and is just as apposite now as it was then.  What Leicester did to us then is what almost every EPL team could do to us this season.

On 23/04/2024 at 23:23, Tommy Mulgrew said:

That was terrible and demonstrated that RM, who is supposed to be a good coach, does not have what it takes to succeed in this division.  He has a rigid style of play and sticks to it even when it is not working.  He encourages defenders to stand off attackers and invite crosses and runs into our box.  He encourages slow, ponderous play everywhere on the pitch even when we are aggressively pressed.  Our press is OK but nothing more and certainly nothing like as effective as Leicester’s.  We gave the ball away too many times as a result of being pressed effectively, with players closing down ours and our favoured passing channels; and then stood off them as they attacked our goal with pace and accuracy.  He encourages possession to the exclusion of everything else, resulting in sideways and backwards passing instead of moving forward at pace.  Having two shots and none on target is a disgrace.  He insists on playing one way only even when faced with a CB with the turning circle of an oil tanker; why did we not try to run Vestergaard ragged?  If he really thinks that we put on a good show, he is deluded.  We were well beaten by a far better team that was well coached to play against us and all our flaws.  Outthought and outplayed.  A miserable evening.  One that we could see coming but did not believe would be as demoralising as it turned out to be.  Truly pathetic.

 

[Wade Garrett]

18 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

You never been a fan of Russell Martin I take it. Getting us promoted must have fucked you right off. 

 

 

Why, because you can’t be a Saints fan and not rate the manager?

[Whitey Grandad]

3 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Was it just me or did I imagine Saints broke our all time unbeaten record playing a possession based football last season. We got pretty good, apparently, at it. 

So good in fact this club has never gone so unbeaten for so long no matter what league. 

SO…obviously, RM, listening carefully to the hindsight pundits on here should now ditch the style our players know and that many specifically joined for - and can actually play well - in favour of not-that something else with a n other manager anyone anyways will do as long as it’s not possession football - because we lost three in a row. 
 

Sounds like many of you think acclimatising to the EPL is as simple as downloading your latest phone update. Wait a few mins and you are good. 

IF his crime 3 matches in is being too cautious in selecting 3CB’s , yup a frankly nuts U formation v Forest and the horrible-to-me insistence on playing out from defence every time ( which I personally hate but ho hum apparently we do also score from this) then the sentence for this that many here are pronouncing is sack the guy three matches in? Him and team that got us promoted first time ? That gave us that day at Wembley? His and teams bank of credit with you - INGRATES- is three matches before you have turned on him quicker than a Camembert on a sunny day. Loyal supporters my arse. 
 

There you go again. Last season was in a lower league yet you go on and on about it as though what we achieved was something special.

You’re the Uncle Albert of Saintsweb..

[Whitey Grandad]

59 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

A record breaking run is a record breaking run. We ought to be a little less scornful a little bit more respectful. 

It was indeed a record breaking run but only a record for Southampton. 25 games is not bad but nothing special in the footballing world. AC. Milan went 58 games without a loss between 1991 to 1993. But they weren’t playing in the second tier of English football.

AFC Wimbledon went 78 games unbeaten in 2003-2004. That’s more than three times as long as ours and is the record for English senior football. 

[Golac's Cunning Stunts]

4 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Was it just me or did I imagine Saints broke our all time unbeaten record playing a possession based football last season. We got pretty good, apparently, at it. 

So good in fact this club has never gone so unbeaten for so long no matter what league. 

SO…obviously, RM, listening carefully to the hindsight pundits on here should now ditch the style our players know and that many specifically joined for - and can actually play well - in favour of not-that something else with a n other manager anyone anyways will do as long as it’s not possession football - because we lost three in a row. 
 

Sounds like many of you think acclimatising to the EPL is as simple as downloading your latest phone update. Wait a few mins and you are good. 

