qwertyell

Trying to make head or tail of last night's tactics. All I can imagine is that Russell had too long to think about the game - and therefore his own genius - and so came up with that fucking nonsense. He couldn't help it. It's his calling. Superpower, some might say. Him. Leaning back in his posturepedic pleather office chair on Friday, both hands behind his head, a chuckle to himself, and "you've only bloody reinvented football again, Rusty." Two midfielders as strikers were simultaneously a hindrance to our attacking threat yet offered no extra cover for our defence. It was absolutely futile. Literally pointless. "I hope they remember to thank me."

Obviously not the main issue of the day and probably wouldn't have made a jot of difference last night, but I'm going to keep banging the drum for how depressing it is that we bought in two declining journeymen wingers who haven't done shit in this league for a few years, and binned off our second brightest prospect back to the u21s.

Ever since his playing days, I can't not hear his name as John Useless. On that basis, I'm a no.

Bit of Rod Stewart perhaps? Tyler Dibling Tyler Dibling Down the right wing Or number ten Tiny shinpads He's our future Til he buggers Off again.

Oof - that feels like a defeat. But we're on the board. Baby steps and all that. I suspect we've just seen two of this season's relegated clubs.

What else are they going to post about? Wins? Goals? Points? Optimism?

What I would say to the argument that we played United off the park for the opening 35 minutes and therefore have shown we can really compete in the league, is United had 8 shots on target in that first half. Scored 2. Ramsdale made some big saves that stopped us going in 4 or 5 down. We had 4 shots on target in that period (and none thereafter). And 2 of them were the weak penalty and weak follow up header. It's hard to take much comfort from supposedly playing brilliantly for a short period yet still conceding twice as many chances as we created. If that's us dominating the play, then things look pretty bleak for the numerous times coming up when we won't be. The squad is the squad. It's incumbent on any manager to squeeze the absolute maximum out of his resources and find a way to be effective. I don't think anyone can seriously claim that he's doing that at present. Hasenhuttl was able to keep a few clean sheets with Bednarek, Stephens and Walker-Peters in the defence. Burnley kept some clean sheets with Charlie Taylor. Pochettino even won at least one game with Sam Gallagher as our starting centre forward. You can grind out results even with some pretty average players if you're properly organised and tactically astute. Does that sound like us? Style over substance might soothe Russell's fragile ego, but it's not going to do us as a club any favours I'm afraid.

You can debate until the cows come home the overall value of his football philosophy, but a major issue for all of his teams - every one of them - is they can't defend at all. An absolute organisational rabble. So, either his philosophy doesn't believe defending is particularly important - in which case he's a certified nutjob - or he's not a good enough coach to train his teams how to properly defend within his set-up. Because it's not a statistical fluke that his sides concede 60+ goals per season. It's entirely baked into being a Russell Martin team. And as we have a set of championship forwards and a couple of teenagers, there's not a lot of hope that we can compensate for our weakness at one end through a weight of goals at the other. That's not necessarily on the manager - I doubt he drew up a list this summer demanding we sign the dregs of Sheffield United's shite - but it's clear that his shortcomings aren't going to be bailed out by the quality of the squad in this division. So where do we go from here?

Even without self-destructive cocking about with the ball 10 yards from our own goal we conceded 3 and, but for Ramsdale, would've conceded 7 or 8. Even playing pretty decently for 30 minutes at the start of the game, United ended up with 8 shots on target in that half. Alarm bells should be ringing. This manager can't organise a defence. Never could. And as we've got no quality whatsoever going forward - beyond teenage cameos - there's not much in the way of solace to take from these defeats. Can't defend. No goal threat. This is not a combination that ends happily, no matter how pretty the occasional flurry of passing combinations. On a side note, I'm really disappointed that the signing of two journeymen wingers who have seen better days has resulted in Sam Amo-Ameyaw being pushed out of the squad. He was one of our few bright spots this season, and he'll probably not be seen much for the rest of the campaign now. And there's no way in the world, even at his young age, he is a worse option out wide than Brereton-Diaz, who looks like a pub player out there: a yard off the pace, heavy touch, can't beat anyone.

