The maestro of possession based football saw his teamed stuffed by Spurs yesterday because like all good managers their manager played in a way to overcome the opposition's tactics. All four of Spurs goals came from a City player losing the ball while faffing about in their own half. Russ ball has been sussed. It was in the Championship and better managers and teams in the Premiership have sussed it too.
I think the issue is that it needs top, top, top players, all on their game at the same time. And City at least lose it further up the pitch so they have a chance of redeeming it.
I’ve mentioned before that Fernandes, and previously Stuart, tend to go wide to receive the ball instead of taking up positions more centrally. I think this makes it so much more difficult to play out from the back because we seldom have a pass option through the middle, unless Archer comes short. It also makes it easier to defend against us because it is predictable that we can only play the ball wide and not forward. We need to leave the width to the FB/WB or winger and, IMO, play Fernandes in a more central midfield position, ahead of Downes and Lallana.
10 defeats from 12 league games is embarrassing. What's even more embarrassing is that it's obviously acceptable for our owners.
I don’t think it’s necessarily obviously acceptable. Still very possible they believe RM to be better left in charge that the alternatives available (+ £12m reportedly) For example my dinner is likely to come with broccoli this evening. Not great, but if I decide to get rid I’m left with brussel spouts AND a disapproving look. So I’ll stick with the broccoli for now
For all this talk of the players loving him I'm not convinced it's as simple as that. I think they love him on a personal level probably because he's so pally with them, overly so imo. But I don't think they believe in him or his methods as much as some would have you believe. Heads very noticeably dropped after their first goal and without Dibling winning a penalty out of nothing I suspect we go on to lose that 0-3.
Id imagine the ones who love him are probably the ones who were here last year and us winning regularly helped create that environment. Players like Fraser probably love him because he should be nowhere near a PL squad let alone actually playing. Im sure the new players don’t love him and if our points total continues on this season could really effect these players careers and their prospects and I’m sure they won’t be loving that too much
If broccoli was slowly killing you would you change your stance? Edit: I don’t get that, broccoli is lovely
Personally, I think Cubby Broccoli would make a better fist of managing this team, and he’s been dead for 28 years.
He’s got to go for me. Like Tom24 said, it’s embarrassing to lose 10 of the first 12 games. Also he’s starting to piss me off with his sarcastic post match interviews. All this “we’re nearly there” bullshit, gets churned out after every loss by him and the players. Also the comment about the fans reaction when we cleared a ball up field and the fans cheered, RM was them sarcastically clapping the fans reaction on the sidelines and said in his post match interview that after that we didn’t touch the ball for 3 and 1/2 minutes. Well guess what mate, we also didn’t ****ing concede or give up a gilt edged chance either.
Good lad Does he have his coaching badges by any chance? On a serious note that's awful from Martin. Even more of a piss take than the fun comment.
Our next four matches look difficult on paper, and the opposition will be rightly expected to win them all. But Brighton, Villa and Spurs all play crazy high lines. With the right tactics - namely fast, direct counter attacks - it's possible to hurt all three of them. They've all been done this season at various times. Unfortunately, that's the total opposite of how we generally play. Our slow, patient build-up won't hurt those sides one little bit - and will actually play into their hands, by enabling them to press the hell out of us. My only hope is our second goal today. That was a very un-Martin-like goal, but maybe it's the start. Probably not, probably just a one-off, but who knows.
I think today showed that we have the players to play a different style of football. We looked good on the counter attack. Just need a new manager