IF his crime 3 matches in is being too cautious in selecting 3CB’s , yup a frankly nuts U formation v Forest and the horrible-to-me insistence on playing out from defence every time ( which I personally hate but ho hum apparently we do also score from this) then the sentence for this that many here are pronouncing is sack the guy three matches in? Him and team that got us promoted first time ? That gave us that day at Wembley? His and teams bank of credit with you - INGRATES- is three matches before you have turned on him quicker than a Camembert on a sunny day. Loyal supporters my arse. 
 

What an absolute car crash of a post

[Whitey Grandad]

4 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Right here, right now, I don't believe in Plan A!

More like Plan Eh ??????

[SaintsBarry74]

We had the highest possession in the championship last season at 65.5% average, followed by Leicester at 61.6%.

Pretty good stats, looking good, not worried.

[SaintsBarry74]

So far this season, Spurs have the highest possession at 68.7%, closely followed by RM's Saints at 68%. Third place goes to Man City with only 64.7% (always knew RM was the better manager).

[AlexLaw76]

4 minutes ago, SaintsBarry74 said:

We had the highest possession in the championship last season at 65.5% average, followed by Leicester at 61.6%.

Pretty good stats, looking good, not worried.

Proves we are really good at passing it around between the 3 CBs

[trousers]

4 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Was it just me or did I imagine Saints broke our all time unbeaten record playing a possession based football last season. We got pretty good, apparently, at it. 
So good in fact this club has never gone so unbeaten for so long no matter what league. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

A run which helped the 2nd or 3rd best squad in the league achieve the fantastic finish of……4th. 

 

2 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

Didn't we end this record-breaking unbeaten run further behind the team that actually won the league than when we started it?

Yep, the much lauded "unbeaten run" ended up being a hinderence rather than a benefit. We became too satisfied with draws because it "preserved the unbeaten run"...

 

[a1ex2001]

3 hours ago, Oldandtired said:

And then all the other managers, even in the championship did what they were paid to do and found out how to play against us and how easy it was.

And then we weren't unbeaten anymore. We got to the PL by winning a lottery.

If championship managers can suss us out we are going to be easy meat for the PL version and that means either the manager changing tactics or us changing manager.

We also no longer have one of the 2/3 best teams in the league, it’s always going to be easier to look good when you have the best players (ask pep) we now have one of the 4/5 worst teams in the league so insisting on playing in a way that hands opportunities to the opposition is madness even city don’t much about with it and the back as much as we do because they don’t want to be handing other teams the opportunity to score easy goals.

[a1ex2001]

8 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Proves we are really good at passing it around between the 3 CBs

Proves that all you need to do it spend 90 minutes watching us pass it around in our own area and at some points we will misplace a pass or get pressed off the ball and let you score a tap in.

[SaintsBarry74]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Proves we are really good at passing it around between the 3 CBs

Tiki Taka footy innit

Okay, last stat: in the Championship last season, we also led in most passes per attempt at goal -- by some margin.

How this excessive, error-prone fiddling with the ball will fare in top-tier football is bound to be an excruciating watch for any Saints fan.

[Galway saint]

Seems counterintuitive that 68% possession can produce one goal scored, five goals conceded and no points from three games and that’s against two of the weaker sides

shows you need the ball less than a third of the game time to beat saints - nuts !

 

 

 

[Oldandtired]

11 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

Seems counterintuitive that 68% possession can produce one goal scored, five goals conceded and no points from three games and that’s against two of the weaker sides

shows you need the ball less than a third of the game time to beat saints - nuts !

 

 

 

It's not really, 67% of that was in our own penalty area.

[obelisk]

1 hour ago, SaintsBarry74 said:

So far this season, Spurs have the highest possession at 68.7%, closely followed by RM's Saints at 68%. Third place goes to Man City with only 64.7% (always knew RM was the better manager).

There's still no extra points for artistic impression in football.

