Ivan Juric

[Fitzhugh Fella]

12 hours ago, Maggie May said:

This is an absolute fact.

The Spurs fiasco has obviously slipped from your mind. One of the reasons we have been so bad recently is Martin's appalling legacy. I'm not saying Juric  is the answer but he couldn't have inherited a bigger shit show.

[Maggie May]

10 minutes ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

The Spurs fiasco has obviously slipped from your mind. One of the reasons we have been so bad recently is Martin's appalling legacy. I'm not saying Juric  is the answer but he couldn't have inherited a bigger shit show.

We’ve played a lot worse than the Spurs game under Juric. In my opinion, there are too many on here shrouded by their dislike of Russell Martin as a person. There were more performances under Martin this season where we were still in games but dropped points to ridiculous individual errors. 

We look totally clueless under Juric. Where is the fight and the passion? The heavy home defeats to Brentford and Brighton have to be there with our worst defeats in decades. Definitely up there with both 9-0s under Ralph - and there are still people reminiscing they were the good old days. 

[Harry_SFC]

8 hours ago, woodsaint1 said:

The cheek of him to throw in the 19 clean sheets from last season comment. Nobody cares, you're in a different league with a different team in different circumstances.

Since hes come in we've conceded 25 in 9 PL games - nearly 3 per game and god knows what it'll be if he lasts the season. In fact, without Ramsdale, who knows what the numbers would look like. The players may not be be good enough to play his system, but this is a guy who prides himself on organisation and defensive solidity.

Finding a quick fix to make us more solid is what I would have been hoping for. We could have then backed him in the summer with transfers to suit his system. But we're so far off being a competitive side and he just looks lost.

This is the issue, he just hasn't adapted to the different style of football. Almost as if it was a total gamble appointing someone who has never managed in England. 

[S-Clarke]

6 hours ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Should have stuck with Russ as I’ve said repeatedly, blatantly obvious we’d be in a better situation going into next season if we had a bit of loyalty to the fella, but no, the launch it forward brigade, who’ve probably never played a game in their lives… our lefty historian etc and plenty on here, you know who you are. Most lads I meet and speak to in the ground are of the same opinion which gives me a bit of hope 

Let's just revisit the Martin tenure a second. We started the Championship season terribly and were bottom half, the writing was on the wall but he got us moving again during the middle third of the season - and we flirted with the automatic spots.

In the final third of the season we were shit again, losing to Stoke, Cardiff, being thrashed by Leicester etc etc. We were one of the 'top 4' because our players relative to that league were good, and lots of last min wins kept us in there.

Whilst we did get promoted, I didn't feel like we were ever a promotion looking side. We were caught out by teams like Huddersfield, couldn't keep clean sheets to save our life and let in 60 odd goals. The style Martin implemented caused us more problems than solutions and our quality on the pitch, relative to the level, had to dig us out of lots of holes.

I appreciate that he got us promoted, but getting promoted under him playing the same way did give me nightmares - I'm not going to lie. I had a tiny bit of hope that maybe we'd recruit better players, he'd adapt and we'd improve, but we spent the summer chasing failed PL players and Martin's mates so we were no better off, but playing the same way in a league that's 10x stronger. We were always going to struggle. Martin's philosophy, of all the chatter about it, had failed - and we stuck with him for too long.

My argument against replacing Martin at the time was that the same people were in charge, so whilst it needed to happen it probably won't lead to a good choice. And here we are today, with another left-field oddball choice to continue where we have been under SR.

[Gloucester Saint]

6 hours ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Should have stuck with Russ as I’ve said repeatedly, blatantly obvious we’d be in a better situation going into next season if we had a bit of loyalty to the fella, but no, the launch it forward brigade, who’ve probably never played a game in their lives… our lefty historian etc and plenty on here, you know who you are. Most lads I meet and speak to in the ground are of the same opinion which gives me a bit of hope 

What’s Duncan’s or anyone’s politics go to do with valid opinions on the team we follow? 

Why don’t you and you lads have a read of S-Clarke’s post above. You might learn something.

Edited 3 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[trousers]

7 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Let's just revisit the Martin tenure a second. We started the Championship season terribly and were bottom half, the writing was on the wall but he got us moving again during the middle third of the season - and we flirted with the automatic spots.

In the final third of the season we were shit again, losing to Stoke, Cardiff, being thrashed by Leicester etc etc. We were one of the 'top 4' because our players relative to that league were good, and lots of last min wins kept us in there.

