Russell Martin

[saintant]

2 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

My God there are some proper bed-wetters on here - however looking at the people posting most seem to be the fans that don't go to games - what a coincidence. 

I would be bed-wetting if it weren't for the fact that this was so predictable I told you all about it last September - PSR makes it nearly impossible to get relegated, immediately promoted and then make a decent fist of the next season.

We could also flip this and say there are loads on here who wear red and white glasses despite what they are seeing on the pitch - both sides have their merit. It's about opinions and we are all entitled to one -  doesn't make us 'bed-wetters' just because we don't agree with yours. I've had season tickets many times over the years but don't go to matches now but wasn't aware that not going to games makes my opinion any lesser or me not so much of a fan. I care about this football club and will voice my views on what I see whether the football be good or bad. As to PSR I get that it presents its problems but we shouldn't make it an excuse or suggest it leads to inevitable relegation.

[saintant]

1 hour ago, ErwinK1961 said:

Absolutely pathetic defending. 

Say what you like about Martin and his tactics, philosophy etc. but there is absolutely no way he’s instructed the players to defend a corner by sticking everyone in the 6 yard box.

Where’s the leaders on the pitch taking responsibility for marking? What are THB, Bednarek, Downes, even Ramsdale doing to organise?

You cannot exonerate RM and his coaches of blame for this fiasco. They have hours on the training ground to try different set ups for every scenario at every moment of a football match and, defending a late corner whilst holding a one goal lead should be high on the list. No excuses for players or manager/coaches.

[CB Fry]

2 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

My God there are some proper bed-wetters on here - however looking at the people posting most seem to be the fans that don't go to games - what a coincidence. 

I would be bed-wetting if it weren't for the fact that this was so predictable I told you all about it last September - PSR makes it nearly impossible to get relegated, immediately promoted and then make a decent fist of the next season.

Forest, Bournemouth and Fulham all did it in the same season in the ancient history days of 2023.

What an unbelievable miracle they achieved.

[AlexLaw76]

6 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Forest, Bournemouth and Fulham all did it in the same season in the ancient history days of 2023.

What an unbelievable miracle they achieved.

PSR made it so difficult that we signed 14 players, inclusive of a record fee with our new international keeper, for comfortably over £100m...whilst not really selling many.

Does that mean points deductions are incoming? Or have we done a Fulham from a few years ago and spaff'd it...I mean, we chose to spend what we did not BBD, Archer and Wood..when we could have focused those funds on an Ramsdale type of signing up front!

So far, Sports Republic have been poor owners and at the transfer game.

Edited September 22 by AlexLaw76

[saintant]

15 minutes ago, saintant said:

You cannot exonerate RM and his coaches of blame for this fiasco. They have hours on the training ground to try different set ups for every scenario at every moment of a football match and, defending a late corner whilst holding a one goal lead should be high on the list. No excuses for players or manager/coaches.

In fairness to RM I've just watched the short after match interview clip on the official site and he does make the point that we did not set up how we do when practicing this scenario in training and he put it down to a loss of focus in the heat of the moment.

[HKsaint]

Ramsdale passed the ball to the other side at least twice yesterday. If they were not Ipswich, we would have got punished. McCathy passed one leading to a goal and defeat. Any goalkeeper will make such mistakes in this system. We will have this again and again until we change the system. 

[saintant]

Looking at the highlights again I think Archer was a little unlucky with his two big chances. Maybe he should have taken an earlier shot for the first chance rather than push it wider but he was making a split second decision. The second one he does really well to work the shooting chance and is a tad unlucky that the keeper spreads himself and gets something on it. I think he'll score goals given the service and just needs a wee bit of luck to get up and running.

[Forester]

I posted last week that defeats to both Ipswich and Bournemouth would, sadly, see the Board act and change manager, ahead of Arsenal away and international break, which looks like a useful three week period to execute a change.  I have no insight on whether this is/was correct, but it’s what I expect.  So how does yesterday leave us?

Case for the defence I think is

1. We have seen huge changes in squad personnel.  Of the 16 players who appeared yesterday, only 6 played any material role in last season (ie Dibbling and Stewart didn’t).  Martin has only had five games with them, and some of them have signed after the league season started, plus two cup games that have been won.  So this makes it sound premature to consider.