[woodsaint1]

49 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

Yep, the much lauded "unbeaten run" ended up being a hinderence rather than a benefit. We became too satisfied with draws because it "preserved the unbeaten run"...

 

We still got promoted though didnt we? That was the aim. Delivered when it mattered and when we were under big pressure during the playoffs and also adpated the way the played in those games which some thought RM was incapable of.

Anyways....dont know why we're revisiting last season, the unbeaten run is old news (I'd actually forgot about it) and what matters is this season and the 35 league games still to go. Hopefully RM is able to adapt again, otherwise it is going to be a very painful season. Every team will make mistakes in possession, but those mistakes dont always have to be terminal. I appreciate our possession based style starts with the keeper and goes through the defence but we need to find a way of implementing our style without taking so many unnecessary risks.

If we play well, I have no doubt that we can beat most teams in this league, but it wont matter how well we play if we're gifting teams a goal or two headstart. Thats not rocket science.

[Saint_clark]

9 hours ago, gio1saints said:

ditch the style our players know and that many specifically joined for - and can actually play well - 

Can we stop the nonsense about players joining us to play Martin's brand of football please. Nobody has joined us because they are desperate to play a certain type of football. 

I'd also debate that we can play that style of football well now that we're in the Prem. A lot of people myself included said last season that he might get us promoted but his style would be suicidal in the Prem.

[gio1saints]

6 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

Why, because you can’t be a Saints fan and not rate the manager?

Of course you can - but it’s also possible to be a fan AND rate the manager - and defend him when others say weird and disgusting things about him. 

It is possible to respond to an OP weird implication (that I won’t repeat because its just sick ) with humour rather than dropping to their level.

Admittedly, deliberately, my response was sardonic - but we all use the language we feel most comfortable with - as you so often ( and funnily) show. 

 

[CB Fry]

6 hours ago, Galway saint said:

Seems counterintuitive that 68% possession can produce one goal scored, five goals conceded and no points from three games and that’s against two of the weaker sides

shows you need the ball less than a third of the game time to beat saints - nuts !

 

 

 

It's not counter intuitive. It's just an irrelevant metric. Possession in and of itself does not impact a team winning or, as we've seen, even scoring a goal. It's just propaganda football as a wise man once said.

We can very easily finish bottom with magnificent possession stats.

[Galway saint]

37 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

It's not counter intuitive. It's just an irrelevant metric. Possession in and of itself does not impact a team winning or, as we've seen, even scoring a goal. It's just propaganda football as a wise man once said.

We can very easily finish bottom with magnificent possession stats.

It’s not ‘irrelevant’ in that if you don’t have any possession you cannot win the game ( barring own goals) and equally if you have all the possession you can’t lose the game (again barring own goals) but clearly we are demonstrating that possession of itself it doesn’t win football matches 

[Wade Garrett]

3 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Of course you can - but it’s also possible to be a fan AND rate the manager - and defend him when others say weird and disgusting things about him. 

It is possible to respond to an OP weird implication (that I won’t repeat because its just sick ) with humour rather than dropping to their level.

Admittedly, deliberately, my response was sardonic - but we all use the language we feel most comfortable with - as you so often ( and funnily) show. 

 

Fair enough

[Miltonaggro]

9 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

There you go again. Last season was in a lower league yet you go on and on about it as though what we achieved was something special.

You’re the Uncle Albert of Saintsweb..

Prince Albert.

[Miltonaggro]

1 hour ago, CB Fry said:

It's not counter intuitive. It's just an irrelevant metric. Possession in and of itself does not impact a team winning or, as we've seen, even scoring a goal. It's just propaganda football as a wise man once said.

We can very easily finish bottom with magnificent possession stats.

Spot on. Always think a good analogy is cash flow and profit in business. 

[saintant]

9 hours ago, Galway saint said:

Seems counterintuitive that 68% possession can produce one goal scored, five goals conceded and no points from three games and that’s against two of the weaker sides

shows you need the ball less than a third of the game time to beat saints - nuts !

