Dusic

He had nothing to do. Leicester and Leeds away will be different story!

Why? Certainly much more likely McCarthy makes a howler playing out from the back in the next four than Bazunu. The manager sees the players in training every day sonwould rather at this stage of the season he has all the players available to him - especially one he has picked to start every game!

Good team selection tonight, clear style and identity and bang on a 2pts/game ratio for the season after 42 games. Obviously nobody knows what happens from here, but good time to be in form.

Would definitely bring Manning back in and personally think this game requires use of Bree as a front sweeper to cover the whole width of the pitch. Bazunu KWP--THB--Bednarek--Manning <<<<<<<Bree>>>>>>>>>>>> ---Downes------Smallbone--- Arma---------Che-------Edozie

Good for our stepping stone club sales pitch. That loan at Burnley has made his career.

Charles was poor in the Bristol City game which was the first one Downes missed I think - so essentially fluffed his opportunity and was subbed after less than an hour in the WBA game. I think RM lost a bit of faith after this and unfortunately his weakness seems to be that he isnt as reliable in possession as Downes or Smallbone and therefore think he doesnt want to risk him in that position and ahead of that he isnt getting game time ahead of Armstrong, Aribo, Smallbone and Rothwell has made an impact as a sub when needed. Seems a good player but jury out on whether he will make it long term IMO - although worth considering this is his first pro season of any kind. Certainly don't think its some kind of ludicrously poor management that he hasnt featured a lot.

If you want to be critical just do it, your constant on the fence routine is a bit tiresome. Do you think we won in spite of Martin? (FWIW Manning was a great sub today)

Have a day off!

Playoff wise I think we would b better finishing 4th than 3rd. For autos it such a shame we don't just have 3 points more. We would be right in the mix then. Such fine margins and for that reason find it hard to understand the strength of critisism for Martin - we could score in the 90s which everyone would have said was a top season if offered in August, and not go up.

Do you actually think that playing Stephens and Manning (who he has actually left out quite a few times) is the reason we won't finish in the top 2?

Clearly he should stay: - Likely to achive a pts tally that most other seasons would get auto promotion. We will be beaten by 2 teams who were better than us last year including one who have breached FFP and clearly have the strongest team for many years in the Championship. Ipswich have just had a freak season, fair play to them. - Has successfully changed the style of play as requested by the club after SR and Wilcox rightly recognised that even on the odd occassion we did win games there was often no clear reasons why in the data, i.e we had no repeatable plan. Now we have a clearly recognisable approach which players enjoy - Has overseen a club record run without defeat, which is some achievement - Entertaining football where we try (and largely suceed) in dominating. Personally would prefer this kind of aspirational style versus a more attritional approach. That we have scored stacks of goals (despite late sale of Tella who got 20 last season) yet still bemoan finishing is telling. - Utilised the whole squad very well and seemingly created a positive team spirit which has been sorely lacking in recent years. By all accounts many players wanted to leave in the summer and he has reinvigorated players like both Armstrongs, Bednarek, Aribo etc. - In what is likely to be a summer of change (again) we need some stability. If we were to remove him after a season of 2pts/game then imagine how much pressure would be on his replacement...would be ridiculous! I am amazed as many as a third must feel he has done a poor job, quite staggering.

Why? Most play a totally different style the one that the whole club has moved to adopt and recruit for (have you seen how dull Corberan's WBA are?!) and Cooper aside none have been promoted out of the Champ either.

Its almost as if when clubs hire managers and sign players they analyse the context of the manager/players performance and the methods used/reasons for it rather than simply expecting them to do exactly the same as previous in totally different circumstances.

You have misunderstood - my point is that Russell Martin came in and said that he wants his team to dominate possession and play in the the style that he coaches. He managed to do that quickly, even inheriting a team that for the last 3 or 4 years were almost entirely focused on an out of possession style. That was evident from the first game against Sheffield Wednesday and pretty much every game since. Even vs Liverpool at Anfield you could see it was a team playing the way he wants and has coached. Many managers talk the talk about how their team plays and then performances don't match with what they say. The one thing RM has consistently showed at all his teams is that he can quickly and effectively get a team playing the way he wants them to. That skillset is quite valuable when it comes to recruiting a manager as any prospective club knows what they are going to get vs say a Nathan Jones where for all the chat he couldnt show any specific style of play on the pitch. You may not like the style, but he is very good at getting his teams to play it.

Obviously each to their own but personally would say that this season has been anything but boring. We have scored joint 3rd most goals (from fewer games) including multiple late winners etc. In the vast majority of games we have been the dominant team. Overall its been (so far) one of the more fun seasons of the last 30 years I would say. Naïve and frustrating at times, absolutely. But not boring. I think that is just one of the lazt stereotypes about the style from before the season even started. Re Brighton links, they have a recent history of recruiting managers who play a very specific style and place more of an emphasis on that than results in particular. With RM you get someone who clearly gets teams playing his style, quickly and effectively. Within coaching circles that is a very strong attribute. Compare with Nathan Jones for example who mumbled many things about what his team would be, had 6 weeks to implement something and even after 2 months there was nothing obvious in terms of patterns of play. He may be an outside candidate but I can see why they might be interested.