Russell Martin

[Turkish]

3 hours ago, Osvaldorama said:

To put our start into perspective. If we continue as we are, we’d:

- Concede 86 goals 
- Score 29 goals 
- Accumulate 5 points

Some may say it’ll get easier, but we’ve played 2 promoted sides, and only 3 sides that finished in the top half last year.

 

Put simply, Martin is doing a phenomenal job 

We’ve conceded 3 goals in 5 of our 8 games this season. Unfortunately of the 3 games we’ve conceded less than 3,  2 of them were the first and second game of the season so I think the goals against column is going to look far worse if things carry on as they are. 

[Football Special]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

We’ve conceded 3 goals in 5 of our 8 games this season. Unfortunately of the 3 games we’ve conceded less than 3,  2 of them were the first and second game of the season so I think the goals against column is going to look far worse if things carry on as they are. 

Also managed to concede 3 at championship strugglers Cardiff in the Milk Cup 

[notnowcato]

16 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Agreed. The only possible option was to replace him with Ryan Fraser. 

Spot on, like for like

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

1 hour ago, stevy777_x said:

So much for having all the louded team spirit and camaraderie in pre season that would stand us in good stead according to Adam Blackmore and Alfie House.

Pretty sure the team spirit is there but it can't stand you in good stead if the team tactics are crap and the players' fitness levels aren't where they should be.

Every team we've played not only move the ball quicker; their players also seem to be quicker than ours, and that's been especially noticeable with the 'lower' team like Ipswich, Forest, Leicester. It's not as if RM has the excuse of playing an energy-sapping high press. Fernandes or a.n.other makes a half-hearted challenge while the others sit back and let the other team come to us. 

[lambtiss]

14 minutes ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

Pretty sure the team spirit is there but it can't stand you in good stead if the team tactics are crap and the players' fitness levels aren't where they should be.

Every team we've played not only move the ball quicker; their players also seem to be quicker than ours, and that's been especially noticeable with the 'lower' team like Ipswich, Forest, Leicester. It's not as if RM has the excuse of playing an energy-sapping high press. Fernandes or a.n.other makes a half-hearted challenge while the others sit back and let the other team come to us. 

I'm assuming RM's training regime prioritises retaining possession. That is probably not going to help with fitness. It would explain why we let leads slip in the 2nd half of matches. 

[S-Clarke]

43 minutes ago, notnowcato said:

Spot on, like for like

What about the actual left back, Charlie Taylor? 

[Turkish]

17 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

What about the actual left back, Charlie Taylor? 

You just don’t understand the philosophy do you?

[lambtiss]

29 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

What about the actual left back, Charlie Taylor? 

Bit left-field that one .. 

[a1ex2001]

48 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

What about the actual left back, Charlie Taylor? 

We bought him by mistake, we were after another right back who could also play badly as a holding midfielder we just don’t have the options in those positions but we are blessed with loads of premiership left backs.

[a1ex2001]

5 hours ago, Osvaldorama said:

To put our start into perspective. If we continue as we are, we’d:

- Concede 86 goals 
- Score 29 goals 
- Accumulate 5 points

Some may say it’ll get easier, but we’ve played 2 promoted sides, and only 3 sides that finished in the top half last year.

 

Put simply, Martin is doing a phenomenal job 

I have a mate who’s a Derby fan he got excited last year when it looked like Sheffield United might break their low point record, numbers like these will have Rams fans celebrating like Idiakez missed that pen again!

[SaintsBarry74]

6 hours ago, Osvaldorama said:

To put our start into perspective. If we continue as we are, we’d:

- Concede 86 goals 
- Score 29 goals 
- Accumulate 5 points

Some may say it’ll get easier, but we’ve played 2 promoted sides, and only 3 sides that finished in the top half last year.

 

Put simply, Martin is doing a phenomenal job 

Our goals conceded over the last five seasons reads like a buffet disaster - endless servings, and no signs of slowing down.

[Weston Super Saint]

8 hours ago, Turkish said:

You just don’t understand the philosophy do you?