Whilst we did get promoted, I didn't feel like we were ever a promotion looking side. We were caught out by teams like Huddersfield, couldn't keep clean sheets to save our life and let in 60 odd goals. The style Martin implemented caused us more problems than solutions and our quality on the pitch, relative to the level, had to dig us out of lots of holes.

I appreciate that he got us promoted, but getting promoted under him playing the same way did give me nightmares - I'm not going to lie. I had a tiny bit of hope that maybe we'd recruit better players, he'd adapt and we'd improve, but we spent the summer chasing failed PL players and Martin's mates so we were no better off, but playing the same way in a league that's 10x stronger. We were always going to struggle. Martin's philosophy, of all the chatter about it, had failed - and we stuck with him for too long.

My argument against replacing Martin at the time was that the same people were in charge, so whilst it needed to happen it probably won't lead to a good choice. And here we are today, with another left-field oddball choice to continue where we have been under SR.

 

[Gloucester Saint]

Good article about how Pep’s possession-focused style stopped working a few months ago. Which of course is what Martin styles rigidly on. Put simply, we artexed all of the ceilings in 1989 or went to the barbers and asked for curtains https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c20l7lw3ypzo

[S-Clarke]

12 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Good article about how Pep’s possession-focused style stopped working a few months ago. Which of course is what Martin styles rigidly on. Put simply, we artexed all of the ceilings in 1989 or went to the barbers and asked for curtains https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c20l7lw3ypzo

I read that, I thought it was a good article. 

I'd put it down to another cause though. Their core players are getting older, and their recruitment for the replacement/evolving of their roles has been really really poor by them.

I don't look at their side and see any future Rodri's or De Bryune's - they're recruiting 'good' players, but not who I believe will go on to be elite level. The jury is still out on their January signings, I don't really know much about them.

Their midfield has been decimated with the absence of Rodri and De Bruyne through injury over the last year, and it's hard to emphasise how important a strong and reliable '6' is when trying to control football matches. If you lose that central structure in a tiki-taka style, then the walls around it crumble. I can't imagine Barca would have done as much without Busquets or Xavi.

I don't think it's the end of 'passing football' per-say, I still believe if you have good enough players then you can probably play in any way. City just haven't been good enough in the transfer market under Pep.

Edited 2 hours ago by S-Clarke

[Lord Duckhunter]

Lego’s position had become untenable, the atmosphere would have turned toxic by now had we kept him in charge. He made his position untenable by refusing to change and continually defending his ridiculous “project”. Week after week, there were articles from ex pros or managers criticising his tactics, co commentators & pundits all saying the same thing, yet Lego arrogantly ploughed on. No amount of rewriting history can change that. You got the felling he’d rather lose the “right way”, rather than compromise. He was done….

We’re not quite at that stage yet with Ivan. I haven’t heard much criticism from non Saints people of his tactics, but this is probably because nobody gives a fuck about us now. The key difference for me is it “appears” from his post match talk yesterday that the penny is dropping for him.
 

We’re now at the “Bournemouth away” stage, when it was apparent to everyone bar Lego that tactical change was needed. It’s now apparent that the players we have aren’t suited to Ivan’s preferred system, is he going to Lego it and double down, or will he change and adapt?

Given the right players, I prefer Ivan’s approach to Lego ball (it was pretty boring for long spells last year, and I find Man C in their prime pretty boring). But that’s not the point. The point is, what you do when you haven’t got the right players. We know what Lego did, let’s see what Ivan does. 

[LoyalSaintSO50]

29 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

What’s Duncan’s or anyone’s politics go to do with valid opinions on the team we follow? 

Why don’t you and you lads have a read of S-Clarke’s post above. You might learn something.

Yeah I’ve read it, I’ll send it to the lads lol 

S-Clarke talks a lot of sense on here to be fair. Agree with some of it, maybe picked out a few of our less successful defensive displays and worth remembering us managing to beat decent sides like West Brom twice before the playoffs, Leeds etc. Even defeats like Ipswich away we dominated

Players were clearly right behind him and if we’d have got his signings in like delap and O’reily it could have been very different 

We’re now stuck with an absolute fruitcake and players have not a clue what they’re up to. As is said, that was always going to be the case if we got rid of Martin and thanks again to you and others that made that happen. Trying to be as polite as I can 

[Gloucester Saint]

13 minutes ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Yeah I’ve read it, I’ll send it to the lads lol 