2. There are some encouraging signs of improvement, with Fernandes, Lallana,  Dibbling and Taylor all improving the balance of the team since August games.  So does this just need some more time?

3. My view of yesterday, and I think the XG stats support this, is most times that game being replayed would have been a win.  However, Archer fails to take either big chance, as he did with last week’s penalty.  In other words the team created enough.  And the deflection most weeks doesn’t play out the way it did.

4. We now have a point, and there are six teams without a win still.  So early days.

However, I still think he is still in the danger zone (sadly, as I like him).  The reality is we will need to win probably nine games this season, and Forest and Ipswich at home are surely credible candidates.  Bournemouth needs to produce at least a point, as otherwise following likely defeat at Arsenal we will have one point from seven games.

And as cruel as it would seem (as it did when Adkins left), we have to give it everything in staying up.  The key factor I think for the Board if we lose at Bournemouth will be that making a change with over 30 games left and others still in touch means we can attract a decent list of candidates to replace.  However if we leave this to the pre-Christmas games the opportunity shrinks.

I hope we win at Bournemouth, are talking about four points from two games, and are on the up.  But I still think Board will be more ruthless than some believe if this doesn’t happen.

 

[beatlesaint]

25 minutes ago, saintant said:

In fairness to RM I've just watched the short after match interview clip on the official site and he does make the point that we did not set up how we do when practicing this scenario in training and he put it down to a loss of focus in the heat of the moment.

Yeah but in most interviews he's pretty quick to say things like that "oh had we applied what we spent all week doing in training they dont score" etc.

He doesnt actually go so far as throwing the players under the bus but he makes sure he removes himself from blame "well if they'd done what we told them"

For the second week running we had a bulk substitution. It failed miserably against United last week but not deterred he goes again and what happens ? It fails miserably. None of those subs improved on what was happening before they got on. I know Lallana cant do 90 mins but he sits in, directs the players, and just passes the ball off quickly and sensibly so are you really telling me he couldnt have done that for an extra 10-15 mins ? Archer didnt play mid-week, he's young yet off he comes on the hour too, bloody hell he wasnt playing badly and at least he got in there to have chances. 

Edited September 22 by beatlesaint

[Disco Stu]

53 minutes ago, saintant said:

We could also flip this and say there are loads on here who wear red and white glasses despite what they are seeing on the pitch - both sides have their merit. It's about opinions and we are all entitled to one -  doesn't make us 'bed-wetters' just because we don't agree with yours. I've had season tickets many times over the years but don't go to matches now but wasn't aware that not going to games makes my opinion any lesser or me not so much of a fan. I care about this football club and will voice my views on what I see whether the football be good or bad. As to PSR I get that it presents its problems but we shouldn't make it an excuse or suggest it leads to inevitable relegation.

It's just a silly attempt to invalidate the opinion of others. I don't have any sense of superiority for having a season ticket. If anything, I'm the sucker.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Last season was only the second time in Premier league history & the first for over 20 years that all 3 promoted teams went back down. 
 

Fuck me, there’s a lot of miracles being performed & a lot of fluke going on. 
 

Even play off winners somehow manage to stay up. 
 

Swansea

Huddersfield

Brentford

Villa 

Forest 

West Ham

Crystal Palace 

 

Remarkable achievements. 

 

[sfc4prem]

1 minute ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Last season was only the second time in Premier league history & the first for over 20 years that all 3 promoted teams went back down. 
 

Fuck me, there’s a lot of miracles being performed & a lot of fluke going on. 
 

Even play off winners somehow manage to stay up. 
 

Swansea

Huddersfield

Brentford

Villa 

Forest 

West Ham

Crystal Palace 

 

Remarkable achievements. 

 

I doubt they were remarkable achievements if you were to look at their squad/first team in comparison to the rest of the lower half of the PL they joined at the time.

Compare our attack to that of Bournemouth, Forest, Wolves, Brentford, Leicester. We are handicapped as a result.