I'm sure the plan isn't to keep giving the ball away on the edge of our box. But that's what's happening. And keeps happening at every side he coaches. Either he's unable to coach players to successfully play to his tactical demands, or his tactical demands are unrealistic at our level and doomed to failure. Neither scenario is particularly comforting.

I've been messing around with this game for 40-odd years. I've seen hundreds of technical, passing sides. Some much better than others. But very few as incompetent as this Saints team. The teams who overpass to their detriment have tended to do so in the opposition's final third, messing up goalscoring chances with their indulgence, but ultimately causing little immediate self harm. We do all our overpassing 10 yards from our own goal. And when that breaks down, we lose a goal. It's not brave. It mostly defies logic - why are our least technically gifted players monopolising possession among themselves? If you're going to invite the press, deliberately putting your least press-resistant players under huge pressure is the mother of all hospital passes. It's not even useful - on the rare occasions we beat the press, we slowly walk the ball up the wings, turn around, and come back again. All that risk for absolutely no hint of a reward. Russell isn't reinventing football. He's not a visionary. He's just executing passing football poorly - and he hides his inability to properly set up a defence behind a shrugging "philosophy, innit?". In his four full seasons as a manager he's conceded 62, 68, 64, and 63 in the league. We're already on course for another 60+ concession orgy this season. I don't trust the process. It's not built on anything other than bollocks.

He's not going to fuck you. And if he was, it'd be all half-arsed foreplay in the wrong areas before he finishes on himself and blames you for not understanding how amazing the experience was. For him.

He and Armstrong aren't wingers at this level. They've not got the technical ability. They don't beat players. Running in behind is all they've got, and that's too basic for this league. They might be effective as a strike partnership, with Brereton-Diaz being a bit more of a physical presence and Armstrong working off him, but I just can't see the point of either of them out wide in a slow possession team.

Get this boy some shinpads, for goodness' sake. With his playing style, he's going to get fouled a lot. And some of those fouls will be spiteful.

That about sums it up. Sounds like this is a vanity project to promote all things Russell Martin: as long as he's happy, to hell with everything else. He probably masturbates to videos of himself masturbating.

I find him difficult to warm to. It's the unearned arrogance; that he's figured out THE football philosophy and everyone else is stupid. And when it fails, it's not his fault. The players weren't brave enough. Or the supporters weren't grateful enough. And don't worry, it'll be beautiful at some point. So, shut up. All the while, the only thing he's achieved in management came when he briefly abandoned his amazing philosophy and grimly ground out a couple of wins in the play offs. He'll take us back down, without a doubt. And expect to be thanked for it. But the club seems to have bought into his bullshit all the way, so this is how it's going to be.

17.

In the Championship. In the PL he's been as poor out wide as he has through the middle.

Again.

That aged well. How have we've collected so many goalkeepers who aren't actually any good at goalkeeping?

Sign him up. This is the best highlights reel I've seen since the Danny Welbeck one.

Charlie Taylor https://web.archive.org/web/20110526192621/https://www.leedsunited.com/news/20110523/academy-youngster-earns-pro-deal_2247585_2365303

Think we've weathered the storm. Leeds haven't looked anything special at all. Hard to believe there was so much hype around Dan James a few years ago. Pace and diving is all he has.

Diamond Edwards and Joshua Lett in the training photos. Think Abu is there as well. Nice to see a few different youngsters working with the first team. Edwards was on the brink of breaking in at the start of last season before he did his knee. (None of this relates to the Leeds game, though, as they won't be in the match squad.)

This is the part that most bothers me - either during or in the immediate aftermath of a defeat, Martin was thinking about himself and how he might be perceived. I don't think that's how you manage a side.