coalman

You want the players who are the worst with the ball to see the most of it. It's the only way they'll get better. The players who are good on the ball have already had their turn. Common sense.

David Ornstein now giving his opinion on Martin. "No doubt it's precarious there, but I don't know of him being in imminent danger of being removed from his position, and that's because he's highly thought of. He bought Southampton into the Premier League. Their ambition was to stay there, and they very well could do so this season. The view of him is high, not only inside Southampton among the ownserhip, but outside as well. There's a feeling that perhaps the players have not been good enough, and they're going to need to do something in the January transfer window." So that's it. The players, who aren't good enough and are going to be replaced think highly of Martin. As do the ownership who are high on something and the solution is to let him buy even more players in January to turn things around. I'm guessing these same players, who aren't good enough, are feeling really bad that they're the thing holding Martin back from achieving his vision. It's unclear who the people outside Southampton (also clearly high) that like Martin. At least that's what I got out of this. In fact, this situation might be more easily explicable (and even forgivable) if it turned out that everyone at or involved with the club was totally bollocksed out of their fucking minds on a truly incredible cocktail of substances. Meanwhile Russmus comes late to Southampton as Martin and Ankersen are set for another shopping spree in Jnauary to fill our squad with more randomly scouted players that we don't need and will in no way form the financial millstone that causes us to financially implode again (a la Redknapp).

It's more that the very real possibility of Leicester, Wolves of Palace going for him keeps him from going for us now.

Fixed that for you.

You don't understand the genius of it. There's a run of games that no one expects us to win (admittedly one might reasonably state that any run of games these days are games no one expects us to win) so no pressure and time for Russball to finally flourish and everything magically fits into place. Failing that we can string together a series of "heroic" defeats and Martin gets his dream job at Barcelona or something.

I think that Russell and Rasmus (aka Russmus Mankertin) demonstrated over the summer that they shouldn't be allowed to spend any more money. Every team we play must feel like Russmus has come early.

It's Dragan's money. He's the majority shareholder. If or when he loses patience I imagine he can replace them. Agree that finding another manager is going to be a challenge. Both in terms of attracting them and also finding one that's competent with Mr Football in charge.

Get rid of Martin now. Get RVN in. Then Martin is available when Leicester need a new manager on the million to one chance they haven't been paying any attention to the league.

The Octopus is holding out for the Leicester job. He wouldn't return our calls.

Last season we played some lovely stuff in patches. That being said the seeds of this season were there to see. I was hoping Martin would build on last season and adapt to the higher level of intensity and quality of the Premier League but he hasn't.

Of the three people at Sport Republic, or "the gang" as Martin described them I have a lot of sympathy for Dragan as he's continued writing cheques despite the incompetence of the people who are meant to be running his football empire. As an owner he's been everything you could want except maybe ruthless his leadership team but at the same time as least he hasn't gone full Boehly so he's given the manager, CEO and Mr Football a go of things without interfering.

You're right. I should've written Potter and Moyes. Sloppy work.

I actually read the thread title as LOL - Russell Martin

A bloated squad. Tendency to change manager multiple times a season. Rasmus looking over your shoulder. Relegation favourites. What's not to love?

In other news. Potter and Cooper are waiting the call..... From Leicester.

A betting supercomputer predicts we're going to get 2 points more than Derby. That's right - 13. In your face haters.

Rasmus and Kraft are really living their best lives there - having a laugh. Dragan does not look impressed.

That depends on how you're playing him. As a Wanyama style player who gets about and puts pressure on our opponents he's great. It was the same last season with Charles - Martin would prefer playing an attacking midfielder out of position than someone specialised for that role. By failing to screen our defence we get situations like the first goal yesterday where teams can break through the middle almost at will. Throw in the fact that our fullbacks are playing as budget wingers and leaving huge gaps out wide as well and you get a team that concedes two goals a game no matter how much possession you have.

To be fair to the man - he's not wrong. We do take all the risk at the back and don't create anything up top. If he's looking for the reason why might I suggest the purchase of some kind of mirror - the answer lies in its silvery depths.

Another thing about the way Martin sets up teams really jumped out at me yesterday. He doesn't really know how to employ defensive central midfielders. Which is great when we have the ball, but as soon as we lose the ball our paper thin midfield fails to protect our defence. Playing Lallana as one of two central midfielders in the Premier League is madness. Lallana needs to be higher up the pitch where his quality helps us and his lack of fitness / bite doesn't harm us.

Until we fix the (clearly) broken process of choosing managers there's no point firing Martin. I would rather continue with Martin and get some kind of continuity than simply repeat the same doom loop again. Considering that I really think Martin isn't going to succeed at Saints with his current approach.

To be fair only winning 1-0 must have felt like a defeat

Not just bolted. It's skipped the country, had time to send us a postcard and started a fucking family.

We've just got to keep believing in the process. Going to get a goal back any minute now.