Looking at the results over the last few games, have the players given up? I think it's fair to say there's been a mental fragility for years, but this just feels different. To me there's an obvious lack of leadership but I genuinely think that the team are annoyed Martin was binned and are letting us all know it.
Maybe it’s not that they liked RM so much it might be that they don’t like Juric’s methods to get them fitter and to play. Juric only managed two months at his last club Roma
Former professionals also calling out their lack of effort. There's clearly a lot going on behind the scenes
I don't think they're annoyed at Martin being binned, I just think they're aware that this season is done and have zero motivation as a result.
Yeah could be it, you'd think they'd at least try to put themselves in the shop window if nothing else!
They’ve gone from working for a manager who gives them most of the week off and praises them constantly, to a manager that asks them to actually work. I’m sure they’re annoyed. But I don’t care. Good. I hope he works them all to the bone
It does make me question the appointment of Juric tbf. If anyone was going to come in and at least salvage a little bit of pride, it needed to be a Poch type (or, dare I say it, a Rohl). I don't think Juric is the right fit at the right time, but that might turn around.
Totally. We'll endure Juric until the end of the season and then we get to play Sports Republics favourite game of "we'll sort it out this time we promise" Maybe we can tap up some ****e in contract Championship manager, have ridiculously long protracted talks with his club and give him about 5 days of a pre-season before losing to Bristol City away in the opening season. I'm sure the team will be so much stronger though because we'll definitely get rid of the dead wood and our attacking options won't be Sulemana and some 14 year old from Man City. Can't. ****ing. Wait.
Hard to say at this point. As you say it's been clear for years the mentality of our squad is soft. I remember when Downes signed in the summer he and Martin did an interview in the stands a few days later and they were asked who was the hardest player in the squad and both went totally blank before eventually picking Charlie Taylor. We're crying out for a few Roy Keane types who set and demand high standards and call out the other players when they aren't performing. I'm sure they're all demoralised by the last 4 or 5 months of dreadful results too and well aware this season is a write-off but at times nobody except Ramsdale seems that bothered. I do think there may be some players who may have some sort of mental block when it comes to matches. Sulemana stands out as an obvious example. We've had several managers who've come in over the last couple of years, used him regularly to begin with (presumably on the basis of performances in training) before binning him off. My guess is he's a much better player in training than he is during matches. Then you've got someone like KWP, one of our best and longest-serving players, who I'm fairly sure would prefer not to be here any more.
Can’t help but wonder about that time when a whole bunch of staff left - it felt like rats running the hell away from a sinking ship. It does make me suspect that people take a look at how the club is being run and think “nah, I’m good thanks”.
I don’t see how it’s hard to see at all. We all have eyes and watched the Brentford game. Hands on their hips and walking around from minute one. Arguing with each other more and more as the minutes tick on. Our most experienced player and captain Bednerak getting outplayed on every ball near him. He starts arguing with his defence, the defence who struggled to stay in any coherent formation all season. They probably hate that their manager was sacked, they’re probably pissed at how he was sacked (I couldn’t stand RMs football but sacking a manager an hour after a match is piss poor) and they hate how their fans are now mocking them every week with ironic songs. Unfortunately though I think if you asked those players if any of this is their fault they’d say no. They don’t give a ****. You don’t get battered by a team that hasn’t won away all season if you care. They just gave up and started shouting at each other cause not one of them thought they were to blame
Well on that one game I agree. They gave up. But there were some glimmers of hope in some of the other recent games and Juric has some time to work with them so I'll give it another couple of matches before deciding they've completely thrown the towel in for the season.
I still think back to when Ralph threw Kelvin Davis under the bus and got him sacked. Pisses me off. SKD was Mr. Southampton, and whatever his coaching skills, you need someone like that around the dressing room to create spirit and unity. Now we have no big personalities at all.
We must be one of the least appealing clubs to come to now. What a change in 10 years. Gone from the golden boys of the PL “this is how you should run a club” to an absolute laughing stock who gets battered every week. And I know some don’t agree but this is what happens when you have zero desire to build a club and instead see a club as youth academy stepping stone, selling off any half decent players as soon as they can turn a profit. There are so many sliding doors moments where if we paid a bit extra to keep a manager or a player things could be so much different but instead we sold. Every. Single. Time. I said it for years that it isn’t viable and you’ll end up with crap that you can’t offload. You can’t swap Tadic for Elyonoussi and swap Mane for Nathan ****ing Redmond and expect your club to keep compete every year. And right now I’d note your hand off for either of those players. The club is rotten with players that don’t care and owners that have money but no clue what to spend it on.
I don't think RM being sacked has much to do with it. I reckon the players were done with him and his tactics. His last two home games we conceded five in each. But yes, there is a definite lack of leadership. When you lack quality, you need to have fight, spirit, whatever you want to call it. So picking someone like Sulemana over Adam Armstrong was an awful decision. At least AA cares about the club and will run his arse off. Right now I want eleven guys like that. The lack of communication on Saturday was shocking. Even the likes of Bednarek and THB, who are usually quite vocal, weren't shouting or giving instructions. We really need a confidence-boosting performance in the cup.
Bear with me... I don't think so. I actually think it's very, very rare for players (at any club) to genuinely chuck the towel in and despite whatever I'd say about their abilities, I don't think we have bad eggs right now who simply can't be arsed. The brutal truth is a lot of them are way off the mark at this level, sadly What has happened is that any confidence they had has totally drained away (thanks Russ for the soul crushing mistakes in their own third in games where they were going to deservedly take some points) and now they realise how inept they've been, so now we tend to unravel because too large a share of the group now lack belief in themselves and the system they're playing within. As such, things spiral and defeatism starts to set in My big concern with Juric, as it was with Martin, is that he only knows one way of playing. Seriously, look back at his Serie A career and you will do well to find a single game where he isn't playing 3-5-2 or a variation of it (3-4-1-2 / 3-4-2-1). What we needed was somebody who was capable of looking at what he actually has at his disposal, not what he wishes he had or what he had in previous clubs, and plays the hand he is being dealt in the best possible way to take points off that specific opponent at that moment in time, so as to cobble enough points together to not have to worry about the Derby record I don't really 'believe' in this style of play any more than I believed in what RM was doing by the end. It's certainly uglier to watch, it's a step back towards Jones football and it's something that's very, very difficult to coach properly mid-season without a proper break (like the one Jones had, but completely squandered). It almost feels a bit like we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater re: RM's tactics. The ball progression, passing play was fine. We just had to do it at a faster pace and start taking the approach of 'we're not going to do it in our own third' and I suspect if Russell had done that, we'd be on a different course right now (albeit still relegated) Back to Saturday... how you can line up with a two in midfield of Aribo and Ugochukwu and then decide you want all your players touch tight and on strict man-to-man marking is beyond me, especially against a team like Brentford. And then you compound it with a strikeforce of Sulemana and Onuachu. **** me Naivety at best, incompetence at worst. When you are just a couple of games in as a new coach, you get the good grace of fans preferring to believe it is the former, but over time if it repeats, then it is most certainly the latter
Do they really want the record of the worst team in premiership on their CV though. You’d think their personal pride would prevent that. Perhaps you loose that when you are earning £30k - 50k per week