[Daft Kerplunk]

15 hours ago, Patches O Houlihan said:

No doubt Whitey will hate it but I'm going to post some stats: So look away now if you don't like this sort of thing

• PL Table sorted by xG - ie the chances we create, we are 8th - ie we're pretty good at creating chances - the players and Russ's methods work. BUT the forwards aren't finishing them

• PL Table sorted by xG against - we are 17th - we give up lots of chances. We are newly returned to the league. No real surprises there.

• PL Table sorted by xPTS - ie how many points we should have if our results had matched the xG - we are 12th. Pretty good for a newly promoted side. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If our strikers can find some form we could do ok. Signing someone handy in January would probably be too late to save us though if our current forwards can't get it together. 

I know some like numbers to prove things but a bit of football knowledge also shows that we don’t have the fire power to score enough goals. 

[saintant]

28 minutes ago, beatlesaint said:

Yeah but in most interviews he's pretty quick to say things like that "oh had we applied what we spent all week doing in training they dont score" etc.

He doesnt actually go so far as throwing the players under the bus but he makes sure he removes himself from blame "well if they'd done what we told them"

For the second week running we had a bulk substitution. It failed miserably against United last week but not deterred he goes again and what happens ? It fails miserably. None of those subs improved on what was happening before they got on. I know Lallana cant do 90 mins but he sits in, directs the players, and just passes the ball off quickly and sensibly so are you really telling me he couldnt have done that for an extra 10-15 mins ? Archer didnt play mid-week, he's young yet off he comes on the hour too, bloody hell he wasnt playing badly and at least he got in there to have chances. 

Yeah, I've noticed he can be inclined to do that. However, in this instance I'm prepared to give him the benefit  the doubt simply because it seems hard to believe that any team would be coached to set up like that to defend a last minute corner. Maybe he needs to delegate a player to take responsibility so you'd have someone on field who'd organise things better. It did look a shambles and smacked of rank lack of professionalism.

[Patches O Houlihan]

3 minutes ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

I know some like numbers to prove things but a bit of football knowledge also shows that we don’t have the fire power to score enough goals. 

I agree numbers on their own mean nothing.

But in this case it does allow us to compare the number and quality of chances we are creating in comparison to the rest of the league: Something that would be tough to do without watching every match unedited, and even then you'd probably start to loose track a bit and start generalising or applying an unconscious bias.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

53 minutes ago, saintant said:

In fairness to RM I've just watched the short after match interview clip on the official site and he does make the point that we did not set up how we do when practicing this scenario in training and he put it down to a loss of focus in the heat of the moment.

Thanks saintant. Erwink also took the view that it was player based.

In The Beeb interview I've just watched, he talked about the Stewart header and the free kick.

There's still a bit of me wondering if his official site interview specifically mentioned that there should have been someone out there. I could be being harsh on him. He could actually be doing a good job protecting his players.

With set pieces drilled into players, I can't imagine it was by accident no one was out. I can imagine them not dealing with points within the set up. And it's those points Martin is referring to.

But looking at it, they really did look set up that way. A manager seeing that done not on purpose would have been screaming instructions from the touchline. Players would be shouting to each other too.

It also fits into other things we see like the players back from our corners.

To give the other side of that. On the corners, that running back is more organised. I'm not thrilled with it, as I'd like to see how much of an attacking advantage it gives us against the risk. Also, the shift in control and momentum it gives opponents and support. Things that aren't on the databases. But I get the logic.

I get the logic here too. But I have even more reservations. Rumour is Chelsea are bringing back Lampard, just to play against us, for all the goals he'll put in from exactly that position.

[LeBizzier69]

Haven’t scrolled through the pages - really enjoyed the game, atmosphere was excellent (surprisingly good in the Northam even though I’d doubted that was possible). 
Looked exciting going forward, and a much more cohesive unit with relationships/understandings building on the pitch. 
If we go down, we clearly have some very saleable assets to build the coffers, and go again. Enjoyed the championship, so speaking personally, the club should still be in a decent financial position regardless. 
Do think we’ll be in winnable positions in games but the finishing will most probably be the killer.

He may be Nivea boy, but Lallana still a pretty poetic footballer. 
 

UTS.