S-Clarke talks a lot of sense on here to be fair. Agree with some of it, maybe picked out a few of our less successful defensive displays and worth remembering us managing to beat decent sides like West Brom twice before the playoffs, Leeds etc. Even defeats like Ipswich away we dominated

Players were clearly right behind him and if we’d have got his signings in like delap and O’reily it could have been very different 

We’re now stuck with an absolute fruitcake and players have not a clue what they’re up to. As is said, that was always going to be the case if we got rid of Martin and thanks again to you and others that made that happen. Trying to be as polite as I can 

The WBA and Leeds games by Martin’s own admission the ‘philosophy’ was banished, partly because of McCarthy replacing Bazanu and partly the wretched form before the Leeds away game. The play off final in his own words was ‘driven by emotion’ after the goal. I’m not suggesting Juric is any better it’s another left field pick from SR so the extent of the mess can’t be exposed by the limitations of Juric’s language but at the Chelsea and Spurs games under Martin we’d easily have conceded double figures if they hadn’t taken their foot off the gas/woodwork.
 

The lack of any defensive organisation and structure was evident right across those defeats, the shambles at Bournemouth, and Juric’s heaviest defeats. And it correlates directly with conceding 64 goals last season.

Edited 2 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Give it to Ron]

10 minutes ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Yeah I’ve read it, I’ll send it to the lads lol 

S-Clarke talks a lot of sense on here to be fair. Agree with some of it, maybe picked out a few of our less successful defensive displays and worth remembering us managing to beat decent sides like West Brom twice before the playoffs, Leeds etc. Even defeats like Ipswich away we dominated

Players were clearly right behind him and if we’d have got his signings in like delap and O’reily it could have been very different 

We’re now stuck with an absolute fruitcake and players have not a clue what they’re up to. As is said, that was always going to be the case if we got rid of Martin and thanks again to you and others that made that happen. Trying to be as polite as I can 

Jeesh I thought your other post was nuts this one beats that - stuck with Martin and his 75% possession and 0 shots. 
No-one on here or any forum got Martin the sack the owner did it after watching him fail again versus Spurs.

[trousers]

2 minutes ago, Give it to Ron said:

Jeesh I thought your other post was nuts this one beats that

Hugely entertaining though. It's almost got a whiff of a certain Scottish city about it...

[Fabrice29]

12 minutes ago, Give it to Ron said:

Jeesh I thought your other post was nuts this one beats that - stuck with Martin and his 75% possession and 0 shots. 
No-one on here or any forum got Martin the sack the owner did it after watching him fail again versus Spurs.

We had more shots against Spurs than we did yesterday by the way. 

[BARCELONASAINT]

it is painfully clear to everyone we need a complete reset at the end of this season. 60/70% of our squad need to go, our recruitment has been a complete shit show. Juric is not the answer anymore than RM was. I don't know what i watched yesterday but it looked like 11 players that had never met each other until 5 minutes before kick off. The only player that came out of yesterdays performance with head held high was Ramsdale.

[redandwhitey]

and Fernandes

[S-Clarke]

1 hour ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Yeah I’ve read it, I’ll send it to the lads lol 

S-Clarke talks a lot of sense on here to be fair. Agree with some of it, maybe picked out a few of our less successful defensive displays and worth remembering us managing to beat decent sides like West Brom twice before the playoffs, Leeds etc. Even defeats like Ipswich away we dominated

Players were clearly right behind him and if we’d have got his signings in like delap and O’reily it could have been very different 

We’re now stuck with an absolute fruitcake and players have not a clue what they’re up to. As is said, that was always going to be the case if we got rid of Martin and thanks again to you and others that made that happen. Trying to be as polite as I can 

You've picked out Ipswich as a game we dominated, but we lost it. In many ways that game highlighted the flaws of Martin's approach. Some good moments in the attacking third, but absolute nuts at the back - always giving teams a chance.

That was the story of our season really, we vary rarley put teams to the sword - I can think of a handful of games at best. We gave everyone else we played a chance. We gave Huddersfield a two goal head start, we allowed Rotherham back into the game against us, we dominated a first half away at Swansea, went 3-0 up and managed to just about scrape a 3-1 from the second half.

We got absolutley destroyed by Sunderland at their place, Leicester home and away. 

It wasn't as good a season as many try to make out. We were a bit of a oddball in how we approached games and saw them out, which is why I was really happy we got promoted but dreading how we'd cope with better teams. Alas, we haven't.

