Just had a further look into RM’s goals against tallies since he became a manager in 2019. 2019/20 GA - 47 - M K Dons (became manager 4th November) 2020/21 GA - 62 - M K Dons 2021/22 GA - 68 - Swansea 2022/23 GA - 64 - Swansea 2023/24 GA - 61 (with 2 games remaining) - Saints I don’t think the jury should be out for too long when you look at those numbers. He has no idea how to stop conceding goals and is incredibly consistent in that fact. Edit in the 31 games RM managed in 2019/20 his team only conceded 25 goals, so was it the next season he started to play fantasy football and gave up on defence?
Given SR are ‘all about the data’, this is a worrying stat to see. Stubbornness springs to mind (again).
This was pretty well known and discussed when we hired him. After seeing what Swans fans had to say this was obvious. Although the fact he will likely concede more with Saints this season than he did with Swansea is piss poor!
That in itself is absolute madness but even more so when it looks like we will also concede more than his MK Dons side that finished 13th in League One in the 2020/21 season...!!
I believe the general consensus on here was that he’s never had such good quality players to work with, so give him the benefit of the doubt and judge him on his time with us… Well, safe to say at this point that it’s something he’ll never improve on regardless the quality of player. Our defensive players are top quality for this level. But as a defensive unit, apart from that period of games during our unbeaten run, we are a shambles. Very difficult to get promoted automatically when you concede as many as we do.
Football managers really confuse me. If you're conceding a million goals, it might be a good idea to think, "okay, I have developed a relatively attractive style of possession based football here, but it turns out I'm **** at organising a defence. I've learned this from the past three seasons of my coaching career. So what I'll do, is hire someone that's great at coaching a defence, and adapt my style slightly, to accommodate a couple of defensive midfielders (preferably who are also decent on the ball) to protect my defenders. It also seems that my ideas about narrow full backs means we concede loads of goals from crosses, so I'll adjust that". But no, instead they seem always to say "this is my way of playing, and I refuse to countenance any change to that". As I say, confusing. The mark of a successful leader is someone who recognises those things they're not much cop at. It was the same with Ralph. It's betrays a certain arrogance, it really does.
I feel at this point, Martin getting sacked will be good for him and would be a chance to take stock on how he approaches his next job. The plays offs should be an opportunity for him to reset and admit to the squad that we need to be more pragmatic, but I fear he’ll dig his heels in and we won’t make Wembley
I don’t see Russ as our biggest problem right now. Fraser, Harwood Bellis, Downes and Brooks have arguably been our standout players and they’re all on loan till May. No matter what happens we’ve left ourselves so much to do in the summer and I have zero faith our board will make the correct choices. All the loaned places will need to either be bought or loaned again plus also needing to get a whole new defence (preferably, some of the should have seen the door seasons ago). It doesnt matter what happens next season, we’re likely to be ****ed in some way. If we keep playing the same style of football and don’t improve our defence, like we havent for the past 4 seasons, we won’t just get relegated it will be a pummelling week after week and that’s not going to get you anywhere. That’s my biggest issue with him. His absolute lack of adaptation and game management. I think it’s best to stick with him for the cohesion as I genuinely don’t know who could come in to the ****show that will be next season, whether we go up or down. It’s shocking how terrible our squad is without the loaned players.
We have only weakened our defence since the two 9-0s. The fact we STILL rely so heavily on Bednerak and Stephens, two players in both 9-0 losses is shocking. And it’s not like HB, Bree or Manning are better than them. We have KWP, who even though he’s been good, has more than a few “wtf is he doing?” type moments a season. Add to that the merry-go-round of goalkeepers every ****ing year as well as the issue that when Downes isn’t in the team we have the backbone of a chocolate eclair and it’s no surprise we are a complete disaster at the back. It wouldn’t matter who the defensive coach is. Even after a 25 game unbeaten run it’s so easy to knock the confidence out of that back line.
Bednarek & Stephens are both very good options at this level and would walk into any defence in the league. Its not a personnel issue, it's a system issue I think. Martins teams have always been defensively leaky and he's just carrying that on with us.
In terms of Calderwood as a defensive coach. We did look good when he first came in. Then the set piece coach left, Calderwood took on his responsibilities and we haven't looked as good since.
I disagree tbh. I think they’re both perfectly capable of good patches of performance and have shown that but their confidence is so easily rocked in a game that they’ll never be consistently good. It may be a systemic issue but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the last 3/4 managers have been unable to get anything other than inconsistency from them.
I mean, it's a bit hard to judge and compare what Ralph/Hughes/Pellegrino did with them vs Martin; they were all managing and playing at a higher level, and two of them were hopeless managers who didn't get a tune out of anyone. In isolstion, neither of them have put in any stinkers this season, and in a more defensively minded team (or with a manager who could organise a defense), we wouldn't be having this conversation. Like I said, it's a Martin style trait to have leaky defense, amazing considering he used to be a defender.
Two Defensive Midfielders. The last time we used that properly was with Poch, and we had one of the best defences in the premier league. It’s staggering that we haven’t tried it again, particularly this season. But passing and possession.
I would have liked to have seen Charles with Downes. Charles is clearly good at breaking up play, and I think he’d complement downes well.
Absolutely agree, although I do remember using it under Koeman with Morgan / Wanyama. What a time to be alive.