 

 

 

Our possession stats to goals ratio tells you RM's tactics are not working at this level. We all realise our possession stats are only so high because we play lots of sideways and backward passes particularly at the back - nobody is fooled into thinking the stats make us a good side. He has to find a way of moving the ball upfield much more economically and cut out the passes for passes sake. We'd all sacrifice less possession for more chances and goals I'm sure.

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Galway saint said:

It’s not ‘irrelevant’ in that if you don’t have any possession you cannot win the game ( barring own goals) and equally if you have all the possession you can’t lose the game (again barring own goals) but clearly we are demonstrating that possession of itself it doesn’t win football matches 

That's why I said "possession in and of itself" (ie for its own sake) rather than just possession. 

I don't think the concept of "well if you don't kick the ball for one minute of the match you can't win" is a particularly useful starting point when discussing various tactical approaches professional coaches can take in the world's top league.

[saintant]

9 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

That's why I said "possession in and of itself" (ie for its own sake) rather than just possession. 

I don't think the concept of "well if you don't kick the ball for one minute of the match you can't win" is a particularly useful starting point when discussing various tactical approaches professional coaches can take in the world's top league.

RM is quoted as saying if you have the ball the opposition can't score. Correct but, in our case, they can easily nick it off you or pick up a sloppy pass around our penalty area and score as we've already found out to our cost for all goals conceded this season.

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, Galway saint said:

It’s not ‘irrelevant’ in that if you don’t have any possession you cannot win the game ( barring own goals) and equally if you have all the possession you can’t lose the game (again barring own goals) but clearly we are demonstrating that possession of itself it doesn’t win football matches 

But if you score a goal you lose possession. This must never be allowed.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Miltonaggro said:

Spot on. Always think a good analogy is cash flow and profit in business. 

As the saying goes,

Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity, Cash is Reality

[gio1saints]

10 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

There you go again. Last season was in a lower league yet you go on and on about it as though what we achieved was something special.

You’re the Uncle Albert of Saintsweb..

Maybe I am. Except that past was only four matches ago .
 

This notion that RM cannot and will not make changes to the team and tactics is - to my mind- a misunderstanding of his football philosophy. 

Examples: He started Ramsdale when he could easily have bedded him in and played AM, he hooked AA and WS ( both big favourites of his allegedly) off at Halftime last match.  Unprecedented. 

That he cannot and will not make changes that some are taking as fact on here is simply, blatantly not true. 

Are you looking forward to us playing 433 v Man Utd?
 If he starts with 5 at the back incl Capt. Jack he will get crucified on here… But will we also get murdered on the pitch playing a more open game? 

I’ve no idea what’s a good formation for Man Utd is cos if we play like we have done we are sure to lose - but if we play more attacking it’s probably the same outcome maybe even more goals conceded - we let Cardiff youth score 3 against us the other night don’t forget. 
 

My hope though is we do go more front foot - drop the third CB insert Adam Lallana as the new on pitch keep calm person from MF, drop Will for Mateus and give Tyler a start instead of Joe. As for up front- give AA a chance to redeem himself at SMS but between Archer and BBD on current form I’d choose Archer-  but playing more central. And Cornet will get at least 30 minutes - probably for AA if he’s not scored.
 

 

 

[Whitey Grandad]

1 minute ago, gio1saints said:

Maybe I am. Except that past was only four matches ago .
 

This notion that RM cannot and will not make changes to the team and tactics is - to my mind- a misunderstanding of his football philosophy. 

Examples: He started Ramsdale when he could easily have bedded him in and played AM, he hooked AA and WS ( both big favourites of his allegedly) off at Halftime last match.  Unprecedented. 

That he cannot and will not make changes that some are taking as fact on here is simply, blatantly not true. 

