Fitzhugh Fella

slashing odds = slashing wrists

Eking out a draw or two and the odd win won't be enough

I was talking to the mechanic who was fixing my car yesterday. A big Saints fan we often talk football. This season he splashed out on a ST having never been able to afford one before. He told me he's not going on Sunday. I asked if he had other commitments he said no. He just is fed up to the back teeth of "suicide football". He said the tippy tappy football is bad enough but thats not enough to keep him away, however the crass stupidity of just watching us give the ball away in our own penalty area week in week out is hard to accept and is depressing. If only Martin would relent a bit on this it wouldn't be so unbearable. This is the biggest reason everyone one is so bloody fed up at present. We are managed by a robot it seems.

Over the years we have witnessed a lot of low times ie our first relegation under McMenemy, the Branfoot days and then of course the lead up to administration and our fall into the third tier. But I think I can honestly say I have never felt the embarrassment I currently feel as a Saints fan. Other football fans aren't looking at us and saying what a wonderful club Southampton are, they are so loyal to their managers. Far from it. They look at us and our record and shake their heads and say what on earth is going on at your club and I have no answer other than to say we have a manager who everyone inc the owners know is not up to the job and yet we can't afford to sack him. As fans we have no right to expect to be successful, we have no right to see enjoyable exciting football week in week out, we have no right to expect the owners to lash out on big names in the transfer window, but we do have the right to ask that we are not embarrassed to be a Southampton fan.

Err, with the greatest of respect David it might just be a teeny weeny bit late by then.

And you trust the board/Martin to pluck a decent striker out of where exactly?

Unless you are a confidante of Potter you have no idea why he turned down the Leicester job but, even if he can't be persuaded, it does not make sense to not sack a poor manager because you think you can't do better. We are going down with Martin so we literally can't do any worse and do you really want to watch tippy tappy football in the Championship again? You say we are improving. In the immortal words of a certain tennis player "you cannot be serious"? Our first half display last night was awful and Brighton should have been out of sight. Damn right RM is "tweaking" the team - that's part of the problem. No one really knows what his best team is. Finally you say he is "learning". Really? I see no evidence of that whatsoever. I suspect you just made that up to suit your very weak argument. You never were a boat rocker.

At the end of the day why would any prospective owner, be it Marcus or Dragan or Gao buy Southampton FC? None of them had posters of Mick Channon etc on their wall while there were growing up and none of them had stepped inside St Mary's before expressing an interest to buy, so the answer is they purchased SFC with the primary intent of making money. I think Markus got a kick out of it (we all saw that with his camera at the JPT final) and Kat (mainly because of her father's legacy and the interest shown by her son) was keen for the club to prosper. Gao couldn't give two hoots and now we have Dragan who has "become" a supporter but remains first and foremost a businessman who one day will be looking to sell on for a profit. All this means the fans, whose main desires are to see a bit of success and some decent football are inevitably going to be at odds with whoever purchases us, unless we suddenly find a very wealthy Saints fan/owner out there (a la Stoke or Brighton). Unfortunately that is very unlikely unless Steve Grant becomes the new Elon Musk in 10 years. So, the day we became a limited company via a dodgy reverse takeover, was the first step into "losing" our club and then when the private owner era took over we lost it completely. Sad but inevitable the way football is going and has gone. We can all shout and scream (and I am shouting and am as frustrated as the next guy) but at the end of the day the fans no longer have the clout we once had. The days of the Board heeding terrace unrest disappeared the afternoon Ian Branfoot packed his bags.

I have never seen that reason anywhere before and of course it could be true, but I maintain during the crucial summer months we had no DoF in place and those making important footballing decisions were not qualified. Mistakes were made all over the place. It seems the plan is - get relegated (tick), cash in on Dibling and Fernandes and RM will guide us back, as before, playing the same sort of football we played in 2023-24. Some fans will no doubt accept this and I still see people on Twitter saying we played "great" football in 23-24 but I for one can't remember much. For me I want Martin gone. I would rather be stuck in the Championship playing decent football then anything I have witnessed since RM's arrival. The Leeds at Wembley was a great day out but long term it might have actually been detrimental to this club rebuilding and making proper progress.

"We're struggling" is a big understatement. Everyone expected us to struggle but it's far worse than that because we are basically shooting ourselves in the foot each match by playing a system that simply doesn't work. It's the self-inflicted aspect of our demise that is driving everyone nuts and no matter how wonderful that Wembley day in May was, it doesn't give the manager (and the Board) a blank cheque in terms of wanton self-destruction. Open your eyes and ears. I don't mind going down but let's go down with a little bit of fight and common sense.

I fear Turkish to be very near the mark especially his "their grand plan to be a player trading company" liner. There's a lot of money to be made in football which is why the Yanks are getting involved and, of course, the other "win" for owners is sports washing, which is why the PL is basically there for the likes of venture capitalists and rogue states with deplorable human rights records. Depressing.

I am not sure you are not something that has been created by AI but nevertheless I will give you the benefit of the doubt. To say we have lost 4-6 points because of bad luck is facile and for you to use it as justification to argue Martin's corner shows how desperate you are. We are bottom of the League because we are the worst team in it and are managed by the worst manager. Now go feed that into some AI.

