Finally. The press was fantastic at times but, as we saw on several occassions, not sustainable over the course of a season. We simply wern't good enough on the ball to press with that intensity. We have so badly lacked a sense of identity since Ralph's early days. Hopefully Martin can build on that.
Welcome Russell at last. All we ask is you do your best for the club and players. We as true supporters will always back you. (Even if we do moan now and again)
Right, can see here there are still conflicting opinions so hopefully this will shed some light on Martin as a manager. First of all I just want to say I have no bitterness to him leaving. I actually expected a lower level prem club like Bournemouth or Palace to come in for him as I believe he is more than capable of becoming a top manager. Secondly, as fans we hate our owners. They are parasites that couldnt give two ****s about our club and just want to make a profit so they can earn. We hate they dragged out the whole shenanigans of Martins transfer and just wished they had either take the lower amount or met in the middle just to get it done so we could have moved on sooner and prepped for the coming season. But we also know what to expect from them, they are tight ****ers who invest absolutely nothing into the squad. Since we've been relegated from the prem 4 years ago (not including the initial player sales as a result of going down) we have sold over £75m worth of players and spent less than £12m. Also from our 7 years in the prem we actually sold more than what we bought which i think is quite rare. Despite this we get zero investment and are constantly told there is no money. In Jan just gone we sold 6 players and signed no one, but more on that later. You might be wondering why I'm telling you all this, but it paints a picture of what constraints that Martin has had to work with. Onto Martin. As you know, he favours a possession based game where his team will play out from the back. With us, the tempo was often very slow and at times quite pedestrian with little penetration. The tactic was more to wear and grind teams down rather than make them work hard or look for lapses in concentration. Our goals, were more formulaic in that we inched forward bit by bit until we were playing outside their 18 yard. Then either a shot from the edge of the box that rebounded to our striker or an overlapping full back to whip it across the box would usually be our main source of goals. Hence Mannings high assist rate. Now this is where its more up in the air whether this is actually how he wanted to play or whether this was him making do with what he had. At Swansea we literally have no wingers. We have no one in the team that is remotely fast. No one that can get in behind and no one that can dribble effectively or put a defender on the back foot. It's unlikely this was Martins choice as who the hell wouldn't want a player capable of this, but our owners as I said do not invest. We have Ollie Cooper who has come through the ranks under Martin and will get at players despite not being very fast. He was getting quite a bit of game time under Martin so this tells me he does actually favour this type of player. But Cooper is still young and is not quite ready to be starting week in week out. While this slower style of play was effective and got us goals, it left us very vulnerable to counter attacks. A lot of out goals conceded were either direct counters attacks against the run of play, or were self inflicted with wayward passing from our defenders/keeper or a defender getting caught in possession. And this was essentially the fans biggest frustration with the style of play. A lot of our players (particularly our defenders) were not capable of playing out from the back. Silly mistakes constantly cost us valuable points, often in the closing stages of the game. When we went on the horrific run, the tone of the fans was either back him or sack him. Its no good wanting to play a certain way if the owners won't get the players capable of playing this way. Martin has his style and he doesn't compromise on this. I believe he tweaks it to suit the players he has at his disposal (as mentioned with our lack of pace) but does not compromise on the fundamentals. The owners knew exactly what they were getting when they brought him in. For me it is more their failing that we went on that run rather than Martins. In Jan we were 4 points off the playoffs, they sold 6 players and brought no one in despite saying replacements were on their way. We had a real chance of pushing on and there was a lot of positivity. But once the window closed the atmosphere around the club became toxic. Our form dropped off a cliff and from then it seemed the writing was on the wall that Martin would either walk, be sacked or leave for another club... and personally I don't blame him. He is generally a very well liked person and celebrates the victories with the fans and players. He does a very good job of creating a culture of togetherness and I think will go on to manage a higher end prem club. He took a lot of flak from a small but loud minority of fans, but for me this anger was misplaced. Had we kept him and brought in players to suit the style, I've no doubt we would have been knocking on the door this season. Instead we've cashed in, got a cheap replacement and will no doubt happily sell off our best players yet again and hope that some more youngsters are able to step up to the mark (we had the second or third youngest team in the league last year). For yourselves, if he's backed then I have no doubt he will walk this league quite easily with you.
Really great read, thank you for the positive. it's hard to read that about ownership. - sounds like things won't get better until they are replaced.
Thank you so much for this, first of all I feel for you as Saints have had owners in a similar mould to yours in the past, which didn't end well and nearly led to our liquidation. Let's hope yours replace Martin well and back his successor so you can ultimately get back to the PL. All in all what you say sounds very positive for us and hopefully Sport Republic will give him the tools he needs to succeed in this League. All the best for the season mate, and thanks again for your insight.
Thanks for the sharing your views I like Swansea, I think it’s because we both have really horrible Blue neighbours to contend with Obafemi has a bit of pace, did Martin ever try and utilize that? What was the reason for loaning him to Burnley?
Yeah pretty much. Although we had signed Piroe in the same window as Oba. By the time Oba joined at the end of the window Piroe was already on 3 goals in 5. No one really expected Piroe to be as good as he was. Took Oba 9 games (some of which he started ahead of Piroe) to get a goal in late October. Martin did eventually find a place for him in the team alongside Piroe and he started getting some goals, but then the following summer Burnley were interested after just being relegated and he wanted to go. Our owners wouldn't sell for anything less than £7-8m so Burnley held off. After that Oba more or less downed tools. Got back in the side, scored a couple, had another bitch fit so was dropped again and eventually loaned out in Jan with an option to buy for £3.5m I believe. Decent player but awful attitude on him.
Credit where its due, since our relegation they haven't put a foot wrong with the appointment of managers. We've had Graham Potter who took us to the playoffs. Steve Cooper who took us to the play off final, then Russle Martin who got us back to playing with the identity we were used to from our early PL days. It's a far cry from their appointment of Bob Bradley! The biggest criticism really is that they are American business men and look at the club purely as a business. They don't seem to understand the many nuances associated with football. Martin going to you guys for example, it would have surprised absolutely no one in Swansea if the owners pulled the deal at the very last moment because they felt they weren't getting the price they wanted. They wouldn't factor what that would do to morale and that his position here was more or less untenable after letting it get that far. In the PL they sold the then club captains 3 years in a row. They ripped all leadership out of the team. Now their focus is on to bring through young talent and sell it on. Its a fine model that can work well with clubs, but they are also not renewing the contracts of our older heads as they 'no longer have value'. There is no momentum being generated and less and less experience in the team every year. If Grimes and Piroe do leave this year (along with letting our 2 fullbacks Manning and Lats run their contracts down) and probably Whittaker going to Rangers, I think that is pretty much the writing on the wall for our premiership ambitions. Championship survival will become our priority at that point. I'll be following your results regardless and wish you guys well for the season!
Think the feeling is mutual. Always had a soft spot for Swansea: you guys went up with a lot of ambition and just enough craziness to believe that you could play slick football against the big boys, and it worked, and in so doing it also provided a blueprint for ourselves and others that followed. Think a lot of Saints fans would be happy if you accompanied us on our next trip up.
Sounds very similar to what’s happened to us last season. New owners came in, sold the experience and thought they could re-invent football. Good luck for the season and hopefully it will be a saints and Swansea promotion year
BBC Radio Solent Sport - Russell Martin has done his first broadcast interview since joining Saints - BBC Sounds