[Lighthouse]

"A tactical change is needed." The tactics we've tried so far this season

• The weird U shape formation in a couple of the early fixtures
• No recognised striker at Bournemouth
• Passing patiently around the defence and retaining possession
• Four at the back against Spurs
• Getting it forward direct and early to Tall Paul
• Fullback tombola with KWP, Bree, Welington, Suga, Manning andTaylor being tried at various times as full backs, wing backs and outside CBs.
• Aribo dropping in at CB
• Surrendering the central midfield to allow for extra defenders
• Every combination of TP, Archer, Sully and AA up front, with none of them managing more than two goals.

How many tactical changes are we going to try before people stop demanding tactical shanges?

[saintwbu]

8 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

"A tactical change is needed." The tactics we've tried so far this season

• The weird U shape formation in a couple of the early fixtures
• No recognised striker at Bournemouth
• Passing patiently around the defence and retaining possession
• Four at the back against Spurs
• Getting it forward direct and early to Tall Paul
• Fullback tombola with KWP, Bree, Welington, Suga, Manning andTaylor being tried at various times as full backs, wing backs and outside CBs.
• Aribo dropping in at CB
• Surrendering the central midfield to allow for extra defenders
• Every combination of TP, Archer, Sully and AA up front, with none of them managing more than two goals.

How many tactical changes are we going to try before people stop demanding tactical shanges?

Ironically almost all of those tactical changes came under the previous manager, who apparently wouldn’t change, whilst the current manager hasn’t moved away from this shite formation for a minute.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Yeah I’ve read it, I’ll send it to the lads lol 

S-Clarke talks a lot of sense on here to be fair. Agree with some of it, maybe picked out a few of our less successful defensive displays and worth remembering us managing to beat decent sides like West Brom twice before the playoffs, Leeds etc. Even defeats like Ipswich away we dominated

Players were clearly right behind him and if we’d have got his signings in like delap and O’reily it could have been very different 

We’re now stuck with an absolute fruitcake and players have not a clue what they’re up to. As is said, that was always going to be the case if we got rid of Martin and thanks again to you and others that made that happen. Trying to be as polite as I can 

This is the fundamental problem with the possession-based approach. The intention is to dominate and not to conquer.

Martin had more than a fair chance to see if he could manage in the Premier League and he failed. More than miserably. The fact that his replacement is also struggling and appears to be making things up as he goes along doesn’t mean that getting rid of Martin was the wrong thing to do.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Fabrice29 said:

We had more shots against Spurs than we did yesterday by the way. 

Yesterday’s shots were mostly blocked early and so don’t feature in the published figures.

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Good article about how Pep’s possession-focused style stopped working a few months ago. Which of course is what Martin styles rigidly on. Put simply, we artexed all of the ceilings in 1989 or went to the barbers and asked for curtains https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c20l7lw3ypzo

“Attacking quickly after a transition - when possession changes hands - is arguably overtaking Guardiola's philosophy at elite level, with emphasis increasingly placed on direct football that runs deliberately in contrast to possession and territory.”
 

It’s also more entertaining to watch. It’s like the triumph of Blitzkrieg over static defences.

[davefizzy14]

Surely Jurić now has to have a complete rethink and go to a back four and put another DM in to at least try and make us more solid. 

[Wade Garrett]

9 hours ago, LoyalSaintSO50 said:

Should have stuck with Russ as I’ve said repeatedly, blatantly obvious we’d be in a better situation going into next season if we had a bit of loyalty to the fella, but no, the launch it forward brigade, who’ve probably never played a game in their lives… our lefty historian etc and plenty on here, you know who you are. Most lads I meet and speak to in the ground are of the same opinion which gives me a bit of hope 

You’re talking to onions in the ground.

[Osvaldorama]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

"A tactical change is needed." The tactics we've tried so far this season

• The weird U shape formation in a couple of the early fixtures
• No recognised striker at Bournemouth
• Passing patiently around the defence and retaining possession
• Four at the back against Spurs
• Getting it forward direct and early to Tall Paul
• Fullback tombola with KWP, Bree, Welington, Suga, Manning andTaylor being tried at various times as full backs, wing backs and outside CBs.
• Aribo dropping in at CB
• Surrendering the central midfield to allow for extra defenders
• Every combination of TP, Archer, Sully and AA up front, with none of them managing more than two goals.

How many tactical changes are we going to try before people stop demanding tactical shanges?

We haven’t played our best 11 in their best positions a single time 

 

Its nearly March. 
 

I think if you ask fans their best 11 it would be fairly similar. And we haven’t played it once.