It's getting quite depressing how many people really don't get the soccerball philosophy.  Some still think it's about scoring goals, accumulating points and rising up the league table.  They just don't understand the beauty and hypnotism of intricate passing and the incredible bravery involved to compete at such a high level week in week out.

It's definitely tough being the smartest person in the room so often.

[Miltonaggro]

9 hours ago, a1ex2001 said:

We bought him by mistake, we were after another right back who could also play badly as a holding midfielder we just don’t have the options in those positions but we are blessed with loads of premiership left backs.

Russ and Rasmus:

[Dman]

Why is he still here? He's proven he's out of his depth and cannot win a game in the PL. At this point, we may as well had let Lallana have a go, wether its for a week or the season, it quite litterally cannot get any worse.

[badgerx16]

27 minutes ago, Miltonaggro said:

Russ and Rasmus:

I wonder if Rasmus is a little too fond of the Camberwell carrot. Might explain a few things.

Edited October 21 by badgerx16

[Bad Wolf]

2 minutes ago, Dman said:

Why is he still here? He's proven he's out of his depth and cannot win a game in the PL. At this point, we may as well had let Lallana have a go, wether its for a week or the season, it quite litterally cannot get any worse.

How many times have we said "it can't get any worse" and then it's got worse. Of course it could get worse.

I do wonder about the caretaker manager if one is needed though. Russ has always made a point that he and all the coaching staff he brought with him are a unit - He said if one of them didn't want to come here or Swansea, none of them would have. So presumably all the staff would go too so I wonder who'd be in charge and it probably would actually be Lallana. That's gonna make a few (including me) on here feel old.

[Dman]

3 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

How many times have we said "it can't get any worse" and then it's got worse. Of course it could get worse.

I do wonder about the caretaker manager if one is needed though. Russ has always made a point that he and all the coaching staff he brought with him are a unit - He said if one of them didn't want to come here or Swansea, none of them would have. So presumably all the staff would go too so I wonder who'd be in charge and it probably would actually be Lallana. That's gonna make a few (including me) on here feel old.

Of course other than 0, how can it get worse than 1 point in 10 games 😂 Whilst I agree, on this occasion, it cannot get worse - we will not beat a single side in this leauge under Martin. 

I'm almost certain the caretaker will be Lallana - I said when he was sigend he'll be in the dugout by Christmas. 

Edited October 21 by Dman

[Sunglasses Ron]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

It's getting quite depressing how many people really don't get the soccerball philosophy.  Some still think it's about scoring goals, accumulating points and rising up the league table.  They just don't understand the beauty and hypnotism of intricate passing and the incredible bravery involved to compete at such a high level week in week out.

It's definitely tough being the smartest person in the room so often.

Maybe in the next few years the league table will be redesigned to capture more than just points won. They simply must start to include possession, completed passes, turnovers, high presses etc.  If we could pick up just a few more points in the process we could become the dominant force in English football.

Viva RussBall!

[Dman]

On 28/06/2024 at 12:56, Dman said:

Incredibly short sighted by the club and will potentially (likley) come back to bite us on the arse. 

We've absolutely no idea how we will do in the PL and his / the clubs 'success' was acheiving the bare minimum expected...  

Why would you not wait 6 months and assess in December. 

Turns out, unsurprisingly, I was absolutely bang on and offering him a new deal so early on has come back to bite us.... Shock horror.

Is anyone ITK on this? did he have some form of clause that meant we had to extend should we gain promotion, or were our board really that fucking stupid?

If the former, who signed this deal off? They should be out the club the club the same time as Martin is. This stupidity (Along side the deal to bring in Martins favs Wood & Fraser) has cost us a few million quid. Piss poor management from the club. 

[Football Special]

9 minutes ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

Maybe in the next few years the league table will be redesigned to capture more than just points won. They simply must start to include possession, completed passes, turnovers, high presses etc.  If we could pick up just a few more points in the process we could become the dominant force in English football.

Viva RussBall!

That's a good point and would be an interesting legal case, unfair that only goals scored are rewarded with points and not some of the other great brave things that happen elsewhere on the pitch , football needs a re-think 

[Turkish]

2 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

It's getting quite depressing how many people really don't get the soccerball philosophy.  Some still think it's about scoring goals, accumulating points and rising up the league table.  They just don't understand the beauty and hypnotism of intricate passing and the incredible bravery involved to compete at such a high level week in week out.