[Fabrice29]

59 minutes ago, HKsaint said:

Ramsdale passed the ball to the other side at least twice yesterday. If they were not Ipswich, we would have got punished. McCathy passed one leading to a goal and defeat. Any goalkeeper will make such mistakes in this system. We will have this again and again until we change the system. 

It's utterly unhinged that people think players passing to the opposition is a system issue. Like there is an alternative system that guarantees Ramsdale/any keeper will find his target every time. If you actually want a "system" that guarantees that it's going to involve a lot of passes to Bednarek in the 6 yard box. 

Talking of utterly unhinged, we spent the first 30 minutes of the game yesterday under pressure and the only thing that got us back into the game was actually passing the ball around the back. The moment we stopped doing that was at the end of the game when we came under pressure again. If we actually stuck to the "system" properly we'd be a lot better off. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

17 minutes ago, sfc4prem said:

I doubt they were remarkable achievements if you were to look at their squad/first team in comparison to the rest of the lower half of the PL they joined at the time.

Compare our attack to that of Bournemouth, Forest, Wolves, Brentford, Leicester. We are handicapped as a result.

What about Sheffield Utd with the mighty goal machine Oli McBurnie up top. Or Huddersfield where Steve Mounié banged in the remarkable total of 6 premier league goals. Clearly those numbers are beyond a club of our standing. I think Lego has performed a minor miracle getting us to 2 premier league goals already. Let’s just hope we can keep him, because 1 point at this stage of the season will be impressing a lot of clubs thinking of binning their own manager. 
 

#theimpossiblejob 

Edited September 22 by Lord Duckhunter

[Lord Duckhunter]

16 minutes ago, saintant said:

However, in this instance I'm prepared to give him the benefit  the doubt simply because it seems hard to believe that any team would be coached to set up like that to defend a last minute corner. Maybe he needs to delegate a player to take responsibility so you'd have someone on field who'd organise things better. It did look a shambles and smacked of rank lack of professionalism.

My lad plays in the Wessex league & even at that lowly level they work in defending set pieces & who is marking & who is defending which zone and where. They even highlight it to subs coming on. These players have been drilled to within an inch of their lives, I don’t believe for one minute they all abandoned what they’d worked on. It’s just not credible. 
 

As an aside my sons side know exactly who is on penalties as well 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

4 minutes ago, Patches O Houlihan said:

I agree numbers on their own mean nothing.

But in this case it does allow us to compare the number and quality of chances we are creating in comparison to the rest of the league: Something that would be tough to do without watching every match unedited, and even then you'd probably start to loose track a bit and start generalising or applying an unconscious bias.

I'm of the view that the evolving stats don't always tell the story for us. We have a system, that's about possession.

Our attackers have to take advantage of unforced errors and where we can exploit gaps. That's different from end to end games where attackers have momentum, the stamina and mental impact of such a game.

So, we can get into decent xG positions. But it's offset by the game's structure. Yes, the stats are bringing in more variables, but there are broader datasets it struggles with.

It means we need instinctive finishers, able to put opportunities (more so than systematic planned attacks) away. Oh, but the also need to do a hundred other things while waiting for those chances. It's a bigger ask, than I see a lot of attackers having to deal with.

I think comparing our stats with others needs to look well beyond core stats, due to the different systems and player requirements.

But I testing as broad indicators. Just as people seeing the games unfold before them can pick out things the data isn't equipped to do.

[ErwinK1961]

1 hour ago, saintant said:

In fairness to RM I've just watched the short after match interview clip on the official site and he does make the point that we did not set up how we do when practicing this scenario in training and he put it down to a loss of focus in the heat of the moment.

This is what I mean. Im not a zonal marking fan and I’d always leave someone up from a corner, but there’s just no way they’re coaching the team to leave three of their players unmarked on the edge of the box.

[ErwinK1961]

2 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

My lad plays in the Wessex league & even at that lowly level they work in defending set pieces & who is marking & who is defending which zone and where. They even highlight it to subs coming on. These players have been drilled to within an inch of their lives, I don’t believe for one minute they all abandoned what they’d worked on. It’s just not credible. 
 

