Showing promise for sure. He obviously is a student of these pages and maybe realized we know what he needs to know.
I voted to review at the international break. I've seen enough the past week to be behind him. Today was frustrating, but I don't think that's on the manager or system, just a stubborn away side with a well played goalkeeper.
I am underwhelmed (understatement) with today, but I think there has generally been a marked improvement over the last three games, I’m back to being in the top 6 by Xmas as the marker. I am not pleased with the gap between us and the top two though.
We have had one good half where we beat Leeds 3-0. Apart from that we have snuck a very unconvincing win against a dreadful - and I mean truly dreadful - Stoke side and then failed to beat the worst team in the league. I am still veering towards sack.
As it stands, still out for me ……with this squad we should be so much better. Maybe RM will get there in the end …..but not ATM.
plus the times we looked good was when we played nothing like a russell Martin team I like him as a bloke but I don’t think he has what it takes to get us promoted. The question is - does anyone else? Could anyone else improve this team? We have a **** keeper and **** strikers and that is a huge problem
Other slight concern I have for the longer term. This is probably the best Championship side we will have and it will most likely degrade further for each season we are here, so if we dont go up now itll be that much harder for whoever is in charge next year if it isnt RM. Edit - Although I think Leicester are probably the most insanely overpowered team the Championship has seen in a long time, so at least we wont have that to contend with.
I'm still of the view that if we sacked him tomorrow, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. I'd have no problem at all. But I can't commit myself to voting out, because I really want it to work this season. And I haven't yet given up hope that it will. (I have little hope that it will work in the PL, but lets focus on this season first.)
Changing my vote to "stick with him". My main issue before was not playing the best players in their correct positions and that has changed this last week and there was some good football played today, unfortunately the oppo GK played a blinder and cost us the 3 points. I'm not in the promotion or bust camp this season but we should be targeting the play-offs as a minimum with the squad we have. There are still many points to play for so it is still very early days and we have at least cut out the damaging soft goals conceded.
Fair points, well made. it’s difficult to judge as in isolation today could just be bad luck. If we had won and looked solid in a few more games this season, i am sure he would have more slack. But.. he doesn’t have any right now. Ultimately this squad is underperforming, big time, especially at home. The second half was nowhere near good enough. I made no secret that I thought a more experienced/respected name was needed instead of a gamble and I still think we need that. I have seen nothing so far that makes me think he will make us promotion candidates. Still not convinced by this propaganda football at all.
I don't think much point comparing with Leicester tbh, and to be fair to Ipswich they've been excellent so far too. But I agree top 6 is where we should be (and will imo). I said when we played them that they reminded me of us in 11/12 but that I expected play offs ultimately, I've just seen though that they've more points at this stage than we did in our promotion season and have already opened hefty gap to 3rd. Few more wins and they'll have to be considered big auto contenders.
As for Martin I wouldn't sack him as I don't think he's had a proper chance yet and he's shown enough willingness to adapt recently to deserve one imo. I don't particularly have faith that he'll fully turn it round and succeed here though.
Oh dear……..so disappointed yesterday. Got into good attacking positions then passed backwards. Must be so frustrating for the players in the goal scoring areas . So many times. So so disappointed……
I changed my vote to wait until the international break, then I realised it is the international break! I think we could make play offs at a push, but our squad should be competing for the auto spots. If we weren’t run by SR I would suggest changing managers, but I just don’t trust them. I still think a better tactic would have been a more seasoned manager with proven championship success, get promoted then change up when we can attract a trendy name.
I am no RM happy clapper but do we want to change managers again now and start from scratch again NJ had 9, quite rightly no more Selles 17, stop gap Are we really saying Martin after 11 games? In reality only 4 of those 11 have been poor. Let's just get behind him and see where we are at January transfer window
