A while away I know but can the fans going to the Leicester game please sing this (I’ll put it up on the match thread when it’s up or maybe I’ll do the thread?)
Are there any photos of happy, smiling faces at the training ground? Are all the players skipping around like Spring lambs? Are they already planning their holidays? Are they actually breaking sweat to get the two points needed to avoid a record nobody wants? Or is a another day off?
I think we should try to grab the record. No one ever remembers the second worst team in the PL. I mean can you now name them? Go out in a blaze of glory and records I say.
Its a very good watch. He really is a lovely bloke which is both a strength and and weakness. I'm sure that there's a great career ahead of him, if Komapny can do it there's every reason to believe Martin can as well with the right players. The Rest is football team have been very critical of him this season and it was good to hear Lineker call him out for his perceived failings. I was pretty gobsmacked because to me it sounded like he was saying that he compromised his style too much? That he changed for the opponent and that his big learning was to believe more in what he wants to do? I honestly thought he would have faced the reality of what got him sacked and accepted that he could have done things differently to have some more success. I think its fair to say he's the best manager we've had since Ralph. He did a good job for us, we got worse when he left and if he had stayed we MIGHT have another win or two. Its possible that sacking him was a mistake and we would have been better seeing the season out and planning to compete with him again in the championship. Who can say? Sacking him certainly didnt work.. Pretty interesting that he is sitting down with Leicester boy right now. Made me think it was a good ploy to get the Leicester fans on-side?
Listened to this on Wed when it dropped. Gotta say I’m gutted it didn’t work out for Russ, really like him as a person and do think he’s gonna have a really successful career. Sounds like he’s learned a lot from his time with us and do wish him all the best. It was always gonna be a tough job and I do still think if we’d recruited better he could’ve pulled it off. Missing out on Delap was a big failure imho
Most of our fans said 'no' to Delap at 20m. And he would have looked ineffective in Russ' team anyway, because there was never any supply to the striker. Delap's main job would have been to drop back into our own half so that he could collect a totally predictable, dodgy pass from Ramsdale, with the aim of, I don't really know why tbh. If we had signed Delap, by now we'd all be calling him sh*t, and saying we should get rid.
I see the RM Gaslight is still effective then. He’s exceptionally good at hoodwinking people, I’ll give him that.
I don’t know, we’re all human and bound to make mistakes. First time managing in the Prem, he was bound to struggle I think, especially with our squad. He was definitely stubborn with the playing out from the back, but we were definitely in a lot of games & VAR did f*ck us royally at the start. Not defending his downfall either, was definitely the right time for him to go as he’d lost the fan base and was struggling to make the right changes to improve our situation, but doesn’t stop me appreciating him getting us promoted (when really we shouldn’t have been last year, should’ve been Leeds) & seeing that I think now he’s stepped out the pressures of our situation he is seeing how he could’ve done better more clearly. All that said, I’m happy we’ve changed and think if we get Rohl it’ll be a lot more exciting next time around!
Absolutely - I'd have absolute sympathy with that if he wasn't saying "the one thing I learned is that I tried to change it too much and should have stuck with my way of playing more" - the arrogance of that is really very wow. He hasn't learned anything.
One thing I found interesting was when he said he took over MK Dons and in his first meeting said "I'm still your mate, call me Russ if you want". I know the game's changed but along with his stubbornness his over-friendliness will continue to be his downfall imo.
I think anyone can unfamiliar with him will have been reasonably impressed by him in this interview. Very much felt like a way of telling the football world he’s here and he’s ready for a new job. Agree with the above suggestion he’ll be at Leicester within the next month or two
No doubt. But I just get smatterings of "sometimes people fail to appreciate my genius" about him the whole time. And despite all the metrics you want saying otherwise, also believing he was slightly hard done by. Never change, Russ (he won't).
Adam Blackmore's take on the season is interesting... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton
His over friendliness seemed not to be an issue in the Championship. I think we all like to look for lots of potential reasons why everything went wrong, but above all it is simply because our playing squad is awful compared to the rest of the league. People said it was because they aren't good enough to play Russ's style, but Juric has shown us that sentence is a little too long. Simply put, they aren't good enough.
I believe if we had played this starting XI regularly and system (4231) with a more pragmatic manager that adapts the team and tactics to the oppo then we wouldn't have struggled quite as badly as we have. Ramsdale KWP THB Bedders Manning Downes Ugo Dibling Fernandes Sulemana Archer Martin's stubborness and Juric's plain craziness are why we are where we are IMO.
For me at would have to be TP up top. I know he has been lambasted on here but 4 prem goals from 9 starts ain't bad. If you pro rata for a season ( and I know it doesn't work like that) but I think you easily have 10-15 goals in the season. Archer has 2 from 12 starts
Archer's starts were under RM though, and a more conservative style of play. Not saying Archer is better, but I still feel neither manager got the best out of him. TP is limited. Apart from a few six yard box goals, he really doesn't do much. He certainly doesn't 'defend from the front', which is absolutely crucial for a team like us. (Not seen much evidence that Archer can do it either - seems a bit lazy tbh).
Isn't it six yard strikers that are crucial though, Lee Chapman in 1992 when Leeds won the last Div 1 title. He did **** all apart from keep knocking the ball in the net from the six yard box
