Russell Martin

[tdmickey3]

1 minute ago, Farmer Saint said:

Apologies, phone went kaput on Monday morning and been waiting for my new one to be delivered - however it is quite liberating not having a phone. I would recommend it.

Spoke to my friend this morning - the one that told me that Martin was on his way out - reason is that SR have been putting out the feelers for a few Managers, including Potter. However, still a lot of skepticism from Potter on Monday (although that may have changed now with the England news). Sacking Martin will only take place if there is someone interested/ready to come in, apparently.

We can hope 

[Suhari]

20 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Apologies, phone went kaput on Monday morning and been waiting for my new one to be delivered - however it is quite liberating not having a phone. I would recommend it.

Spoke to my friend this morning - the one that told me that Martin was on his way out - reason is that SR have been putting out the feelers for a few Managers, including Potter. However, still a lot of skepticism from Potter on Monday (although that may have changed now with the England news). Sacking Martin will only take place if there is someone interested/ready to come in, apparently.

Appreciate the update.

It's a sensible approach to get the new guy lined up befoe pulling the trigger. I bloody hate the 'interim management team' nonsense we've seen a few times.

 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

39 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Apologies, phone went kaput on Monday morning and been waiting for my new one to be delivered - however it is quite liberating not having a phone. I would recommend it.

Spoke to my friend this morning - the one that told me that Martin was on his way out - reason is that SR have been putting out the feelers for a few Managers, including Potter. However, still a lot of skepticism from Potter on Monday (although that may have changed now with the England news). Sacking Martin will only take place if there is someone interested/ready to come in, apparently.

The longer they leave it, the wider they will have to cast that net as the odds increase on us staying up.

If they are asking after some candidates now, then I guess Martin is on borrowed time. Just needs one of them to say yes.

Sometimes, having the actual vacancy focuses the minds of applicants.

But that, or an even less qualified catetaker (Lallana?) could sink our season too.

[Dman]

59 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Apologies, phone went kaput on Monday morning and been waiting for my new one to be delivered - however it is quite liberating not having a phone. I would recommend it.

Spoke to my friend this morning - the one that told me that Martin was on his way out - reason is that SR have been putting out the feelers for a few Managers, including Potter. However, still a lot of skepticism from Potter on Monday (although that may have changed now with the England news). Sacking Martin will only take place if there is someone interested/ready to come in, apparently.

Didn't this happen with Ralph / Jones? we tried to get him in the summer, he said no, came in 6 months later and was a disaster... 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

26 minutes ago, Dman said:

Didn't this happen with Ralph / Jones? we tried to get him in the summer, he said no, came in 6 months later and was a disaster... 

I hope that whoever they look at, they also look for comments from former players/ coaches, if not the fan base.

Jones really struggled with coaching PL level players. Whether they had dropped to the championship or in the PL. I don't know whether that was lack of confidence or experience at that level playing/ coaching under someone. But it was well enough known from his previous club.

Rasmus, of course, took that as a learning experience. And, I'm sure Nathan wanted another shot at it. Sadly, it wasn't something that had been resolved.

[musesaint]

Disappointed Martin didn’t get the England job. That would’ve solved our problems 🤣. But probably created new ones for England. 

[verlaine1979]

6 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Some people may not want to hear it, but Martin did a good job with us last season 🤷‍♂️. It was an incredibly competitive league with that top 4 chasing 2 automatic spots, and at the end of the day we got promoted.

Within that, we beat Leeds 3 times over the season and justifiably so as were the better side on each occasion, the play off final was a very professional performance given the occasion as well.

As for the 5th best team in the league... We played West Brom 4 times in the league/play offs, winning 3, drawing 1, and ending with an aggregate score of 7-2.

We outplayed Ipswich both times we played them as well, those particular results were down to luck as much as anything else - not dissimilar to the draw against them this season.

In summation - For people to sit here and take away last season from Martin is extremely harsh imo.

You're being incredibly generous here. He finished fourth in a three-horse race, played a style of football that was demonstrably fragile against any sort of energetic press, conceded an absolutely unheard of amount of goals for a promotion-chasing side, and got absolutely spanked both times by the eventual league winners, which puts the cheerleading about having the measure of Leeds into perspective. As for Ipswich, you call it bad luck, I call it Martin not being able to organise a defense.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

20 minutes ago, musesaint said:

Disappointed Martin didn’t get the England job. That would’ve solved our problems 🤣. But probably created new ones for England. 

