Russell Martin

[Lee On Solent Saint]

38 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

Just watched the Man Utd post-match press conference in full and the very last line was interesting. 

RM was giving an answer about the size of the squad, talking about how they were handling it and how there would need to be a reassessment in January, and at the end he signed off with "I'll have to stay in the job for that long first". He didn't say it with much of a smile either. 

Even if it was just a throwaway line, it shows he's clearly feeling the pressure. There was some talk that the contract extension meant that he may have been given assurances that he'd be allowed to stay in the job if we went down, to bring us back up, but I don't think someone who has had that sort of reassurance makes a comment like that. 

He comes across as quite bolshy sometimes (although, in my opinion, nothing he said in that press conference was particularly aggressive or out of order), but I don't think he's under any illusions as to the expectations and the likely consequences of falling short of them, even this early on. He knows his job's at risk already. 

SR are idiots and pretty naive as owners go, but surely they are that stupid to tell Martin his job is guaranteed even if we do go down.

[Forester]

Per comments on the Manure thread, if we lost to both Ipswich and Born Muff I would expect him to go.  Assuming we would then lose to Arsenal regardless of who was in charge, that would be zero points from seven games.

I hope this doesn’t happen, as I would like him to succeed.  However we cannot simply write the season off, and this would enable a change to be made in the week building up to Arsenal and then use the international break to get the new man in.

I think it unlikely that we would be more than six points adrift of safety and we could attract a manager to have 31 games including the January window on this basis.  As others have said, leave it much longer and the list of applicants gets very thin.

Fingers crossed all of this becomes unnecessary.

[Rebel]

I am not sue if sacking Martin will make any difference if we don't have the players or the squad to survive in the Premier League.  Also its worth remembering it was the players on the pitch that fell apart after the missed penalty and gave 3 goals away. They just don't have the mentality to dig in when things get hard and grind out a result.

I don't think the manager is blameless - he stuck with 3-5-2 against Forest and Brentford when it obviously wasn't working for is.  And the decision to put Archer on penalties was probably a bit naive and optimistic - and in retrospect a wrong decision.

Also KWP is wasted on the left - so he has to either play him or Suga on the right and Taylor on the left.  Plus we are not good enough at the back to play 2 attacking full backs. 

But hopefully he is learning and becomes a bit more pragmatic to get the best out of the squad and players he has.  If we have a terrible run with no signs of improvement then he will need to be sacked before the January transfer window.  But they will need to buy and sell players and spend some money to support the new manager if they can.

 Before that though they need to appoint a proper Director of Football, someone with a background in football that can challenge, push and help Martin - and the need someone who can put together a transfer strategy ahead of the January window.

Looking back at our summer window it looks chaotic and a bit clueless.  We needed to buy a 6ft plus centre forward with some pace and power, get hold of a left back good enough to start and strengthen the centre of defence with a left footed centre back to partner THB or Bednarek - oh and buy a a good winger/10/ attacking midfielder.

I don't think we did any of those things. 

What was the point of buying Sugawara and keeping Bree if we kept KWP?  And we don't have a left back good enough to start as first choice. Instead we are wasting KWP on the left and trying to fit both him and Suga in the team.

Also not sure why we bought Archer and BBD -  who both play off the left when we needed a  a proper centre forward.

Same with Wood and Edwards when we need a starting left footed centre back.

And now it looks like we are stuck with ABK, Sulemana, and Tall Paul until January when it doesn't look like we want to play any of them .  

All in all the squad looks very unbalanced with holes all over the place.

Maybe they tried to sign the players we really needed and just didn't have the money - but even if that was the case there really seemed to be a lack of any plan A - or plan B.

 

 

[Mr X]

2 hours ago, saintant said:

Whatever may have been said in private to RM matters not a jot. If he cannot get some wins on the board it is just a matter of time before the fan base will make their feelings known in no uncertain terms. If it reaches that stage his position will be untenable. This would be the same at any major club in the country.

I hope your right, I'm grateful for what Martin has done he has to get credit for the turnaround from the championship but I just don't see him as the right person to scrape survival at this level he doesn't have either the tactical nous or the capability to coach a defence and is way to inflexible in his style beliefs.

If we are totally honest we could have done with a couple of seasons in the championship and that's looking like what we will be getting 

[qwertyell]

What I would say to the argument that we played United off the park for the opening 35 minutes and therefore have shown we can really compete in the league, is United had 8 shots on target in that first half. Scored 2. Ramsdale made some big saves that stopped us going in 4 or 5 down.

We had 4 shots on target in that period (and none thereafter). And 2 of them were the weak penalty and weak follow up header.

It's hard to take much comfort from supposedly playing brilliantly for a short period yet still conceding twice as many chances as we created. If that's us dominating the play, then things look pretty bleak for the numerous times coming up when we won't be.

The squad is the squad. It's incumbent on any manager to squeeze the absolute maximum out of his resources and find a way to be effective. I don't think anyone can seriously claim that he's doing that at present. Hasenhuttl was able to keep a few clean sheets with Bednarek, Stephens and Walker-Peters in the defence. Burnley kept some clean sheets with Charlie Taylor. Pochettino even won at least one game with Sam Gallagher as our starting centre forward. You can grind out results even with some pretty average players if you're properly organised and tactically astute. Does that sound like us?

Style over substance might soothe Russell's fragile ego, but it's not going to do us as a club any favours I'm afraid.