As an aside my sons side know exactly who is on penalties as well 

So you genuinely think they were drilled to all camp in the 6 yard box? Behave.

[Galway saint]

19 minutes ago, sfc4prem said:

I doubt they were remarkable achievements if you were to look at their squad/first team in comparison to the rest of the lower half of the PL they joined at the time.

Compare our attack to that of Bournemouth, Forest, Wolves, Brentford, Leicester. We are handicapped as a result.

it’s the lack of quality up front that will condemn us ultimately and we just haven’t addressed that since Ings left.

the defence isn’t that bad but in games against premiership opposition this season we average a goal every two games and that’s comfortable relegation form. indeed if you include the two games against the spanish and italian  sides pre season  it’s 4goals in eight games so we don’t  score enough goals and unless that changes quick it’s game over  

 

[ErwinK1961]

1 hour ago, saintant said:

Looking at the highlights again I think Archer was a little unlucky with his two big chances. Maybe he should have taken an earlier shot for the first chance rather than push it wider but he was making a split second decision. The second one he does really well to work the shooting chance and is a tad unlucky that the keeper spreads himself and gets something on it. I think he'll score goals given the service and just needs a wee bit of luck to get up and running.

Agreed, I think there’s something there.

Saw someone make a comment that Che would have scored in the same scenario, absolutely laughable 

[AlexLaw76]

2 minutes ago, ErwinK1961 said:

Agreed, I think there’s something there.

Saw someone make a comment that Che would have scored in the same scenario, absolutely laughable 

This was said repeatedly about Seku Mara....

 

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, saintant said:

Looking at the highlights again I think Archer was a little unlucky with his two big chances. Maybe he should have taken an earlier shot for the first chance rather than push it wider but he was making a split second decision. The second one he does really well to work the shooting chance and is a tad unlucky that the keeper spreads himself and gets something on it. I think he'll score goals given the service and just needs a wee bit of luck to get up and running.

I agree.  We need to give him a run of games.

 

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, beatlesaint said:

Yeah but in most interviews he's pretty quick to say things like that "oh had we applied what we spent all week doing in training they dont score" etc.

He doesnt actually go so far as throwing the players under the bus but he makes sure he removes himself from blame "well if they'd done what we told them"

For the second week running we had a bulk substitution. It failed miserably against United last week but not deterred he goes again and what happens ? It fails miserably. None of those subs improved on what was happening before they got on. I know Lallana cant do 90 mins but he sits in, directs the players, and just passes the ball off quickly and sensibly so are you really telling me he couldnt have done that for an extra 10-15 mins ? Archer didnt play mid-week, he's young yet off he comes on the hour too, bloody hell he wasnt playing badly and at least he got in there to have chances. 

He was like a fucking Tyro league manager trying to give all his kids a game.  Joke.

 

[Wade Garrett]

25 minutes ago, ErwinK1961 said:

This is what I mean. Im not a zonal marking fan and I’d always leave someone up from a corner, but there’s just no way they’re coaching the team to leave three of their players unmarked on the edge of the box.

You may be right.  But the case against is their early corners.  One short pass to Hutchinson and he gets a decent shot on goal.  Fraser was marking the space between 6 yard box and penalty box and didn’t know whether to go or stay.  It was a shambles, and shortly after, they fucking did it again.  Our defending of set pieces is an absolute fucking joke and that is on the manager and coaching staff.

It is so simple to get right, yet we are fucking rubbish at it.

Edited September 22 by Wade Garrett

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, beatlesaint said:

For the second week running we had a bulk substitution. It failed miserably against United last week but not deterred he goes again and what happens ? It fails miserably. None of those subs improved on what was happening before they got on. I know Lallana cant do 90 mins but he sits in, directs the players, and just passes the ball off quickly and sensibly so are you really telling me he couldnt have done that for an extra 10-15 mins ? Archer didnt play mid-week, he's young yet off he comes on the hour too, bloody hell he wasnt playing badly and at least he got in there to have chances. 

Not really, we knew when we signed him that his fitness was almost non-existent, he’s the last player you want on the pitch defending a lead like we were. I’d much rather Les was on the pitch. As for the rest of our bulk-subs, Fraser was doing very little and Stewart on for Archer hardly felt like a downgrade. We played better after those subs than we did for most of the first half, when Ipswich were all over us.