It's definitely tough being the smartest person in the room so often.

People dont seem to realise there is more than one league. It's not just about points at the end of the season. There are possession tables, XG tables, turnovers, touches inside your own penalty area, there are many, many more factors to soccerball than the meaningless stat of how many points you accumulate over an arbitrary period set by men in suits miles away. Who decided 38 games was a measure of success? 

In any case no one really wins that way anyway, at the start of the next season everyone is back to zero whereas a philosophy can last forever. No one mentions who topped the science class in Greece in 320 BC but they've talked about Aristotle forever.

[ally_uk]

The owner needs to stop being a melt and fire a rocket up the arse of Rasmus! 

And sack this onion of a manager! 

Both are massively out of depth here....

[Toussaint]

28 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

How many times have we said "it can't get any worse" and then it's got worse. Of course it could get worse.

I do wonder about the caretaker manager if one is needed though. Russ has always made a point that he and all the coaching staff he brought with him are a unit - He said if one of them didn't want to come here or Swansea, none of them would have. So presumably all the staff would go too so I wonder who'd be in charge and it probably would actually be Lallana. That's gonna make a few (including me) on here feel old.

I don’t think it can get any worse than achieving 1/8th  of a point per game.

[Mr X]

5 minutes ago, ally_uk said:

The owner needs to stop being a melt and fire a rocket up the arse of Rasmus! 

And sack this onion of a manager! 

Both are massively out of depth here....

Both dragan and rasmus believe in his long term plan according to Martin..... The long term plan only makes sense in their heads it seems! 

[saintant]

6 minutes ago, ally_uk said:

The owner needs to stop being a melt and fire Rasmus! 

And sack this onion of a manager! 

Both are massively out of depth here....

Fixed that for you.

[Bad Wolf]

9 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

I don’t think it can get any worse than achieving 1/8th  of a point per game.

Is 1 the lowest possible number of points we could have then?

[Mr X]

3 minutes ago, saintant said:

Fixed that for you.

So true they both need to go no point getting rid of one without the other..... Rasmus appointing another manager is a liability that will bury the club permanently!

[Dman]

2 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Is 1 the lowest possible number of points we could have then?

Put it this way, the lowest ever points record after 10 games is 2 points. With City then a 6 pointer vs Everton - we know how they usually go - we are on target to match if not worsen that... So yes, its about as low as it possibly could be. 

[Mr Nimbus]

Saturday has really solidified for me the worries I was trying to overlook due to the promotion last season. 

I know he rubs people the wrong way and his "style" obsession is a bit too much, but I like RM and am grateful for last season.

However, I think one of the guys on TSP today nailed it, he's giving "looking after himself vibes" and thats a bad slope to be on.

I think I would change it now.

[coalman]

15 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

I don’t think it can get any worse than achieving 1/8th  of a point per game.

I'm pretty sure we're heading for 1/9th of a point per game come the weekend. Then again, there's nothing like a completely unexpected result against Man City to buy a manager another month or two and the opportunity to claim they've turned a corner. Especially when Pep says that Martin is the 10th best tribute act he's seen this week.

[Bad Wolf]

4 minutes ago, Dman said:

Put it this way, the lowest ever points record after 10 games is 2 points. With City then a 6 pointer vs Everton - we know how they usually go - we are on target to match if not worsen that... So yes, its about as low as it possibly could be. 

But we could have 0 points after 8 games.

[coalman]

3 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

But we could have 0 points after 8 games.

Much as I hate to tempt fate... we could always fall foul of FFP and get a 10 point deduction en route to ending the season with less than 0 points.

[benali-shorts]

37 minutes ago, Dman said:

Turns out, unsurprisingly, I was absolutely bang on and offering him a new deal so early on has come back to bite us.... Shock horror.

Is anyone ITK on this? did he have some form of clause that meant we had to extend should we gain promotion, or were our board really that fucking stupid?