Just mentioned him on 5 live, along with Potter and Howe. And as I type "Russell Martin playing the right way" and are indicating that it's the players letting him down.

"But they've decided to not choose an English manager."

Edited October 16 by Holmes_and_Watson

[Wade Garrett]

5 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

Just mentioned him on 5 live, along with Potter and Howe. And as I type "Russell Martin playing the right way" and are indicating that it's the players letting him down.

"But they've decided to not choose an English manager."

This ‘right way’ of playing is like The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Total bullshit.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

3 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

This ‘right way’ of playing is like The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Total bullshit.

Despite what fans of the club see week on week, the perception of commentators and the visibility those opinions give managers seems to count far more than it should. Just another reason for RM to double down on his "philosophy".

[Badger]

32 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

Just mentioned him on 5 live, along with Potter and Howe. And as I type "Russell Martin playing the right way" and are indicating that it's the players letting him down.

"But they've decided to not choose an English manager."

Are they really talking about RM in the same breath as those two ? 
 

 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

13 minutes ago, Badger said:

Are they really talking about RM in the same breath as those two ? 
 

 

They really were. Martin actually got an extra bit.

[Ted Bates Statue]

59 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

Just mentioned him on 5 live, along with Potter and Howe. And as I type "Russell Martin playing the right way" and are indicating that it's the players letting him down.

"But they've decided to not choose an English manager."

I remember people frothing at the mouth when Sven joined, but they all shut up after we smashed Germany away.

Nobody over here seems to mind Grealish and Rice ditching Ireland to play for England.

Speaking of Martin I find it mad that he played for Scotland but he actually admits that one of his biggest football memories growing up was supporting England in Euro 96.

[Badger]

2 minutes ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

I remember people frothing at the mouth when Sven joined, but they all shut up after we smashed Germany away.

Nobody over here seems to mind Grealish and Rice ditching Ireland to play for England.

Speaking of Martin I find it mad that he played for Scotland but he actually admits that one of his biggest football memories growing up was supporting England in Euro 96.

I don't think Rice escapes criticism among the fans, even at the Emirates I heard a number of Saints fans jeering him and calling him an Irish bastard. This is obviously a reaction to the stories of his social media posts that came to light from him at a younger age. 

 

[Toussaint]

1 hour ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

They really were. Martin actually got an extra bit.

Every day is Opposite Day on the BBC 

[badgerx16]

2 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

This ‘right way’ of playing is like The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Total bullshit.

Obviously, when playing "the right way", results don't matter. Winning is soooo last season.

[Wade Garrett]

2 hours ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

They really were. Martin actually got an extra bit.

Probably being discussed by a couple of hipsters with beards who vape like cunts.

Pricks probably go fucking skateboarding at the weekend.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

8 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

Probably being discussed by a couple of hipsters with beards who vape like cunts.

Pricks probably go fucking skateboarding at the weekend.

The usual bunch, with Mark Chapman. No real insight, as I don't think they stray past the the surface of anything. Normally it's as deep as "Winning is good. Defeat is a crisis.Where will England play Trent?"

[Bakovnetski]

6 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

Probably being discussed by a couple of hipsters with beards who vape like cunts.

Pricks probably go fucking skateboarding at the weekend.

Skateboarding is for weekdays, coffee and kombucha binges are for weekends. 

[disconnect]

9 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

Probably being discussed by a couple of hipsters with beards who vape like cunts.

Pricks probably go fucking skateboarding at the weekend.

As opposed to people who post nearly 10,000 times on a football forum?! 🙄

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, disconnect said:

As opposed to people who post nearly 10,000 times on a football forum?! 🙄

Good point well made.

[franniesTache]

13 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Obviously, when playing "the right way", results don't matter. Winning is soooo last season.

Tbf we made a meal of it last season too, in fact if there's one consistent with Martin's teams through his whole career, it's that winning isn't the primary objective. Possession is.

