It was a ****ing insane appointment. A squad full of expensively assembled mercenaries and we appoint a mad PE teacher with no experience. Mental. (Nothing against PE teachers btw, big respect for them. Just wouldn’t want one managing a premier league club)
If we lose against Leicester, we'll equal the worst PL record after eight games. It's a record which we already currently jointly hold! Wolves of course could also equal it. Man City (95-96), Saints (98-99), Sheff Wed (99-00), Sunderland (13-14), Sheff Utd (20-21), Leicester (22-23) and Sheff Utd (23-24) all only had one point after eight games. Ourselves and Sunderland were the only ones to survive.
Opposite. When they sacked him. They hired Poyet for game number 9, which also happened to the derby vs Newcastle. So local derby atmosphere plus new manager bounce was the perfect combination to see them win game number 9.
The thing is I like Martin. I want him to do well but I'd not lose any sleep if they pulled the plug tonight. If however, he lines up against Leicester playing the same suicide ball and not playing our players to their strengths rather than his utter fantasy style then I'll be raging. For the love of God please don't be so arrogant as to make us all hate you. Play TP. Stop the possession at all costs nonsense and at least try and win the game rather than winning over critics of your style. Please.
I think it would be mad to not use this international break to get a proper PL manager in. Most goals we concede are a direct result of his style
There were a few times when we were under the cosh and ramsdale booted it long. If an experienced top level PL keeper thinks we should occasionally do that rather than fannying around at the back, then that’s probably what we should be doing.
I think if we had got hammered today then this may have happened, he’ll get the Leicester game at least now I think. If he gets the Leicester game then you may as well let him do the City game anyway. Probably don’t want any new manager and “bounce” that might come with it undone by losing to City anyway
Met a couple of mates who aren’t Saints fans after the game and interesting their opinion on Martin. Obviously not as close to the situation as I am/anyone on here and they were saying they think he is a good manager but at a **** side. Basically said that if he were managing a midtable squad then people would be raving about his style/him. So in their opinion he’s a good manager but wrong fit for what we need. Kind of goes along with a lot of opinions on here about him needing better players relative to the league he’s in to be a success. One of them even said the whole “Guardiola has only managed the top sides he would flop with a worse squad and his style” as a, very budget version obviously, of what we are seeing with Martin They usually are pretty good with their takes on football but I called them both idiots and came home
Whoever we get in as manager, we will still have the same defenders. If you think any manager will come in and say, 'right, that's it, we're going long every time', it isn't going to happen. With Russ we play out from the back probably 80% of the time. With another manager, it will be about 60% of the time. Today we went long quite a lot. And when we did the ball came straight back towards our half. So what do you do? It's on the players to know when to pass it round, and when to go long. I'm not totally excusing Russ, as the possession game frustrates me too. But the idea that another manager will totally fix all of our problems instantly, is a fantasy.
I can see us sacking Martin, who then joins Man U after they get rid of Ten Hag. Martin immediately becomes the genius coach who gets them going! We end up with the unproven Prem manager Liam Rosenior, and ignore Potter because that's what Saints do.
The recruitment is part of it, how much of that is on Martin we don’t know. We always look more effective with an Adams type centre forward, so today you could argue that Onuachu was the more obvious sub for Stewart when we were going longer (I know Archer scored). If Martin/recruitment team knew (you’d hope they would) that a target striker is essential for how we play then the only logical answer is they thought Stewart was the man so didn’t sign one. The other answer is that they don’t see that striker role as that important which is mental, I don’t think that is the case based on Martins comments about Stewart when we signed him and him being the perfect striker for his system and he had tried to sign him multiple times If a new manager came in and looked at this squad and said “right I’m going to play a way that suits the players rather than just a certain way that I like” then that could make a difference. This squad has a lot of similarities to the one that went down last time in my view; some talented younger players, a handful of players in their prime who should be ok for what we are trying to achieve and a fair number of mediocre/poor players who would need to perform at their best week in week out to contribute effectively. The last group are the ones who get horribly exposed by Martins style and a different way of playing might help them scrape by and keep us safe so we can upgrade
I'd have to disagree, the slow painfull almost suicidal possession football is all down to Russ and we all know that;s not going to change any time soon? His total inability to have a plan B means we are so predictable and easy to play against we must be everyones favourite opponents. I don't think he has a clue as to his best side and why oh why do we invariably always seem to play the ball behind the advancing player, rather than a meter or two in front? Drives me nuts.
Agree with all of this. Though I do think a different style would get more out of this group. There's no chance he goes during this international break anyway and imo it would be very harsh. If we lose to Leicester then I think he'll struggle to come back from that and there's a good chance we stick a caretaker (Lallana) in charge for City with the aim of getting someone in time for the Everton game. If we beat Leicester then I think he won't even be that close to being sacked. Fine margins.
As has always been the case with us, be that last season or this, it's not the possession football per se that's the problem, it's that we play it forward, then back again. All the risk gets loaded onto the defenders, rather than further up the field. The other teams in the league generally play the same sort of style, but they largely move it forwards, then either across or forwards again. Then if they lose the ball it's in the opposition half. We move it forwards, then back, then forwards, then back in the main. So when we lose it, it's more likely to be in a critical position. We don't need to be brave in defence (every time), we need to be brave in midfield and in forward positions more often. There were another couple of occasions today where we had a 6ft 7' striker up front, and we could have played a vaguely speculative cross into the box, which at the least would have asked questions. But we're drilled into not playing that kind of ball, so we went back to our defence (and even Ramsdale) again.
I think someone said on Monday against Bournemouth that it was very noticeable that we scored from a cross and then reverted back to lots of short passes and barely put another cross in. I'd quite like to see us play two up top. Could see TP and Archer potentially developing a fruitful partnership given time. I'm hoping he's seen sense now regarding the Big Brainless Donut.
Agree wholeheartedly, though I also thought Archer looked okay out on the left, if we must play that system (in fairness to him, Adarma did okay today too with his pace).