Are you looking forward to us playing 433 v Man Utd?
 If he starts with 5 at the back incl Capt. Jack he will get crucified on here… But will we also get murdered on the pitch playing a more open game? 

I’ve no idea what’s a good formation for Man Utd is cos if we play like we have done we are sure to lose - but if we play more attacking it’s probably the same outcome maybe even more goals conceded - we let Cardiff youth score 3 against us the other night don’t forget. 
 

My hope though is we do go more front foot - drop the third CB insert Adam Lallana as the new on pitch keep calm person from MF, drop Will for Mateus and give Tyler a start instead of Joe. As for up front- give AA a chance to redeem himself at SMS but between Archer and BBD on current form I’d choose Archer-  but playing more central. And Cornet will get at least 30 minutes - probably for AA if he’s not scored.
 

 

 

Four games ago we were playing at a lower level. As I have to keep reminding you.

If he plays five at the back I shall scream. If he shoehorns in Stephens I shall scream even louder. He’s a waste of space.

433 is a much better option. We already play an open game. It’s just that we’re wide open at the back.

Are you really making comparisons with the Cardiff game? They’d sold out of programmes so I didn’t have a clue who the players were on either side. I spent most of the game looking at the lineups on my phone.

[saintant]

5 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

Maybe I am. Except that past was only four matches ago .
 

This notion that RM cannot and will not make changes to the team and tactics is - to my mind- a misunderstanding of his football philosophy. 

Examples: He started Ramsdale when he could easily have bedded him in and played AM, he hooked AA and WS ( both big favourites of his allegedly) off at Halftime last match.  Unprecedented. 

That he cannot and will not make changes that some are taking as fact on here is simply, blatantly not true. 

Are you looking forward to us playing 433 v Man Utd?
 If he starts with 5 at the back incl Capt. Jack he will get crucified on here… But will we also get murdered on the pitch playing a more open game? 

I’ve no idea what’s a good formation for Man Utd is cos if we play like we have done we are sure to lose - but if we play more attacking it’s probably the same outcome maybe even more goals conceded - we let Cardiff youth score 3 against us the other night don’t forget. 
 

My hope though is we do go more front foot - drop the third CB insert Adam Lallana as the new on pitch keep calm person from MF, drop Will for Mateus and give Tyler a start instead of Joe. As for up front- give AA a chance to redeem himself at SMS but between Archer and BBD on current form I’d choose Archer-  but playing more central. And Cornet will get at least 30 minutes - probably for AA if he’s not scored.
 

 

 

Come on, Ramsdale was an obvious pick in front of AM. As for taking off AA and WS at half time the reality is they should not have started in the first place.

[danjosaint]

We don't have to be open though do we, we just play a 4231 which in my eyes fit our personel the best barring the rm/rw slot 

[trousers]

9 hours ago, woodsaint1 said:

We still got promoted though didnt we?

Yes, by the skin of our teeth when, perhaps, it should have been more comfortable....

[notnowcato]

Just now, trousers said:

Yes, by the skin of our teeth when, perhaps, it should have been more comfortable....

When fact meets subjective opinion… FIGHT!! 😂

[obelisk]

14 minutes ago, trousers said:

Yes, by the skin of our teeth when, perhaps, it should have been more comfortable....

If that Leeds shot against the bar towards the end of the game had been 2mm lower I reckon we'd be watching a mid-table Championship side at St Mary's this season. But then again if Edozie could find the target we'd have had a two goal cushion. 😐

[Whitey Grandad]

10 hours ago, woodsaint1 said:

We still got promoted though didnt we? That was the aim. Delivered when it mattered and when we were under big pressure during the playoffs and also adpated the way the played in those games which some thought RM was incapable of.

A classic example of Outcome Bias.

Similar to “Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc“. The fallacy that because B followed A then B must have been caused by A.

[Saint in Paradise]

OK so that 68% possession is fine but it includes all parts of the pitch. So does anyone have stats for how much

possession was in the other teams penalty area or even half?