[saintant]

39 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

it’s the lack of quality up front that will condemn us ultimately and we just haven’t addressed that since Ings left.

the defence isn’t that bad but in games against premiership opposition this season we average a goal every two games and that’s comfortable relegation form. indeed if you include the two games against the spanish and italian  sides pre season  it’s 4goals in eight games so we don’t  score enough goals and unless that changes quick it’s game over  

 

I'm convinced Dibling is the answer and should be playing centre forward not out wide.

[ErwinK1961]

11 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

This was said repeatedly about Seku Mara....

 

So? If you can’t see the difference between the two already then more fool you.

[The Cat]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Last season was only the second time in Premier league history & the first for over 20 years that all 3 promoted teams went back down. 
 

Fuck me, there’s a lot of miracles being performed & a lot of fluke going on. 
 

Even play off winners somehow manage to stay up. 
 

Swansea

Huddersfield

Brentford

Villa 

Forest 

West Ham

Crystal Palace 

 

Remarkable achievements. 

 

28% of Championship play off winners stay up so it's quite a low figure.

We can all pick a few teams out and state that because they did it then why can't we? However, that's a simplistic argument which ignores quite a lot of information like relative strength of squads, the quality of the PL the season they went up etc.

[AlexLaw76]

Just now, ErwinK1961 said:

So? If you can’t see the difference between the two already then more fool you.

I think he is better than Mara, but represents continued piss poor transfer strategy from the club

[ErwinK1961]

3 minutes ago, saintant said:

I'm convinced Dibling is the answer and should be playing centre forward not out wide.

I would like to see him more centrally.

[The Cat]

2 minutes ago, saintant said:

I'm convinced Dibling is the answer and should be playing centre forward not out wide.

I'm not sure he has ever really played CF so it might be a bit of a stretch to suddenly try to convert him to one in the PL.

He's also very good in his current position, so even if he was moved to CF it would weaken us elsewhere on the pitch.

[ErwinK1961]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

I think he is better than Mara, but represents continued piss poor transfer strategy from the club

After two league starts.

[Lord Duckhunter]

39 minutes ago, ErwinK1961 said:

So you genuinely think they were drilled to all camp in the 6 yard box? Behave.

So for your theory that they were drilled properly, but failed to do as they were told the following needed to have happened. Not one of the 11 players noticed we weren’t set up right. Not the England international keeper who spent all game communicating with his back 4, not Jan Bednerak a polish international or more tellingly not the Manager who spends the whole game shouting instructions and waving his hands about. Not one professional who has spent years following tactical instructions noticed something wasn’t right.

When the ball went in, nobody pointed the blame at anyone “why weren’t you there” type of thing and the manager didn’t go ballistic. They were either coached to set up like that, or left to their own devices, and after last weeks “after you Claude” penalty shambles the second opinion wouldn’t  surprise  me.

Our defensive set up is amateur hour, the manager is incapable of installing a basic competent defensive shape. 

What were the Ipswich fans singing “it’s happened again”? maybe that should become Lego heads signature ditty. 

[saintant]

1 minute ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

So for your theory that they were drilled properly, but failed to do as they were told the following needed to have happened. Not one of the 11 players noticed we weren’t set up right. Not the England international keeper who spent all game communicating with his back 4, not Jan Bednerak a polish international or more tellingly not the Manager who spends the whole game shouting instructions and waving his hands about. Not one professional who has spent years following tactical instructions noticed something wasn’t right.

When the ball went in, nobody pointed the blame at anyone “why weren’t you there” type of thing and the manager didn’t go ballistic. They were either coached to set up like that, or left to their own devices, and after last weeks “after you Claude” penalty shambles the second opinion wouldn’t  surprise  me.

Our defensive set up is amateur hour, the manager is incapable of installing a basic competent defensive shape. 

What were the Ipswich fans singing “it’s happened again”? maybe that should become Lego heads signature ditty. 

It's hard to argue with this to be fair.

[Fabrice29]

31 minutes ago, saintant said:

I'm convinced Dibling is the answer and should be playing centre forward not out wide.