Edited October 17 by franniesTache

[Whitey Grandad]

41 minutes ago, franniesTache said:

Tbf we made a meal of it last season too, in fact if there's one consistent with Martin's teams through his whole career, it's that winning isn't the primary objective. Possession is.

It’s the antithesis of good football. In general, keep the ball as far away from your own goal as possible and as close as you can to your opponent’s.

[Mr X]

3 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It’s the antithesis of good football. In general, keep the ball as far away from your own goal as possible and as close as you can to your opponent’s.

So why do we fuck around with the ball so much in our own area instead of getting it far away? 

[Saint86]

17 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

You're being incredibly generous here. He finished fourth in a three-horse race, played a style of football that was demonstrably fragile against any sort of energetic press, conceded an absolutely unheard of amount of goals for a promotion-chasing side, and got absolutely spanked both times by the eventual league winners, which puts the cheerleading about having the measure of Leeds into perspective. As for Ipswich, you call it bad luck, I call it Martin not being able to organise a defense.

Objectively, just no 😄. You can't just ignore Ipswich (£8-10billion net owners pumping money into them to build a team in the 3rd tier and then doing the back to back promotions). They were in the championship with us last year... they got 96 points and finished 2nd? 😄 There were 4 teams on 87+ points - that's more than any other season going back to 2014/15 (at which point i stopped checking tbh - but i'm confident its a trend that would continue for the overwhelming majority of seasons). So which one of the top 3 are you ignoring to make us part of an exclusive 3horse race? Leeds would get automatic promotion most seasons with their performance.

We were far and away the worst of the relegated premier league sides and we then gutted the team of pretty much all talent.. so we were never favourites for top 2 (regardless of people's ignorance of how good Ipswich were going to be), plus the playoffs are always less than a 50% chance.... So if anything, Martin should probably be getting praised for getting us promoted, not beaten round the head for missing automatics.

Specifically on your point about the tactics/defensive play:
"an unheard of amount of goals for a promotion chasing team"... okay, so we were more attacking and less defensive, but still got the job done... we let in 6 more than Ipswich who secured automatics? We also didn't even have the most goals conceded of the playoff sides last season (your "promotion chasing sides"), and indeed looking back at previous seasons there are sides with more goals against than us (Reading came 3rd with 64 against, villa and west brom both finished in the playoffs with 62 and 61 against for example - so no, its not unheard of. If anything, your point raises the question of whether Martin be praised for getting promoted with his style of play over the more typical sean dyche / calderon / BFS styles that succeed in the championship - a devils advocate rhetorical question 😛.

In Martin's favour - in each of the past 10seasons, our goals scored would be at least 2nd best - and more generally place us as top scorers (ditto Ipswich and Leicester - i.e., tough league last year), and goal difference wise we'd generally have finished in the top 3 or 4. So being overly critical over goals against in a successful season isn't really the biggest deal?

Its also been said to death, but a significant proportion of our goals against came in the first 6 matches when we had massive squad turnaround and a drastic transition in style, take just 3 of those games out of the equation and include the playoffs and we were nearer to 1 goal against per game over the course of the season 🤷‍♂️.

So given the previous 3 horse race arguments falls a bit flat on the actual evidence of last season, it comes back to the fact that fundamentally its a case of people not liking his style as opposed to him underperforming per se 🤷‍♂️. In the premier league, people dislike that we're not changing it "enough" (matter of each fans opinion) to stay up - and i guess many would rather give some Sean Dyche / BFS style football ago than continue trying with Martin's stlye - although there are no guarantees that would work either.

Edited October 17 by Saint86

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, franniesTache said:

Tbf we made a meal of it last season too, in fact if there's one consistent with Martin's teams through his whole career, it's that winning isn't the primary objective. Possession is.

It’s quite amazing really but there are a not insignificant number of people who actually believe statements like this are true.

[Lighthouse]

53 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It’s the antithesis of good football. In general, keep the ball as far away from your own goal as possible and as close as you can to your opponent’s.

A few decades ago maybe. Modern teams can knock the ball off you on the edge of their own penalty area and have it in the back of your net in ten seconds flat. The illusion of safety in just booting it up the pitch died out long ago.

