Holmes_and_Watson

Well, that's Martin's plan B leaked to our opponents.

After this length of time, have you tried contacting the Ministry of Defence? No wait, that's naval...

Surely, we can use something else to keep the Marcus' plaque balanced all season, other than Cornet's head?

Last season I thought Ipswich were the best attacking side. I thought Leicester had the most talent. But for control of games, it was us. There were ups and downs (and Downes), not least some slumps and the end of season switch when Baz got injured. Martin's belief is that we'll win enough games using his system. He's looking to get that possession linked with moving opponents, quick movement and transition and lots of chances. He said early on that there may be some thumping in there. But he's often said there's no plan B, just variations on Plan A. Which is what we've had. Martin's not going to change that. It's what his career is built on. We're a stepping stone as his previous clubs have been. No doubt the Kompany appointment strengthens his resolve to trust his approach. But then, we had the Ralph playbook, and Selles counter, so they aren't alone in sticking to their guns. There are arguments on whether it was the individual talent that got us over that line. But when it worked, it was impressive. And I say impressive having liked, and preferred, things like RalphBall, PochBall and the systems of attack by previous managers. We've all seen the issues with RussBall not working. Further, in games where we could have finished teams off, our possession allows resets. Martin sees the possession stats, the chances we do create, and the errors preventing his system operating across a game. His comments in the past show he shares a lot of the frustrations we do. But frustration hasn't resulted in resolution. We see the same issues as last season. That's a worrying sign that there are serious issues with it, after this length of time. And we've the perspective of seeing managers leading us to relegation, with narrowly losing, error generating tactics. So I share a lot of the reservations with a number of posts. As a club, we seem to have our fair share of egos thinking they are geniuses. But there is a system there that does draw team in, passes at pace and looks really good and controlled. We've moved to a dysfunctional version of it again, which is what Martin has to sort out. Again. We've strengthened, and we'll see what changes Martin brings to the next games.

Because they trusted their amazing transfer wisdom, dreaming of cashing in, rather than the reality of a player they already had, and had made a decision on.

Sometimes I Martin out think that the possession based posts on we're doomed SaintsWeb are written by a give it time cheap AI.

Sandy

Finally. A focal point for our attack. Can't wait for this signing in January.

I thought "resigned to fate" came with supporting the club. I don't think you have to wait for matches. 🙂

He was almost gone, before someone noticed the sale value on a FM site. https://fminside.net/players/3-fm-23/29244869-kamaldeen-sulemana

Trapped under the cat, listening to Monday Night Club. Over an hour of in depth analysis, that can be summarised as winning=good team and losing team=bad team.

There's been at least one occasion, where someone internally was given away as a source, as posted on here. On other occasions, the information has seemed to be just the sort of thing to annoy a club. But often, the information could have come from a number of sources. For the club to take steps to source it, would be counter productive. Other than a certain contract being left on a table, I don't think any of it has been part of a NDA, or on that level of confidentiality. The CoT helps to add a layer of cover to the impact of the information, while protecting sources. I guess that's why it's been effective for this long.

Good for all parties currently, to see them move. Ideally a few others can go out on loan to get some game time. Edozie for example and one of Bree, Manning Larios.

Yup. A system switched to 5 at the back, keeper who may not be as good at short passing, missing midfield not there to receive passes, switched fullbacks who aren't providing passing angles, no focal point dropping back to collect through balls, better opponents. An increase in players getting caught out can't be a surprise.

The Branfoot Years: The Netflix counter to all those aspirational club following shows. Like watching a marathon session of kitchen sink dramas, watch the life being sucked out of a club. B&W (90 mins, but will seem like years) "The switch to a Yorkshire mining town, for extra grimness, is to be applauded." - The Guardian "Still more exciting football, than under Puel."- The Times.

And there's some bad things too. 🙂 This post is a test of The Gallows Humour posting system. For preparedness ahead of a long season.

I did get a ghost of Nathan moment, when he said that. 🙂 I almost expected a "pound for pound, I've got the highest possession stats in Europe" follow up.

Lightning

He's certainly getting across the level of performance he expects. Are Charlton aiming for promotion? Nate certainly seems to be. I saw the (not very many) highlights. That second goal was conceded from a counter. They got players back, but defensively weren't switched on enough and conceded. That's what he was so livid about.

