I agree, except there’s only one owner, and he hasn’t really had anything to do with the football team. Certainly you can blame him for the people he originally put in place to do that, but they have gone now. For the 1,897th time. But I know you have to say it at least 20 times a day, so fill your boots.
I agree with the athleticism point for sure - we really lack pace and power across the pitch. Fear? Maybe - but it wasn't like the players wernt brave enough to try his passing style in the premier league. They did it every week despite the fact it kept costing us goals!
WTF did he adapt to? He was more rigid in his playing style than a steel girder in the heart of a skyscraper.
Im not watching, just everyone having a good laugh in a WhatsApp group. He mentioned “brave” a lot while he was here. I always thought he meant as a collective and was essentially saying all the players need to believe in what we were trying to do. The mistakes which led to goals if you sit and analyse each one (I haven’t of course but I’m sure we have a team for that) there would’ve been a lot that the person who was meant to receive the pass was in the wrong place, I always thought that’s what Martin was banging on about when he talked about bravery.
I'm sorry but how on earth can you possibly be surprised by the athleticism of the PL? You played in it in 2016! Unless you have been living off-grid and on a total digital detox, I cannot see how you would not have observed that, even from a distance. RM also has a litanity of contacts across English football, including many at PL level who could've told him exactly that if he truly did not know Yes, he is right to highlight losing Wilcox was a blow but we still had Ankersen (for all his faults he has been involved in the PL a few years in his time...) and Darren Mowbray who was the head of recruitment for Sean bloody Dyche, he knows all too well about the importance of athleticism and physicality So either Russell was choosing to neglect athletic profiles when making his own recruitment decisions, or someone else internally was pushing alternatives and deprioritised athleticism. Either way, it's bad operations
He was always going to come on and deflect blame in a public forum like MNF is. I assume he wants to go back into management so he will be treating this almost like a pre interview for his next job
I said in November/December you could see the players becoming more and more terrified by the game and they'd share nervous glances every time they have it away. They probably were full of fear same as an antelope would be being sent to the lions den.
Eventually yeah, but for the first 8 or 9 games they seemed to believe in what they were doing... sadly it didn't work! I dont think fear was/is the reason we have been so bad.
A style of football that conceded as many goals as we did in the Championship, despite being significantly better than pretty much the entire league was never going to fly in the PL with virtually the same players but playing against vastly superior teams. Deluded to think otherwise. We had/have significant issues across the pitch and across the club, but playing such suicidal football was the first hurdle that Martin was never going to get over. He's shown that across his managerial career to date with the amount of goals his teams concede. You'd like to think for his own sake that he'd pick up on that and develop his style to alleviate that glaring problem if he ever wants to progress as a manager.
Doing the tactical analysis segment at the end and getting a lot better answers out of him now, tbf 'What I need to improve and learn from is how and when to play pretty and when to not'
Interestingly he said he didn't like how much the ball went into our midfielders and they failed to turn and run through midfield. Said we played back to the defence and recycled the ball too much, allowed the opponent too much respect and too much time to get into their positions. He said that Downes/Aribo didn't run intensely enough and carry the ball as much as they needed to. Loved working with Fernandes and Lallana, but the midfield lacked physical presence to enable those guys to be at their best
Carragher: So how do you think you should've coached this Southampton team differently to still be there? RM: I wish I had put way more onus from the start of the season on fouling quickly, arriving and making contact earlier. I liked our low block defending to be honest and how we could suffer a bit more. I would put more athleticism in the team, but if you don't have the athleticism, then you need to find a way to be harder to play against. We needed more dark arts to make up for that and keep us in our shape
Said he's open to going abroad for his next job and is realistic that he is going to have to earn another PL shot via promotion. Said he needs to learn and improve on how to make the decision on when to encourage his team to play short passing and when to be more cynical and find a way to grind out a result Carragher: Will it be 60% possession in the next job too Russell? Martin: No, I think maybe we will play a little more direct sometimes...
Good on him. Be interesting to see how he does in his next job as it could make a world of difference to his performance as a manager.
Proof will be in the pudding or whatever the phrase is. He couldn’t come out and say “yeah I’d just do the same thing Carra”, this is him putting himself back in the spotlight a bit for another job. It didn’t take a genius to work out that if he had changed slightly we may have improved. I can maybe see that him being so involved in the club etc meant he couldn’t see the wood from the trees and now he’s had some time to reflect he can see what he should have tried, but to me he seems very stubborn so I fully expect him to do the exact same tactics and playing style in his next job.
Couldn’t bear to watch & reading the above very glad I didn’t. The guys a prick. Stuck up his own arse.
