saint michael

Martin has won the lottery. Imagine being paid millions and having no expectations on you that you can do your job. It really is quite the weirdest thing I’ve seen in football over the years and shows how weird the game has become. Then you add onto that the complete delusion that you are doing really well. It’s like a tale form Hans Christian Anderson and Groundhog Day rolled into one. its not the relegation I think the damage to the club is so huge it will take years to overcome the nature of this debacle. After travelling in hope, I think we have arrived in despair

Would be interesting to see how much Saints would cost to buy now. I’m not sure that SR would be so badly affected even with all the shyte going on now. This might be why they are not reacting to it. They might just believe that buying young and developing over the longer term may well give them the best position. Cheap version of Chelsea approach. The unknown of course is the relationship between Martin and them and their belief in what he is doing. personally can’t stand watching us die this slow death after watching them for years. There has been little in the way of any hard feedback like lost gate revenue or crowd protesting or stuff that sky and the media would drive on. I really can’t see them outwardly caring at the moment. Certainly not letting anything leak on it.

The fact that we are discussing the rights and wrong of a manager with 1 win and who prioritises possession over wins shows just how fucked football is.

Even looking like a team that understands football intent of scoring and winning would be refreshing. Any new manager providing that would be a good start. The ability to coach defence and attack movement would be a bonus. Able to turn weekly coaching into match day application might make a difference too. Apart from that I think Martin is tremendous.

You can feel it on this forum that Martin is creating his own scars. He recognised it when he arrived I wonder if he recognises it now

Martin says players buy into this style. What exactly do the players buy into? Playing shit every week

I think staying up was always going to be a long shot but for goodness sake organise the team, coach them to help them and put out a consistent group that stands a chance. At least give it a go and stop this stupid experiment when clearly not working or showing any signs of working or improvement. If you can’t do this go somewhere else mate and try it there. I’m sick of sitting through this complete shit show

I don’t think we know how good these players are or could be. He has sent on 11 boys without the confidence and structure to know what to do when something challenging happens. Completely lost it dropped further back and just hoped they could stop them playing. Truly amateur stuff by Martin

Yeah. I’ve been watching since then too with Ron Davies the first great one. I guess I just don’t get system over result which is our outlook now. I think we are trying to be too clever for our own good and forgotten how to do the simple things well and how to drill these. We seem to lack any character. Martin doesn’t seem to understand defence, attack and how to transition effectively. It’s like watching someone painting by numbers.

I’m not sure what Martin sees as success. he was really pleased with Newcastle result based on the way we played and said on another day we would have scored 3 and won 3 1. The reason we didn’t is because of the skills and ability of the players we have. He doesn’t seem to connect the two together. Success and failure is a fine line. I wonder if us having 20% possession tonight and winning 1 0 with TP getting a late headed goal from long delivery into box would be a success for him. I wonder what level of player skill he looks for when you see who we are currently connected to.

I think we all know what’s going on. Read all the above lots of recognition of issues verbalised in different ways. clearly our style of possession relies on skilled people that can control and pass without taking two or three touches. Slow because we can’t control and pass without taking second touch. club’s gamble is that this group of players will learn this and do this. club still working within its budgets so buying players they believe can be sold on rather than make immediate effect. Volume over known quality. they know what we see and not going to change what they believe in because of course they know best. we are not going to see this change. Martin hates the booing and dissent from fans. Of course what do we know. 😂. for me I hate that what they believe we have to do is always different from convention and what everyone who is successful will do. Our promotion has given them the arrogance that they think is working. I guess we will see. I think we are well into the start of our second premier league nightmare.

Saints should be 4 down. Tater saying saints well on top and giving everything 😂. Could play for another 90 and not score

We just keep taking too many touches, slowing everything down. No real movement and one touch stuff.

All these years and I never realised how complicated football is. These guys have been trained through the academy system and are supposed to be the shining lights, yet none of them seem to understand the basics that Martin is wanting. How different is his passing, how hard is it to say pass to one of our players how hard is it to say play forward, run, tackle read positions and movement etc etc. I have certainly lost the plot. The best way of getting better and stronger is not letting goals in and scoring more, winning creates confidence and with this comes stronger bonds between players and the team and scares the opposition. Skill and will go together. We are concentrating on learning without purpose. You are not unlucky to have so much of the stats against Rotherham and lose, you are not unlucky or lack bravery by letting early goals in….all to F ing complicated and for me very boring slow obvious football with obvious outcomes.

