Yeah it's no secret that I've never particularly rated Martin and think he's average at best but I'm also not a fan of calling for a change this early into the season. Despite it going almost exactly as I expected it to playing his style against better teams. But if we lose to Leicester we'll be on one point in nine matches having played our fellow promoted sides at home and the teams who finished 16th and 17th last season. And at that point then we're truly in Derby territory, though they had more points by this stage.
I’m more annoyed that I ****ing asked B365 to give me a price for Saints breaking Derbys record before the season started and they never got back to me
What concerned me when watching the game on tv last night was the look of despondency on several players faces, in particular Downes and Ramsdale. They looked thoroughly hacked off. The fans seem to have turned against Martin and if he has lost the dressing room then he is gone.
Both Ramsdale and THB went mental at Ugochukwu for the first and second goals respectively. I’m 99% Martin was talking about him when he was talking about players not working hard enough
I saw that too. I also noticed Lallana doing the same when his turn and pass forward was subsequently passed back to the CBs… just when he thought he’d instigated an attack.
When I used to work for a living, I was a senior manager in an organisation. When we made any change we knew that the first people to get irate were the ones who'd tell you to **** off if you offered them a million quid. We'd ignore them and look at our barometers. These were the people who would usually say 'I'll give it a go' and would offer constructive criticism if they could see a problem. If they were unhappy we'd probably cocked up. Reading this board on a regular basis there are a number of barometers in my view. People who offer a considered view; they don't pretend to be itk unless they have evidence and clearly want Saints to do well. They also recognise that doing well doesn't mean storming the PL and the CL! The post at the top of this page from DTLW struck me this morning, as for me he is one such barometer. I can't help feel that if fans like him are thinking things ain't right then change is in the offing. In common with others I like Russell but I did wonder what was going on last night both in terms of his selection but more significantly his post match comments.
Spoke to someone this morning who was there last night who said similar. That many players looked really uncomfortable trying to keep possession at the back while under so much pressure.
I’m not sure I could even tell you what our style of play is. We literally do nothing but make mistakes and concede. And the fact that Martin changes the lineup every game is another issue, he has no idea what his best team is. As another poster said, one minute some of the players that got us up aren’t good enough and he shouldn’t be loyal to them, the next minute they have better character and we’d be better with them playing. We are on course to set an embarrassing new record of the lowest point total ever, to add to our 9-0s. We are a clown club.
We could probably do with a bit of a bastard, with a very clear and defined way of playing, who wouldn't be afraid to bring people like ABK back into the fold, and who doesn't have 'attachment' to players that played for us last season.
So, is this on the players, or the manager. If it is on the players - the manager needs to sort this out in terms of not playing to instruction. If on the manager, well..
Are you suggesting there's some of us on here who are reactionary and knee jerk? If so, I've never seen it. It's purely measured and reasonable posts all the way.
I am of the opinion that RM is not the cause of the problems that we have, he is as much a victim of the circumstances prevailing, whether he is capable of digging us out of the mess is subject to conjecture and opinion, I fear not. It will need a massive change of fortune to improve the situation. The imposible takes a lot time to sort out, Miracles take a little bit longer...
