Why do you think SR will only go for a possession based manager? I don’t believe it was an overriding success last season (even tho we got promoted) nor fantastic entertainment wise. It’s been a disaster this year.
Precisely, he got us to Wembley, but the Premiership is on a different level. He is not the Messiah, just a very naughty boy...
I sorta agree with this but we all know nothing’s going to change & we will still be winless come Nov
It isnt just a case of Martin in or out. It is entirely down to who we replace him with. If Potter was available, I'd 100% do it - but I don't see that happening. There is no point sacking him for someone not much better that gets us relegated anyway. If we do that, then we would probably want Martin back in the summer for a promotion push!
Straight answer; won’t be any worse & potentially better (if choice is right). Please don’t ask who tho.
Well it has to be said with the players we have, the style we play isn't working. I'm not sure that just carrying on and hoping it will suddenly click and we get points here and there is going to happen. I would be happier with a manager who looked at the strengths of the squad and said 'we should play this way' and then looked at the opposition and worked out their strengths and weaknesses and customised the play to work for those opponents. Martin is on record as saying he doesn't look too much at the opposition, which I took to mean 'we play our way and they should worry about us' but they don't because we are very easy to score against.
Rosenior would definitely be an improvement, unlucky to be sacked for finishing 7th,and doing ok at Strasbourg so far.
For RM’s style to work effectively you need players, ahead of the ball, to be mobile and more aware of creating angles for safe passes. I have mentioned before that some players need to be sat down and have angles explained to them because every game I see our own players shutdown pass opportunities simply by not moving into a better position. They need to be constantly moving to help the back line move the ball forward instead of hiding behind the opponent who blocked their initial position. The best off the ball movement I have seen from a Saints midfielder was Eyal Berkovic. If his position to receive a pass was blocked he was always moving and opening up a new angle and this is what our players need to be doing. It’s very basic but if they don’t understand that then they shouldn’t be playing in any team.
Comparing Ipswich and Southampton, squad and managers, I see that both managers have no experience of PL. As to squads, Saints have 7or 8 players with PL experience, whereas Ipswich have maybe 1 or 2. So Saints should have an advantage, but seem clueless. Ipswich may get relegated but they seem to be better organised and more ready to battle for every point. Ipswich fans aren’t calling for their manager to go. We have an inherent weakness permeating the club, season after season. Even last season we never looked convincing. If we get another manager, 5 th in two seasons, they will still have a poor squad to work with.
He's got to select his best team and stick with it, no more overthinking and scattergun XIs. The first half last night was not acceptable by any standard and it should really have been roughly the same team and formation that started against Ipswich imo.
Thankfully I missed the game last night as was travelling back from a long weekend in Berlin. Can’t comment on the game itself but Martins post match comments are a concern. Not just how prickly he was or that he called out a lack of effort in the players, but also that he doesn’t seem to have a clue what to do or who to play. If I were one of the players, I wouldn’t have much faith if my manager keeps flip flopping in what he says and does. We need stability in the team in terms of the individuals and the formation imo. We were always going to struggle this season, and it was always more likely than not that we’d be going straight back down. But you need to know your best team at this point, and playing a settled team will give them the best opportunity at that slim slim chance that we could survive. Playing without a striker, putting 5 on the bench and then being prickly that it’s because we haven’t been scoring is batshit crazy. Moving a youngster who is still finding his feet in the league into a completely different position and role in the team when he was doing so well is batshit crazy. There’s a lot to be concerned about, but I don’t want him sacked just yet and unfortunately a big part of the reason for that is that I have zero faith in SR decision making in replacing him. Pretty sure SR won’t be sacking him anytime soon anyway tbh. Just want him to stop doing random **** and play a balanced team, consistently for a run of games, of our best players in their best positions.
It just feels like we've gone so "all in" with Martin and his style, that to suddenly change style completely could be very difficult to implement and expect almost immediate results. I also don't see us doing too much during the January window, because if we did have a huge pot of funds available to spend, we would have surely have gone bigger in the summer. But at the end of the day, this is SR who we're talking about. Jones wasn't exactly a logical replacement for Ralph. So who knows.
If you fancy a laugh go read the first few pages of this thread, it’s basically a copy and paste job from the last few, I’ve got to just before we are about to play Leeds and we all know what happens there. Looking forward to the bit where I get laughed at when I say we are winning in spite of him and the superior players are what gets results, not his system