Martin has made allowances for the so called scars of the players… he needs to consider the years of scarring for the fans. We are more used to this than we are of saints going on to put the team away. I certainly have not got the confidence to believe we have left the past behind us. What we watch against poorer championship teams is founded in the same faults we saw in the prem

He blames the performance again on circumstances that are under the team to control. If they are not then he needs to understand why in order to change it. His answer is only that they have scars and are lacking confidence, and are young. That being the case I think he is only living in hope they can get lucky to change this. As we all can see he is doing little or nothing to drive a change. He still seems reasonably happy he is on course and very calm with losing game after game in the same fashion….very weird

Any decent manager will want to dictate things. Martin clearly got this chance because he is being compliant with style and system or holds the same beliefs. Common theme with last 3 or even 4 managers now. There has to be a reality check that we cannot just implement this whilst continuing to perform and pick points off. Are they truly willing to write this season off…

Biggest mistake was not thanking him and saying goodbye earlier. Stopping this silly experiment and getting a football manager to stabilise to give the club chance to step back and take stock. What the board did was to try and accelerate out of a bad situation so put their foot down letting all the indicators of the impending crash go by them. This isn’t hindsight this is what we all could see and been talking about for ages. we have seen through the weaknesses and bullshit marketing, and still they insult the fans intelligence as if we are not seeing the true picture.

Is there anyone out there who is happy to watch another dire season whilst this crazy experiment continues? I find it really condescending that Martin talks to the fans about being patient. If I was paid what he is, I would be prepared to be patient instead of paying to watch this shit. I have played and watched football for decades I think I know what good football and bad football looks like. I see zero progress and see him trying to deflect responsibility by saying it’s going to take time…strap in it’s going to be bumpy… not sure how long 5his will take…etc etc he seems to be happy clappy that the team love what they are doing. I bet they do. No consequence to poor performance. Have I slept through the moment where teams are given points for possession instead of goals scored vs goals conceded. as for the owners. They have bought for future value not current performance if they are driving this shit show any manager would be hard pushed to be successful.

The only reason it looks good in training is that they are playing against themselves. Shocking again. What is his excuse this time. Team tired. Injuries. Negative crowd. Bit unlucky. Making good progress. Etc etc. wankers hope the crowd gives him some real shit second half

I think the main problem is that we have decided that we want to be a city type side and whoever the manager is will need to comply with this. Fundamentally this football style doesn’t suit us, and can’t be executed successfully here at saints, because the step of having football competency and sound foundations are missing and will take a generation now to develop. Who knows where we would bottom out before or (if) it can be achieved. This problem is then compounded by the wish for this to be done with a team of young players that can be developed and sold for a fortune and then the cycle is reworked with incoming players making a smooth transition in without impacting performance. The theory is that whilst all this is going on we are challenging for top 6 prem position that showcases how great we are and how brilliant this theory is being executed. We are in this experiment and have been for a few years so far. I see no progress and getting worse if anything. step 1 of this needs to be train the team in football fundamentals and get them playing together. Unfortunately we have fast forwarded to step 5 advanced football style… A right shit show for a long time to come. Unless we go to step 1

I would like to know what he thinks needs to change for Ipswich game. I fear it’s nothing. I think he believes that keep playing this way will get better on its own and it’s the lack of familiarity with playing this way that’s the issue. I really can’t decide which players have skills and which do not. They are so far off playing what I think football is that I’m struggling to see any clear firm positives to build on.

It’s like watching kids football with nobody wanting to play defence. mr Cliche calls them bumps in the road. I call it a complete lack of defensive nous. They do not have a clue about football defence basics and positioning. If he thinks he can ignore these basics and say it’s going to take time for the project to work I think he is very naive. poor organisation, poor positioning, poor decisions, poor basic passing, tackling, heading skills absolutely nothing good about our basic football foundations.

Possession is one element of football. I don’t see a defensive strategy or an attacking strategy. We seem clueless in these two essential bits of football, and this has been our main problem for a few years now. We seem to have identified individuals based on numbers and not how these can blend into a team… so what we see is a group of individuals that are not bad in possession. Martin and his team seem to be training them in more and more possession only. I think we had 67% in first half if I saw correctly. Watching is just so frustrating. Plodding passes for the sake of it and long periods of time wasted if you happen to be chasing a game. Like all the comments above the project ,the process the club have lost the football plot. I bet Sunderland were pissing themselves at HT. the quality of the individuals is clearly high so we will gain points but can’t see how we are going to get consistency without something really fundamental changing

Best keeper in league…if we didn’t have him I would want to sign him …..