[Farmer Saint]

45 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

Objectively, just no 😄. You can't just ignore Ipswich (£8-10billion net owners pumping money into them to build a team in the 3rd tier and then doing the back to back promotions). They were in the championship with us last year... they got 96 points and finished 2nd? 😄 There were 4 teams on 87+ points - that's more than any other season going back to 2014/15 (at which point i stopped checking tbh - but i'm confident its a trend that would continue for the overwhelming majority of seasons). So which one of the top 3 are you ignoring to make us part of an exclusive 3horse race? Leeds would get automatic promotion most seasons with their performance.

We were far and away the worst of the relegated premier league sides and we then gutted the team of pretty much all talent.. so we were never favourites for top 2 (regardless of people's ignorance of how good Ipswich were going to be), plus the playoffs are always less than a 50% chance.... So if anything, Martin should probably be getting praised for getting us promoted, not beaten round the head for missing automatics.

Specifically on your point about the tactics/defensive play:
"an unheard of amount of goals for a promotion chasing team"... okay, so we were more attacking and less defensive, but still got the job done... we let in 6 more than Ipswich who secured automatics? We also didn't even have the most goals conceded of the playoff sides last season (your "promotion chasing sides"), and indeed looking back at previous seasons there are sides with more goals against than us (Reading came 3rd with 64 against, villa and west brom both finished in the playoffs with 62 and 61 against for example - so no, its not unheard of. If anything, your point raises the question of whether Martin be praised for getting promoted with his style of play over the more typical sean dyche / calderon / BFS styles that succeed in the championship - a devils advocate rhetorical question 😛.

In Martin's favour - in each of the past 10seasons, our goals scored would be at least 2nd best - and more generally place us as top scorers (ditto Ipswich and Leicester - i.e., tough league last year), and goal difference wise we'd generally have finished in the top 3 or 4. So being overly critical over goals against in a successful season isn't really the biggest deal?

Its also been said to death, but a significant proportion of our goals against came in the first 6 matches when we had massive squad turnaround and a drastic transition in style, take just 3 of those games out of the equation and include the playoffs and we were nearer to 1 goal against per game over the course of the season 🤷‍♂️.

So given the previous 3 horse race arguments falls a bit flat on the actual evidence of last season, it comes back to the fact that fundamentally its a case of people not liking his style as opposed to him underperforming per se 🤷‍♂️. In the premier league, people dislike that we're not changing it "enough" (matter of each fans opinion) to stay up - and i guess many would rather give some Sean Dyche / BFS style football ago than continue trying with Martin's stlye - although there are no guarantees that would work either.

He needs to go due to the huge splits in the fan base - he's a bit like Brexit - but this is an excellent summary and something I have tried to articulate over the past year.

[Graffito]

2 hours ago, franniesTache said:

Tbf we made a meal of it last season too, in fact if there's one consistent with Martin's teams through his whole career, it's that winning isn't the primary objective. Possession is.

That’s just not credible. Martin’s primary objective is winning matches. He sees his possession based football as means to that end not an end in itself. Currently it’s failing which is why many of us would like to see more pragmatism, failing which he’ll be replaced. He knows this. 

[Graffito]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It’s the antithesis of good football. In general, keep the ball as far away from your own goal as possible and as close as you can to your opponent’s.

Possession football is the antithesis of good football? Really? 

[Farmer Saint]

48 minutes ago, Graffito said:

Possession football is the antithesis of good football? Really? 

He's old - he's into hoofing pigs bladders, laces imprinted on your forehead and severe brain injuries.

Edited October 17 by Farmer Saint

[Oldandtired]

2 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

It’s quite amazing really but there are a not insignificant number of people who actually believe statements like this are true.

Probably because of what they witness week after week watching Saints.

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Graffito said:

Possession football is the antithesis of good football? Really? 

It is the way we play it.

Bit different than Ajax of the 70s, Barcelona or Man City.

[derry]

Slow complicated recycling possession as we play it has little chance of an end product except repeated catastrophic mistakes in and around our own penalty area and the main reason I'm against it.  The possession football played by Manchester City and Arsenal which is high intensity attacking in possession is proper football. The players at Arsenal and Manchester City have been put together at great expense to play that way. We just have a cheap imitation that is delivering defeat after defeat and is both prdictable and unwatchable. Passing the ball is part of football, passing short around our own penalty area is crass stupidity and will ensure that only two other teams will be relegated as we are unable to avoid gifting goals. We don't have the players to play that way successfully so unless we play a higher tempo, a strong press and be more direct we are done. 