If the former, who signed this deal off? They should be out the club the club the same time as Martin is. This stupidity (Along side the deal to bring in Martins favs Wood & Fraser) has cost us a few million quid. Piss poor management from the club. 

It may have been triggered automatically by promotion? That wouldn't have seemed an unreasonable clause when they were originally negotiating his contract? 

Even post-promotion, and with the additional duties bestowed on RM by SR's utterly bizarre and incompetent decision to not have a D of F in place, it probably was necessary to avoid RM spending the summer assuming he was a lame duck. 

It's annoying in hindsight as this was always a likely scenario, but would have been very difficult to a) not reward achieving promotion and b) expect RM to take on additional duties normally carried out by D of F without the reward of a new contract. 

Luckily for Phil and Henrik, Dragan picks up the bill. Again. 

[beatlesaint]

26 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Both dragan and rasmus believe in his long term plan according to Martin..... The long term plan only makes sense in their heads it seems! 

They may well believe in it, and it may well make sense, BUT the plan doesnt hinge on Russell fkin Martin !

[Saint NL]

I judge managers by the position our games are shown on MOTD.

I'm absolutely certain that we will be on first on Saturday night, so you'd have to say that Martin is doing a good job.

[Dman]

41 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

But we could have 0 points after 8 games.

I'm not sure what hill you're trying to die on here, but we're already achieving unprecedented levels of shitness and are on course to smash lowest points records out the park. 

If you want to try and believe that after 8 games, having 1 point from playing the 2 fellow promoted sides and another everyone tipped for relegation, at home, things couldn't possibly get worse, then you carrying on doing you fella. 

[Oldandtired]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

People dont seem to realise there is more than one league. It's not just about points at the end of the season. There are possession tables, XG tables, turnovers, touches inside your own penalty area, there are many, many more factors to soccerball than the meaningless stat of how many points you accumulate over an arbitrary period set by men in suits miles away. Who decided 38 games was a measure of success? 

In any case no one really wins that way anyway, at the start of the next season everyone is back to zero whereas a philosophy can last forever. No one mentions who topped the science class in Greece in 320 BC but they've talked about Aristotle forever.

The way we’re going, both in the league and on this forum, we’ll be talking about Russell sodding Martin forever.

[Toussaint]

39 minutes ago, benali-shorts said:

I

Luckily for Phil and Henrik, Dragan picks up the bill. Again. 

Does he? I’d love to know where the money is coming from and what we will be left with when they go. It was only a couple of weeks ago there was talk of loans having been secured on SMS and Staplewood. 

[Farmer Saint]

6 minutes ago, Oldandtired said:

The way we’re going, both in the league and on this forum, we’ll be talking about Russell sodding Martin forever.

We do seem to be obsessed with him on here. Usually if a club was doing this badly the players would also be getting pelters, but there seems to be a reluctance there (even though our players are clearly not good enough as well as the Manager). Russell has clearly rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.

[Farmer Saint]

5 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

Does he? I’d love to know where the money is coming from and what we will be left with when they go. It was only a couple of weeks ago there was talk of loans having been secured on SMS and Staplewood. 

They'd be idiots if they used their own money.

[chuz]

50 minutes ago, benali-shorts said:

It may have been triggered automatically by promotion? That wouldn't have seemed an unreasonable clause when they were originally negotiating his contract? 

Even post-promotion, and with the additional duties bestowed on RM by SR's utterly bizarre and incompetent decision to not have a D of F in place, it probably was necessary to avoid RM spending the summer assuming he was a lame duck. 

It's annoying in hindsight as this was always a likely scenario, but would have been very difficult to a) not reward achieving promotion and b) expect RM to take on additional duties normally carried out by D of F without the reward of a new contract. 

Luckily for Phil and Henrik, Dragan picks up the bill. Again. 

This is exactly what I was told....it was a clause in the first contract that promotion automatically triggered a second contract.  

[franniesTache]

On 17/10/2024 at 14:58, Graffito said:

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. 