Rinse and repeat seems to be the club mantra at present. A plucky 1-0 defeat at City is seen as a turning point only for us to resort to type in our next away fixture. He obviously isn't going to get sacked anytime soon and if and when he does it will be too late to a) attract anyone decent and b) too late to avoid the drop. Taking the above into consideration then all the blame must now be aimed at SR who I think are more worried about how sacking RM would look .......compared to continue to loyally back him, whatever. This shows a weak and stubborn Board who know they have dropped a clanger but continue to furiously dig the hole ever deeper. It is verging on the criminal.

You can't keep a manager in his job because his wife is ill.

I wonder if there has ever been a "100% the manager must go" result in a poll. There always seems to be a 10% residue resistant to change. Even when Rupert Lowe was overseeing our financial implosion into insolvency there was a gritty hardcore of blinkered few who continued to back him. Some people are very averse to "boat rocking" and will do anything to back the status quo. Fascinating stuff. I have seen Adam B and Adam H say "better the devil you know" and "sticking is better than twisting" over the weekend but they have a horse in the race inasmuch they have built a relationship with the manager and a new broom would put them back to square one. Fair enough. As much as I think RM's time is up I think he is no more to blame than SR whose well meaning but inept stewardship since taking over has been the root cause of where we find ourselves. When you look at neighbours Brighton and Bournemouth and how well their owners have recently done then Sports Republic's efforts look very amateur indeed.

I've seen £12m quoted

If the summer signings weren't his pray tell us whose they were?

I would really like to know who was in charge of football matters during the summer because for me that was when our destiny was shaped with poor recruitment and bad decisions regarding new contracts. At the time when I mentioned Wilcox hadn't been replaced there was a view it didn't matter but I think we can all see now it did. Whether or not Martin had too big a say or someone without a football background was involved I don't know but in a very important summer we were effectively without someone who knew his football onions in charge. Was Ankerson still pulling the strings from the wings or was the unqualified Parsons involved in football decisions? The longer Martin is kept on the deeper the hole is being dug but I'm not sure there is anyone at the club who is suitably qualified to run a football team at present.

Sorry about the double post

It's not moronic as many leaving the stadium were saying exactly the same. One slightly fortuitous win does not change the fact Russell Martin's style of football is very unpopular with the large majority of fans who find it, dull, tedious uninspiring and largely unproductive. Yes he has a tough job to compete in a skewed environment and yes - good for him he has made his choice as to what tactics he thinks is the club's best chance to get results, but I and many others think, he is wrong and his system flawed. If we are going to go down I would rather do it with all guns blazing rather a series of monotonous meaningless sideways or backwards passing triangles. The stats and points total speak for themselves. We can't keep flip flopping because of 1, somewhat unconvincing, win.

Your logic is flawed. To keep a man blatantly out of his depth in his job because his two predecessors were crap is basically insane. When does the statue of limitations run out on this? 5 years? If he's not up to it then he's not up to it whatever might have gone before and what ever might happen in the future.

Anyone who names a charitable foundation after himself has to have some sort of ego. I'm told by those who work at St Mary's that he is far more personable than RH was and I don't doubt it, but to me that just says he works on his man management which Ralph didn't. His comments after yesterday's game about the season is going to be a lot of fun is near Nathan Jonesesque in terms of crassness and will undoubtedly come back to haunt him. I think he is an imposter who is out of his depth but I have zero confidence in the people who are above him which leaves us so far up shit creek it doesn't bear thinking about.

Sacking a manager is one thing. Picking the right replacement is another.

I'd really like to know who was making the footballing decisions in the post Wembley summer because whoever it was should hang his head. Most of the recruitment was below average and based on emotion and hope. Without a D of F I would also like to know was Martin given a freer hand? The euphoria and feel good following the 1-0 win over Leeds has been utterly wasted and in 6 months we are going to be relegated with a bigger hangover than 2023. It's inept management all round. I don't think RM s going to get the sack anytime soon. The Board know they are in the firing frame if yet another manager on a long term contract is dispensed with and I think they will hunker down while the club slowly implodes.

My quandary is this - while I have lost all confidence in the manager (I never had much in the first place), I have also lost confidence in Sports Republic and its directors and the thought of them choosing another manager fills me with dread. While Dragan Solak has commendably put his hands into his pocket the people he has chosen to run his company have an awful track record since their arrival. Their decision making is poor, their recruitment is poor and their turnover of staff a real concern. So many mistakes were made in the summer - post Wembley - when we had no DoF in place. Extended contracts were given out unnecessarily (Martin, Armstrong, McCarthy) and players were signed on the back of emotions who were not an improvement or good enough (Fraser, Brereton-Diaz, Cornet, Wood). Russell Martin chops and changes depending on who is flavour of the fortnight. Why no Sam Amo- Ameyaw recently? Why no Bella-Kotchap either, both shone v Cardiff. Its hokey-cokey management which undermines player and fan confidence which goes on to create a weak and negative mentality. We are in an awful mess and while sacking RM will be a welcome (albeit expensive) development I can't help thinking it won't really address the underlying problems at the heart of our club.