Russell Martin

[LegalEagle]

Now 5/2 with Skybet to be our manager on the first day of next season. Firm favorite with Selles at 7/1 and Rooney 7/1 second favorites.

The owners must love his possession stats. This guy has the feel of another Nathan Jones...........................

[Appy]

Not every manager from the championship is another Nathan Jones. 

[Smirking_Saint]

I don’t put too much stock in the betting markets but;

Martin is a decent enough manager, heavily possession based and its a direction the club want to go down so could have legs

[saintwbu]

He’s one of few managers in the Championship i’ve actually seen some of, in terms of his personality, and actually quite liked what I saw. Whether he’s the right man or not, who knows, but like mentioned above Jones isn’t a reflection of the whole league. Potter and Cooper are both managers that people would have liked here, and both had Swansea on their CV before the jobs that made them popular, maybe Swansea have an eye for a decent British manager. 

[Andrew Watson]

Were Swansea not thinking of replacing him,before they went on such a brilliant run .

[Wade Garrett]

Would be a shit appointment and wouldn’t sell many season tickets.

After the Jones debacle, there is no way they could sell the appointment of Martin or the Plymouth bloke to the majority of supporters IMO.

[AlexLaw76]

the fact that Selles is 7/1 tells me enough to not read too much into this.

People are actually betting on Selles - nutters

[Ex Lion Tamer]

29 minutes ago, LegalEagle said:

Now 5/2 with Skybet to be our manager on the first day of next season. Firm favorite with Selles at 7/1 and Rooney 7/1 second favorites.

The owners must love his possession stats. This guy has the feel of another Nathan Jones...........................

Except Nathan Jones had a track record of getting a team to vastly over perform. I'm not sure what this guy offers really

[Ex Lion Tamer]

28 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

I don’t put too much stock in the betting markets but;

Martin is a decent enough manager, heavily possession based and its a direction the club want to go down so could have legs

We do need to transition from a counter pressing team to more of a dominant one that can break down a stubborn defence. As we're a big fish now, there will be more of these in the Championship

Edited 15 May, 2023 by Ex Lion Tamer

[Smirking_Saint]

1 minute ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

We do need to transition from a counter pressing team to more of a dominant one that can break down a stubborn defence. As we're a big fish now, there will be more of these in the Championship

Yeah I don’t disagree with the move tbh

[Pamplemousse]

I reckon it's mostly agent talk for Swansea to give him more money.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

1 hour ago, AlexLaw76 said:

the fact that Selles is 7/1 tells me enough to not read too much into this.

People are actually betting on Selles - nutters

But you wouldn't put it past the bunch of clowns running the club to still have Selles in charge come August.

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

He's from Brighton and puts his name to his own soccer schools in the area. We've probably seen Brighton doing really and put 2 and 2 together... 😂

[Crab Lungs]

 

[Crab Lungs]

 

[Maggie May]

I think it’ll be Marsch.

[Crab Lungs]

One more, for the hell of it

 

[HarvSFC]

Appears like another spreadsheet guy to me. Good underlying stats (possession), where he can talk a good game, but at the end of the day he's achieved nothing as a manager. Taken MK Dons to 13th and replaced Cooper, who finished 4th with Swansea to a 15th and 10th placed finish in his two seasons in charge.

We've all also watched us play a blunt possession game all season. I don't want to see us continue to pass it around Bazunu and our centre-backs next season. It's boring, too passive and at the end of the day doesn't get most teams who try to emulate Barcelona/Man City the same success. You need a mix between direct and possession based football to be winners at our level.

One positive is we'd be stupid not to bring Joel Piroe with him if Martin was appointed. Only 23 and a 22 and 19 goal Championship striker.

[S-Clarke]

2 minutes ago, HarvSFC said:

Appears like another spreadsheet guy to me. Good underlying stats (possession), where he can talk a good game, but at the end of the day he's achieved nothing as a manager. Taken MK Dons to 13th and replaced Cooper, who finished 4th with Swansea to a 15th and 10th placed finish in his two seasons in charge.

We've all also watched us play a blunt possession game all season. I don't want to see us continue to pass it around Bazunu and our centre-backs next season. It's boring, too passive and at the end of the day doesn't get most teams who try to emulate Barcelona/Man City the same success. You need a mix between direct and possession based football to be winners at our level.

One positive is we'd be stupid not to bring Joel Piroe with him if Martin was appointed. Only 23 and a 22 and 19 goal Championship striker.

I'm surprised Piroe isn't spoken about in the same chat as a Goykores or Akpom etc. Proven goal scorer since they got him.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

I'm surprised Piroe isn't spoken about in the same chat as a Goykores or Akpom etc. Proven goal scorer since they got him.