Edited October 17 by derry

[derry]

43 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

He's old - he's into hoofing pigs bladders, laces imprinted on your forehead and severe brain injuries.

That is a really cheap arrogant remark and detracts from any point you are trying to make. It has no place in the ongoing discussion.

[Farmer Saint]

19 minutes ago, derry said:

That is a really cheap arrogant remark and detracts from any point you are trying to make. It has no place in the ongoing discussion.

It was a joke mate, lighten-up.

[derry]

16 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

It was a joke mate, lighten-up.

Then stick an emoji with it. It didn't come over that way.

[verlaine1979]

4 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Objectively, just no 😄. You can't just ignore Ipswich (£8-10billion net owners pumping money into them to build a team in the 3rd tier and then doing the back to back promotions). They were in the championship with us last year... they got 96 points and finished 2nd? 😄 There were 4 teams on 87+ points - that's more than any other season going back to 2014/15 (at which point i stopped checking tbh - but i'm confident its a trend that would continue for the overwhelming majority of seasons). So which one of the top 3 are you ignoring to make us part of an exclusive 3horse race? Leeds would get automatic promotion most seasons with their performance.

We were far and away the worst of the relegated premier league sides and we then gutted the team of pretty much all talent.. so we were never favourites for top 2 (regardless of people's ignorance of how good Ipswich were going to be), plus the playoffs are always less than a 50% chance.... So if anything, Martin should probably be getting praised for getting us promoted, not beaten round the head for missing automatics.

Specifically on your point about the tactics/defensive play:
"an unheard of amount of goals for a promotion chasing team"... okay, so we were more attacking and less defensive, but still got the job done... we let in 6 more than Ipswich who secured automatics? We also didn't even have the most goals conceded of the playoff sides last season (your "promotion chasing sides"), and indeed looking back at previous seasons there are sides with more goals against than us (Reading came 3rd with 64 against, villa and west brom both finished in the playoffs with 62 and 61 against for example - so no, its not unheard of. If anything, your point raises the question of whether Martin be praised for getting promoted with his style of play over the more typical sean dyche / calderon / BFS styles that succeed in the championship - a devils advocate rhetorical question 😛.

In Martin's favour - in each of the past 10seasons, our goals scored would be at least 2nd best - and more generally place us as top scorers (ditto Ipswich and Leicester - i.e., tough league last year), and goal difference wise we'd generally have finished in the top 3 or 4. So being overly critical over goals against in a successful season isn't really the biggest deal?

Its also been said to death, but a significant proportion of our goals against came in the first 6 matches when we had massive squad turnaround and a drastic transition in style, take just 3 of those games out of the equation and include the playoffs and we were nearer to 1 goal against per game over the course of the season 🤷‍♂️.

So given the previous 3 horse race arguments falls a bit flat on the actual evidence of last season, it comes back to the fact that fundamentally its a case of people not liking his style as opposed to him underperforming per se 🤷‍♂️. In the premier league, people dislike that we're not changing it "enough" (matter of each fans opinion) to stay up - and i guess many would rather give some Sean Dyche / BFS style football ago than continue trying with Martin's stlye - although there are no guarantees that would work either.

This would be a compelling argument were it not for the fact that Ipswich's billionaire owners (a description I'd quibble with, as the investment fund that owns Ipswich has billions in assets under management, but they aren't all at the disposal of the club) only spent a grand total of about 2m per season over three seasons building their back-to-back promotion-winning machine. Nobody is disputing that Ipswich were in the race - the shocker is that a team put together for peanuts (I can't be bothered to do the maths, but I doubt their entire Championship squad cost them more than a single Shea Charles) performed so much better than us to sneak into the autos. As for our squad being ripped apart - no more than any other relegated team (Leics lost Madison, Tielemans, Barnes etc.), so no special pleading here. And we spent plenty.