[tdmickey3]

How ridiculous is it going to look at end of season, a huge amount of possession over the season and a pathetically low points total

Laughing stock of unwanted records

[CB Fry]

STOP GIVING IT BACK TO THE KEEPER OVER AND OVER AGAIN

[Suhari]

First class purveyor of boring football.

[East Kent Saint]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cr75n1y13nvo

can be done !

[trousers]

😂

 

 

[Orkney Saint]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

😂

 

 

Wow! Has RM turned the tactical corner?

 

🤭

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, East Kent Saint said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cr75n1y13nvo

can be done !

CHDAJFU ?

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

😂

 

 

Is this for real?

He’s I charge. It’s up to chip to stop it. If he can’t then get someone in who can.

[SaintsBarry74]

Got to admire having so much possession and 0 points.

I imagine we'd be the first club to concede 9 goals in a game with 70% of the ball.

 

[Dark Munster]

3 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cr75n1y13nvo

can be done !

Sacked after 3 draws and one loss. De Boer had 4 losses after his famous sacking by Palace.

It took 7 defeats out of 8 for Rasmus and SR to finally pull the trigger on mad Nate, even though everyone else and their dog knew well before that that he was out of his depth. If we keep on losing I fear it’ll take even longer for them to admit their mistake this time. 😕

[stknowle]

5 hours ago, SaintsBarry74 said:

Got to admire having so much possession and 0 points.

I imagine we'd be the first club to concede 9 goals in a game with 70% of the ball.

 

Yeah but none of those 9 goals would’ve been scored during the 70% of the match in  which we had the ball so our tactics would’ve been proven to have worked for the significant majority of the match. Definitely on the right path here.

[skintsaint]

19 minutes ago, stknowle said:

Yeah but none of those 9 goals would’ve been scored during the 70% of the match in  which we had the ball so our tactics would’ve been proven to have worked for the significant majority of the match. Definitely on the right path here.

Just need to get it to 100%. We probably would still concede with 99% possession.

[gio1saints]

4 hours ago, Dark Munster said:

Sacked after 3 draws and one loss. De Boer had 4 losses after his famous sacking by Palace.

It took 7 defeats out of 8 for Rasmus and SR to finally pull the trigger on mad Nate, even though everyone else and their dog knew well before that that he was out of his depth. If we keep on losing I fear it’ll take even longer for them to admit their mistake this time. 😕

Fairly wetting yer pants in joyous anticipation aren’t you, traitor. 

[CB Fry]

7 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

Fairly wetting yer pants in joyous anticipation aren’t you, traitor. 

Guarantee he was supporting Southampton Football Club long before Russell Martin turned up. And will be supporting them long after Russell Martin leaves, either through the sack or being poached by Barcelona.

[The Kraken]

1 hour ago, gio1saints said:

Fairly wetting yer pants in joyous anticipation aren’t you, traitor. 

Do you have to be like this all the time?

[Ball boy]

He learnt from the GW3 lineup disaster. Picked a pretty good line up against utd and has allowed the players to deviate slightly from his principles….. I think he’ll be fine and we won’t need a mid season poch/ adkins reset. COYS! ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

[austsaint]

8 minutes ago, Ball boy said:

He learnt from the GW3 lineup disaster. Picked a pretty good line up against utd and has allowed the players to deviate slightly from his principles….. I think he’ll be fine and we won’t need a mid season poch/ adkins reset. COYS! ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

He did pick a good line up v Utd.    I think the deviation from principles you talk about has as much to do with Ramsdale's presence and the replacing of Smallbone than RM actually sanctioning a change.    Ramsdale's distribution is more accomplished than AMs and  promotes a variety of ways to play out from the back or be more direct.     Fair to say Smallbone was/is the biggest culprit in the ping back/brick wall pass and the introduction of Fernandes, and Les Ugo, (even Dibling) has resulted in more half turns and progressive passes than we saw previously.    The prospect of not needing a mid season (or earlier) manager reset has a lot to do with the improvement which Ramsdale and the new midfielders have brought.

[trousers]

 

 

[Whitey Grandad]

28 minutes ago, austsaint said:

He did pick a good line up v Utd.    I think the deviation from principles you talk about has as much to do with Ramsdale's presence and the replacing of Smallbone than RM actually sanctioning a change.    Ramsdale's distribution is more accomplished than AMs and  promotes a variety of ways to play out from the back or be more direct.     Fair to say Smallbone was/is the biggest culprit in the ping back/brick wall pass and the introduction of Fernandes, and Les Ugo, (even Dibling) has resulted in more half turns and progressive passes than we saw previously.    The prospect of not needing a mid season (or earlier) manager reset has a lot to do with the improvement which Ramsdale and the new midfielders have brought.

One that included Stephens.

[austsaint]

1 minute ago, Whitey Grandad said:

One that included Stephens.

Outside of Stephens I should have said, although I do get the argument that THB has taken a while to get up to speed in the Prem.   It's always been my feeling that we've seen enough of Stephens over the years to know about the errors, the ball watching and the positional mistakes, whereas THB, in his young career, shows every sign he is going to establish himself as a Prem CB.     I would have played THB or ABK last Saturday.

[Whitey Grandad]

5 minutes ago, austsaint said:

Outside of Stephens I should have said, although I do get the argument that THB has taken a while to get up to speed in the Prem.   It's always been my feeling that we've seen enough of Stephens over the years to know about the errors, the ball watching and the positional mistakes, whereas THB, in his young career, shows every sign he is going to establish himself as a Prem CB.     I would have played THB or ABK last Saturday.

Fair enough.