Think he's in his last year on his contract with them. Would be surprised if he's not on our radar.

[Dusic]

6 minutes ago, HarvSFC said:

Appears like another spreadsheet guy to me. Good underlying stats (possession), where he can talk a good game, but at the end of the day he's achieved nothing as a manager. Taken MK Dons to 13th and replaced Cooper, who finished 4th with Swansea to a 15th and 10th placed finish in his two seasons in charge.

We've all also watched us play a blunt possession game all season. I don't want to see us continue to pass it around Bazunu and our centre-backs next season. It's boring, too passive and at the end of the day doesn't get most teams who try to emulate Barcelona/Man City the same success. You need a mix between direct and possession based football to be winners at our level.

One positive is we'd be stupid not to bring Joel Piroe with him if Martin was appointed. Only 23 and a 22 and 19 goal Championship striker.

On the other hand...

- Our possession game the last 2 years has been a large part of our problem in creating clear chances because we are poor at building from the back in the way that Brighton for example are excellent. Their GK and CBs (in fact the whole team) are good and calm in possession and they have well coached movements to attract and beat the opposition pressure. When done well it is more than just stats and certainly not passive.

Personally a manager who coaches a specific style which is then immediately obvious when watching the team clearly has something about them. Compare what Poch did in 3 days to Jones in 6 weeks.

Talk of spreadsheet managers and messing about at the back etc is often, and in the case of your post, lazy cliche.

[Harry_SFC]

23 minutes ago, Dusic said:

On the other hand...

- Our possession game the last 2 years has been a large part of our problem in creating clear chances because we are poor at building from the back in the way that Brighton for example are excellent. Their GK and CBs (in fact the whole team) are good and calm in possession and they have well coached movements to attract and beat the opposition pressure. When done well it is more than just stats and certainly not passive.

Personally a manager who coaches a specific style which is then immediately obvious when watching the team clearly has something about them. Compare what Poch did in 3 days to Jones in 6 weeks.

Talk of spreadsheet managers and messing about at the back etc is often, and in the case of your post, lazy cliche.

Yep and also our problem this season has been a lack of decent ball playing defenders. Bednarek, Salisu aren't great at passing and I wasn't wholly convinced by ABK either. Lyanco tended to just try and play long passes that never came off. 

If we employ a possession based manager like Russell Martin we will certainly need a couple of CB's who are more comfortable on the ball. 

At least Bazunu is excellent at passing - he just needs to work on saving the bloody thing!

[skintsaint]

1 hour ago, Maggie May said:

I think it’ll be Marsch.

Nah Rodgers.

[verlaine1979]

18 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Yep and also our problem this season has been a lack of decent ball playing defenders. Bednarek, Salisu aren't great at passing and I wasn't wholly convinced by ABK either. Lyanco tended to just try and play long passes that never came off. 

If we employ a possession based manager like Russell Martin we will certainly need a couple of CB's who are more comfortable on the ball. 

At least Bazunu is excellent at passing - he just needs to work on saving the bloody thing!

I think it's more that JWP generally lacks the dynamism to receive the ball from our CBs, turn and drive into the middle. They have to pop it back and forth between them for a couple of exchanges to get us to the halfway line. Compare with McAllister & Caicedo yesterday, who took the ball off the Brighton CBs constantly and just scampered forward with it.

[Dark Munster]

I wonder how long Rasmus W. Ankersen with his f*cking spreadsheet has been tracking this nonentity?

No. Thank. You.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

Following a particularly abject, gutless performance where even the Norwich manager didn't want to show his face, Martin trotted out a series of empty platitudes and clichés. Anyone who had been watching them for a while would have realised how meaningless his words were, wondering about the disconnect between what he was saying and the reality of their performances. So, a lot like some of the rubbish we've heard from our club since the weekend. They'll really like Martin.

[Saint Fan CaM]

Appointing this guy will be a sure fire way to project us towards League One IMO. No thanks.

[Brissysaint]

I’d honestly rather if we barely had possession so I don’t have to see these idiots do fuck all with it. We’re going to make the long ball cool again and tall Paul’s going to score 40 next year.

[Brissysaint]

Just now, Brissysaint said:

I’d honestly rather if we barely had possession so I don’t have to see these idiots do fuck all with it. We’re going to make the long ball cool again and tall Paul’s going to score 40 next year.

In terms of the manager, just get some fancy sounding bloke from Italy and be done with it, I don’t care what his record is.

