Extolling the virtues of our captain as a centre back, amongst other things http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter...done-more-than-enough-to-be-spared-the-moans/
Great piece and a superb overview on Rusty's qualities. Can't say anymore than what Mick has said in his article.
Nice to see everyone getting all misty eye'd over the Martin baby / scoring at Liverpool story. Great story. Unfortunately all it shows is our total lack of depth in the CB position that we had to play him and couldn't let him have the weekend off. In truth it wasn't a great game and it's fortunate for us that Liverpool played just as badly as we did or for the more positive supporters both teams played as well as the other. Although neither team played well. On the bright side I'm more than happy with our current league position / points tally, however this doesn't mean there isn't any room for improvement. Our lack of quality and depth in the CB & striker department is still a concern and we are only a couple of injuries away from a very different story.
Your take on it does seem rather bleak, Canario. As Dave says, Russ was given the option to stay in Norwich but he chose not to do so. Had he stayed, we would most probably have lost the match. The heart of the article was about his abilities at CB and I for one agree with Mick on this.
Martin is also by far and away our highest ranked player on the Sky Sports "power rankings". Which are supposedly a comprehensive analysis of a whole variety of aspects. I'm sure goals play a big part in that, but it can't be just this. http://www.skysports.com/football/n...artial-soars-up-sky-sports-power-ranking-list We discussed this several times last season, I genuinely think that Martin is more suited to the role of CB in the PL than he was in the Championship because of the nature of the opposition strikers and attacking style. He also has one MASSIVE benefit that lots of people overlook with professional sportsmen - he (touch wood) very rarely, if ever, seems to be injured. Imagine how good Arsenal could have been for the last few years if all their players had his injury history?!?
That's very important when you consider the injury history of our CBs in the past. Keeping a settled partnership is hugely important in the PL and the fact that he's our top scoer adds another dimension to his contribution. He also tops our players in the Whoscored rankings.
My views on Martin as a CB are well known, however I have deliberately avoid raising whether Martin is good enough or not. I've always said I would keep him as cover for CB / RB or as our first choice RB. The point I'm making is that we lack depth at CB. As to AN giving him the choice of whether to play or not. The worrying thing is that AN considers that after all the disruption / effects on Martin of having a baby AN still thinks he would play better than Ryan Bennett. I know I'll get slated because on this occasion we got a result, but it could have ended up very differently.
No - I think AN thinks Martin is a better person to play than Ryan Bennett generally. After all the disruption / effects on Martin of having a baby, AN thinks that Martin is in the best position to tell him whether he is capable of playing normally. I.e. AN trusts his players completely to be honest with him about their state and fitness. If AN thought the disruption or effect on Martin of having a baby would have made Martin a worse player, he simply wouldn't have played him.
I think anyone who has children would understand that it has an effect on you, even if your not the one actually having the baby. Only a clown would suggest that the additional physical, mental & emotional tiredness that comes with having a baby, plus the extra travel etc would no have an effect on a player. The player is very rarely the best person to judge whether or not they are able to play. Many players would say they are fit even if the're injured. I'm sure Martin would play with half his arm hanging off given the choice. Its AN position to decide who plays and who doesn't no one else's, although I accept he should take into account the advice of his team and the views of the player(s). It should never be the players choice. That is not fair on the player or his team mates. Clearly AN considers that even taking the circumstances into account he still thought Martin would play better than a fully fit and rested Bennett. Which I would suggest gives us some insight into what AN thinks of Bennett's abilities.
The baby had only been there a day! It's not like Martin's been breastfeeding him for months... The question was whether the excitement and lack of sleep had a positive or a negative effect on him. One night of four hours sleep there is plenty of evidence to suggest you will be absolutely fine the next day with very little effect (it's only once it is regular that it's a problem). So the real question is one of distraction. I agree that a player is not the person that should make the decision based on whether his injury was a problem - that should be specialists/Neil. But when it comes to "are you too distracted?" only the player can make that decision in his professional capacity. It shows that Neil trusts Martin to tell him when he's not in the right frame of mind. So it doesn't tell us anything that we don't already know - a fully fit and focused Martin is his preferred option at CB. He asked Martin whether he felt focused, Martin said yes. Bingo. Great relationship with his players. It tells us very little about what AN thinks of Bennett's abilities beyond what we already knew - that he doesn't rate him as highly as Martin. And what's so fascinating is that (for all that there are lots of problems with them) even the stats suggest that Neil is right. It's only fans with their subjective viewpoint who don't like Martin there because they believe he is (a) a rightback and (b) not the right "type" of CB they want. If Martin didn't already have a history with us at RB, I'm pretty sure everyone would be over the moon with his performances so far, because he is great on the ball for a CB, incredibly mobile and reads the game brilliantly. And scores goals.
Maybe we should buy a new CB in January and put Rusty up front a la Sutton to solve our striking crisis!
Yes Rob, Martin's saving grace is the way he reads the game is excellent and I well remember when we played Arsenal in our first season in the PL, he cleared at least 2 balls off the line.
I can see both sides of this regarding both the fatigue and the distraction factors and I think there were signs at times they did seem to affect his play. More important though, IMO, Russ was the right CB to play against Liverpool and as Mick Dennis says, he showed that much more often than his mistakes in the brief highlights indicate. It was a gamble and fortunately it paid off in this case. I agree with Rob that Martin is more comfortable against PL attacks than he sometimes was in the Championship. If Liverpool were using big physical strikers, AN might well have preferred Ryan Bennett. Our other CB possibility, Wisdom, wasn't available because of his loan status. Canario is right that CB is our thinnest position in terms of cover options and this could be a factor if injuries occur.
I'm inclined to agree with Canario a little too. I think our squad is too thin if a player is played, who has had the night/morning Martin had had. Whilst I know he is doing a good job and looked like he did OK at Loserpool, should he be trusted to say if his focus is OK and if he feels go to go. Maybe to an extent depending on the player/manager relationship, but if we had the depth we really will need for the season, Neil should have been comfortable to bench him. No athlete can be in top nick after a 4 hour drive, sitting/pacing around a hospital all night with little/no sleep and then flying back up. At any level of sport it can be about small margins and whilst he may have felt fine, the body won't lie, all that sitting around and travel will have lost him a bit. I think he got away with playing OK on this occasion in part because he is a good player and his reading of the game is good, but also because Loserpool on the day afforded him a slightly easier ride by being a bit rubbish in front of goal. Lets not forget that Ruddy was our best player on the day, which adds to the thought that the defense were a little porous to leave him to make those saves. Bah!
People tend to get very over sensitive when Martin's get's criticism, his our captain, his dedicated to the club and comes across a top bloke, however this clouds judgement on this forum. In terms of playing his scoring goals and has helped us out a great deal, but his not the strongest centre back and he makes mistakes as we all do, but a little too often, I wouldn't drop him but I believe we need to get in a proper centre back, the bringing up Alex Neil and Strachan as a counter arguments is weak, you need to elaborate more. In my opinion if Martin can work on his marking on set pieces and clearances then I see no reason why he cannot cement his role at the club. Before the flaming torches and pitchforks appear, I have the utter amount of respect for Martin for what he done on Sunday and as a Norwich fan I'll never forget it, that finish was like something Ibrahimovic would score and if it was him it would be all over the place. He made two almost fatal errors in the game but considering he was operating on three or so hours sleep it's forgivable.