[danjosaint]

10 hours ago, woodsaint1 said:

We still got promoted though didnt we? That was the aim. Delivered when it mattered and when we were under big pressure during the playoffs and also adpated the way the played in those games which some thought RM was incapable of

This is the thing though, RM had to change due to the GB situation if he'd hadn't been injured do you really think RM would've changed it, I certainly don't,  I know some of his lovers on here will say 'we scored the goal like that' but we did change how we played, we were a little more considerate with our passing around dangerous areas

[Whitey Grandad]

10 minutes ago, danjosaint said:

This is the thing though, RM had to change due to the GB situation if he'd hadn't been injured do you really think RM would've changed it, I certainly don't,  I know some of his lovers on here will say 'we scored the goal like that' but we did change how we played, we were a little more considerate with our passing around dangerous areas

Indeed. By avoiding our own penalty area our whole game was moved 25 yards further up the pitch and without the need to keep creating triangles our back line was more straight and solid.

[Challenger]

10 hours ago, obelisk said:

There's still no extra points for artistic impression in football.

Just getting a few " normal " points might be appreciated.

[derry]

Possession statistics are a nonsense because it is a count of passes made by each side irrespective of where they were made, how short or long or more importantly their value. A two yard knock on has the same value as a sublime forty yard through ball that splits the opponents defence. Most of our possession is short rotational passing keeping possession until we lose it or have to lump it. It is mind numbing and not clever because sooner or later under pressure as the press tightens the passing becomes hurried forcing mistakes in our penalty area. Possession in attack is good but in our penalty area a nonsense. In this league we are becoming cannon fodder and a laughing stock because of it. 70% possession and lose, what a nonsense.

[Charlie Wayman]

14 hours ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

I cannot recall anyone on here wanting to “ditch the style our players know”.  But many, me included, want Russ to vary the style a bit to avoid so much short passing between our CBs and GK in our own penalty area, let alone inside the 6 yard goal box, while under severe pressure from pressing opposition attackers.  And for our midfielders to receive more balls on the turn and go forwards in a fast and more direct attack instead of passing back to a CB or our GK, who are still faced with being pressed.  Preferably, the GK to spray some longer balls outside our penalty area, probably out wide in preference to up the middle, where we have no TP to harry oppo CBs into a mistake.  Call the latter Plan B if you like but it does not imply the complete abandonment of a fast, flowing PB style of football.  The turgid stuff that we serve up almost all the time will not do at all.

We had exactly the same vituperative conversation/argument last year.  Let’s not do it all over again.

Unless he is more pragmatic than he has been so far this season and for much of last season, Russ will be exposed by any other EPL manager and team as a one-trick pony and we shall be consigned to the Championship again well before this season ends.  Hardly any of us want him sacked regardless of what he does in the coming months; most of us are willing him to be more flexible in how we set-up and play, rather like how he adjusted for the last few games of last season.

Here is one of my posts from last season after our horrendous defeat by Leicester.  It received 23 likes and is just as apposite now as it was then.  What Leicester did to us then is what almost every EPL team could do to us this season.

 

There is nothing wrong with our system of passing the ball back and forth between the goalie and defenders, it's not Martin's fault that our back four seem to be as thick as bricks, have the awareness of a sloth and the judgement of Craig Revel-Horwood. There's nothing difficult about it. Surely there must be some sort of expertise in awareness and reaction training that could be called upon. 

Edited September 3 by Charlie Wayman

[saintant]

4 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

There is nothing wrong with our system of passing the ball back and forth between the goalie and defenders, it's not Martin's fault that our back four seem to be as thck as bricks, have the awareness of a sloth and the judgement of Craig Revel-Horwood. There's nothing difficult about it. Surely there must be some sort of expertise in awareness and reaction training that could be called upon. 