[AlexLaw76]

Linked with Leicester now, conveniently 

[SotonianWill]

14 hours ago, Crab Lungs said:

 

I think trampoline touch Obafemi scored in this game, now even he is a division above us. 

[InvictaSaint]

Spoke with a colleague at work today who did his UEFA B licence with Russell Martin, and who has had a number of interactions with him over the last few years. He holds him in very high regard. Says he is a very good man manager, and a thoroughly decent human being. He is a purist so will not abandon his principles just to get results. His football is heavily possession based - 60% plus - and his teams often win games in the last 20 minutes once they've ground teams down. However, supporters enjoy watching his teams - there is positivity around watching them - and he gets good buy in. My colleague's view is that he has not had the tools - or at least not all of them - at his disposal at Swansea to get a team where we need to go, but that given the right resources he will do very well. Says we could do a hell of a lot worse, and would recommend him over Schumacher if that were ever a consideration.

[saintant]

14 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

I think it's more that JWP generally lacks the dynamism to receive the ball from our CBs, turn and drive into the middle. They have to pop it back and forth between them for a couple of exchanges to get us to the halfway line. Compare with McAllister & Caicedo yesterday, who took the ball off the Brighton CBs constantly and just scampered forward with it.

Exactly right about Brighton. Their game is based on the two centre backs pinging low quick balls into their midfielders who take up intelligent positions, control with one touch, turn and set up attacks. They're superb at it but I'm surprised more teams don't try to stop them doing it.  

[Charlie Wayman]

18 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

Would be a shit appointment and wouldn’t sell many season tickets.

After the Jones debacle, there is no way they could sell the appointment of Martin or the Plymouth bloke to the majority of supporters IMO.

Hear, bloody hear!

A predictable disaster entirely avoidable by not starting threads on him that those idiots upstairs might interpret as him being the fans choice.

Don't add oxygen to a fire!

[Charlie Wayman]

4 hours ago, Brissysaint said:

In terms of the manager, just get some fancy sounding bloke from Italy and be done with it, I don’t care what his record is.

Mancini?

[Give it to Ron]

3 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Linked with Leicester now, conveniently 

Rumour is he is flying to discuss a new contract with owner how convenient 2 clubs are after him?

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

1 hour ago, saintant said:

Exactly right about Brighton. Their game is based on the two centre backs pinging low quick balls into their midfielders who take up intelligent positions, control with one touch, turn and set up attacks. They're superb at it but I'm surprised more teams don't try to stop them doing it.  

Which really is how we should be playing, Lavia seems to be that sort of player, but we haven't made the most of it. And it isn't like Brighton have particularly technical defenders either, they use Lewis Dunk as one of them after all!

I do think we need a new style of football more akin to being on the front foot next season. Last time we were in the championship we had quite attacking line ups, with 4 attackers on the pitch at times, so hopefully we replicate that. I'm hoping for an appointment straight after the season ends, so we can have a joined up approach to pre-season, transfers and pushing on next season.

[S-Clarke]

3 minutes ago, Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan said:

Which really is how we should be playing, Lavia seems to be that sort of player, but we haven't made the most of it. And it isn't like Brighton have particularly technical defenders either, they use Lewis Dunk as one of them after all!

I do think we need a new style of football more akin to being on the front foot next season. Last time we were in the championship we had quite attacking line ups, with 4 attackers on the pitch at times, so hopefully we replicate that. I'm hoping for an appointment straight after the season ends, so we can have a joined up approach to pre-season, transfers and pushing on next season.

Does that mean we need a front footed and aggressive manager?  

In all seriousness the way Brighton play wouldn't work with us because of JWP in the two, he's too one paced and not dynamic enough to create those quick transitions. Lavia can certainly do it, but we'd need someone else in the mould of a MacAlistar or a Cacedio to partner Lavia if we wanted to try it. 

The other benifit going for Brighton is that they have options to feed to, either Mitoma on one side or Marsh on the other side - and then Gross picking up those little pockets of space in front of the midfield. If we had another partner for Lavia then JWP could do that Gross role I'm sure.

I can imagine our CB's could play that way, and ditto Lavia, but it stops there - we don't have anything else which is why we go backwards all the time. That needs to change in the summer if we are to adopt a new style.

Edited 16 May, 2023 by S-Clarke

[S-Clarke]

2 hours ago, InvictaSaint said:

Spoke with a colleague at work today who did his UEFA B licence with Russell Martin, and who has had a number of interactions with him over the last few years. He holds him in very high regard. Says he is a very good man manager, and a thoroughly decent human being. He is a purist so will not abandon his principles just to get results. His football is heavily possession based - 60% plus - and his teams often win games in the last 20 minutes once they've ground teams down. However, supporters enjoy watching his teams - there is positivity around watching them - and he gets good buy in. My colleague's view is that he has not had the tools - or at least not all of them - at his disposal at Swansea to get a team where we need to go, but that given the right resources he will do very well. Says we could do a hell of a lot worse, and would recommend him over Schumacher if that were ever a consideration.