Stick an 18 year old in a position he's never played before in his first season as a first team player to keep a promoted side up. 

You keep spending your day telling the professional football manager with a promotion on his CV how he sets his team up all wrong pal whilst also pleaing that "all sides have their merit" at the very top of this page  

Edited September 22 by Fabrice29

[pingpong]

Think people need to adjust their aspirations and expectations.

Once you realise that the bookies were right, and reset to a target of 13points over the season, we're doing OK and showing promise. And we're only a win away from 14th, which is a good achievement.

Ipswich are the first team we've played where you'd hope for all 3 pts but we will hopefully get a surprise win elsewhere and I'm still confident we can get to 13 points by the end of the season.  Keep the faith, a new manager won't be any more likely to get us there.

[AlexLaw76]

4 minutes ago, pingpong said:

Think people need to adjust their aspirations and expectations.

Once you realise that the bookies were right, and reset to a target of 13points over the season, we're doing OK and showing promise. And we're only a win away from 14th, which is a good achievement.

Ipswich are the first team we've played where you'd hope for all 3 pts but we will hopefully get a surprise win elsewhere and I'm still confident we can get to 13 points by the end of the season.  Keep the faith, a new manager won't be any more likely to get us there.

13 points for the season?

Is this sarcasm?

[Bob60]

38 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

I think he is better than Mara, but represents continued piss poor transfer strategy from the club

Glad you have given him a decent run of games to decide! 

People also saying we don't sign decent players and mention Pelle, he took quite a while to get going. 

Last week Martin said that players seem to get better when they are not playing, how right he is . Tall Paul seems to be the answer to everything now having had seven games at this level whist others are crap after two or three.

 

[ErwinK1961]

26 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

So for your theory that they were drilled properly, but failed to do as they were told the following needed to have happened. Not one of the 11 players noticed we weren’t set up right. Not the England international keeper who spent all game communicating with his back 4, not Jan Bednerak a polish international or more tellingly not the Manager who spends the whole game shouting instructions and waving his hands about. Not one professional who has spent years following tactical instructions noticed something wasn’t right.

When the ball went in, nobody pointed the blame at anyone “why weren’t you there” type of thing and the manager didn’t go ballistic. They were either coached to set up like that, or left to their own devices, and after last weeks “after you Claude” penalty shambles the second opinion wouldn’t  surprise  me.

Our defensive set up is amateur hour, the manager is incapable of installing a basic competent defensive shape. 

What were the Ipswich fans singing “it’s happened again”? maybe that should become Lego heads signature ditty. 

No, my theory is that it’s the last throws of the game, set piece plans go out the window as a team lobs everyone forward. It’s pretty basic stuff for players to take a bit of responsibility to make sure oppo players are being picked up. 

It also can’t be much surprise to you, as the guy constantly moaning about how our players are ‘soft’ and ‘son-in-laws’, that they weren’t running around blaming each other.

I’m sure you’d find a way to be more lenient if it was Nathan Jones in charge.

[Pamplemousse]

16 minutes ago, pingpong said:

Think people need to adjust their aspirations and expectations.

Once you realise that the bookies were right, and reset to a target of 13points over the season, we're doing OK and showing promise. And we're only a win away from 14th, which is a good achievement.

Ipswich are the first team we've played where you'd hope for all 3 pts but we will hopefully get a surprise win elsewhere and I'm still confident we can get to 13 points by the end of the season.  Keep the faith, a new manager won't be any more likely to get us there.

Yeah I agree. We're not a million miles away from getting our first win, and Bournemouth next who more often that not tend to bottle it against us at their place.

[AlexLaw76]

2 minutes ago, Bob60 said:

Glad you have given him a decent run of games to decide! 

People also saying we don't sign decent players and mention Pelle, he took quite a while to get going. 

Last week Martin said that players seem to get better when they are not playing, how right he is . Tall Paul seems to be the answer to everything now having had seven games at this level whist others are crap after two or three.

 

By about 5 people on here....

[Holmes_and_Watson]

57 minutes ago, saintant said:

It's hard to argue with this to be fair.