Agree but more often than not the passes are short and that's when we get ourselves in a mess. The good sides who play out from the back well tend to hit longer passes at speed to wide full backs or advanced centre backs/dropping midfielders.

[Charlie Wayman]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

Yes, by the skin of our teeth when, perhaps, it should have been more comfortable....

Is that fair? We had a new manager, a bunch of new players and a new system for them to learn. After a hesitant start we eventually got into our stride. Had we been able to hit the ground running on day one of the season we might have walked the league. 

[Kermitzasaint]

2 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

There is nothing wrong with our system of passing the ball back and forth between the goalie and defenders, it's not Martin's fault that our back four seem to be as thck as bricks, have the awareness of a sloth and the judgement of Craig Revel-Horwood. There's nothing difficult about it. Surely there must be some sort of expertise in awareness and reaction training that could be called upon. 

As I've mentioned previously, a great coach chooses the strategy, formation etc based on what brings the best out of his squad. A great coach can cause a team to over perform. 

 

Sadly Russell Martin is a fucking idiot. If the team available isn't capable then don't do it. Also you honestly think the team wants to make suicidal passes? It's forced on them. They know they're not allowed to clear it, that it's possession at all costs. It's not the players that are stupid. It's Russell Martin 

[Ted Bates Statue]

8 minutes ago, derry said:

Possession statistics are a nonsense because it is a count of passes made by each side irrespective of where they were made, how short or long or more importantly their value. A two yard knock on has the same value as a sublime forty yard through ball that splits the opponents defence. Most of our possession is short rotational passing keeping possession until we lose it or have to lump it. It is mind numbing and not clever because sooner or later under pressure as the press tightens the passing becomes hurried forcing mistakes in our penalty area. Possession in attack is good but in our penalty area a nonsense. In this league we are becoming cannon fodder and a laughing stock because of it. 70% possession and lose, what a nonsense.

Propaganda football, this is exactly what Strachan was on about. Last weekend Brentford were making plenty of mistakes like we do, but then they were also pinging out perfect diagonal balls to the wing and bearing down on goal having almost bypassed our entire defence. That's the kind of possession I'd prefer to see us attempting.

 

3 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

There is nothing wrong with our system of passing the ball back and forth between the goalie and defenders, it's not Martin's fault that our back four seem to be as thck as bricks, have the awareness of a sloth and the judgement of Craig Revel-Horwood. There's nothing difficult about it. Surely there must be some sort of expertise in awareness and reaction training that could be called upon. 

I remember him, isn't that the striker we were hoping to sign from Peterborough back when we were in League 1?

[lambtiss]

15 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Is that fair? We had a new manager, a bunch of new players and a new system for them to learn. After a hesitant start we eventually got into our stride. Had we been able to hit the ground running on day one of the season we might have walked the league. 

Leicester City had a new manager and lost Maddison,Barnes, Tielemans, Soyuncu,  Castagne, Amartey, Mendy, Perez, Johnny Evans, Eppiah. 
 

[Weston Super Saint]

29 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

There is nothing wrong with our system of passing the ball back and forth between the goalie and defenders, it's not Martin's fault that our back four seem to be as thick as bricks, have the awareness of a sloth and the judgement of Craig Revel-Horwood. There's nothing difficult about it. Surely there must be some sort of expertise in awareness and reaction training that could be called upon. 

It's Martin's fault for insisting that we continue with suicide football even though our back four are thick as bricks.

Unless of course he doesn't know that?

[Nordic Saint]

29 minutes ago, Kermitzasaint said:

As I've mentioned previously, a great coach chooses the strategy, formation etc based on what brings the best out of his squad. A great coach can cause a team to over perform. 

 

Sadly Russell Martin is a fucking idiot. If the team available isn't capable then don't do it. Also you honestly think the team wants to make suicidal passes? It's forced on them. They know they're not allowed to clear it, that it's possession at all costs. It's not the players that are stupid. It's Russell Martin 

🤣