James

No surprise then that he was SR’s top target in the January we got relegated 🤣

Yep. The end of the game was an utter shambles, that’s on Martin.

Ipswich also have a manager that will, in my view, go on to be top top class. McKenna teams do the basics right, are fully committed and never give up. Our lot on the other hand…

Completely agree with you but if Martin can’t set up a decent defence with KWP, THB, Bednarek and Downes then fuck only knows how porous we will be next season. Quite simply, Martin teams don’t know how to defend and he hasn’t shown any signs of knowing how to change that.

Precisely. This was our most important game of the season so far and is probably the lowest quality side we’ll face the rest of the way. I can accept wayward finishing isn’t the manager’s fault but that second half performance was totally unacceptable and is on the manager. The subs were chaotic and panicked and it showed on the pitch at the end.

This is my major concern. We’ve had glaring issues at times this season that Martin hasn’t been able to address with top quality championship players. To see him try to defend with a worse squad is not going to be fun at all.

Not sure of your point. Mine is that Stu Armstrong hasn’t been able to do two full games a week all season. To try it now and potentially lose him for the playoffs is, IMO, bad management. If you disagree that’s your prerogative.

Because shipping goals for fun in the championship with a much weaker side will be less fun in the long term than a season or two back in the Prem.

Second start in a week and he played the majority against Preston. He hasn’t been able to play two full games a week all season…

TBH next season with Martin is a daunting prospect either way. Torn to shreds in the PL or a significantly lower quality side in the Championship. Whichever league we are in we will ship a tonne of goals as RM can’t change his tactics to properly balance attack and defence.

Exactly. This is why we have physios and a sports science department FFS.

The guy was absolutely blowing and has shown all season he can’t go the distance in weeks when we have two games. Muscle injuries much more common when players running on fumes.

Not a chance. Every time we’ve had a look in this season we’ve blown it. Squad is mentally weak and Martin is tactically naive and refuses to learn.

It was clear that he was blowing very early in the second half. Do I blame him for not predicting an ACL injury? No but Stu is so important to us and we know he can’t last multiple full games…

Genius for Martin to have left him on. Idiot.

With a worse squad as well. Can’t wait.

Yep. Fannies about with unnecessary subs when it’s clear Stu on fumes. He’s an absolute idiot.

In the circumstances this was a disgrace of a performance. Can’t see how anyone can have confidence for the playoffs. This bunch of wet wipes can’t beat a mid table side, decimated by injury with nothing to play for.

Can’t wait for Martin to patronise us all at FT about how good we were. Absolute fraud of a manager.

So KWP dropped last week but Baz keeps his place after last week’s horror show? Great consistency Russ… We might be a bit lightweight up top without Che.

Yep. Alan Blaney also once won PL save of the season….

Out of interest, what has he done to make you think he has loads of potential? Personally haven’t seen anything that suggests that.

Every keeper makes the occasional ricket - Boruc certainly had a few in the locker but you could forgive those as he won us more points than he lost. Baz has made his fair share of rickets this season (Plymouth home, Watford away) but doesn’t counterbalance those with the ability to make saves of any consequence.

The fact we are even arguing whether Baz is or is not one of the worst GKs in the Championship makes the decision to sign him last season as our No.1 in the PL even more insane than it seemed at the time.

I was a big Martin fan earlier in the season. I thought he had learned from our rough start and tightened us up but recent form has been disastrous and some of his decisions are absolutely perplexing. Shoehorning JS into a random and unnecessary position in the team has been nothing short of suicidal but RM doesn’t seem to recognise that or show any desire to go back to what made us successful. If anything I’m worried the team selections will get even more bizarre from here to the end of the season. Can anyone recall a modern day team that successfully employs any player in a defensive free role, let alone a player as limited as JS? It’s not as if John Stones pops up in the number 10 role is it? His position is at least defined (not that we should be attempting to replicate Man City). I really struggle to see us getting out of this league whilst we are this open and easy to score against. Even if we did go up we would be absolutely murdered by better PL standard attacks.