Russell Martin

[LGTL]

He’s massively arrogant but certainly not naive. He genuinely thinks that this boring possession based nonsense will actually win him games in this league eventually. Arrogant and deluded is probably more apt. 

[StrangelyBrown]

12 hours ago, Midfield_General said:

From today’s Guardian:

“Trying to find hope for Russell Martin’s side going into this fixture is tricky. At Wolves they failed to have a shot on target despite having 72% possession and they will not dominate the ball in the same manner on Sunday. Southampton’s style is about passing and patient buildup and it is unlikely Martin will ever change, even if the club’s Premier League status and his employment are at risk. All teams need an element of surprise, whether they are first or last, in order to keep opponents guessing, but Southampton’s predictability is their downfall and explains why they are bottom. Reacting when something is not working is a sign of a good coach.” 

The guardian have missed the point - the longer this goes on the more other teams will think RM is going to change something and then they'll fall for his cunning plan, unknowing that he's tricked them into second guessing his non-existent plan B

[Tommy Mulgrew]

On 16/11/2024 at 17:56, Tommy Mulgrew said:

We have been promoted to the first division or premier league before.  Each time we stayed in that league a long time before being relegated.  During that time we sometimes played well and sometimes played badly; sometimes we were exciting to watch and sometimes excruciating.

Now we are tying something different: bravely trying a revolutionary way of playing with the intention of overturning the EPL world order to become one of the big boys and thus deserving of gio’s support and admiration.  The trouble is that our way of playing is not revolutionary at all: plenty of other teams do it, and much better than us, too.  And those teams play with a pace and intensity that we can only dream of; and they vary their style to suit the opposition and the occasion.  We do not do that; we play an exaggerated version of possession football, which reduces our ability to score and thus win games or draw them.  Without wins or draws, we do not accumulate enough points to avoid certain relegation.

How can us non-believers get excited by ploughing a lonely but brave furrow if all it does is give us a worse chance of survival in the premier league than we would have if we were to play to the strengths of our squad of players and try to win games and hence stay in the EPL, where most of want to play for as many seasons as possible?

Absolutely barking mad.

 

On 21/11/2024 at 14:04, Tommy Mulgrew said:

How do you think we shall ever be competitive in the EPL by playing unadulterated Russball, which results in few goals (for us), with players who are nowhere near as good as those in up to 19 other teams who play less extreme PB football complemented by variations of playing style that lead to goals (for them) being scored?  We shall always be behind, doing our walking-pace version of chasing every game, and no more competitive as we are now.  I cannot fathom how you believe we can do it.

I’m waiting for gio’s reply.  So far, the silence has been deafening.

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

 

I’m waiting for gio’s reply.  So far, the silence has been deafening.

Which has been bloody fantastic.

[Roo1976]

What hes still here..........................and we've had the relatively easy fixtures already, and still we wait for news from anyone in authority that they are ok with the present situation,unlike a fair amount of the fan base, still we don't actually have too many concerns as fan base do we?.All good to have boring ponderous possession based error strewn passing in suicidal areas,and no plan b to address the need for improvement when we are loosing. Sunday should be fun.............................

[StrangelyBrown]

20 minutes ago, Roo1976 said:

What hes still here..........................and we've had the relatively easy fixtures already, and still we wait for news from anyone in authority that they are ok with the present situation,unlike a fair amount of the fan base, still we don't actually have too many concerns as fan base do we?.All good to have boring ponderous possession based error strewn passing in suicidal areas,and no plan b to address the need for improvement when we are loosing. Sunday should be fun.............................

SRs plan seems to be to double down on failure with the hope that double failure breeds success. It's a bit like Jack Stephens getting 2 yellow cards... as my son pointed out to me tonight, contrary to popular opinion in this scenario, two wrongs do actually make a right!