My fear with Martin is his lack of experience, I don't doubt that he may well become a good manager but I think the timing is a bit off for us to be considering him. As mentioned in other threads we need someone proven and with suitable gravitas to handle the big changes in personal and structure that are going to happen, this will be a chaotic summer - and throwing an inexperienced manager into that will only end one way imo.

[Wurzel]

18 hours ago, Crab Lungs said:

 

What a novel tactic.  Players ahead of the ball run back towards the guy in possession to lose their marker and create space to receive a forward pass.  3 managers this season and none of them thought that might create more golas than passing it backwards and around in circles.  It'll never catch on at St Marys

 

Plus those commenting on the new manager odds above, first day of the season for betting purposes appears to be 1st July, not the date of the first game. Knowing how quickly this club usually moves Selles at 7/1 looks great value.

[Roboze]

19 hours ago, Ivan Katalinic's 'tache said:

He's from Brighton and puts his name to his own soccer schools in the area. We've probably seen Brighton doing really and put 2 and 2 together... 😂

what is this "Soccer" you speak of? 🤷‍♂️

[sledger]

i wouldnt be surprised if they revisited jesse marche as manager,personally i dont think he did that bad a job at leeds and you couldnt blame him for refusing a short term contract with a basket case of a club.

[Miltonaggro]

13 hours ago, Dark Munster said:

I wonder how long Rasmus W. Ankersen with his f*cking spreadsheet has been tracking this nonentity?

No. Thank. You.

The Danish bell will likely have it linked to his Tinder spreadsheets. 

[Gingeletiss]

40 minutes ago, Roboze said:

what is this "Soccer" you speak of? 🤷‍♂️

Does my bloody head in, over here in Oz. I am forever telling them that it’s been football for almost as long as Australia has been a country, but they have been Americanised.

[skintsaint]

2 minutes ago, Gingeletiss said:

Does my bloody head in, over here in Oz. I am forever telling them that it’s been football for almost as long as Australia has been a country, but they have been Americanised.

Yeah, conversation killer/winner for me was pointing out the name of the FA...

[notnowcato]

3 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Hear, bloody hear!

A predictable disaster entirely avoidable by not starting threads on him that those idiots upstairs might interpret as him being the fans choice.

Don't add oxygen to a fire!

Fuck me, you're a fine one to talk about wasting oxygen.

[Suhari]

1 hour ago, Wurzel said:

What a novel tactic.  Players ahead of the ball run back towards the guy in possession to lose their marker and create space to receive a forward pass.  3 managers this season and none of them thought that might create more golas than passing it backwards and around in circles.  It'll never catch on at St Marys

 

Plus those commenting on the new manager odds above, first day of the season for betting purposes appears to be 1st July, not the date of the first game. Knowing how quickly this club usually moves Selles at 7/1 looks great value.

It is noticable that we haven't been doing this anything like as well as when we had Romeu in the team.

[Chez]

20 hours ago, Crab Lungs said:

 

the keeper gives me kittens. I'd like to see a video showing the times it went awry.

[saintant]

3 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Does that mean we need a front footed and aggressive manager?  

In all seriousness the way Brighton play wouldn't work with us because of JWP in the two, he's too one paced and not dynamic enough to create those quick transitions. Lavia can certainly do it, but we'd need someone else in the mould of a MacAlistar or a Cacedio to partner Lavia if we wanted to try it. 

The other benifit going for Brighton is that they have options to feed to, either Mitoma on one side or Marsh on the other side - and then Gross picking up those little pockets of space in front of the midfield. If we had another partner for Lavia then JWP could do that Gross role I'm sure.

I can imagine our CB's could play that way, and ditto Lavia, but it stops there - we don't have anything else which is why we go backwards all the time. That needs to change in the summer if we are to adopt a new style.

I think Alcaraz could do the job alongside Lavia always assuming they both stay. Sulemana and Stuart Armstrong as the wide players. Should be good enough in the Championship.

[Saint Garrett]

21 hours ago, Crab Lungs said:

 

That video screams to me, how bad some of the defending is in the Championship.  Yes I know we're not much better, but if you have a well driled outfit that can pass and move, chances are easy (ish) to create.  I know it won't be easy to get out that league, but that shows that there is a huge gulf between that and the standard premier league side.