Likewise, the characterisation of us prioritising attack over defense might be a nice story in hindsight, but again it doesn't bear a lot of scrutiny. Why were Leeds and Leicester able to score at a similar rate, while conceding so many fewer? We played a slow, pedantic style of football that prioritised possession over either solidity or fluidity, and we scored plenty of goals because the Championship is so poor that Adam Armstrong and Che Adams is a potent combination at that level.

 

[notnowcato]

Fuck me, last season is sooo well, last season. Fact is we were promoted; much to the disappointment of many on here, which is utterly bizarre. 

[Weston Super Saint]

4 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

It’s quite amazing really but there are a not insignificant number of people who actually believe statements like this are true.

One of them is Russ 🤦

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, derry said:

Then stick an emoji with it. It didn't come over that way.

🤔

[Lighthouse]

15 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

One of them is Russ 🤦

Don’t get me wrong, this persona we’ve created on the internet of ‘Legohair’ sitting in a hipster café, drinking £45 vegan lattes and vaping, before going to the game, yelling at Archer to, "pass it back to the ‘keeper FFS!" When he has a tap in from five yards, before going home and masturbating ferociously over his possession stats and photos of Pep, whilst a bored Lucy watches Love Island, is utterly hilarious. Honestly I just can’t stop laughing.

However, the fact that some people think it’s actually true and not just some internet meme is just ludicrous and I can only assume they need their house checking for radon and hallucinogenic mould.

[verlaine1979]

2 hours ago, notnowcato said:

Fuck me, last season is sooo well, last season. Fact is we were promoted; much to the disappointment of many on here, which is utterly bizarre. 

The seeds of our current predicament were already sown last season, as many who watched the losses against Leicester, Hull, Ipswich and a few others predicted.

Edited October 17 by verlaine1979

[Lighthouse]

Just now, verlaine1979 said:

The seeds of our current predicament were already sewn last season, as many who watched the losses against Leicester, Hull, Ipswich and a few others predicted.

Who would you prefer to have lost against?

[Harry_SFC]

1 minute ago, Lighthouse said:

Who would you prefer to have lost against?

The fact is those losses showed that our style of play can be very easy to play against if you've got half decent players and manager. 

[Lighthouse]

1 minute ago, Harry_SFC said:

The fact is those losses showed that our style of play can be very easy to play against if you've got half decent players and manager. 

And yet we got enough points for promotion and we’re unbeaten against the other three playoff teams, with 6 wins and 3 draws.

[Dusic]

https://twitter.com/SaintsExtra/status/1846984968481759421?s=19

Dibling on Russell Martin: “He makes sure you’re comfortable and you know you’re in his plans. He’s been amazing. He’s like my second dad - he cares, and he’s getting the best out of me. I really appreciate him.” #saintsfc

Obviously easy to say because he has given him a chance in the PL but does seem as if RM still retains the support of the players, which is not always the case and potentially a consideration for the decision makers. Certainly far easier a decision when morale is poor and the manager is clearly a wazza that everyone dislikes.

 

 

[Lee On Solent Saint]

3 minutes ago, Dusic said:

https://twitter.com/SaintsExtra/status/1846984968481759421?s=19

Dibling on Russell Martin: “He makes sure you’re comfortable and you know you’re in his plans. He’s been amazing. He’s like my second dad - he cares, and he’s getting the best out of me. I really appreciate him.” #saintsfc

Obviously easy to say because he has given him a chance in the PL but does seem as if RM still retains the support of the players, which is not always the case and potentially a consideration for the decision makers. Certainly far easier a decision when morale is poor and the manager is clearly a wazza that everyone dislikes.

 

 

That's half Martin's problem, he wants to be liked, wants to be everyone's best mate on the squad. 

[notnowcato]

50 minutes ago, verlaine1979 said:

The seeds of our current predicament were already sewn last season, as many who watched the losses against Leicester, Hull, Ipswich and a few others predicted.

No one said it was a perfect season. To be fair it was pretty decent when taking into account the cluster fuck of the previous 2 years in the lead up to the start of last season. 

[notnowcato]

Just now, Lee On Solent Saint said:

That's half Martin's problem, he wants to be liked, wants to be everyone's best mate on the squad. 

Does he?