On 17/10/2024 at 14:07, Lighthouse said:

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

I find it kind of amazing people can miss a joke so badly but i guess football is a serious business 🤣

[Give it to Ron]

9 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

We do seem to be obsessed with him on here. Usually if a club was doing this badly the players would also be getting pelters, but there seems to be a reluctance there (even though our players are clearly not good enough as well as the Manager). Russell has clearly rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.

Well just maybe if he could make a sub, coach a defence on defending a corner, pick the best 11 , not try and be the new Pep, strikers 60 yards apart or no striker then just maybe we wouldn’t?

[Bad Wolf]

32 minutes ago, Dman said:

I'm not sure what hill you're trying to die on here, but we're already achieving unprecedented levels of shitness and are on course to smash lowest points records out the park. 

If you want to try and believe that after 8 games, having 1 point from playing the 2 fellow promoted sides and another everyone tipped for relegation, at home, things couldn't possibly get worse, then you carrying on doing you fella. 

I'm simply saying that things COULD be worse contrary to what has been stated previously.

[badgerx16]

10 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

I'm simply saying that things COULD be worse........

True; being born a skate, or keeping your valuables in a bank vault in Beirut, but not a lot else.

[Toussaint]

35 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

They'd be idiots if they used their own money.

that's what I was getting at, it is often repeated that Dragan has put his hand in his pocket, or words to that effect. With my limited knowledge of big business, people rarely risk there own personal capital. 

[SambaMaverick]

46 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

We do seem to be obsessed with him on here. Usually if a club was doing this badly the players would also be getting pelters, but there seems to be a reluctance there (even though our players are clearly not good enough as well as the Manager). Russell has clearly rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.

The players/squad aren't great, but we'd gotten ourselves into a 2-0 lead on about 60 minutes, at which point he was given a decision to make by Cooper for the first time in the game. He then proceeded to get pretty much every decision wrong and we collapsed unexcusably. Not sure how that can be anyone else's fault.

[Farmer Saint]

11 minutes ago, SambaMaverick said:

The players/squad aren't great, but we'd gotten ourselves into a 2-0 lead on about 60 minutes, at which point he was given a decision to make by Cooper for the first time in the game. He then proceeded to get pretty much every decision wrong and we collapsed unexcusably. Not sure how that can be anyone else's fault.

Absolutely, he made poor decisions after Suga went off injured, but I would say we wouldn't have lost that game even with his poor decisions if the ref didn't also shit the bed.

In addition to that, being 2-0 up against Leicester - is that on the players or the Manager? You'd also have to say the players fucked up as well to lose from that position. Cooper is a poor Manager at PL level and is on his way out at Leicester by all accounts, so we should not have lost that match even with the poor decisions made by the manager.

 

Edited October 21 by Farmer Saint

[SambaMaverick]

2 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Absolutely, he made poor decisions after Suga went off injured, but I would say we wouldn't have lost that game even with his poor decisions if the ref didn't also shit the bed.

In addition to that, being 2-0 up against Leicester - is that on the players or the Manager? Cooper is a poor Manager at PL level and is on his way out at Leicester by all accounts.

 

Ehh. The penalty/red was pretty stonewall, but we had a good case up the other end. The referee was bad, but no other decision had that much bearing on the goals.

Martin clearly put a decent game plan in place to get us 2-0 up and well in control, nullifying their threats. But time and again he has shown that he can't effectively change things in game. He can't react well enough, probably because he is still a very young manager.

[benali-shorts]

3 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Absolutely, he made poor decisions, but I would say we wouldn't have lost that game even with his poor decisions if the ref didn't also shit the bed.

In addition to that, being 2-0 up against Leicester - is that on the players or the Manager? Cooper is a poor Manager at PL level and is on his way out at Leicester by all accounts.

 

I think RM being out-thought in-game is one major issue - we've had decent spells in games (Newcastle pre-their red card; Ipswich (sort of); Leics for 60 mins; Utd for 30 mins). But once the tide has turned, RM hasn't shown any ability to react - or even better, to pre-empt it by adjusting our approach. 

The refereeing was appalling on Saturday. The squad is poor. The coach is not showing sufficient ability to manage a game for 90 minutes. We can only do something about one of those things. To do nothing would be remarkably stupid.