 

22 minutes ago, ErwinK1961 said:

No, my theory is that it’s the last throws of the game, set piece plans go out the window as a team lobs everyone forward. It’s pretty basic stuff for players to take a bit of responsibility to make sure oppo players are being picked up. 

It also can’t be much surprise to you, as the guy constantly moaning about how our players are ‘soft’ and ‘son-in-laws’, that they weren’t running around blaming each other.

I’m sure you’d find a way to be more lenient if it was Nathan Jones in charge.

For the corner they had 3 players positioned at the edges of the box. Their keeper was back, and of course there's the corner taker. It's not as though there was a packed, disruptive box or the keeper had come up to sow confusion.

It was a standard corner, where it seems we've decided to pack the box. Any loose balls are then closed down from multiple angles by players running out.

On other days, maybe our players get further out for a better block. Maybe they don't react by turning and giving the angle. Orvthat deflection goes wide or back into a group of players.

On other days, and what Martin is counting on, is that we just see another corner dealt with in the box. We don't stop to think that it was because we had an extra body in there.

But we've seen plenty of corners delivered back out centrally and thumped in. If teams know we don't protect that, then they will look to take advantage of it.

Considering how long we persevered with similar things, Martin may think it's still perfectly valid and just needs more drilling in. But 2 points lost due to it yesterday.

[gio1saints]

3 hours ago, HKsaint said:

Ramsdale passed the ball to the other side at least twice yesterday. If they were not Ipswich, we would have got punished. McCathy passed one leading to a goal and defeat. Any goalkeeper will make such mistakes in this system. We will have this again and again until we change the system. 

Hang on a minute. This is an out of date criticism of AR  and RM.  I think you are several matches at least out of date. Basically sinceRamsdale started..

Very first minute yesterday ball came to him and he put it in row Z as he should. No faffing. I thought to myself- message understood.
 

Im the biggest critic of six yard /penalty area faffing around but AR regularly hit long balls.,he also passed short when it suite HIM.
 

There’s been an understanding that iexclusive use of gk short pass has cost us more goals than anything positive.

RM may have given that instruction to him but I also think Aaron is senior pro enough to tell RM how he is gonna play - and it’s not like Alex or Gav basically - it’s way way more secure and a big improvement. 
You basically picked the wrong stick to beat RM with. Of many available you picked one that’s not valid anymore! 

[Whitey Grandad]

23 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

 

For the corner they had 3 players positioned at the edges of the box. Their keeper was back, and of course there's the corner taker. It's not as though there was a packed, disruptive box or the keeper had come up to sow confusion.

It was a standard corner, where it seems we've decided to pack the box. Any loose balls are then closed down from multiple angles by players running out.

On other days, maybe our players get further out for a better block. Maybe they don't react by turning and giving the angle. Orvthat deflection goes wide or back into a group of players.

On other days, and what Martin is counting on, is that we just see another corner dealt with in the box. We don't stop to think that it was because we had an extra body in there.

But we've seen plenty of corners delivered back out centrally and thumped in. If teams know we don't protect that, then they will look to take advantage of it.

Considering how long we persevered with similar things, Martin may think it's still perfectly valid and just needs more drilling in. But 2 points lost due to it yesterday.

They could do that if they weren’t virtually standing on our own goal line. They got in each other’s way and blocked Ramsdale. That never happened in all my years of park football and you certainly don’t expect it of a team pretending to be in the top league in our country.

[Oldandtired]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

 

Our defensive set up is amateur hour, the manager is incapable of installing a basic competent defensive shape. 

It's bordering on the bizarre how different people see the game in so many different ways. But having watched yesterday's game and the preceding two home games for me this is the long and the short of it. Yesterday it was Ipswich we were playing against not Arsenal not Man City not Liverpool or any of the other fancied teams in the league, and yet the way they cut through us on occasion verged on the embarrassing. 
 

We just do not know how to defend. Forget the not scoring goals, not  conceding is the base from which all teams can build. Whether our problems are coaching problems, not playing the right players or combination of those players, I don't know but I'm not paid big bucksto sort it out.

All I know is that from what I've seen this season at Saint Mary's whatever it is it's just not working.