Lubricant

Fuller (not Ricardo) interview:- https://x.com/CAFCofficial/status/1829924483227931000 No eye contact. Absolutely seething. It's his job on the line, eventually. I can only hope he can leave that at the club. Yet, consistent in that he had no issues with the first one they conceded coming form them try to be aggressive. People respond differently. But do you think you're game would be consistently better under the responses of Nate or Russ?

I don't think the Charlton lads will have a ping pong table much longer. 🙂

This. If anything, I remember being really frustrating at Adkins for not pressing the advantage against a few opponents, resulting in us conceding. You can never be sure we wouldn't have been dragged back into it, but there were good signs that we would be okay. SR Someone mentioned Potter in the match thread yesterday. 🙂 That's interesting. I had gone down the path where the club were giving him plenty of time. Mind you, the financial impact of our last relegation was massive. And SR have already chopped RalphBall v1.0 and 2.0, NatBall, and PulloverBall. So, they can't be that beholden to a style of play (makes you wonder if Dragan has mentioned that the style of implementing the "project" keeps going through so many changes, from the smarter than smart SR).

From Martin's post-match interview: It is 5 goals conceded: 3 from errors and 2 from set pieces. We do end up opening up to try and get back into it. However, we end up being more open because the initial system simply isn't doing enough to get back into a game on its own merits. If we made a daft error, we should be more than capable of generating chances to level it. That we can't, indicates that the set up isn't working, across a game. When we were starting to get into the game, we conceded a second. That’s probably the bit where it could have turned around. Conceding a second, under similar circumstances, indicates that there's more going on than just silly errors. Martin is right when saying there's no reason to have so many, so close. Why are they so close? Yes, the intentions are good. Yes, they are desperate to help each other. Martin seems surprised that the ball ended up back there. But it's the system that puts them there. And it has worked under his direction. What we're seeing now, is it trying to work with 5 at the back, switched full backs not offering the same passing angles, a 'keeper who isn't as good a passer, and an absent midfield offering no transition or passing angles. Any number of flags there, before this is going to click again. If even some of those are rectified, the players won’t be bunched up, and under tension to play it across or back. Our defence gets pushed into making lots of passes. Not to control the play, but to get it out of our third. Martin can look at the individual errors. But those are just the ones we got caught in. There are a lot of other moments, where we're an error away. Particularly at the higher pressing tempo our opponents have. Aribo in a 1 on 1 in the game comes to mind. With 5 at the back, we shouldn’t be getting caught out. Martins right in that, by playing 5 at the back, we do compromise elsewhere. Martin said we should have scored 2 or 3 ourselves. We did create a few chances, although not at the same level as our opponents. A lot is put on AA for missing it. However, all through the league top strikers are missing chances. They are getting more opportunities to get more chances than we are generating. It's an ongoing thing with RussBall. We need move opponents about and transition at a quick tempo, preferably with numbers. When it's not working, we allow them all to drop back into a defensive shape, and then recycle it. Other teams are content to lose some control, balancing that risk with creating clear space for attack. We're relying on a few decent moments to get our goals. Martin can say AA's chance needs to go in. But his side of things have to have a long look at the chances we're generating and the shape of both teams, when they are being created. What he does mention is that we conceded a second when we were finally getting a glimpse of some momentum. In spite of all of the above. Our speed, movement and purpose just wasn’t sufficient to get anything from that, before the risks above cost us again. Martin pre-empted a lot of the questions. There will be personnel changes. It’s disappointing that we seem to be having to go back to relearn a lot of the things from last season. Everyone would be hoping to take those lessons and push on. Arguably, a number things last season were never near the levels Martin was looking for either, resulting in that late change. So, we’re a bit caught out looking to meld two things together. Elsewhere, there are teams losing because they haven’t the possession or control of games. Our whole approach is to have that, and then create from that foundation. Where we seem to struggle is getting it through teams at pace. And to do so regularly, so that our strikers aren’t expected to finish off a high number of their chances, regardless of the xG of each. We’re not playing to create the space to pass it through. And with 5 at the back, we’re just prone to making an error as the players see limited options. We’ve plenty of options, so we can only look for improvements.

From Sky highlights:- West Ham and Brighton also made very poor errors at the back, and both lost goals as a result. Lots of joy for teams, breaking in behind retreating defences. Our lack of tempo and transitions, means we don;t come close to doing that frequently, despite having at least 2 players who do really well from it. Lots of strong, physical central focal points across the league. Something we've not goine with. Lots of end to end attacks, which is something RussBall tries to prevent. We have the possession stats for it, just not the control or the creativity. Everton came undone, losing a 2 goal lead because they didn't control hold possession.